The sacred arts are mine alone.
There can be no dissenting opinion to add to that proposition.
To begin with, the sacred arts are, in the end, little more than a general term for techniques that manipulate divine power.
Once defined that way, one question naturally remains.
The ownership of divine power now belongs to me.
‘Which means that no being other than me can wield divine power.’
The reason the angels before me could handle divine power and develop the system known as the sacred arts was nothing special.
It was only possible because “that being,” who held ownership of divine power, lent it to them.
But when the ownership of that divine power passed to me, all those contracts were severed.
Even if there were angels besides me, they would not be able to use the sacred arts.
‘…Though it doesn’t seem like any angels besides me exist in the first place.’
Traces of the sacred arts existed, yet the sacred arts were fundamentally impossible to use.
My mind naturally began pouring out conjectures.
A being that possessed energy capable of replacing divine power, and that knew the system of the sacred arts.
‘……A demon.’
A being that had once been an angel, but had now fallen after being consumed by demonic energy.
Someone who, having been an angel, knew the sacred arts better than anyone, and who, being a demon, possessed a power that could replace divine power.
A demon was an alien existence in many ways.
Compared to that ominous name, her attitude had been quite flustered, and the contract had also been made in a rather slapdash manner.
But contracts with demons always bring ruin.
Perhaps she had some sinister scheme in mind.
‘Actually, it’s obvious she’s scheming something. She also made a meaningful contract with me. But…….’
There was a high chance the demon had little to do with this incident.
Demonic energy shares the same root as divine power and shows similar effects, but in the end, it is an opposing power, as if inverted.
Either way, if demonic energy had been involved, there was no way I wouldn’t have been able to distinguish it.
‘…If it wasn’t the demon, and there’s no being besides me who can handle divine power…….’
How on earth did a person named Gim Miri become a centipede through the sacred arts?
With my shallow knowledge, it was something I couldn’t dare to guess.
No, to begin with, even why she had transformed into a centipede was a mystery. Christianity shouldn’t have much to do with centipedes, should it?
And what use would sacred arts that turn a person into a giant centipede even have…….
“…Hey. Why don’t you stop making that look like you just chewed on shit?”
“……Ah. I apologize.”
What broke me out of the thoughts that had continued for quite some time was the Cyclops’s rebuke.
Using Gim Miri to seize the upper hand had been their idea, but since I reacted so seriously, it seemed they had taken offense.
Of course, there was a misunderstanding in between, and it was also something they had brought upon themselves, but…….
‘…It’s not as if I did nothing wrong.’
Separate from that, their attitude was irritating, but it wasn’t what mattered right now.
In any case, I had ended up handing them justification for the moment.
Ultimately, as the one who had to win them over, I would probably have to go through quite the eventful journey.
I looked around at the gazes of the mutants directed at me.
The Cyclops, who had continued to be hostile toward me, was now looking at me as though she were looking at a bug.
The long-necked mutant and the lycanthrope, whom I had heard were prickly yet had remained silent until now, were the same.
Even the expression of the hawk beastman, who had at least been friendly toward me, was not good.
He wore a troubled expression, but I saw his sharp eyes trembling.
And then.
My gaze turned once more toward Gim Miri.
The gazes I had directed at the other mutants had lasted only an instant.
But the gaze directed at her could not be torn away.
No matter how much I tried to pull it away, I simply couldn’t.
‘I know that right now, settling this meeting comes first. I know, but…….’
I did not know why she had ended up in that form because of the sacred arts, but…….
In the end, I knew that the root cause of her becoming a centipede lay in the sacred arts.
And so, the thought suddenly occurred to me.
‘Maybe I can turn her back?’
Just like I had with the mimetic beasts.
Just like I had restored those who had already died once back into people after their deaths.
Even if the cause that changed her form was different, if I could reverse it…….
‘Fuck, I have to at least try. What am I even hesitating for?’
Finding the cause or reason could wait until after I dealt with the situation.
In fact, doing that would probably make it easier to understand.
Once my goal was set and what I had to do became clear, it felt as though my mind cleared.
The thoughts that had become tangled because of the traces of sacred arts I found in her settled to some degree.
“Then, let us begin the meeting…….”
“Wait, before that.”
Thud—.
I kicked back the seat I had been sitting in and stood up.
At my sudden impulsive action, the gazes that had already been focused on me became even more intense.
Hostility was now mixed even into the gazes of those who had harbored goodwill toward me.
But the reason for me to step forward was clear, so there was no reason to shrink back.
I walked straight ahead with soft steps—
“…….”
And stood before the giant centipede the size of a person.
“Hey, step back. What the hell are you…….”
“Gim Miri.”
Cutting off the Cyclops’s restraining voice, I continued.
“May I try to undo the curse placed on you?”
The centipede’s eyes trembled sharply.
*
Gim Miri saw an angel with her own eyes.
With her retinas split into thousands of strands, she could not see the angel’s form.
Only the faint waves of light allowed her to guess that someone was there.
Unlike the other mutants, she was an exception in that no trace of humanity remained in her anymore. Therefore, most of her body was completely identical to that of a centipede. At least her vocal cords were still intact.
Because of that, her eyes, like a centipede’s, had degenerated to an extreme degree.
Ever since her body had become that of a centipede, the world she could see was no longer colorful.
Only darkness and light.
That was all she could distinguish with her two eyes.
It felt as if she had lost everything.
But until now, it had been all right.
Because the others could not see that world either, and they could not see her either.
But after the angel returned the light, her sense of deprivation only grew stronger and stronger.
In proportion to it, her self-loathing also grew greater and greater.
Even though the light had returned, she could not see the world because of her degenerated eyes.
And because the light had returned, the world could now see her, who had become hideous and repulsive.
That was why she hated the angel who had suddenly appeared one day.
So she thought she wanted to give him at least a little trouble.
Because of her innate nature, she could not do anything too harsh, but a little trouble would be…….
…I heard even his appearance is beautiful, so why me?
Why drag me out when I had been deliberately hiding in the darkness?
But that resentment could not continue to the end.
When had that begun?
Perhaps it had started when she first heard the angel’s name.
It was something from long ago, but that name was the same as the name of her first love.
The rude attitude that followed afterward honestly did not matter much.
After all, she could not see it.
Rather, unlike the others, she was able to sense far more.
Because as she became a centipede, her sense of smell had grown stronger, allowing her to grasp a person’s emotions to some extent through scent.
As she sensed it, there was no emotion resembling disgust to be found from the angel.
Pity and confusion, bewilderment…….
And the emotion he held at the end was courage.
But because she could not guess the reason for it, she simply retreated wordlessly, in keeping with her timid personality…….
“May I try to undo the curse placed on you?”
The angel, who had suddenly kicked back his seat and risen, said that to her.
*
Gim Miri stared at me, and before long, she accepted.
Even as the one who had made the proposal, I was somewhat flustered.
It wasn’t as if much rapport had formed between us. If anything, it was closer to the opposite.
And yet, to think she would accept such an abrupt proposal at once.
Rather, it was the surroundings that erupted into chaos.
“What are you trying to do to Unni right now…!”
The Cyclops strode toward me and reached out her hand.
“Calm down.”
“What do you mean, calm down! If you’re thinking of doing some suspicious bullshit to Unni, calling it a miracle or whatever…!”
“By any chance, do you believe in God?”
“I’m saying this because I don’t! If there were a God, He wouldn’t have let the world become like…….”
“He shouldn’t have let it become like this. I agree. I don’t believe in God either.”
At my words, the Cyclops looked at me in bewilderment.
She probably never imagined that someone claiming to be the leader of a religious organization would say such a thing.
But it didn’t matter.
Taking advantage of that opening, I once again shifted my gaze to Gim Miri.
She was fundamentally different from the mutants.
She was also different from those monsters.
The reason she had mutated was solely because of the sacred arts.
But there was one commonality between her and the mimetic beasts I had purified countless times until now.
Whether it was an indigenous god or an external god, in the end, their forms had been changed by the power of a god.
Flash—!
Light burst forth from my hand, and—
At the same time as I felt an enormous amount of divine power being consumed—
I realized that the matter had been successfully resolved.
The cluster of light that filled the room soon subsided.