#131 Interlude (3)
Immediately after the noon service ended.
Heinrich waited quietly until the Saintess finished tidying up.
It was not as though they could completely take their hands off work just because their duties were over, so they needed time to exchange opinions.
And as he joined her and they headed toward the office together...
She thanked him with an embarrassed smile.
“Ah
— Lord Heinrich, thank you for earlier! Today I came out a little early because I had things to prepare in advance, but as I was passing by the flowerbed, before I knew it... ahaha.”
In other words, though she had come out early in the morning with the possibility of delays in mind, she had ultimately been unable to leave the flowerbed until the very last moment.
“Even so, Saintess, you have never once been late, have you? I’m sure you would have arrived on time somehow this time as well.”
Even if he had not told her, once time had truly become pressing, either she would have noticed on her own or another priest would have come looking for her, so she likely would not have been late for the service.
After all, there was no one in this Great Temple who did not know that she had recently been lingering at the flowerbeds.
“Mm... yes...”
But despite his consolation, she suddenly seemed dissatisfied about something, merely pursing her lips with her brow faintly furrowed.
As he wondered whether he had misspoken somehow—
“...Last time, I asked you to call me by my name when we weren’t in an official setting.”
She quietly muttered in a timid tone.
Now able to detect even the slightest vibration in the air, there was no way Heinrich would miss that voice at such close range. ‘Come to think of it, she did say that last time. Was it not long after I became a Saint?’ But it had been something she had said so lightly in passing, and he had naturally forgotten it amid their busy days.
Recently, since both of them had been devoting themselves to work, every meeting between them had inevitably been official. ‘She said there’s no one left who can call her by her name...’ As the Saintess was one of the highest-ranking leaders of the Church of the Main God, naturally, there were not many who could directly call her by name.
Even most of those few simply called her “Saintess.”
As the only one of her kind in this world, she existed wholly and entirely through that title alone, so in truth, it was only natural.
The name by which she introduced herself, “Liesta Saint Hattianus,” had become little more than something used briefly when presenting her to outsiders.
Even so, in the past, the Pope, who alone stood on equal footing with the Saintess, had called her by name... ‘But now that he is bedridden, even that has become difficult.’ And in the midst of that, the new Saint, “Heinrich Saint Landgard,” had appeared.
“Hahaha
— I suppose I have grown so accustomed to calling you Saintess that it is difficult to get used to. I will be more mindful from now on. Lady Liesta.”
Of course, calling her by name did not mean he would immediately omit all honorifics, but she seemed satisfied with that much. Her expression brightened considerably, and a gentle smile settled at the corners of her mouth.
At the same time, that smile, harmonizing with the halo that always shone from her of its own accord, began to spread a dazzling radiance around her together with her sparkling appearance. ‘I feel this every time, but it’s as if she alone is under a spotlight. I don’t have a halo like that.’ Heinrich inwardly let out both admiration and complaint, but in truth, from the perspective of others, his appearance was not all that different from hers.
“Huh? Show respect! The Saintess and the Saint are passing by.”
“Mm, the Saint seems stronger than before. He isn’t even deliberately emanating anything, yet his presence is this intense. And that aura...”
The paladins of the Radiant Guard, in charge of security at the Great Temple, paid respects to the two passing in the distance and whispered quietly.
A man and woman with shimmering silver hair that rippled like waves and golden eyes that shone like the sun.
Their appearances were also so striking as to draw admiration, and they complemented each other so well that one could not say which of them was superior.
Of course, perhaps because the “Great Blessings” they had received were different, there was a difference in the halo they emitted by default.
Unlike Liesta, who glowed as though a lightbulb had been lit around her head, Heinrich was raising an aura like transparent flames from his entire body.
That transparent aura was so faint it could not be seen unless observed carefully, but even though he was not separately operating his divine power, the aura naturally radiating from him clearly imprinted his presence in every direction.
It was like a torch that illuminated darkness or a lighthouse that lit the way; even in a place where one could not see an inch ahead, it would surely serve as a guidepost without ever fading.
No abyss, however deep, could bury his existence.
For that was what it meant to be the “Hero.”
“So, until the summit is held, what we need to do is...”
“Ah, as for that, I already asked the inquisitors to...”
Heinrich, conversing with the Saintess, headed to the office with her.
And so, the Hero and Saint who bore everyone’s hopes continued to work hard for the continent again today.
***
And while the Hero was working hard.
The Demon King and Immortal King who bore everyone’s resentment was not merely idling about either.
[I shall swear loyalty! O Immortal King!]
[I offer my soul to the King—.]
In the aftermath of the abyss opening and the boundary weakening, countless undead appeared across the continent.
Among them were many middle-ranking officers who, even if they had not necessarily been commanders of the Immortal Army, possessed outstanding intellect and had been leading lesser undead.
Death Knights, knights of death; Liches, immortal mages; Dullahan Knights, headless executioners, and so on...
Each and every one of them was a talent on roughly the same level as the first self-aware undead he had made, “Death Wizard Malcolm.”
Most of them, immediately after slipping out through the boundary, had made their own judgments to secure their safety and assess the situation.
As they came under Hans’s command one by one, it was only natural that the army’s scale gradually grew. ‘Satisfying. As expected, it was worth it for this body to personally run all over the place.’ Since the one with the greatest detection ability and mobility was none other than the Immortal King himself, there was no choice but for him personally moving to be the most efficient method.
Though it looked somewhat undignified.
As a result, after he busily moved about in that way, he finally gathered all the undead that had appeared in the western part of the continent and was now extending his reach toward the center. ‘Even though I hurried this much, there were still quite a few I unfortunately couldn’t recover. If even the western region, where I acted first, was like this, how many will be left in other regions?’ Naturally, the various powers rooted in this world did not simply stand by and watch the undead.
There were all manner of clashes between the two sides: attacks from the undead, subjugations by humans, unexpected chance encounters...
And in the end, the number sacrificed without being able to join the Immortal Army had become impossible to ignore. ‘Still, it was quite a profitable gain that I was able to salvage more former commanders amid all that.’ The high-ranking officers of the Immortal Army had been greatly reduced in the last war, leaving not many behind, so he had been lucky. ‘The fellow I accepted a few days ago was named Phagos, wasn’t he.’ Not long ago, he had newly taken under his command the ghost-type undead once ranked in the twenties, Dread Phantom Phagos.
Unlike the Banshee Queen Olivia, who had the appearance of a human woman, he looked as though black mist had gathered together. Though only his upper body possessed a distinct form, he was so enormous that his height reached three meters.
[Glory to the Immortal King—
I shall take the lead—
in spreading terror throughout this world—.]
Phagos, with a pair of red eyes glowing from his head made of black smoke, was quite literally an evil spirit itself.
His voice, which seemed to echo from deep within a cavern, was filled with magic that stimulated fear in those who heard it, but in truth, all high-ranking undead were like that, so it was nothing special at this point. ‘And the one I found this time is the Ghoul Lord...’
“Fiona—.”
When Hans quietly called that name, the ordinary-looking woman who had just been subordinated and was prostrating herself before him bowed her head once more.
Her former rank in the Immortal Army had been around the thirties.
Ghouls, which were superior versions of zombies in every respect except for the common point of being moving corpses, had the trait of growing stronger by devouring corpses.
And the one who endlessly devoured prey and eventually reached the pinnacle of those ghouls was none other than her. ‘On the outside, she doesn’t look all that different from a human.’ And due to the nature of ghouls, who could regenerate their bodies by eating corpses, her decay was not very severe despite being undead.
At a glance, she looked enough like an ordinary human woman.
Of course, if one looked closely, there was an intense sense of wrongness from things like the stench coming from her body, her unfocused pupils, and her dry mucous membranes, but compared to other undead, she was in a considerably good state. ‘Until you see the inside of that mouth, that is.’ The corners of her mouth split all the way to below her ears, her jaw opened wide like a crocodile’s, and the inside was packed full of saw-like teeth.
As befitted the very synonym of a devouring undead, she possessed a vicious oral structure that did not lose even to Harley’s.
[...Loyalty...]
However, perhaps because Fiona disliked showing the inside of her mouth, she rarely opened it and maintained a taciturn attitude.
Even though, by the nature of undead who spoke by resonating mana, there was no need for her to actually open her mouth. ‘Perhaps memories from when she was human have hardened into a habit.’ Carefully taking even such sensitive matters into consideration was the virtue of a kind superior.
Hans, who had never once experienced social life yet firmly believed himself to be an ideal leader, did not particularly take issue with the attitudes of his subordinates, including her.
As long as they properly did the tasks assigned to them, nothing else mattered. ‘Not that I’ve ever seen anyone dare act self-indulgently before the Immortal King.’ In any case, thanks to the addition of various talents in that way, the Immortal Army was able to move more actively in many directions.
But as its scale grew, moving covertly inevitably became increasingly difficult.
No, perhaps all reasonably powerful factions were already watching their movements closely. ‘Fortunately, no major clash has occurred yet.’ From their perspective, they may have worried that if they launched a preemptive attack for no reason, they would needlessly provoke the Immortal Army, which had been behaving relatively quietly...
And they likely also feared that if they acted alone first, they alone would suffer the resulting damage. ‘But that won’t last much longer now.’ The “Continental Summit” for jointly responding to the Immortal King and the Immortal Army.
It was just around the corner.
Once the future course of action was decided there, things would probably be settled one way or another.
And that would be—
The signal flare announcing the full-scale start of Operation “Home Theater.”
***
Since the preliminary coordination had taken so long, once the schedule was confirmed, preparations for the “Continental Summit” proceeded smoothly and swiftly.
Of course, the Church of the Main God, as the host of this affair, would handle most preparations, including the conference hall, but seeing the situation flow so smoothly, it was enough to make one wonder why something that could be accomplished this easily had been so sluggish until now. ‘The others must have felt it too.’ Heinrich lightly looked around the place where the meeting would take place and shook his head.
Those who, without any sense of crisis, had tried to use the chaotic situation to strengthen their own political positions.
They too had realized that if they continued behaving selfishly as they had until now, they might instead face a backlash.
That was how ominously the current situation on the continent was unfolding.
Far from calming down, the madness outbreak was gradually intensifying, and amid that situation, civil uprisings and terrorist attacks breaking out everywhere were driving them out of their minds.
In particular, not only the Azerion Empire, which possessed the largest territory and bordered most of the northern mountain range, but also the Duchy of Rohan, located north of the empire and entirely surrounded on three sides by the northern mountain range, was experiencing every day as though it were a continuous war.
From their perspective, they would be desperate to proceed quickly with the Continental Summit or whatever else and receive support.
Because of that, the empire must also have exerted considerable pressure on the surrounding parties to make this matter happen. ‘In any case, the meeting that caused so much talk and so many problems is finally being held.’ The Roselia Great Temple had already been preparing for this for quite some time.
So that as soon as the date was set, they could immediately enter the final stage.
Thanks to that, they were able to move the meeting date up as much as possible, and with the temple’s gate available, travel distance was not a major problem either.
At last, everything was proceeding smoothly.
And as time passed, when the opening day finally drew only a few days away—
Delegations from each faction began arriving one by one through the Great Temple’s gate.