The undead’s fighting spirit was growing stronger. This was not a fighting spirit born from a desire to obey their god’s commands, but one meant to protect themselves from the village’s crisis. A very primal and instinctive yearning.
Faced with the sharp hostility directed at me, I fell into thought for a moment.
Even if that fighting spirit was instinctive now, its spark had begun with their faith. With nothing more than a shallow desire to serve that pathetic god, the entire village was willing to risk their lives and fight a formidable enemy like me.
…In truth, I was by no means a formidable enemy, but that was just how they saw things.
Which made me even more curious. If they truly faced a crisis severe enough to wipe out their tribe, would they still cling to their faith and traditions? Would they sacrifice their lives for a tool meant to preserve life?
I didn’t know. Honestly, it seemed like it would depend on the circumstances. No one could be certain.
Unless they tested it themselves.
“So you really are prepared to die. May I truly kill you?”
“You will be the one to die. We are blessed by the Sacrificial God. As long as the Sacrificial God exists, we will never die!”
“The same goes for me. I have no intention of dying for your sake, either. Rather than obediently letting myself be killed, I’ll have to fight back.”
I had the Demon God, so it would be difficult, but it was possible. If I could do it, there was no reason not to try. It would be fine to test them a little, to see just how firm their yearning truly was.
Then shall I give it a try…? It was just as I steeled myself and began to exert my strength.
Thump. My heart suddenly beat strangely.
Against the backdrop of a dim cathedral, a nun was praying in solitude. Above her delicately clasped hands, sunlight filtered through red stained glass.
The Fallen Nun, Sister Yegcheria, had blessed someone in the Monastery of Blood.
—My blessing is infinitely shabby and powerless compared to that of the Heavenly Saintess. Even so, I shall bless you.
A cathedral and a nun. They ought to be holy, yet those words did not suit the Monastery of Blood or the Fallen Nun Yegcheria.
A sacrament that ought to be holy was performed with blood. She questioned the words of those who came to confess not to Heaven, but to herself, and washed newborn children in blood instead of oil.
—Yet the wicked also perform good deeds, while the good sometimes commit evil without thought. That must be because humans are imperfect.
Yegcheria had not abandoned God. She had merely sought the god who dwelled within the bodies and hearts of humans, rather than the distant god in Heaven.
—My blessing is a small whim. A slight disturbance that may or may not come to pass. Yet it may, in an instant, turn a wicked person into a good one, or reduce a good person to wickedness. A seed of chaos.
As Yegcheria blessed me and the regressor, she planted a very small seed. A trivial impulse that would affect the flow of our blood at some moment under the Saintess’s watch—the end of a predetermined future.
—The Heavenly Saintess determines the future. That is the end of inevitability. The conclusion reached through reason and causality. Yet because the ones she judges are human… because she judges imperfect humans by a perfect standard… things deviate, become confused, and twist.
An impulse touched me—something that made me feel, for a moment, that the breeze was cool, that my body was light, or that something had suddenly entered my field of vision. It could not control me, but it was enough to make me stop in my tracks for a while.
—God dwells within our hearts. This Yegcheria blesses you.
Blood Manipulation, Blood Baptism.
The blessing bestowed by Yegcheria was a small whim. It planted a tiny impulse within the body, one capable of abruptly changing a person’s state of mind or behavior. It was insignificant compared to the Saintess’s blessing, but it was a joker capable of throwing that blessing awry.
The blessing reconstructed through Blood Manipulation had certainly exerted its power within my body. There was only one small problem: I already knew of its existence through mind reading.
An impulse was only an impulse when you didn’t know about it. Since I was blatantly aware of its presence, it was a little awkward. It was something of a trump card, too.
Hmm. But.
Was there any reason not to indulge in a whim?
I immediately clasped both hands together and bowed deeply at the waist.
“I’m truly sorry. I apologize to all of you.”
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The undead, who had been approaching with boiling fighting spirit, faltered when I suddenly adopted such a deferential attitude. I used the opening to apologize even more vehemently.
“I’m sorry for barging in without permission and causing a commotion. But please try to understand my position as well. When you say you’re going to offer people to the Sacrificial God, how could I not verify it?”
“…What?”
“These people were sacrifices meant to be offered to an evil god, and then you told me to offer them to the Sacrificial God. That naturally made me suspicious. What if the Sacrificial God was an evil being like the black magician? What if he intended to devour them all and replenish his strength? I only entered to find out. It’s true that, in the process, I failed to show you the consideration you deserved.”
“Ugh, wait a moment. My head.”
‘Left Arm’ suddenly began pounding his temples at the headache that had come upon him. After treating his headache with an undead’s characteristic method, ‘Left Arm’ grimaced fiercely.
“You caused a huge mess and even attacked us, and now you’re apologizing? What kind of whim is this all of a sudden?”
“It is a whim, but it’s also true that I acted a little presumptuously, isn’t it? I wanted to apologize for that first.”
“If you want to apologize, you should do it after handing over one of your arms. How shameless, apologizing with words alone!”
“Well, putting that aside, I was inconsiderate, but it’s not as if I did anything unforgivable. As you said, what would you have done if the Sacrificial God really did eat people?”
I didn’t know what effect this whim would have, but words did not need to be effective to be spoken.
“Still, if the Sacrificial God mercifully forgives me, I won’t fight anymore, either.”
***
[Yegcheria. In the end, you…]
The future had changed. The Heavenly Saintess let out a groan when she realized the shadow of the nun trailing behind him.
No, in truth, the future had not changed at all. Without the Saintess’s intervention, the king of men would challenge order. The Sacrificial God would not bend to his desires, either, so their collision was inevitable.
That small impulse had merely twisted the process leading toward that future ever so slightly.
And yet, even with only this difference—
‘Sin’ changed.
“He apologized! Look. Hughes yielded first, didn’t he? Isn’t that enough?”
Shey sprang to his feet with a refreshed expression.
Even if causality did not change in the slightest, the standard by which the act was judged could change. With a small whim, with the slightest difference, the blame for right and wrong could be shifted onto the other party.
Even though the king of men was such a being, and the Sacrificial God was such a being, good and evil grew blurred because of that slight change. Gray spread along the boundary between black and white.
[This won’t change anything… In the end, that will still come.]
“But it did change, didn’t it? The way we look at Hughes!”
Shey replied with a relieved expression.
***
“You’re saying we should stop fighting here?”
“How suspicious. He must have some ulterior motive.”
“Left Arm. What are you going to do now?”
“Why ask Left Arm, Thigh? The Sacrificial God has already issued his command! Do you intend to disobey the Sacrificial God’s will?”
“Hasn’t the situation changed? Perhaps the Sacrificial God will issue another command.”
“But there hasn’t been another order since then! In that case, we must follow the order he gave before!”
“But he apologized, didn’t he?”
When the boiling fighting spirit was doused with cold water, opinions split even among the undead. Some disliked using their strength against Piu, some feared the power I had displayed, and others simply believed my words and questioned what the problem was now.
A minor dispute broke out. Unable to endure the sizzling noise any longer, ‘Left Arm’ roared loudly.
“Quiet! My head hurts, so stop chattering!”
“No, but—”
“I said my head hurts!”
Even after saying that, ‘Left Arm’ brought his fist down on the head of one of the undead who continued to prattle. The undead, his head caved in, went sprawling and discreetly shut his mouth after gauging the mood.
“Just restrain him for now! We can lock him up until the Sacrificial God gives another command, can’t we? Young people these days have less flexibility than I do!”
“Oh, what a good idea!”
“Are you trying to make an old man with a fading memory use his head, too?”
Lock me up?
Should I indulge in my whim a little longer and let myself be captured without a fuss? I could easily break free of an undead’s restraints, after all. Hmm, but I didn’t want to yield that much for no reason.
All right. Let’s fight. If they were going to wait for the Sacrificial God’s command, there was no need for me to accommodate their wishes any further, was there?
“Wait! Everyone, stop fighting!”
At that moment, a huge shadow burst in between me and the undead. He was a towering figure comparable to ‘Left Arm,’ with an unusually prominent right arm—the undead’s most powerful force. It was ‘Right Arm,’ Rashi. He approached with a bewildered expression, looking back and forth between me and ‘Left Arm.’
“What in the world is this strange business? Why are you suddenly fighting with our guest?”
“Right Arm? What brings you here? I clearly buried you and your bride in the ground after your wedding ceremony!”
Rashi’s eyes rolled around. He should have been buried underground after the wedding ceremony, but he had dug a tunnel in advance and carefully escaped through it after nightfall. Only after finding a hiding place away from the other undead had he received the Sacrificial God’s summons and arrived late.
“My Sacrificial God suddenly began moving urgently. It must be an emergency, so I asked my wife’s understanding and rushed out!”
“You’re nowhere near ready to be a head of household! You abandoned the bride you just married and came running to the battlefield!”
“Ah, we can always have another wedding ceremony later! So what happened that you’re fighting Teacher? Did the Sacrificial God issue an order to execute Teacher?”
“You must have received the Sacrificial God’s revelation as well, and yet you shamelessly ask despite knowing!”
“Oh dear. I’ve been found out.”
Scratching his head, Rashi looked back and forth between me and ‘Left Arm’ before sighing.
“Stop, Aunt Left Arm. There’s no reason to fight.”
“What?”
“The boy accompanying Teacher is an extremely powerful warrior. Even that Jiseon was ultimately defeated and had his arm severed. And Teacher is a strong fighter comparable to him. We must not fight with half-hearted resolve.”
“You would avoid a fight because the enemy is strong? Rashi! Is that how I taught you?”
“Of course not, Aunt Left Arm. As an undead, I have no fear of fighting. But I lived with them in the empire beyond the grasslands, received their kindness, and was welcomed into the village as a guest. How could I fight with all my strength against guests I personally welcomed?”
Rashi was still young, but he had received the Sacrificial God’s right arm. The right arm was one of the Sacrificial God’s two limbs, equal to the left arm. When their opinions clashed, ‘Left Arm’ could say no more and groaned in frustration.
“Ungh. I understand what you mean, but how can we hold back when the Sacrificial God has given an order?”
“Let us ask the Sacrificial God again!”
While ‘Left Arm’ was racking his brains, Rashi came to a clear conclusion.
“There must be something wrong with the revelation! Surely the Sacrificial God would not issue such a reckless and sudden order? We should call the shamans and ask them about the true meaning of the Sacrificial God’s words!”
The notion that a god could be wrong was not exactly an attitude recommended for a believer. But this time, Rashi was right. The Sacrificial God merely possessed power equal to that of a god; he was not a true god.
I had not particularly intended to avoid a fight with the undead, but if a small whim had allowed me to do so, that was fine as well. Then the fight with the undead was over. All that remained was—
[As expected, a body that does not follow the will of the head is nothing more than a rabble.]
Grrrrrrr.
A tremendous tremor shook the cavern of the Sacrificial God. As though the cave were too narrow for him, he slowly walked out, one hand braced against the ceiling.
A grotesque body made by stitching together skin. The Sacrificial God, who had assembled the bodies offered to him by the undead and made them his own, had awakened from his long seclusion.