Chapter 431

Audin examined his inner self to check the restraints placed upon his body.

Soon, an image rose to mind—golden chains tightly wrapped around his entire body. Because he’d drawn slightly upon divinity of late, the thin veils that had once covered those chains appeared to have frayed and vanished, yet the chains themselves remained intact.

The chains were his own doing. The veils covering them had been placed by others.

As he checked his restraints for the first time in a long while, memories from the past came rushing in like a flood.

Moments he’d deliberately ignored.

“To defend heresy—is that what you believe an inquisitor should do?!”

The first to shout was the corrupted bishop.

“I trusted you because you worshipped the God of War. Ha!”

Another priest’s voice echoed in memory.

“What will you do?”

There had also been the one who taught him and guided him to this place.

The former pope, who was said to see people’s futures even though he himself was blind.

He stepped down from the papal seat just ten days after taking it.

“This is not the place I belong, my brothers and sisters.”

He cast off the mantle of authority and later spoke to Audin in private.

“I just had a feeling I wouldn’t live long in that position.”

It was an absurd reason, but he added that it was a conclusion he’d reached after glimpsing his own future.

The memories tangled together, but in the end, when the man who’d shown fatherly affection to an orphan like him had asked—

Audin had been unable to answer easily.

It had been right after he’d become a criminal for failing to fulfill his duty as an inquisitor.

“You don’t know what to do?”

“Yes, I’ve lost my way.”

Audin replied, kneeling.

“A shepherd who has lost his way has only one place to go.”

The former pope, a man he regarded as a father, spoke sternly.

“To the place shrouded in darkness below the earth.”

Audin responded again.

It was doctrine—the god who governed sun and moon would weigh one’s sins.

Sinners would be sent to the God of War and judged.

Those found guilty by the God of War would be imprisoned in the underworld.

All of it written in the sacred scriptures.

Audin had served the God of War. The former pope had served a god with two faces.

One of those faces was the warden of the prison crafted by the divine and the god of love; the other was the god of radiance and holy light, who judged the wicked.

Two aspects that appeared to be opposites, yet were in truth one and the same.

A god who descended deep into the underworld to offer love.

He left behind the light within his body to illuminate the world above.

Thus, one god became the warden of the underworld prison—an embodiment of darkness and love who embraced sinners.

The other became the punisher of sin with holy light and radiance.

“You are someone who will carry the light of radiance.”

Guided by those words, Audin became an inquisitor who punished heresy.

The God of War had granted him an exceptional body.

He transitioned from acolyte to martial priest in no time. Naturally, even as a martial priest, Audin was extraordinary.

“To delve that deeply into the Balraph style and achieve insight… you must be the first.”

That unique talent soon led him toward divinity.

The radiance and holy light descended upon his body through the god of battle and war.

“A miracle!”

None held back their praise. Everyone blessed him.

While training to become a paladin, Audin was appointed as an inquisitor.

“Pray there. Sharpen your body and spirit there.”

It was the archbishop himself who gave the order. The archbishop—his eyes narrow, his face almost cartoonishly sly—told Audin to become a judge who would strike down heretics.

So Audin obeyed.

As an inquisitor, he chose to punish with radiance and holy light.

Then, during a mission, he punished the hidden son of a sinful bishop. He ended the boy’s life.

He carried out several more duties after that.

In a small town he visited on the bishop’s orders, Audin’s faith wavered.

A man accused of heresy burned himself alive to prove his innocence.

Watching the man’s body go up in flames, Audin instinctively knew—this isn’t right.

Then what was wrong?

Was it him for believing in the god?

Was it the corrupted temple?

The power-hungry archbishop?

The former pope who claimed to have seen the future and walked away?

Or—

Was it the god who gave strength to someone like me, so lacking?

That couldn’t be it. It must be that he had simply failed to understand the Lord Father’s will.

Doubt crept in. His faith shook. The foundation of his being cracked and collapsed.

His dream of becoming a holy knight, of destroying evil and sending demons back to the Lord—his dream of Zema-Melsa—was shattered.

The tower of faith fell.

“If you cannot punish with radiance, then go to the darkness and hide yourself.”

Following the words of the one he considered a father—or truthfully, simply because he no longer wanted to do anything—Audin placed restraints upon himself.

And even that wasn’t enough.

Several others who wielded divine power placed additional restraints on him.

“I’m sorry, brother.”

There had been a brother willing to die in his place.

“Why?”

There had been a sister who had laughed with him until yesterday, now looking at him with hatred.

Audin accepted the restraints without a single word of excuse, renounced his post, and left the temple.

He still remembered what the father-like bishop said to him on the way out.

“The day your path becomes clear, you’ll step forward on your own.”

“Is that a prophecy?”

“Prophecy, my ass. Let me be honest. I can’t do prophecy. It’s just a guess. A prediction. If I become pope of a temple where more people hate me than follow me, someone’s bound to try and kill me.”

It was a confession.

“I may not know people’s hearts completely, but I know a part of yours. If it’s easier for you to think of it as a prophecy, go ahead. It doesn’t matter. I’m just saying what I know. When the day comes that you step forward, God will gain the strongest shield to protect his child.”

The bishop turned away after those words. He was stoned to death as a heretic six months later. His divine gift had been little more than minor healing.

Audin didn’t hear the news until another half-year passed.

When he did, fury consumed him.

He wanted to rush to the temple and kill them all.

But he didn’t.

Doing so would mean uprooting and burning the last of his foundation, scattering even the ashes.

And besides—surely that wasn’t what the bishop would have wanted.

Lord. Am I meant to quietly die like this?

He knew why he was here—because he had killed the bishop’s hidden son.

Because, despite being an inquisitor, he had refused to punish a so-called heretic.

Audin understood it all.

But he never lifted a hand.

His hands were made for striking and breaking—nothing more.

He wandered.

And ended up in the problem-ridden squad.

At the moment when he had given up everything, he met a man who had given up nothing.

That man had faced knights and lived, survived a war, led a civil war to victory, and still stood undaunted before demons.

He made the King of the East come to him.

Audin struggled.

Could he not give up while still bound by his restraints?

He wanted to dream again.

To be the sword and shield of holy radiance, the fist that served God.

He wanted to fulfill his duty once more and walk the path laid before him—but there remained one unresolved issue.

He had sworn his own restraints. He could not break them on a whim.

Nor would anyone in the current temple agree to release them.

The past twisted and knotted until it reached the question he had long hurled inward.

In a secluded monastery on the edge of Legion, the holy city—

He had been born without parents.

“Why was I born?”

He had asked that countless times. What was this absurdly large body for?

Even when he received divine power, the question remained.

Was it to kill those the temple deemed heretics?

That couldn’t be it.

I shall become the fist that eradicates evil.

That had once been his goal—but there had been a time when he could not reach it.

He cast that time behind him. Let the past be forgotten for a while. Instead, he turned his eyes toward a new sun, toward the coming tomorrow rather than the day already gone.

“What did you say you would do as a knight?”

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Audin asked, and Enkrid answered.

“A battlefield where no child takes up arms, a knight who upholds chivalry, a world that reveres what is right—that’s what I want to build.”

Ah… the day he heard that answer, Audin wept. He cried in prayer, hidden behind the barracks where no one would see.

Jachsen and a few others saw it, but they pretended not to notice.

It wasn’t the first time Audin had cried while praying.

As he prayed, Teresa approached. She waited patiently until his prayer was done, then spoke.

“I think my body and talents are lacking. I tried to learn song to discipline my heart, but it hasn’t been easy.”

“Why do you keep trying to move forward?”

“Because I want to walk the path I believe is right. I believe that path lies beside that man. More than anything, I wish to protect this place.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. I want to test myself against him and help support the path he walks.”

To set your will and act upon it—that is the greatest light a person can possess.

It may not be sacred, but it is a light that will not fade.

Reciting the words of the scripture, Audin nodded.

“I heard you’ve selected a few squad members. We’ll begin full training together.”

Audin spoke. Teresa regretted sharing her thoughts for a brief moment.

She understood what it meant, just from hearing the words full training.

It would be the kind of training that might make you wish you were in a prison below the earth.

They had been in the middle of forming a squad—big, strong, and devout members—when this occurred.

And then Audin realized that one of the restraints that had bound his mind had broken.

“The temple is always right—so do not defy it.”

Then he should return to the temple and slightly adjust that rightness.

If necessary, he would have to lift the restraints.

But until he received permission, he would not do so on his own. That was part of the faith Audin held.

Even if it meant death, he would not release them all.

The restraints would be lifted only after he had told the temple what rightness truly was.

Even if it killed him, he would do so.

All because one person showed their dream with conviction, and another person’s life changed because of it.

* * *

When Ragna woke from sleep, he immediately sensed something had changed.

Cold air.

The breath he inhaled and exhaled.

Falling leaves.

Floating dust.

Everything was several times clearer than before, almost as if he could grasp it with his hands.

He felt as if he could reach out and steal the axe from that dumb barbarian sitting far off.

It was nearly twenty paces away—but it felt like he could do it.

Ragna reached into the air and clenched his fist.

Of course, unless he was using supernatural abilities or magic, there was no way a distant axe would suddenly fly into his hand.

But at the same time that he mimicked reaching and grabbing, Rem gripped the handle of his axe tightly.

It happened almost simultaneously.

Watching the insane slacker move, [N O V E L I G H T] Rem said—

“You crazy bastard. Back the hell off, will you?”

As if he’d read Ragna’s thoughts.

But it hadn’t actually happened.

“So that doesn’t work.”

It felt like he could do anything, but there were many things he couldn’t.

He had realized something—he had surpassed a wall—but there was still too much to understand.

Ragna recalled the spar between the King of the East and Enkrid.

Enkrid stood his ground, resisting the power of a knight.

The king had held back. It wasn’t a guided match, but he had helped his opponent draw out every ounce of strength.

Ragna had seen it all.

He had seen—no, felt—the power flowing from the king’s weapon being layered onto Enkrid’s sword.

“Can you gather your will and manifest it into reality?”

Could he, for example, retrieve Rem’s axe across the gap by ignoring physical distance?

“Yes, it’s possible.”

But to do that, he had to step forward and close the distance.

He had failed only because he had reached out without moving his feet.

In that moment, Ragna naturally grasped the principle of pressure.

It wasn’t simply a matter of glaring at someone with bloodlust and killing intent.

It was about manifesting your will into the world.

In other words, telling your opponent—through your will.

Whether it was a sword at your hip, a spear on your back, or the fork you used to eat steak—

You told them: “I can kill you with this.”

“No—even with just the edge of my hand.”

You form the motion in your mind and hint it toward your opponent.

By doing so, their survival instinct will tighten around their limbs, their heart, their breath.

That was pressure.

Ragna found himself experimenting with a fork in the mess hall.

He tried it once on Rem.

“You psycho, are you nuts?”

Rem glared fiercely, typical of a barbarian.

“Brother, please compose yourself.”

Audin smiled as he spoke, though a vein rose on his forehead.

Dunbakel gagged and stepped back.

Teresa furrowed her brow and muttered a line from the scriptures. She also subtly dragged her tray forward to use as a shield.

The one called Ropold, sitting next to him, trembled as cold sweat dripped onto his tray.

“You’re gonna kill someone like that.”

That was the man known as the Shepherd of the Wastes. He quietly unsheathed his sword.

A black blade gleamed. It was the sword called Idol Slayer. Ragna could sense something clinging to it.

They said it devoured souls. It was a sword that cut through the will of a being.

He could feel something from it—but not precisely what. To know, he would have to hold it and swing it himself.

Next was the bug-eyed bastard.

Krais, oblivious to everything, asked if anyone else was feeling chilly today.

“Some are sensitive to it…”

While others weren’t.

Maybe he could use this to gauge skill—or talent?

It seemed possible.

Except for eating and sleeping, Ragna devoted himself to sword practice.

The words the King of the East left before departing were true.

He had to choose his path carefully now.

Though it felt like he could do anything, actually doing it required steps.

Could he slice a mountain in half with a sword?

No such swing existed that could do it in one stroke.

“But I could kill a mage who tried to split a mountain with magic.”

He learned to distinguish what he could and couldn’t do.

And to that end, he repeated basic training every day.

He moved nonstop until he was soaked with sweat—so at night, he slept like a rock, snoring.

After several days of repetition, Enkrid, now unwrapping the bandages around his hands, asked—

“When are you ready?”

He meant, let’s fight.

Ragna contemplated himself for a moment and replied—

“Two days will do.”

That seemed enough. He couldn’t control his strength well yet, but two days would be enough.

It was monstrous talent.

Even when others surpassed a wall and reached a knight’s level, it would take at least three months to recalibrate their body—and for many, half a year.

But not Ragna.

For him, even two weeks was too long.