Chapter 19 — What a Disappointment. Or Are You Still Planning Something?
The Village of Saints was the dark side of the Axis Church, an organization designed to create people like Divine Kings, Swordmasters, Fist Masters, and Saints. It was an organization that operated in the shadows, unknown to the believers in the church.
The Axis Church was the religion with the largest influence in the world, and the Village of Saints had played a role in its establishment. The founding of that organization had been a plot devised by Kouryu. In effect, the Axis Church was an organization formed by his actions.
The Malnarilna Sect was a religion in this world that worshipped their titular god. Since Malnarilna governed the world, there normally wouldn’t be room for another religion to take root. So Kouryu had developed the Axis Church to focus on spiritual improvement and mutual cooperation, ensuring it did not come into direct conflict with the Malnarilna Sect.
The reason the Axis Church had ended up becoming so influential was the benefits afforded to those who joined. Malnarilna was irresponsible as a god. Worshipping them didn’t earn much of their favor, and the Sect itself wasn’t particularly well organized. If Malnarilna had truly wanted to, they could have crushed the Axis Church with little effort. But they had little concern for human affairs and couldn’t care less about gathering worshippers.
The event that showed this most clearly was the incident with the Dark God Albagarma. When the Dark God had moved to wipe out humanity, Malnarilna had done nothing. They had left him to his own devices. Humanity had only survived thanks to interference from the Great Sage. He had reset the world and taught the Divine King how to deal with the Dark God.
Though the Great Sage had saved the world, it hadn’t been clear exactly what he had done, so with the Axis Church actually carrying out the sealing of the Dark God, it had earned a tremendous amount of support from the people.
That may have seemed strange to those who knew of the relationship between Kouryu and the Sages, but it was possible that the Sages weren’t aware of the relationship between Kouryu and the Axis Church. Even if they were, it was likely they weren’t concerned about it. The story of the assailant forgetting the conflict while the victim remembers it for all time is a common one.
Malnarilna’s negligence, leading to the expansion of the Axis Church’s influence throughout the world, was nothing but a boon to Kouryu. He intended to use the church to destroy Malnarilna and take back his position as god of this world. Though he had numerous plans, he had been met with a sudden stroke of good luck from outside of all of them.
Rilna was dead, the seal on Kouryu’s powers was gone, and Malna had come to the Heavenly Throne. Within the Throne, Kouryu was quite powerful and was capable of defeating her. Thanks to the help of a godslayer who had happened to be nearby, Kouryu had managed to take back his position and powers as god.
However, after time had been rewound, things were different. It was highly unlikely Malna would go to the Heavenly Throne now. She would have full memories of what had happened before the reset, so it was unlikely she would fall into the same trap again.
So Kouryu decided to put one of his original plans into action. Using a magical formation woven from the altars placed by the Village of Saints throughout the world, he would manifest a Sacred Ground and use that to suppress Malna’s powers while strengthening his own.
The largest problem in this plan was finding Malna herself. Malnarilna was a fickle god, often moving around the world. The ritual used in Kouryu’s plan would take a number of days to complete, so in order for it to succeed, he would need to nail down Malnarilna’s exact location.
To that end, Kouryu was trying the brute force solution of building altars everywhere that Malna might go. Though it would take a huge amount of work, he had all the time in the world. He had no expectation of his plans coming to fruition in the near future. The building of altars was only one of many plans he was executing at the same time.
There was no need for him to rush things. He could wait until his preparations were complete before taking decisive action. That said, he did feel it was best to resolve things as quickly as possible.
That was because Yogiri Takatou was still in this world. He was collecting Philosopher’s Stones in an attempt to return to his own world. The experience he had retained from before the reset would make collecting them much faster this time.
So there was some need for him to hurry. The chances of everything going smoothly if he took his time and moved slowly were incredibly small. But if he could make use of Yogiri, he would be able to solve many of his problems all at once. If he let that chance go, Yogiri would never return to this world. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Though it might have been pushing his luck too far, Kouryu resolved himself to settling things immediately.
◇ ◇ ◇
In the space between dimensions, beyond the reach of humans on the reverse side of the world, a small island floated in the void. The tiny house and garden was one of Malnarilna’s many bases. Though their many bases were all built with different ideas in mind, the prevailing thought behind this one was to look cute. Considering how much time the twins had spent here, this seemed to be one of their preferred spots.
Kouryu knew that Malna had been staying there for a considerable amount of time. Since Malna made no effort to hide herself, it wasn’t especially difficult to find her there. The issue was how long she would stay.
While Kouryu could make a Sacred Ground that would function as his territory temporarily, the ritual to do so would take a number of days to complete. Once it had begun there was no stopping it, and if Malna moved somewhere else while it was in progress, all of his effort would be wasted. He could target all of Malna’s known dwellings as a precaution, but that plan would fall through if she moved somewhere new. But Kouryu still tried. Being weaker than her, he had no way of keeping her in a given place.
The ritual had already begun and was entering its final stage. He now awaited its completion, looking down at Malnarilna’s dwelling from above. Around him were numerous weapons and their wielders. Each of the weapons were legendary artifacts said to have killed gods in the past, though he had been unable to confirm the authenticity of those legends. The wielders were reproductions of the heroes who had wielded them. He had no idea whether they would be effective, but this was the greatest firepower Kouryu could bring to bear.
If this wasn’t enough to defeat her, nothing Kouryu could do at this point would work. If he spent more time preparing, he might have been able to gather more strength, but if he didn’t defeat her now, he wouldn’t be able to make use of Yogiri. He had to bet on defeating her here.
“So, it looks like she didn’t go anywhere in the end. I thought she might have noticed I was up to something.”
Malna was the god governing this world. She could obtain any information she wanted about the world on a whim. There was no doubt she could find he was doing something suspicious if she took the time to look. But she was still inside, showing no sign of moving. Her angels were nowhere to be seen, so it appeared she wasn’t even on guard. As the ritual completed and Kouryu’s Sacred Ground was deployed, there was no hint of any change.
“Whatever. Could you go take a look for me?” Kouryu asked the humanoid machine at his side, the Hedgehog. It had used its self-repairing ability to restore its original form. In the past, it had acted almost at random, following some vague plan, but now it was functioning much better. At the very least, it seemed to recognize the deal it had struck with Kouryu.
With a faint nod, the Hedgehog disappeared. At the same time, the building below them exploded and the ground beneath it split apart. It had likely just charged straight into the building. Kouryu had never expected the first attack to go so well.
“Are you stronger than before somehow?”
The Hedgehog had been on the verge of losing to Vahanato. Seeing that, Kouryu hadn’t expected much from it, but it now looked like it would at least be able to give Malna a run for her money.
However, as Kouryu thought that, the battle had already concluded. The Hedgehog returned, Malna’s small body limp in its arms. Slash wounds covered her from head to toe, and a large hole had been torn open in her chest. Her divine core was clearly visible, and anyone would be able to tell that it had been destroyed. The Hedgehog had defeated her instantly.
“What a disappointment. Or are you still planning something?”
“You again?” Malna’s voice was weak, though that was to be expected with her on the verge of death. There was no resentment or hatred in her voice either. “Rilna is really gone. I thought she would be back if time got reversed...” The only thing to be seen in her expression was despair. There was no particular reason she had chosen to stay here. She just didn’t have the willpower to move.
And then she stopped moving altogether. The Hedgehog let her go, and her body dissipated into the void.
“That went well. Oh, don’t worry, I didn’t forget our deal,” Kouryu said, feeling the Hedgehog staring at him.
◇ ◇ ◇
With Malna’s death, all of the seals put in place by Malnarilna came undone. Naturally that included the Philosopher’s Stones, which began to retake their godly powers. The stones held within the bodies of other living things were unable to act on the bodies enclosing them, but those that had been extracted began to transform.
There were now eight such stones, all inside Tomochika Dannoura’s item box. The stones fused together into a lump of flesh and began to transform into the shape of a person. While it took the same form as the girl Yogiri had known as Luu, there was something distinctly different about her. The part containing her memories was included this time. In other words, she understood why she was in the state she was, in addition to her memories from before the reset. Her sense of self, which had been diluted by the passage of time, came back stark and clear.
Her first reaction after her memories returned was to scream. But although she tried to expel all the muddled darkness within her, no matter how much she screamed, those feelings didn’t change, the storm of emotions inside her continuing to rage. Anger, sorrow, loss, frustration, and shame flooded her as one, filling her to bursting. And among them all, one dark emotion shone stronger than all the others: jealousy.
She and the woman known as the UEG had been sealed away. That meant the other woman had his affection all to herself. She would have to die. She would erase her, bring her back to life, and then throw her right back into hell.
But she would need to get her powers back in full to do that, and then obtain more power besides. Though driven mad by rage and jealousy, she didn’t recklessly attack. The three goddesses had fought while at full strength, and Luu had lost. She would need more power if she was to be sure of winning.
First, she would need to regain the lost parts of her body. That said, she hesitated to tear the two stones out from the bodies of those nearby. They had been fused into the hearts of their hosts. If she did that, the girl and dog would die. That would make her daddy sad, and that would make her sad. That feeling hovered in the back of her mind.
So she decided to leave those two stones until last. At some point, as her memories integrated with her body, her faint feelings for Yogiri would begin to fade. She would stop caring about him being sad or whether he lived or died. She would have plenty of time after that happened.
With that thought in mind, she set off in search of the other parts of herself.
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