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Chapter 251: Chapter 251

The bishop opened her eyes in the same place again today.

"...."

"Have you come."

It was a dream in which, above the lake where the Moon Lady ought to be, the red evil god floated.

"I am glad to receive your visit."

"I do not know why you keep calling one as lowly as I am."

"Because you have seen me."

"My sin is great...."

You held in your eyes what you must not hold.

"I should not have had my gaze stolen away."

For a moment, she was bewitched by that splendor. To eyes grown accustomed to white, wings like blood must have been too vivid. Perhaps the blood flowing with elegance in gold from that shattered head was beautiful.

’If I had been a more perfect existence, would this not have happened?’

After first facing the evil god, the bishop reunited with him many times. It was the same even when she slept, and whenever she went to behold the Moon, she always met him. As a bishop, she could not disregard the rules of the order. It was truly an awkward matter.

The bishop threw the same question she had kept asking until now once again. Meaninglessly, like tossing a mere pebble into a great lake.

"What do you desire from me."

"I wish to see you in anger."

"...That will not be easy."

She was the one who had only despaired even when the saintess she had raised most dearly reached the end of mystique’s demise. She had lived half her life as the bishop of the Moon Lady Religion. She might break and collapse, but she had never learned how to raise her voice.

"It seems you require amusement?"

It was like an evil god.

"Do you wish for me to reach ruin? Do you wish the one who becomes bishop of the Moon Lady Religion to fall? If I forget my place and make a spectacle of myself, would that please your heart? Is that so?"

"It does not satisfy me."

"Has my soul already risen onto your hand?"

"What is in my hand is your Moon Lady."

"...."

The pure white thing held in his second hand caught her eye.

"...What does Teacher call me."

"He says nothing."

"I already knew I was that weak an existence."

"You are not disappointed."

"He does not know humans well...."

"Is that truly so."

Upon the surface of the lake, pale toes touched down.

"Why are you so afraid? Am I so frightening to you."

"I fear you will let me ruin everything."

"Ruin, yes. Ruin. We can speak from that, I think."

"You are urging me into conversation with an evil god."

"You are already conversing with me. You are looking at me, hearing me, and harboring questions about me. Now, look at me. Lift your head. Do not disappoint me."

"As a priest... I was disqualified long ago."

"Then what is sin? Let us talk, then—do you not wish to speak with me? I have waited for you like this, yet how indifferent you are...."

His voice gradually became more natural. To the oppressive voice that held only authority and interest, a mournfulness settled. The ornaments that had made no sound rattled and spat out noise.

"We could even become friends."

With a shattered head, golden blood, and three pairs of arms, the mystique imitated a person. It made nonverbal expressions and showed emotion with a face that was only half. An empty breath escaped her.

Even so, he was still an evil god.

"...How much must I be mocked by you? I must have looked so ridiculous to you, I who ruined everything because I could not shake off a single shred of affection. No, in the first place, I was so incapable I could not even ruin it—this wretched thing... this lowly thing... how could it ever become your amusement?"

Her voice flowed softly.

"I am a lowly human without even the ability for that. I achieved nothing, nothing.... Did you think that I, who only kept to a single seat, might make even a tolerable toy?"

"I thought you might be angry, but you are not."

A hand wearing gold bracelets lifted the bishop’s chin.

"Have you given up? Resigned yourself? Are you hesitating?"

"I have already done all of those."

"Beast, be angry. Burst. Rage."

A gentle voice came, as though handling a newborn beast.

"Only rage makes beast and human alike."

The bishop interpreted his meaning.

"...Are you saying that one who cannot rage holds value even less than a beast? Humans are animals of intellect, O god. How can you place the beast that cannot endure and rages on the same level as a human."

"Did being born human seem like such tremendous authority? It is not so. To my eyes, all are the same. Humans—yes, humans must harbor conviction and malice to be qualified as human."

"My conviction is not worth being human...."

"Who called that conviction? Who dared?"

A wicked soul whispered.

"No one may call it conviction." "You were shoved into that seat." "Did that look like your choice?" "To your eyes, it must have seemed there were no further choices." "Little beast that can only see the ground." "Little beast that knows only the sky as sky...."

It whispered again.

"Pitiful."

Her chin was released, but the bishop was still looking at the god.

"...Ha, haha...."

A laugh spilled out.

"...I know your wisdom...."

"Did you dream?" "A sweet dream?" "It must have pleased you."

"Yes, it was so sweet. I dreamed a sweet dream. If I, if I... how could I become a star beside the Moon... if I dreamed just a few more times, I feel like I might know...."

"You do not fall asleep easily."

"I felt hollow."

She still did not know what, exactly, had felt hollow.

"Since the saintess rose to the saintess’s seat, I have continued my research. That child is truly strong and beautiful, but... abandoned by her family, she is very lonely... she hates being cold, hungry, and alone. I brought that child from an alley in the winter slums...."

She kept the child by her side and agonized and researched without end. Even if it meant adding one more tradition that others called an evil custom, she wished to do it. Thinking perhaps it was rather a good thing. Calling it a noble act of forging yet another mystique.

"Why does it feel so empty? It feels as if the inside of me is wide open, and as if it is tightly blocked. I feel as though I am doing everything wrong, but I do not know what I am doing wrong, and I do not know whether my thoughts are right, and I do not know what I must fix."

"How is it so."

"...I do not know. I do not know the answer. Is it because what I agonized over so long was solved in an instant? Because I received help not from Teacher, but from an evil god? Because I grew afraid that it would not be as great a help as I had thought?"

It was like sinking into a swamp.

"I even felt wronged."

"How is that so as well."

"...."

"Because you love."

Poor thing.

"Because you only know how to love."

You do not know the method.

"How do you not know you are wrong? Not anything else—why did you not know you were wrong, and so committed so many sins. You carry a truly sweet and savory scent. If you are chewed and eaten like this, do you not think you could give me enjoyment? Why is sin that is pure and foolish so pitiable and lovely...."

"...Since I have already done everything that will make me look foolish, I will ask a foolish question. Do you eat people?"

"If I desire it, I do so."

The evil god whispered.

"Did what you saw look like justice? Did that pitiable sacrifice look like a noble sacrifice? You have two eyes, both perfectly fine, so why did you see it that way? You thought the floor was the floor and the ceiling was the ceiling. You did not even think to cross the wall."

"I did my best... as a bishop, as a priest of the Moon Lady Religion, what I... ought to... do...."

"When love fills an empty puppet, nothing is ever done properly." "If you had not loved, you might have held conviction at least." "If you had known how to love, you might have become human." "But you did not." "In the end, you could not even harbor malice."

"If there is no way for me to escape you, then at least tell me what I should do. Should I play along with your amusement? Shall I become a puppet and put on a play? If I become a beast and lie flat, will that please you?"

"Become human."

"...."

Even now, she did not know if that was possible.

"...I have grown old and ugly. The human you desire—I will not be able to become."

"You know neither how to love, nor how to rage, nor how to think, so you are no different from a newborn beast. Yet you can become human. Now, burst."

"What are you saying?"

"Burst."

The evil god laughed.

"What you love is in my arms."

"...Will you take that child away?"

"Fate is decided."

"Do not do that. That child... that child loves Earth. Cherishes her family. How can you take her without letting her achieve even a single thing she has wanted her whole life."

"Whether you become human or remain a beast will not affect it in the least."

"Give her back...!"

Even to herself, it was abrupt.

Had something been injected into her, or was it some kind of brainwashing? As if something were wrong with her head, her hands trembled and her breath swelled in her chest.

"She is the Moon Lady’s child! She is a child I have watched over, though I am insignificant—how can you take that precious soul away when she does not even know how to smile! She is a child who has sacrificed all her life...!!"

"Just so."

"...."

"You are doing well."

"...Ah."

"That is the emotion called ’rage.’"

Only belatedly did her head go blank, and she realized.

"...Did you carve rage into me, and speak falsehood?"

"Am I not an evil god?"

"...Truly, truly, what is it... that you desire from me... I really do not know...."

"That state of yours is funny and amusing, is it not."

A being like divinity would not do this simply for fun, just to toy with one person like me. There was no need to put in such effort. Even revealing that ominous, mysterious form—why?

"I hear your Moon Lady is truly bored."

"...Teacher would never say such a thing."

"Now, look. Is he not saying it?"

Placing the Moon Lady he held in his second hand to his face, the evil god imitated the Moon Lady like playing with a doll.

"I am so terribly bored, my disciple. Come enjoy with me."

Capricious like a child. A divinity that could lie. As he imitated the Moon Lady with an innocent voice, fear surged up. Their teacher was no more than a toy in the hands of that red evil god.

When he lowered the Moon slightly, she saw the lips of the half-faced visage curl.

"What are you hesitating over? Why do you blame yourself so? Listen, friend. The order you cultivated by offering yourself was rotten from the start. Even if you offer up one bedroom to an immature evil god now, nothing will change at all."

"...Are you saying our order would have rotted completely someday?"

"The world develops quickly. It is becoming better. Humans, not even knowing what they want, are repairing the precarious dimension even a little. When many things become abundant, can the Moon Lady Religion... truly refrain from forcing sacrifice?"

He recited a fearful future.

"You will stand on the guillotine not by choice, but by coercion."

And you will be offered up.

"Not as noble sacrifice, but as the sacrifice of living offerings." "Why? Because you know nothing else!" "Do you think your descendants will be able to ignore the precious tradition built upon noble sacrifice?" "Then who will stop you." "You will lock the door and hide alone in the shadows."

"...."

"Listen, my young friend."

He spoke with tenderness.

"How long did you believe you could call it noble?"

The bishop could not answer.

"...."

It would be a lie to say she had never thought such a thing, and yet.

And yet.

"...Then, why...."

Her breath caught.

"Then why, why did my family have to leave like that. In this, in this world... my family who died without even making their names known... those precious people who protected me and gave me strength—why did they have to go to the Moon Lady’s side, where it is cold and lonely...!"

Because she had learned, this time she raged by her own strength.

"Ah, I made it so. I did that. I could have stopped it, I could have protected them! I could have clung to them and begged them not to do it—if I had, they might not have become the Moon! But I did not. Because I was foolish. Because I have done only wrong. Because I am unqualified, incapable, imperfect... covered in nothing but flaws, a trash heap of nothing but stubbornness and incompetence...!!"

She was raging at herself.

"Was it only a dog’s death? Surely that cannot be. It must be true that they became part of Teacher. But I am afraid. They will remain as the greatest villains in history, who will force the sacrifice of descendants. My incompetence has ruined so much. If only I had been sharper. If only I had been more perfect!!"

It was unbearable.

"Why, ah. It should have been me who died, not them... I... this worthless thing should have died. They should have lived, and I should have become the Moon. If only I could have finished my research a little sooner, how good would that have been. Then... I, at least... the minimum... at least...."

"Little friend."

The evil god asked with a voice tinged with laughter.

"What do you want to do?"

"...I want to turn it back...."

"What?"

"Everything I missed and blundered and ruined."

"Shall I help you?"

"Please take this lowly hand. I will offer up everything."

"Your family as well?"

"If I was wrong in anything, then in the Moon Lady Religion the only one who was not wrong is the saintess. We sinned, and called it noble. Many things were wrong. It is a barrel filled with spoiled liquor, so please break it."

"I like that."

He promised the end.

"In you, the Moon’s evil custom will end."

Do you desire that?

* * *

"...."

Aram hugged her pillow tight and scrunched up her face.

"...?"

Where am I?

She was at an amusement park.

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