Chapter 17
The rain grew heavier.
Drops hammered the lake in rapid, pattering bursts.
In the battle's aftermath, the Church of Light's team looked battered. The knights' armor was streaked with mud and shredded grass. The Clerics' vestments were no cleaner.
No one cared.
Every eye was on Harkian, who knelt on the ground, clutching his head and groaning.
"Heh..."
A low sound escaped his throat. His eyes were bloodshot, and every so often a savage smile twisted across his mouth.
"Harkian, you are a believer of the Light," Holmes said, crouching beside him and gripping his hand, his voice grave. "You can suppress the devil in your heart. The Light is everywhere. If there is Light in your heart, you will carry Light even into Hell."
The transcendent realm answered to the mind as much as the body.
Harkian had been possessed by an energy lifeform from Hell. What it corrupted was his spirit.
Back on Earth, this would have been treated as mental illness—something close to a split personality.
But Harkian was a Prime Knight, and his faith in the Light God was sincere.
That gave him a chance to suppress the other "self."
"Harkian."
Elise wanted to speak, but no words of comfort came.
That blood-red light had been streaking toward her.
Harkian had thrown himself into its path.
He had kept a knight's promise.
"Sylvia..."
"Sylvia..."
"I wasn't... in time..."
At the sound of Elise's voice, Harkian's eyes reddened further—but he had already forced down the filth surging inside him.
"I know," Elise said, her heart tightening. "You're not that kind of person."
When Sylvia took her final mission, Harkian had been one of her teammates.
And Harkian had only brought Sylvia along because he'd had no one else to team with.
In the end, Sylvia died.
For someone as proud as Harkian, that meant he had failed Sylvia's family and friends.
Elise was Sylvia's friend.
Her name had even appeared in Sylvia's farewell letter.
So Harkian's sacrifice carried both atonement and proof.
"I envied you..."
"Jealous..."
"God has always watched you. I... protected..."
His expression kept shifting. His mind was clearly unstable.
"Elise, we're moving on to Whitemere Town," Holmes said.
Once he saw Harkian's life was out of danger, he gave the order without hesitation.
"As you command."
Elise felt the Spirit Potion she'd drunk reach full effect. She gave Harkian one long look, then rose and followed Grand Knight Holmes toward Whitemere Town.
The knights and Clerics—including the one carrying Harkian on his back—all made way so Elise could walk at Holmes's side.
After that battle, everyone understood: Elise was a prodigy Cleric capable of tipping a Second-tier fight.
Naturally, they showed her respect.
In truth, in their hearts, Harkian throwing himself in front of Elise was an act even God would praise.
Because Elise was worth saving.
That sincere recognition struck deep.
She was a transmigrator. Even after months in this world, she still thought of herself as someone from Earth.
But these people of the Church of Light had broken through the walls around her heart.
For the first time, Elise genuinely wanted to belong to this world.
Since Earth was lost to her anyway, maybe it wasn't so bad to make the Church of Light her home.
Even when we don't see eye to eye, the Church's people really are kind of lovable.
Sylvia, proud and sharp-tongued.
Harkian, arrogant but dependable.
Their faces drifted through Elise's mind, and a quiet warmth rose in her chest.
She followed her teacher and Grand Knight Holmes into Whitemere Town.
The town had clearly weathered a brutal battle.
The moment they passed the gate, Elise saw collapsed houses lining both sides of the main road. The smell of blood hung thick in the air.
At the Church, several clergy lay before the altar with their eyes closed.
Cunard, the knight of the baronial House Whitemere, stood before the statue of the Light God, head bowed in prayer.
At the sound of footsteps, he turned and bowed.
"Grand Knight Holmes. High Cleric Helena. May the Light God watch over you."
"Our god is always watching over us," Holmes said with a heavy nod. "Cunard, the letters."
"These arrived from Megalith City."
Cunard produced a stack of letters at once.
Flutter, flutter.
Just as Holmes took them, another messenger bird landed outside the Church window, wings beating against the rain.
Holmes raised a hand and guided it down with a thread of light-attribute mana. The bird settled on his arm, and he untied the letter from its leg.
He opened the first letter, scanned it quickly, and passed it to Helena.
Then the second.
The third.
Elise was third to read them.
The moment she finished the first letter, she felt a storm bearing down on the entire region.
The Megalith diocese had been in a bind for a while now. With so many Awakened flooding into the area, the Church's teams could no longer hold every town.
Faced with the choice—pull back to Megalith City and protect only the city itself, or strike outward first—the Church Awakened under Almus had chosen the second.
By dispatching two Second-tier Awakened and eleven Prime First-tier Awakened as bait, the Church had openly announced to everyone hiding in the shadows:
We have only three Third-tier Awakened, sixteen Second-tier Awakened, and fewer than two hundred First-tier Awakened left.
And among them, Prime Second-tier Awakened were scarce.
An opportunity like that was impossible for evil Awakened to pass up—especially those who needed bloodshed and slaughter to attempt advancement.
So they had struck almost at once.
These people shared an unspoken understanding.
Each was gambling that the place they hit wouldn't be one of the spots receiving the Church's full attention.
And the Church truly couldn't protect everywhere.
In a purge of cultists, some places would be cleared quickly. Others would have to wait.
Having purified the clawbill devil, Elise's team was now the most mobile force available.
They had to choose the order of their next targets.
"Helena, you and Elise will take Ignis Town," Grand Knight Holmes said at once.
"As you command," Helena replied.
Her heart tightened slightly.
The meaningful look in Holmes's eyes told her he had seen straight through Almus's arrangement.
But that was fine.
Elise's safety was reasonably assured. Sending her to a frontier town like Ignis was acceptable.
Elise, however, was stunned.
Me?
Ignis Town?
That place was the protruding edge of Megalith's territory, jutting out toward the Pyreflame Woods.
A frontier town among frontier towns.
Not only would it be hard to reinforce anywhere else after finishing a mission there—the town was also likely to be harboring a powerful enemy.
She was only a Prime Cleric.
Even with Helena, a Senior High Cleric, could the two of them really handle it?
"Elise, with me," Helena said without hesitation.
She led Elise straight for the Church doors.
Minutes later, they were mounted and galloping toward Ignis Town.
And while Elise wrestled with her doubts, the situation in Ignis had already turned dire.