{A patient is dying right in front of me—how could I just let that pass?}

At those words, I had no choice but to go speechless.

‘After you killed my retainers like that?’

This thing hadn’t shown a shred of hesitation in killing my retainers.

It got furious at me for lying.

And in the end, it ended up in a situation where it had no choice but to die because of me.

To it, I must be no different from a sworn enemy.

But.

Even so.

‘It healed me because it couldn’t just ignore someone dying right in front of it.’

Yeah.

That—exactly that—was the part.

Its soul was purer than any existence I’d ever seen.

It was rational enough, ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) and logical enough.

That was why I thought I could predict how it would act.

But for some reason, every once in a while, it acted like it was missing just one piece.

And because of that, my read on it was wrong.

‘This...’

And.

By my common sense—

‘It doesn’t make sense.’ 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

For a lifeform that’s this rational and normal to be missing just one part......

Common sense says that’s impossible.

‘Ah, I see.’

Only then did I understand.

The red light still shining inside my body even now.

“You.”

Why that ownerless power had tried to show me its regret.

I felt like I finally knew why.

“There’s something you didn’t tell me.”

{Something I didn’t tell you......? I answered everything you asked, Legion Commander.}

“That’s what I mean.”

I walked up to it.

And.

“There’s something you didn’t tell me because I didn’t ask.”

“......!?”

CRUNCH.

I jammed my fingers into its body.

“GURK......!?”

A body that was already half broken.

When I seized it hard and crushed—

the dried skin peeled away, and the body twisted out of shape.

“AAAGH...!”

A thing that looked like a little kid at a glance, screaming with pain.

Like it didn’t even have the leeway to speak into my mind, it spat out unknown, alien sounds out loud and writhed in agony.

KRRRRT.

But whatever.

I didn’t care at all.

CRUNCH.

And as its body was torn open—

FWOOM...!

the mana that had been leaking out of that collapsing body started pouring out even more explosively.

[Thick regret mixed into the mana seeps into your mind!]

That thick thought—

flowed into my head.

***

A sudden disaster swept over the world.

Buildings collapsed because of it, and the sky turned dull and overcast.

“P-Priest....”

And.

Those who survived despite being caught up in that disaster moved toward the one place they could rely on in a crisis—

the temple.

“What is the meaning of this?!”

When ‘I’ stepped out of the temple, a huge crowd had already gathered outside.

“I-it hurts....”

“......It hurts?”

“It hurts... so much.”

They were pleading through extreme pain.

Residents who were injured and sick all over.

“What is this, all of a sudden...?”

No, to be precise—

it wasn’t only them.

SHHK.

‘What is this pain, in the world...?!’

The moment ‘I’ stepped outside the temple, ‘my’ body started rotting from the very ends, too.

“Guh, ugh....”

“It hurts, it hurts....”

“Save me....”

Not once in their lives had they felt real pain.

No—pain itself.

They groaned and cried at the sudden agony.

“......For now, this way!”

Even though ‘I’ too was feeling the pain of sickness,

‘I’ forced it down and called people into the temple.

“What do you think, priests?”

It wasn’t something done thoughtlessly.

“This is, as expected.”

“It seems to be infection caused by germs.”

Inside the temple were priests who served Serajin.

Separate from the fact that their world had no need for healing arts, they were priests of a god whose divine name was “healing and recovery.”

“Fortunately, it seems we’ll be able to restore them to some degree with our power.”

“Even if we treat the illness right now, they’ll be infected with another disease again in no time because of the germs. We’ll transfer the patients to the sanctuary within each temple. The sanctuary is a perfectly sterile space. If they receive treatment there, it’ll work.”

As part of serving their god, they trained medicine.

Even if there had never been a need to actually use it, their knowledge and skill were excellent enough to make the lack of field experience irrelevant.

Because they responded quickly, they were at least able to prevent the situation from worsening.

But.

“Stopping it from worsening is the limit.”

Even though they’d managed to contain things somehow, the priests’ expressions weren’t bright at all.

“Even if we isolate patients in a place with no further sources of infection, there’s only about one temple per village. And in small villages, there often isn’t even one at all... so there’s a limit to how many we can isolate.”

“Even if we succeed in treating the patients’ illness, there’s also the food problem. Illness can be treated, but starvation can’t be solved.”

“......In the end, someone has to go outside and do production work.”

“The moment you go outside, you’ll get infected. Dying of disease because you don’t want to starve to death? That makes no sense.”

They had managed to slow the worsening, but only that far.

Now, the residents of the entire world were sick and suffering.

Solving all the problems created by that was never going to be easy.

“......Even if priests can self-treat to some degree after infection, if we at least farm—”

“To some degree, perhaps. But we also can’t wander outside for long. To begin with, the number of priests trained enough to heal themselves is small. We can’t produce enough food with only us.”

The priests squeezed their brains dry, but no clear answer came out.

“......Archbishop.”

Then.

The priests’ gaze turned toward the figure seated at the head of the clergy council.

“Do you know anything about this situation?”

The one sitting there looked, at a glance, like a child, no different from the others.

“Child, aren’t you asking while already knowing the answer?”

But.

The words coming out of that mouth carried the weight of long years.

“Archbishop... then that means, as expected...”

“It means the god’s protection is no longer descending upon us.”

It looked like a child, the same as everyone else.

And yet, it spoke in a strangely old-fashioned, elderly tone.

“Was it about thirty thousand years ago...? Something similar happened once.”

“Thirty thousand years ago...? That’s before most of us were even born.”

“When the people grew arrogant and questioned that one’s necessity, that one once delivered punishment. Back then, too, so many died. Before that, there were far more elders who lived tens of times longer than I do now....”

“But we did not doubt that one. There aren’t even any criminals among us.”

“How could we know that one’s will? It’s simply that the situation is what it is.”

The situation was the worst.

They’d stopped the death toll from rising immediately, but even that wouldn’t last long.

“If you truly wish to know that one’s will....”

So.

There was only one way to solve this.

“Would it not be to ask that one directly?”

The god’s grace that had vanished from them.

Recovering that grace.

The old man stood first, and the priests followed.

***

Leaving behind only the minimum number needed to care for the patients, the priests headed toward the land where their god had dwelled.

That procession included ‘the doctor.’

But.

THUD....

The procession was long, and the outside world was filled with all kinds of germs.

No matter how excellent their healing arts were, pressing on while constantly treating sickness was not an easy thing.

Quite a lot of priests—

especially those who were old, or lacking in training as priests—

fell first.

And....

“I think... I’ve reached my limit.”

“Archbishop...!”

“It can’t be helped. It’s only natural that an old man who’s lived long is weaker to illness....”

Even the archbishop—the oldest of them all—

was no exception.

Still, because the archbishop’s training as a priest had been deep, it would be fair to say the archbishop held out a long time.

And.

“—Child.”

“Yes, Archbishop.”

The archbishop, collapsing and no longer able to take another step, looked at ‘me’ and spoke.

“I still do not know why that one grew wrathful toward us. I held this position simply because I’d lived a bit longer... yet in the end, I was nothing more than a foolish servant, unable to understand even a single piece of that one’s heart.”

“No. Not a single person will doubt the archbishop’s faith.”

“But... even someone like me knows one thing.”

An old man’s powerless hand touched ‘my’ face.

“As you know, that one cherished you especially. In our world where few children are born, a pure soul, rare even across the entire universe, was born... and that one spared no praise, saying it was no different from a miracle.”

“.......”

“Child. I may be done here, but you are still young, and your discipline is outstanding, so you can go farther.”

As if it had lost even the strength to stroke that face, the hand dropped with a limp thud.

“If you, the one that one cherished most, approach that one and beg... it may be that one will forgive us.”

“.......”

“So... I’m counting on you. You, of all people... are our only hope to save us.”

Like that.

Even the archbishop who had been respected by countless priests died from illness.

“......Yes. Absolutely.”

‘My’ journey continued as ‘I’ repeated the archbishop’s words to myself.

The land where the god had dwelled was the epicenter where that sudden disaster had occurred.

The ground had become so rough it was hard to even walk properly, and even the slightest misstep was a fatal injury to them.

The aftershock of the disaster still lingered, dust drifted through the air, and the germs mixed in that dust invaded their bodies without any resistance.

THUD....

DRIP.

So many of them couldn’t endure that harsh journey and collapsed.

“Brother... I won’t be able to make it to the end, but please, at least you....”

Some realized they would never reach the destination, and they squeezed out the little mana they had left and passed it to ‘me.’

Even knowing that faster death would come as the price, they never hesitated.

‘Death....’

And.

Watching that, ‘I’ thought.

‘The end of life.’

It wasn’t something ‘I’ had ever thought deeply about before.

They had been promised eternal life.

If they weren’t the ones who broke that promise first, then they truly could have enjoyed an eternal life.

‘Unreasonable.’

But.

As ‘I’ witnessed countless deaths right in front of ‘my’ eyes, ‘I’ came to realize the sight of dead life was... uglier and more horrific than ‘I’ had expected.

‘I’ thought.

‘Why does life have an end?’

No one is born by their own will.

If the beginning is like that, then at least the right to choose the end should be given.

And their god had promised them that right.

But now.

‘Why was that promise broken?’

For the first time in ‘my’ life, ‘I’ continued the journey feeling a faint anger.

And finally.

“Ah, O God....”

They arrived at the exact place where the old towering temple had once stood.

And what they witnessed was—

“What in the world is that...?!”

A chunk of flesh, crawling and writhing along the ground.

***

‘What in the world is that...’

A chunk of flesh crawling on the floor.

Whether it was good luck or bad luck, it wasn’t hard to recognize what it used to be.

-Healing....

A face attached to one side of that crawling mass of flesh.

That face was the face they remembered.

‘As if... someone chewed it for a long time, then spat it out....’

That chunk of flesh was unquestionably the god they served.

But.

They couldn’t understand how it had become like that.

And.

“H-haha... it’s the end.”

The priests who saw it—

they were people with deep discipline and faith, enough to endure that grueling journey to the end, and yet—

“Our god didn’t abandon us.”

“.......”

“Our god became something that can’t even take care of us.”

In their eyes, deep despair settled in.

A god that had become that, for reasons unknown.

It didn’t seem like it would be able to bestow grace again.

Going back like this wouldn’t change anything, either.

Without grace, they were lifeforms far too weak.

Even if they somehow clung to life through the priests’ healing arts, they wouldn’t last a year.

‘Death....’

A moment no different from a death sentence being handed down to everyone.

And then.

“That... I don’t like that.”

‘I’ stepped forward, pushing past the priests drowning in despair.

“O God!”

On the way here, so many had entrusted their last hope to ‘me.’

“That one promised us eternal life!”

That ‘I’ could save the life in this land.

The expectations of countless people rested on ‘my’ shoulders.

“Why did you abandon us?!”

Then.

‘I’ couldn’t retreat here.

“What must we offer for you to forgive us?!”

Even knowing it was close to impossible, ‘I’ shouted toward the god of ‘my’ faith, which had become nothing but a chunk of flesh.

And then—

-...Life....

That chunk of flesh answered.

“......Yes?”

Not only ‘I,’ but many priests who had survived to reach this land heard that voice.

-Life and... living....

Their god, speaking the words of what it demanded from them.