“Hm?”

The Witch of Repentance suddenly stopped moving and landed atop the pointed bell tower.

The sky was growing dim, swallowing the entire city into heavy shadow. In the distance, firelight illuminated half the heavens, leaving that darkness incomplete.

Now and then, a faint breeze swept by, carrying the smell of scorching and death.

Everything was utterly normal.

At least, from her point of view, this city being gnawed away by disaster was perfectly normal.

And yet...

“He vanished?”

The Witch of Repentance frowned slightly, her senses falling toward the distance.

It was a point seven blocks away—very far. For an ordinary person, even by carriage, it would take nearly two hours, a distance that almost cut across the entire western district of the royal capital.

But for her, that distance could be crossed in a single breath.

And yet over that mere breath of distance, Muen Campbell—her target—had simply disappeared from her perception.

“I see.”

The Witch of Repentance did not remain puzzled for long. She floated up, then descended again, turning to look at the bell tower.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The hands moved steadily across the evenly divided clock face.

The clock itself was perfectly normal.

But when the Witch of Repentance took out the pocket watch she carried with her and compared the two, she found... a difference of one second.

Just one second.

A brief, utterly inconspicuous second.

And yet... it was a second that belonged to a Crowned.

That one second had already been enough for Muen Campbell to break free of her lock and hide himself away.

No, not merely hide himself away.

The Witch of Repentance lightly touched her abdomen.

There, vivid red was slowly spreading, staining her pure white dress in a lurid color.

A clean wound had torn through the immensely powerful body of a Crowned, nearly cutting her in half at the waist.

“How impressive. How long has it been since someone below the level of a Crowned managed to injure me?” the Witch of Repentance murmured in admiration.

Five years?

Ten?

No. Ever since the moment she became a Crowned, she had never experienced such humiliation.

“No wonder you were personally named by the Holy Lord as a ‘special-seat’ spectator. Truly remarkable, Muen Campbell.”

The Witch of Repentance praised him as she turned gracefully once more. Yet neither the humiliation nor the wound stirred any anger in her. Her beautiful eyes remained calm, like a lake in autumn.

“Still, what a pity...”

She looked toward the distant, grand circular dome of Saint Blancfazesiya Cathedral, and a mocking smile suddenly curved her lips.

“No matter how desperately you struggle, how hard you try, or how many times you manage to make me stumble, it won’t change anything. Because... all of this was decided long ago.”

“Muen Campbell, all you’re doing is struggling in a pond with no way out.”

“You’ll understand soon enough.”

Flap.

A bird swooped down and landed on the Witch of Repentance’s shoulder.

She tilted her head and listened.

“You found the other one as well? Good... I’m on my way.”

...

...

“Cough... cough... damn old hag, that hurts...”

In a hidden corner somewhere, Muen forced himself to roll over and casually wiped away the drops of blood, preventing any trace of his aura from exposing his position.

His mind throbbed with pain. Muen felt as if his skull were about to split open, the veins at his temples pounding uncontrollably in time with the agony. The injuries on his body had long since recovered, yet blood still trickled from his nose and the corners of his eyes.

His magic had been completely drained dry, and his mind was in a state of utter overdraft. And all of that—the price Muen had paid so enormously dearly to achieve—had amounted to nothing more than using the power of time to freeze the Witch of Repentance for one second.

One second.

A short second.

To an ordinary person, it was a fleeting instant.

To Muen, it had felt like a century-long struggle.

He had used time stop on enemies before, but never had it been this difficult or this painful. In that instant just now, if not for the support of the black flame devouring the surrounding matter, he would have come within a hair’s breadth of being completely wrung dry.

He had failed to achieve that tragic result even when being besieged in bed before, yet the Witch of Repentance had nearly managed it all by herself.

“So this is what you get when you stack Crowned plus desperate old hag? Buffs maxed out. No number of kidneys can hold up under that...”

Muen bared his teeth in a bitter smile. After taking stock of himself, he deeply felt that the road toward becoming a real man was still long and arduous.

But fortunately... no matter how long and hard that road was, he could still keep walking it.

“I won the bet.”

Staring at the dim sky, Muen suddenly clenched his fist.

The power of time from the [Artificial Authority], the Eternal Clock, had indeed worked on a Crowned, and he had successfully withstood the immense consumption of that single second, temporarily winning this game of cat and mouse.

He had even managed to send her a little gift on the side.

Of course, Muen also knew full well that the gift could not really do much to the Witch of Repentance. The gap between him and a Crowned was not something a single second could erase.

But making her bleed was the first step toward accomplishing a miracle, wasn’t it?

No matter how powerful the enemy.

As long as they showed a health bar.

They weren’t invincible.

“Just wait. One day, the one running around the world in a miserable panic will be you, old hag.”

Muen took a deep breath.

After recovering just enough strength and confirming he could move again, he pushed himself to his feet against the wall.

The amount of time he could stay in the [real royal capital] was very short, and he had no idea when he might suddenly cross back again, so he had to use this chance to gather more information.

Muen looked around.

White stone pillars were carved with the miracles the Goddess had spread while walking among mortals. Lush greenery was dotted with beautiful flowers of every color, untouched by the chill of deep autumn.

The scorched smell he had sensed earlier was gone. In its place was a warm and holy atmosphere.

There was also a faint fragrance in the air, seemingly incense used for some kind of prayer rite.

Everything was tranquil and beautiful. It was as though the disaster overtaking the city did not exist at all, as though he had suddenly stepped into another world again.

“So this must be the second piece of good news for now...”

Muen looked up. Under the magnificent ring of who knew how many gorgeous stone pillars, that grand dome was larger and more imposing in his sight than ever before.

Saint Blancfazesiya Cathedral.

Since he had just come out of Kore Church and been pulled into the same location within the [real royal capital], he did not have to agonize over a few hundred yards the way he had last time.

At this very moment, this sacred creation—one of the Church’s foundations in the mortal world—stood right before him.

“Let’s hope I can find something here that’s enough to break this deadlock.”

Without any hesitation, Muen concealed himself and moved deeper into the cathedral.

The cathedral’s main gate—that door known as the Gate of the Devout, through which countless believers entered daily to pray—was now completely shut. Muen could feel immense Holy Light on it, some kind of seal, extremely powerful.

“So just like it looked from the outside, there’s no sign this place was ever attacked. Is that because the Salvation Society hasn’t had time to strike here yet, or is there some other reason?”

Muen’s eyes flickered as he stared at the mighty Holy Light seal, strong enough that it probably could have held back even a Crowned.

He looked around again. Other than that seal, there seemed to be no other powerful person guarding this most important gate.

“A cathedral like this can’t possibly be so short on manpower that it can’t even spare someone to watch the door...”

That only made it stranger.

Muen did not waste too much time on it. After confirming that both the seal on the door and the Holy Light here were absolutely genuine, not some strange power masquerading as the real thing, he continued deeper along the side paths.

The side paths were secluded and silent. They were the roads the clergy normally used to come and go, yet after walking for some time, Muen had not seen a single soul.

“This is getting ridiculous. Is this cathedral actually empty?”

Muen refused to believe it and pulled a map from inside his coat.

After all, the cathedral was the second-largest building complex in the city, second only to the royal palace called Saint Haze. Without guidance, it would have been easy to get lost inside.

But as the most loyal divine knight of the current Saintess, and the Goddess’s most devoutly flexible believer, obtaining a detailed map of the cathedral—one that counted as confidential—was only natural, wasn’t it?

Following the places marked on the map, Muen searched through the cathedral one area at a time.

Reception hall. No one.

Discussion chamber. No one.

Monastery. No one.

Morning Prayer Hall. No one.

Hall of Sacred Hymns. No one.

Nuns’ dormitory... still no one.

Muen spent a long time circling through more than half the place at top speed. He had even searched locations like the dormitories and the dining hall, but he still had not found a single person from the Church.

This peaceful cathedral really did seem to have become an empty haunted realm.

“No.”

Muen stared at the map.

“There’s still one hidden place in the cathedral’s core area.”

The Place of Holy Burial.

It was the last unexplored area marked on the map. Though he did not know its function, judging from the name alone, it had to be important.

The Place of Holy Burial was not above ground. It was underground.

Even with the map to guide him, it still took Muen some effort before he finally found the entrance behind an enormous statue of the Goddess.

That entrance was controlled by an extremely well-concealed mechanism. If one were not an important insider within the Church—or someone like Muen, who possessed the most detailed possible map—then even if an outsider flattened the entire cathedral to the ground, they probably still would not discover it.

“Let’s hope this place isn’t empty too.”

Muen slipped inside.

The passage was narrow at first, but it quickly opened into an enormous space. A vast underground area spread out before him in tier upon tier of broad horizontal steps.

Many small white flowers bloomed beneath his feet.

Beautiful.

But before Muen had time to observe the place more carefully, his path was blocked.

“This is...”

Feeling an aura extremely similar to the seal on the main gate from before, though somewhat weaker, Muen’s eyes lit up.

“A Holy Light barrier!”

And if such a hidden place still had a Holy Light barrier, that meant...

“Looks like I came to the right place.”

The Holy Light barrier formed a solid wall. Any existence not granted permission could not pass through it, and forcing one’s way in—setting aside whether it would even succeed—would inevitably alert the barrier’s owner.

But none of that posed much of an obstacle to Muen.

“As the most loyal divine knight of the current Saintess, and the Goddess’s most devoutly flexible believer, having a universal key that lets me go anywhere in the cathedral isn’t too much to ask, right?”

The corner of Muen’s mouth crooked upward. He reached into his coat and pulled out that familiar statue of the Goddess.

The blessing bestowed by the Saintess was still giving off a holy soft glow, which meant the statue possessed a level of authority higher than that of the overwhelming majority of people in the Church.

That was also why Muen enjoyed an innate advantage over most of the Church’s clergy.

After all, he had a “little inside traitor” from within the Church standing behind him.

“Come on then. Open sesame.”

Confidently, Muen pressed the statue of the Goddess against the barrier.

And then, along with a deep rumble, the barrier—

“Huh?”

The crooked smile at the corner of Muen’s lips froze.

Because the barrier did not open.

On the contrary, after that deep rumble, the immense Holy Light making up the barrier surged and violently knocked away both the statue of the Goddess and Muen’s hand.

He...

had been rejected.