“Come on, Father. I get lying to the ordinary people in the royal capital with that kind of thing, but why are even people inside your Church unable to tell right from wrong?”

Now that he understood the reason, Muen spread his hands, thoroughly speechless.

“What do you mean, unable to tell right from wrong?”

The leading priest remained as stubborn as ever. “I saw your evil with my own eyes!”

“Yes, I admit I may be a little too broad-minded when it comes to relationships, but I really do love them sincerely. And I’m definitely not as outrageous as the rumors make me sound. What do you mean, juggling more than a dozen women? At most it was only a few... forget it. I can already tell this isn’t going anywhere, so let’s drop that for now.”

When Muen saw that neither the priest nor the clergy beside him softened in the slightest, he knew there was no way a few words were going to clear this up.

Cognition was like a person’s taste in kinks. Once it set, it was basically impossible to change. For example, even after appreciating so many beautiful legs, Muen still had a special weakness for black stockings.

“I’m short on time right now. I don’t know when I’ll be sent back, so I’ll skip the pointless talk.”

Muen stared into the priest’s eyes, as if seriously searching for something there.

“Can you let me in first, and then give me as much information as possible about the current situation? I urgently need your intelligence. The safety of all Saint Blancfazesiya may depend on it.”

“No!”

The leading priest blanched, growing even more furious... and even more terrified. “Absolutely not! We will never let you in, and we certainly will not provide a sinner like you with even the slightest scrap of information!” 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

“So that’s a no?”

“Sinner! Absolutely not!”

“...You keep saying sinner, sinner, sinner. It’s getting on my nerves.”

Muen scratched his head and sighed. “Being forced to take the blame for things you never actually did is about as irritating as it gets, isn’t it?”

“You are a sinner to begin with. What blame is there to take?”

“Really? Fair enough. If I were guilty, saying that would just make me shameless. But whether I did certain things or not, I know better than anyone. What’s strange is you. The more adamant you are, the stranger this feels to me. Because even if all that were true—even if I really were some vicious, shameless, kingdom-despised demonic sex fiend of the worst sort—the Church, from its own standpoint, shouldn’t be this hostile to me.”

“You—”

“So if the point of what you’re saying isn’t that I’m ‘guilty,’ but that I must not ‘go in,’ then can I draw a conclusion from that... namely, that for some reason, you’re deliberately trying to divert my attention or stall for time?”

Muen cut him off directly. Then his gaze shifted away from the priest’s increasingly furious and alarmed face... and toward the golden barrier of Holy Light behind him.

“What exactly is in there? Mind showing me?”

The city’s abnormality, the cathedral’s abnormality—everything seemed to converge here. Muen’s instincts were telling him that behind this golden curtain, something immensely important was hidden.

The truth.

“Don’t even think about it!”

The priest practically roared, every trace of clerical bearing gone. “I will never let you in! Never!”

“I was only asking. Is there any need to get this angry?”

Muen shook his head helplessly, bent slightly at the waist, and reached one hand behind him.

There was not empty space there.

He touched something soft.

The nun who had crept close in hiding appeared at once when Muen’s hand pressed against her lower abdomen. ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) Her face went white.

“You really aren’t very professional. Even your ambush is this childish.”

Muen struck lightly with his palm. A thunderous boom burst out in his hand. The nun had not been particularly powerful—she had only intended to use some kind of concealment item to sneak in close—so after a muffled groan, she blacked out on the spot.

At that sight, the other clergy instantly tensed. The leading priest and another senior nun did not hesitate in the slightest. Driving dazzling Holy Light before them, they lunged sharply at Muen.

“What a... pain.”

Muen did not waste words. He answered with a full-force slash.

Boom!

Radiant blade-light and holy brilliance slammed into one another and twisted together. The terrible impact gathered into a gale that ripped the ground apart inch by inch.

A harsh, violent hum echoed through the entire space. Many of the younger clergy were injured by the aftermath before they could even join the fight. Muen had done that on purpose. Better to spend more of the little stamina he had left than get pinned down and entangled here.

But the battle did not end so easily.

These clergy lacked real combat experience when it came to dealing with enemies, but they had clearly undergone strict Church training. Their mental discipline and combat ability were both excellent.

After their brief fear passed, the younger clergy quickly recalled their usual training and the grace they had received from the Goddess. They began healing themselves with Holy Light, and rather than stupidly throwing themselves into close combat again, they stayed back and offered support with Holy Light spells from a distance.

As for the few powerful high-ranking clergy who could actually threaten Muen, under the stacking buffs they grew much stronger. Their attacks opened wide and heavy, and they fought with no fear of injury.

The Goddess statue in Muen’s hand could only suppress the lethality of Holy Light when directed at him. It could not stop these people from receiving blessings meant for their allies.

And these people clearly already knew what the statue could do. They only infused Holy Light into their weapons, and only as support. Most of their attacks relied on their own strength.

So even though their coordination was still poor, they still forced Muen steadily backward. For a moment, he could not help thinking of Ariel in full shameless cheat-mode.

“I really don’t have the capital to fight a cheater to the death right now.”

Feeling his room to survive narrowing by the second, Muen sighed again.

The injuries he had suffered escaping the Witch of Repentance at full speed were still sending stabs of pain through his nerves. His magic power, battle aura, and mental strength were all on the verge of being completely drained. He knew that if this kept dragging on, it would not be much different from suicide.

But he had already come this far...

“Giving up isn’t my style!”

A savage glint surged into his eyes. Muen suddenly stopped dodging and took one attack head-on with his own body.

Blood burst into the air. While the leading priest was still reeling in shock at what looked like Muen’s suicidal choice, he suddenly realized Muen was not seeking death at all. He had traded blood for a brief opening to move.

“Not good—”

The priest’s vision blurred. Muen flashed forward, seizing the chance and charging without hesitation toward the weakest nun among them. Moonlike blade-light bloomed in his hand, unleashing once again the dazzling brilliance of a full-power strike.

That light completely swallowed Muen’s body. Just the few sharp strands of killing radiance leaking from it were enough to make the nun facing him tremble all over, nearly losing control of her bladder.

“Stop him!”

The leading priest’s eyes split wide. Of course he could not allow the enemy to slaughter a companion right in front of him. While ordering the others to support and intercept, he and those beside him charged Muen recklessly, Holy Light surging through their weapons. With a ferocity that seemed nothing like that of clergy, they hacked straight at Muen’s back.

Muen was checked by the interference. His movement slowed by a fraction, and he no longer had the strength to turn and defend. It looked as though he was about to be cut in half on the spot.

But then—

The priest’s eyes opened to their widest point, and then his pupils abruptly shrank, because his weapon passed straight through the enemy before him.

“Sorry about that.”

Muen appeared on the other side, smiling as he waved to the priest.

“I honestly don’t have time to play games with you, so forgive me for using a slightly underhanded trick.”

“No!”

The priest roared, but it was already too late.

Black flames flickered and, in an instant, ate a gap into the barrier before Muen. The thing had been able to stop him temporarily, yes, but that obviously did not include black fire that burned everything.

And so, under the priest’s furious and terrified gaze, Muen stepped forward and crossed...

into the barrier.

...

Flowers.

Muen saw flowers everywhere.

White flowers.

Countless tiny white flowers carpeted the ground so densely that they filled his entire field of vision.

For one dazed instant, Muen thought he had returned to the flower sea at the academy.

But he quickly realized this could never be that sea of flowers, because the old loli would never plant flowers like these—flowers so frail, so lowly, so sorrowful.

Each one was small. So small it looked as though a gust of wind could scatter them away.

And at the very center of the flowers stood a stone platform.

The platform was black, but it was being stained red.

Because someone lay on it.

An old man.

A gravely wounded old man.

He wore pure white robes and lay flat on his back, his face obscured from view. But on one of his fingers, Muen could clearly see a ruby ring engraved with a cross of Holy Light.

An Archbishop’s authority ring...!

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry... but I had no choice...”

Someone was crying.

Wailing.

Repenting.

The old man was not alone on the stone platform. Above him, kneeling over him, was a nun.

She was thin, young, and sobbing without end. She looked fragile and miserable.

But in her hands she held...

a black dagger.

No special aura came from the dagger, and yet it seemed to have received some terrible blessing. All light bent away from that black blade of its own accord.

Including the old man’s Holy Light, whose purity was no less than Liya’s.

“No...”

Muen realized what was happening.

He shot toward the black stone platform at top speed, even forcing himself to activate his alchemical core again under crushing strain.

But he was too late.

With a slight sound—small, but unbearable to hear—the dagger sank into the defenseless old man’s body.

The blood on the black platform suddenly froze still.

The countless little white flowers withered in an instant.

Silence swallowed everything.

It was as if the whole space had transformed in a single moment from a holy land overflowing with life into a dead zone where no living thing could exist.

Only Muen’s low, furious roar remained.

“Damn it!”

Muen swung his blade at the nun.

A final desperate attempt.

But...

He cut through empty air.

The blade-light flashed past, yet severed nothing.

Everything dissolved like a phantom, rapidly fading before his eyes.

Muen felt a violent sensation of weightlessness, as if he were being dragged from one place into another.

Then a new reality condensed around him.

Muen lowered his head and looked at the empty black stone platform. Then he looked at the ground, where no little white flowers bloomed at all. Finally, he turned around—

Nothing was there.

No pursuing clergy.

No golden barrier of Holy Light.

Nothing at all.

He was back.

Back in the false one.