Sassel continued his examination of the Hounds who had died at the butcher's hands. In the damp expanse of darkness, the monster's torch provided a sliver of light. It fell upon a face bloated from gas, its stiff eyes, like those of a rotten fish, staring back at him. The damp stench crawled over the lumps on the corpse like grayish-green maggots.
The man hadn't been dead for long, yet his body already carried the smell and appearance of a corpse left to rot for ages.
"Hod has been missing for a long time, ever since it was stripped of its divine authority. The undying Tiamas have scoured the entire continent and found no trace of it," Jeanne said, her gaze fixed on the direction in which the beetles had vanished. There was only damp darkness there, and the entrance to a corridor that seemed to plunge into an abyss. She pulled her gaze back, her voice low. "Now—I can at least confirm that Claudius has made contact with it. If I can get this intelligence to the First Throne through the Church, her country will be turned upside down by at least ten thousand undying, un-sleeping, un-eating Tiamas—the kind that can reassemble themselves even after being turned to ash."
It's rare for her not to gloat. How peculiar.
"Hod has indeed been gone a long time." Although he was intrigued by the Burner's thought process, Sassel had no intention of digging deeper right now. When you didn't know someone well, an inappropriate question could be taken as a provocation. He changed the subject. "A long time ago," he said, "people used the phrase 'the Breath of Hod' to pray, to face death, and to curse their unlucky fate. Back then, we believed that after all life ceased, the souls of the dead would pass through the Gate of Hod. How nostalgic."
"Nostalgic?" Jeanne objected, her tone blunt and laced with undisguised sarcasm. "There's nothing to be nostalgic about. The only thing it ever did was skewer the souls of the dead on roasting spits and burn them. Its priests treated flies and maggots like lovely little sprites. They'd coat themselves in the blood of the tortured—using their entire bodies to domesticate those disgusting little things—and had the nerve to call it piety!" As she spoke, she tested her newly healed arm. It looked perfectly fine, as if it had never been injured. But her incessant complaining hadn't stopped. "It's absolutely foul. Besides your dark gods, I've never heard of anything more disgusting than that thing."
"One should maintain a certain respect for the immortals, you follower of Aethelred."
Sassel half-raised his dark eyes from beneath his black hair and continued to study the corpse at hand. Most of the Hounds who fought the butcher had died horribly. That thing in the sackcloth was covered in ancient and deadly spells—spells older than humanity itself.
"The king of the family of the dead has not fallen. He was merely kicked to the ground by your Lord."
His voice was soft as he delivered these warnings, his tone carrying a strange melody.
"What a shame it didn't fall completely."
A gloating light shot from beneath her golden hair, and her moist lips curved into a beautiful arc. When Sassel turned to look, his gaze lingered for a moment longer than intended.
What a waste, putting a face like that on a Burner's head.
For certain reasons, he didn't say this out loud. Like Miss Jeanne, his words didn't always match his thoughts.
"It seems I can't discuss such things with you," he said, continuing to poke at the swollen lumps on the dead man, his expression as placid as if he were turning over freshly baked bread. "Forget it. I'll focus on how to get out of here."
Jeanne snorted softly and said no more on the topic.
Perhaps a soft, dissatisfied huff might make a girl seem cuter, but hers only made her seem colder. Her black clothes seemed to signal that her mood was as grim as her surroundings.
The smell of rot grew heavier under his enthusiastic observation. The stench of death made the air so thick it was hard to breathe, but the two people in front of the corpse pile were clear exceptions. A faint, dim light would occasionally flash in the gloom. An unnatural chill seeped from the shadows, as if something invisible was writhing, spreading through the air—these were the spells of what Jeanne called dark gods, or rather—the Outsiders, whose operations diverged from this world's divine system.
Jeanne kept her eyes fixed on him, her gaze growing more and more impatient. She leaned against a coffin, following the movement of his fingers, and then asked, "Tell me, heretic—what have you figured out?"
"First—"
Sassel pointed to a young man. He was clutching a dagger, its tip stabbed into his own eye socket. His reddish-brown hair was matted with blood like an animal's intestines, and a strange smile was fixed on his face, as if he were witnessing a lover's embrace.
"Do you understand what this is?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing..." her tone was extremely unpleasant. "But if I had to answer—a spell of the spiritual labyrinths?"
"A long time ago, during the final days of the First Empire's collapse, mages attempted to summon gods from another time and space to rebel against High King Carlo," he didn't directly confirm the accuracy of Jeanne's guess, simply shaking his head. "The result was that those you call dark gods—these Outer Gods—entered our world. This dungeon we're in, including these monsters with their bizarre physical traits, are likewise the result of an Outer God's arrival—"
"I hate history lessons. Can you take your textbook and go die with it?"
Communicating with barbarians is such a difficult task, Sassel thought, quite displeased.
"To put it simply, this place isn't part of the real world. It's difficult to properly access the labyrinths as a source of magic. Normal spellcasting can only be done by expending one's own internal energy, or by constructing spells with special materials—like spiritual essences."
"Or... unconventional spellcasting, like yours," Jeanne stared at him with a faint sneer. "Don't tell me Hod and its priests have also become dark god worshippers. It was a god once, at least."
"The sun shines upon the earth, making no distinction between the good and evil of mankind."
"...What are you trying to say?"
"The Outer Gods are completely different from this world's pantheon. We usually treat them as bizarre phenomena, on par with forces of nature," Sassel said in a gentle tone. "In the past, when they—or parts of them—arrived, some were so fragile they were easily destroyed by High King Carlo's armies. Others, however, drove even the Elder Gods to lose their sanity with their madness. It's not so hard to imagine Hod turning to the Outer Gods. I've spent nearly half my life studying them—their greatness and beauty are beyond imagination, and they don't require faith. As for so-called 'dark god worshippers,' those people are just like us: merely trembling communicants."
As he spoke of the past, his pronunciation took on an old, archaic cadence, as if he were reciting poetry. It reminded Jeanne of the old priest who had taught her history, though he had been dead for a long time.
"I have no interest in refuting you," Jeanne said, unmoved. "So-called 'debate' is less effective than a nail chair or a pair of pliers. Let's assume for a moment your guess is true—Hod really has contacted a dark god, and it has allowed its disgusting priests to master its spells. Does that mean—with your understanding of these dark gods—we can systematically purify them?"
"Not at all."
"...Are you rehearsing a comedy? I have no desire to be a comedian in this disgusting place, heretic," Jeanne's face was a mask of revulsion, which then twisted into a malicious smile. "Of course, if the punchline was you being hanged—I might just sit in the audience and give you a friendly round of applause."
"I suggest you go back to the Church and retake Basic Mage History," he said, his tone calm but laced with mockery. "Whether it's the Outer Gods or our world's pantheon, there's no precedent for a god personally bestowing all of their spells. Ninety percent of all spells were completed through the research and design of mages based on a source of magic. Trying to guess what kind of spells an immortal who has contacted an Outer God has designed is no simpler than achieving apotheosis yourself."
"It seems staying here and wasting time with you was a grave mistake."
"At least we can follow in their footsteps. It'll save us a lot of effort, don't you think?"