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Chapter 930 - Abyssal Oratory
It was harder for Theresa to part her lips than to lift a boulder bigger than her body.
It felt as if a heavy stone had flown in and lodged itself in her heart.
No, was it a dagger that struck?
She even had the illusion that she was bleeding profusely.
She was afraid to lower her gaze.
Theresa kept her eyes fixed on the Pope and opened her mouth.
"How?"
Noah dropped the smile he had shown earlier and maintained an expressionless face as he spoke.
"Is that important?"
Am I allowed to be here?
"Only I heard it. Even Sir Overdeer does not know this fact."
Noah lifted his teacup.
Steam rising from the cup spread across his face.
"Is it true? Were you a cultist?"
Recently, cults had reportedly caused a lot of trouble within Legion.
She had also heard that bastards who claimed to have completely turned away and sworn they escaped often rolled their eyes back and started attacking.
And that there were several operations to sweep up remnants of cults recently.
'Just one spell, and their madness flares up so badly they can't even recognize their own children.'
She heard what Sir Overdeer said to Audin.
She might be like that too.
The suspicion was valid.
"I need an answer."
Even without raising his voice, changing his posture, or stopping his tea drinking, the Pope's words were full of pressure.
Theresa felt her hands and feet stiffen.
'What should I answer?'
Say no?
Can I do that?
But the fact that she was in the cult is the truth?
It wasn't just a brief stay either.
She experienced all sorts of things there and fought for them.
The past does not change.
Theresa's pupils dilated.
Her eyes looked at the past, not the present.
Memories she wanted to forget rummaged through, dug up, and poked at her head.
It was a spot where a red-hot blade had rummaged through.
Her head felt hot.
'Two guards are outside the door.'
The Pope left his guards and faced her alone.
If she reached out to the Pope like this, he wouldn't even be able to put up a proper resistance.
Reflexively, she searched for a way to escape from here and save herself.
It was a tactical response engraved in her instincts thanks to the hard training experienced in the Knight Order.
Take the Pope hostage or kill him to create chaos.
There were two methods.
However, she chose neither.
"It is true. You were a cultist."
The Pope said.
Theresa lowered her head.
Veins bulged on the back of her hands.
Strength entered her body.
With her head lowered, Theresa's mouth opened.
"I am."
Noah quietly waited for her to continue.
"A person who shouldn't be here."
Noah didn't force anything on her.
Even amidst his hectic schedule, he hadn't forgotten the reason he came here.
"Why?"
Noah asked back.
"Pardon?"
Theresa raised her head again.
"Why shouldn't you be here?"
Noah asked again.
Theresa's eyes trembled slightly.
Wasn't he bringing up her past and the sins she committed before to question her?
"Answer me."
The Pope straightened his back.
Gathering his hands on his knees, he looked at Theresa.
Even though she must have unknowingly exuded pressure, Noah's posture didn't waver a bit.
"I don't know my parents."
"That is the same for me."
The Pope is also an orphan.
Because the cruel blade called war had ravaged the continent for a long time, there were truly many orphans in this world.
"I was a cultist."
"Yes, I heard."
So what?
The Pope seemed to say.
Theresa's head tilted.
"You aren't questioning me."
Only then did the Pope smile brightly.
"Me, questioning you? Surely not."
The Pope continued, maintaining his smile.
"I am the Pope, but I don't know how to use divinity even a little."
Although her muscles were still tight with tension, the reflexive tactical response disappeared.
"Now, what would you answer to the question of who you are?"
At the Pope's question,
Theresa didn't hesitate.
"Theresa of the Border Guard, Theresa of the Madmen Knights."
Disciple of the bear beastkin Audin, and a knight under Enkrid.
That was the root that took hold in her heart.
"O one who wishes to love others. Love yourself first. For one who is harsh on oneself cannot be generous to others."
Words interpreting a part of the scripture.
The Pope recited a few more words.
Listening to the words, Theresa relaxed.
She loosened her tightened muscles and listened.
Naturally, her mouth opened too.
She confessed all the sins she committed in the past.
Although there was coercion and oppression, it was her hands that acted.
She spoke of her own pain as well.
If it was fortunate, she didn't kill the powerless and pitiful.
She tried to save them.
Still, the sin of turning away remains.
Noah listened to her story.
It was an act of repenting sins, confessing, and seeking forgiveness.
It was a confession.
The first she had ever done in her life.
While talking, Theresa shed a few tears, but Noah acted as if he didn't see.
Theresa didn't wipe her tears either.
The long story ended.
A story containing the life of one mixed-blood giant.
"The Lord looks over you."
Noah spoke, and after a while, Theresa asked.
"Weren't you reluctant to face me alone?"
"Why would I be reluctant?"
"I am a mixed-blood giant and was a cultist."
There might be giants with outstanding intelligence, but there are no giants with outstanding patience.
A famous saying.
Patience was the element furthest from giants.
Within the Border Guard, few feared her, but outside, it was daily life for wary gazes to dwell in eyes looking at her.
On the Southern Front, she smoothed it over by singing hymns, but after everything ended, she subtly felt distance.
"And you are a knight under Sir Enkrid and a sister serving the God of War."
Noah said.
Enkrid is a close friend.
It mixed the meaning that if that person trusts her, he trusts her too.
There was no soot in Noah's heart.
He just looked straight and spoke.
'Pope.'
One who tries to see everything rightly.
Among stories picked up while coming and going here and there, there were many saying various problems arose due to the Pope's stubbornness.
'Does not give up on people.'
Wraps with benevolence.
His heart is full of generosity.
'A person who cannot use divinity at all but breathes light into everyone's heart.'
Suddenly, she thought of the Captain who would be at the Border Guard.
He had many corners resembling the Pope.
Both wrap everyone around them with their convictions at the forefront.
New memories of when she entrusted herself to Enkrid also surfaced.
"Take responsibility yourself."
Words Enkrid said.
It was the end of a conversation started with words that she would fight and fight to prove herself.
Since then, she experienced truly many things and reached the present, but from some moment on, Theresa fell into self-hatred.
Noah pinpointed that part exactly.
"Sir Audin worries about you a lot, Sister."
His words created the current situation.
Theresa nodded.
Confession was a first, but pouring out everything inside her was comforting.
'I hated myself.'
Being mixed-blood, giant blood flowing, failing to control slaughter instincts, being in a cult.
Hated everything.
I tried to forget but failed, so all I could do was hate myself.
The past remains forever.
One cannot simply cut it off cleanly with a knife.
So one must accept and embrace it.
"Love yourself. If you want to love others."
At Noah's repeated words, the dagger stuck in Theresa's heart was pulled out.
Instead of a dagger, she brought a fireplace burning in midwinter inside her.
As the change begin to take hold in her mind, a change occurred inside her body.
Precisely, the giant's instinct she had suppressed by force until now.
She was scared she might lose reason waking the instinct, but.
'That won't happen.'
For there is no delusion for one who believes in oneself.
"You have good eyes. Can you love others now?"
"Yes."
Theresa answered.
She expressed gratitude to the Pope.
Noah just smiled brightly.
Not an action done expecting something.
Audin talked about Theresa's suffering and wandering, and Noah just listened to her story by offering a few words.
Theresa steadied her mind and looked at a bright future.
'When I return, I can beat up Fel, Roford, and Smelly.'
She was sincere.
She saw hymns and giant's instinct as opposing, but that isn't so.
She has just realized both are things inside her.
***
'The sister will do well.'
Audin thought as he took a step.
Now wasn't the time to worry about others, but he didn't forcefully snatch away rising thoughts.
Stairs heading underground.
The inside was deep, and since there wasn't even a single torch on the wall, only pitch-black darkness greeted him.
The only light source was the torch in his hand.
Audin stepped onto the stairs relying on the torch in his hand.
Since the fire in his hand didn't illuminate the entire surrounding, his footing was blurry, but even so, just by feeling the flow of air there was no difficulty walking.
"Do you really have to go there?"
Just before coming, Sir Overdeer expressed worry.
The place he was heading was a secret place few people knew except the Pope and himself.
It's name is the Abyssal Oratory.
In other words, the Sunless Oratory.
Though the owner of that oratory called it a prison.
It was a place that appeared when going down through a secret underground passage hidden in the central chapel of the Holy City Legion.
The stairs going down forming a curve were like a signpost heading to hell.
'Was the way this long before too?'
Audin learned training methods as a Martial Arts Priest, and polished skills and training methods with overflowing talent.
Many people taught him including his adoptive father, the Ragged Saint, but Audin felt a lack of something, and so he met a new master here.
'Come to meet me.'
It was a place he went down drawn by words stimulating divinity repeatedly.
The best way to keep a secret is reducing the number of people who know.
Legion did so too.
Since setting up guards would be like saying something is hidden here, there was no one guarding the Abyssal Oratory.
Hide the underground passage cleverly and maintain the secret.
That was the best way to hide this place.
Also because of that, there was no one stopping or watching when Audin found this place and went down.
'Come to meet me.'
The same words were heard.
Precisely, echoed in his heart.
It was when he was drunk on just realizing divinity and how to utilize it.
Audin was full of confidence not to fall for any temptation.
Even if a demon coiled down there, he was fully resolved to deal with it.
'Doesn't seem like a demon.'
Audin acted according to intuition.
No malice was felt from the call.
Nor was his heart shaken drunk on desire.
'If a problem arises.'
It was a path he went down having prepared for this and that.
The trick the owner of the oratory performed was vibrating the ground through divinity to convey will only to the exact desired target.
Audin realized that.
'Who could it be?'
He never knew a person could do such a thing.
Curiosity arose.
Competitiveness arose too.
Like that, drawn by the call, he found the underground chapel.
'Who could it be?'
A demon hiding in Legion's underground chapel?
Something possessed by an evil spirit?
God's prank trying to lure and test him?
The path going underground was dark and silent.
Going down riding the stone stairs, a door twice as large as his body waited for him.
The moment he touched that door, burning pain dug through his head.
When he put in strength and opened the door, the owner of the oratory welcomed him.
-You came.
Emotions weren't read.
Intent couldn't be read either.
What he conveyed was only colorless will.
-It has been a long time since such a talent was seen.
A body made of light, yet not blinding, appearing bound to a single sword with chains hanging from its arms and legs.
No eyes and no nose.
Something barely resembling a human form, though made of light.
No mouth so no tongue.
He conveyed words by vibrating the air.
Amazing trick.
"What are you?"
Audin asked.
-I am the last Guardian Knight of the Legion.
His answers were two.
-Also a fool drunk on divinity.
What sleeps in the Abyssal Oratory is a light addict.
One who accepted a part of God into his body while drunk on divinity.
Also one who barely survived leaning on God's generosity.
His wish was dying, and he waited for a person to kill him.
Past memories blur as if grazing.
This was their second meeting.
-You came again.
The divinity addict spoke towards Audin.
"Yes."
-Seems you aren't ready to keep the promise.
This is his domain.
A sanctuary he made and a space where his power projected.
He realized Audin's level just by him stepping inside.
The Paladin who was no different from a disciple hadn't acquired the power to kill him yet.
"The promise is yet to come, I came because I need my armor."
Audin said.
The lump made of light lifted its bowed head though having no eyes.
Still a special light without blinding glare.
Vibration arose from the center of the light conveying will.
-Eventually you intend to walk the same path as me.
The light said.
"No. That is not it."
Audin answered.
No one could come down, since they would be killed by the pressure.
Therefore, conversation went back and forth in a space where visitors were truly rare.
***
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