168 – Dark Magic War – 5
“…”
Christine stared ahead with empty, unfocused eyes, waiting for the centipede made of humans to appear here soon.
No, it would be more accurate to call her Christina instead of Christine. Christine’s mind was in the process of being seriously worn down to that extent.
The pain you feel in your body when the enormous divine power dwells? that was fine If I was determined and prepared for something, I was able to maintain my consciousness, albeit with difficulty.
Anxiety caused by repeated regressions? That was fine too. Wasn’t it the path I chose after hearing that it would be absolutely impossible anyway? I had the confidence to repeat it any number of times.
However, there was another situation that really made Christine difficult.
“Are you okay, saintess?”
“I’m fine. Is Shinto-sama okay?”
“As always. Why did you come here?
“If it’s a fleeting whim, won’t you understand it?”
“I can’t understand it. If the saintess disappears like this, there will be no one or two people who will be upset. Please be careful from now on.”
“I’m really sorry about that. But, I really wanted to come here for some reason today. Isn’t this also an arrangement God gave me?”
“If you say so, I have nothing to say…”
This was the problem. unification of the mind.
Christine, no, Christina, who had almost completely consumed Christine’s mind before she knew it, was having a casual conversation with the boy so naturally.
I never wanted to. I didn’t want to talk to her as an equal in her godlike position. I wanted to unilaterally obey God and bow my head.
However, Christina not only talked with the boy on an equal footing, but conversely treated God as if he were a subordinate, and the boy naturally accepted such treatment.
Christine, confined to this body and watching it all, felt like she was going to go crazy. The problem was that there was no way to overcome this situation on its own.
Repeatedly returning, Christine’s mind was on the verge of assimilating with Christina’s, and she herself vaguely realized that there was not much time left before complete erosion.
In the next four or five times at most, Christine’s memories will disappear without a trace, leaving only Christina.
And Christine still couldn’t accept the divine power dwelling in her body.
“Saintess, then I will serve you. Let’s go back to the castle. It’s dangerous here.”
“Okay. I’ll let you go. Of course you’re sneaking back, right?”
“Isn’t that obvious? Really… If you know that you are that important, why don’t you be a little self-respecting?”
Even when the boy sighed, Cristina only smiled benevolently. This, too, was not Christine’s will.
At first, if he lost control of his body only intermittently and after accepting the statue, now, on the contrary, he had much more time to control his body as he wished.
At most, when she was next to God, she could only move her body the way she wanted, even for a very short time, so all of Christina’s actions were no different from expressing her own personality.
It was for this reason that Christine was able to grasp all the details of her ancestors.
Since she is a saint and listens to all kinds of worship and honors them on her own, I wondered if she was an extremely stoic and boring woman on a regular basis, but it was more like the opposite.
In front of people, of course, she behaves in the image of a saintess, but in front of a boy, it is completely different.
They play pranks on the boy and even make subtle physical contact. Every time he did that, he had a normal personality in his own way, showing a grin when he saw the boy flustered.
If it was the usual Christine, she would have ripped off her own body when she saw that, but since the minds of the two were assimilated to a large extent, such a catastrophe did not happen.
Instead, I thought it was natural to do that.
‘This is something I’ve been through in the past, so doing that to God is just repeating what I’ve already done… … what?!’
Christine, who had gone so far as to think, bit her tongue in surprise. It was only after the taste of blood circulated in my mouth that I felt like my head was calming down.
What did you just think? You thought you were Christina and you took it for granted?
At this absurd situation, Christine felt a dizziness in her head. The side effect of memory assimilation was more serious than expected.
I thought that it shouldn’t go on like this, but there was no other way. Christine couldn’t stand the divine power dwelling in her body this time either.
Two more attempts passed.
Cristina wakes up in the woods.
Since my eyes are always covered with bandages, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I have begun to perceive the world rather than to say that I have opened my eyes.
“Um…why am I here?”
Then he tilted his head. Apparently, God had given a revelation to come to this forest without telling anyone.
I certainly remember following the revelation and sneaking out of the city and arriving in the forest, but I couldn’t remember why I was standing here like this.
Perhaps he was about to get down on his knees and pray, asking God to tell him what to do now.
I remember the motion of kneeling on the ground, but when I came to my senses, my legs were standing up. It felt as if the entire middle memory had been blown away.
ㅡ Basrak.
“Hey?!”
Cristina shuddered in surprise when she heard the sound of footsteps on the grass in the distance. The forest at night is already chilling, especially since the scenery is desolate.
However, what appeared from the other side of the forest was a boy who looked at Cristina and made an absurd expression.
“What are you doing here, saintess? Why did you come here alone when you’re so frightened that you’re startled by the sound of my footsteps?”
“……what?”
“Yes?”
Cristina tilted her head, which made the boy even more flustered.
“Ah, no… Why is Shinto-sama coming out of here?”
“Why are you coming here? Of course I came to find Saint Hildegard.”
“It’s not like that… shouldn’t a monster come out here originally? It looks like a centipede made of humans…”
“If it wasn’t me that appeared here, but a monster like that, then the saintess would have gone to meet the gods long ago. Didn’t you seal all of your holy power while preparing for the last rite?”
Upon hearing the words, “last rites,” the saintess hurriedly cleared her throat and turned her head. It was intended to somehow hide the expression of being depressed.
yes, it was That person still didn’t know what the ritual meant. Cristina tried to put a smile on her face and turned her head away so as not to arouse unnecessary suspicion.
If I knew what that last rite meant, would that person grieve for me? Shall we grieve not for Saint Christina Hildegard, but for Christina Hildegard?
Cristina thought so and followed the boy into the castle. While trying to hide the face that kept getting depressed, I pretended to be cheerful.
Every time that happened, the boy fidgeted, asking him to keep his body tight, and Cristina laughed exaggeratedly at the sight.
It was a time I would never return to. It wouldn’t hurt to have a little fun.
The boy circled the dark side and reached the back door of the temple before finally looking back at Christina.
“We have arrived. Please refrain from going out without an escort now. Isn’t it the saintess who said that we should preserve our strength?”
no. Even if you don’t want to move, you will soon move. Cristina muttered that.
As if to prove his words, a bloody soldier kicked the temple door and rolled in.
“It’s a big deal! It’s a big deal—nothing! Holy Lady, I’m sorry!”
Listening to the now ‘familiar’ bloodied soldier’s report, Christina sensed that her end was near.
‘what? Come to think of it, why am I familiar with that report… … .’
There was no time to leisurely think about the sudden question.
The tall knight left with a bloody soldier slung over his shoulder, and Christina jumped ahead before the boy said anything and nailed herself to follow.
The boy looked worried at those words, but soon nodded as if he couldn’t help it.
“If that’s what the saintess will, I understand. Instead, if you think the front line is dangerous, you must flee without delay. Do you understand?”
Cristina nodded and pretended to understand. It was a lie, of course. There was no need to run away and sleep, because the saintess’ life would end there.
‘… … Mother, don’t you really regret it?’
Christina’s heart grew heavier as she followed the boy to the castle wall.
The god of the cult of benevolence, her god, who was called the mother by the followers, gave an oracle that he would descend and eliminate this tribulation that befell the world.
It meant to prepare for the reincarnation.
This was possible because of Saint Christina Hildegard, who had unprecedented talent, and numerous followers of the Church of Charity, which was revered as the only religion on the continent.
But it wasn’t without sacrifice. Conversely, it could be said that it was a possible sacrifice because it was a cult of benevolence that no one could surpass.
What the goddess requested was three things.
First, the oblivion of all believers who believed in him. The second is the sacrifice of Christina Hildegard, a saint. Thirdly, the fall of the Church of Charity.
Being a strong god, for a god to descend directly into this world required such a sacrifice.
The first and second demands were ridiculous, but the third demand was even more absurd. Cristina, who heard that, asked her mother why.
The reason was simple. It was because if the first and second were achieved, the third would naturally be achieved.
God’s purpose is not simply to drive away the darkness that overtakes humans, but to return the damage to the entire continent to what it was before this incident.
That’s why it was necessary to change people’s memories, Shin explained.
In addition to using their divine power to the limit, all believers in the Church of Charity devote themselves to God and disappear, and even the saintess disappears, and even the fact that there was a religion called the Church of Charity is erased from human memory.
Since there is no means to resupply the divine power that was drawn from, even the gods will disappear.
Cristina gave the explanation due questions. Why would God have to make such a sacrifice?
The answer was simple.
—-Because I saw the future.
God did not explain to the end what the future he saw was. No matter how much Cristina tried to plead with her, there was no response.
After the cult of benevolence disappeared, it was the same even if they asked for it to remain, saying that false beliefs would lead to false divinities, and that false divinities would create all sorts of heresies.
In the end, Christina had no choice but to surrender to God’s will. After breaking his heart, he immediately borrowed the power of the god and gave an oracle to all believers in the cult of charity.
An oracle to forget God.
An oracle to make that memory become the power of a god to defeat the disaster that befell the world.
Since the oracle was given, the prestige of the Church of Charity decreased day by day, and in inverse proportion to it, the divine power gathered at the statue of God became stronger. Everyone else’s memories have been distorted.
By the time humans couldn’t stand the oncoming darkness any longer and cut the wire to the very end, there were only three people in the world who remembered the cult of charity.
Christina deliberately hid the name of her religion. When asked what kind of religion she was a holy woman to possess such powerful divine power, she passed it off with an appropriate laugh.
And now, it couldn’t be delayed any longer.
“Holy Maid.”
Ahh.
“All followers except one have completed their mission.”
Cristina turned her head to that old but calm voice. There, there was an elderly priest of the cult of charity holding the goddess statue in his arms.
He was one of the last remaining people who remembered the cult of charity.
Christina silently accepted the statue. It was an object containing the faith and memories of numerous members of the cult of charity. And now it was also an object that would hold the memory of the last one.
The priest cut his throat with a dagger. He was a priest who stubbornly refused to survive even when Cristina told him not to, saying that he wanted to die remembering God because he was old anyway.
The last memory of the old man nestled inside the statue of the goddess.
“It’s okay if I kill them all.”
Voices from the sky were tinged with life. Cristina sensed that the time had come.
Cristina, who said a short prayer to her mother, turned to the boy with a face full of regret. Through the bandages covering his eyes, he could see the boy’s face waiting for his words.
‘Christine’ opened her mouth.
“It’s not God’s fault.”
