Volume 2 – The World Sneered
“Ooh, Mizelma. Please protect us……!”
“Show us the path, Mizelma! Show us the paaath!”
The people were desperately praying as they sobbed.
Meanwhile, the founder began speaking to Mary and her group.
“I’m glad you made it here, Princess Mary. This church is under God’s divine protection. As long as you are here, there is no need to be afraid of anything.”
The man’s smile was shady, but Mary smiled back at him.
“Yes, we’ll gratefully take some rest here.”
Mary said that for politeness’ sake as she did not trust the man.
She was used to this sort of thing.
The founder whispered something into the ear of a nun standing nearby after he welcomed the group.
He then left the place of worship through a door on the side of the room.
Of course, the believers anxiously shouted, ‘Foundeeer!?’, but he gently admonished them.
“This entire building is under protection. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be suspicious. If you believe in God, you can do it.”
They had to back down after the founder’s remark.
But anxiety still spread through the crowd.
“……It looked to me like he just ran away.”
Cutie spoke while leaning against a wall in the corner of the room.
“I’m not sure about this. His hair is definitely red, so he seems to fulfill the conditions to be the founder.”
“Was it always red, I wonder?”
“He’s probably disguising himself using arcana, right?”
“He could have copied the outer appearance, but could he copy the founder’s words and conduct in such a short time?”
“Well, that would be…… difficult, yes.”
“Let’s split up and ask around if anything weird has happened. I’ll start with that old woman over there!”
Ami rushed out without waiting for a reply.
Cutie shook her head.
“That kid really doesn’t listen, does she?”
“I think that can be a good thing. Let’s keep the possibility of the enemy hiding here in mind while we ask around.”
“Yes, we shouldn’t be suspicious of only the founder.”
At the very least, it was true that no stone statues entered this place.
And, no one inside had transformed into a stone statue, so Mary and her group decided that the danger here was low and split up.
Cutie and Ami questioned the men and women of all ages who had gathered in the place of worship, and Mary spoke to the nun from earlier one more time.
“I’m sorry, but could we speak again?”
“Of course. My princess, do you think the culprit who caused all this is among us here?”
“I think it’s possible. It’s strange that this is the only place that hasn’t been attacked so far.”
“That’s…… because of Mizelma’s power……”
She hesitated to speak.
As things were, even a nun could not confidently say this was by the grace of God.
“Firstly, as an assumption, is it possible that the founder is an arcana user?”
“No…… the conditions don’t include being a sorcerer.”
According to the nun, the founder’s Sorcery Rating was not even a three-digit number.
He really was just an ordinary person.
“Do you think the founder has been acting strangely today?”
“I-I don’t.”
“Did you see anyone among the evacuees who were taking strange actions?”
“Everyone is confused, so things aren’t normal, but…… I don’t believe such a bad person would be among the believers!”
“Please calm down, I’m not saying that the culprit is among them.”
“Then!”
“However, it’s possible they changed their face with sorcery and snuck in here.”
“Oh!…… That’s……”
“So, I’m sorry for being persistent, but please help me check.”
“……I understand the situation. But I really have no guesses. When it comes to the people who were always here and the ones who ran here, at least.”
The nun had an uneasy facial expression.
Mary felt that she was hiding something, and quietly stared at her face for a while.
Her lips used to be straight just now, but they were now trembling a little.
“Ah…… E-Err……”
She could not endure any longer and made a quiet noise, and Mary spoke up.
“You’re hiding something, right?”
“I-It’s not like I’m hiding something, but…… Actually, bad things have been happening in town since 1 year ago. The people call it…… Mizelma’s divine punishment.”
“What’s been happening?”
“The previous founder died in an accident 1 year ago. The new founder was elected after that, and then……”
“If there are talks of divine punishment, that means the accident was suspicious, right?”
“That’s not true! It really was just a completely random traffic accident……”
The nun then closed her mouth.
She did not appear to be lying.
At the same time, however, her facial expression said that she was hiding something in her heart.
Mary gave up and gathered the testimonies of the other nuns, but none of them held any suspicions towards the founder or the people who took refuge there.
She did not learn any more information about the accident either.
After talking with the nuns, Mary walked through the corridor back towards the place of worship.
Then, she sensed a strand of hair drop to the floor by her feet.
She picked it up, and saw that the hair was blue and gray.
“None of the nuns or the evacuees had hair color like this……”
On top of that, this corridor was not a place commonly used by the believers.
It led to the founder’s room.
In other words, he had passed through here.
Mary stared at the room’s door for a few seconds, and turned around to return to the place of worship.
◇◇◇
Mary, Cutie and Ami gathered again and sorted through the information.
“The founder’s name is Rodney. He was raised in this town since he was little, and is a lively presence. Everyone says he’s a bright and wonderful founder full of smiles.”
Ami told the group what she knew.
The founder seemed to be an energetic person.
It sounded a little different from what Mary and her group saw earlier.
Cutie then spoke up.
“According to the information I’ve heard, Rodney seems to be 19 years old.”
“He’s young……”
“But that guy was an old man?”
“I found something curious too. Hair…… but it doesn’t match the color of anyone’s hair here.”
Ami and Cutie looked at the thin strand of hair.
“Ash blue…… that’s not a color you see in the Kingdom. It’s a common hair color around the Theocracy of Feluse, however.”
“Feluse?”
“It’s a religious country a little far away from the Kingdom. It is said that at one time, slaves from Feluse were traded at higher prices in the Empire of Ganedia for the beauty of their hair.”
“Their prices increased just because of the color of their hair!?”
“That sounds just like Ganedia, doesn’t it?”
“Well, things like that are probably why all that internal struggle started.”
“Speaking of internal struggles, it seems there was a trigger for the discord in this town as well.”
After that, Mary told of the events that took place a year ago to the other two.
Then, Cutie turned her gaze towards a middle-aged woman among the evacuees.
“She might not have something to do with what happened now, but that woman seems to be the founder’s mother.”
“That woman?”
The woman was continuously offering more passionate prayers than anyone else.
Rather than faith, this felt more like it was out of guilt for something.
“Well, let’s leave that aside for now. In all probability, it seems like someone has disguised himself as the founder.”
There were a few points that caught attention.
They did not know the fourth precept.
The fact that Mary and her group was able to notice the age difference by outward appearance meant that it was not a disguise made by sorcery.
With the blue hair on the ground, it was highly possible that the founder’s red hair was a wig, which was a poor way to disguise oneself.
But despite that, the believers, the nuns, and even his mother did not notice the transformation.
“There are still a lot of questions.”
“It’s all the same if we kill him.”
“Where is that monkey?”
“Outside. It’s hiding behind the building. I’ll make it break through a window and kill the founder.”
Cutie closed her eyes and focused.
Then, the door of the place of worship opened.
A nun frantically looked around before finding Mary and her group and rushing towards them.
She was holding a piece of paper in her hand.
Cutie noticed the footsteps and stopped the monkey to focus here instead.
“My princess. Actually, I found this piece of paper on a wall in the corridor earlier.”
Due to her position, Ami took it first.
She could not read however, so she handed it over to Cutie right away.
And after that, the nun said out loud the thing written on the piece of paper.
“The fourth precept is to read all the-”
Cutie suddenly grabbed Mary and pulled her head into her chest.
Then she shouted out loud.
“Don’t read it!”
The evacuees stopped their prayers after hearing her.
They looked over.
They watched her limbs turn into stone.
“Ah…… Ah, ah! Wait, am I……”
The nun was trembling.
“Noooo!”
“Hy!? Why won’t Mizelma protect us!?”
The chaos spread.
“Miss. Cutie, this sensation…… Wait!”
“I’m glad you can’t read, Ami.”
“Cutie!”
“You got this, you two!”
The petrification gradually covered Cutie’s entire body.
Mary escaped from her arms, turned her head, and saw a featureless mask staring back at her.
“……How dare you do this to Miss. Cutie!?”
Mary seethed with rage, but there was no target to swing down upon.
She grabbed Ami’s hand and rushed out of the place of worship.
Then, she heard the sound of a window in the corridor breaking.
She then heard screams coming from the place of worship, ‘Aaaah!’
She ignored them and kicked open the exit, but the path ahead was filled to the brim with a crowd of stone statues.
The windows and the barricades were broken, and the corridor to her side was also crawling with stone statues closing in on her.
“Ugh, there’s nowhere to run now……!”
It would be difficult to escape through the roof without attacking the stone statues.
Mary squeezed Ami’s hand tight, and Ami strongly squeezed hers back.
They signaled to each other that they were not going to give up.
The masked stone statues then stopped moving, and a man’s voice started coming out of their unmoving mouths.
“Nice to meet you, Mary Pulsherima.”
“……Are you a talker too?”
Mary replied in an irritated manner.
“Arcana users enjoy displaying their powers. What do you think of the ‘disciples’ I’ve created with my Hierophant?”
“Disgusting!”
Ami replied instantly, and the man could not help but laugh.
“Haha, that is a great word of praise. However, it is quite the inflexible power, you see.”
“We’re too busy for this idle chatter.”
“Oh, you misunderstand me. I had a question for you.”
“Me?”
“I wanted to ask, how the hell did things turn out like this?”
Mary had no idea what he was trying to say.
“What crime did you commit, what did you do, to make them go so far?”
Hierophant asked a few questions, but Mary had no idea what he meant.
She replied in a strong tone of voice.
“That’s my line! Did my father hire you people!?”
“……Is that your understanding? I see, it seems that chatting with you is pointless. I’ve sealed your sorceries, so please give up and become my disciples.”
The conversation ended with a cold remark, which irritated Mary.
But she forgot about that when the stone statue army started advancing again.
Ami and Mary started pulling back.
The residents and nuns were shaking clustered in a corner in the place of worship behind Ami and Mary.
(He went out of his way to tell us he sealed our sorceries. So it could be a bluff…… no, it’s way too risky to test that……!)
Even if they could use their powers, if a fragment flew off and hit a disciple, that could count as an attack.
This fear dulled Mary’s judgment.
Mary was thinking about whether they could escape through a window, the roof, or underground. Then, Ami put her hand on Mary’s shoulder.
“I’ll create a way.”
Her smile showed no signs of fear as she spoke.
“Please wait, that’s no good! There might still be another way!”
“It’s okay. I’m sure everyone will go back to normal when you win, sis!”
Ami ran off without listening to Mary.
“Please stop, Ami!”
She produced a wheel about 50 centimeters in diameter in the palm of her hand.
The moment she grasped it, her arm instantly began to petrify.
“Ah, aah……!”
Mary’s voice shook.
The wheel dropped to the floor from the hand that could no longer hold it.
“Even if I can’t throw it. I can make the wheel fly!”
As if reacting to that voice, the wheel started spinning at high speed.
It then floated up and flew at great speed towards the stone statue disciples.