“Hmm......”
In the first place, even the interior was hard to regard as belonging to the Order. A building filled with white and gold was the pride of our Order, but......
“What is this gloomy room?”
Could something fail to match the Order this badly? Who designed this room?
“But......”
Had a room like this...... existed?
“Ah, is it that room?”
There had been rooms I was not supposed to enter.
“But I already went into all those places?”
There were rooms that apprentices could not enter on principle. But I was an exception. After all, if someone had been an apprentice for eight whole years, that person was already no longer at the level of an apprentice.
“Captain Slan just let me enter too.”
A representative example was the archive. Originally, it was a place apprentices could not enter, and even new holy knights could not enter, but Sir Slan had allowed it, telling me to just read ancient books there.
“What a memory.”
Had it already been a little over a year?
In any case, the conclusion was this.
“I don’t know what room this is.”
Among the rooms I was not allowed to enter, there were only three or four I had not entered. But this room was not one of those three or four.
“One was......”
The place where the Saintess prayed, the place where female holy knights rested...... and the changing room......
Now that I thought about it, those were places I should not enter as a man before even considering whether I was an apprentice or a full knight, weren’t they?
“Then there really isn’t one?”
There had to be something else, but......
“Was this room newly built recently?”
The Order’s buildings were occasionally under construction. Maybe they had added another room then.
“I’m always out on missions, so I don’t remember.”
I only lacked the title of a full knight. Since I could beat most holy knights, Sir Slan had always given me missions at a full knight’s level, and at times like this, I resented him for it.
“No. Now that I think about it, after he let me use the archive last year, he stopped giving me those missions, didn’t he?”
Why? Back then, I was sure......
‘I’ll just open the archive for you! Then you won’t be bored, right?’
I had no idea. All I remembered was Slan drenched in cold sweat and saying that when I returned from a mission.
“But I have been going out again recently.”
Why had I gone out on apprentice missions? Because there were no ancient books left to read. I had read most of what was in the archive. Even there, there had not been a method for weakening divine power and putting it into a weapon.
“......”
Thinking about it made me feel like crap. What kind of ancient books were they if they did not even contain a method like that?
They had been filled with stories about demons. Or else they were packed with nothing but stories about strange evil gods.
“Is that how it should be?”
Well, the purpose of holy knights was to hunt down and kill evil gods and their followers.
So it was not strange for the headquarters of the Holy Knight Order to be filled with books like that.
“Should I have gone to the archive on the priests’ side?”
No. The contents about putting divine power into weapons had a much higher chance of being in the ancient books on this side. But they had not been here either.
“Huh?”
At the far end of the room stood a fairly large dark-red pillar. Atop that pillar was—
“What is this?”
A rather ominous-looking mace entered my sight.
“Oh......”
I had a feeling. With this weapon, something just might work.
CRACKLE—
“Gah!”
But as I brought my hand closer to touch it, a current ran through my hand.
“Ow......”
It was not just an ordinary current, but one filled with divine power.
“They even wrapped it in a barrier?”
This mace was not ordinary!
“Slurp......”
To obtain the weapon I coveted, I began examining the pillar properly.
“Damn......!”
I thought it was just a pillar.
“Why is the whole thing made of obsidian?”
Could an obsidian this enormous even exist? And as far as I knew, obsidian could receive the energies of fire and blood, so it was quite expensive.
“That must have wrecked the budget......”
They built things like this, so of course Sir Slan was always racking his brains over his Holy Knight Order’s budget.
However, most of the budget problems Slan was racking his brains over were because of Karix, who broke buildings whenever he went on missions and smashed through standard-issue weapons like they were nothing.
“Still...... Somehow, aside from that, it looks ordinary?”
As Karix, there was no way he could have known.
***
[Hmm?]
At the presence of some alien aura, her eyes opened.
In truth, even opening her eyes had little meaning in the first place. The place she was in was surrounded by an immense darkness.
[What is it?]
Nothing should have been able to come here. Since it was a seal made by that bastard, of all people, there was no way the first seal would be pierced so easily.
“Still, is it just an ordinary pillar?”
[Huh?]
However, as if denying her thoughts, the voice of some living being reached her ears clearly.
[What the hell!]
It was unmistakably the voice of a living being.
[What is this? Is it one of my children?]
Startled, she sprang to her feet. But of course.
[What is it? What is it, I said!]
There was nothing she could do from inside.
[Hey! I’m here! Release me!]
She shouted at the top of her lungs, but naturally, there was no way her voice would leak out.
[Ah, the second seal!]
One had to endure the insane holy power of this mad room, and after that, bring the key as well. In other words, if one did not have the key, then even if one had entered this place, there was no way to undo the seal.
[Words......! A way to send my words......]
She had to lure the person outside into bringing the key at once.
......How?
[Ugh......! My connection with my children has been cut off too......]
She looked down at her own hands. From those hands, which had grown endlessly small, she kindled divine power.
[It worked!]
During the thousands of years she had been sealed, that tiny bit of divine power had gathered. And now, she was trying to use it.
[Please!]
With that divine power, she tried to pierce a hole through the pitch-black void. All she needed was the slightest opening.
“Should I just leave?”
[Ah...... No!]
Reacting to those words, she shouted and moved her hands even faster.
[Don’t leave! Uh...... I mean!]
Her own divine power was gradually reaching a dangerous point.
CRACK—!
Just as she was about to despair, the sound of a fissure reached her ears.
[It...... It worked!]
At last, an exceedingly small hole opened in the void.
[Can you hear my voice?!]
She pressed her eye to that tiny gap, looked outside, and spoke.
[Huh?]
The person reflected in her eyes was—
“Who are you?”
Astonishingly, a human. And one from whom she could not feel any of her own aura at all.
[Why......?]
***
Had I finally lost my mind?
“Where are you speaking from?”
[Uh...... Ah, the mace. The mace!]
Since I could hear it properly, it did not seem like I had gone insane.
“Ah, my head.”
Strange. Wasn’t all that stuff about listening to a weapon’s voice a figurative expression? Was it actually possible?
No, that couldn’t be it. Someone must simply have been sealed in the weapon, right?
“So, what are you?”
[......What?]
“As a sealed nobody, why were you calling me so desperately?”
[......No......body? Me?]
Well, if someone was trapped inside a mace, then regardless of race, didn’t that make them a nobody? They must have been sealed by someone stronger than them.
[You bastard......!]
“Sounds like you’re trying to curse me. If you do, I’ll just leave.”
I threatened her like that for now, but I had no intention of doing so. Because.
‘I want it.’
With that weapon, no matter how much divine power I poured into it, it would not break. This was not a feeling. It was certainty.
Besides, if I went back outside now, Grandpa Harkan would just keep chasing me.
‘It hasn’t even been that long since I came in.’
At most, had it been around three minutes? At this rate, I had not come in to buy time. I had come in to waste time.
[I am...... sorry.]
I could hear the sound of teeth grinding all the way over here.
“That doesn’t sound sincere.”
[......You.]
The moment she spat that out, I sprang to my feet and headed back toward the door.
[Ah! I’m sorry! Truly! I mean it!]
“Sincerely?”
[I’m sorry! So please don’t leave!]
The voice coming from the pillar was so desperate that I could not hold back my laughter.
[......Are you mocking me?]
“I am.”
Because this situation was incredibly funny.
[......That is understandable.]
The voice became obedient, as though she did not want to provoke me any further.
“So, what is it?”
[Ah! Right! The key! Bring me the key!]
The key? What key?
[If you bring that key......]
She was about to say, “I will grant you the opportunity to become my apostle,” but then she stopped.
‘He’s human, isn’t he?’
Then, naturally, she had to hide the fact that she was an evil god.
“Then?”
[Only after that can you hold an artifact such as myself!]
An artifact from the Age of Myth?
‘Is a hero’s soul trapped inside it?’
I had already thoroughly excluded the possibility that it might be an evil god or a demon. Common sense said the Chief God would never have embedded such a dangerous being in the headquarters of her own Order. If something went wrong, the entire Order could be blown away in one stroke.
‘Probably a hero of some other faith or something......’
If it was something like that, they might have sealed them only for information.
[The outside must be a dungeon, right? Hm? You came all the way to a dungeon, so leaving without obtaining anything would be a bit much, wouldn’t it?]
“?”
But what was she talking about? Why would the outside be a dungeon?
***
In truth, her words were the conclusion of a rational inference on her part.
[So take me! I am the reward for this dungeon!]
If she had been sealed, then the mystery called divine power that flowed even from that seal would have accumulated, and it surely would have formed into a dungeon.
“I’ll hear a little more.”
When Karix said he would hear her out, she seemed to find hope and continued speaking.
[So, listen carefully, all right?]
The problem was.
[Long ago, I......]
That through the tiny hole, she could not properly see Karix holding back his laughter.
[And that is why I was sealed......]
[So! I am the reward!]
“Aha. I see.”
[Yes!]
“But do you know something?”
Karix opened the room’s door with a mocking smile. And the scene that spread outside was—
[......Huh?]
White and gold decorations, along with pillars that looked sacred at a glance.
“This is inside a temple, you know?”
In other words.
[That insane bastard Aria......]
The present age’s Chief God, Aria, who had sealed her here, was enough of a lunatic to build her own temple over the seal.
‘A lunatic bastard truly dedicated to teabagging......’
“Why are you suddenly cursing the Chief God?”
[No, it’s strange, isn’t it?! Why did she seal me here?]
Logically speaking, one should not have built a temple here. With her divine power, she could steal Aria’s believers, and in any case, it was dangerous in many ways.
“Pardon? What am I supposed to do if you don’t know that yourself?”
The man voiced his doubt and closed the door again.
[But why are you closing the door again?]
“I snuck in here, you see.”
[......Why? Since you know about this space, there should be no need to sneak in......]
There were exactly two conditions required to undo the first seal. Know of this place’s existence, or possess overwhelming divine power.
However, for someone who had come in knowing, Karix’s expression was far too strange.
[......Is your divine power that great?]
But in her eyes, Karix was a brat who had only just turned twenty.
“It is on the greater side.”
It was on the greater side. If one looked only at divine power itself, Karix even stood above the Saintess.
[Hmm...... Then, do you not want to become stronger?]
“Why bother?”
At those words, her tongue caught in her throat.
Because there was no one who disliked the idea of becoming stronger. At least, in the era she had lived in.
[Th...... Then what about world conquest?]
“I may not look it, but I’m a devout holy knight, you know?”
[......You?]
She slowly looked Karix up and down. This so-called devout holy knight showed no sign of the holy knight’s symbol anywhere, as if he had sold it off.
As for his weapon, he was simply carrying a fairly decent standard-issue sword.
He had even let it pass as though it were nothing when she had said, “that insane bastard Aria” out loud.
[......You? Devout?]
She wondered whether the quality of modern believers had truly sunk this far.