"But how do you know where the dining hall is?"
Kallen and Drik were getting worked up over this unexpected tour of the inner keep.
Somehow it felt as though I were looking at myself a very long time ago.
"No, wait, are we even going to the dining hall in the first place?"
The people of the inner keep were busily heading somewhere.
I caught Drik by the shoulder as he made to follow them without a second thought.
"The dining hall will be outside the central tower. That's where those people are going. We're going to the banquet hall, so we head for the central tower."
"And what's a banquet hall? This is awfully complicated."
"Think of it simply. It's a dining hall for honored guests."
I led my companions toward the central tower.
The guards must have received word, for they opened the door the moment they saw us.
"......You seem quite familiar with all this, sir knight."
I snorted at Kallen's words.
By now I had the layout of any decent fortress committed to memory, so he was not wrong.
The people inside the central tower sent us glances full of curiosity.
Every one of their faces said they had a mountain of things they wanted to ask about the Apostle's existence.
And that "every one" included Drik and Kallen.
"But sir knight, exactly what rank are you that a knight commander came out to meet you in person?"
"Right, this isn't the sort of reaction you'd show a high bishop."
The fact that I was their apostle was not so important a secret, so I laid out what had happened.
Not forgetting to leave out the part about the Undying, since it was a little awkward.
"......Brother, you're that good at fighting? Enough that these war maniacs revere you like a god?"
"Well, you'll see. They just decide such things as they please."
With the Undying left out, there was no helping that it lacked persuasive power.
Drik would not withdraw his suspicious gaze, and Kallen was grinning from ear to ear.
"Sir knight, I knew from the very start. So you truly were an apostle of a god."
It had reached a level where explaining had become a bother.
Instead of supplying these two with further explanation, I opened the door of the banquet hall.
The heavy door swung aside, revealing the brightly lit room.
I could see the chapter master, who had been seated, hurriedly rising.
"You have come, Apostle."
"Yes. These are my companions. A meal is no trouble, I take it?"
"Of course. There is no shortage of food, so would you grant me the time to bring additional tableware?"
"Do that."
While the chapter master gave assorted instructions to a person standing by, Drik and Kallen were wide-eyed at the food weighing the table's legs down.
"Am I really allowed to eat something like this? It feels rude to the food......."
"Nobles are different, all right. No, wait, they're not nobles? Anyway, the high and mighty."
When I sat down without ceremony, Drik and Kallen took their places too, stiff in every movement.
The table laid with food was so enormous that there was room to spare even with all of us seated.
"Ha ha, I am in fact a member of the Viscount Günter house myself. The second son, though."
That the man responsible for an entire city should not be a noble would have been an absurdity.
The chapter master, Robert Günter, came from a viscount house of the north.
"I ask only now, but why is the Talios Order here?"
The origin of the Talios Order lies in the north.
Slonhar and Darvar were western regions, and were some distance from the areas where the Talios Order was strong.
At my question, the chapter master's face twisted for a very brief instant.
It was so minute that no one else seemed to notice, but I was able to see it.
"A revelation came down. Talios said that a wind of great calamity would soon blow. That wind will begin in the west and grow vast enough to swallow the Empire by degrees."
"Regarding that revelation, we judge that perhaps not only the Empire but the entire continent may be swallowed whole. And so the main Order is urgently expanding its territory into the west."
"An unprecedented calamity will call forth an unprecedented war. Our Order is preparing to throw itself into that great tide."
Gods are no longer beings of fiction.
In this world gods actually exist, and those who believe in them receive a god's power through baptism.
Because of that, a revelation handed down by a god was a prophecy whose chance of being wrong converged on zero.
"You don't know exactly where or when the war will occur?"
"What I have told you is the whole of the revelation Talios handed down."
The Luxeon Cult showing itself again after decades, and a god's revelation falling not long after.
Could this truly be coincidence?
Judging by the timing, the lord of Slonhar had obtained Formel a fair while after the Talios Order came down into the west.
There were two possibilities. Either the Luxeon Cult and Talios's revelation were unconnected.
Or else Luxeon had begun to stir far earlier than I had thought.
Either way, it was not a problem I would find an answer to by brooding over it now.
Soon Drik and Kallen's tableware arrived, and the meal began amid an unsettled mood.
It was only a short while after the clinking sounds began.
"By the way."
The chapter master, who had been cutting his meat, broached the subject out of nowhere.
"To think I am serving a meal to the Apostle out of legend. Truly, it pays to live long."
"Isn't there a saying that grasping fate's true intent goes in order of age?"
"Ha ha, so there is. Might you have heard that legend in detail?"
A legend is, naturally, something that arises after long years have passed.
Whatever I might know of living through that time, how my story had spread afterward was something I could not know unless I looked it up myself.
"Wherever blood flowed, there he was, and on the day a crusade opened, his sword was always the first to cleave the enemy."
"The silver hair and silver eyes that descended from the heavens were the form of an angel, and what he held in his hand was the holy sword bestowed by Talios."
"He was the one who first perceived the god's will, and first enacted that will. Therefore he is called the Apostle of Heaven's Conquest."
As with any legend, a degree of exaggeration had crept in, but it was true that I had helped them during the several years I stayed with the Order.
"To summarize, it runs roughly like that."
"Is that so."
"I heard that legend not long after I joined the Order. I was not yet even ten years old. Hearing the tale of the Apostle, how magnificent it seemed, I spent whole days imagining the Apostle's figure. An angel wielding a god's sword. Is that not fine material for stirring a child's heart?"
The chapter master's words seemed to be taking shape by degrees.
I could tell what he would bring out at the end of this long preamble.
"So then, if it would not be rude, might you remove your helm?"
"......Why is that?"
"Purely curiosity. I should like to see the angel of the legend."
He was suspicious of me.
I am Talios's apostle.
That had been proven in yesterday's fight with Walter, and he had verified the sigil himself.
Then why did I not know of the god's revelation?
If I were the god's apostle, should I not be able to hear the god's words before anyone else?
That was what the chapter master was asking.
Kallen, quietly gnawing at a lamb rib, flinched and stole a look at my face.
Drik, though not to Kallen's degree, showed interest as well.
"You want to see my face?"
The chapter master did not answer.
"That's a pity. My face is not something just anyone may see."
The chapter master nodded placidly.
Of course, I could see clearly that his suspicion had deepened another degree.
"Might I know the reason?"
Because it was a conviction.
I had sworn it to her as she lay dying.
To Eladin, who had gazed with sorrowful eyes upon my changing form, I had promised that from then on I would show my face to no one but her.
Originally it was she who had first worried for me and urged me to wear a helm, but now that suggestion had become a binding within my heart, keeping the helm in place.
"I'll show you something else instead."
That was no different from telling the chapter master I would not give him the reason.
I rose from my seat and removed my gauntlet.
Then, in an instant, I drew my sword and cut off my left wrist.
Kallen was aghast, and Drik's eyes went wide.
"Sir knight! Wh-wh-what are you doing?!"
"......Brother, have you lost your mind?"
The chapter master, perhaps having some idea, was not shaken as greatly as they were.
He merely set his eating utensils down quietly.
The wrist slowly began to regenerate.
It did not take long for the expressions of Kallen and Drik, stained with shock, to turn into expressions doubting reality.
"This is the divine authority of the angel in that legend of yours."
"......I see."
I rose from my seat and urged the two, who were stammering incoherently, to sit again.
I had taken deliberate care when severing the wrist, so no mishap of blood spraying onto the food occurred.
"Go back to your meal."
With a ridiculous look on his face, Kallen spoke to me as I fitted the gauntlet onto my perfectly restored left hand.
"Um, no, that...... you never said anything like this."
"Said what?"
"You are a god's apostle. 'They just decide such things as they please,' my ass."
I could not help bursting into laughter at his words.
"I never said I wasn't."
I am a god's apostle.
It is only that the god is not Talios.
"Hah. It certainly does pay to live long."
Drik let out a hollow laugh and picked up again the meat he had dropped from his hand.
The chapter master, by contrast, looked as though he would not lay another finger on the food.
"To witness with my own eyes the angel's divine authority I had only heard of in stories, I am overwhelmed with gratitude."
Having confirmed the regeneration with his own eyes, the chapter master could not go on doubting.
Around the time the meal resumed, I spoke to the chapter master, who looked somewhat appalled.
"I have two matters of business."
"Yes, please speak."
"I am looking for a man. As for his appearance, you may consult Kallen."
The chapter master's gaze went to Kallen.
He nodded.
"That is not a particularly difficult matter. Simply loosing the guard corps should be enough to find him."
"And one more thing. Grant Drik baptism."
This time the chapter master's gaze landed on Drik.
"You intend to make him a paladin?"
"Yes. If he receives baptism, he'll make a fairly serviceable paladin."
"......There is no reason it cannot be done. If he is a man whose standing is guaranteed by the Apostle of Heaven's Conquest, he is amply qualified."
Drik was fully absorbed in the meal, working hard to store even a little more of the fine food in his belly.
"However, the basic procedure is necessary. As it is such a fundamental matter, I would ask for your understanding on this point alone."
"Of course."
The paladin's trial.
Drik would now be taking it.
Being the process by which warriors who receive a god's power are picked out, it was notorious for its severity, but even the qualification to take the trial was a stroke of fortune ordinary people could not obtain.
"Ah, this time I have a request from my side. May I speak it?"
The words came around the time the meal was nearly finished.
I answered as I rose from my seat.
"What is it?"
"It is nothing much, a personal request."
The chapter master, who had been beating around the bush, came straight to the point.
"I should like to keep the Apostle's left hand in my collection."
"......."
Watching the chapter master send a man to fetch white cloth, I was reminded anew that he was the head of an order that was a comprehensive compendium of lunatics.