[695] The Place of Reunion (4)
The man pretending to deliver an oracle quickened his words.
They were little more than vowel sounds shaped by his tongue, yet the effect was immense—every believer in the room burst into tears.
"Um salla um!"
"Um salla um!"
Moved by the priest's cadence, everyone echoed him in a trance, but Shirone's face only flushed with disgust.
It was lecherous and obscene.
"I saw a lot of bastards like that before we entered Radom."
Goblins who lived in the woods knew a lot about human heretical rites.
"Usually after that kind of chanting they get into some really filthy business, right?"
A cult leader's desire was simple: to dominate and indulge in people.
He was probably a mage who knew a few tricks—enough to fool ordinary folk.
Rian frowned. "There are all kinds of people in the world. Why not just ignore them? Whether it's the charmer or the charmed..."
"But there's a believer who just came in today."
They'd learned that from the phony priest's oracle.
"It's probably that woman at the edge of the crowd..."
She looked to be in her late twenties and, unlike the others, she kept making the motions and repeating the words with an awkward expression.
"Ah, Terraforce god, please grant me—"
"Emma, if you pray like that half-heartedly, the Terraforce god won't grant you an oracle."
"Ah, I'm sorry."
"Pray with your whole heart. Like this. Terraforce god, please grant me an oracle!"
When the gaunt middle-aged woman shouted, everyone else raised their voices louder, as if competing.
In the heated atmosphere the pseudo-priest seized his chance.
"Bring forth the offering!"
From the cave behind the altar, hooded men carried in a goat gagged with a heavy wooden bit.
The goat on the altar trembled, and the priest mercilessly slit its belly and tore out its heart.
"Wooooooo!"
Seeing blood on top of their already heightened emotions, the devotees erupted into frenzy.
"This blood will purify us. Everyone, disrobe before the god."
They began stripping men and women alike, but Emma, dazed though she was, sensed something terribly wrong.
"What are you doing, Emma! Hurry or all these curses will fall on you!"
"But, ma'am... I— I can't do this kind of thing..."
The devotees who'd long given body and soul to the cult were uniformly pale and emaciated.
To them, Emma's fresh flesh was a temptation; every eye widened and pressed on her in silence.
"I suppose I'll have to step in."
Shirone felt the same as Rian.
"Cover her face. Just in case."
"Wait. I have a better idea."
Kido said that and leapt straight down.
"Better a goblin than a human."
His lithe body landed without a sound, and Kido raised his voice.
"Do you know where you are, you stupid humans!"
The fanatics turned, and the priest's face contorted into a furious sneer.
"G-goblins!"
Fear hit the already naked believers hard.
Nothing tempted a goblin like naked humans, true, but looking at those bodies—skin pulled tight over bone, bellies bloated—his appetite vanished.
"This is goblin territory! Get lost, or I'll cut off your legs one by one and taste them!"
"Goblin territory?"
Half true.
If this wasn't an area managed by the kingdom, it was comfortable enough that they might find fellow goblins nearby.
"Run—run!"
The cave rang with the believers' screams as the priest bellowed.
"What are you doing right now! Terraforce will punish you!"
The godly power that settled in their hearts froze everyone in place, and in that instant the priest raised both hands.
"It's only a goblin! I will show you the power of Terraforce! Wooooooo!"
Every torch set into the cave flared, flames gathering above the man's crown.
Shirone still watched.
'It's nothing.'
The burning area was probably the edge of the priest's Spirit Zone, and despite dozens of flames, the heat was weak.
'A really pathetic mage.'
That explained why he belonged to nowhere and played cult leader.
"Die, filthy goblin!"
As the priest thrust his arms forward—
"Huh? What did you say?"
His nasal bridge split and both his eyeballs were sliced away.
"Aaah! My eyes!"
That his eyelids didn't even have time to close showed how instant the act had been.
"Priest!"
The hooded men dropped to their knees, blood dripping, drew short blades and charged.
"Is it loyalty? Or... comradeship from shared pleasure?"
What Kido did to the encircling attackers was simply to press his back to the ground and spin once.
He spread his legs like a pair of scissors and sprang up like a spring; the hooded men grabbed their severed limbs and screamed.
"Ahh! M-my legs!"
Kido shouted at the devotees.
"Get out! If you trespass into goblin territory one more time, I'll throw you into boiling water alive!"
"Kyahhh! Somebody save me!"
Sobered in an instant, the fanatics fled the cave without bothering to cover themselves.
"Humans are strange creatures."
Kido clicked his tongue as he watched and looked down at the crying priest.
"He's a bad man. It's okay to kill him, right?"
While traveling with humans he'd decided to follow their customs as much as possible, but Kido's standard of right and wrong was that simple.
"P-please, spare me. Please... please spare my life!"
"Sorry. I'd get angry if I ate him alive..."
He planned to kill the priest, take some flesh, and find a way out of the cave.
"Ahhh! Save me—! Gah!"
When the priest's body suddenly convulsed, Kido, sensing something strange, halted.
"You see me again, Hexa."
Shirone and Rian leapt down, and the priest, slowly rising, opened his eyes wide.
For a human to lift his eyelids after his pupils had been sliced out was impossible.
"Could it be... the Grand Arbiter of Terraforce?"
"Yes. I'm using this body to project my voice. Humans call it an oracle."
"Can you just enter anyone like that?"
"You can't. You must connect to the Terraforce channel, and that's only possible in a trance. Usually we use dreams. But this fellow showed no sign of entering a trance."
Shirone looked at the priest with contempt.
"The more powerful the channeler, the denser the mind they can transmit. Among humans, Meirei would be the most capable, but even a man like this can manage small talk."
"So you came in just to chit-chat?"
Does the Grand Arbiter of Terraforce live such a bored life?
"It's to let humans know that anyone connected to the Terraforce channel can communicate with me at any time. This man's channeling was so weak it only succeeded at the point of death, but a powerful channeler can receive my entire consciousness."
Shirone recalled how they'd executed the Gwanse-eum campaign through Meirei.
"You should've said that sooner."
"The Council only just approved it. It also means the Terraforce species recognizes you as humanity's representative."
"Hmm."
As Shirone pondered, a groan came from the corner.
"Ah, aah..."
Emma, still huddled and unable to move, trembled.
"How about her? Her channeling?"
"Her spiritual sense is too weak. She wouldn't hear my voice even in sleep. In this place, the only person who can channel is that man."
'Even if pathetic, he's still a mage?'
Emma clasped her hands and asked, "Is it really... really the Terraforce god?"
"We don't have the word 'god,' but yes. It's the being humans call that."
"T-then you must know everything about me?"
"Your name is Emma. Biological partner of Sergeant Major Adox of the Kazra Border Guard. But you betrayed the fidelity human morality demands: you had biological relations with Miguelan, one of Adox's subordinates, sixty-three times over a month, and recently planned to poison Adox—"
"Stop! Stop it!"
The horror of hearing one's sins spoken aloud by another was overwhelming.
"Please forgive me! I'll be good from now on! My husband drinks all the time, breaks things and hits me when he comes home... and he cheated on me first. He fell for that thirty-eight-year-old tavern whore!"
As a fresh flash of venom rose in Emma's eyes, Kido clicked his tongue.
"This place is chaotic, huh. Well, that's life."
Terraforce had judged Emma evil too, but that was from observing humans from outside their lives.
Once you leap onto the stage of life, only the moment's emotion is vivid; you can't tell what came first.
"I am not a forgiving being."
Emma was half out of her mind.
"I'm sorry! I'm really sorry! Please forgive me. If my husband finds out I'm here, he'll kill me!"
Shirone reassured her.
"Don't worry. I won't tell anyone. Instead... could I stay at your house for a few days?"
"Huh? O-of course! If that absolves my sin..."
She seemed to mistake Shirone for someone with that power.
It was a natural reaction after witnessing the miracle of Terraforce manifest in a human with his eyes torn out.
"What will you do?"
Rian asked, and Shirone turned to the Grand Arbiter.
"Tell King Orkamp of Kazra that I'm here. Through an oracle."
Kido slapped his palm down.
"Oh. That method."
It was a kind of communications satellite.
If Shirone's message was received by the Terraforce up above and relayed to a devotee, his intent could be sent to any country.
"Wait here."
The Grand Arbiter, eyes closed, located the positions of Terraforce devotees around the world.
"Kazra doesn't have many Terraforce channels. Those that exist are mostly low-grade."
'As expected, not many work.'
Each devotee acted like a relay station, but relative to humanity's numbers, they were few.
"I found the nearest channel. There's a Terraforce devotee within one kilometer of Kazra Palace."
"One kilometer radius... a bureaucrat?"
Higher rank would be more convenient.
"He's a military officer serving in the royal guard. He keeps his Terraforce faith secret except from his family."
"That's fine. He'll have to trust it. Send the location of Emma's house. Say Shirone requests an audience. And... tell him there's something to report about my son."
Shirone chose his words carefully.
The Grand Arbiter's eyelids fluttered, and that was all.
"Transmission complete. The oracle will be delivered to recipients after they sleep tonight. It should arrive by dawn."
They'd saved a huge amount of time, but Kido suggested an easier method.
"Why not possess that guard now like you did this priest? Just write the message on paper and slip away."
"Forcing a trance breaks order. Only Hexa, humanity's representative, is permitted to summon me."
Shirone agreed.
"Understood. Then we'll wait for the palace's contact."
The communication ended. As the Grand Arbiter's expression faded, the pseudo-priest covered his eyes and screamed.
"Ahhh! It hurts! Whee! Where am I!"
'Seems he has no memory.'
So had Meirei.
Those whose legs had been severed were already dead from blood loss; it would be hard for them to stumble out of the cave sightless.
'Spirit Zone—could it work here?'
Rian rubbed his shoulder.
"For now, let's go, Shirone. No reason to stay any longer."
"...Right."
Shirone and his party followed Emma out of the cave as the cult leader's wails echoed behind them.