WeTried Translations

Translator: Botanica

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◈ I Became the Slit-Eyed Henchman of the Evil Boss ◈

Chapter 69

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Business? Meeting (2)

The priest of Enyalios I'd met out in that deserted wasteland had introduced himself as Demos.

"What should I call you? I can't keep referring to you as 'Enemy of the Ten Towers' forever."

'Not even considering "L13," huh. I suppose that's a Blasphemia codename, so he probably doesn't want to hear it.'

"Shall we go with Outis?"

"Huh. Anyone can tell that's a fake name."

I shrugged. My bare face is strange that way, it doesn't stick in anyone's memory unless they've spent a long time around me.

So showing my face wasn't much of a concern, but a name was a different matter. I hadn't spent time diligently building a false identity to con someone with, the way I had for that rookie Blasphemia agent.

Better to just give a different name from the start.

"'The nameless prophet with closed eyes.' Quite fitting, symbolically."

Whether it was sarcasm or genuine sentiment, I couldn't tell. Demos left the remark hanging and hurried on ahead.

"Where are we going?"

"Ah, right. You said you'd never taken part in a gathering of the Order of the Divine Name. No wonder you wouldn't know."

"Given that Blasphemia has hunted you for so long without ever finding you, I would guess you are using some kind of sacred invocation."

"That's right. Blasphemia truly has been on our heels for a very long time. But."

Demos rolled up his sleeve. Beneath it was a tattoo of two snakes coiled around a staff, the shape of the symbol called the Caduceus.

'Huh? That emblem should belong to Piraeos the Gatekeeper, not the war god Enyalios.'

The instant the question crossed my mind, Demos tore at the tattoo, in a motion that looked like he meant to rip his own skin off.

But no skin peeled away, no muscle showed underneath. Only the golden emblem came away in his grip, and he flung it into the air.

Demos poured his divine power into the emblem as it floated there. The more divine power it absorbed, the larger it grew.

By the time the staff had grown to nearly two meters tall,

the two snakes coiled around it uncoiled, planting themselves to either side and becoming snake-shaped pillars. Between them and the staff at the center, the light of divine power welled up. Touched by that divine power, the staff seemed to melt away, scattering and dyeing the curtain of divine power filling the space between the snake-pillars a deep gold.

The two snakes glared at each other while the curtain of divine power rippled between them. It could only be a portal, one that connected one space to another.

"Those without the gods' protection can't reach the Order of the Divine Name's sanctuary. Follow me."

Demos walked through the golden portal without hesitation. I followed after him.

* * *

Footsteps echoed down a corridor of pure white marble, spotless.

"They're coming."

More than one set of footsteps. Hearing it, the current cult leader of the Phoibos cult, Hwiakin, murmured in a heavy voice.

'The prophet of Phoibos, is it....'

There had once been a time when gods spoke directly to people, when a human being could stand in audience before a god's own august countenance.

But when the age of glory ended and the wicked Mage King ushered in an age of darkness, prophets, those who could speak with the gods, faded away into history.

The Order of the Divine Name today was no different. Among the various cults' leaders and bishops, some claimed to have "received revelation from their god," but none claimed to have "heard a god's voice."

Subtle signs and symbolic dreams were all that remained. Those who could truly hear a god's voice were gone.

It was a silence that had gone on for far too long, long enough to wear down even the most devout.

'Isn't that exactly why the other cults gave their assent when the Pope's irreverent plan came up for a vote....'

But now, someone claiming to be a prophet who spoke directly with the gods had appeared.

A prophet of Phoibos, no less.

It couldn't be accepted. All the endless years that faith had been given, the god had stayed silent through every one of them, so how, now-!

Hwiakin looked around. Most of the others had robes or veils drawn over their faces, so there was no reading their expressions.

But Phoibos was a god who saw far, and Hwiakin's own sacred invocation could still read the emotions of the others regardless.

'Most of them, wary and watching, then.'

Hwiakin glared toward a veiled woman seated elsewhere at the round table. A veil, yes, but not the deeply colored kind meant to hide a face completely.

Nearly transparent, it felt closer to a bride's veil, the kind meant to be lifted eventually. Through the translucent fabric, her features were easy enough to make out. Her long, flowing golden hair stood out clearly.

Urania, acting cult leader of the cult of Elimon, goddess of pleasure, ecstasy, and eros.

'Interest... is it.'

Impulsive and hedonistic, much like the goddess she served, people said of her, but even so, to show curiosity toward this thoroughly suspicious self-proclaimed prophet? Hwiakin shook their head.

Two figures could be seen approaching from down the corridor.

The priests seated at the round table rose to their feet.

By rights, the round table held thirteen golden chairs. One sat empty because the Pope hadn't appeared, and another sat empty because the Enyalios cult's representative had gone out to receive the pretender.

Eleven pairs of eyes turned to the two approaching, or more precisely, to the self-proclaimed prophet trailing behind Demos.

Demos spoke.

"This is the one who foretold Argyrion's movements to me, and who told me of the Toress Magic Tower's fall. When we first met, he called himself the Enemy of the Ten Towers. Meeting again, he gave his name as Outis, one who is no one at all. I ask that all comrades of this Order, who serve the sacred name, receive the prophet of Phoibos with the welcome he deserves."

Hwiakin thought.

'The one who should rightfully speak as their representative, the head of all the cults, the cult leader of cult leaders, is absent right now. That being so, the right to speak first belongs to me.'

Hwiakin stepped forward, whether out of dignity or fury. Seeing Hwiakin advance, the other priests took their seats.

Against that surge of intensity, Demos moved to block Hwiakin's path. Six paces separated Demos from Hwiakin. And six more paces separated Demos from Outis.

With twelve paces between them, Hwiakin shouted toward Outis.

"I, Hwiakin, speak as the rightful cult leader of the Phoibos cult! The Phoibos cult knows nothing of one such as you! You, who name yourself as no one at all, shall reveal your true identity to me!"

* * *

I'd already expected pushback like this. If anything, the surprise was that the other cults were all hanging back a step.

Unlike the other priests who kept their faces hidden, Hwiakin, like Demos, had theirs uncovered. Did that mean Hwiakin meant to speak Phoibos cult to Phoibos cult?

"I do not know you either."

"What?"

"But there's one thing I do know: that everyone gathered here is an enemy of the Ten Towers. I am an enemy of the Ten Towers too. So even if you can't trust me as a fellow believer, can you not at least trust me as the enemy of your enemy?"

Hwiakin's face twisted slightly at my words.

"To call yourself the prophet of Phoibos and not even recognize your own cult leader-" "Hey."

It was one of the priests seated in a golden chair who cut Hwiakin off. Judging by the thickness of the voice, it sounded like it belonged to someone young, maybe? A boy whose voice had only just broken, or a young man already grown?

"Say 'the Ten Towers are a pack of bastards.'"

Huh?

"You're supposed to be an enemy of the Ten Towers, right? So say it. 'The Ten Towers are a pack of bastards.'"

"The Ten Towers are a pack of ba-"

"Give me a love fortune reading!"

A voice cutting in abruptly. Unmistakably melodic, it was the shout of a veiled woman with golden hair.

"Urania. What are you doing? This loyalty screening is an important procedure."

"Prodito, look who's talking. Demos vouched for him, didn't he? It's not about whether he's an enemy of the Ten Towers, we need to see if his prophecy powers are the real thing!"

With those two setting it off, something like restraint just came undone.

"What's the secret to passing a Blasphemia interview?!"

"That high-frequency blade you're carrying, isn't standard Blasphemia issue, is it?"

"Is it true that in the Blasphemia basement, they eat stew through their noses?"

"Where's the Bacchus cult's child?"

A few priests still kept their silence, but before long the round table hall was filled with noise. Demos pressed a hand to his face.

Demos approached cautiously and whispered.

"There used to be only a few who'd act this undignified.... Forgive them. It's been decades of nothing but grim news, so I suppose everyone's spirits are just lifted at something that finally looks like hope."

I gave a bitter smile. I hadn't come to deliver hope, I'd come to run a con.

Even amid the whole excited round table, Urania and Prodito were the loudest of all.

"Can you do a love fortune reading for me?"

"Say 'the Ten Towers are a pack of bastards.'"

"Give me a love fortune reading!"

"The Ten Towers are a pack of ba-"

"Enough!"

Hwiakin shouted, voice boiling over. They'd tolerated it the first few times, it seemed, but had finally reached a limit.

"All of you bear responsibility for a cult, so conduct yourselves with dignity! It is I who am speaking with that man right now!"

* * *

Having quelled the uproar with that furious shout, Hwiakin turned to glare at Outis again.

"Since you've made your case, asking us to believe you're an enemy of the Ten Towers, I will test whether you truly possess, as you yourself claim, the wisdom and prophecy needed to stand against the Ten Towers."

Outis nodded, unhurried. Closed eyes, a faint smile at the corners of his mouth, the look of someone gazing out over the world from some place beyond it. Everything about Outis rubbed Hwiakin the wrong way.

"Speak! You who falsely claim the title of prophet!"

'No matter how great his powers might be, even he can't possibly know this.'

It was the most secret prophecy Hwiakin had ever glimpsed, one not even the other cult leaders knew, shared with no one but the Pope.

There was no way to answer it correctly unless one had truly been chosen by a god's own sacred relic.

"What is the greatest calamity soon to befall this world?!"

Outis's smile deepened slightly. Hwiakin took it for a bluff, an attempt to mask embarrassment behind feigned composure.

'Talk of the Ten Towers' great purge, or an extradimensional flood, anything like that won't come near the truth. I'll expose your false claim in the light of day.'

Slowly, Outis opened his mouth.

"...king."

The voice was far too small. Too low to make out.

"If you are truly a prophet, speak your prophecy as you ought!"

A faint blue light glimmered through his closed eyelids. That blue stood out so sharply it seemed to cast a shadow over the round table.

No.

The world's saturation dimmed.

Amid the sudden darkening of the view, a mist could be seen trailing behind Outis's back.

It wasn't ordinary mist. A rippling shape, as if every ominous thing in the world had been gathered and shaped into one.

At the center of that shimmering, fate-like haze, the shadow of a being wreathed in a splendor too dazzling to describe flickered into view.

With that fearsome light at his back, his blue eyes shining, Outis pronounced the prophecy.

"The Mage King's return."

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