WeTried Translations

Translator: Botanica

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

Chapter 72

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Business? Meeting (5)

I will build the foundation that returns the glory of the ancient age. Let us reclaim, together, an age when the gods shone bright.

Outis's intent was clear.

"The door opens to those who knock, and salvation comes to those who seek. Join hands with me."

But the Order of the Divine Name had no choice but to fall silent. It was because of the blasphemous plan the Pope had proposed and the Order itself had approved.

There were priests who'd cast dissenting votes, and some who hadn't even been present for the vote. But it remained a fact that, in the end, the Order of the Divine Name had sided with the Pope.

"....."

The suspicious silence hanging over the priests would ordinarily have looked like simple deliberation over a sudden proposal. But Ortes, who'd already gotten a clue from Sikton, could read a certain wrongness in that silence.

'Well, would you look at that.'

Looked like Sikton hadn't just been spouting nonsense after all. Ambivalence toward the coming age of gods, welcoming it and yet also seeming to bristle at it, both at once.

The one who stepped forward as representative of the silent priests was Philoxenon. As the servant of the chief god, he held the strongest voice among all the priests of each cult present at the meeting.

"It's an unconventional proposal. But it's dangerous too. If the Mage King gets his hands on the Ten Commandments, it'll be a catastrophe beyond comparison, even to the Ten Towers."

"That's precisely why Argyrion's expansion must be stopped. The Ten Towers, worn down from fighting Argyrion, will be all the more vulnerable to the Mage King's descent."

"I'll grant that it's a persuasive proposal. But adopting it would mean changing the policy of every cult that makes up the Order of the Divine Name. We're merely members of the Order, not its true representatives, so we can't give you an answer right away."

"The true representative? Do you mean the 'Pope'?"

A flicker of surprise crossed Philoxenon's eyes. That a priest who'd never once set foot in the Order of the Divine Name would know of the Pope's existence...

But thinking it over, it wasn't so strange. He'd been embedded in Blasphemia, after all; he could easily have gotten hold of information about the Order's leader that way.

"That's not something to discuss in front of an outsider."

Ortes realized why the Pope himself hadn't shown up to this gathering of representatives from the twelve cults. It was because the Pope's face couldn't be shown to an outsider.

'Pretty tightly guarded, aren't they. Hm....'

Demanding an immediate yes-or-no on the plan would be an amateur's move. Ortes ran the cost-benefit calculation quickly.

Right now was the time to step back for a moment and watch. He'd laid out a new future for them; they'd need time to chew on it.

All the more so for something as monumental as the Mage King's descent. The prophecy Ortes had delivered would bring enormous upheaval to the Order's future.

'The second-best outcome is the whole Order of the Divine Name backing my plan, cooperating to eliminate Argyrion while starting the search for sacred relics at the same time. The best outcome would be....'

Internal strife within the Order of the Divine Name. If the pro- and anti- factions each pursued their own plans and failed to combine their strength, that would be the best outcome of all.

The Order of the Divine Name, too, was a variable of possibility Ortes couldn't fully account for.

* * *

Philoxenon's words carried an unmistakable intent: showing Outis the door. Demos looked over at Outis.

Provocative as the remark might've been in a sense, Outis's expression didn't change in the slightest. Only that faint, knowing smile stayed fixed in place, as it always did.

"I see. In that case, this uninvited guest will take his leave."

Outis bowed at the waist, a deliberately exaggerated gesture. Once again, Demos caught a whiff of something clownish, actor-like, about him.

"But before that."

By the time he'd finished his bow, Ortes's hand somehow held something like a small box. He seemed to have drawn it from inside his robe.

"I have a gift for you."

Ortes opened the box. Inside were a handful of grapes.

Too paltry a thing to call a gift. Not even a whole bunch, just a few individual grapes.

What was he playing at?

Among the priests, the first to recognize what those "grapes" really were were Philoxenon and Hwiakin, the two most seasoned among them.

"The fruit of Bacchus?! Wasn't that supposed to have vanished along with the cult itself?"

* * *

This next part mattered most. I put on an easy smile.

"Priest Demos will have already told you all that I had one of the Bacchus cult's children in my keeping, back in Elysion."

Silence.

"I wasn't merely a witness present at the Bacchus cult's final moment. I also served as something of an undertaker, recovering their remains."

"You must mean grave robber."

Hwiakin's jab. I answered with a laugh.

"Could be. But isn't that better than Blasphemia making off with the entire legacy?"

"....."

"I have no interest in owning the Bacchus cult's legacy, the grapevine included. I'm merely keeping it safe for a while, so that I can return it when the Bacchus cult's rightful heir comes to claim it."

As if standing in for the silent Hwiakin, Philoxenon spoke up. Not the stern tone he used when wielding sacred invocation, but something closer to the voice of a middle manager worn thin by exhaustion.

"You're saying you've been protecting the cult's belongings from Blasphemia's hands?"

"I'd appreciate it if you took it that way."

"So then. Why show us this now?"

"How many 'legacies,' do you suppose, I've seen, and gathered, while operating under Blasphemia's identity?"

Truth be told, I hadn't actually seen all that many. But I knew where some of the sacred relics were buried.

"And how many more legacies, do you think, sit stored away in Blasphemia's secret vaults?"

The "best outcome" I had in mind was internal strife within the Order of the Divine Name. If I wanted the best result, simply tossing out facts and hoping for a split wasn't going to cut it.

Wasn't it said that heaven helps those who help themselves?

"Anyone interested in the legacies of the cult that I've personally collected, please contact me through this address. It belongs to L13 of Blasphemia, so you'll want to take the appropriate security precautions."

I'd just handed the priests a pretext to reach out to me personally.

There was a chance every one of them could become an informant, and further still, an ally to my cause.

Conversation was the seed of empathy. The priests who talked with me would gradually keep hearing about the threat of the "Mage King's return." The more they sympathized with that threat, the greater the chance of internal strife.

And the more channels I kept the conversation open through, the easier it would get to learn the truth behind the "betrayal" the Order of the Divine Name was supposed to have committed.

The one seeing me off was, once again, Demos.

"...There was plenty you never told even me."

"I keep quite a few secrets."

Demos nodded slowly.

"Once you're sent back, they'll start the council session about that... terrifying news you brought. The Pope will probably come in person. I'll send word once a decision's been made."

He trailed off, avoiding any specifics about the Mage King's return. Even a priest of the war god, someone who ought to be most at home with battle and violence, seemed to fear that name.

I wasn't exactly in a position to judge. The Mage King was the biggest variable for me too.

"If there's nothing else, let's part ways here."

"Ah. Now that I think of it, there was something I was curious about."

"What is it?"

"If the Pope is absent, shouldn't there be two empty seats instead of just one? Since the Bacchus cult was wiped out, there's no representative left to attend, after all."

* * *

After Ortes withdrew, the priests' council declared a brief recess. In the meantime, Hwiakin led one of the priests who'd been seated at the round table away.

The space, woven from countless overlapping sacred invocations into a tangled knot, was a labyrinth in its own right. With every step down the marble corridor, the scenery shifted and transformed.

Aigio's heavens, Elimon's bedchamber, Enyalios's battlefield...

Every step through that kaleidoscope of spaces carried Phoibos's foresight within it, a design built so that no one could find their way without sacred invocation. Hwiakin passed through the corridors leading to every holy site and finally arrived before a darkness like a bottomless pit.

"Pope!"

The one meditating beneath twelve lights, now eleven since one flame had gone out, turned his head.

"Has that visitor already gone?"

"He left behind a horror, meticulously calculated chaos, right in our midst, and then took his leave. Do you know what that man said? He said that ancient catastrophe of old would descend upon us again."

The Pope sensed the fear hidden deep beneath Hwiakin's anger-laced words. He gave a gentle nod, dismissing Hwiakin.

Hwiakin felt an unbearable fury toward Outis, and still stayed faithful to the Pope's request. Bringing this young priest before the Pope had been the task entrusted to Hwiakin.

In the silence, only the priest who'd tagged along remained.

"Now then, Kore. Won't you tell me about what you saw of him?"

When the priest pulled back her hood, vivid hair with a reddish tint spilled down. She, by nature, didn't belong to any of the twelve cults.

The Pope's eyes glinted, cold and sharp.

"A prophecy from the old age, passed down from Pope to Pope. And a prophecy known only within your cult, the cult of the Thirteenth Great God, as well. That outsider came here holding both in hand."

The Pope turned to Kore, priestess of Pluton, the Thirteenth God who reigned over the underworld, and asked:

"What color was his soul, the one you saw?"

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