WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Order

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Chapter 68: God's Love (3)

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It was a night lit by only half a moon, so few people wandered the streets.

The group followed Bireone's lead, crossing the city each time clouds covered the moon.

At least Bireone seemed to know exactly where he was going.

"Bireone. You know the way?"

Elbridge asked, and Bireone answered.

"Been here a few times before. Before the war broke out, our church and the Curved Sword Church got along pretty well."

Elbridge remembered the two men Bireone had killed on top of the wall.

Bireone hadn't hesitated to kill them, even though they weren't his mortal enemies.

'If I'd been in Bireone's position, could I have done what he did?'

He had the skill for it. But Elbridge had no certainty about the rest.

No certainty that he could pursue his church's interests even at the cost of killing others.

The senior paladins who had faded away over the years had probably been no different from Elbridge.

Rombel asked Bireone, "Knowing the way is good, but do you also know where the priests are being kept?"

"Of course. How do you think I knew the Curved Sword bastards would be out today?"

There was only one way to know something like that.

Planting your own people inside the Curved Sword Church, or somewhere in this city.

Given Bireone's resourcefulness, it seemed entirely possible.

Bireone led the group past the Curved Sword Church's temple and up into a massive tree.

The tree had a knothole large enough to hold several people, and inside it, four people lay sleeping.

Two female priests, one elderly male priest, and a man carrying a curved sword.

Of the four, the man with the curved sword noticed the presence of Elbridge's group and tried to get up.

"You're..."

But the man died before he could even rise. Bireone clamped a hand over his mouth, snatched the sword with his other hand, and drove it into the man's heart.

"...Gkk."

Elbridge surveyed the inside of the knothole and made a judgment.

'Fewer people than I expected. Did they take the rest into battle?'

Five people had appeared without warning, and the watchman was dead.

Caught off guard, the three priests who'd woken up couldn't manage a word, only trembling.

Elbridge whispered.

"I'm Elbridge of the Order of the Rusted Shield. I've come from eastern Solenion at the request of the priest Isalvius."

At the mention of Isalvius's name, the three priests visibly relaxed.

Bireone naturally gave orders to his subordinate and to Rombel.

"Dicha. Rombel. Lead these people back."

"Understood."

So Bireone's subordinate's name was Dicha.

But unlike Dicha, who agreed at once, Rombel pushed back at Bireone.

"What about you two?"

"The Curved Sword Church will be back soon. We'll pull out the paladins who went with them."

"You sure about that?"

"The Curved Sword bastards left the castle yesterday afternoon to stage an ambush. If they come back empty-handed in the middle of the night, they'll be exhausted. We just need to get the paladins out while they're asleep."

Rombel caught something strange in Bireone's story.

"Empty-handed? How would you know that?"

"Because I leaked word to the other side that the Curved Sword bastards were planning an attack. Even if they only half believe it, they'll have prepared for the ambush."

"Sly bastard... Fine."

Rombel clapped Bireone on the back, then hoisted the priests onto his back and quietly climbed down from the tree.

Marcus watched Rombel disappear into the darkness and said, almost pleading.

"Just in case something goes wrong. Wouldn't it have made more sense for me to leave and Rombel to stay? His skills are better than mine, after all..."

Bireone shook his head.

"Rombel looks too distinctive. If things go sideways, he'll be the one people remember. And you, didn't you say you follow the God of Fox Rain?"

"Yes."

"We need luck more than they do."

There wasn't a single wasted move in any of Bireone's judgments or actions.

Elbridge felt a quiet admiration.

'Thorough bastard.'

* * *

The remaining three hid themselves among the temple rafters and waited.

Sure enough, before long, a great many footsteps approached the temple. The masters of this city, the Curved Sword Church.

Behind them, members of the Order of the God of Flowing Water trudged along wearily.

'A lot of dragging feet. Everyone's exhausted.'

The voices that followed were sharp and irritable.

"How did the Sinking Shadow bastards find out?"

"Must have planted someone, right? They're the sneakiest of the bunch..."

A moment later, a shout rang out from higher up in the tree.

"Kadum's dead! The priests are gone!"

"That settles it. This is all the Sinking Shadow Church's doing. A spy leaked our plans and made off with the priests too."

"Those two who died on the wall. And Kadum too, killed by spies, right?"

"That's right."

"Bastards..."

Their reasoning fit together well enough.

But sounding plausible doesn't always mean it's true.

A low voice growled out an order.

"Rest today. I don't care if we have to team up with other churches, we're wiping out every last one of the Sinking Shadow bastards. Hob, Hisha. You two guard the wall tonight."

"Understood."

Elbridge felt the footsteps scatter in different directions. Several people lingered inside the temple, but before long, everything went quiet.

And through it all, Elbridge's group remained boldly hidden in the rafters, listening to every word.

"If we dawdle, dawn will break. Let's head down."

The three climbed down and entered the room where the priests and paladins of the Order of the God of Flowing Water had been dragged.

They were exhausted from the forced march, and even with Elbridge's group entering the room, they barely stirred from sleep.

"Wake up."

The three roused the priests and paladins of the Order of the God of Flowing Water, who had only just fallen asleep.

Nine people in all. Every one of them was groggy with fatigue and sleep, but they managed to open their eyes.

Elbridge introduced himself.

"I'm Elbridge, from eastern Solenion. I've come at Isalvius's request to rescue all of you."

"Isalvius?"

At the name, their eyes snapped open.

Isalvius apparently held real standing within the church.

Bireone spoke.

"Isalvius asked our Silver Javelin Apostles for help. The three who were in the knothole are already rescued. Follow quietly."

The priests and paladins of the Order of the God of Flowing Water rose quietly from where they lay and stepped outside on tired feet.

It was still dark outside, and no one else stirred. But Elbridge's heart pounded hard in his chest.

He had faced all kinds of situations up to now.

But rescuing people from other people, breaking them out, this was the first time.

'Quiet. Stay quiet...'

By the time the eastern sky began to lighten, they had reached the city wall.

"Wait here a moment."

Bireone climbed the wall again.

A moment later, he waved from the top. Climbing the interior stairs up, Elbridge found two more bodies slumped over, dead, just as expected.

They looked like they'd died in their sleep, their postures relaxed and peaceful.

Bireone lowered the same rope down the outside of the wall.

"Let's go down."

Before long, everyone had made it outside the wall.

The paladins and priests of the Order of the God of Flowing Water still looked stunned.

"...I didn't think it would be this simple to get out."

"We're not done yet. Let's move, quickly."

Elbridge's group, along with the nine rescued people, crossed the Great Forest toward their destination.

Whenever the rescued exhausted themselves and couldn't walk anymore, Elbridge, Bireone, and Marcus took turns carrying them.

'No telling when pursuers might catch up. We need to move as fast as we can.'

But even as dawn broke and the sky turned blue, no pursuers appeared.

The only thing they came across on the way back were wild boars snuffling and digging through the dirt.

The wild boars only stared blankly at the group, never coming closer.

* * *

After Bireone and Elbridge's group rescued the people from the Order of the God of Flowing Water, the faces of that church's members visibly relaxed.

If things kept going this well, the Order of the God of Flowing Water might actually side with Bireone.

Of course, Bireone's plan was only just beginning.

"The Curved Sword bastards said they'd team up with other churches to attack the Sinking Shadow Church. The partner they pick will definitely be the Stump Church. Those guys..."

Elbridge let Bireone's talk go in one ear and out the other.

Frankly, Elbridge had no real interest in who ended up holding power in the south.

It was enough that the Order of the God of Flowing Water's members could end their lives as slaves and move naturally to the Lake of Eternity.

Even with Elbridge's obvious lack of interest, Bireone kept showing him endless goodwill.

"...Right. That's a problem I need to handle myself. Instead of dry talk, how about a sparring match? Loosen up a bit."

Bireone's newfound enthusiasm for Elbridge had started the day after the rescue operation, during a sparring match they'd had just to pass the time.

Elbridge had lost to Bireone in unarmed combat, but when weapons came into play, he'd overpowered Bireone without much trouble.

One win, one loss. Of the two, it was the loss that had lit a fire in Bireone.

After getting thoroughly beaten with the flat of Elbridge's scabbard, Bireone had looked at him with an uncharacteristic gleam in his eye.

That look alone told Elbridge exactly what Bireone was thinking.

Bireone had probably never once, in his whole life, found someone worth calling a real rival.

"We already sparred this morning, what more... I'm good for now."

Since staying put would likely mean Bireone pestering him further, Elbridge slipped away.

He climbed up onto the wall and let his legs dangle over the outer edge.

Sitting there, gazing out at the Great Forest of the south, Isalvius came and sat beside him, naturally enough.

Isalvius opened with talk of the Grand Festival.

"Back when we first met in Solenion, Sir Elbridge annoyed me so much... I never imagined things would turn out like this."

"You never know how things will go with people."

"I honestly thought you'd refuse my request because of that, if nothing else. If anything, what happened between us back then was less a good connection than a bad one."

"I hold no ill will. If anything, I felt a little sorry about it."

That was the plain truth. Elbridge held neither particular goodwill nor ill will toward Isalvius.

Even now, he hadn't come south out of pure kindness.

He'd needed an excuse to reach the Lake of Eternity, and the situation of the Order of the God of Flowing Water had happened to tug at him a little.

"By the way, you said the Order of the God of Flowing Water's believers live near the Lake of Eternity?"

Elbridge steered the conversation toward the Lake of Eternity, casually.

That way, once this job was finished, he could make his way there naturally.

"Yes. That's right."

"Don't priests and paladins usually live close to their believers?"

"That's... there are reasons for it."

Isalvius wore a bitter expression.

"The south isn't good land for people to live on. Near the Lake of Eternity, it's the same. Our believers' lives are always stretched thin. There's too much they lack."

A hard life. Priests and paladins living far from home. Healing Authority.

The situation was easy enough to guess.

"You came out here to earn money."

"Yes. Our priests and paladins heal people and use the money they earn to buy supplies for those living near the Lake of Eternity. Honestly, that's part of why we tried to move east too. If we could establish ourselves in the wealthy east, we'd earn far more..."

Elbridge thought to himself.

Isalvius's path in life was strikingly different from that of ordinary people in this age.

"Is there really a reason to stay with the Order of the God of Flowing Water, going to such lengths?"

Elbridge chose his words carefully so Isalvius wouldn't misread the question, and Isalvius didn't take it the wrong way.

"Do you know that most southern churches worship their own ancestors as gods?"

"I've heard a little about it."

That was one of the defining features of southern churches.

When one person achieved something great and ascended, their bloodline formed a church and became clergy to serve the one who'd ascended. Since these churches were built on bloodline, southern priests and paladins ended up close to nobility.

Southerners didn't find that strange. A paladin was, after all, kin to a god.

"The gods of the south share bloodlines, or at least a shared homeland, with their believers, and that's why they treasure them. But the God of Flowing Water was a little different. He never cared where anyone came from. He embraced every believer with love."

That much could be said of almost any church, but what came next was a little unusual.

"Every believer of the Order of the God of Flowing Water receives an oracle a few times in their life. I got my first one when I confessed to a girl my age and got turned down. The God of Flowing Water sent me an oracle telling me not to be too disheartened."

That was hard to imagine.

Most gods were sparing with oracles, and even when they did send one, it usually went to an archbishop.

A god who sent oracles to ordinary believers, the way the God of Flowing Water did, was extremely rare.

Ask why, and you'd usually get some version of the same answer.

Because the god wanted their words to carry weight.

Because they wanted to conserve even a little divinity, to share more with their believers.

Because they didn't want to play favorites among believers.

In that sense, the God of Flowing Water was a remarkably strange god.

For every single believer to have received an oracle multiple times...

"When my daughter was born, both my wife and I received oracles. And they weren't oracles sent out of idle curiosity or whim. The God of Flowing Water remembers even the smallest details of his believers' lives, and watches over us with warm eyes. He's a god, and at the same time, like a father to every one of his believers."

The Goddess of the Rusted Shield, who had been quiet, sent down an oracle.

- My dearest child. Your goddess is no slouch either.

"The Goddess of the Rusted Shield is no slouch either."

Elbridge passed the oracle along to Isalvius word for word, and the Goddess of the Rusted Shield grew embarrassed.

- That wasn't meant to be repeated to Isalvius. Elbridge...

Of course, Isalvius had no idea that what Elbridge just said had been an oracle.

Isalvius smiled gently and answered.

"Then Sir Elbridge must understand too. A god who grants divine power like a transaction with believers is nowhere near as noble as one who truly loves and cherishes them. It's a shame that almost every god is simply too busy to give their believers any real attention."

The Healing Authority held by the God of Flowing Water fell short compared to the Healing Authority held by the Goddess of Spring Rain and Moss.

By rational calculation, the believers who served the God of Flowing Water should have transferred to the Order of Spring Rain and Moss long ago.

But the God of Flowing Water had layered love and attention on top of an inferior divine power, and as a result, he'd managed to hold onto one heavenly seat, even now.

The attention and love a lofty heavenly god showed to a being on the ground was that powerful an experience.

Powerful enough that Elbridge had never once looked toward another church.

Powerful enough to make him choose the thorny road of rebuilding a ruined church, rather than turn his back on it.

Elbridge remembered the day he'd first received an oracle from his goddess.

Even two hundred years later, that short conversation with the Goddess of the Rusted Shield remained vivid in his memory. He knew he'd never forget it, not until the day he died.

That was why, for the first time in his life, Elbridge found himself asking a question.

Why did the gods hold their oracles so close, and why were they so reluctant to show their love for their believers?

Footnotes:

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