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◈ Paladin of a Ruined Order

Chapter 72

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God's Love

A few days later, Bireone saw off Elbridge's group at the open city gate.

"If you ever need help, come find me."

"I will."

Bireone turned to Isalvius and the other believers of the Order of the God of Flowing Water.

"If you ever need somewhere to lean on, come find me."

The words were almost identical to what he'd said to Elbridge, but the tone carried a different meaning.

It wasn't an offer to help. It was an invitation, an offer to join the God of the Silver Javelin's service if they ever wanted to.

The believers of the Order of the God of Flowing Water quietly turned their heads away.

That day might come eventually. But not yet.

Elbridge, Rombel, Marcus, and the priests and paladins of the Order of the God of Flowing Water headed south.

Most of the order's believers lived around the Lake of Eternity, so they were able to guide Elbridge's group along the way.

Something sat heavy in Elbridge's chest.

'I never imagined the war would end like this.'

The war had ended with a whimper.

It had started as a fight over who would monopolize Healing Authority.

But Healing Authority had vanished along with the God of Flowing Water, so there was no longer any reason for the churches to fight each other. That was why Bireone had let the people of the Order of the God of Flowing Water go so willingly.

Rombel spoke up.

"Elbridge."

"What?"

"I've lived three hundred years, and I spent about two hundred of them among humans. I've watched people fight more times than I can count. But I've never seen a war like this one."

"How so?"

"Every fight and every war I've ever seen had a winner. Even if only one out of a hundred came out on top, even if the spoils that winner claimed were pathetic, there was always a winner. But this war has no winner. Not a single one."

Elbridge fell into thought.

What had this war left behind?

The dead, the wounded.

Churches ruined. Churches on the edge of ruin. Churches lucky enough to escape major damage.

Hatred and grudges.

And believers who had lost their god.

A low rumble sounded nearby.

Elbridge looked toward the noise.

A wild boar. It had been digging in the dirt, but slipped away quietly once it noticed the crowd of people approaching.

'In a way, those creatures are victims too.'

Elbridge kept thinking it through.

In any other region, the surviving faction would have expanded its territory. But the south wasn't that kind of place.

Land had always been plentiful here, since long ago. What had always been scarce was the environment fit to live in, and people willing to fight the demonic beasts to survive.

On land that needed a large population just to get by, the population had shrunk even further. Life for the people of the south was only going to get harder.

Rombel was right.

Not a single person had gained anything from this war.

Elbridge spoke.

"You're right that this war has no winner. But it's not the first war like that."

"Really? There's been another war with no winner?"

"The war against the Archdemon. That war had no winner either. Everyone only suffered losses."

"No. That war was the one that won the most out of anything. It bought two hundred years of peace, didn't it?"

Elbridge answered sourly.

"I've never tasted that peace."

"That's because you stepped in dog shit."

Elbridge's fist clenched tight.

"Couldn't you at least call it heroic devotion and sacrifice?"

Rombel snorted.

"Heroic devotion? I never saw the scene where you sealed the Archdemon, but I can guess well enough. A bunch of paladins eyeing each other, hoping someone else would step up first. And you got pushed forward by the mood of the room."

Elbridge flinched inwardly. Rombel's guess had landed a little too close to the truth.

The paladins who had thrown their lives on the line fighting the Archdemon had, once it was finally subdued, quietly held back. Peace and prosperity were coming. Who would volunteer to be the one who sacrificed themselves for that?

Elbridge had hated that uncomfortable atmosphere, and he'd believed he was the right person for the job, so he'd volunteered. Of course, as Rombel said, part of that decision had come from being swept along by the mood.

But no one had been there to testify to that, so Elbridge could speak with confidence.

"No. I didn't hesitate for a second. I gladly took on the mission everyone else was avoiding."

"Honestly, that part doesn't matter much. Whether you got pushed into stepping in shit or walked into it on your own two feet, you still ended up with shit on your boots either way."

Elbridge's fist cut through the air.

But Rombel, as if he'd expected it, caught it with an outstretched hand.

Should he swing again, or move on to the next stage?

The answer was the latter. The moment Elbridge's hand touched his sword hilt, Rombel switched tactics fast.

"Of course, the opposite also holds. Whether you got pushed into the role or volunteered without hesitation, the result is still heroic devotion. That doesn't change. Right?"

"..."

Elbridge couldn't tell if that was just a face-saving line or something Rombel actually believed. But it was exactly what he'd wanted to hear.

For two hundred years, Elbridge had carried a small shame over the fact that he'd hesitated, if only briefly, before stepping forward.

If he was going to step up, he should have done it without hesitation.

And if he had hesitated, he shouldn't have volunteered himself as the sacrifice for the sealing. He should have held out to the bitter end with a straight face instead. How many times had he regretted that?

'A sealing, huh.'

They were on their way to another sealing right now, as it happened.

Elbridge turned the core the God of Flowing Water had left behind over in his hand.

The cores demons left behind varied in size and shape.

The core the God of Flowing Water had left looked like a fruit seed. Slightly lumpy in shape, no bigger than a thumb.

The color was what stood out.

Unlike the usual black or dark red of a demon's core, this one was ash gray.

As if to say it hadn't become a full demon yet.

"Rombel."

"What?"

"You said you'd become a god for the sake of your kind."

"That's right."

You're not going to become a demon too, are you? Elbridge started to ask, then shut his mouth.

But Rombel read the rest from his expression anyway.

Rombel grinned.

"If my wife were still alive, I might have become a demon for her sake. But my wife died a long time ago. I care about the rest of my kind too, but not the way I cared about her. There's been no real contact between us for over two hundred years. So there's no chance of me ever following in the footsteps of the God of Flowing Water."

Elbridge nodded.

Just then, low laughter broke out behind them.

Ha ha ha—

He looked back and saw Marcus chatting with the people of the Order of the God of Flowing Water.

Marcus was the kind of person who couldn't stand a gloomy atmosphere, so he kept striking up conversations with one person after another, trying to lift the mood.

Rombel drifted into the crowd to help Marcus along.

Left alone, Elbridge offered a prayer to the Goddess of the Rusted Shield.

"Goddess."

It was the first prayer he'd offered in days, since defeating the God of Flowing Water.

As if she'd been waiting, the Goddess of the Rusted Shield answered with an oracle.

- I hear you, Elbridge. If you need your goddess's help, speak quickly.

"I just wanted to talk a little."

- Your goddess is always ready to hear her most devoted knight's troubles. Even shameful worries are welcome, so pour them all out at once.

Elbridge couldn't help laughing.

Talking with the Goddess of the Rusted Shield always seemed to fill him with strength, somehow.

"Goddess. I think I finally understand why the gods don't hand down oracles so easily anymore."

- What do you think the reason is?

"I used to think it was to conserve divine power, even a little, or to keep some distance from believers so as to preserve authority."

- That's the common understanding.

"But the truth is... isn't it really about keeping the right distance from believers?"

The Goddess of the Rusted Shield laughed quietly.

- That's right, Elbridge.

The gods were once human too.

Humans who rejoiced when a good bond formed, and suffered when a good bond was lost.

If a god couldn't overcome that human feeling, they might wield power they were never meant to hold, and become a demon. Just as the God of Flowing Water had.

But there was a safe path for the gods.

Cut off attention from believers, keep distance from them, and a god could remain a god of heaven forever.

Withholding oracles, refusing to form personal bonds, that was probably the surest way to keep that distance.

'A god who truly loves and cherishes their believers is more likely to become a demon. A god who watches from a distance, or treats the relationship with believers as a simple transaction, can stay in heaven forever.'

That paradox left Elbridge unsettled.

'If the demons I've fought all this time were gods who truly loved their believers...'

His head spun with the thought.

Elbridge gathered his thoughts and asked the Goddess of the Rusted Shield, "Goddess. When the wild boars attacked the fortress, you told me you'd save me no matter the cost."

The Goddess of the Rusted Shield played innocent.

- Hmm, I don't quite recall that.

"You said that quite clearly."

- Ah, I think I remember now. Why bring that up all of a sudden?

Elbridge asked carefully, "I was just curious, actually, how exactly you were planning to save me."

- Your goddess possesses boundless charm and countless abilities, so there are plenty of powers I haven't shown you yet. I was going to use one of them to rescue you.

Pfft.

A laugh escaped him, irreverent as it was.

If Marcus hadn't worked so hard to keep the mood light earlier, this could have turned into a fairly awkward situation.

"Is that true?"

- Of course. Your goddess can wield at least four times as much divine power as the God of Flowing Water could. Scraping the barrel of what's permitted to me, I could have saved you, Elbridge, without ever crossing the line.

"Hmm..."

The goddess seemed displeased with his reaction, and her oracle came down with mock indignation.

- I hope this doesn't mean you don't trust your goddess, Elbridge.

"Of course not. I always trust you with all my heart, Goddess."

- I knew you would.

Still, a question lingered in Elbridge's mind.

"Goddess. May I ask one more thing?"

- Your goddess is a proper mid-tier goddess, so I can field questions all day if I have to.

"Over these past two hundred years, haven't there been hard moments for you too?"

The question seemed to catch her off guard, because her answer came back after a slight pause.

- ...No one's ever asked me that before.

Which made sense, in a way.

People prayed to their gods asking to be understood in their suffering, but they never thought to consider the god's suffering in return.

Who would ever dare imagine a god suffering at all?

Elbridge didn't rush her answer. He kept walking slowly.

Some time passed. Then the oracle came down again.

- There have been plenty of hard moments, Elbridge.

"Which moments felt hardest to you?"

A believer trying to weigh a god's suffering. It might count as blasphemy of the worst kind.

But Elbridge believed everyone needed a moment like this, sooner or later.

Even a god shouldn't be an exception.

Her first answer was one he'd already expected.

- Watching a paladin die.

The Order of the Rusted Shield had always had few paladins.

The goddess had to watch over each one closely for a long time, so the loss she felt with every paladin's death must have been that much greater.

- When believers prayed without asking for anything in return. When those believers were being cruelly killed and I couldn't help them. When those believers, even at the very last moment of their lives, never asked for help.

- When a white-haired paladin who should have retired from the front lines put on his helmet again and marched back out to war. When he never came home, and his life ended on that battlefield. When the old paladin's wife carried his empty helmet home to an empty house.

The goddess's story came slowly, but it didn't break off.

The Goddess of the Rusted Shield was a strong god.

But being strong didn't mean she came away without scars.

If anything, being strong meant that once a scar was carved into her, it stayed longer.

- When a god I was close to couldn't withstand the strain of faltering. When their seats slowly dwindled, one by one, until they lost even the last precarious seat they held and were pushed out entirely.

- When the last believer who ever prayed to your goddess, an old woman who could barely move, carefully wiped my statue clean with oil.

- That very evening. The spring evening when that old woman finally breathed her last. And the next day. For the first time since your goddess ascended, not a single person offered up a prayer to me.

The voice of the Goddess of the Rusted Shield was wet with tears.

Since the day that old woman had died, probably not a single person had visited the temple in over a hundred years.

- When I had to spend long stretches of time watching my temple gather dust. And when I thought that this might go on for a very long time. Perhaps forever.

That was where the goddess's story ended.

Elbridge asked, "Goddess. How did you get through that long suffering?"

- You, of all people, already know the answer to that.

The Goddess of the Rusted Shield smiled.

- Because even after everyone stopped visiting the temple, I knew my last believer was still out there. My dearest child.

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