Chapter 63, The Order (8)
It was extremely difficult to believe.
I had watched Delta turn into ash with my own eyes, and I was the one who had absorbed the fragment he left behind.
Yet Delta was alive.
And he was currently inside the cathedral.
If anyone other than Arlin had said it, I wouldn't have believed them.
“...Then let's go to the cathedral and check.”
But the person who said it was Arlin, the most meticulous person I had ever met.
That made it worth believing.
Besides, Delta wasn't some ordinary person.
He was a Cardinal of the Order, so it wouldn't be strange if he had some hidden trick prepared.
Even I possessed the book, a ridiculously powerful Mystery that allowed me to save and load.
Trusting Arlin's words, I moved my now completely refreshed body toward the cathedral.
It didn't take long for us to arrive.
The cathedral looked almost exactly the same as it had before we left.
Perhaps because of the chaos, even the two followers who normally guarded the cathedral entrance were nowhere to be seen.
“Arlin. Are there still only two people inside?”
“Yes.”
Only two.
That was strange.
The followers had said Eriel was the guardian who had protected the Order for two hundred years.
Then when something like this happened, shouldn't they normally gather at the cathedral?
A powerful guardian known as a Throne was inside, after all.
I couldn't understand it.
Setting aside my growing suspicion for the moment, I entered the cathedral.
My companions followed behind me.
At the far end of the cathedral, we found Eriel still asleep.
And beside her stood Delta, completely unharmed.
“...”
I looked over the man standing before me.
A middle-aged man who appeared to be in his late thirties, dressed in white robes embroidered with three golden threads.
He held a black dagger in one hand.
An oddly unsettling smile hung on his face.
His clothing and overall atmosphere felt slightly unfamiliar, but his face was completely identical to Delta's.
And judging from the radiance surrounding him, he was definitely Delta.
“...Why are you here?”
Looking at the resurrected Delta, the first question that came to mind wasn't how he had survived.
It was why he was here.
He had probably revived using some Mystery.
But why had he come to the cathedral immediately after coming back to life?
Arlin was about to fire lightning at him the moment we faced him, but I stopped her and asked Delta my question.
Instead of answering, he asked me one in return.
“Do you know what this is?”
He raised his right hand.
The black dagger in his hand elegantly reflected the light.
At a glance, it clearly looked like a Mystery.
If I opened Lucy, I could immediately learn what the dagger was.
But for some reason, I felt like I shouldn't show Lucy in front of Delta.
At least, not yet.
So I answered vaguely.
“It looks like a Mystery, but I don't really know.”
“Haha. Since you don't know, I'll tell you. This is a Mystery called the ‘Ceremonial Dagger.’ Its number is... 201? Or was it 202? Well, that isn't particularly important.”
“...”
“The important part is this Mystery's ability. It can deal fixed damage to supernatural beings. Whether the opponent is an angel, a god, or a demon, they can all be injured equally by the Ceremonial Dagger! It can even cut through the miracles they create.”
“...”
“The downside is that aside from that ability, it's actually worse than an ordinary dagger. The edge is blunt, and it's so ridiculously hard that even sharpening it is difficult. With an ability this powerful, I suppose it needs at least that much of a penalty. But really, who cares?”
The corner of his mouth twisted upward as he stopped talking.
At the same moment, the dagger suddenly dropped toward the deeply sleeping Eriel.
Clang!
Delta failed because Hwa-ryeon reacted a moment faster.
The Ceremonial Dagger collided with Hwa-ryeon's sword in midair.
Sparks scattered.
During that brief opening, Arlin used magic to pull Eriel toward us.
Delta's smile vanished as he glared at us.
“Where did everything go wrong? We were so close to completing the plan, and then you ruined everything!”
Delta took one step toward us.
Hwa-ryeon moved between us and entered combat with him.
But every time she cut his body, Delta used his overwhelming divine power to heal the wound instantly.
He didn't dodge.
Whenever Hwa-ryeon thrust her sword, he only protected his neck and heart while swinging the dagger back at her.
Small wounds gradually accumulated across Hwa-ryeon's body.
Delta repeatedly suffered severe injuries, losing chunks of flesh and spilling blood.
But every time I blinked, all of his wounds were already gone.
I didn't know what he had done, but compared to the last time I saw him, the amount of divine power he possessed seemed vastly greater.
At least five times as much.
But his physical abilities themselves should still only have been slightly above an ordinary person's.
So why was Hwa-ryeon, who could use internal energy, struggling this much?
Hwa-ryeon gritted her teeth and shouted, giving me the answer.
“Damn it! My internal energy! I can't use it!”
“Haha! Urgh, of course you can't! Didn't I tell you? This dagger ignores Mysteries and miracles!”
Bleeding heavily, Delta swung the dagger like a madman.
Hwa-ryeon looked disgusted and called for our help.
Crackle!
Arlin released the lightning she had been gathering to support Hwa-ryeon.
Dozens of bolts crawled across the ground like snakes and reached Delta in an instant.
That was as far as their power went.
The moment the lightning touched Delta's body, it disappeared as if evaporating, leaving him completely unaffected.
Looking startled, Arlin tried casting another spell.
The exact same thing happened.
I also compressed my flames and swung them toward him.
The result was identical.
Just as he had claimed, he seemed to ignore every effect created by Mysteries.
That's way too broken.
The more I thought about it, the more ridiculous the ability seemed.
Even if the dagger had the penalty of being blunt, it was far too powerful.
Could that dagger be a 900-series Mystery?
But too many things didn't fit.
I told Hwa-ryeon to hold out a little longer, then opened Lucy at an angle Delta couldn't see.
A new page had been added.
[Scq290, Fragment of Faith]
[This pointed object has no fixed form. Its appearance and effects change according to the belief held by the observer.
If the observer believes it is a burning sword, the Fragment of Faith will burn.
If they believe it is a sword of freezing cold, it will freeze everything it touches.]
After reading the entire description, I shouted to everyone.
“That weapon seems similar to Confirmation Bias! It changes according to how people perceive it, so everyone, think of that dagger as something worthless!”
No wonder Delta explained everything so kindly.
If his explanation had all been groundwork for activating the Mystery, then it made perfect sense.
After hearing me, Delta let out a hollow laugh, quickly pulled back the dagger, and retreated.
“Haha. How did you figure that out? I even invented a penalty myself when I explained it. Do you perhaps have a Mystery attached to your eyes? Something like Odin's Eye?”
“Who knows?”
“Now that you've discovered how to counter it, there's no answer. I've learned that I can't defeat you through force. Hmm. I suppose I'll simply give up.”
He threw the dagger onto the floor and raised both hands.
I couldn't understand his behavior at all.
Was this really the same man who had charged at us moments earlier even while his body was being cut apart?
I couldn't get a read on his attitude.
There were too many things whose reasons I couldn't guess.
Why he had stayed inside the cathedral after reviving.
Why he had tried to stab Eriel the moment we arrived.
There were far too many questions.
It looked like we needed to interrogate him.
I approached and restrained him with rope.
Delta didn't resist even as I tightly bound both his arms and legs until he couldn't move.
Did he give up because he realized he couldn't beat us by force?
Even then, he was being far too cooperative.
Keeping my suspicions to myself, I finished restraining him and stood in front of Delta.
“I have a few questions.”
“Ask as much as you like. Isn't that the right of the victor?”
He spoke with a mocking expression.
His attitude reminded me of Kim Hyunwoo, the Company employee I had met before.
The attitude of someone who believed he stood above everyone else, watching people struggle inside the palm of his hand.
Does he still have something he's relying on?
“You've become quite talkative. You weren't like this before.”
“Because I'm enjoying myself. I'm enjoying this. Haha.”
“What's so enjoyable?”
“Watching you accumulate sin is extremely enjoyable. How many people did you kill today? A hundred? Several hundred? You must have accumulated an incredible amount of sin!”
Sin?
Did something bad happen when someone accumulated sin?
“Is killing people who deserve to die also a sin?”
“Of course it is! But how do you know whether those people deserved to die? For all you know, every single one of them might have been an incredibly virtuous person.”
Delta narrowed his eyes as though testing me.
I answered firmly.
“Do you really think I spent the last five days doing nothing? I know that not a single follower here has clean hands.”
“...That's true. I suppose you're right.”
“And if we're talking about sin, you aren't exactly free of it either. Just a moment ago, you tried to kill Eriel.”
I didn't know what significance this so-called sin had.
But if we were judging by that standard, Delta had just tried to kill an angel.
What greater sin could there be than killing an angel, a servant of a god?
I expected my question to make him at least slightly flustered.
Instead, he grinned.
“Sin? How could killing a fallen angel possibly be a sin?”
