Chapter 188 : Rational Fanatics
Chapter 188: Rational Fanatics
If traditional churches like the Church were still painting grand illusions—starting straight away with promises of eternal life, immense wealth, prosperity, health, and longevity—
then Seris painted small ones: food and clothing, jobs, family, health, houses—step by step, gradually achieving small goals that benefited everyone.
At first glance, Seris’s “small promises” did not seem particularly remarkable. But as one moved further along, they formed a powerful inertia and an incomparable centripetal force. Since almost every earlier promise had essentially been fulfilled, no one would question whether the later goals could also be achieved.
What did that mean?
It meant that as long as the people at the bottom of society came into contact with the ideology of the Seris Alliance, they would almost inevitably be assimilated.
Because what lay before them were tangible benefits they could see and touch. In the eyes of those struggling just to survive each day, this was far superior to the Church’s system of extremely low-probability rewards.
And besides...
Sneaking a glance at the calm Veronica, Natalie Roshek felt a chill run through her delicate body.
This kind of blind non-blindness—this rational irrationality—was the most terrifying of all.
What nonsense that “the Church is a Public Welfare Institution.” Whether the Empress they had elected as their spokesperson truly mattered or not was irrelevant. In any case, they believed it completely; their ideals and their faith ultimately converged in the same direction.
In Natalie’s eyes, the people of the Alliance could all be considered fanatics.
She even suspected that if one day the Empress of Seris declared that she wanted to attack the Divine Kingdom, her citizens would genuinely begin thinking about the most suitable way to launch such an assault.
The reason?
No reason was needed.
Everything must surely be part of the plan to realize their shared ideal.
Yet if the Empress did not intervene personally, then things indeed seemed to be exactly as Veronica had said: they had handed easily-stolen collective power to the one representative least likely to steal it.
And when both sides shared the same goals and ideals, even when mistakes occurred, it would be impossible to determine who was actually at fault...
No...
They most likely would not bother dividing responsibility at all.
Instead, they would assume that the problem lay with everyone except themselves.
“Hmm?”
While feeding the fish, Mitia suddenly raised her head and looked around.
‘Your Majesty, what is it?’
“Nothing. I just suddenly felt something a little strange.”
‘You may have caught a chill. Please wait a moment.’
Splash!
The sound of water abruptly interrupted their conversation. Mitia rubbed her forehead and casually waved a hand, placing a protective barrier over Little Lillian, who was dog-paddling in the fish pond.
‘Oh! Mother! Look!’
After a moment, Lillian’s little head popped out of the water. She cheered as she raised a fat goldfish high above her head with both hands.
“Don’t squeeze it to death on purpose just so you can roast it!”
The fish in the pond had been fed by Mitia until they were as plump as pigs. It was impressive that Lillian could even lift one.
This little girl was mischievous and restless, so Mitia had taught her basic survival skills like swimming early on—just in case she ever fell into water and dissolved like sugar.
But now she was beginning to regret it.
Back when she could not swim, Lillian would always timidly avoid water sources. That was a natural instinct for avoiding danger.
But ever since Mitia worried that not knowing how to swim might cause serious problems and taught her, every pond in the Royal Palace had suffered...
It was not as though Mitia had never thought about disciplining her. But Lillian would always stare at her with those innocent, pitiful eyes, never crying or making a fuss.
Which made it impossible for Mitia to bring herself to strike.
If only she were like Coy Ackerman Astal when he was young—his backside swollen from spanking yet his mouth still stubbornly refusing to admit defeat. That would have been much easier to deal with. At least there would be no psychological pressure when hitting him.
Fortunately, most of the time Lillian was raised under Eliza’s supervision. At the manor she behaved very politely and like a proper little lady.
Only here, with Mitia, did she appear especially wild.
Recently, however, Lillian had to stay here.
Because Anna’s mother, Anje, was approaching the end of her life. She had already reached the stage where the oil had run dry and the lamp was about to go out.
Anna was suffering, but Mitia did not feel any better either.
Yet there was nothing she could do about it.
A Half-God was still not a true god.
Even the Goddess of Light, whom Mitia had fought several times, was merely a pseudo-god. Not only because of the explanations once given by Sherria Miranda, but also because of Mitia’s own experiences.
The logic was simple.
The Goddess of Light could not kill Mitia, which meant that at the fundamental level of power, there was no essential difference between them.
It was like an NPC suddenly displaying a health bar.
In a way, the Goddess of Light had already explored the path for Mitia. She had accumulated faith for thousands of years and possessed an immense reserve of divine power, yet aside from that accumulation she was not significantly different from Mitia.
This indirectly proved that simply accumulating the Power of Faith did not carry much meaning.
True gods did not rely solely on accumulation.
But Mitia still had no clue what the alternative path might be.
She had no way to save Anje.
But she had to find a way to keep Anna by her side for as long as possible.
For this reason, she chose a path completely different from that of the Goddess of Light.
The Goddess of Light almost never performed so-called miracles. She had absorbed faith for eight hundred or a thousand years, yet used it only two or three times.
Performing miracles consumed a fair amount of power, but compared to the enormous amount provided by believers, the cost was actually negligible.
In Mitia’s words, the Goddess of Light only ate without ever giving anything back.
Mitia, however, did not intend to stage miracles.
Instead, she used the statues of herself in the Church of Holy Light within Alliance territory as anchors. The energy projected from faith was purified and then fed back into the statues.
During the daily prayers of nuns and priests, they would unconsciously draw upon the divine power stored within those statues, absorbing it into their bodies.
This enhanced the light-element spells they cast and reduced their side effects.
Light magic naturally possessed healing properties.
This was not exclusive to the Goddess of Light.
According to Mitia’s understanding, light magic stimulated the cells at a wound to grow rapidly, thereby healing the injury.
But cell division had limits.
In other words, such healing essentially exchanged future lifespan for present survival.
Of course, that exchange could hardly be considered a loss. After all, if a person died now, what “future” would remain?
But divine power could neutralize this side effect.
Divine power could not create new cells from nothing.
However, it could guide the cell stimulation of light magic into a gentler and more reasonable process—ensuring the effect while minimizing damage as much as possible.
At the same time, it could strengthen other blessing-type and mind-type light magic.
Clergy no longer needed to kneel and kowtow like the Church to attract the Goddess’s attention. Wherever a statue stood, the statue would directly handle the projection. Only at extremely long distances would Mitia herself intervene.
Besides that, Mitia had also begun relaxing restrictions on the Church of Holy Light, allowing it to begin spreading its flame outward—ah, no, spreading the faith.
As for other plans, she would first need to see whether this approach produced results.
Fortunately, ever since her advancement, she had continuously nourished the bodies of Anje and Anna.
Until the moment they reached the limit of their lifespan, their bodily functions remained in the prime of youth.
Only at the final moment would rapid aging suddenly begin.
That was also why when Anje’s body began to deteriorate, Eliza noticed it immediately.
There was still enough time for them to spend a few final days together.
Mitia lay back on her reclining chair and sighed.
Watching Lillian splashing about in the fish pond, she drifted into thought.
Sometimes, she could not tell whether living a long life was a blessing—
or a curse.