The Druid Who Devoured the Great Nature

We went up the stairs. The straight stairs led to the top floor. The sight of the believers kneeling on both sides and praying was as natural as a decoration. The sunlight shining down from the window-pierced roof was spread on the stairs like a carpet.

It was dazzling. It was hard to look straight at the door at the end of the stairs. I naturally lowered my head. It was not a normal building structure.

Some buildings do not consider efficiency. Because the inefficient design itself is the intention. This was the main hall of a cult. It was not designed to be comfortable to live in, to have a clean flow of traffic, or to be safe from disasters.

It focused only on the embodiment of dignity, mystery, and solemnity.

“……”

I didn’t feel intimidated or anything. I was just convinced that these guys hadn’t noticed our dark intentions and were not playing any tricks. This inefficient building structure announced that all power was concentrated in the leader, as is common in cults.

The leader must be at the end of those stairs. I just had to kill him.

With a roar, the huge door opened.

“……?”

I heard the sound of water. I realized I hadn’t misheard it from the unique damp feeling of my socks getting wet. The air was humid. Hazy steam was obscuring my vision.

It was different from the scene I had imagined. When you think of the leader’s hall of a cult, isn’t there something typical? This was purely…

“What’s with the bathhouse?”

Hella said it well.

“Please be quiet.”

The tone of the believer who was guiding us was fierce. Should I say he was cursing with a smiling face? The man who had been kind all along revealed his rough emotions, and it came across as even heavier. It meant that this place was that important.

Just this bathhouse. The overflowing stream of water flowed down the stairs. The believers followed the flow of the stream with ecstatic eyes. Was it because the pouring sunlight was so intense? It seemed as if a red aura was lingering in the stream, like a sunset beach.

“Please come in one by one.”

It was said to the other three, excluding Elliot, who was already half-treated as a missionary. We exchanged glances. There was no need to decide the order.

“Please come in.”

I was the one in charge. It was right for me to go in first. Of course, it wasn’t that they were just playing around while staying outside. Hella and Waver would stay outside and block the approach of outsiders while we fought the leader.

To firmly guard the door against numerous missionaries. It was not an easy task. If Elliot and I were to be defeated, it would be like being surrounded by enemies from the front and back, and only a dog’s death would be waiting.

The pressure was no less than facing the leader directly. In the end, it was a matter of me doing well.

“You’re the same as ever.”

A voice was heard. It was reflected off the walls and echoed, but the pronunciation was so clear that it seemed to be stuck in my ears.

“A truly precious talent has come.”

There was a silhouette in the hazy smoke that filled the interior. The believer knelt reverently towards him and bowed his head. It was an obvious identity. He must be Isaac, the leader who ruled the Guardians of the Dawn.

“The lost lamb who had been lost due to the persecution of the unbelievers in the past has returned to our fold, and he has been enlightened by the teaching of divinity, so it is a great blessing.”

“Is it not proof that your great will has finally bloomed in this land?”

They often used the phrase ‘the great one’. The fact that it was a word used to refer to the leader as a living god was not that shocking.

‘Does he know me?’

The time I had been active as a contractor was not that long. Was that word ‘divinity’ really referring to me, or was it just an exaggerated expression they always used? If he knew me, would he also have seen through the fact that I was the one who had killed the missionary in District 17?

I couldn’t find any hostility in his attitude as he opened his arms wide and revealed his bosom. He was the leader of those who were skilled at faking their emotions with a fanatical belief. I couldn’t tell which it was.

“Come closer.”

I cleared my head. Now that I had come this far, there was no turning back. I just had to put aside my complicated thoughts and do what I had to do. He had told me to come closer. Since he was giving me an opening himself, there was no reason to refuse.

It was then that I was about to move.

A rough vibration that passed through my ears and seeped deep into my chest.

Blood splattered. The head of the believer, who had been steeped in ecstasy as if drunk on drugs, fell to the floor. Elliot was already holding his weapon in his hand. His smiling face was fiercely distorted.

“……”

It was an unexpected action. Elliot was a person who had endured for a long time to get his revenge. Had the thread of his patience finally snapped when he was in front of the target of his revenge? Or, the leader might have seen through our intentions and made the first move.

The intention was to reduce the number of enemies by one, even if it was a battle that was going to happen anyway. Elliot was a veteran of the industry who had made a name for himself before me, so he might have prioritized his own judgment without waiting for my command to fall.

Whatever it was, it had happened. Elliot re-gripped the handle of his chainsaw and ran. He walked on the water as if it were flat ground, and not a single drop of water splashed from his feet. It was a psychic power that controlled the wind.

Elliot, who had reached right in front of the leader submerged in the bathtub in the blink of an eye, swung his chainsaw without hesitation.

He had aimed for the head, but what he heard was the sound of water. A saw is a weapon that cuts and saws objects. It was essentially no different from a knife. There is a saying, ‘cutting water with a knife’. Elliot’s attack was like that.

The saw blade cut the water, and the attack did not reach the leader who was deeply submerged in the water.

Then, with a sound like hitting a punching bag, Elliot was thrown against the wall. It was the result of the water in the bathtub hitting him like a hammer.

“You have had many problems since the old days. The first is that you are unskilled in handling divine power, and the second is that you do not believe and respect, and have harbored the seeds of discord. That is why we left the land of the unbelievers.”

The leader’s voice was still clear. It was so even though he was deeply submerged in the bathtub. A person’s voice does not travel well from under the water to outside the water. It was common sense that anyone would know if they tried it, putting aside the scientific principle.

No matter how much the worldview of FP was a fantasy, that truth did not change. Nevertheless, the reality was like this.

“I acknowledged my failure and recognized the need to start anew in a new land. In that sense, my will was aligned with the unbelievers of this city who recognized us as a threat. I decided to hand over the defective products to them and leave this land.”

I couldn’t sense the movement of mana, so it wasn’t magic.

“I had no intention of letting you live from the beginning. Since you have revealed your intentions first, there is no room for me to feel guilty.”

The leader floated up into the air. Water surrounded him in a circle. The hem of his large clothes did not flutter in the flow of the water. It was not wet in the first place.

“You handle liquids.”

Psychic power.

“That’s unexpected.”

“I will allow you a question.”

“The identity of the ‘holy blood’ was seen as a byproduct of an advanced artifact. If you are also under the influence of that artifact, the behavior of the believers who unconditionally obey you after gaining psychic powers cannot be explained.”

I had guessed that those who had awakened their psychic powers were leashed to the owner of the artifact that was the original of the holy blood. So I had thought that all the believers were brainwashed by the leader, who was the owner of the artifact.

If the leader had also awakened his psychic powers with the effect of the artifact, the story was different. He would also be subordinate to the artifact. Since everyone was under the same condition, the leader could not hold the leashes of the believers.

“It is because I am a new man who holds divinity. Since the holy blood originated from me, they look up to me.”

“You’re saying something that even a dog wouldn’t believe so confidently.”

“Do not understand, but feel. You will also soon experience the fullness of divinity, and then no such negative questions will remain in your head.”

The leader looked down at me with a very arrogant face.

“……”

Elliot, who had recovered from the shock and stood up, looked at me with a tense expression. It also felt like he was being wary. The target of his revenge was the leader, not me. I was the decisive helper who had set the stage for his revenge to be carried out.

There was no reason for us to have any ill feelings towards each other, so it was not a rational judgment to betray me here. …Although it was strange to expect rationality from a fanatic.

Elliot’s fanatical belief was an act. To be active in this dirty industry for a long time and make a name for himself, he had to be able to read the situation. It was strange for Elliot to deliberately put himself at a disadvantage.

“……I see.”

I tapped the floor with my foot. The water that had overflowed from the bathtub splashed in all directions. The fact that its color felt red was not a delusion. I remembered the believers outside who had been ecstatically following the flow of the stream.

“All this red water was holy blood.”

The holy blood awakens psychic powers when it enters the body. It was meaningless to just have it on the skin. If that had worked, they would have just sprinkled holy blood on the streets like an acid attack, without going through the troublesome process of proselytizing.

So it was absurd for me to awaken psychic powers just because the holy blood had wet my ankles. But the leader was acting as if it was a matter of course that I would.

Elliot too. The fact that he had launched a surprise attack without exchanging any intentions with me. The fact that he was being wary of me. It was understandable if it was an act based on the assumption that I would be under the influence of the holy blood.

“Steam. Was it a mistake to set foot in here in the first place?”

The steam that filled the interior. This was also holy blood. As long as a person breathes, they naturally absorb the holy blood into their body. The fact that the leader’s hall was decorated as a bathhouse had such an intention hidden in it.

“And the liquid that is the material for the holy blood originated from you.”

The leader was a psychic who handled liquids. It was the same in the game. But his ability was not as powerful as it was now. It was not an awakening, but an enhancement. There was a difference there.

“You’re the only one who has taken the real holy blood. The rest are all fakes diluted with your ability.”

In the first place, the artifact had little to do with subordination. It was as if the leader had added the function of subordination to the holy blood that he had diluted with his own ability. Elliot and the other early believers must have been experimental subjects to complete that function.

The leader did not deny my words.

“Do you feel the fullness of divinity now?”

The corners of the leader’s eyes curved gently.

“Talent is always in short supply. It was not a lie that I praised you as a precious talent. I have heard your rumors. You will play a great role in the enlightenment of this city.”

As expected, he knew my identity. He had just pretended to be deceived to induce the current situation.

“At the same time, you will be able to achieve the great common will of the Mad House and me.”

“A great will?”

“Yes, you will transcend the shackles of this imperfect world and become a true god.”

Elliot did not just listen to our conversation silently. While I was drawing attention, he had secretly prepared a move. The blades of wind raged, tearing apart the water barrier that surrounded the leader like a piece of paper.

As he kicked off his position, there was a sound of the air being torn apart. A sprint that was more than twice as fast as his first rush. An afterimage was left in the place where Elliot had jumped.

The turned-on chainsaw let out a creepy scream. The blade was embedded in the leader, whose water barrier had been stripped away. The blade vibrated and rotated, tearing his clothes and flesh, and scattering a red liquid.

“……!”

It wasn’t blood. It was a red liquid, holy blood. The leader’s body turned into a liquid and covered Elliot’s entire body.

The water pressure, comparable to that of the deep sea, trapped Elliot like a prison and squeezed him tightly. Air bubbles rose from Elliot’s mouth. Even if a superhuman had surpassed the limits of a living being, the fact that he had to breathe did not change.

Elliot tried to secure a breathing hole by bursting the wind, but the effect was minimal. The liquid prison that surrounded Elliot absorbed the water from the bathtub and gradually became thicker.

“A lie cannot surpass the truth.”

It wasn’t that the leader was a step above Elliot. It was just that this place was too advantageous for the leader. For a mage, it was like fighting in his own workshop, so it was a battle where he had accepted the disadvantage of the field.

I aimed my gun at Elliot. The leader smiled benevolently.

“Good, for a companion to face his end is a sufficient punishment for this impious one.”

The bullet fired from the M2 Maximum pierced the prison that surrounded Elliot.

Blood splattered. The leader, who had been shot in the side, blinked his eyes as if he didn’t know what had happened.

“The holy blood, how can one who has received the grace of the holy blood harm me…”

“Well.”

I returned his words to him.

“Isn’t it because I am a new man who holds divinity?”