Chapter 17
Chapter 17: Hero—You Are Too Weak!
"I pay my respects to Lady Holy Maiden!"
The booming voice snapped Lilu out of her thoughts. She turned her head toward the man who had just run her through with a sword—and found Holy Knight Molay down on one knee, placing the very Two-handed Sword that had been shoved through her chest on the ground before him with complete reverence, devout as any saint.
But the moment she thought about having been run through the chest by him—physically—Lilu was seized by an overwhelming urge to flee. Back on Earth she had been nothing but an ordinary person, drifting through each day in a daze, never once imagining that someday she would be skewered straight through by a sword taller than herself.
Ahhhh—so terrifying! She wanted to run so badly!
And then Lilu discovered what it truly meant to have the spirit but not the strength for it. Her feet felt as though they had been filled with lead—she simply could not move them. When faced with tremendous danger, very few people are able to simply turn and run; most will freeze up from the stress response triggered by fear, rooted to the spot.
Fine then—she had the Undying Body anyway. Lilu had made her peace with it. She reached out her little hand and lightly tapped the top of Molay's head. She only knew three types of magic: Light Magic, Healing Arts, and Purification Arts. With those options, she thought she might be able to blow his head clean off! But as a luminous ripple spread outward, the swirling white Holy Light gathered at the center of Molay's brow—and rather than exploding, it solidified into a golden mark. It looked almost identical to the Divine Crest hanging at Lilu's chest, but when he lifted his head, Lilu felt the mark looked distinctly off—no matter how she looked at it, it resembled…… a Naughty Mark!
Finished, finished! She'd gone and put a Naughty Mark on the forehead of this absolute killing machine—this was surely the path to being minced into paste!
"Good heavens—it's a Sacred Mark!"
"Lady Holy Maiden has bestowed a Sacred Mark!"
"……A Divine Miracle—this is absolutely a Divine Miracle!"
The Church members watching from the sidelines cried out in shock and awe. Under their fervent gazes, Lilu—heart full of guilt—picked up her own Divine Crest and compared it against the Sacred Mark on Molay's forehead. The shape was right, the pattern was identical—so why did it look like a Naughty Mark to her eyes? Ahhhh—Goddess, you definitely did this, didn't you? Didn't you?!
(This man is mine now—hehehe~)
The moist sound of the Goddess licking her lips reached Lilu's ears. Lilu went pale with fright on the spot. This indecent Goddess was actually using her body to mark outstanding men. She recalled the sight of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse being knocked unconscious and dragged into the Goddess's Private Chamber not long ago—and the Lich Lord ascending to heaven trussed up like a turtle shell…… Ahhhh—the more she thought about it the more horrifying it was! Truly the stuff of nightmares!
And yet, in the eyes of everyone watching, the motion of Lilu holding up the Divine Crest and tracing it through the air was indistinguishable from a senior cleric performing a Blessing Rite—in fact it was even more professional. Her every movement was textbook-perfect, worthy of being etched into memory forever and taken out to study from time to time.
"Rise, Sir Molay."
Lilu let slip a line she had borrowed from some TV drama, and the sound of armor shifting followed as Holy Knight Molay stood. He reached up with both hands and pulled back his hood, revealing needle-straight white hair and red eyes—and paired with that jaw that looked as though it had been chiseled from stone, he was a remarkably handsome man of the dark-toned variety.
Behind her, several nuns in the crowd had already fainted from the sheer impact of his looks—but Lilu only felt this person was extraordinarily dangerous, like a predator that picked its prey, or a bloodied executioner's blade. She desperately wanted to turn and run, to get as far away from him as possible! And what was more, she had accidentally inscribed what looked like a Naughty Mark on his forehead—this was pointing straight toward being chopped into mincemeat!
"Lilu!"
Fred's voice came from behind her. Lilu's heart leapt with relief—but then she saw Molay pick up his sword at exactly that moment, and the motion of his hand on the hilt looked exactly like he was about to cut someone down. A wave of crisis flooded her senses in an instant—the danger wasn't directed at her, but she felt it all the same.
"You—get away from Lilu!"
Clang! Two swords collided, striking a spark. Fred's longsword and Molay's Two-handed Sword rang out against each other in a clear clash of steel on steel. But Fred's sword was visibly one size smaller than his opponent's—Molay's Two-handed Sword, stood on end, was taller than Lilu herself. Using the sheer advantage of his weapon's weight, he drove Fred back with brute force alone.
"Hmph—so you're the Hero?" Molay raised his Knight's Sword. "A Hero without a Sacred Sword is nothing but trash!"
Lilu very much wanted to chime in: the Hero's Sacred Sword is very big!—but then immediately felt something was off about that, and the tips of her ears went red in an instant.
"Lilu!" Fred's gaze was resolute. "I will protect you!"
"What a pity—you don't have what it takes!"
Clang!
The force behind Molay's sword blow sent Fred flying outright. Aernis, who had come rushing over, caught him—but the two of them were knocked to the ground by the sheer force of the impact, sending up a cloud of dust.
"Hero—you are too weak!" Molay sheathed his sword with an air of contempt. "The weak cannot protect anyone. Your current strength is nothing short of laughable!"
This was the true weight of a Level 80 Grandmaster Swordsman. Terrifying beyond measure!
Cough, cough, cough! Coughing up several mouthfuls of blood, Fred slowly got back to his feet. He looked at the broken sword in his hand, then looked at the wound in his chest so deep it exposed bone—and coughed up a mouthful of blood. Lilu panicked and tried to rush over to help, but Molay pressed down on her shoulder—that hand was heavy as a mountain, and she couldn't move an inch.
"Let go of me—release me right now!"
"Lady Holy Maiden, you should not remain here any longer. In the Holy Capital there is a throne awaiting you—please……"
"Let go!"
A nameless fury surged up inside Lilu. Her voice carried a terrifying pressure in it. Molay's knee buckled, and he dropped to one knee behind her. Lilu felt the hand on her shoulder vanish, and immediately charged toward Fred without a second thought.
"Fred—hold on."
Aernis had already produced a low-grade Healing Potion by this point, but a remedy like that was almost entirely useless for wounds of Fred's severity.
"Let me!" Lilu silently recited the incantation in her mind. "Advanced Healing Arts!"
A ray of divine light descended from the sky, which had by now deepened into black, and enveloped the barely breathing Fred. His body was bathed in Holy Light, suffused with a sacred aura. Within that warm radiance, the wound on Fred's chest closed at a speed visible to the naked eye, and within mere seconds had restored itself completely.
"Ahh—a Divine Miracle, another Divine Miracle has descended!"
"Praise be to the Goddess!"
Witnessing two rays of divine light in a single day, the Church members were moved to tears. Some even dropped to their knees then and there, heedless of everything else, and began praying aloud. Serina, who had been planning to retreat to the edge of the crowd and observe with detached calculation, now wore an expression of utter bewilderment. She had never once heard the Goddess's voice, nor had she ever offered prayer with a truly sincere heart. Because from the very beginning she had believed that gods did not exist—that the so-called Goddess was nothing more than a puppet erected by the Church.
But now, having truly witnessed a Divine Miracle with her own eyes, a corner of that long-hardened heart fractured.
Impossible! A god cannot exist!
Serina would never forget that snowy, wind-battered night—clutching the gradually cooling hands of her mother and her younger sister, praying to the Goddess and begging for her mercy. And yet…… she had received no answer. All that remained before her were her mother's and sister's corpses.
The Goddess does not exist! She cannot exist!
And yet…… why? Why was it that an Elf girl of unknown origin had received the divine grace she herself had never been given? The flames of envy roared furiously within her—Serina felt as though she was on the verge of losing her mind. Before she could let that ugliness show on her face, she turned and walked away without hesitation, her hurried retreating figure disappearing swiftly into the darkness of the doorway.