by Fuse
As he put it, the doctrines of Luminism were put in place to protect those who worshipped Luminus. She, Louis, and other high-level vampires were one thing, but the lower ones lived off human blood, and the blood of those who lived happy, contented lives was apparently more attractive to them. In the bad old days when monsters ran roughshod over the world, the human race had its hands full just surviving, which meant the poor quality of their blood created its fair share of problems among the vampire community. In response, Luminus took advantage of a move she had planned to switch gears and offer her protective hand to the humans. (This “move” was caused by Veldora, apparently, but I opted against asking for details. It’d just be stirring up a hornet’s nest.)
“Protecting the defenseless allows them to lead happy lives. By ‘spicing up’ their lives with fearsome demon lords, followed by the relief of being protected from them, we ensure they can savor as much happiness as possible. The citizens of Lubelius are kept safe under the name of their god.”
Humans, to put it in a rough way, were kind of like livestock to them. Vampires lived off their blood—but as it was described to me, they needed rather small quantities, enough that the human “victim” wouldn’t even notice. There were far more humans than vampires out there, so it made sense. A little blood donation now and then ensured a life free from existential threats. A real win-win situation.
“So did they write the holy scriptures of Luminism to help keep needless slaughter by the monsters at a minimum?”
“That’s right,” Louis said to Hinata. “Precisely.”
“To me, the most important thing is the faith itself,” added Luminus. “All of you here—you can cast your holy magic thanks to the faith you have in me, correct? That is how the arrangement works—it is an absolute law. It is my family’s duty to protect my people, and to me, the rest matters little.”
So to sum up, the faith’s refusal to accept monsters stemmed from a need to grab the hearts of the people and bring them into the faith. No, maybe that tenet doesn’t need to be so strictly enforced. Bending too much along those lines would cause chaos in the Western Holy Church, but there was no need to go that far. Basically—the way I was reading this—if the people here could find a reason to accept us, the rest of the kingdom would fall in line.
It sounded like we had an agreement, then. But Renard’s frown said he still wasn’t convinced.
“I understand, then, that our doctrine is not based on the will of our god, Lady Luminus. But practically speaking, that is the exact doctrine all of us have spent our lives following. I fear that simply doing away with it would create issues…”
He had a point. Completely ignoring everything built up to now would lead to a huge backlash from the faithful, not to mention the current Church organization. Even if Luminus herself came out in public to appeal to the masses, there was no saying if anyone would believe it was her—and there was no way Luminus would do anything that proactive anyway. There was every chance of rifts forming between the paladins assembled here and the more hardcore factions of the Church.
“But we have to do it,” Hinata solemnly said to the troubled-looking Renard. “I was hoping we could keep silent on this until things settle down, but we have a force of a hundred paladins here, and I’m sure the other nations are aware of us. Plus, those journalists were there to see a Battlesage be defeated, weren’t they?”
Her gaze went from Renard to me. She was right. Diablo said he had defeated a man named Saare, one of the Three Battlesages. Another one was on the scene but apparently fled in rapid order. If the press saw all that, it could ruin this force’s reputation as protector of humanity. If rumors started spreading that the paladins were defeated, it could lead to all kinds of needless confusion. Diablo said it was possible to coerce the media, if need be, but… Ugghhh, what a pain.
“Okay, well, how about we just say Hinata and I dueled to a draw? Then we signed a truce after discovering the Seven Days Clergy’s scheme. People already know I’m a slime for the most part, but if we spread the word that I’m an otherworlder, you think that would be a bit more convincing?”
“I do appreciate that proposal,” Hinata said, “but are you fine with that? Wouldn’t a demon lord fighting me to a draw affect your reputation?”
My reputation? Do I have much of one, really? I feel like I’ve done nothing but get yelled at by Shuna lately. Whenever problems come up, I toss them right into Rigurd’s lap. For the most part, my main responsibility in town lately has been joining Gobta on his assorted jaunts. I didn’t think a draw or two is gonna trash my rep that much.
“I don’t see the problem. I mean, hell, you can say I lost for all I care.”
Who won, and who lost, didn’t really matter, I thought. But everyone on Hinata’s side stared at me in shock.
“Um, look, in all of history, there’s only been a tiny handful of times when a human defeated a demon lord, you know? If you just say ‘Oops, I lost’ like that, that really will wreck the balance of power around here. It’d create trouble for you.”
“She—she’s right!” bellowed Renard. “You are still just a fledgling demon lord. Let another force push you around right now, and that could invite interlopers aiming for your head!”
I suppose they are worrying for my sake, but… I dunno…
“Benimaru, can you think of any rival forces who might try to interfere with us at this point?”
“None, sir. If anyone was foolish enough to try, I would twist their heads off with my bare hands.”
Glad to hear.
Diablo seemed to be doing well over in the Western Nations. Rescuing the journalists’ lives let him proceed with his plan, even if it had involved a bit of extra force. It wouldn’t be long, he said, before reports would go around about Yohm being crowned the new king—and the smaller nations surrounding Farmus would pitch in to support this.
Assuming all went to plan, the only individual nation who could possibly try to tangle with us was Englesia. With Luminus giving us a hundred-year truce, the Western Nations were as good as ours, really. The same was true of the demon lords. Me killing Clayman was one stellar performance. If we spread rumors that I lost despite looking perfectly healthy to everyone, I’m not sure people would believe them. If anything, they might grow more careful dealing with me, fearing a trap or something.
“You sound pretty confident,” Hinata said. “Well, in that case, I don’t have any objection. If anything, I’ll be glad to take advantage of it.”
“Yeah! Let’s take this opportunity to announce to the world that the Tempestians aren’t evil at all!”
“Very true. Everyone here’s so nice to us! It’s so hard to believe they were all goblins and orcs not long ago.”
“There had been some internal debate over whether demi-humans counted as monsters or not…but nowadays, I think that’s far too narrow a view to take. It’s just prejudice talking.”
“You said it. Demi-humans are a formidable foe against humans, but dwarves, at least, are certainly human. If we started calling them monsters, then it’d be impossible to tell spirits apart from monsters, either.”
Ogres and lizardmen had normally been treated as demi-humans up to now, too, but thanks to their hostility against humankind, they had been branded as monsters. Oni and dragonewts—the next evolution up from each respective race—were treated not as monsters, but as local gods. All that really mattered, in the end, was whether you were friend or foe to humankind—and that meant it was hard to interpret Luminist doctrine as a carte-blanche condemnation of all monsters.
“Well,” I said, “we have formal relations with the Dwarven Kingdom. Why don’t we mix King Gazel into this and sign a hundred-year friendship treaty? If we can get him to guarantee that we won’t attack people, that ought to change a few minds, right?”
Hinata thoughtfully nodded, reaching her own conclusions in her mind. “Yes… If we can just build a little trust, that would make it easier to convince people. Plus, with
things as they are, it’s probably about time to purge all the people who were poisoned by the Clergy.”
The Western Holy Church was hardly a monolith. No large organization is. And with Hinata putting it in such cold, blunt terms, all opposition was silenced. I guess she wanted to use this chance to lay all the guilt on the Seven Days Clergy—kind of dirty, I thought, but that was a Lubelius issue. Certainly nothing I had a right to comment on. We then began to work out some of the smaller details.
For our future interactions, it was agreed that Arnaud and Bacchus would stay here in Tempest. They’d go back home to prepare first, then return with a few civil bureaucrats in tow. I was planning to build a Luminist church in town in the meantime for their use, and I didn’t see it taking any longer than a couple weeks. Maybe we’d start to see some Luminists around here once we were done.
I was honestly a little anxious about allowing full freedom of religion, but…ahhh, I’m sure we’d figure it out. Monsters, frankly, are atheists. There was no such thing as a single god that was widely recognized by everyone across the world. My conventional wisdom from my own planet didn’t apply, really. There was religion, yes, but it was usually more like paying your respects to the local deity than anything very fervent—and these deities could quite literally help you out if you prayed to them, because, like, they were right there. The Dragon Faithful’s relationship with Milim is a prime example.
Along those lines, Luminism was really nothing more than the biggest player in an extremely crowded arena full of religions like that. The Crusaders served as Luminus’s servants, protecting the weak and earning new adherents to the faith. So if you look at it that way, I could see a church in Tempest as a kind of center for Western Holy Church–style support of the vulnerable. You gotta help out your neighbor and all that, although I doubt they could offer much help to us. It’d at least mean we could fight alongside paladins if some kind of threat appeared.
There was no real reason not to take this opportunity. We’d keep close tabs on the local church, of course, but I figured we could grant them a certain amount of freedom. That was the common ground we found.
That was the end of the tough stuff. We had a deal with Luminus, more or less, and we had managed to get Lubelius to recognize us as a legitimate nation. That was more than enough compensation—now, if we could just keep interacting and getting along, it’d be perfect. I’d like to use our century-long time limit to build a deeper understanding of each other, and that meant we’d be interacting regularly with the Crusaders.
The first effort along those lines involved providing skills and tech to each other. The battle earlier had smashed up a lot of the paladins’ weapons, so they needed someone to repair them. We offered our skills in response, but that was kind of a front—what we really wanted to do was see what their weapons were capable of.
This allowed us access to one of those strange light-based suits of armor I saw. As Raphael put it, it provided the wielder’s magical force to a spiritual life-form, letting them manifest it into a physical object. The one gifted to us had been overused and broken, so we traded it for a new Garm-produced armor set. The paladins, still feeling a bit indebted to us, gladly let us have it as part of their general apology, and while I expected Hinata to whine about it, she was actually fine.
I decided to reciprocate by giving her a sword I had made.
The sword Hinata used is called Moonlight. Luminus gave it to her herself, and it housed untold amounts of power—too much, really. I asked her, and she called it a Legend-class weapon, beyond even the Unique level that I thought was the highest.
Kaijin and Kurobe taught me that magisteel can evolve over many years, allowing well-worn, first-class weapons and armor to continue honing and polishing themselves. This evolution can provide a massive boost out of thin air, something proven by the way ancient weapons found in ruins sometimes boasted out-of-this-world abilities that modern technology couldn’t replicate. This was the so-called Legend class, and apparently they were usually kept away from general access.
It was Kurobe and Garm’s goal to craft equipment along these lines. They stared at Hinata’s Moonlight, transfixed by it. I hope they’re up to the task.
The thing about a sword this all-powerful is that you can really only use it when absolutely needed. If you decided to whip it out on the street in the afternoon, you could raze the entire city block to rubble before you realized what was happening. It’d be like carrying a machine gun instead of a pistol for self-defense—just not the kind of thing you’d go bandying around every day.
It was the equivalent of a pistol that I thought about gifting her, and she liked it much more than I anticipated. It was a new version of the broken rapier I had consumed earlier, analyzed and improved for her. It was in the Unique class feature-wise, and I’m sure it felt the same way in her hand. I even re-created the unique ability it had to always kill its target on the seventh attack.
They also gave me a broken longsword—the Dragonbuster is what they called it. It was even more feeble than I thought, and I wasn’t really sure you could slay someone like Veldora with it. I also inquired about her Holy Spirit Armor, but she sadly replied that she couldn’t show that to me. It was an original, one-of-a-kind piece made just for Hinata, and I really wanted to analyze it, but…
Report. It has already been analyzed and assessed from the information gathered during battle.
…Whuh?!
M-man, does anything ever get by Raphael? Should I start calling it Professor or what?
…
Oops, got on its bad side again. Better just give it my thanks and move on.
I really had no idea, though. This is a huge feat. I can’t get enough of that guy. According to it, we could take the assessment from some inferior spirit armor, then combine it with Hinata’s battle data to re-create Holy Spirit Armor. This belonged to the holy element, but you could also tinker with the fundamentals of it to turn it into a demonic piece.
Sorry, Hinata. I guess this Holy Spirit Armor’s a national secret, but a quick bit of Analyze and Assess and it’s mine. I would need to think about who to grant it to, though. It seemed kind of difficult to use. Now, though, our battle gear would be more polished than ever before.
Between this, that, and the other thing, we were now even with each other. It was evening, and with the day’s work behind us, I figured the paladins would hit the trail soon, but I thought I’d at least be polite and offer them one more meal.
“Hey, uh, it’s getting late, Hinata, so why don’t you and Luminus save your departure for tomorrow?”
It was kind of silly. Luminus could go home with Spatial Motion anytime she liked, and I’m sure Hinata had a Warp Portal set up somewhere in Lubelius. The same was true of all the paladins, each one an A-grade fighter; I’m sure the journey home was no great effort to them. I imagined they’d just say “Sorry, but our work’s done here, nice knowing ya” and be on their way.
“Sorry, but—”
Yep. There it is.
“—if you insist on it, would you be willing to host us this evening?”
“Ah yes, I did like that hot spring of yours, and the food was simply excellent. What fun will we have tonight?”
Huh? Huhhhh?
I suppose neither Hinata nor Luminus was in any hurry to go anywhere. The paladins saw this, of course, and now they’d all need quarters for another night, too. They were all smiles now, chatting over what could be on the menu tonight. I wanted to ask if the Crusaders were really a bunch of freeloaders like this all along, but it was too late to whine about it. If they expect that much from us, let’s give them the time of their lives.
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“Okay, today’s banquet will feature sukiyaki, a big bowl of beef simmered in vegetable broth!”
“““Yeaahhhhh!!”””
“…”
I wasn’t sure what this feeling in me was. The paladins and my staff, mortal
enemies until the previous day, were now salivating over the hearty meal they’d share shortly. They were happy, no doubt about that… But part of me wondered if this was really the right thing for them. I guess there were no rules about religious figures giving up meat or whatever in this world—it was hard enough to keep yourself fed at times without inventing restrictions for yourself.
So we decided to treat them to the cowdeer and chiducken we had started to raise, pairing their meat with some fresh-picked veggies. Tossing all that into a pot of boiling broth would be perfect, and Shuna knew exactly how to pull it off. First, she used chiducken bones to make a soup stock, using the meat on them for sashimi purposes. Then, for the main course, she butchered up some marbled cowdeer, making for some downright decadent hot pot. After that, all she had to do was remove the poison from the chiducken eggs and pass them around to everyone. There was no way this wouldn’t taste awesome.
“Okay, here’s to our future friendship. Cheers!”
“““Cheers!!”””
We also had more fresh-cooked rice, the big hit of the previous day’s feast. Ignore the black color, of course. My beloved white rice would just go to waste on these guys. Hinata was staring longingly at my personal rice bowl last night, though, so I gave her a serving—from one otherworlder to another. When it comes to rice, plain white is where it’s at, although I’m no stranger to assorted seasonings, too. I was also getting some rice in from Blumund that I had them test out for me, but it still needed some improvement. It was a wholly different beast from the white rice before me.
“White rice, though… Don’t you find this almost selfish, in a way?”
I wasn’t sure what Hinata was complaining about. Her voice was even shaking a little. What was she, jealous?