Chapter 2
The Child of the Monastery (2)
Even the monastery supposedly protected by the Constellation of Radiance could not escape the cultists’ clutches.
Bodies had been stacked in the monastery courtyard like fallen leaves.
They were the villagers who had been massacred moments earlier.
In one corner of the courtyard, another group of people huddled together with their hands and feet bound.
They were the inhabitants of the monastery, including Kaspar.
With their arms tied behind them, they lay facedown on the ground, trembling.
They had been dragged out in their sleep and had no idea what was happening. With familiar faces now piled before them as corpses, remaining calm was impossible.
Everyone began sniffling and calling upon the Constellation of Radiance.
Yet something was strange.
Anyone would panic after being thrown into such an incomprehensible situation, but Kaspar’s expression showed little agitation.
If anything, he appeared calm.
It was not because Kaspar was too dull or foolish to understand the gravity of the situation.
Quite the opposite.
He had witnessed everything the cultists had done.
However, like many children who had lived under persecution for years, Kaspar was more accustomed to concealing his emotions than revealing them.
Just as he was doing now.
While his emotions remained subdued, his rational mind continued working.
Kaspar began considering how he might escape from this situation.
That was when—
“Sister Rachel!”
“Sister Rachel! Wh-What is the meaning of this?”
The people around Kaspar shouted.
Rachel had emerged from inside the chapel entrance, completely unharmed.
Those who still failed to grasp the situation cheered at her appearance and desperately tried to speak to her.
But then—
Clack.
The armed cultists simultaneously lowered their swords and bowed their heads to her.
The captives fell silent.
As they gradually realized what was happening, their faces turned pale.
Sister Rachel was the one who brought the cultists here.
Under their despairing gazes, Rachel walked to the center of the courtyard and stopped.
“The bright moon is beautiful tonight. It is a fitting night for the Master to observe our burnt offering.”
Rachel looked up at the night sky as she entered the courtyard.
A man followed behind her.
“Care must be taken precisely because of that.”
Kaspar recognized him.
“He’s the mage.”
It was undoubtedly the man who had created the sphere of light at the village entrance.
Kaspar could tell from the black energy that surrounded the man like shimmering heat.
Even now, that black energy occasionally formed patterns resembling the one that had briefly appeared before he created the light sphere.
The man wore a black robe, with its hood pulled so low that his face could not be seen. Judging from his voice alone, he seemed fairly old.
No. It’s different.
It looks similar, but its shape is different from the pattern used for the light sphere.
Heat gradually entered Kaspar’s eyes.
His curiosity overcame his survival instinct and began occupying his thoughts.
What kind of magic is that pattern? Why does he keep it wrapped around his body at all times?
“The time for the burnt offering has finally arrived.”
A burnt offering?
Stopping before the pile of corpses, the black-robed man murmured as he drew his hand through the air.
The black haze surrounding him gathered like fog and began forming a pattern.
“…!”
Once again, Kaspar’s mind raced.
Instinctively, he engraved the pattern’s appearance deep into his memory.
“Ignite.”
Fwoosh!
The moment the black-robed man uttered the word, flames engulfed the pile of corpses and blazed upward.
In an instant, the fire surged toward the sky.
“Urgh!”
“Aah! No!”
The captives cried out in anguish as they watched the villagers burn.
“Sister Rachel… Why?”
The first to speak amid the chaos was Abbot Tom.
He stared at Rachel with bewildered eyes. His body trembled slightly, whether from fear or tension.
Rachel answered with a tender smile.
“Oh, Abbot. I seem to have forgotten to explain.”
Her expression and warm tone were the same as always, yet something about them was grotesque.
She resembled a bright but distorted flower fashioned from the tail of a venomous insect to lure in its prey.
“The lambs offered as sacrifices must be without blemish. You haven’t suffered any injuries, have you?”
“Lambs offered as sacrifices? What in the world are you talking about? Why are you doing this?”
The abbot’s question emerged as a desperate cry.
One corner of Rachel’s mouth rose.
It was a sneer.
“Why am I doing this…? Do you still not understand? To put it in terms that even your slow mind can comprehend… we are rededicating this monastery to its original master.”
“Its original master?”
“Yes. Our true Master—the Primordial Constellation.”
After finishing, Rachel looked at the abbot as if inviting him to respond.
But the abbot merely continued staring in confusion.
Instead, a response came from elsewhere.
“So you originally worshipped a different Constellation, Sister. You entered this monastery to serve that being from the very beginning, concealing both your identity and your faith.”
The black-robed man raised his head and stared silently at Kaspar.
“Who is that child?”
Rachel glanced at Kaspar.
“One beloved by the Master.”
“…That child?”
“Yes. The unblemished beast to be offered in tonight’s sacrifice.”
One beloved by the Master… An unblemished beast…
The terms were unfamiliar, but Kaspar did not like the sound of them.
“Are you certain that child possesses what your order calls divine fever?”
“Yes. The blessing of a god is engraved upon his body and soul, giving him a constitution that produces an endless supply of mana.”
The black-robed man scoffed inwardly.
Anyone who understood the principles of magic would never dare utter such stupidity aloud.
Magic was both the power and the principle through which all creation was transformed.
Mana generated inside a human body?
Absurd.
Even if it were true, it would be a curse rather than a blessing.
A power that immense would seek to break free by destroying the flesh that dared imprison it.
Kaspar’s youthful face suddenly entered the black-robed man’s awareness.
“He is young. I expected him to be older.”
“That will please the Master all the more.”
“A pity. He likely hasn’t experienced any of the secular world’s pleasures yet.”
“Does that trouble you?”
The black-robed man considered the question briefly before shaking his head.
“I have already come this far. I cannot turn back now.”
“An admirable resolve. He will be pleased.”
The black-robed man frowned in displeasure, but in contrast, the abbot’s expression brightened.
“…If that child—Kaspar—is your objective, then the rest of us have nothing to do with this, do we? If the master you serve will be satisfied with that boy alone, there is no need to involve us as well. Isn’t that right? Rachel!”
At the abbot’s shout, the expressions of the surviving monastery residents changed simultaneously.
Adults and children alike began shouting with one voice.
“Y-Yes! The abbot is right!”
“Can’t you just sacrifice Kaspar? You said he was an unblemished beast!”
“I knew there was something different about that boy from the very beginning! Of course a child meant to be sacrificed would be special!”
“We don’t have that divine fever or whatever it is! What meaning would there be in sacrificing us?”
Kaspar looked at the people of the monastery.
His eyes were empty.
He had never expected anything from them, but it still left a bitter taste in his mouth.
He had once again been reminded of how these people truly viewed him.
Rachel looked at them and smiled brightly.
“Let us begin.”
Her words severed their newfound hope.
The black-robed man silently raised his hand.
Then the activation word that triggered his magic flowed from his mouth.
Kaspar’s eyes widened.
Faint lines extended from the man’s fingertips, intertwining and tangling together.
The resulting knot spread outward, engraving a vivid pattern in the air.
“Ignite.”
Roar!
Flames erupted from the ground beneath the monastery residents who had been pleading with Rachel.
They were not red but blue—a blazing inferno that engulfed them in an instant.
Soon, nothing remained in that spot but a pile of ashes whose original forms could no longer be discerned.
“O Constellation, please savor this offering to your heart’s content.”
With a blissful expression, Rachel took a deep breath and calmed herself before looking toward the next sacrifice.
Kaspar—the precious offering she had discovered here.
“You look remarkably serene, Kaspar.”
Her voice was soft, as though she were speaking to a younger brother.
And just as she said, Kaspar remained calm.
Although the monastery residents had met a horrific end, he felt little grief or sympathy for them.
They had never shared any genuine human connection with him, and the way they behaved during their final moments had been far too ugly.
Instead, an entirely different emotion occupied his mind.
A yearning for magic.
Until now, he had endured life simply because he had been born.
But at last, he had discovered a purpose and meaning for that life.
He wanted to satisfy this desire he was experiencing for the first time.
I don’t want to die.
I want to live and experience that exhilaration again.
Those were Kaspar’s honest feelings.
But how?
There were dozens of armed men in the monastery, along with a mage.
How could he possibly escape alive?
“Sister Rachel, I think the rope has scraped my wrists rather badly. They sting.”
A sacrificial offering must be without blemish.
An idea suddenly came to him.
Alfred was dissatisfied with everything.
Cultists were universally inefficient.
Some muttered incomprehensible prayers every time they burned a sacrifice, while others used carving knives to engrave something into the charred remains.
This was the problem with religious fanatics.
Rachel, who appeared to be their leader, was no different.
No—she was even worse.
Everyone accumulated injuries and scars over the course of their life. And this was a boy they were talking about. Alfred could guarantee that even if they searched every corner of the empire and its frontier, they would never find a boy completely without scars.
Yet Rachel was making an enormous fuss and even untying the child merely because the ropes had scraped his wrists.
What was it she called him?
An unblemished sacrifice?
She was clearly insane.
Nevertheless, Alfred held his tongue as he thought about the promised blessing—the mysterious magical secrets that the Primordial Constellation would bestow upon him.
Still, this is taking far too long.
He was growing anxious.
They might have scoured the village, but there was always a chance someone had survived.
There was no telling when a survivor might reach the lord’s castle and reveal the truth. They needed to finish this as quickly as possible and leave.
If he were caught, he would be excommunicated from the Magic Tower—
No, an imperial decree would have his head removed.
The empire had always maintained only one policy regarding cultists.
Death without exception.
Even a noble mage from the Imperial Capital Magic Tower would receive no special treatment.
Perhaps it was because Alfred had become lost in thought.
He absentmindedly listened to the voice beside him.
“Light.”
…What? Light?
Flash!
A blinding radiance erupted before his eyes.
The sun? Inside the chapel?
“Aaaaargh!”
The light vastly exceeded what Alfred’s aged optic nerves could withstand.
They ruptured before he even had the chance to cry out in pain.