Chapter 6 – Unknown God

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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The more Toddle stroked the child’s hair, the louder the sobbing became.

Beneath the blood-stained hand, the brown-haired girl was dropping tears bead by bead at some point. The other children were exactly the same.

They lowered their heads with cowering and intimidated postures to avoid the gaze even a little bit. I was able to find out the captured child’s name faster than I thought.

“…Debra? Why, what is this.”

It was because Ad, who had been silently watching the situation, was startled out of his wits.

Unlike his usual bluffing self, his enormously dilated pupils testified to how surprised he was.

Ad shifted his gaze from me, to Bartol, to Toddle, and finally nailed his gaze to one woman. Even while holding an ominous silence, she was a woman sobbing quietly.

“Sister-in-law, why is Debra over there…? And why is she so skinny?”

“….”

“No, please say something. Do not just cry… Fuck, why is my niece over there!”

“I am sorry… I am sorry, dear…. I am sorry…”

Under the continuous interrogation, the woman finally burst into tears.

Only then did the friends around Ad begin to distance themselves from the other people. Even though they had not properly heard a single explanation, they felt something from the appearance of this unpleasant chapel where only sobbing cries echoed.

Toddle was standing at the center of the swirling sense of incongruity and instinctive disgust.

It was around the time Ad’s shouts subsided that Toddle, who had only been rolling his eyes, put on an empty smile.

“It seems there was a misunderstanding on that side as well.”

“Misunderstanding? Wh, what is that in your hand. You are holding a knife and grabbing a kid, and you call it a misunderstanding?!”

“You must have been clearly told when you joined that you can prove your faith as much as you want if it is for the Angel’s recovery.”

“If you are going to do this kind of thing, grab your own kid first!”

It was exactly at this moment that Toddle’s smile, his kind impression, collapsed.

Upon hearing Ad’s enraged shout, he instantly ripped off the shell built from emotions that he had been wearing over his face. The only thing left at the end of the forced smile he had put on to give a favorable impression being crushed was just one thing.

It was an intense gaze that bordered on murderous intent.

“Do you think I would not have offered him?”

“Wh, what….”

“It was not only the Angel who was sickly dying every hour. People are dying too. Because there is nothing to eat, because they cannot sleep, saying it is meaningless to live like this anyway…”

“Toddle, you.”

The moment Bartol, who failed to listen to the end, interrupted, Toddle’s eyes sparkled.

Exceptionally bright even inside the chapel where the faint torches and thin wicks amidst melted candle wax were everything. Toddle stopped stroking the child’s head and was glaring in this direction.

“My wife committed suicide. The Angel was dying, and my one remaining son was also starving to death. In the midst of having no livestock left to offer, my son spoke first.”

“Ted, spoke first….”

“It would have been better if he did not take after the Priest. If only he could have offered this body instead. I should not have awkwardly made him study such things. He was at an age where he would become an adult before long.

After experiencing this regret, I realized it to my bones. I felt it enough to want to die. It is a terrible thing for a father and a mother to kill their own child!”

A resentment with nowhere to go shattered one person’s mind into pieces.

The glass knife he was gripping was being stained by nobody else’s blood but Toddle’s own.

Unmindful of the risk of infection and injury, Toddle suddenly crossed himself with an infinitely reverent attitude and shouted.

“That is why I decided to take their place. Me, who has already offered my son once!”

The twisted goodwill silenced everyone.

Even Ad, who had been enraged to the utmost, was so appalled that he took a few steps back. The people overwhelmed by the madness-filled wailing could not say anything.

The children’s complexions turned pale blue, and the silenced people stealthily looked away.

“…It is right to take the place of the people who want to live.”

Along with those words, the familiar sound of a bell rang out.

Clang.

The moment the sound of the first bell toll was heard, the people’s gazes headed toward this direction once again.

Clang.

“Is the Angel, is the Angel really allowed to do that?”

In the midst of the whispering among those who had not yet accepted it, we were urged to make a choice.

Clang.

The stained glass windows that had been showing colorful shapes with light began to turn black in unison. Shadows crawled in through the nailed planks and the patched cloths, hungrily devouring the scenery.

Only the places where the Black Sun’s Dark Light did not reach, places where even a faint glimmer of light remained, precariously illuminated the surroundings.

However, it was not exactly the same as before.

Flash.

It literally flashed.

Because a brilliant flash of light blinked outside the window, everyone squeezed their eyes shut.

Before anyone could guess this was a sign of something, before the afterimage caused by the glare disappeared, the light began to bounce several times. The sound of clashing blades and the cries of a beast mixed together.

It was then that the angel’s urgent echo stirred up my mind.

=Living ones, it is insufficient!=

Everyone already knew what was insufficient.

Bartol and I, Ad and his group, and of course everyone gathered in the chapel all looked at Toddle.

While appealing their respective emotions. In the midst of screams telling him not to do it and resignations saying it could not be helped, Toddle stroked the child again. It was dangerous to proceed any further.

If the angel was already advising against it, using divine power any more than this would only invoke certainty.

Eventually, the moment I moved my feet to jump in.

“Be brave, child.”

The glass knife touched the skin first.

*

“Gasp, kkeureuk, kkeuk, Gurgle……”

“D, Debra. Shh. Shh. Dang it, fuck. The bl, blood will not stop.”

Ad ran out first and took care of Debra.

Surprisingly, the people did not stop us from lunging in.

They merely shed tears and watched this side silently, which was all they did.

They did not help, nor did they block us… but they pitied us and sobbed. Bartol, who hurriedly ran over panting, headed toward Ad who was taking care of the child named Debra.

“Tear, the clothes, first.”

“Yes?”

“Clothes, first… so the wound, does not, open up…!”

“A, aah! Yes, yessir!”

“After tearing them, press down hard, on the neck!”

Bartol and Ad struggled with all their might to somehow block the blood drops leaking out along the blood line drawn on Debra’s neck.

I had already shoved Toddle away while the two were taking care of the child. Between Toddle and the children who were still alive, with my back to the altar, I was pouring all my attention to the outside.

Even in the midst of this, the light repeatedly kept bouncing off.

With every moment the flash of light flickered and drove out the dark light that had crawled all the way inside the chapel, the people covered their eyes while feeling relieved… but I knew the reality was completely different. Every time it flashed, every time the sound of colliding was heard, the intensity of the light was weakening little by little. I could even bite my finger and write a blood oath to assure it.

The angel was being pushed back.

The only people who noticed this fact right away were me and the owner of the blood-stained glass knife, Toddle. Toddle glared at me, then glanced sideways at the desperate Ad and Bartol while mocking them.

“Do you think that child can live by blocking it with a dirty piece of cloth?”

“Kkeureuk, kek, keo-heok.”

“Sh, shut up. Debra, shh. Stay still. Please!”

The harder they pressed down on the neck to stop the bursting blood, the narrower the airway became.

It was ironic.

Under the touches of people desperately trying to keep her breathing for even just one second, the breath that wanted to live was instead being crushed. As the child struggled more, the sobbing sounds in the chapel naturally grew louder along with it.

Eventually, the moment Toddle moved with an expression mixed with contempt, disgust, and remorse.

Flash.

The last place the bounced-off light collided was none other than the entrance of the chapel.

The silhouette that had fallen among the people who closed their eyes because it was too bright, or because their situation was too miserable, raised its body. The angel, who had reassured the people with a confident attitude before the Black Sun rose, had long since disappeared.

The platinum halo only revealed an angel who had tumbled down into a battered wreck rather than shining hope.

With a face mixed with impatience and regret, the angel looked at me with fading silver eyes.

=I knew you would obstruct it.=

“Knew it?”

=Because it is a disgusting deed.=

“I am sorry, Angel. I should have persuaded you first, but it seems power is unavoidably necessary.”

=It is not your fault either. It is just that this tribulation is wrong.=

The angel reassured Toddle, who was kneeling and showing his courtesy.

Only then did I realize that Toddle was not purely acting out of faith alone. The sacrifice his son had chosen to make had to have meaning. It was madness born from an aimless resentment that had turned into obstinacy.

He was recovering the angel for that purpose. And if he was an angel, he had to have read all of Toddle’s twisted thoughts as well. Toddle also seemed to know this fact well.

However, far from harboring complaints, he instead tried to argue the justification of the sacrifice on behalf of the angel.

“That child can no longer live. No matter how much you stop the blood, she will die of a fever before a scab forms.”

Not managing the glass knife cleanly was to kill through infection.

“Even if you block it, her lungs will be completely filled before the blood stops. Do you know what a person comes to desire when death becomes certain like that?”

Aiming for the neck was to slowly drown her in blood.

“They hope their life and death have meaning. It is a nobility that would never be shown if a path to living remained. You may curse me all you want. But think about it.

Do the Priest and the friend next to him plan on letting that child continue to struggle and die?”

“Shut up! Fuck, shut up I said!”

“There is a better death. A death that will become meaningful to everyone… A holy sacrifice that will allow a single piece of starlight to be created in this pitch-black night sky.”

…Making them give up on life like that and then urging a choice.

Because human sacrifice offering one’s spirit and flesh to an angel required the sacrifice’s own consent. Knowing that it was difficult for a young child to make the choice of giving up on life, he acted in this manner.

Meticulous. It was terrible without even needing to add anything to it.

Only one word continuously came to mind.

Fuck.

…Fuck.

It was at that time. The angel, who seemed to be watching silently, suddenly turned his gaze and looked at the children.

=Children, it is natural to be afraid. For those who lived in the light, it is right to fear the darkness. However, the heart that cares for the ones you love does not yield.=

…..

=Look, children. At your parents and neighbors who are afraid and regretful. They did not abandon you. If they had abandoned you, they would not have had any expectations either.=

“Kkeu-heu-heuk!”

Cries that could not be held back burst out. The angel’s consolation and defense were magnifying the guilt possessed by the people. But it was different. I was certain that he did not simply open his mouth to reconcile them.

The children, who had only been shivering in fear until now, carefully raised their heads and looked at the adults.

“R, really?”

=Because they could not feed you, and because they could not guarantee how long they could stay with you, they were trying to send you off first. Endlessly lamenting their own incompetence, they make a choice riddled with regrets. Do not hate them. They are pitiful ones. They shall blame themselves for failing to promise a future until the day they die.=

Only then did I realize what the angel intended.

One of the parents who could not endure the guilt pushed through the people and sprang out.

“A, as expected I cannot do it. Not my child!”

“And if you cannot? Do you plan to trap your child beneath that night sky without a single starlight left until the day they die?”

“Even so, they should live!”

“Live. And do what by living. Wait for them to be ripped apart and eaten by Corpse Demons?”

“Ah, aeuh. Aeueu…”

The person who blocked the parent running out unable to endure it was Toddle.

The instinct of the species fearing the darkness and craving the light clashed with the mother’s heart wanting to save her child. The woman who stopped midway after rushing out shed tears while looking alternately at the angel, who became the sole light of this world, and her one and only child. At that sight, the children who had been watching in silence began to move.

One step.

It was the moment the children, who had been hiding behind my back and intimidated, stepped forward toward the adults for the first time. The platinum halo that pushed away the Dark Light and the silver glowing eyes softly enveloped the surroundings. The angel, with an attitude that had become fully affectionate, reached out his hand and smiled.

=Act for the sake of those you love. Do not leave those who regret because they love you behind in the darkness. If we are bound by unyielding courage and love, you and I shall become the starlight that terminates this tribulation.=

“Angel, please do not do this and take this old man instead!”

Bartol, who had been taking care of Debra, sprang up with bulging veins, but the angel answered firmly.

=We must do everything we can.=

They were definitely words directed at Bartol, but they felt like words pointedly shooting at me.

Do everything we can.

As soon as I chewed on those words, something else that did not belong to the angel echoed in my head as if to warn me.

[Awaken your Divine Name.]

[A god who has not awakened their Divine Name.]

“Stop playing dirty tricks.”

-For the first time, I ignored these words that would certainly serve as advice to me.

“Priest, please take this.”

“It will be of no use. No matter how much of a scroll it is, without divine power imbued in it.”

I took out one of the scrolls Bartol had explained earlier from my inner pocket and handed it to him directly by hand.

Purification scroll. He had definitely said it was helpful for sanitizing wounds.

It did not take long for Bartol, who was shaking his head sorrowfully, to change his expression.

Because the moment he received the scroll while saying it would not work, he noticed the change contained within it. The moment he touched the scroll, the veins situated on the old priest’s hand began to glow brightly.

As someone who lived his whole life as a priest, there was no way he would not know.

“Th, this is. No, that cannot be. But… surely. Good heavens…”

I threw a slightly mischievous question at Bartol, who was looking up with wavering pupils.

“You have not forgotten how to use it, right?”