Chapter 86 – Nebula Church (3)

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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After the sun was dyed black, light only remained in the wicks of candles and inside braziers.

Even if stars rose in the night sky, it was just as dark.

The world merely remained as a gray heap of ashes, scorched by the Dark Light.

The scenery of Bakumsia, a city where starlight dwelled in such times, naturally induced people to kneel.

Without a single exception.

Olden from the slums, Dryden who had eaten some ink (was somewhat educated), and the old fortune-teller Ineris were kneeling before they knew it.

“I thought all the gods were dead. I saw with my own eyes what happened to all those bastards who swaggered around calling themselves clerics.”

“Then why are you kneeling?”

“Can’t you tell by looking? It’s obvious at a glance. To make a living as a pickpocket in the slums, you have to be able to immediately distinguish what kind of guy your opponent is.”

Olden answered Dryden’s question while glancing his pupils around.

The outskirts a little away from the city walls.

Even though the newly joining people stopped to show reverence, the Holy Knights of the Nebula Church were incredibly relaxed.

Different from ordinary people who were always anxious not knowing when a demon might strike.

Olden remembered how pathological the priests who lost their divine power were.

Furthermore, the angle at which they wore their swords and the posture of their feet stepping on the ground.

“At the very least, they are folks who could slice through an average knight sir. It’s no joke.”

“Are they that strong? T-Those… folks?”

“How did you survive when you have no eye for things?”

“I guess I used it all up getting saved by you, mister.”

“Tsk. You did use your lifelong luck properly.”

Even while grumbling, Olden didn’t stop examining the Holy Knights.

Of course, their equipment was poorer than the churches from before the Black Sun.

Seeing them just wearing tattered robes without proper armor, one would have thought they were nomads even putting it nicely.

However, the sharp vigilance intermittently revealed from their consistently relaxed attitude.

Empty hands ready to draw their swords at any time.

Legs and feet slightly spread to immediately cope with unexpected situations…

Down to the white lightsabers that had disappeared at some point.

They were the real deal.

Being from the slums where there were many occasions to get entangled with cultists, he could tell.

“Dryden, I’m not kneeling for nothing. They aren’t shams who bought their knighthood with money. Friends like this are the real deal.”

“That much?”

“Fancy friends dress up in glossy armor and nice-looking cloaks to show off.”

Olden clicked his tongue and shook his head.

“Holy Knights who went around hunting their church’s enemies actually have to hide their identities and launch surprise attacks, so they don’t wear such things.”

“You seem to know quite a lot.”

“Hup!”

One of the Holy Knights keeping a lookout on the surroundings suddenly opened his mouth.

Dryden flinched, startled, but Olden grinned revealing his yellow teeth.

“It seems I flapped my gums a bit because it’s my first time meeting a proper group in these times.”

“Tsk tsk tsk tsk… A greenhorn still only has doubts. That’s why you can’t feel this divine power filling the surroundings.”

Ineris, who had been praying quietly, threw a scolding with her eyes closed.

The Holy Knights moved again only after watching the three people bicker for a moment.

“It will be a little better once you go inside the city. Because Star Creation will welcome you.”

“Star Creation?”

“The great Godfather of Stars, the young father who looks down upon us… It is the Divine Name of the god who creates stars.”

“Hmm. I won’t expect too much. Please understand.”

“Of course, I understand.”

They showed a polite attitude even to Olden, who couldn’t discard his doubts until the end.

It seemed they weren’t a church that swung their swords first just because it offended them.

Judging so, Olden stepped inside the city with his companions following the guidance of the surrounding Holy Knights.

Then, a wondrous sight not seen outside the city walls unfolded.

“If you’ve loaded all the scrap iron, go to the plaza!”

“Did you bring an ax? Then let’s go. We should tear off twenty planks per person today.”

From the outskirts of the city, people could be seen grabbing their tools and moving busily.

Those holding axes smashed doors and dismantled wooden furniture.

When the waiting artisans rushed to the broken furniture and pulled out the nails, there were even people separately designated to move the broken planks to carts.

Meanwhile, if a kitchen knife or pot was found, the sound of tapping with a spoon could even be heard.

“Doesn’t it look a bit dented?”

“Did we say we were short on pots?”

“No. We can’t just use it like this. I think we need to recast it once.”

“Alright. Let’s move it, guys!”

The one most surprised hearing this conversation was not Olden but Dryden.

“Recast? Y-You can recast here too?”

“That’s impossible! There shouldn’t even be any wood to use as charcoal around here!”

Belatedly, Olden refuted in shock.

Even Olden, from the slums, shouted like this. No matter how ignorant, there was something called common sense.

And after the Black Sun, humans lost the greatest power given to them.

Not only lost knowledge, but even if they found the knowledge, they lost the infrastructure that would make it realizable.

It was natural, since the Black Sun persistently attacked and obliterated any organization trying to make them function again.

However, these facts were human common sense.

The Holy Knights shrugged at the violent reactions of the two.

“We might not be able to right away, but it will be possible soon.”

“Hah. I knew it.”

“Perhaps right now.”

“Didn’t you say soon? Now?”

“Yes.”

It was around the time he thought ‘As expected, you can’t hold a conversation with fanatics’.

Suddenly, the sky began to turn deep blue.

At first he thought it was because of the small starlights floating around, but it wasn’t.

Clatter, clank.

Tools were being put down from all directions.

Those who were passionately working while shouting until just a moment ago knelt all at once.

Olden, who unconsciously looked up at the sky chasing the light, only then let go of all his doubts and lingering attachments.

“A comet.”

An auspicious omen said to cross the night sky before an ascending star appears.

Golden dust pouring down under the long stretched tail embroidered the sky in place of the sun.

It was still far from enough to fill the night sky, but it was also different from before when it was only pitch-black.

It was an overwhelming sight to the extent that even the unfaithful Olden naturally knelt.

Olden only slowly blinked his two eyes that had become dim from looking up at the strong light.

“The last god… He really existed…”

“O Light guide us lead us to the path of victory and radiance…”

Even Ineris’s prayer, which he would normally scold with all his might, was now just leaving him feeling hollow.

“Now I can’t even curse the old lady calling her crazy.”

Olden let out a sigh with the momentum of aging severely by several more years.

***

To support the prospering capital, numerous satellite cities were needed.

And as long as they served the Pantheon, they had to show corresponding faith, and dedicating a city was commonly used as proof of that.

Whinisten, a city dedicated to Exchanging Knowledge, was a representative example.

One fortunate thing for me was the fact that this dedication itself was an arrangement left by Exchanging Knowledge.

-The Sun God, capable of existing independently without faith, is ignorant about faith.

The Sun God thought he could completely eliminate the arrangements just by destroying the temples.

The Armed Church, united centering around Exchanging Knowledge and Chewing Wisdom, utilized this as their final dagger.

Cities dedicated solely to one god.

Even if only a single cornerstone remained, if you went there, you could have a reunion with the dead gods.

If so, before the Black Sun returned, I had to meet the god who would give me the most efficient help.

The next place I aimed for was Andraum, a city dedicated to Tempered Claw.

Although I could only move after the Holy Knights returned from their mission.

Naturally, Andraum did not remain intact.

“How severe.”

I deliberately spoke out loud for the Sun God to hear just in case he was watching.

Just as Whinisten was, Andraum was also completely scorched.

By now, anyone would know.

That the temples of the Armed Church and the cities dedicated to them were exposed to the Sun God’s retaliation.

It was flattened to the point where I didn’t know if it was unfortunate or fortunate that there were no survivors left in Andraum.

[You think so too. Isn’t it too much? It was a city they painstakingly built up.]

“Nice to meet you.”

[You are polite. Looking only at your power, it seems you would run wild crazily like the Sun God.]

Tempered Claw was a red-hot steel golem.

Not that he actually was, but he looked like one.

He was also one of the playable Divine Names in [Last Comet] and…

He was also the blacksmith god who belonged to the Armed Church.

Tempered Claw scratched his face with his iron claws *scrape scrape*, seemingly finding the meeting quite awkward.

[Although your dexterity seems to be lacking entirely yet.]

…

“That’s why I came to receive help.”

[Well, power and artistic sense are different. Especially the sense of hammering iron… is innate, and also requires building up experience.]

Perhaps because he was a god who interacted a lot with humans, his demeanor felt like a middle-aged man.

It reminded me of a somewhat smooth and reasonably cheerful mister.

But even if he died and only his remnants remained, he was strictly a god.

A profound streak of light was swaying even within the red-hot melting steel.

[Exchanging Knowledge must have properly given you the knowledge, so my mission would be to give you all my experience.]

“Why couldn’t I use your power, or at least the power of Exchanging Knowledge from the start?”

When I threw the question I had held back, Tempered Claw also smiled gloomily.

[Even the Sun God is not omnipotent, how could we have made you omnipotent by any means.]

“Then how are these arrangements possible.”

[One authority for one Divine Name. The innate limit placed on the Pantheon. Since the Sun God broke it, we could only break it as well. Even that was impossible for us. We did not have the power to do anything independently, but.]

A stale smell that you might smell in a sewer wafted over.

Regret, fear, self-reproach…

It was surprising that a sweet smell was mixed within it.

[You will be different. Arm your forces with my power, god who creates stars.]

“To arm my believers, numerous facilities and technologies are needed. Please tell me which god I need to meet to make it possible.”

I could let technology pass since I inherited Exchanging Knowledge, but facilities were a different story.

If Wavering Flame was devoured, how on earth could I melt metal?

I thought the Armed Church, who meticulously prepared arrangements two or three times over regardless of the Sun God’s retaliation, would have a solution.

It was exactly at this time that Tempered Claw roared with laughter loud enough to blow away the ruins.

[The place where you are is the blast furnace itself. My experience and the technologies preserved by Exchanging Knowledge, and…]

Tempered Claw accurately aimed at my chest and smiled.

[…A heat that nothing in the world dares to imitate. You have all of that.]

***

It was exactly as the dead god said.

The plaza that collapsed in the last raid.

Watching the people pouring lumps of iron in there, I realized.

That the power to create stars was infinitely close to omnipotence.

I repeatedly pledged to myself while gathering the souls the Holy Knights had reaped into my grasp.

“Star Creation.”

That I would create an army that would make my enemies tremble.