Even a Scoundrel Gets Tired

58 – The Body’s Master (2)

At first, escape was the only thought.

Attempting to flee with the Pope, and when deemed impossible,

to stall for time, hoping for reinforcements.

No matter how many casualties surrounded us, he *was* their Pope.

Before coming here, I’d extracted promises from the able-bodied knights and priests,

a vow to send support as swiftly as possible.

Buying time, at least, I thought I could manage somehow.

No matter who stood in my way.

*

“I asked you what you said.”

“Hm? Weren’t you refusing conversation?”

He pouted his lips, grinning slyly, and I hurled a dagger at his face.

I expected that dark energy to appear and block it,

but unexpectedly, it didn’t.

He simply caught the blade between his saw-like teeth.

The fiend spat out the blade, *tueh*, then flicked a finger toward me.

Simultaneously, a tendril of dark energy erupted from below,

piercing straight through the lower part of my knee.

A groan of pain tore from my throat unbidden,

and as I released the Pope and collapsed to the ground,

all I heard was the click-clack of the fiend’s boots approaching.

“Now, a position more suited for conversation, wouldn’t you say?”

“Who… are you?”

“Haha, even in this situation, your defiant spirit is a sight to behold!”

“I believe I’m asking for the third time, who are you?”

“Just someone among those who know you, that’s all.”

I burned him with a glare filled with murderous intent, as if to say, *don’t lie*,

and the fiend’s smile only deepened.

Just as I was racking my brain for how to make him talk,

suddenly, his voice echoed in my mind.

[Well, the contents of our conversation from now on are classified, after all.

Your thoughts are being conveyed to me as they are, so don’t mind it.]

He seemed worried about the Pope, sprawled beside me as he was.

Unconscious with agony for now, but who knew when he might awaken.

Regardless, a conversation was underway, so I decided to prioritize questions.

“Who the hell are you, you son of a b*tch?”

My tone, perhaps, a touch sharp.

One might expect my sudden profanity to offend him, but

he remained unfazed, a vacant smile playing on his lips.

[Haha, I am Grid, of the Lunar Order.]

“…The Lunar Order?”

[Indeed, dedicated to our one and only Goddess—]

“I don’t give a damn about that. How did you know?”

He seemed mildly put out by my disregard for his Goddess’s radiant introduction, but I couldn’t be bothered.

I needed information, more crucial than any deity’s praises.

The b*stard had spoken of my “life.”

He’d asked which iteration it was.

As if he knew I was reincarnating.

No one knew that.

I’d never breathed a word of it to anyone.

They wouldn’t believe me, even if I did, and

there wasn’t a soul in my circle with whom I’d freely discuss such things.

So, to have heard it from someone else was impossible.

Leaving only one possibility.

“Did you… hear this from the Order?”

[I didn’t receive the story directly.

It was more of a… superstition, passed down through the ages.]

A god, or something akin to one, had relayed my story.

And not just any god – one who’d intervened as directly in my Fate as Sola.

“…Superstition?”

[Yes, an ancient tale about one who would become the vessel of Luna—]

“What?!”

My sudden, heightened reaction seemed to startle him,

as he instinctively covered his ears with his hands.

Grinding his teeth, he squinted his left eye shut,

raising an eyebrow as he spoke to me again.

[Why are you shouting?]

“…The god you serve is Luna?”

[Yes, is that a problem?]

With those few words, the pieces all fell into place.

From how this b*stard knew anything about me, to

The reason I am called the vessel of the Divine Body.

Luna desires to dedicate herself to this land using my body.

For that purpose, she reincarnates me.

And before being sealed, she made humans worship her.

So that when I, perpetually reborn, eventually arrive in this world,

I could be captured more easily and used for her resurrection.

The Divine Body didn’t simply mean flesh.

It meant, quite literally, the body of a god.

‘…Did that wretched goddess deign to tell you about me?’

[Hm? How did you know─]

His words were cut short.

After all, I was almost certain.

I hurl a knife at his face once more.

The difference from before being

This time, it isn’t a plain dagger.

A substance made by mixing aluminum soap and gasoline, napalm.

A highly concentrated fuel, and intensely volatile.

And the blade of that dagger is coated in napalm.

He caught it with one hand again, far too casually,

Which was fortunate news for me.

Immediately following, I throw another dagger, not at his face,

But at the napalm dagger he holds.

I secretly hoped it would even graze it and cause an explosion,

But it’s caught by his other fingers right in front of him.

As if certain that this was my trump card,

He slowly shakes his head from side to side.

“I don’t know what you’re aiming for, but it won’t work─.”

“No, it already has.”

“…?”

Clenching his outstretched palm into a fist,

The magic’s trigger is activated.

Red light and heat begin to emanate from the dagger he caught just moments ago.

The magic sigil carved into the base of the hilt activates,

And a small magic surges forth.

A basic spell, and the first one learned.

Fireball.

I was said to have superior control over mana than anyone.

Superior mana control means

That I also have superior control over magical power,

In other words, altering the trajectory of a falling fireball

was well within my capabilities, you see.

The fireball, propelled against the flat of the dagger’s blade,

veered sharply, striking the fiend head-on.

Or rather, precisely impacting the napalm dagger he wielded.

“…!”

“Just die, already.”

What followed was a cataclysmic explosion.

The fireball, detonating with a roar upon contact with the napalm,

instantly bloomed into a raging inferno, consuming him.

Then came a shriek, not quite human, more like a guttural abomination.

Wasn’t the most excruciating pain a human could endure supposed to be the burning agony?

His vocal cords melted, producing sounds

unfathomable as originating from a human throat.

His black robes were incinerated in an instant,

his alabaster skin liquefying, oozing onto the ground with a sticky plop.

Yet, a strange sense of déjà vu washed over me.

He simply continued to burn, never collapsing.

And the inaction of the ones behind him was equally unsettling.

Even if that creature was shielding them from me,

shouldn’t they react somehow to his gruesome fate?

But the two figures standing back there

didn’t even make a move to finish off the crippled Pontiff.

As if their work here was already done.

As I stared at those two with a bewildered gaze, a scene

unfolded before me that made my jaw drop.

A crimson skull stared back at me.

The wretch walked toward me still ablaze.

His entire body aflame, each step leaving behind a trail of

skin peeling and sticking to the floor.

The black bones flickered within the inferno,

and a pungent liquid dripped steadily.

Still, he relentlessly advanced in my direction.

I tried to recoil, but only pain remained in my legs.

For the dark tendril that had pierced my leg remained embedded.

Attempting to sever my leg and flee was already far too late.

His hand had already clamped around my neck, lifting me off my feet.

His hand was not hot, however.

Caught off guard by the fiend’s sudden burst of speed,

I was restrained without so much as a decent struggle.

Lifted high and looking down,

the fire that mastered him had vanished.

The acrid liquid, once dripping, no longer flowed,

and the melted flesh had disappeared without a trace.

He was as he’d been before the flames consumed him.

“H.. how… cough… how…?”

“Hmm, how should I explain it…?

You simply think about what you desire.”

“…?”

“Covet a new life, crave new organs and skin,

even hunger for the flames that once burned within you.”

He spoke of it as if it were the most natural thing,

enough to shock me.

Enduring the agony of being engulfed in flames,

swallowing the inferno in an instant, then regenerating skin and organs…

It was an art beyond the reach of any human mind.

“You… are you hu…man…?”

“Of course! I am, without a doubt, a human!”

“Gurgh… cough…”

In that instant, he loosened his grip and dropped me.

It was his dark energy that caught me.

The energy morphed again, taking the form of ropes or twine,

and began to strangle me, just as before.

Grid drew closer, as if observing the spectacle.

“Hmm… you don’t seem particularly special…

Why would the Goddess choose this man…?”

“Don’t know… cough… you… son of a…!”

“Such crude language, and so little manners.”

The moment his muttering ceased, a pain shot through my gut.

A feeling of something being pressed deep inside.

Perhaps this is what it would feel like to have an icicle driven into one’s stomach.

Looking down, I saw a black tendril protruding from his body,

connected to my abdomen.

The connected tendril pulsated,

and began to inject something into me.

“Well, this body is meant to house the Goddess’s flesh,

it cannot be defiled.”

“Agh… aaaH!!”

“Ah, don’t worry.

It will devour all the impurities within you.”

Something had entered my body.

Not just one, but many.

The skin rippled and bulged, twisting this way and that.

Like watching an alien move beneath my flesh.

And with each squirming ripple, an insane, sharp pain tore through me.

It felt as if enormous ants were gnawing, one by one, at my nerves.

Wasn’t it said that pain, no matter how familiar, never truly becomes so?

As if to prove those words, a horrified scream ripped from my throat.

With all my heart, I wanted to hack off my limbs and escape.

But the rope that had been choking my neck now held my limbs fast,

leaving me unable to even twitch as I pleased.

And so, with nothing left but to be violated,

something appeared before my body with a *thud*.

≪??? has invaded the user’s body.≫

≪The user possesses no knowledge of ???.≫

≪Analysis of ??? is impossible.≫

≪”The Sun” is expending causality.≫

≪Temporarily providing the user with information regarding ???.≫

≪Beginning analysis.≫

≪Analysis complete. One solution exists.≫