Chapter 399

“Your Eminence.”

The moment I stepped onto the warp point in the Trier Cathedral district, someone called out to me. A familiar voice. A familiar expression. A familiar face. I glanced at the pale aqua-eyed cardinal who had caught me before I fell, then looked up at Trier Cathedral under the night sky.

Before it was damaged in World War II, Trier Cathedral was even grander than the one in my original world. Though it was nearly midnight, a faint glow of mana wrapped around the building, bringing out the Romanesque architecture and weathered brickwork in all their old grandeur.

Or maybe I was simply more moved than usual, standing in one of this country’s greatest cathedrals as a cardinal.

“We were told you would be arriving shortly. It’s a pleasure to meet you so soon.”

One of the clergymen standing in a line behind Narke—a bishop—stepped forward to greet me. With a grave expression, he spoke in a calm voice.

“I am the Archbishop of Trier. I was quite surprised to learn that Your Eminence Nikolaus Ernst is a cardinal serving in secret. Given my promise to His Holiness, your appointment will remain a secret within Trier.”

“Thank you.”

The clergy motioned for us to follow and headed toward the rear of the cathedral.

The letter I’d received had come from Narke. I was here to carry out the two requests—or rather, orders disguised as requests—from the Papal See. The Vatican had chosen Trier Cathedral as its base of operations, using it as a place to communicate with Narke. Since opening portals frequently wasn’t practical, establishing a branch of sorts in Germany made perfect sense.

As I followed them, I spoke to Narke using divine power.

— “I’ve got a lot of questions for you.”

— “I know. You look like you do.”

You know?

I came here to ask why Pleroma had chosen me as the Messenger of the Covenant. And he knew that?

No. I realized I was letting my thoughts spiral. All he’d said was that I looked like I had questions. Narke could easily use Insight on me, but I also knew he wasn’t the type to constantly pry into my thoughts whenever he pleased.

Halfway down the corridor, the Archbishop excused himself and disappeared somewhere else. Another clergyman accompanying him stopped in front of a room and opened the door.

“Here we are. Your Eminence, please make use of this room until your mission is concluded.”

“It seems I must stay for quite a long time.”

“This is merely to spare you any inconvenience in transit, so please make yourself comfortable. We do not know when the mission will conclude. We were told it depends entirely upon you two.”

“…….”

I answered with a smile. The clergyman nodded to Narke before promptly taking his leave. Narke smiled and gently nudged me forward.

“Get some rest first. You look like you haven’t had any at all.”

“Where’s your room?”

“Next door.”

He took off the robe I’d arrived in and hung it on a rack. Then he purified the bathwater that had already been drawn and scattered a handful of herbs I didn’t recognize into it. He carried out the sort of tasks a cardinal would normally never do himself without the slightest hesitation, then stepped back out with a smile.

“I was hoping you’d at least have a chance to clear your head, but it looks like you’ve gone and suffered through yet another ordeal.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Your mana still seems unstable. Even more so than after you absorbed that person’s mana earlier today.”

“…….”

Right. He could tell just by sensing my mana. That wasn’t unusual. In fact, it was perfectly normal. Leo had seemed to notice my condition before I came out, too. Any mage around my friends’ level could’ve picked up on it that easily. Yet here I was, taking something so ordinary and letting it make me irrationally suspicious of a friend.

Narke opened an unfamiliar book that had been left on my desk and smiled.

“Go wash up first. I’ll stay here and read while I wait.”

I ended up soaking in the bath for nearly an hour. No one rushed me, so I took my time. It was already late, and Narke must have thought I wasn’t in the best shape. Even the clergy at Trier Cathedral didn’t seem eager to hand me any orders tonight.

Eventually, after growing tired of counting the little herbs Narke had scattered into the bath, I put on the robe and stepped outside.

“I didn’t know cathedrals had places like this.”

“It’s the clergy residence. It’ll also serve as the place where we’ll receive orders from the Vatican from now on. You don’t have to worry about anyone spying on us here.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s protected directly by the Vatican’s technology.”

‘Hmm.’

That wasn’t the issue. I wondered what Leo was doing right now. And not just him—Elias, Ulrike, and Julia too. Ever since Heike lost consciousness, I’d only felt at ease outside the Extra Chapter when I was with my friends. So far I’d been with Leo, but the others…

“You were planning to come here anyway. You had to recover the stolen relics yourself.”

Something Narke had been saying almost absentmindedly suddenly caught my attention.

“I have to recover the relics? Why? I never said that.”

“Well…”

“Narke.”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t know where the relics are?”

If anyone would know who took it, it’d be you.

I knew the last thing I’d experienced inside the Extra Chapter had made me more suspicious of Narke, even though I had no solid reason to be. That suspicion had sharpened my tone without me meaning to. I kept trying to stop the countless questions swirling in my head from turning into accusations against my friend, but it wasn’t as easy as I wanted it to be.

I took a deep breath, ready to apologize for jumping to conclusions. Before I could, Narke lowered his eyes with a look that said he understood exactly how I felt and answered calmly.

“If I developed it further, that might be a different story. But right now I don’t have an ability like Heike’s. The government called me in too, but even Heike couldn’t figure it out. I didn’t learn it through my ability like you think—but I do have my suspicions. Just like you, I pieced them together from the clues we have. That’s why I figured you’d say you needed to recover the relics.”

“…….”

“The person you think stole the relics—I agree with you.”

Narke lifted his head and met my eyes with a steady, burning gaze. I stared back at him for a long moment before opening my mouth. But Narke spoke first.

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“Did you read me?”

“I didn’t have to. It was obvious. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I could tell you came here wanting to ask me about what you went through. And I could also tell I’d somehow upset you.”

“…….”

“I didn’t use my ability. It was just… obvious. Can you believe me?”

“If you put it that way, what am I even supposed to say?”

I gave a faint smile, pulled out the chair across from him, and sat down.

“Anyway. About those two orders the Vatican sent…”

Bang!

The door flew open with such force that I flinched. Narke shot to his feet as well, the corners of his mouth dropping—apparently he hadn’t been using his Insight either. A pale figure burst into the room and pointed straight at us. No, at me.

“Oh! You really are here!”

“…?!”

It was Elias.

“Why’s he here…?”

“I’ve told you a hundred times. I don’t know either. Narke said I had to come too. Guess I was part of the package.”

“Haha…”

Narke gave an awkward smile and nodded.

Apparently, he had been ordered to bring Elias along too, though he didn’t know why. Maybe they needed Elias’s abilities. Still wearing his pajamas, Elias crawled onto my bed and buried himself under the covers, leaving only his head sticking out.

“More importantly, what Luka found out is seriously wild. They really attached that much meaning to Ishmael? At that point they might as well have called him some colossal whale that boils the sea like a boiling pan.”

“Isn’t that Moby-Dick? They started with the biblical Ishmael and you somehow ended up quoting Moby-Dick. How many layers deep does this reference go?”

I narrowed my eyes. I’d just finished explaining a small portion of what I’d learned from Helga Brandt. Narke and Elias had each shared what they’d uncovered as well, but Elias seemed especially interested in my findings.

His eyes widened, and he slowly twirled a finger in the air.

“People usually just call it Psalms, Luka. That’s the version translated by the ‘Knowledge is Power’ guy¹. But yeah, you’re right! I saw it in the opening of Moby-Dick too. Anyway, that’s not important. I just remembered something. I need to get out of here.”

“Why, what now?”

“Because there’s no alcohol here!”

“It’s a cathedral!”

I rubbed my temples. Elias kept insisting he was leaving, then suddenly lowered his voice.

“Don’t worry, I’ll figure out how to sneak out on my own. But I seriously just thought of something. Let me show you a pretty solid insight.”

What was he talking about? With a sigh, I rested my chin on my hand, deciding I might as well hear him out. Leaning forward, Elias spoke with unexpected seriousness.

“One of those whale passages at the beginning really stands out. ‘As Leviathan passes, it leaves a glistening wake behind it; one would think the deep had white hair.’“

“That’s just a metaphor for how it looks.”

“Sure, but you can’t just brush it off. What if it’s connected to—”

“Haha.”

Narke let out a meaningless laugh, got to his feet, and pulled Elias along with him. He’d probably decided Elias was about to wander off into another unrelated tangent. Before heading into the room next door, he gave me a quick look that said get some sleep.

“…….”

Maybe Narke thought it wasn’t worth listening to. Or maybe he simply didn’t want me to hear it. I disagreed.

I needed to hear what Elias had to say.

Time passed quickly. At six in the morning, Narke woke me and we went down to the dining hall. Leaving Elias behind—he ate far too much—the two of us barely touched our bread before heading to the cathedral, where the Archbishop was waiting. He greeted us with a solemn expression, then led us through a door beside the sacristy and down into the underground passage. Each step he took lit the pitch-dark corridor with a faint yellow glow.

He chatted idly with us the whole way. Then, finally, he got to the point.

“To us Christians, relics are like the heart itself.”

Elias, being Protestant, looked like he wanted to object—though it was hard to tell whether it was because of his denomination or simply because he’d thought of another random comment. Narke, a Catholic, also seemed as though he wanted to correct the wording somehow, but fortunately, both of them kept quiet.

Then again, considering he was the Archbishop of Trier, reacting this way wasn’t unusual. He continued in a voice so dejected it sounded as if his own heart had been torn out.

“Especially the Holy Nail. The one that was stolen is one of the Arma Christi. The True Cross is as well.”

The Arma Christi are the instruments of the Passion of Christ²: the True Cross, the Holy Nails, Christ’s tunic, the Holy Lance of Longinus, and so on. By contrast, the term relic has a broader meaning, encompassing not only objects associated with Christ but also the remains and belongings of saints.

The Archbishop stopped in front of a display case.

“This is the skull of Saint Helena. And over there is the reliquary containing the tunic worn by Christ.”

He pointed out several displays before stopping at another case. Without a word, he laid a hand on it and quietly recited a spell. The case opened.

“…….”

As expected, it was empty. This must have been where the Holy Nail had been kept. Standing before the spotless display case, meticulously maintained and still radiating clean mana, I answered what the Archbishop had said earlier.

“…Indeed. The Holy Nail and the True Cross, both of them. Looking at it more closely, it seems they only stole the Arma Christi among all the relics.”

Saint Helena’s remains were still here, after all. I’d already known only the Holy Nail and the True Cross had been taken, so it wasn’t exactly surprising. The Archbishop nodded deeply before gesturing toward the case containing the Shroud of Turin.

“Exactly. But if the Arma Christi were their target, I can’t help but wonder why Christ’s tunic was left behind.”

“They probably turned the Holy Nail into an artifact. Christ’s tunic would have been much harder to convert into one.”

“An artifact… We were informed by the government about the jewels. So you believe this is connected to the same case.”

I nodded.

“The culprit used the Holy Nail and the True Cross they stole to commit another crime. It seems they turned them into artifacts with an unheard-of function—something capable of remotely shutting down a core.”

Elias’s face stiffened. Narke, on the other hand, didn’t react at all. Just as I’d thought, our conclusions matched.

I’d wondered before if a remote attack like that was even possible. From a technical standpoint, it shouldn’t have been.

But the answer came to me almost immediately. Wasn’t there already someone in France who had made the impossible possible?

The Archbishop, who had been standing there speechless, went pale and pressed a hand to his forehead.

“…Don’t tell me… they killed people with the Holy Nail…!”

“They might not have intended to kill anyone. They were probably trying to bring them over to their side. Though there may be more deaths before this is over.”

As I said that, I looked at Narke. He met my gaze for a moment before quietly looking away. As though nothing had happened, I murmured, “I think I know what the Vatican’s orders are.”

“…….”

“And I know why they didn’t simply hand this over to Germany’s Special Operations Command. Not just for religious reasons.”

The Archbishop kept rubbing his forehead as if a headache were coming on. Narke took hold of his arm and quietly channeled divine power into him. The Archbishop gradually regained his composure and nodded.

“…I am afraid I still don’t understand. It seems His Holiness had good reason to send the two of you. The Vatican entrusted you with two tasks.”

The first one was easy enough to guess. Recover the Holy Nail, something like that, no doubt. I stayed silent and waited for him to continue.

“First, the moment you identify the culprit, the Vatican will dispatch an elite team of mages to Germany. You are to recover the Holy Nail together with them.”

Another infiltration operation. Different wording, same thing.

Now all that remained was to find out whether my guess about the second task was right.

“And the second?”

“Second, you are to ensure Duke Elias Hohenzollern’s safety and keep him from coming to any harm. His Holiness added that, lest you mistake this for a simple escort mission, this is an assignment of the utmost importance.”

“…….”

“…Pardon?”

I take that back. Why? Why him, all of a sudden?

Apparently thinking the same thing, Elias stood there with his mouth hanging open before slamming his fist into the wall. The Archbishop flinched, and a soundproofing spell was cast over Narke and me.

“The Papal See granted my wish.”

At his ominous tone, Narke and I both turned to him in surprise. Elias’s eyes gleamed as he looked back and forth between us. Then, without even blinking, he declared, “That means you two have to hang out with me under the Vatican’s authority now. Right?”

Narke and I exchanged a glance. If there was one thing I’d learned from Leo, it was this: How do you protect someone?

Easy. Lock them up.

The Leo from the novel had actually tied Elias up and kept him confined for an entire day once. It wasn’t something that happened often, but that time had been exceptional—Elias had been on the verge of doing something that would’ve gotten his head chopped off.

And, naturally, Elias escaped. After muttering to himself about digging through the floor with a spoon, he split open the sole of his shoe, pulled out the razor blade he’d hidden inside, ignored the floor completely, and cut his way through the ceiling instead. Then he escaped by climbing the pipes with a tree-climbing technique he’d supposedly learned from a friend he made after the Emperor shipped him off to a tropical colony.

And now I had to protect that same Elias while searching for the Holy Nail. A friend who could bolt in any direction without warning.

‘Why Elias?’

“As I said before, even to me, the second task seems rather important. I don’t know the truth behind this incident, nor do I know what the Papal See intends, but… considering Lord Elias’s disposition—this isn’t meant as an insult, of course—I believe extra caution is warranted.”

You can stop there… we already know. I bit my lip, looking at Elias with his wide, lopsided grin, then at Narke, whose face revealed absolutely nothing—aside from looking just a little like his soul had checked out.

“Alright.”

We naturally made our way back to my room. Elias spread both arms wide and shouted, “It’s fate. The Pope himself has given us permission to board the awesome submarine Nautilus and dive beneath the sea together to hunt sperm whales.”

“Now you’ve added Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea to the mix?”

“Something like that…!”

Before he could get any louder, I clamped a hand over his mouth.

“Alright, Eli.”

“Mmph?”

“I know you wouldn’t let us keep you here that easily. You’ll probably pull a razor blade out of your shoe, channel mana into it, cut through the ceiling, then climb out through the pipes.”

“What? That’s actually not a bad idea. Luka, you’ve got experience, huh?”

I felt deeply wronged. It was a genuinely unjust statement. I shook my head and continued in an overly solemn tone.

“Asking a free spirit like you to stay locked up in Trier Cathedral is ridiculous. It doesn’t matter if the mages from the Papal See have layered dozens of defensive wards around this place—this kind of safety would only bore you. Romanesque walls and Gothic spires don’t suit someone who’s meant to run free across open fields. You’re the kind of person who should be praising nature, dismissing the world as meaningless one day, then reciting countless poems about defying fate or embracing it the next. Having someone like you stand around singing hymns about surrendering yourself to the Lord’s will just isn’t right. Besides, you were already planning your escape earlier just because there wasn’t any alcohol.”

“…You should’ve written the letter like that from the start. You really do know me. So?”

Elias’ expression turned serious. I rested a hand on his shoulder and quietly called his name.

“Elias.”

“…….”

“You’re free. You can go now. A guy like you hanging around these boring Catholic cardinals just doesn’t make any sense.”

Elias slowly opened his mouth. Beside us, Narke narrowed his eyes with an uncertain smile, glancing back and forth between the two of us. Then Elias finally spoke.

“You really…”

“Yeah.”

“You’re a good friend. You always have been, Luka. I won’t forget this.”

“So you really are leaving. How are you getting out?”

“Can’t tell you that.”

Elias snapped his fingers. Sweeping up the random things he’d scattered around my room overnight, he spoke in an almost lonely voice.

“Then I’m off. Don’t worry too much—I can take care of myself. Go find the Holy Nail, and… figure out how to save Heike. I’ll look for a way from the outside.”

“Yeah. Take care.”

I smiled as I saw him off. At the exact same moment, Elias vanished from sight. Narke covered his mouth.

“Y-You’re really…”

“Didn’t you use Insight?”

“…Huh?!”

Just as I expected, Narke reacted first. Then a thunderous shout exploded right behind my head.

“Whyyyy?! Freedom?!”

Something heavy landed squarely on my back and grabbed my head with both hands.

“No way, Luka! You can’t just abandon me! Hey?! Absolutely not!”

“Urgh…!”

I ducked, trying to pry Elias off—even though it didn’t work in the slightest after he’d already bitten my head. Taking advantage of that, he wrapped himself completely around my back, clamped my waist with his legs, and locked my neck in a chokehold with his arm. In the struggle, we knocked everything off the table and sent it clattering across the floor. Hearing the racket, a young attendant who’d been passing by rushed to the doorway.

“Your Eminence! Is something wrong?!”

“No. Everything is fine.”

Everything was going exactly as planned. Sure, the hair I’d spent so long fixing to play the part of a cardinal was completely ruined. And my scalp hurt like hell. But still.

I reached up to rub the spot above my ear where Elias had bitten me—only for him to twist my hand behind my back instead. Straightening up, I held out my free hand to signal wait a second while catching my breath. Elias responded by grabbing my cheek and stretching it.

I frowned and tried to peel his hand away, but his ominous voice whispered right into my ear.

“I’m never letting go. You’re carrying me around for the rest of your life. Got it?”

“No, that’s not happening. I told you to leave. You’re free.”

“No!”

Good. Narke, who had been watching in stunned silence, finally smiled and started clapping.

— “Ah, so that’s how you do it~”

“Right.”

But I couldn’t overdo it. If I pushed him too far and he actually latched onto the real idea, he’d throw friendship, rules, and everything else aside and actually run off. So this was only the beginning.

‘Let’s see how this goes.’

Leo in the novel couldn’t keep you in line, but I was going to see this through. After all, when would I ever get another chance like this?

Translator Note

1. The “Knowledge is power” guy refers to Francis Bacon, whose famous aphorism is “Knowledge is power.” The Leviathan quote mentioned here appears in the prefatory “Extracts” of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, where it is credited to “Lord Bacon’s Version of the Psalms”: “The great Leviathan that maketh the seas to seethe like boiling pan.” ↩︎
2. Passion of Christ: The period of Jesus Christ’s suffering and crucifixion leading up to his death. ↩︎