Chapter 805

"I do know a little about your history."

Since Clea had suddenly begun studying the Book of the Vishanti—no, the Book of the Dead they were dealing with now—Evenson had taken the precaution of researching the other people who had possessed it throughout history. It was only sensible. If he could learn from their mistakes, perhaps he could identify some of the dangers Clea needed to watch out for.

And when it came to the most recent known owner of the book, the infamous Bluebeard, Grand Marshal Gilderes, there was no way around him.

Evenson couldn’t claim to know every detail of Gilderes’s life, but he knew the broad strokes.

That was why the historical record had always bothered him.

According to it, Gilderes had spent eight years studying dark magic and committing all manner of blasphemous and horrifying acts before being condemned to death by the king and the Church. He had supposedly been hanged for his crimes.

Evenson had always found that story difficult to believe.

The churches of this world weren’t entirely devoid of supernatural power. During the operation to capture Locke, he’d encountered a secluded religious organization whose members possessed a form of divine power. But whatever source had once granted them that power had long since departed, leaving behind only the faintest remnants.

For centuries, their leaders had been forced to bargain with demons simply to preserve what little they had left.

If even an ascetic order that had devoted itself to spiritual discipline had fallen that far, then the mainstream Roman Church—with its corruption, greed, and worldly entanglements—could hardly have retained any genuine divine power.

Yet Gilderes had supposedly spent eight years studying the forbidden knowledge contained within the book.

How could ordinary humans possibly have captured and executed someone like that?

Unless he’d spent those eight years keeping the book locked away.

Or unless he hadn’t understood a word of it.

Neither explanation fit the man standing before him.

"I am flattered."

Gilderes placed one hand over his chest and bowed elegantly.

"I always assumed history would remember me as either a villain in a fairy tale or a madman suffering from some elaborate psychosis. I never expected anyone to take such an interest in what actually happened to me."

He straightened.

"But may I ask why? Why would you take an interest in such an obscure piece of history? It’s hardly something that comes up on an exam."

"The book."

Evenson’s expression remained calm.

"The book is currently in the hands of someone very important to me. So I had no choice but to investigate its previous owner."

"I see."

Gilderes struck his right fist against his left palm, looking as though he’d just reached a brilliant conclusion.

"Then perhaps I could provide some guidance from one former owner to another?"

"No need."

Evenson shook his head.

With both the Wayfarer Between Worlds and the Ancient One assigning him homework, there was hardly room for a third teacher.

"There is one thing I’m curious about, though. How were you able to give up the book?"

According to Kamar-Taj’s records, the book had been recovered from an ancient ruin. It hadn’t been taken from Gilderes.

Which meant he’d abandoned it.

That alone was strange.

Everyone who touched the forces contained within that book knew how difficult it was to walk away from them. Yet Gilderes had apparently discarded it without a struggle.

The only alternative was that he’d mastered everything contained within it.

And that was impossible.

If he’d truly mastered the book’s secrets, there was no way he’d still possess a human body. He would have become something far worse by now.

"It had served its purpose. Naturally, there was no reason to keep it."

Gilderes shrugged as though the matter were trivial.

"I carried a wish in my heart, a desperate wish that I absolutely had to fulfill. I sought the forbidden power within that book to make it happen. But the book could not grant what I desired."

He spread his hands.

"So I had no reason to keep it."

It sounded almost carefree.

Evenson didn’t buy it.

"It’s not that simple. The forbidden power in that book has already left irreversible changes in your body. You were intertwined with it to such an extent that simply abandoning it shouldn’t have been possible."

He narrowed his eyes.

"Unless your willpower is truly that extraordinary."

"Irreversible changes? Intertwined with its power? What exactly are you talking about?"

Gilderes tilted his head.

His eyes rotated in opposite directions, one clockwise and the other counterclockwise.

It was presumably meant to convey confusion.

Evenson’s mouth twitched.

"You’ve developed the characteristics of a Deep One. Don’t bother denying it. Those eyes are proof enough."

Even an ordinary person could see it.

With his eyes closed, Gilderes could almost pass for a handsome young nobleman approaching middle age.

With them open...

The illusion fell apart.

His eyes were enormous and perfectly round, like those of a goldfish, with the pupils seemingly eager to escape their sockets.

They looked disturbingly similar to the descriptions of Deep Ones.

Gilderes’s rotating eyes suddenly stopped.

He tilted his head again, this time looking distinctly displeased.

A quiet laugh escaped Farina.

But the moment she saw Gilderes’s expression, she quickly composed herself.

"His eyes have always been like that."

She shrugged.

"You have to remember the conditions people lived under during the Middle Ages. Even nobles suffered from strange illnesses. And noble families had a rather unfortunate habit of marrying their relatives."

She gave Gilderes an apologetic glance.

"So it’s not exactly surprising that some of their descendants came out looking a little unusual."

Evenson scratched his cheek.

"Oh."

He paused.

"I see."

Apparently he’d jumped to conclusions.

He wasn’t ashamed of having thick skin, but getting slapped in the face by reality that quickly was still embarrassing.

"Still..."

Evenson recovered almost immediately.

"That only makes me more curious."

He looked at Gilderes.

"We both know how terrifying the knowledge in that book is. Yet even all of that power couldn’t fulfill your wish."

His expression became thoughtful.

"If the full extent of its power could be unleashed, you could probably wish for world peace—or nuclear annihilation—and get something close enough to either."

He leaned forward slightly.

"So what exactly was your wish?"

"Heh... hehehe..."

Gilderes’s shoulders trembled with quiet laughter.

"You ask what my wish was?"

His eyes fixed on Evenson.

"Then you clearly don’t know me as well as you thought."

He spread his arms.

"My wish has always been the same."

"I wanted to resurrect that pure and innocent saint."

His voice softened.

"And then remain by her side once more, receiving the joy of her blessing."

Evenson’s expression went blank.

Seriously?

The book couldn’t resurrect a human being?

Was Gilderes using some pirated edition?

He found the whole thing deeply suspicious, but decided to leave that question aside for now.

"If this saint was truly so pure that she was called to Heaven by God, why drag her back into this filthy world?"

"On that point, I will not allow you to misunderstand me!"

Gilderes’s voice suddenly hardened.

His enormous eyes bulged as he glared at Evenson.

Yeah.

Evenson was now fairly certain those eyes had nothing to do with genetics.

"Joan’s God does not exist!"

The anger in Gilderes’s voice faded into something older and far more bitter.

"In the past, I committed atrocities. Blasphemies. Cruelties that I will not pretend were anything else."

His gaze lowered.

"By the time I realized what I had become, I had already spent eight years walking the path of evil."

"But through all of it, whether I murdered people or sought forbidden knowledge, God never punished me."

His voice grew colder.

"I was simply left to continue."

"And in the end, the person who destroyed me wasn’t God."

He laughed bitterly.

"It was other greedy humans just like me."

"The Church and the king claimed they were condemning me for my crimes. In truth, they wanted my wealth and my lands."

His expression hardened.

"Stopping wickedness isn’t divine punishment. It’s simply greed wearing a mask."

Evenson nodded solemnly.

He’s got a point.

Back then, Gilderes had certainly been lacking something.

Common decency, mostly.

"I still hoped that everything I’d experienced was some kind of deception. Perhaps God had merely used mortal hands to destroy me."

Gilderes’s voice became distant.

"So when they came to arrest me, I surrendered willingly."

"I let them hang me."

His eyes widened.

"I hung there for seven days."

"Seven days."

"Nothing happened."

His voice rose.

"Nothing happened!"

"I didn’t die."

"So even if such a god truly exists, what does that make him? A being that toys with humanity for its own amusement."

His two eyes turned toward Evenson from different angles.

"Now do you understand my hatred? Do you understand why I pity the saint?"

Evenson rubbed the back of his head.

"Honestly? Not really."

Gilderes blinked.

"I’m sorry, Marshal, but you’re unloading all of this on me without considering who’s actually standing in this room."

He gestured around them.

"Take a look. Which one of us looks like a Christian?"

Gilderes paused.

He looked toward Farina.

A demon princess from Hell.

Then toward Evenson.

A warlock who had never exactly claimed moral purity.

Finally, he looked at Lily Grant.

She appeared to be the only remotely ordinary person present.

"You," Gilderes said. "The young woman who looks normal. Do you believe in God?"

Lily shook her head.

"I’m Buddhist. More philosophical than devotional, though."

Gilderes nodded.

"I see."

He sighed.

"Then I suppose I lost my composure. Forgive me for suddenly discussing something so irrelevant."

"I understand now."

Evenson tapped a finger against his temple.

"Your wish was to resurrect Joan of Arc."

Gilderes’s expression sharpened.

"And when the book couldn’t accomplish it, you turned to Mephisto and made a deal."

"Exactly!"

Gilderes’s composure vanished again.

His arms began moving as he spoke, his voice filled with barely restrained passion.

"I had to save her!"

"That fragile young woman fought to save her homeland. She suppressed her own weakness for the sake of ordinary people. She believed in God. She believed in her country. She believed in justice."

"And when she finally achieved everything she had fought for, the entire world betrayed her."

"Even then, she smiled and walked willingly toward death."

"Even when God refused to answer her, she still prayed."

Gilderes’s voice cracked.

"That foolish, saintly girl..."

"If her soul is trapped in Purgatory, then if I don’t save her, who will?"

Evenson finally understood.

The strange part wasn’t that Gilderes wanted to resurrect Joan.

The strange part was that the Book of the Dead couldn’t do it.

For an ordinary human being, resurrection was the stuff of miracles.

For sufficiently powerful practitioners, it wasn’t nearly as impossible.

A properly functioning Soulstone could restore the dead. Even if someone had been dead long enough for their body to decay, necromancy combined with sufficient fel energy could produce something close enough to resurrection.

And the forbidden knowledge contained within the book was even more extreme.

Creating an entirely new body from nothing should not have been beyond its capabilities.

Yet Gilderes had spent eight years studying the book and conducting countless horrific experiments, only to conclude that he couldn’t bring Joan back.

There was only one explanation.

He couldn’t find her soul.

He could recreate a body.

He could manipulate flesh.

But he couldn’t summon a soul that was no longer where it was supposed to be.

"Purgatory..."

Evenson narrowed his eyes.

"You’re saying the soul he was searching for wasn’t in Heaven."

"Nor Hell."

His gaze sharpened.

"It’s somewhere in between."

"Purgatory."

Evenson paused.

"But I distinctly remember Mephisto saying he’d personally witnessed Joan’s soul ascend directly into Heaven."

"Exactly."

Gilderes’s eyes narrowed.

"Anyone who witnessed the radiance surrounding her martyrdom would have reached the same conclusion."

"I did too, at first."

"But..."

His expression darkened.

"Joan has been in Heaven for an awfully long time."

Evenson frowned.

Gilderes continued.

"I spent years testing that theory."

"To verify it, I killed countless people who should have gone to Heaven. Good men and women. Philanthropists. Pacifists. Patriots. Soldiers. Heroes."

"Only the soldiers and heroes emitted that light when they ascended."

"The light was weaker than Joan’s, but it was the same kind of light."

"Ordinary good people eventually returned."

"Ten years. Sometimes several decades."

"Their souls descended once again and were reborn."

"But the warriors were different."

Gilderes’s voice lowered.

"Some never returned at all."

"And when others did return, their souls had been altered."

"It was as if something had carefully carved away the portion representing their former personality and memories."

"The person returned."

"But the warrior they had once been was gone."

Gilderes looked directly at Evenson.

"So I named the place those souls were being taken to."

"Purgatory."

"Purgatory..."

Evenson’s eyes narrowed as his thoughts raced.

Only exceptional warriors were being taken.

It sounded suspiciously similar to the warriors of Norse mythology—the chosen dead gathered for some final battle.

Except Asgard didn’t appear to operate that way.

Then another thought struck him.

Those legendary warriors were said to be gathered by Odin in preparation for Ragnar?k, the final battle of the gods.

And if that connection was correct...

Evenson knew what the strange light surrounding those warriors had been.

Holy Light.

A Naaru had once descended upon Earth.

If that Naaru had been gathering souls with strong heroic tendencies and exceptional combat ability, it would make perfect sense for it to store them somewhere and eventually use them to build an army of Light.

The Naaru had apparently been called away before the process was complete.

It had left Earth, taking God along with it to fight in some distant conflict.

But the system it had established?

Apparently, that had continued running on its own.

Evenson stared into the distance.

Seriously.

Couldn’t you at least hit the shutdown button before leaving?

Think of the electricity bill.

...