Chapter 29: That’s distorted information (2).

The border area between Bildur and Isht.

Somewhere in a common coniferous forest was a rather large cave.

Only a few charcoal makers, woodcutters, and hunters used to rest there when the weather was bad,

but after a small avalanche one day, they couldn’t find the entrance.

It had collapsed. It had been buried. Or both.

Everyone thought it was a pity, but they didn’t care much,

so no one thought that it had become the base of some impious group.

“It’s a disaster! It’s a disaster!”

The end of the cave. A group of people were sitting around a large round table.

Most were elves, but a few humans were mixed in, and they were all wearing snow-white robes.

“Who would have known that she would become an apostate!”

Koong. The elf who first spoke slammed his fist on the round table again.

A solemn and dignified atmosphere. Everyone else was lowering their heads as if they were in mourning.

“She was the daughter of the priestess, of all people. She was our hero! How could she make such blasphemous remarks!”

Some nodded heavily, and some let out a faint groan. Everyone knew very well what that ‘blasphemous remark’ meant. Her betrayal could only hit the people gathered here even harder.

“Everyone, you don’t have to worry about anything.”

There was a woman’s voice soothing their anger.

“The time is near. Until we punish our apostate and retrieve the one who has descended again.”

She, who was sitting in a high position looking down at the round table, lightly tapped the floor with her staff.

“That guy will soon arrive on this land on a wyvern… Always keep an eye on the runway. We must be ready when that witch arrives here…”

Everyone nodded at her solemn words.

“That apostate, the false prophet, will also come to usurp this place again. When dealing with her again… I hope you have no hesitation.”

The apostate, of course, referred to Silissa.

Originally, that high position above the round table belonged to Silissa.

It was the place where she used to talk to her comrades who followed her.

That was just until recently.

In that place where religious gatherings were held as usual,

Silissa was about to convey Thermis’s achievements to everyone again.

The story, starting from the part where she joined the Wyvern Knights and got acquainted with everyone,

gradually began to heat up as the stage of activity moved to the northern region,

and when she finally reached the point where she was carrying out joint operations with the elves, it turned into something close to religious ecstasy.

She said this. She defeated the enemies in this way.

She was an infinitely kind and gentle person in private…

Her story dragged on endlessly.

It was a story she had already told dozens of times, but Silissa didn’t care at all.

Rather, with each repetition, her story became richer, more vivid, and more three-dimensional, and everyone was enthusiastic about her literally inexhaustible eloquence.

‘…So she said this! You willingly plant the seeds of evil inside your fence, but you don’t know that your descendants will reap it in the end!’

Whether Thermis actually said it that way was not more important.

The moment Silissa said that in a rich, resonant, and appealing voice…

People around her couldn’t help but believe it.

‘…My father asked her to block the path in order to evacuate the comrades and preserve the altar of the goddess. She was already covered in blood from the successive battles, but she didn’t seem tired at all.’

‘Ah…’

‘My father said. ‘Thermis. Tell me honestly. How long can you defend the path?’ She didn’t answer that question. Rather, she asked my father back. ‘When will the retreat order be given?’ Again, my father said bitterly, ‘…It… won’t be given.’ It couldn’t be helped. Because the evacuation procession was almost entirely composed of the elderly and the weak.’

‘So what happened to her?’

Someone asked in a trembling voice.

‘Wasn’t it just a few magicians and what was left there? Silissa, you were guiding the refugees at that time, right?’

‘You already know the result! Because no one lost their lives that day due to the horde of the dead who were chasing behind! Thermis smiled and said this after hearing my father’s answer.’

‘What, what did she say?’

‘…Then forever.’

A reverent sigh quickly spread through the crowd.

From the day she decided to worship the goddess Sonnet and ‘a slightly different, but basically the same object’,

this bizarre religion spread so quickly almost entirely thanks to her.

She was really using the skills she learned from her parents’ profession very well.

‘Ah, Ksydoda! She is the most Ksydoda among us!’

No, in fact, she was more than her parents.

She thought she was only born with magic and martial arts,

but it turned out that her real talent was in proselytizing.

On top of that, Silissa was…

A comrade who fought shoulder to shoulder with Thermis.

She was the one who directly witnessed most of her achievements, except for the final battle.

At this point, there would be more of a problem for people who didn’t fall for her.

She hardly even received offerings.

‘If a few silver coins can enrich your evening, and thus fill the tip of your nose and tongue with flavor, it will enrich your soul. Thermis wants you to be happy today rather than emaciated by strict austerity!’

‘Long live Thermis!’

However, her story always had to end tragically.

While telling the story of the main building of the Demon King’s castle, which she arrived at late,

and ‘Sonnet’s Incarnation Thermis’ who had already turned into a cold corpse,

Silissa could not hide her sad and mournful expression.

And at that point, she raised the holy sword she was wearing on her waist.

The holy sword that Thermis did not let go of until the end, ‘Fvanhol’.

When Silissa slightly took off the scabbard of the sword, the slightly revealed blade emitted a soft and warm warmth all around.

One of the two holy swords that chose Thermis.

A miraculous weapon with a self.

The holy sword, which meant ‘Pure Love’ in ancient Elven, was said to only recognize truly qualified people as its owner.

And it was said to only let its owner hear its voice.

After the war, Silissa was able to receive the holy sword as a symbol of friendship between the races.

It was Silissa’s ancestor Elf who first forged it.

Of course, the holy sword did not give Silissa any voice.

The true ability of the holy sword to protect its user from evil magic was never reproduced in the hands of anyone other than Thermis.

She was just holding it as a sacred object.

Ending with showing that ‘holy sword’ that proved Thermis’s achievements, this religious gathering used to end.

But that day was different.

The church forces that had grown rapidly recently. An unusually large number of believers gathered.

Maybe it was because of the snow that was falling heavily that day, but Silissa was in a particularly more depressed mood.

Silissa, holding the holy sword reverently with both hands,

began to plead, ‘Let me also hear the voice that she heard’.

The crowd watched the procedure that hadn’t been there before with bated breath.

Silissa, who was almost crying because of the agitation of her heart, became a little dazed,

and became silent.

The crowd thought. Has she received a new revelation?

It didn’t seem like that.

Although the spectacle was a bit…

Erotic.

Her cheeks were flushed, her reverently lowered eyelids were lightly trembling, and hot breaths were coming out of her mouth and nose…

While watching Silissa’s strange state,

she, who had awakened from her ecstasy, suddenly made a bombshell declaration.

‘In fact, I once had s*x with her’.

Everyone in that place was turned upside down,

and it didn’t take a few minutes for the gathering to become a mess.

They had to impeach the prophet who had uttered dirty words,

and drag her down to be flogged with blasphemy as the charge…

Silissa desperately argued.

‘It is natural for her to convey love to the world because she is the incarnation of Sonnet’

It became quiet for a moment,

and someone quickly asked again.

‘Then does that mean that Thermis has ever shared love with someone other than the prophet?’

Silissa answered honestly.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is the prophet trying to deceive by saying that only she had a relationship with her?’

‘Or are you trying to say that Thermis was a cheap person who slept around with anyone?’

‘Didn’t I say I don’t know’

A few more abusive words popped out from the crowd.

‘Are you admitting that possibility?’

‘The prophet is slandering her purity’

Jeers and uproar…

In an instant, the gathering became a lewd hearing.

And there was an inquisition by ‘a certain woman’ that struck a decisive blow there.

‘Thermis isn’t such a wh***, is she?’

‘Then would you be able to accept it if she had spent the night with a strange man other than you?’

Silissa was speechless,

and she was dragged down from her seat in an instant by angry believers.

The sacred sword, a sacred object, was confiscated, she was stripped of her position as a prophet, and she was immediately kicked out of the cave, the secret meeting place.

Silissa pitifully cried out, ‘It’s a misunderstanding! It’s all a misunderstanding!’, but it was of no use.

The daughter of the priestess, a war hero, her comrade, of noble birth.

For someone who was virtually the founder of the cult, one word of testimony that she ‘slept with the goddess’ was enough to depose her.

‘Everyone! We don’t need that vile con artist anymore’

During that violent impeachment, there was a human woman who took the lead and rampaged in particular.

The woman, who took the lead in interrogating Silissa and dragged her down with her own hands,

stood on the podium instead and held up a book high.

The name of that book was ‘Thermis’s Sayings’.

‘We have been played enough by the author’s words!’

‘The gospel that will replace the apostate’s words is right here.’

Contrary to the word sayings, there was only one type of dialogue recorded there.

Other than that, there were only trivial facts such as why she was such a beautiful person and why we should follow and worship her.

It was a shoddy content compared to Silissa’s proselytizing.

However, more important than the content of the book was the vision she presented.

‘Thermis has actually descended to this earth again!’

‘In the form of an all the more innocent twelve-year-old girl!’

‘That false prophet is hiding that fact in order to monopolize her alone!’

‘But… unfortunately, she lost all of her glorious memories of her past life when she descended again.’

‘She now thinks she’s the child of an ordinary local noble.’

‘So we have to save her!’

There was a more specific and clear goal than unconditional worship in her words.

‘But.’

Someone asked.

‘Save her from whom?’

‘Of course, we must save her from the filthy magician Yukomis, who persecuted and tortured her throughout her life!’

‘Wasn’t she Thermis’s sister? She was a member of the Wyvern Knights, right?’

‘That’s right! That filthy trash magician who was jealous of her sister’s achievements, who was superior to herself, tried to steal all of her achievements!’

‘That can’t be!’

Everyone murmured.

‘Why was she alone at the final battle? Why did she fight alone and die in battle?’

An elf who was a veteran of the war tried to say something.

‘That’s because the Demon King was an absolute advantage against magicians, as the name suggests…’

‘Because everyone was fighting in a different place due to Yukomis’s machinations!’

It seemed to be deviating a little from Silissa’s testimony,

but there was something in her crazy claims that overwhelmed reason.

‘Yukomis is still keeping that person who descended again next to her.’

‘Why is she doing that?’

‘To make that small and powerless person her s*ave, and to stain her second life with pain and exhaustion! She’s trying to satisfy her dirty and twisted sense of superiority by doing that!’

She, who had caught her breath, said with an affected mournful expression.

‘There’s worse news. Yukomis is going to take her virginity on the day she turns adult!’

A desperate groan flowed from the crowd.

‘She’s going to hand her over to that false prophet, pervert Silissa! She’s going to thoroughly violate her in that way!’

‘They were in cahoots!’

‘They were in cahoots!’

‘How could a sister and comrade do such a thing!’

‘That’s right! It’s terrible! But together we can stop this.’

She, who had captivated everyone, instantly declared Yukomis a common enemy.

‘But… but how can we believe you?’

There was a last voice resisting her words.

‘I saw Yukomis and her in Kifoll. I’ve just witnessed her dragging Thermis around like a dog on a leash!’

‘What? How could she do such a thing!’

She evoked attention by spewing out the most provocative words possible.

Of course, that didn’t happen, but there was no way that there would be someone who had just crossed over from Kifoll to this northern region.

‘To defile the second incarnation in such a way!’

‘And I’ve been wanted by the Empire for witnessing that! She’s trying to shut my mouth!’

‘That’s outrageous!’

‘What can I hide? I was also acquainted with Thermis during her lifetime! I perfectly know her favorite things, habits, and everything! In order to bring the Thermis who lost her memories back to her dignified old self, my help is essential!’

‘Our help too!’

‘That’s right!’

That confidence, that forcefulness,

It was an appearance that everyone could only believe that she was really possessed by a god.

‘You may doubt me now, but if you meet the twelve-year-old Thermis in person, you will all know! Because they look exactly the same! But you can’t be too late to do that, can you?’

‘……We must save her before she loses her virginity!’

‘Yes! Before she loses her virginity!’

She, who held up the book she had written, drove a wedge.

‘We will hang the apostate Silissa and the dirty witch Yukomis and protect her again with our own hands!’

‘With our own hands!’

It was needless to say who the owner of this incitement was.

From that day on, that secret gathering was changed into Manya’s private army organization that worshiped the ‘Virgin Goddess Thermis’.