#230

In truth, I had expected to the point that when the topic of the ‘Saintess of Teres’ came out of Pandemonium’s mouth, I would be the one to handle it.

To pretend to be an apostle, one must forge a halo.

This is nearly impossible, akin to changing one’s blood type.

If I were to create Divine Cancer Cells to possess two or more ‘Divine Bloodlines’ in one body, I could change the shape of the halo on the fly, but that is not a method I can use in the current situation.

However….

‘When I drank the Holy Liquor, Berto said my halo changed slightly into a spiderweb shape.’

It was a kind of side effect resulting from me being a ‘newborn god’ whose identity is not yet distinct.

Normally, swallowing an object containing the ‘Divinity’ of another god does not affect the afterlife. It is simply converted into divinity points.

But in my afterlife, spiders entered. A part of Teres had mixed into me.

‘The halo returned to normal after I drove the spiders out, but…’

What if I let the spiders roam inside me for a short while?

Could I not show a halo that would make someone mistake me for an apostle of Teres?

‘…Do I really have to drink that again?’

Regardless.

Besides the halo, I also needed to get the outward appearance right.

I couldn’t keep my halo active at all times just to prove I was an apostle.

It is not that uncommon for an apostle serving a god to be wrapped tightly from head to toe. The Apostles of Order also wore masks to hide their faces.

If I hide my body to the point where my gender cannot be discerned and forge my voice, it’s done.

The Sacred Relic I received from Casimir helped with the disguise.

A tongue imbued with the power of ‘Nephiton,’ possessing the Divine Power to deceive the senses.

If I infuse my divine power into this, a natural voice modulation device is completed.

‘…I don’t think she gave this to me to use for something like this.’

Using a Sacred Relic given by the Knight Commander of the Heretic Inquisitors to play the part of a heretic gave me a strange feeling.

Furthermore, I needed an item that could subtly give off the vibe of being ‘one chosen by Teres’ even when I hadn’t drunk the Holy Liquor.

“A Sacred Relic of Teres?”

“…Not the one made from Alexandra’s mother.”

“Why don’t you just cast a Distortion?”

“I’d rather not use that if possible.”

I felt that if I kept relying on it, one day I might suddenly think, ‘Wouldn’t it be more convenient to just eat it and make it part of me?’

Since it wasn’t some gruesome shape like a severed finger or an eyeball, I was afraid I might accidentally put it in my mouth.

“Then we should head down to the basement.”

“…That torture chamber?”

“No, the cave further below that.”

Teres’s lordship castle is built atop a sheer cliff.

In the middle of that cliff, there is a cave entrance formed by weathering; since it’s in a position that cannot be reached without telekinesis, it was said to be used as a secret treasury.

“It’s a space that’s normally not revealed to men, but I found it while cliff-climbing when I was a kid.”

“…When you were a kid?”

“I was so excited that I told Alexandra, but she already knew, which was such a letdown. I was even threatened that since it’s a space only women can enter, she’d kill me if I ever went back in.”

“…Was Marcello close with Alexandra?”

“Who knows. I don’t think they had very good feelings toward each other. It seemed like Alexandra didn’t care whether Marcello lived or died.”

I lightly brushed the wall of the cave.

“…This isn’t a naturally occurring cave.”

A cave with such a complex structure cannot be formed by weathering alone.

There are cases where a cliff by stolen contentthe coast rises and the cave moves upward, but this didn’t look stolen contentlike that kind of terrain.

“The holy creatures of Teres probably lived here originally.”

“This place is a spider’s nest?”

“There’s nothing dangerous, so don’t worry about it.”

‘…Does that mean there is something that isn’t dangerous?’

“Originally, there were passages connected to the castle, but they were all blocked off about ten-some years ago. Many people were executed because a baby spider was found wandering the castle and died. They said they blocked it to prevent the same thing from happening again.”

“…Was there no one living here?”

“People?”

At about knee height, I saw crookedly written letters.

They were traces of someone practicing writing.

“It looks like a child lived here…”

It was neither Sacred Script nor the common language.

As I frowned, the System window appeared.

[Learning a foreign language is tedious. Can’t I just solve it with a Blessing? But since Brother would be happy, I must work hard.]

[SYSTEM: Due to the effect of ‘Heaven Above, Earth Below, I Alone Reign Supreme,’ ‘memory recall’ is provided as text.]

‘This is?’

[Al-lak-sandra, Al-lak-sandra, Alexandra, Alexandra]

“A child? Did they lock up some illegitimate child? If it’s an old trace, they’d be dead by now.”

“…I think they knew Alexandra.”

“How do you know that?”

“Their name is written here.”

“Where? I don’t see it.”

‘…He can’t see it?’

I frowned.

Why is it that Pandemonium can’t see it, but I can?

When I placed my finger over the letters, the text rose above my finger as if a projector were shining from behind.

‘Projection of the past?’

The act of reading erased records should be the Divine Power of the God of Records, Alkaten.

I had received the Blessing of Records, but it was chopped away by an axe.

If that blessing remained, it would be with ‘Callister.’

‘Wait a minute.’

I suddenly remembered the fact that I had one more vassal.

My scripture, Codex.

‘…I had completely forgotten about it.’

Because Codex is my vassal, did I unconsciously borrow the Divine Power of records?

If so, that means Codex is still alive.

‘It’ll be impossible to get it back, though.’

If it were a creature with legs, I’d tell it to sneak away and come to me.

It can’t be helped.

I decided to make useful use of this ability until Codex is annihilated.

‘…They wrote a huge amount of diaries.’

Looking closely, the entire cave was covered in writing.

The letters that looked like a child’s scribbles gradually became neater, and later, they were using quite proper sentences.

I read a sentence written on the ceiling.

[Today, a stranger intruded. I hid and observed. It seems they didn’t notice stolen contentmy existence. Alexandra explained that the child is [stolen content]her ‘younger sibling.’]

‘Unless they had telekinesis, they wouldn’t be able to write letters in that position.’

“A Divine Bloodline lived here?”

Pandemonium wore a look of incomprehension.

“I don’t think so. If they had telekinesis, they would have escaped a place like this long ago.”

“Maybe they were tied up so they couldn’t leave…”

“Anyway, if this is a record of things from when Marcello was young, the owner of the diary must be an adult now.”

Pandemonium said, floating a pebble with telekinesis.

“Then I’ll just ask.”

“…Ask who?”

“There’s a spider I kept alive because it’s obedient.”

As he threw the pebble, it stopped in mid-air.

Soon, a spider that sensed the vibration of the web crawled out silently.

The spider, whose body length seemed to be about 1 meter, had a clear light-blue pattern on its abdomen.

“You spider brat, give a greeting.”

As if it understood the words, the spider repeatedly bowed its entire body forward and then raised it.

“It understands speech?”

“Of course. Look. Left hand up. Right hand down. Don’t lower the left, raise the right. Don’t raise the right, don’t lower the left.”

The spider quickly moved its foremost walking legs according to the instructions. When it made a mistake once in the middle, it even trembled in panic, appearing to be a creature with quite high intelligence.

“…Wait.”

I took out Casimir’s Sacred Relic from my sleeve.

Ever since I saw the severed tongue, I thought that someone might take away my way of speaking. That’s why I had intended to create a Divine Power…

[SYSTEM: Congratulations! You have created a new Divine Power, ‘TTS’! ]

[SYSTEM: ‘TTS’ stands for thought-to-speech, a Skill that reads thoughts as voice. It is useful for ventriloquism.]

‘Ventriloquism, my foot.’

It was a Divine Power I had to create, even if only for Callister’s sake.

When I held out the Sacred Relic imbued with the Blessing of TTS to the spider, the spider hesitated and then carefully hung it upon its walking leg.

[…What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to wear it on my body?]

“Oh. It speaks?”

The spider, startled, dropped the Sacred Relic and bowed its head several times to express its emotion.

[Sorry, sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to drop it.]

“It’s okay.”

[Who are you? I feel divinity coming from you.]

“I’m called Fabio.”

[You’re a newborn god. You feel warm. You’re a good god.]

“…Feel?”

[A god who holds many suffering souls feels chilly when you get close. As you can see, I am a child of ‘Teres.’]

“Your name?”

[I don’t really have one. If you want, you can call me spider brat, like that guy.]

‘That’s a bit…’

But I couldn’t just give it a new name recklessly.

Since even nicknames given to tease, like Padeul Padeul, seemed to become a ‘naming,’ I had to be careful.

“Did you write the things on the walls and ceiling here?”

[…Yes. I erased them, but I guess you read them anyway. Alexandra taught me how to write.]

‘As I thought.’

Since holy creatures are quite intelligent, I thought it wouldn’t be strange for them to know how to read and write. It’s more realistic that they taught a holy creature to write than that they locked up and raised a child.

[By the way, is Alexandra dead?]

“…I don’t know. She’s probably alive.”

[Really? I thought she was dead. That’s a relief.]

“Why are you speaking informally to your elder? How rude.”

[Elder?]

The spider stared at me blankly.

[Are you my younger sibling too?]

“…Your younger sibling?”

[Yes. Alexandra is my younger sister.]

‘Did its intelligence stop at the level of a child?’

Since it’s an animal, there must be a limit to its brain size.

It seems it took seriously the kind of talk Alexandra might have said after hearing the spider’s age, like ‘Then you’re the older sister.’

It’s quite common for pets to mistakenly believe they are human.

[Though I look like this, I am not a holy creature, but a Divine Bloodline.]

“…What?”

[I was born like this because Teres descended while my mother was pregnant with me.]

‘He’s actually Marcello’s sibling?’

To think a human was born in the form of a spider.

The Dark Realm truly is a place where many bizarre things happen.

“Then shouldn’t you be the next Head of the family?”

[I am a male spider. Males aren’t very useful.]

“…Then you really are Marcello’s older brother.”

“What? I only have one older brother.”

“Yes, Pandemonium. Not you. It’s true that he’s Marcello’s older brother.”

I wiped my face.

If there was a child in the same position as Perpetua, I wanted to save them somehow.

But this spider…

‘…What should I do?’

I decided not to think too deeply.

Thinking too much only leads to a headache.

Let’s just consider him a smart spider living here.

“Do you know where a Sacred Relic containing the energy of Teres is?”

[I know. Do you want it? I’ll give it to you as a gift.]

The spider left for a moment and soon returned with a bundle. Inside, there were bone fragments, but there were more handicrafts that had been touched by human hands.

“Where did you get these?”

[They’re funerary objects. I looted them.]

“……”

[They’re mine now. So this is my gift.]

‘I’ll have to refine them a bit so people can’t tell they’re funerary objects.’

[Fabio. In return for the gift I gave you, won’t you give this to me as a gift?]

“…No.”

[If the gift is insufficient, I’ll bring more. There are many graves. I’ll give you everything. Just give this to me.]

“No matter what you bring, I can’t give you this [Read on Read BL Novels]Sacred Relic. It’s unauthorized copya very [Read on Read BL Novels]important item to me.”

The spider became visibly depressed.

[…Then how about lending it to me for a while?]

“Why do you want this Sacred Relic?”

[Not being able to speak is too miserable. I know many things and wanted to say them, but every time Marcello came, he only made me raise and lower my hand…]

“Marcello was mean for that.”

[I don’t think Marcello was mean. Normally, one wouldn’t think a spider would have something it wants to say.]

“…Do you think of yourself as human?”

The spider remained silent for a long time before answering.

[When I thought I was human, I was constantly unhappy. So I don’t think that anymore.]

“……”

After contemplating, I spoke.

“I can’t give you the Sacred Relic, but I can grant you a Blessing so that you can speak. That is my Divine Power.”

[…Thank you. Thank you, Fabio.]

The spider crouched as small as possible in front of me.

That seemed to be its own way of being polite.

I knelt and placed my hand on the spider’s head.

[…This is the first time I’ve ever received a Blessing.]

“When the effect wears off, pray to me. Then I’ll come back to cast it again.”

[May I pray to Fabio?]

“Of course.”

[Does that mean you’ll be my god?]

“That’s…”

[Fabio. Can I go to heaven too?]