Chapter 140 – 139 – The Beginning Of Everything (2)

The Chief Cardinal smiled kindly and offered me a seat. Just yesterday, I had been appointed as his proxy and sent off to appoint a High Inquisitor, yet here I was, back in a day, and he showed no sign of surprise or questioning.

Rather, it was as if he had expected this. He was calmly waiting at a table set with a tea set, and greeted me with a gentle smile.

My head was a mess, and I stood there blankly. He leisurely poured hot water into a teacup, stirred it, and then offered me the steaming cup with a smile.

‘He was waiting? Then he knew I was coming. Could the Cardinal be sharing my quest information? Or is he somehow finding out about it? If he’s sharing it, then he must be connected to the system somehow. If he’s finding it out, then there must be a special way to get information that only Diana, Irian, and I know, and it hasn’t even been a day… I don’t know.’

Around lunchtime, after discussing it with Diana and Irian, we decided to return to Hespote. We immediately turned our horses around and headed back, so how could he possibly know?

Is this old man the head of some information guild? Even if he is the Chief Cardinal, his information network is too good.

“Sit down, Yurian. Are you going to make an old man keep looking up at you?”
“…Ah, yes. Of course.”

In front of the Cardinal, across the small table, was a chair, as if he had been waiting for me.

As I sat down, a teacup was naturally placed in front of me. The fragrant aroma was quite familiar.

“Winterbloom, isn’t it? When you were young, Your Eminence, you always brewed winter tea for me and the Saintess.”

Thinking about it now, this was also strange. Diana was the Saintess, so it was understandable, but when I first joined the Order, I was just an orphan who had followed the Saintess.

Yet, he brewed tea for me as well as the Saintess…? Back then, I just thought he was a true clergyman, a kind old man, just like he looked… I don’t want to suspect this old man with his gentle smile, but I hate that I keep suspecting him.

I’ve lived with him for 16 years, enough time to build up affection. But compared to the people who are truly precious to me… it’s trivial.

Sitting across the small table, I took a sip of tea while scrutinizing his wrinkled face. Skin that had naturally lost its elasticity with age, kindly folded wrinkles, age spots here and there, and a grizzled beard.

The face I saw when I first joined the Order, younger than now, had naturally aged. What was that cyborg-like appearance from before? Why did he show me that completely different side?

“Hehehe. Why do you keep staring at this old man’s face? What? Did I become more handsome?”
“Ahem. Your Eminence is always handsome. Aren’t you a flower grandpa?”
“Hahahaha, a flower grandpa! That’s right! It’s been a while since I’ve heard that. Yurian, didn’t you make the term ‘flower grandpa’ popular?”

I naturally continued the conversation while observing the Cardinal, but no matter how much I looked, he was just the Chief Cardinal I knew.

If he was a cyborg that looked this human, there’s no way I could tell just by looking. The sub-quest clearly told me to talk to the Chief Cardinal… I was wondering how to bring it up when the Chief Cardinal put down his half-empty teacup and stood up.

“Let’s go.”
“…Your Eminence? Where are we going?”
“Hehehe. It’s time. Enough of this small talk, follow me, Yurian. Someone is waiting for you.”

I stared blankly at the old man’s frail back as he walked away, then followed him. This old geezer, when I first joined the Order, I remember him being quite tall and in good shape.

‘Has it already been 16 years? The old man has really become an old grandpa.’

I don’t know his exact age. I’ve never cared. But since he was already an old man with white hair and a white beard when I first joined the Order 16 years ago, he must have been quite old.

The height that seemed so tall, the body that seemed so strong, are now gone. A subtle sense of pity washed over me as I looked at the frail old man’s back.

Hmm…? Behind his neck… a scar?
I think I’ve seen that scar before… Thinking about it carefully, I definitely saw that scar on the back of the Cardinal’s neck on the day of his appointment ceremony.

A scar on someone like the Cardinal? Even if he was injured, he could just heal it with divine power, so why is the scar still there?

“Yurian. Has it been… 16 years since you came here?”
“…Ah, yes. 16 years… Yes, 16 years.”

I was staring intently at the strangely shaped scar and belatedly reacted to the Cardinal’s words. The Cardinal simply nodded and continued walking leisurely.

“16 years. It’s been a long time. When I first saw you, you were a little child who didn’t even reach my waist… So much time has passed.”
“Yes, Your Eminence. Thank you for taking me in when I was just an orphan 16 years ago. I’m only now getting to thank you.”
“An orphan… an orphan, you say. Hehehe, were you an orphan?”
“……Yes?”

An orphan… am I not? When I first opened my eyes, I was dirty and ragged with Diana, so I naturally assumed I was an orphan too.

If I had parents, I wouldn’t have been with Diana, who had been an orphan for a year. Surely they’re not going to reveal now that Yurian actually had parents?

“You are not an orphan, Yurian. Your body is a gift from God. It’s absurd to call you an orphan.”
“Ah, yes. A gift from God… Right. Haha.”

Well… in terms of doctrine, all life is a gift from God, so I guess I’m not an orphan. Just like the monotheistic religions of my original world, there’s a doctrine here that God is the parent of all things.

Of course, that’s just in theory. If that were the case, there wouldn’t be any orphans in the world. They’d all be children of God. Even the beggars on the street would say, ‘I am a son of God,’ and the women selling their bodies would say, ‘I am a daughter of God.’

No matter what the theory is, if you go around saying that, you’d be arrested immediately. The son of God is a Saint, and the daughter of God is a Saintess. If you say, ‘Theoretically, God is the parent who created all things, so I am a child of God,’ you’d get beaten up.

“Oh my. You don’t believe me. You truly are a child of God, Yurian.”
“……What? What do you mean…?”
“Just as I said.”

What is he talking about?
I was walking slowly behind the Cardinal, who was walking ahead with slow steps, my mind racing with his cryptic words, when I suddenly realized.

‘…Where is this?’

I’ve lived in the Grand Temple for 16 years, but why does it feel so unfamiliar?

The Grand Temple, built of pure white marble, was a work of art in itself, a beautiful structure that could be called a masterpiece.

Its height rivaled that of a modern low-rise building, and its vastness was the size of two or three soccer fields combined. The Grand Temple, built of well-polished marble and granite, seemed like a timeless structure even when I first saw it… but this place is even more so.

The stone walls made of marble and granite had suddenly turned into solid metal walls, and the wires hanging everywhere created an unusual scene.

‘What? Why did it suddenly become a modern-style building?’

When I turned around, I saw that the stone walls and metal walls were connected at a certain point. The connection was so natural that I had missed it, but once I realized it, I could feel how alien this space was.

It was a scene that didn’t fit in with this world, so much so that it was strange I hadn’t noticed it. It was like… modern… no, a sci-fi setting would be more fitting.

“Your Eminence, Cardinal. Where is this place? Even I, a Cardinal, didn’t know there was such a space inside the temple. What are these… strange walls and hanging wires?”

I may be a newly appointed Cardinal, but I am still a Cardinal. If there’s a place that a Cardinal, the highest-ranking member of the Order after the Pope, doesn’t know about? Especially in the Grand Temple? It’s suspicious, very suspicious. Something’s wrong.

I deliberately referred to the wires as ‘hanging wires’ to avoid implying that I knew what they were.

The Cardinal stood naturally in this sci-fi-like space and turned to face me.

“Yurian, don’t be afraid. You are about to face God. Normally, you would have to undergo thorough training as soon as you were appointed Cardinal, but the Pope has made an exception for you and exempted you from the training process.”
“What kind of training…?”
“Training to meet His Holiness the Pope. Training to face God. The Great One transcends the understanding of ordinary people, so it is necessary to strengthen one’s faith in order to meet Him.”

The Pope. Come to think of it, the Pope was also suspicious in many ways.
The fact that the Pope has never changed since the first one is suspicious in itself. How can the first Pope still be in power after hundreds of years? Is that even possible?

At this point, he can’t even be called human anymore, can he? How can a person live that long?

And what adds fuel to the fire of suspicion is that only the five Cardinals can meet the Pope.

What are they hiding that only the Cardinals can meet the Pope? I’ve suspected it before, but I never thought about it deeply… I didn’t know there was such a secret.

‘I thought it was suddenly sci-fi. What the hell is going on?’

The Cardinal, who had been smiling gently at me, slowly leaned against the wall. I watched him, wondering what he was doing, when the wires that had been hanging everywhere started to move on their own, crawling up the Cardinal’s body.

It was like some kind of bug, the wires wriggled up his body like caterpillars, then gathered at the back of his neck and burrowed into his skin.

“…Crazy.”

Blood was dripping down, and it looked incredibly painful, but the Cardinal’s gentle smile didn’t waver at all. Was that how that scar was made?

“Don’t be surprised, Yurian. It’s just a way to face God.”

……If that’s the way, I don’t want to meet him. Can I just go home?
Before I could even say the words that were stuck in my throat, the Cardinal’s face, which had been wearing a gentle smile, hardened.

His face, as if his previous appearance had been a lie, was expressionless and inhuman. His eyes, like glass beads, stared at me… It was the same appearance as the cyborg I had suspected before.

“Cardinal Yurian. Welcome.”
“……What are you? What’s your true identity?”
“Everything will be explained in the Central Control Room. Follow the terminal.”

Central Control Room? And a terminal? These… these aren’t words used in this world. I don’t know what’s going on. Is God really a machine?

The scenery became more and more bizarre as I followed the Cardinal, who was walking with heavy steps. If the scenery up to this point had been subtly harmonized with the temple’s architectural style, the further we went, the more it looked like it was from another world.

This is just… like something out of a sci-fi movie. Is this a spaceship…?