Chapter 40
Punishment for the Demon
Liana went outside to fetch a small towel and water bottle to put in Shed's room, as Werner had suggested.
Although no one had ever told her, Liana roughly knew where the servants stayed and where they kept things.
The small building next to the detached building that the Heretic had destroyed.
A building built long ago by the Ideana County for the servants to use.
"L, Lady Liana...!"
Just then, Liana stopped and turned her head at the sound of someone calling her.
"High Priest...? May God be with you."
Liana put her hands together, took a step back, and bowed her head.
"Oh, no, you don't have to do that. A, a sick person doesn't need to be so polite...!"
Dietrich waved his hand at Liana, then approached hesitantly.
He didn't seem authoritarian and was friendly for a High Priest, but Liana was still uncomfortable.
Whenever she faced him, she naturally became nervous, wondering if her Black Magic would be discovered.
'Fortunately, it seems he can't detect it unless we make contact...'
Until now, Dietrich had been so busy that they hadn't had a chance to meet.
He had to rebuild the Guardian Barrier, finish the parts that needed Purification, and also take care of rebuilding the damaged Temple.
But as long as they were in the same Paradel, she couldn't avoid him forever.
Liana guessed why Dietrich had called her.
Then, a cluster of round purple flowers suddenly appeared before her eyes.
"C, congratulations on getting much better..."
Dietrich smiled awkwardly and held out a purple Allium as Liana stared at him with surprised eyes.
The Allium, which bloomed as large as Liana's head, was roundly clustered like cotton and boasted an elegant light.
"Umm..."
"D, don't you like flowers?"
Dietrich stammered as Liana hesitated to accept the Allium.
"No, it's not that, but..."
"I, I went to Purify the forest and found it blooming, so I picked it... The fact that the flower bloomed this big means that the Ideana land has recovered quite a bit, so I was happy..."
Liana nodded as she looked at the large Allium flower.
As he said, it meant that Paradel had enough earth energy for the flower to bloom so beautifully.
With that thought, Liana thought that she could accept this meaningful flower.
In addition, she realized once again that Dietrich was awkward in human relationships.
To think of giving a flower that smells like pungent chives as a gift.
Liana hesitated and then nodded.
It wouldn't be polite to ignore the High Priest's sincerity.
"...Thank you, High Priest."
As Liana took the Allium stem, Dietrich shyly twisted his silver hair.
"A, and I wanted to tell you not to worry about the Heretic...!"
Dietrich clenched his fist tightly and shouted as if he had gained courage.
"T, the Clerics are tracking down the Heretic. We've made quite a bit of progress. Uh, it'll be settled within a month."
Dietrich adjusted his glasses and smiled.
'Tracking down the Heretic...'
She had been worried about the Heretic's matter.
He was a perpetrator, but also a victim, so she was concerned about him.
'But if he continues to harm people...'
She couldn't stand by and watch more victims appear.
For the sake of Ideana, he... was a problem that needed to be solved.
Liana, who had been listening to Dietrich's story, fiddled with her fingertips and then raised her head.
"High Priest, I don't know if I can ask you this question..."
"A, ask me anything! Anything about doctrine, or blessings, or p, prayers..."
"If the Heretic is caught, what happens to him?"
Liana asked.
Then, a cold light flashed across Dietrich's face, which had looked clumsy until just now.
"...Of course, he will be judged."
"Will he die...?"
"Of course! Very painfully."
For the first time, Dietrich answered in a confident voice without stuttering.
'Very painfully.'
Dietrich's judgment would probably apply to 'Luise Ideana' as well.
As her expression sank seriously, Dietrich took a step closer to her and said consolingly.
"F, fortunately, he's not a perfect Black Magic user. Looking at his behavior pattern, um, he must be in an unstable state."
"Unstable...?"
Dietrich seemed to know more than she thought, even grasping the Heretic's condition.
"T, the reason why Black Magic is forbidden is because it gains power at the cost of life. There are bound to be many side effects."
Dietrich didn't bother to explain the details.
But Liana could understand his meaning.
"I need a sacrifice to live. A human sacrifice."
If the Heretic couldn't kill, he would eventually be swallowed up by his own power and collapse. The side effect Dietrich mentioned was probably this.
"Self-destruction, that's how Black Magic is punished. S, so... eventually, his own sin punishes him. It will be so painful that he'll think it's better to die quickly."
Dietrich spoke of the Heretic's judgment with a pure smile.
Liana was silent in front of him, looking down at her hands.
"You said he's in an unstable state. What happens if he's in a stable state...?"
A 'finished product' of Black Magic that doesn't self-destruct.
How would the Temple deal with that finished product?
Dietrich blinked at Liana's question.
Was the question too direct? Liana hurriedly added.
"Just in case. If he's a stable Black Magic user..."
"T, that can never happen. Historically, there has only been one Black Magic user who has completely succeeded in the spell."
"Demon Mephisto... you mean?"
Liana recalled the story she had read in the Book of Desidera long ago.
A strong Cleric, but one who walked the path of corruption and reached the end of Black Magic.
One who is no longer a Cleric or a human, but is called a 'Demon'.
Mephisto.
"T, that's right! You know the doctrine well, Lady Liana!"
"As far as I know, the story after Mephisto was sealed has been lost, so is the seal the end...?"
"Yes, the seal. I, it's the last resort known so far."
Dietrich continued, excited about the academic story.
Not many people listened to his stuttering story until the end.
Especially when it came to basic doctrine and research.
"T, the method of sealing is very complicated and difficult. First, you stab the Demon's heart with a knife, and then you tie his limbs with chains engraved with prayers. And then you trap him in a crystal made of Divine Power and seal him."
Dietrich was confident that it was a difficult process, but it would be fine.
This was a justified confidence, as the current High Priests were so outstanding that they were called the blessed generation in the clergy.
In particular, Giselle Marlehein, called the Saintess, was the High Priest with the most outstanding Divine Power in history.
Even if her personality was a bit dirty, she would roll up her sleeves and step forward to seal the Demon.
She was a quite righteous woman full of motivation and challenge.
"That way, the Demon is trapped in e, eternal pain."
In the pain of being pierced through the heart, in the pain of the body burning with Divine Power, in the pain of not being able to breathe and drowning, he lives an immortal life without dying.
So the Clerics called him the 'Hell sentence'.
"Ah, it's the perfect judgment for a Demon. It's like taking on all the pain that humans can feel and falling asleep."
The Demon sealed in the Hell sentence consumes all his energy to regenerate his body, no matter how strong he is, and becomes helpless.
It is impossible to wake up again unless someone breaks the seal.
Liana lowered her gaze after hearing Dietrich's words.
She had known about the 'Hell sentence' from a very early age.
Because she had read the scriptures before she realized she was a Demon.
"So Mephisto is in pain forever? I feel so sorry for him."
When Luise teared up at the story of Mephisto she saw in the scriptures as a child, her father, Felix Ideana, said to his young daughter.
"But he gained eternity."
At that time, she thought her father meant that 'he had to pay that price for the sin of gaining eternity'.
But looking back, her father probably meant that 'eternity is worth taking the risk for'.
Liana had always been afraid of that punishment.
So she had been searching for another way for a long time.
A way to face real death, not a seal.
She went to work for Godwin Baron, who was the head of the Temple library, and also worked for others who had wisdom.
But after wandering for a long time, the solution was back where it started.
"So Mephisto is still alive somewhere?"
Trapped in eternal pain...?
"Um, probably. B, because the back of the Book of Desidera is lost, no one knows w, where Mephisto is."
The last part of the scripture left by the Holy Knight Desidera ends with the Demon's seal.
People believed that the lost part contained the location where Mephisto was sealed.
Many people searched for the back part to satisfy their curiosity and greed.
But in the end, no one found that end.
Thus, the whereabouts of the Demon remained a legend forever.
Liana thought of the Demon who would be lonely and abandoned in eternal pain.
"Umm, you don't have to be afraid. I, I'll definitely catch and punish the Heretic...!"
Dietrich carefully patted Liana's shoulder.
The moment Liana was startled by his touch.
"...High Priest Dietrich."
A cool and familiar voice came from behind.
