Overlord of biblical proportions: The new Three-Sided War (7) (Patreon)

Once inside his home, which was still technically Miki's home, Momonga could generally consider it his own given Miki's condition. Momonga looked around before approaching Miki, glancing at her shadow, which instantly rippled. 

Momonga could assume that for the Shadow Demon, it was something akin to an attempt to give a warrior's salute in his presence. 

However, Momonga could only assume this on the level of speculation, given the fact that the creatures of Yggdrasil had become fully alive in this world, acquiring many habits that they naturally did not have in the game. Momonga was probably years away from being able to fully grasp the uniqueness of his newfound acquaintances and subordinates.

It was somewhat unusual, something that concerned his own summons, the undead especially. 

Even now, Momonga retained some strange mental connection with them, not a full-fledged connection where he could start a dialog as if he used [Message], but something more fuzzy and almost inexplicable. It was as if he could feel their presence at the edge of his consciousness, the sensations they felt, the fact of their existence, their thoughts, and could even give them non-verbal orders. 

Yet, even with those orders, he did not communicate with them in a full-fledged perceivable human language. 

Standing opposite the Death Knight, for example, Momonga could communicate with the Death Knight, despite the fact that it did not speak or had sent any thoughts into his head distinct enough to become complete phrases. And yet, he was dialoguing so clearly that he could easily interpret them as complete conversations. 

A strange sensation, to say the least.

But Momonga should probably start getting used to the sensation, given that the undead he had summoned now existed permanently. Momonga planned not to throw away such a gift of fate. 

First, he would make at least a few hundred Death Knights as a start.

‘And then,’ Momonga decided with a sigh, ‘twenty million more.’ 

As long as there's some sense in building up force, I don't see the point in stopping doing it. And given that this world seems to be overflowing with other paranormal creatures, some of which are comparable to level 100 players, perhaps there would be no such foreseeable future. 

A future in which Momonga somehow thought that he had already created enough undead to stop in my quest to make Nazarick as strong as possible probably doesn’t exist.

Nazarick, the tomb itself, was now an almost impregnable fortress. Almost.

The void that now surrounds it imposed excellent debuffs, almost making it uncrossable entirely. Not to mention the fact that any potential attackers would need a powerful teleportation ability to get into the island floating in the void that houses Nazarick.

The tomb itself, even without the field debuff, had in the past withstood the largest raid in Yggdrasil's history, a raid that involved 1,500 max-leveled Players. It was a close thing, however, the attack only being broken on Nazarick’s last and strongest defense.

So, it would be a losing position to lock himself in Nazarick and wait for the enemy to continue to evolve and test their defenses. Proactivity, not reactivity – that was what Punnito Moe had said when sending the guild on a preemptive raid against a potential opponent. 

And even if Momonga was not even a third as smart as Punnito, at the very least he had memorized those wisdoms of his.

In any case, Momonga had used up his newfound special ability to create as many undead he could with the body he has now, before going back to the human world, to Miki's house. 

He spotted the woman busy washing the dirty glasses in the sink, while a boiling small pot spread out the fragrant smell of curry in the kitchen.

Momonga had tasted curry maybe once before? On his twentieth birthday, he had saved up for the dish for almost four months, but every bite of the morsel was worth the money spent. 

The freeze-dried meat tasted amazing!

Of course, once he had arrived in this world, Momonga had repeatedly tasted dishes that were so superior to his previous culinary experiences that they couldn't even be said in the same sentence. So much so that his taste buds had gradually begun to adapt to the local cuisine, and Momonga, rather than extensively drooling, instead now simply had his appetite whetted. 

Even to Miki's cooking. 

Perhaps after a while, where he wouldn’t embarrass himself, he would venture to try one of Nazarick Chef’s dishes, one appropriate to give buffs to level 100s that supposedly tasted heavenly in their item descriptions. Momonga could scarcely imagine how such a dish would taste, when even low-level food already tasted so phenomenally delicious.

But, until then, Miki's cooking seemed like a pretty good option to Momonga.

"Something happened while I was busy?" Momonga asked the question to both Miki and the Shadow Demon at the same time, only addressing Miki more out of politeness than necessity. He was trying to make small talk with Miki, feeling a bit uncomfortable in complete silence in the presence of other people, as he sat down on one of the chairs in the dining room. 

Suddenly, he received a reply from Miki, who had turned to face him, an unexpected one at that. 

"Nothing too important, Lord Momonga. However, the two girls marked with the seal of your choice, Katase and Murayama, visited while you were busy."

It took Momonga a full second to return from thinking about the potential uses of the undead army being created right now to reality and remember exactly who Miki was talking about. Especially since he appeared to have managed to ‘mark the seal of choice’ whatever that means, on anyone in this world. Except perhaps Albedo and Shalltear? But Miki wouldn’t be noting that fact, before remembering the two familiar schoolgirls he had crossed paths with a few times before.

Under simpler circumstances, perhaps Momonga would not have particularly reacted strongly to such news. But in the past few hours, his life had thrown him a considerable amount of luck in the form of the creation of a permanent army of Undead. 

And, as Momonga had learned quite well from his bitter life experience, no positive news in his life could come without equally negative news. So, Momonga felt his stress levels rise before his emotions were suppressed once again, blocking a possible panic attack and stopping the sweating of his palms.

"They wanted to know exactly how you were involved in the school bombing," Miki replied calmly, returning to stirring the curry on the stove, clearly not feeling anything special about such questions, delivering them with the simplicity of someone for whom such communication was commonplace. 

"I told them that I knew no more than what the girls themselves know…"

Momonga had no sooner breathed out a sigh of relief when Miki's next words crashed into him like a tidal wave. 

"I informed them of the existence of magic. However, Lord Momonga, please forgive this unworthy servant; I was unable to gauge their level of involvement, and so I did not dare to speak to them more openly about your nature, Lord Momonga. Please, Lord Momonga, punish me for daring not to discern your great plan!"

Suddenly stopping her stirring of the curry, Miki instantly turned around, falling to her knees, her arms extended upwards towards Momonga, as if she was begging for alms, as she slammed her forehead into the floor. And with just how loud she had banged her forehead, and the muffled pleas for forgiveness that followed, she was not doing this symbolically but truly begging for forgiveness. 

This caused Momonga to blink, a multitude of thoughts in his head all jumbled together at once. 

Miki begging on her knees for forgiveness, what’s his next great ‘plan’? Was supposed to be, but forefront to all of them was that the information that all of Momonga's attempts to keep his existence and the existence of magic secret had failed. The fact was that, right now, there were two schoolgirls running around the streets who knew of Momonga's true nature, and he had absolutely no way of restricting their actions or even knowing their location.

Momonga's mind boiled with thoughts for a moment before being calmed down again by the suppression of emotions, making Momonga think that he definitely should have started training his resilience to this kind of news. 

Then, after a moment, he started arranging this information in his head, one by one, with a sigh.

"Umu, Miki, raise your head," Momonga said, with Miki only complying after a moment, removing her face from the floor but not rising from her knees, looking at Momonga carefully, the red imprint of the floorboards on her forehead.

If such a situation had been created by a Nazarick creature, of course Momonga would have instantly said that they were not guilty of anything and had done everything ‘practically right’. But that was only true of Nazarick’s creatures, even in regard to his summons, Momonga would probably feel some sympathy and at least wouldn't berate them for their failings, feeling the responsibility on himself as their creator. 

However, in regard to Miki, Momonga couldn't bring himself to say that she wasn't guilty of anything. On the other hand, Miki was still under Momonga's provision, and if she went so far as to sit at his feet during his lunch and dinner, stooping to the level of a dog… What demand could Momonga have from his ‘pet’? Not that Momonga wanted to put Miki in this position, but how he ‘wanted’ was one option, and how it ‘turned out’ was another.

So slowly, Momonga breathed in a deep breath, covering his eyes, then started rubbing his closed eyelids, then the bridge of his nose, and then his temples. He could feel a headache coming in.

He was silent for a dozen seconds, letting the sound of bubbles rising and bursting in the curry being cooked be the only sound in the kitchen.

"All right," Momonga exhaled sharply after a dozen seconds and took his hands away from his face before repeating again, a little more confidently, "All right, all right, I see. Miki, telling those two about magic was the wrong thing to do, but it’s not your fault, Miki, you can get up, and… Yes, right, please don't discuss such things with people outside of Nazarick other than specific people… That I will point out to you personally later on."

Rising from the seat, Momonga squared his shoulders, trying to at least shake off the mental fatigue that had abruptly come over him as he looked at the face of Miki.

A cat that had just been kicked by a passerby probably looked less miserable than Miki did at the moment, making even Momonga's missing heart feel a pang of sadness, and so he lied through clenched teeth, 

“You didn't do anything wrong… Just, in the future, don't do it again, okay? It's just… Yeah, I'm not quite sure that you'll be able to recognize those who bear the ‘seal of my choice’ in the future, yes...”

Miki's expression, before, looking like she was about to jump off of a bridge in penance for the sin of misinterpreting the Great Lord Momonga's ‘plan’, smoothed out into palpable relief after a moment, causing Momonga to feel slightly relieved. Apparently, despite the ease with which Momonga had sent the captured Fallen Angels to their deaths, there was at least a modicum of human sympathy left in his heart for humans. 

At least the ones that had become part of his life. 

After receiving Momonga’s forgiveness, Miki bowed deeply in praise to him. "Of course, Lord Momonga, forgive me for my impudence of thought! For daring to think that I could interpret your plans, Lord Momonga!"

"Yes, of course, all is forgiven," Momonga sighed, and then sat back down in his chair, trying to work out in his head exactly what he needed to do at this moment with regard to the two unknown variables moving quietly through Kuoh right now.

‘I wonder if the demons will notice if the two girls go missing from Kuoh at this moment?’ Momonga pondered, raising his gaze to the heavens.

The heavens, unfortunately, were silent.

***

Yasaka-no-Kyubi, the nine-tailed fox of Kyoto, was not much of a fan of solving governmental problems, paperwork especially. But then again, who could be a fan of such time-consuming and personally taxing things? 

Especially when she could have spent her time better on her daughter, Kunou. 

But, sometimes, necessity triumphed over her personal desires. And unfortunately, sometimes the nasty word ‘necessity’ or even ‘emergency’ pulled her to her workplace straight from her promised tea party with Kunou… She had only let go after she had promised to make it up to her.

"So…" Yasaka tapped her perfectly manicured index finger on her desk irritably, 

"I'm waiting for the punchline, that this is some kind of extremely stupid joke."

Swallowing nervously, seeing the irritated look on the face of the head of the entire Japanese youkai faction, her personal secretary-tengu glanced around at her entourage. They were trying to look for support, and encountering commiserating looks of support, decided to just say the news outright. Even if it was actually bad news, that would only raise the Kyuubi’s ire. 

"I'm afraid there's no mistake."

"Thirty-two youkai dead, thirty-four missing, all in one night, under my nose in Kyoto… And a powerful vampire is accused of sneaking across half the inhabited world, from Europe to Japan. Even Kunou wouldn't believe such nonsense!" Yasaka slammed her palms on the table, making the people around her wince, relaxing only when they found out that the room was not on fire.  But, if they insist on telling her this bad joke, that could quickly change.

Yasaka knew she was acting on her emotions at the moment, but her already unhappy mood over having to rush out for an urgent meeting, especially from her daughter, was darkened even more by some completely insane story.

The last time Yasaka had seen a vampire in Kyoto had been about six years ago. And even back then, the vampires had been a weak and fragmented faction, with most of their members egregiously weak, easily handled even by half-competent Youkai!

Among all the vampires, there were barely a dozen, give or take a few, powerful ones capable of fighting with a dozen youkai at a time. And all of them were all completely tied up at the moment in the civil war that had broken out between the vampires’ factions. 

A vampire capable of killing three dozen youkai, kidnapping as many, and doing it all in a night, barely leaving any trace of themselves other than desiccated corpses scattered in random places in Kyoto, doesn’t exist! 

Or perhaps, a not so random attack, considering that the dead and disappeared youkai weren't just random civilians caught up in the rampaging bloodsucker attacks.

Those that had died or were kidnapped were all criminals, as far as that word even applied in Kyoto. 

Smugglers, counterfeiters, arms dealers, in general, the kind of people that Yasaka had kept from growing in numbers in Kyoto, but not completely destroyed, keeping them under control instead, as a politician in her position was supposed to do. 

That last part was the straw that broke the camel’s back in the story being in any way truthful, the story sounded straight out of the manga that Kunou secretly reads! 

Firstly, what vampire would decide to play vigilante in the territory of Youkai, in the center of their power at that! And secondly, while these people could not be called the most powerful of youkais in Kyoto, they were not at all the weakest, especially not their bodyguards. 

Half of whom had disappeared, and half of whom had turned into desiccated corpses now scattered all over Kyoto!

"Count fucking Dracula has decided to return to our sinful world and pull his underpants over his tights, punishing criminals halfway across the globe from his homeland! Are you being serious, right now? Because that’s what your ‘report’ essentially said!" Yasaka slapped the table once more, cursing in the presence of her subordinates. 

Normally, Yasaka wouldn't let her more aggressive nature lash out so easily in public, but she was still a nine-tailed kitsune, a beast of destruction in her own right. And the current situation was not at all conducive to her rationality and calm mind.

So, with an angry intake of air and a forceful exhalation that made the air smell distinctly of ozone, not a good sign to all the youkai around her, as it meant that Yasaka was thinking of unleashing her full might. After a deep breath of air, the smell of ozone disappeared to the evident sigh of relief from her subordinate, as Yasaka tried to assume her usual regal demeanor and nodded. 

"Well, what other information have you gathered besides what you've already said? Let’s just say that I’m extending an olive branch of belief. Is there any other explanation, though? Any connection between the murdered men? Anything special in their history of past dealings?"

The fact that the murdered men were members of Kyoto's ‘underground’ circles were an open secret, as was the fact that they existed under Yasaka's careful control and supervision. So, no one was surprised at her demand for information about the deals they'd made.

"Nothing much, just the usual petty trading and smuggling, counterfeiting, diluted counterfeit potions, it was business as usual. No major contracts lately with new parties, most of them have never done business with Europe at all. I think only one or two youkai have ever seen a vampire in the past." 

Unfortunately, the shrewd nezumi Yasaka kept to her employ due to their ability to sniff out information, didn't have much to offer. Yasaka kept him with her to sniff out the dark deeds and secrets of other youkai, humans, and Devils. In other words, something to actually prevent the current situation in Kyoto from happening. 

"Between the dead, there were the usual working relationships, a few personal interactions, a couple of infidelities, and business as usual." As if sensing her irritation, the nezumi quickly continued.

Clasping her hands together, Yasaka covered her eyes, trying to map all the information she knew and had just learned off, even if it wasn’t much, in her mind.

What could connect the youkai from the underbelly of Kyoto, unconnected by business and personal ties, to vampires, and given the living conditions of vampires, to Romania? The old gods of Europe, the Balkans, had long ago withdrawn into their own pocket worlds, so long ago that Yasaka herself did not even know those who would remember the times of their existence. Together with the advent of the Roman Empire, those pantheons were effectively destroyed and did not appear on the world stage again, especially not with the advent of Christianity…

Wait, an idea popped up in Yasaka's mind, a possible connection that might actually exist, something that could cause a strong vampire, an exception in their race, to visit Kyoto, and play vigilante. This realization caused her to look up at Nezumi. "Christianity."

The non-sequitur words only caused confusion in her advisors’ faces, but it fits.

Vampires were a faction unto themselves on the world stage, at least formally speaking, but vampires were weak and there was nothing special about the fact that they were weak. The world couldn't survive hundreds of thousands of monsters that could tear the world apart in one bad morning if they fail to control themselves. 

But, that in turn meant that most of the weaker factions were somehow within the sphere of influence of the larger players. Not that the weaker factions liked this fact, but reality says otherwise, weaker factions cannot survive on their own.

If this was not the case, Kyoto would never have agreed to give the Devils full control over a parcel of their territory. All simply because some Devil aristocrats wanted to get a ‘country estate’ on the territory of a foreign country, for a laughable amount of money. 

And the sum was really laughable, what was money’s worth, when any weak paranormal could get much more for demonstrating crumbs of his magic? Mud underfoot, created only to avoid humiliating the Youkai even more.

However, if the whole situation with the Devils essentially taking an entire city from Kyoto under their control had any positive side, no matter how minor, it was that Yasaka found herself more or less privy to the internal affairs of the Christian faction.

Romania was the same way. 

Technically speaking, the vampires were an independent faction, with the major players having little interest in the squabbles between two clans, or what was it, families? Of a weak faction like the Vampires. 

As long as none of them overstepped their personal boundaries, the great powers wouldn’t push their shit in, pardon the crass words. But, that illusion of autonomy ended when the great players needed to take advantage of the vampire's resources, territory, or population. 

And the biggest player in the region was not the Greek Pantheon at all, Romania was too close to the Holy See's center of power for that to be the case. In fact, control of the second capital of that region was a constant source of contention between the two pantheons. 

And with the Greek Pantheon rarely acting openly, letting the angels get their way most of the time, it meant that the Angelic faction was deeply entangled in the muck of vampire strife. Which meant that if Yasaka couldn't think of a way to link vampires and Youkai as they stand… 

Perhaps she should have added an extra link.

"I need a full report on what’s happening in the last two weeks with the Christian faction." 

Yasaka nodded gravely and glanced at the youkai around her, who had done nothing but just stare at her in confusion. 

"What are you just standing around for?! Kyoto is on the verge of another crisis! Move!"

After barking her order, Yasaka's deputies, advisors, and ministers bowed instantly in a hurry, before quickly going to their workstations. Yasaka noticed how easily the nezumi slipped out of his seat, immediately and pulled out his cell phone, dialing the numbers of their informants.

A phone that, of course, has been strengthened against surveillance, and to work not through the mobile network at all.

However, somehow, contrary to all previous years when the sight of such a working machine had filled Yasaka with confidence, this time looking at such a thing all she could feel was a strange and vague sense of unease.

Seeing that the phone hadn’t suddenly turned into a monster and had eaten the nezumi’s head, Yasaka could only chalk the bad feeling she’s getting to the disaster that she could foresee ahead.

A storm is brewing, and it just had to be the bad Batman cosplayer heralding its coming to Kyoto’s shores.

***

Asia Argento was a faithful junior nun, a sister of consolation and servant of the Lord… Even while excommunicated.

Asia was always a zealous believer in the doctrines of the church and the words of the Lord. But, as is the case with different doctrines and sects, different implementations of those could produce different, sometimes completely opposite results and ideas. And, such differing results and ideas ended up serving different people’s sins. 

After all, the Lord's servants were also people, and where there were people, there was human imperfection. Struggles for power, underhanded politics and self-serving decisions have been made, which by definition, couldn’t satisfy all the parties involved in this process.

In particular, of all the ideas of Christianity, Catholicism, to be more precise, and to be even more precise, the Spanish branch of the Catholic Women's Congregation of the Daughters of Charity have differing ideas. 

With the greatest of piety, Asia treated the words ‘Do no harm’ and ‘Love thy neighbor as you love yourself’, words that she had taken as her core beliefs. Such belief may have been influenced by Asia's own life story, abandoned at the gates of the church and raised from the beginning of her life in the vows of the church and the charity of her sisters. 

Asia always treated her neighbors with all the charity she could muster, remembering the words ‘love the sinner, hate the sin.’ 

When a fortuitous event caused her to manifest her [Sacred Gear] and she had gained the ability to heal people, Asia's life was literally predestined and paved beneath her feet. Demonstrating mercy has never been easier than having the ability to truly heal wounds.

Unfortunately, as is so often the case, people's best laid plans are ruined by the little things along the way.

During all of Asia's education and training in mercy, her teacher forgot to make an important note in her education. That mercy should not be extended to all those in need, but exclusively those who had been pre-selected by the church to be healed. 

No matter how hypocritical that might have sounded, they are only human, after all. 

And among such restrictions, the healing of a Devil was perhaps the greatest taboo. The breaking of which had resulted in the ‘Holy Maiden’ to be excommunicated from her small town in Spain, to be kicked out of the only place she had ever known.

Fortunately for Asia, in the current times, excommunication didn't mean certain death or a combat squad of the Inquisition sent to save her soul, by killing her before she could commit more sins. But unfortunately for Asia, dodging immediate death didn't guarantee Asia anything more. 

Finding herself on the streets and outside the confines of her home, the girl who had grown up in the cloisters of a church, was suddenly confronted with a harsh real world for which she was completely unprepared for.

However, her reputation as the ‘Holy Maiden’ was not something that the church could easily get rid of. After a couple of days of wandering, a kindly elderly gentleman found her in a shelter for the homeless and lost, after which he offered her to return to the church again, even to contact the angels directly…  

Sadly, the churches would be abandoned churches, and the Angels would possess wings of a suspiciously dark color. But if she had already sinned and healed a Devil, and had been declared a heretic herself, what did she care about being among other heretics, excommunicated from Divine Grace?

Thus began Asia's work among the Fallen Angels and their allies in the human world. It was a life of constant and frequent travels as she healed tattered bodies, and blasphemous apostates alike. 

But, as always, Asia Argento kept sacred her duty, memorized from her church days, that her excommunication could not erase. ‘Love thy neighbor’, it was not her place to judge. Such a privilege only belonged to the Lord, and thus Asia kept healing.

And, besides, not every Fallen or heretic she encountered was a monster.

There were no such things as irredeemable monsters in Asia’s opinion, and even Fallen Angels acted like humans sometimes, besides the bad; there was definitely some good in them. 

In the course of her work, she had encountered noble heretics, excommunicated only because of disagreements with their superiors, or fallen whose nobility shone brighter than the sun. Of course, not all of them were such, in fact, they’re only a very small minority. But the very fact of their existence, the very fact that among the excommunicated and shamed there were people who embodied the doctrines of the church better than other priests… It made Asia even more convinced that mercy did not belong only to a narrow circle of people,  but had to be shown to all equally. 

Among the low-down sinners, there was sometimes a faith more pure and fierce than among the highest of ecclesiastes.

Asia had traveled all over the known world to where the Fallen Angels had pointed her towards, and had been to eight countries. So when, in her seventeenth year, Asia found herself in Japan at the request of the Fallen Angel Raynare, she did not think much of the mission before her. In her view, it was just business as usual.

She would find companionship, she would treat the wounded and weary, and in a couple of months, she would be off again to another country. Maybe this time she would go to Africa? It was a continent that Asia had never visited before.

Asia realized that this mission would be different from the others when mistress Mittelt, who had picked her directly from the train station, a Fallen Angel that is part of mistress Raynare’s service. She had asked her a rather simple, but strange question.

"Tell me, Asia… Do you believe in God?"

To receive such a question in the circles of fallen angels, especially from a Fallen Angel herself, was a great strangeness. One could even say it was stupidity. What could be reasoned in the matter of ‘faith’ if the existence of God was an objectively proven fact? Asked by a direct creation of His even?

However, Asia answered such a question in the affirmative; after all, she didn't need the approval of the church to continue to keep faith in her heart.

However, as her further practice had shown her, the tests of her faith had only begun the moment she stepped off the platform at the small station near the not-so small town of Kuoh.

Of course, Asia knew of the existence of Devils; after all, curing one had been the start of her journey. 

But Asia was definitely unaware of the existence of Christian Devils, for she had always believed, and been taught, that Devils could not tolerate the touch of holy relics, be it a cross or a Bible. Even the mention of the Lord's name, even just a nickname, not the Name itself, hurt them. 

In the end, even powerless humans could ward off the demonic servant with the words of the Saints.

However, the Bible-reading demon she met in the church, and then the demoness who arrived next, who also engaged in the act, seriously made Asia question this seemingly universally known fact.

What, however, did not put her faith to the test was the fact that the cruelty of the Devils, at least some of them, was not exaggerated. As could be confirmed and attested by the figures of sinners frozen in concrete, their face of anguish preserved forever. 

As Mrs. Mittelt later revealed to her, these were blasphemers atoning for their sins in this way. Asia knew of penitents that would scar their backs bloody, as if such a method could absolve their sins… But to repent by having your entire body encased in stone? That was a first for Asia.

What great sin they have committed could have made them feel the need for such extreme repentance?

Asia’s faith was further tested by the information that the Lord had died many years ago in the war against Lucifer. And Asia knows them to be the truth, for no Angel, fallen or not, would lie about such a thing. Weaponize? Yes, but lie about it? Never. The sons and daughters of the Lord would not betray their Father like that, estranged or no.

However, before this revelation would have completely crushed Asia’s spirit, she was informed that the Lord had ‘gotten better’ somehow, and returned to Earth again. By the way, Mrs. Mittelt had met with him personally, and Mrs. Raynare had even received forgiveness for Falling, directly from him. 

Perhaps Asia herself will also meet him, given that he descended into the world of men and took human form, incidentally, together with his Son.

But after this information, Asia learned that right now, she had arrived, most likely, at her final point of stay, in every sense of the world. 

There could hardly be anything more final than the Judgement Day, could there?

Well, if someone had set out to break Asia’s mind, this unknown person had definitely achieved his goal. The abbess of this church, Mrs. Raynare, had even allowed her to rest in her room for a while. As she herself explained later, Asia was supposed to come to this church to perform some kind of ritual of sorts, well that’s not happening anymore. 

Under the current circumstances, all of Mrs. Raynare’s past plans were so petty and unimportant that Asia was only here rather accidentally, involved in all these big events by happenstance. Like a small fly stuck with all its paws in a huge web, Asia would have a front row seat to the End of Days. 

On the other hand, Lord Demiurge and Lady Albedo, not to mention Father, had allowed Asia to arrive in this church, so perhaps the coincidences weren't coincidental after all.

But trying to piece together all the information Asia had been given since she had arrived in Kuoh was only going to give Asia a headache. So, as she slowly devoured one cup of tea after another, Asia tried to make sense of her life at the moment.

She was not doing a very good job of it.

You couldn't give so much world-changing news to one simple nun in one day!

So all Asia could hope for was that after the twelfth cup of tea, she would be able to regain her senses. And that, after a few days, she would gradually be able to reconcile all the information she had been given with what she had learned all her life and return to reality…  

Whatever reality might mean to her by then.

That was what Asia was thinking as she swiftly ran across the church floor. Luckily, at the moment, Lord Demiurge had left the church with plans unknown to Asia, and Lady Albedo and the other three Fallen were busy at the moment. So there was no one around her who could once again share some mind breaking revelation. 

Which meant that she, with a cup of tea in hand, could skip past the sinners encased in concrete in the main hall and once again try to get her mind in order… 

Or at least that's what Asia herself thought. 

The sudden opening of the church's front door cut short such plans of the nun, causing her to squeak in surprise before crashing into the person who had entered. The sudden stop to her movement had caused her steaming cup of tea to be spilled on herself. With a hiss of pain, Asia realized that she had injured herself, the skin that had been splashed by the water quickly turning red. 

"Oh, excuse me! I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking where I am going, are you alright?" The person Asia had just crashed into, a girl along with her friend, unfortunately spoke Japanese. 

A language that Asia knew only superficially at the moment, and so Asia was unable to respond to the girl's words. However, a moment later, when with a faint greenish glow, a ring appeared on Asia’s finger, allowing her to put her hand to her body, instantly removing any signs of the burn and looking up at the girls. 

The girls who were looking at Asia with two pairs of surprised eyes. She could understand the surprise

And although, unfortunately, Asia barely knew any Japanese at this point, somehow she was sure that the girls' next words were inexorably linked to some big secret that Asia had accidentally revealed to the outside world.

"Murayama," Katase's language was incomprehensible to Asia, but even so, she was sure that she knew the meaning of her words, "magic really does exist…"

Murayama glanced at Asia, her ring glittering on her finger, forgetting her desire to give her a helping hand just a moment ago, as she cast an unexpectedly triumphant glance at her friend. 

"Anime doesn’t lie, put your faith in anime!"

These were definitely fellow believers, how could one sound so praiseful unless they are also believers in God?