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Chapter 263

She was strangely antagonistic toward the very existence of archangels.

Despite being one herself.

I had once seen Luna get angry when we encountered the demon Diablo in the previous Holy Kingdom.

But unlike then, when her anger was directed at Diablo, this time as she destroyed the statue of the Archangel Michael, she seemed far colder and more composed.

“Archangel Michael… That broken one over there?”

“The rest of those goddamn bastards.”

Her assessment came without a shred of hesitation.

She spent a long while venting her anger, smashing Michael’s statue to pieces, before letting out a short breath.

Then she slumped to the ground with a sigh.

“So, did you find the ring?”

“Not yet.”

Laplace’s Compass never fails to locate its target.

But there was no trace of the ring in this place.

I had embedded a spell on Fate Lord the last time it shifted dimensions.

If the ring were really here, I would’ve sensed it the moment we arrived.

As I glanced around, something odd caught my eye among the statues lined along both walls.

“Luna. Why’d you leave that one alone?”

Among all the destroyed statues, there was one archangel statue that remained untouched by Luna.

It depicted a girl holding a beautifully crafted lyre, with three pairs of wings spread behind her.

Unlike the other statues, it stood alone with an air of dignity in the inner part of the sanctuary.

“I don’t plan on smashing that one.”

“Who is it? She’s pretty.”

At my innocent remark, Luna’s eyes narrowed.

“Now that I think about it, maybe I should smash it, just to be fair…”

“Relax, I was just joking. But seriously—any reason why?”

She had obliterated all the other archangel statues without a second thought.

Raphael’s statue—the Archangel of Healing and God’s Left Hand—seemed to have been destroyed for reasons unrelated to her.

But this one alone had been left untouched, and that piqued my curiosity.

“She’s the angel who sings of God. Her music soothes the world’s worries and calms sorrow. This is the sanctuary of Archangel Remiel.”

“Hm?”

“Remiel, to put it simply, was an outsider among the archangels.”

Ah.

So she was the outcast?

That’s fascinating in its own way.

Hearing insider secrets about archangels from an archangel herself… if the Holy Kingdom's clergy heard this, they’d be drooling all over their scrolls trying to write it all down.

“I thought archangels didn’t have egos?”

“They acted solely by God’s will. But Remiel was… a bit different, even among the archangels.”

Difference is often met with rejection.

That phrase doesn’t just apply to archangels.

But while all others obeyed the divine commands without question, Remiel would sometimes refuse to follow them.

“I didn’t understand it then, but now I do.”

“Any stories to go with that?”

Since meeting Barva, we hadn’t really faced anything that blocked our path.

Luna stayed silent, seemingly unwilling to speak.

But soon, she began to speak slowly.

“Long ago, a demon once manifested in a small village, gravely injured.”

Ooh, an old tale.

This sounds interesting.

Activating the sealed inner gate of the sanctuary, Luna quietly brushed her hand over the nearby statue of Remiel as she began to recount a long-forgotten tale.

The demon, on the verge of death, was saved by a girl from that village.

Despite her own harsh life, the girl brought the demon home and nursed him back to health.

Eventually, he recovered.

The demon, grateful for her kindness, vowed to protect her for as long as she lived.

Of course, she was just a girl from a remote village.

There wasn’t much reason for a demon to wreak havoc in her life.

It wasn’t something that would directly violate divine law.

She had no other family.

So the demon became her family—her brother, her father.

As they grew closer, they comforted one another—father and daughter, friend and friend.

They lived in peace.

The demon taught the girl many things he knew.

Among them, she showed the greatest aptitude for medicine.

“A demon teaching medicine?”

“Well, it is a world where demons can be high priests.”

“Fair point.”

Not all angels are good, and not all demons are evil—that’s just a stubborn prejudice.

Creeeaaak!

As the massive stone gate began to open, Luna glanced at the compass again and continued forward.

Whatever tricks or traps lay in the sanctuary, they were no obstacle to her.

She navigated them as naturally as breathing.

“So? What happened after that?”

“Around that time, a war broke out near their village. Two major noble houses within the kingdom had started a civil war. One night, a wounded nobleman came seeking help.”

The girl, whose medical skills had become somewhat famous, treated the nobleman.

In return, he expressed his gratitude and left.

The trouble began afterward.

For some reason…

After the noble left and the war ended, someone unexpected came for the girl.

“The prince of the kingdom had heard rumors about her and summoned her to the royal palace. The demon, worried about the beautiful girl, wanted to go with her. But he was still unwell, and she insisted on going alone.”

He was unwell?

“His wounds weren’t something simple treatment could fix. Anyway, she went, and she kept sending letters to the demon regularly. She said she had treated the royal family and, as a reward, had been allowed to attend the medical academy she had always dreamed of.”

She stopped walking.

They had reached the end of the sanctuary.

She gazed up at the statue of the girl playing the lyre.

“The letters kept coming. For a year, then two. But on the fourth year, the letters suddenly stopped.”

The demon, whose health had deteriorated, could no longer bear the anxiety.

He eventually left the village and headed for the capital where she was staying.

There, he heard the news.

She had been branded a witch and executed in the public square.

The demon was said to have been completely shattered.

“To the demon, she was like a precious daughter. And then, suddenly, she was dead.”

“Yeah, back then, there were a lot of unjust executions like that.”

Overwhelmed with grief, the demon used all his strength—without regard for the consequences—to investigate the truth behind her death.

And eventually, he found out.

"A prince, who was enamored by the girl's beauty, tried to take her for himself. But when she rejected and fled from him, the enraged prince accused her of being a witch and brought her to the Inquisition."

At that time, witch trials were far from fair—they were nothing short of madness.

And so the girl was quickly branded a witch, dragged to the center of the square while being pelted with stones by the crowd, and ultimately burned at the stake.

It seemed the prince was someone who ruthlessly killed anyone who displeased him.

The demon, upon learning the truth, was filled with extreme rage.

"The demon must've gone berserk."

"The culprit was the prince—the one set to become the next king. But that didn’t matter to the demon."

"Of course not."

"Especially since the demon was powerful—on par with an archangel-level commander. Killing the prince would’ve been nothing for him. But he couldn’t."

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The reason was simple.

The Descent of the Archangels.

There was a law that upper-ranked angels and demons were not to recklessly use their power in the human world.

The demon was a powerful one—greater than a legion commander.

Even though he was dying, the extent of his power was far beyond what a mere kingdom could withstand.

When the enraged demon moved to kill the prince...

Three archangels descended to subdue him.

Michael, the Right Hand of God and His strength.

Raguel, the archangel in charge of life and the flames of death.

And finally, Uriel, the archangel of divine knowledge.

The demon was eventually overpowered.

Kneeling before a human prince, he shouted at the archangels who arrogantly stood above him in the heavens:

Was it truly God's will that such a kind and gentle girl should be driven to her death? Even though many others had perished at the hands of that monstrous human, why had they not punished him?

Michael, the archangel who thrust his spear into the demon’s heart, uttered words that even Luna, in the heavens, had heard:

"Do not question the will of God. The fate determined by Him is not for mere mortals to judge or alter."

The prince began spreading word that the archangels had protected him, solidifying his political standing.

There, the demon screamed in despair.

He begged God to let him punish the monster.

He pleaded desperately for permission.

But in the end, he could not fulfill his wish.

Once impaled by an archangel's spear, even he had no way to endure.

Eventually, the demon died, and the prince claimed that the demon who had threatened him was defeated by divine protection, declaring his noble existence as sanctioned by God.

The archangels only carried out God's will and made no effort to interfere in the changes or consequences that would occur in the human world as a result.

Perhaps God saw something else.

Perhaps the sacrifice of those two would become the beginning of some greater event in the future.

But what of the two who were sacrificed?

Luna’s rebellion against the system of the world stemmed from such reasons.

"A long time ago, I lost two people who were precious to me in a similar way. But while I resent God, I don’t hate Him."

"Why not?"

"Because I don’t have any expectations. On the other hand, there are still those who align with God's will."

That cold demeanor Luna showed to those who had once tried to take her life—perhaps that’s where it came from.

In the end, everyone fell silent at the tragic conclusion.

Everyone but one.

One archangel, who sang of God's blessing, chose action over silence.

"Leon. Are you familiar with the kingdoms that aren’t even mentioned in the history books?"

"There are a few... Wait. Are you saying this has something to do with this region—oh."

It wasn’t long before an archangel descended upon the royal capital again.

And then...

The royal family of that kingdom was wiped from existence, leaving not even a pile of ashes behind.

"That wasn’t an act of God. It was her own decision."

An archangel with no will of her own, one who simply followed God’s will, would never have done such a thing.

But she, without hesitation, punished them—cast the prince and all those involved into hell—and soothed the souls of the wrongly killed girl and the demon.

"I don’t know exactly what became of her after that."

"But didn’t you say all the archangels are still active?"

"If you count me, then yeah, I guess so."

True—Luna, an archangel herself, was still standing right next to me.

So what did that even mean?

I had no idea such hidden stories existed among the archangels.

If what she said was true, that archangel of melody might as well be considered dead.

"I hate archangels. Their very existence pisses me off. But... I don’t hate Remiel."

At her bitter, unfiltered words, I slowly approached the statue.

Then, I gently swept across it with the Heart of the Machine God.

Luna hadn’t said anything, but there were similar temple ruins scattered all across the continent.

But the divine beast Barva had never once appeared.

It might’ve been because of Luna’s presence—but I had a feeling that wasn’t the only reason.

“Ngh... Doesn’t look like it’s here either…”

Luna muttered gloomily, rummaging through some old boxes in a corner of the temple.

That’s when it happened.

A change occurred in the information being transmitted through the Heart of the Machine God.

...Huh?

I began receiving data from deep inside the statue.

And then, I came into contact with something inside.

—Can you hear me?

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