Kyrie cut down with the crystalline holy sword wrapped in lightning reinforcement.

Crack!

Current scattered from the sword tip and cut through Golden Rose’s thorn vines.

“Guh……!”

Golden Rose raised her eyebrows and hunched her shoulders.

Immediately, new vines surged from her waist, shoulders, and spine.

Dozens of thorn vines thrust mercilessly toward Kyrie.

Kyrie laid his sword horizontally and then hurled himself forward.

Radiant Wheel.

Tskraaaaaak!

Kyrie, transformed into a disk of current, chopped the flying vines into pieces one after another.

[“I beseech by name! Scatter, petals!”]

Golden Rose cried out urgently.

Her hand went down to her waist and grasped a grenade engraved with golden ornamentation.

[“Golden-Season Grenade!”]

Clang!

The next moment, the cave was dyed in dazzling golden light.

The grenade exploded, and flames like roses bloomed in full.

Not white cross-shaped radiance, but golden petals scattered and created a storm of steel and flame.

Boom!

The cave shook as if an earthquake had struck.

Golden fragments poured in every direction like a rainstorm.

“Guh!”

The Blue Knights and the corrupted cadets all staggered, but Kyrie did not retreat an inch.

“Hoo!”

Tzzzzzz!

The magnetic field twisted the trajectory of the fragments, and the Sacheol shield surged like black slime and swallowed every fragment flying toward him.

When the shield withdrew and Kyrie’s face was revealed, there was not a speck of dust on it.

Rather, the marksman school cadets swept up in the shockwave groaned with small wounds here and there.

Step. Step. Step.

Kyrie advanced.

Lightning reinforcement pulsed along the blade, raising a lethal haze.

“Surrender.”

“Ugh…….”

Golden Rose’s eyes shook.

She looked around for a moment, then violently shook her head.

[“■■■■■!”]

The next moment, a mental wave burst out.

The cave rang loudly as if about to collapse, and golden petals scattered like a storm.

Crack! Crunch!

Golden Rose’s body changed.

Her whole body was covered in rose thorns and vines, and the form of a giant thorn-tree rose up.

This is…….

Blue Hydrangea instinctively hunched her body.

The image of her elegant sister vanished, and within the dazzling golden petals, a grotesque monster lurked.

“Aaaaagh!”

“Aaagh!”

The nearby corrupted cadets screamed.

The mental wave spread like a hive mind.

“Senior, no!”

“Stop, stop!”

[“----, --!”]

[“-----!”]

They too did not want it, but their bodies twisted as they burst out waves by force.

“Uuugh!”

“Guh!”

The Blue Knights, struck by the mental waves, clutched their temples and sank to their knees.

“Retreat!”

Kyrie shouted.

He too had his vision darkened by large and small hallucinations.

The Blue Knights all withdrew at once.

Click-clack.

At that moment, Blue Hydrangea raised her musket.

Even with trembling hands, she loaded it one step at a time and sought power according to her contract.

[“Guided technique.”]

[“Penetration technique, layered.”]

[“Explosive technique, layered.”]

[“Ignition technique, layered.”]

Blue mana seeped into the gun barrel and flames arose.

“Hydrangea?”

The thorn giant turned her head.

Golden Rose’s voice rang from within the monster’s form.

Still soft, still intimate.

“I’m sorry.”

Blue Hydrangea’s hands no longer trembled.

The reason she had not been able to take her hand.

Now she knew it too.

Even if Golden Rose wins, she probably won’t kill me. But if His Highness Kyrie wins, he may kill Golden Rose and all the sisters. If I am to say even one word then, I must establish some merit, whatever it is.

Cold reason and boiling emotion, through different processes of thought, gave the same answer.

“You can bloom forever, so why do you refuse? It was what you always wanted!”

“Yes. It was. But I did not want to be a flower that blooms forever. I wanted to be a flower that blooms beautifully, even if only for a single day.”

“For whom?”

“Not for anyone, and not for anything. Just……”

Blue Hydrangea looked at Golden Rose even as she shed tears.

“……They say one might be able to gain everything without losing anything. Once I heard such a story, I can no longer sacrifice even a single thing.”

Booooom!

Blue flame erupted from the musket.

A vivid blue hydrangea bloomed in full.

Thousands of blue flames, split and split again, pierced straight through the thorn-vine giant’s body.

“Aaaaaagh!”

The flames wrapped around the vines.

The massive body staggered and shook the cave.

“Now!”

Blue Hydrangea shouted toward Kyrie.

Kyrie did not make a mistake.

Thunk!

Magnetic Railshot ionized gas flew, drawing a blue-green trajectory.

Shweeeeeek!

That trajectory embedded itself straight into Golden Rose’s chest.

You were beautiful to begin with.

Watching that sight, Blue Hydrangea quietly shed tears.

The vacant lot before the cave turned into a field hospital.

Blue Hydrangea dragged out her corrupted sisters one by one.

Cadets with vines sprouting from their arms, cadets with flower buds budding on their foreheads, cadets with flowers blooming like wreaths over their entire heads.

“Senior. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t know things would grow this large.”

“No. I knew. I should have stopped Senior Golden Rose.”

They all shed tears when they saw Blue Hydrangea.

“Enough. It is not your fault. Tomorrow’s flowers will bloom tomorrow. For now, let us thank the White Flower Star for the fact that everyone survived.”

Blue Hydrangea rejected their apologies and approached Kyrie, who stood far away.

“Your Highness. The fact that our sisters became like this is all our fault. They are children raised since childhood to become marksmen. Please understand that they have no choice but to do what their seniors tell them.”

She bowed her head politely yet brazenly.

The one who could forgive the sisters now was not her.

“If Your Highness understands the circumstances of our sisters, I believe I too can understand the circumstances of Regimental Commander Jo’s accounting ledger. I propose an exceptional price negotiation.”

“……Ha!”

A pleasant smile briefly settled in Kyrie’s eyes.

“I understand. Our Blue Knights too carry out charges risking their lives according to the will of the constellations. All the more so if it is the words of seniors they clash with every day while living.”

He answered calmly.

“Thank you for saying so. I will repay this grace several times over.”

Blue Hydrangea bowed again and again, vowing that she would gladly pay a great price.

“My lord!”

At that moment, a baggage carriage loaded full with holy water arrived.

“There is a limit to applying it only on the surface.”

Kyrie checked the bottles of holy water and approached Blue Hydrangea.

“I know.”

Blue Hydrangea took one deep breath and drew her bayonet.

“Joi.”

“Yes, Lady Blue Hydrangea?”

“If one is attendant rank, one can withstand ordinary bleeding, can’t one? I ask because it is different from a gunshot wound.”

“Yes? Th-that is true, it is.”

While Joi looked bewildered, Blue Hydrangea firmly held down the cadet fallen beside her.

Stab!

And then she carved away the mutated flesh of the leg ruthlessly.

“What are you doing?! I said she could withstand bleeding, not endure being butchered!”

Joi screamed.

“But there is no choice, is there? You know that too.”

Blue Hydrangea did not stop cutting even as blood soaked her to the wrists.

She called a medic with red curly hair.

“Red Willow, hold that side.”

“Y-yes!”

Red Willow nodded with a pale face.

The two swung their knives side by side and continued the “surgical treatment.”

“Aaaaagh!”

“Guuugh!”

The cadets’ screams echoed through the forest.

“Endure it.”

Blue Hydrangea did not waver.

When insects swarmed, one pruned the branches in winter.

A short while later.

At one side of the vacant lot, roots, flowers, and vine pieces that had been cut away were piled like a mountain.

Blue Hydrangea burned them all.

“Fortunately, it has not spread to the spine yet. If it had progressed that far, they would have died of excessive bleeding before we cut everything out. Truly fortunate.”

She said, shaking off her bloodied hands.

“One person may have progressed that far.”

Kyrie looked toward the forest.

Red blood and yellow rose petals continued along the path.

They were traces of Golden Rose’s escape.

“What do you plan to do now?”

Kyrie asked.

Blue Hydrangea knew that this question was not a reproach.

“I will catch the spy of the Myriad Star Church first.”

Kyrie nodded.

That night.

At dawn, when everyone slept.

Blue Hydrangea called Red Willow deep into the forest.

“Why did you betray us?”

Red Willow’s eyes went round.

“I, I……”

“Do not lie. You have no talent for it.”

Blue Hydrangea’s voice was low and cool.

After a brief silence, Red Willow poured out tears.

“Sniff, Senior Golden Rose…… handed out a strange drug. Anyone could see it was an object of heresy. If the entire school was not to be branded a den of heresy…… I had no choice but to cooperate with the Myriad Star Church.”

Blue Hydrangea closed her eyes and opened them.

“That was faster than I expected.”

She looked up at Kyrie, who was watching from one side.

“The medics are all devout. Conversely, their aggression is low. There is almost no chance they would follow Golden Rose on their own feet.”

She quietly patted Red Willow’s back.

Ten times, a hundred times.

The splendid Rebellion cathedral.

The stained glass received the sunlight and dyed the entire hall golden, but Kyrie, walking beneath it, was gripped by pitch-black anxiety.

With this much, we cannot drive it as a deviation by a minority.

He thought of the marksman school cadets covered in blood.

That was clearly something the Myriad Star Church should have managed.

What do I do?

But he had already promised Blue Hydrangea.

To complete the Electromagnetic Railgun, he also needed her support techniques.

He could not withdraw, but somehow, he had to set up a countermeasure.

Kyrie walked down the cathedral’s long corridor, cold sweat trickling.

His face was pale, and his lips were firmly pressed shut.

Creeeak.

The reception room door opened.

Saint Deneb entered.

“You have come.”

His voice was still bright, but his expression was as stiff as Kyrie’s.

A face gone white, beads of sweat running down his forehead.

Why is he like that?

Kyrie inwardly tilted his head.

Saint Deneb felt the same.

Was I caught? Was I caught? Truly caught? Oh, Myriad Star!

His vision went distant.

Contact with Red Willow had been severed.

The intuition that he had been discovered froze his heart.

The original plan had been as follows.

Plant mutant demonic beasts in the marksman school, then pin that crime on Kyrie.

If Andromeda and Erica were bound up together, he could move three houses at once at this Elector Princes Council.

If their existing alliance, the Royal Family Stellite, was added to that, a new order led by the church would be created in a single stroke.

The plan itself had been excellent.

But the Myriad Star Church must not move in that way.

Doctrine is doctrine because it does not compromise.

Just as Rikenta chose death rather than having freedom taken away, just as the Blue Knights did not hesitate to make suicidal charges while calling it the will of the constellations.

If they neglected evil apostates for the sake of the organization’s interests, that was no different from the great houses they despised.

The Myriad Star Church had become the same as those whose leashes it sought to tighten.

Saint Deneb suffered enough to want to die.

Therefore, there was only one choice.

He bowed his head before Kyrie.

“Your Highness has illuminated the darkness that our insufficient church failed to shine upon. I sincerely thank you. As an Inquisitor bearing episcopal rank, I bestow upon Your Highness the title ‘Defender of the Faith.’”

“……What?”

Kyrie’s eyes widened.

Why is this bastard doing this?

“Defender of the Faith” was not a simple honorary post.

The right to receive treatment for bodily losses that consumed enormous divine power.

The right to purchase holy water first, at a ten-percent discount.

Even the right to open a religious trial on behalf of a priest in the priest’s absence.

【Hero’s Journey Step 12】

【Step 5: Attend the Elector Princes Council】

【Detailed Objective 3: Protector of the Church!】

【Impose a political debt upon the Myriad Star Church.】

【Reward upon success: Thunderbolt Body increases by 100%】

【Punishment upon failure: Thunderbolt Body decreases by 100%】

Immediately afterward, a blood-boiling joy shook his entire body.

【Thunderbolt Body (2,200% ‣ 2,300%)】

The thrill of the Thunderbolt Body surging.

……This counts as success?

Kyrie could not understand to the end.

Saint Deneb was the same.

I survived.

Somehow, I got through it.

If he had kept digging, I might have been excommunicated.

If I had been pushed all the way, I might have placed a political burden on His Holiness. This much is getting off cheaply.

Both turned inwardly and outwardly from the cathedral in relief.

Creeeak.

When Kyrie opened the cathedral’s main door and came out, Blue Hydrangea was waiting.

“Did you have a good conversation?”

Kyrie nodded.

“Yes. But it is not over.”

“Yes?”

“We must catch Golden Rose too. We cannot let her go as she is, can we?”

Blue Hydrangea’s poker face broke at once.

The expectation that perhaps she really could protect every sister, and awe toward Kyrie for calculating even such a minor detail, bloomed like flowers.

She bowed her head and hid the tears flowing down her cheeks.

“I am sorry.”

“For what? It was something worth crying over. Even I might have cried if a commander of equal rank whom I introduced to my employer turned out to be an enemy. It is far too awkward.”

“I will ensure she cannot escape and say whatever she likes elsewhere. For the sake of my sisters.”

“And for my sake too. Good omission.”

“Why must you say that? Even so, thank you for your consideration.”

“It means show me results, not words.”

Kyrie walked down the main avenue side by side with Blue Hydrangea.

Chapter 205

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