Chapter 2

Episode 2. Awakening

It had been a long, endless darkness.

His body wouldn’t move, as if he had been wrapped tightly from head to toe. Even when he tried to shout, he couldn’t hear his own voice, as though his ears had been plugged.

Yet strangely enough, it wasn’t uncomfortable.

If anything, it felt warm and cozy.

However, unlike his relaxed body, Michael’s mind was complicated.

This time too… I failed.

Since an unimaginably distant age, Michael had pursued only one goal.

Following Saintess Helena, he had been given the mission of killing demons and saving the world from its end.

There was only one problem.

Not once, from the very beginning until now, had he ever succeeded.

Those fucking demons. Why do they keep getting more cunning every time?

With every failure, Michael gained more information.

He learned.

He improved.

He became stronger.

Yet the ending was always the same.

The fading truth that the world had been saved through Helena’s sacrifice…

And the lies that replaced it, rewritten as a fabricated history.

Even so, Michael challenged fate again and again.

What’s this now?

As he followed the trail of his thoughts, something suddenly appeared before his eyes.

A man with a sharp jawline.

A straight, well-shaped nose.

Eyes that somehow resembled both a puppy and a wolf.

His appearance was exotic, yet he had yellow-toned skin and a perfectly proportioned body.

That’s obviously me.

Standing in front of him was a large man with an honest, dependable-looking face.

And that guy… who was he again?

As the image of the two men became clearer, the scene began to play.

—Michael, how in the world have you managed to keep your sanity?

Thousands of years had been filled with nothing but defeat.

It would have been perfectly normal for an ordinary person to lose their mind.

But Michael had always been too busy reviewing his failures to think much about himself.

Only after many more years passed did he finally discover the answer to that question.

When I think about it, there’s nothing complicated about it.

I just want to lessen Lady Helena’s suffering.

It was all for Helena.

It was simple.

But nothing could possibly be stronger than that for Michael.

Others might think it strange, but it was the driving force that allowed him to rise again no matter how many endless failures he suffered.

Wait.

Then… what exactly is Lady Helena to me?

It was the first time such a question had crossed his mind, even after staining his hands with the blood of hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions—of demons.

The feelings he had now seemed different from simple loyalty.

Respect? Reverence? Trust? Gratitude? Hmm…

Just as he tried to find the right word for this feeling—

Drip.

Something cold touched his forehead.

At the same time, the image of the two men disappeared.

It almost felt as though someone were stopping him, warning him not to think any further.

Right.

No. This isn’t it. Let’s think about something else.

Feeling that going any further would be dangerous, Michael forced those thoughts from his mind.

For a simple lucid dream, this had already gone far too deep.

Pointless imagination would only interfere with what came next.

Before Lady Helena wakes up, I should at least prepare—

Drip.

Once again, something cold brushed across his forehead.

Only then did Michael realize that it was a drop of water.

He frowned.

Why is water dripping on me?

Boom—

Another noise came from somewhere, disturbing Michael’s sleep.

Warm light slowly pressed against his closed eyelids, suggesting that morning had arrived.

There was just one problem.

BOOM—!

That sound was far beyond what could be called simple noise.

Ha… Fuck. It’s only been one damn day.

You insane psychos.

The place where Michael had fallen asleep was a ruined monastery.

The Battle of Lourdes should already have been replaced by a fabricated version of history.

That meant the only ones capable of causing such chaos were demons or the worshippers who served them.

Helena’s sacrifice had driven the demons away, so it should have been far too soon for them to reappear.

That left only the worshippers.

I haven’t even recovered Lady Helena’s remains yet…

The moment that thought crossed his mind, Michael’s eyes snapped open.

Even if white flames didn’t work on humans, he had no intention of allowing anyone to touch Helena’s corpse.

If necessary, he would beat them down by force.

A church…?

Instead of the monastery he remembered, an entirely unfamiliar place appeared before his eyes.

The first things he saw were a statue of the Virgin Mary and a massive cross.

Their positions were strangely perfect, almost as if they had been placed there specifically to protect Michael.

And then—

A coffin?

Michael was lying inside an open wooden coffin.

Fortunately, it was much wider than expected, so sitting up wasn’t difficult.

Michael raised himself and frowned.

Perhaps because he had just awakened, his vision was still slightly blurry.

What kind of bastard puts a living person inside a coffin?

No matter how much he thought about it, nobody came to mind.

If demon worshippers had found him, they would have tried to kill him.

And everyone who had followed Michael in Lourdes had already fulfilled their mission.

“He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”

At that moment, a language Michael had never heard before greeted him.

At the same time, sacred light emerged from the rosary ring on Michael’s hand.

It traveled up his arm and entered his ears.

Lady Helena’s blessing activated?

Then this means I’m in another country.

But how is that possible?

There had once been a time when Michael wandered the world in an attempt to save it.

Naturally, language had been an important problem.

To prevent communication difficulties, Helena had given Michael a blessed rosary.

Thanks to it, he could communicate without learning every new language he encountered.

But if that blessing was activating now…

It meant this place wasn’t France.

What the hell happened in a single night?

Still confused, Michael thought about the words he had just heard.

It was a prayer of protection that he also knew.

And then he noticed an empty cup lying on the floor.

It looked like an antique.

But Michael recognized it.

A holy relic.

The Cup of Fulfillment.

Throughout history, there had been countless saints.

Objects left behind by those saints that contained special powers were known as holy relics.

Among them, the Cup of Fulfillment possessed two effects.

Protection and curse-breaking.

It could be used to protect someone.

Or to release something that had been sealed.

If they used this thing, then whatever was happening must have been extremely dangerous…

Michael examined the coffin he had been lying inside.

It was damp, as though water had soaked deeply into it.

Haah.

So that’s why water was dripping on me?

Michael sighed.

The falling droplets.

The open coffin.

Everything pointed toward a possibility he desperately didn’t want to believe.

So there’s a possibility that they woke me up from some kind of seal.

Hmm.

He had thought he had simply fallen asleep.

But apparently, he had been sealed.

No wonder the lucid dream had felt far too vivid to be an ordinary dream.

Once he reached that conclusion, Michael finally began paying attention to his surroundings.

“Grrrrrrr…”

The first thing he heard was a raw growl, like that of a wild beast.

Michael turned toward the rough breathing.

Did some insane god recreate the entire world while I was sleeping?

Standing there were people dressed somewhat similarly to the clergy Michael knew, though their clothing was noticeably different.

And facing them…

Were humans possessed by demons.

Demons never appeared the day after Helena’s sacrifice.

But if I was sealed, then it wouldn’t be strange if years had already passed.

I just hope I haven’t woken up too late.

Michael only hoped he still had enough time to prepare for the next apocalypse.

The people who appeared to be priests were probably the ones who had awakened him.

But Michael had no intention of playing along with whatever plans they had.

Those things are lower or middle-ranking demons at best.

If priests can’t even deal with them, they should hand over their robes.

And I have no interest in being dragged around by someone else.

Michael quietly climbed out of the coffin and looked around for an exit.

Starting from the magnificent cross towering behind his coffin, he saw rows of pews and windows painted with sacred images.

As his gaze moved across the church—

“Grrrr! Hand over the remains!”

Whoosh—!

One of the demons suddenly launched itself forward.

With movements as quick and savage as a wild beast, it lunged toward the priests.

“Because the Lord is my God, He shall deliver me!”

The priests began reciting a prayer.

Sacred energy rippled around them like heat haze.

The familiar sensation immediately caught Michael’s attention.

Ahura.

Prayer was the most common posture of those who followed Catholicism.

Through prayer, people accumulated sacred energy.

The power that allowed them to produce miracles using that stored energy was known as Ahura.

Prayers helped shape Ahura and made divine power easier to control.

In simple terms, prayers acted like pathways for the energy.

But that’s way too weak.

There’s nowhere near enough Ahura.

Slash—!

“Urgh!”

Just as Michael had predicted, the barrier formed from Ahura was torn apart by the demon’s sharp claws.

Once the steady supply of Ahura was forcibly interrupted, the priests could no longer endure it.

Some collapsed onto the floor.

Others stumbled helplessly.

It’s over.

Just how much did the standard drop while I was gone?

Deciding there was nothing more worth watching, Michael was about to turn his head away.

Unless they were Helena or the comrades Michael himself had raised, he had little interest in ordinary humans.

“Cough! It’s not over yet!”

“I, Anastasia, child of God, offer my prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel.”

“Protect us in battle against evil…”

Huh?

There was a female priest here too?

The voice he heard was soft and feminine.

As far as Michael knew, the stubbornly conservative religious world only allowed women to become nuns.

However, among the priests who had fallen into despair, she alone continued praying with eyes that had not yet given up.

“Help us against the schemes of the Devil.”

The barrier concentrated in front of her contained even less Ahura than those created by the priests who had just fallen.

There should have been nothing to expect from someone who possessed so little Ahura.

And yet…

Michael couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Thump.

Thump.

Michael’s heart suddenly began beating violently.

Others might not have recognized her.

But there was one appearance that Michael could never forget.

Lady Helena?

It was Helena.

The Helena he had seen just before falling asleep.

“Keh-heh! Is that pathetic barrier really the best you can do? It’s worse than an insect!”

Meanwhile, Sia, the priest facing the demon alone, clenched her teeth.

Just as the mocking demon said, the Ahura gathering around her was neither pure nor properly refined.

The amount of Ahura infused into the barrier was also extremely small.

Even if her prayer was not yet complete, there was no denying how weak it was.

No matter what happens, we have to defend this place!

There was a reason Sia and the priests had desperately fought to stop the demons here.

This was where the remains of a saint had been hidden.

If those remains fell into the hands of demons, there was no telling what kind of disaster might occur.

They absolutely had to stop them.

Even if they get through me, the Cup of Fulfillment should buy us some time.

Using the holy relic known as the Cup of Fulfillment, Sia had placed a barrier around the coffin so no one could touch it.

However, while it could protect the coffin, it wasn’t enough to destroy the demons that had caused the problem in the first place.

“Stop resisting and hand over the remains!”

Growing tired of Sia’s continued silence, the demon swung its claws once again.

“I beg you to pray that the Lord may command the Devil!”

Sia completed the final line of her prayer in preparation.

And then—

BAM—!

“Kyaaah!”

A sudden impact struck Sia.

She screamed as she was sent flying across the floor.

Michael had suddenly appeared behind her.

He frowned deeply as he stared at Sia with obvious displeasure.

“Fuck. You scared the hell out of me. I thought you were Lady Helena.”

Skin as pale as white jade, as though it had never once been touched by sunlight.

Eyes that glittered as if they contained the Milky Way.

Curly hair that fell all the way down to her chest.

Sia was undoubtedly beautiful.

But now that Michael had seen her up close, she looked nothing like Helena.

Her aura.

Her appearance.

Everything about her belonged to a completely different person.

Well, if it really were Lady Helena, she would’ve reincarnated with a different appearance anyway.

Helena, who had sacrificed herself in France, had most likely reincarnated into another body as she always had before.

Maybe my eyesight got worse because I just came out of a seal.

No.

Even then, mistaking someone else for Lady Helena was too much.

While reflecting on his mistake, Michael blinked several times.

Then he turned toward the demon—

And launched himself forward.

In the blink of an eye, Michael reached out and grabbed the demon directly by the face.

“Mmph! Mmph!”

The demon infused demonic energy into its claws and swung them at Michael.

Michael drew Ahura through his entire body and repelled the demonic energy.

“What a load of bullshit.”

Michael scratched his head.

Somehow, he had ended up saving Sia and getting involved with the demon.

“I don’t like getting dragged into annoying situations like this…”

He paused.

Then his expression changed.

“But even if it’s been a while, I should still do what needs to be done, right?”

Ahura began flowing from his back.

It traveled down his arm and gathered in the hand gripping the demon.

Michael looked down at Sia, who was lying on the floor.

“A priest who doesn’t even know how to properly control Ahura?”

“The world really has gone to hell.”

Then, as though demonstrating a technique to a junior, Michael allowed Ahura to gather in his hand.

White flames began rising from it.

“Watch carefully.”

“You don’t simply pull Ahura out.”

“Its purpose changes depending on how you control it.”

The white flames burned brighter.

“Like this.”

Michael spoke the name of the technique.

“Ignícŭlus [Igniculus].”

The white flame that purified all calamity and evil—

once again appeared in the world.