A Shadow Cast in Paradise - Chapter 40

Riana went outside to get a small towel and a water bottle to bring to Sched’s room, as Werner had suggested.

Although no one had told her, Riana roughly knew where the servants stayed and where things were kept.

The small building next to the annex that the heretic had destroyed.

Long ago, it was a building built for servants to use in the Count Ideana household.

“Mi-Miss Riana…!”

At that moment, Riana stopped and turned her head at the sound of someone calling her.

“Grand Priest…? May God be with you.”

Riana clasped her hands together, took a step back, and bowed her head.

“Oh, oh, you don’t have to do that. Ah, what manners for someone who’s sick…!”

Dietrich waved his hand at Riana’s gesture, then awkwardly approached.

Though he was the Grand Priest, his appearance was not authoritative but rather friendly, yet Riana still felt uncomfortable.

Whenever she faced him, she naturally became tense, worried about her dark magic being discovered.

‘Fortunately, it seems he can’t detect it unless there’s physical contact…’

Until now, she hadn’t had the chance to encounter Dietrich because he had been so busy.

He had to re-establish the protective barrier, finish purifying the necessary areas, and also oversee the reconstruction of the damaged temple.

But as long as they were in the same Paradel, she couldn’t avoid him forever.

Riana tried to gauge why Dietrich had called out to her.

Just then, a round cluster of purple flowers suddenly appeared before her eyes.

“Co-congratulations on getting much better…”

When Riana looked up with surprised eyes, Dietrich awkwardly smiled and held out the purple allium.

The allium, which had bloomed as large as Riana’s head, showed off an elegant light, clumped like cotton.

“Um…”

“Do-don’t you like flowers?”

As Riana hesitated to accept the allium, Dietrich stammered and asked.

“No, that’s not it, but…”

“I-I found it blooming when I went to purify the forest and picked it… The fact that the flower has bloomed this big means that the Ideana land has re-recovered quite a bit, so I was glad…”

Riana nodded her head, looking at the large single stem of allium.

As he said, it would mean that the Paradel had gained enough vitality for flowers to bloom so lushly.

Reaching this thought, Riana wondered if it might be alright to accept this meaningful single flower.

Additionally, she suddenly realized that Dietrich was quite awkward in social relationships.

To think of giving a flower as a gift that smells of pungent chives when in bloom.

Riana hesitated, then nodded.

After all, it wouldn’t be polite to ignore the Grand Priest’s sincerity.

“…Thank you, Grand Priest.”

As Riana accepted the allium stem, Dietrich shyly twisted his silver hair.

“And, and I wanted to tell you not to worry about the heretic…!”

Dietrich exclaimed, clenching his fist as if courage had welled up in him.

“We-we’re tracking the heretic with the priests. We’ve made quite some progress. Uh, it will be settled within a month.”

Dietrich smiled, pushing up his glasses.

‘Tracking the heretic…’

The matter of the heretic had been on her mind continuously anyway.

He was the perpetrator, but at the same time a victim, so she was concerned about him.

‘But if he continues to harm people…’

It’s not something that can be overlooked, allowing more victims to emerge.

For the sake of Ideana as well, he… was a problem that needed to be resolved.

Riana, who had been listening to Dietrich’s story, fiddled with her fingertips and then looked up.

“Grand Priest, I’m not sure if I can ask this question, but…”

“A-ask anything! Whether it’s about doctrine, blessings, or pr-prayers…”

“What will happen to the heretic if he’s caught?”

Riana asked.

At that, a seemingly cold light flashed across Dietrich’s face, which had looked naive until just now.

“…He will be judged, of course.”

“Will he die…?”

“Of course! Very painfully at that.”

Dietrich answered for the first time without stammering, in a confident voice.

‘Very painfully.’

This judgment that Dietrich spoke of would probably apply equally to ‘Louise Ideana’.

As her expression sank quite seriously, Dietrich took a step closer to her and spoke as if to comfort her.

“The, the fortunate thing is that he’s not a perfect dark mage. Judging from his behavior pattern, um, he must be in an unstable state.”

“Unstable, you say…?”

To think that he had grasped even the state of the heretic, Dietrich seemed to know more than she had thought.

“The-the reason dark magic is forbidden is because it gains power at the cost of life. There are bound to be various side effects.”

Dietrich didn’t explain the detailed ins and outs.

But Riana could understand his meaning.

“I need sacrifices to live. Human sacrifices.”

If the heretic cannot commit murder, he will eventually be swallowed up by his own power and collapse. The side effects Dietrich mentioned were probably this.

“Self-destruction, that’s the way to condemn dark magic. So, so… In the end, one’s own sin condemns oneself. It will be so painful that you might think it would be better to die quickly.”

Dietrich spoke about the judgment of heretics with a pure smile.

Riana remained silent before him, looking down at her own hands.

“You said he’s in an unstable state. What happens if he’s in a stable state…?”

The ‘finished product’ of dark magic that doesn’t self-destruct.

How would the temple deal with that finished product?

Dietrich blinked at Riana’s question.

Was the question too direct? Riana hastily added words.

“Just in case. If he were a stable dark mage…”

“Th-there’s absolutely no way. Historically, there has been only one dark mage who completely succeeded in the spell.”

“You mean… the demon Mephistopheles?”

Riana recalled a story she had read long ago in the Book of Desiderata.

One who was once a powerful priest, but walked the path of corruption and reached the end of dark magic.

One who is called a ‘demon’, no longer a priest nor human.

Mephistopheles.

“Th-that’s right! You know the doctrine well, Miss Riana!”

“From what I know, I heard that the story after Mephistopheles was sealed was lost. So, is sealing the end…?”

“Yes, sealing. It-it’s the last resort known so far.”

Dietrich continued speaking, seemingly excited about the academic conversation.

There weren’t many who would listen to his stammering story to the end.

Especially when it came to such basic doctrines and research contents.

“The-the method of sealing is very complex and tricky. First, you stab a knife into the demon’s heart, and bind its limbs with chains engraved with prayers. Then you imprison it in a crystal made of holy power to seal it.”

Dietrich was confident that although it was a difficult process, it would surely work without problems.

This was a justified confidence, as the current Grand Priests were considered a blessed generation in the order, being exceptionally talented.

Especially Giselle Marlhein, who was called a saint, was the Grand Priest with the most outstanding holy power in history.

Although her personality might be a bit dirty, she would roll up her sleeves to seal a demon.

After all, she was quite a righteous woman overflowing with enthusiasm and a spirit of challenge.

“That’s how the demon is tra-trapped in eternal pain.”

In the pain of having their heart pierced, in the pain of their body burning as if on fire from holy power, in the pain of not being able to breathe as if drowning, they live eternally without dying.

That’s why the priests called it the ‘hell sentence’.

“Ah, it’s a judgment perfectly suited for a demon. It’s like going to sleep bearing all the pain a human can feel.”

Even if they have strong powers, a demon sealed in the hell sentence becomes powerless, consuming all their energy to regenerate their body.

It’s impossible to wake up again unless someone breaks the seal.

Riana lowered her gaze after hearing Dietrich’s words.

She had known about the ‘hell sentence’ from a very early age.

She had read the scriptures even before realizing she was a demon.

“So Mephistopheles is in pain forever? That’s so pitiful.”

When young Louise whimpered at the story of Mephistopheles she had seen in the scriptures as a child, her father Felix Ideana told his young daughter:

“But he gained eternity.”

Back then, she thought her father meant that ‘such a price must be paid for the sin of gaining eternity’.

But looking back, her father probably meant that ‘eternity is worth gaining even at the risk of that danger’.

Riana had always been afraid of that punishment.

So for a long time, she wandered looking for another way.

A way to truly face death, not sealing.

She worked at Baron Godwin’s house, who had been the librarian of the temple, and also worked for others who had different wisdom.

But after circling around for a long time, the solution remained in place.

“Is Mephistopheles still alive somewhere then?”

Trapped in eternal pain…?

“Um, I suppose so. The-the latter part of the Book of Desiderata is lost, so no-no one knows where Mephistopheles is.”

The last part of the scripture left by the Holy Knight Desiderata ends with the sealing of the demon.

People believed that the location where Mephistopheles was sealed would be written in the lost part.

Many searched for the latter part to satisfy their curiosity and greed.

But in the end, that ending that no one could find.

The whereabouts of the demon that remained only a legend forever.

Riana imagined the demon abandoned alone in eternal pain.

“Um, there’s no need to be scared. I-I will surely catch and punish the heretic…!”

Dietrich gently patted Riana’s shoulder.

At the moment of his touch, Riana flinched.

“…Grand Priest Dietrich.”

A cold and familiar voice was heard from behind.