After leaving the police station, they had been directed by Headcommissar Floy to go to the courthouse to find out about the court date.

It didn't take them long; when they learned that the trial was scheduled for October nineteen, they asked Yu to sign a paper saying that he would attend the trial, and then they let him go.

“Why don't you write?” Yurine asked when she saw Yu staring at the paper.

He picked up a pen and was writing when he suddenly stopped and forgot where he was and what he was doing. Yurine had to tell her what they were doing all over again before he could continue writing.

“Just a distraction, no need to exaggerate.”

He wanted to see it as a simple absent-mindedness, and he didn't want to bother himself with it.

“Of...” He sighed a long sigh. He had been feeling a heavy burden lately and his stress level was increasing day by day. That must have been the reason for his absent-mindedness.

“Don't you think the court date is too late? There must be more than a million people in the country, how many of them will be in court in the next fifteen days? Seriously, it's unbelievable that they postponed it to the nineteen.”

“There are victory holidays coming up, maybe they are on vacation then.”

“You mean the thing for the founding of Rolderhelm? Wasn't that the day of the tournament final?”

Twenty-six October was the anniversary of the founding of the Principality of Rolderhelm.

“The founding of Rolderhelm was a sudden event. There were a few battles won just before that, so a whole week was declared a holiday.”

“Why wasn't any of this in the accelerated world history lessons?”

Yu leaned back. How much had Yurine not told him in class?

“Tch... That's a lot of lessons for free.”

“Wait a minute, you were going to charge me?”

“Did you think you'd get a free education from the best teacher you could find, hmph! You should be thankful for my education so far, but you're being ungrafetul.”

“Ungrafetul...”

“Ah! You! How dare you!”

Yurine slapped her seat with her hand as Yu laughed at Yurine's slip of the tongue.

“Even with a week of festivities, the nineteenth is a long way away, but I feel like it's good.”

Their ship was still in port and they boarded it with half an hour to go.

The first time they traveled by ship, Yu had been stingy and chose to travel on deck instead of getting a room. The second time, he pooled his money with the others to get a room and got a somewhat comfortable room.

Today, feeling bad and unable to put up with the noise of people, he hired a cabin for two people to travel in.

Of course, he was not looking for comfort wherever they went, it was just something he had done to be comfortable for the day, and he still regretted his money.

“We're in the same boat again.”

This was the same ship he had taken on their way to the Wizarding Academy. Their relationship had developed a lot since then.

When their ship left the harbor, Yu closed the curtain on the window. It frightened him that all he could see was the sea.

“The last time we were on this ship we were talking about Mora. You can tell me more if you want.”

“What do you want me to tell you?”

“You said Azer was expelled from heaven. I don't know if knowing this will help me in the future, but I wonder why he was expelled.”

It sounded like a background story in a play. It was nice, even if knowing the story wouldn't affect the gameplay.

“Ah... Your ignorance is killing me.”

“Don't say such things, I don't like that concept.”

He hated the concept of death itself, he would never accept it. Death itself was unjust, why give life if it could be taken away?

“The gods created creatures and endowed their creations with half their power. This was a rule between the gods, and each god was expected to follow it.”

When Yurine's briefing started, Yu leaned his head against the wall and listened. Although he sometimes forgot real history, he never forgot this kind of information. In fact, he knew the history of some games and stories better than the history of some countries in the First World.

“Some gods created so many creatures that they had to divide their power equally among them, and because of the number of creatures created, each of them had a very small share of power. Humans are an example of this.”

“Just as rare things are more valuable.” The distribution of power sounded fair, but why were some people stronger than others? “So, who created the sword fairies?”

“They were not created, they evolved,” she smiled and put her hand proudly on her chest. “Except that I was created by the one most worthy of being a goddess.”

“It evolved... It sounds interesting.”

Yurine had never talked about sword fairies before. He wanted to know something about her kind.

“And which god created human beings?”

As soon as Yu asked the question, Yurine's face fell, the proud expression from before gone. With a pout, she whispered, “Thea.”

“Why is your face suddenly-”

“Let's go back to Azer,” Yurine said. She pulled herself together and cleared her throat.

Yu was curious about the god called 'Thea', but Yurine didn't want to talk about it.

“The elves, for example, although they are of many different kinds, their numbers are small, so they have plenty of the powers of the gods. That is why elves live so much longer than humans, and why they are so much more powerful in magic.”

Yu understood logic, in general things are connected to numbers.

“Azer created only two females, called them Daughters of the Storm and married them. Since Azer shared half of his power with the two females he created, they became demigods, the most powerful beings ever created, and when they combined their power, they were equal to one god.”

“Then what happened?”

“The gods saw Azer and his wives as a threat to their authority and united to expel them from the Kingdom of Heaven.”

It was a story of victimization, but it sounded like it was being told entirely in Azer's favor. To decide which side was right, it was necessary to look at the story from other angles.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“Azer said it was unfair. According to Azer, what he had done was not against the rules, but the gods would not listen to him. So Azer vowed revenge and set out to create bounties that would surpass even the powers of the gods. He intended to give them to his children, but then something unknown happened and they fell into the hands of people who are now called cardinals.”

“But those people worship Azer too, don't they?”

“Yes, they do.”

The leader of the Zodian Religion, which worshipped the storm god Azer, was the Pontifex, and below him, representing the sects, were the cardinals.

“Are there other versions of this story? If so, I'd like to hear them.”

“Azer's sin was not to create a force that would threaten the gods,” Yurine continued. “That is the story he told his own followers. Rhea tells a different story.”

Rhea was the mother goddess of Rolderhelm, worshipped in most parts of the world, with the most followers.

“His sin was too grave, something that neither humans nor the gods could tolerate. The gods regarded their creations as their children, but Azer married them after calling them the Daughters of the Storm.”

He knew this part of the story. Later, the generation that came from those girls was called the Children of the Storm and they are still on Earth.

“The gods are strictly against people marrying their own blood, and in every country except Mora, where Zodian Religion rules, it is forbidden to marry one's own blood. If a relationship between such people is discovered, they are stoned and in some places killed. Very rarely, but in some places there is a seven-generation law, where people are allowed to marry after their families have been traced back seven generations. This story sounds more plausible when you consider that it was not only in the Mora that marrying your own blood was forbidden.”

“Didn't the Storm Kingdom also worship Azer?”

“That's another matter.”

He knew that the Storm Kingdom also worshipped Azer, the Storm God, but there was a sea between it and Mora. So there might have been differences in the way things worked.

“Let's talk about the Mora...” Yu cleared his throat and opened a new topic. “Mora was a theocratic state, ruled by the Andromeda Church. Under the Church were the cathedrals and they were the leaders of the sects. In this country the king was just a representative and his powers were limited. Then the king said he didn't recognize religion and civil war broke out. Is that the case?"

“Yes,” Yurine nodded in agreement.

“Tell me about the King, I wonder what he's like.”

The King had the same name as Yu. He would have liked it to be special to him, but if someone else had it, at least it had to be someone cool.

“As you say, the king is the representative of the country and is elected from the Long Clan.”

“How are kings elected?”

“With the seal.” Yurine showed her own wrist to Yu. “Long Kings have a dragon seal on their wrist. This seal only appears on one male in the entire Long Clan, and when that person dies, it is passed on to someone else. This is how the new king is chosen.”

“Hmm... It's actually a good method, so that kings can easily claim that they get their power from God, but they don't have the authority.”

In some ways it was similar to the kut system. If kings were the sole rulers of the country, their claim to the throne would be too strong for ordinary people to resist.

“The next king to appear with the Dragon Seal was from the Zao branch of the Long Clan. His duties were the same as those of the kings who came before him; he would occasionally mingle with the people, pretend to listen to their problems, talk about how pious he was, and sometimes help them with supplies.”

“Maybe one day I'll be king, it would suit me... If I had a crown on my head, a cape on my back, and then I could sit on the throne with my ass on my back... It would be great, I swear. And if I had a harem, oh, ahem, whatever.”

“All he had to do, you see, was to fulfill the simple duties assigned by the church and, like the kings before him, to sit on his ass and enjoy himself.”

“Of course, comfort makes some people uncomfortable, that asshole must have been looking for action.”

Yu Zao Long, King of the Kingdom of Mora. If Yu were in his place, his life would be worthy to calling “life.” Even though he was only nominally king, he had almost nothing to do. He would just relax all day, not stress himself out, and the biggest action in his life would be to sleep with several members of his harem at the same time.

“I want to do a ‘six one nine’ attack to the justice of this world like Rey Mysterio. Why I can’t have a life like this?”

Yu envied a man he had never seen.

“The new king opposed this order. He said that under Zodia's rule the people had become poorer and religion richer, that the people needed money, not God. The king wanted a country ruled by him, not by the church.”

“Does he really want this for his people or is he using this as an excuse for his lust for power?”

In Yu's eyes, no political figure worked for the people. Yu believed that the desire for fulfillment was at the root of everything, and that politicians were not working for the people, but were trying to gain power to fulfill themselves.

Yu Zao could also be acting for his own self-gratification, using the manipulative rule of religion as an excuse. If that is the case, the only thing that would have changed if he had won would have been who exploited the country.

“He believes it is fate,” Yurine said.

“Fate? If he's convinced himself of that, he might have problems, people like that are unbearable.”

Faith was such a powerful construct that armies would be powerless to destroy it. Yu was a man who wanted to know rather than believe, and whenever he argued with a person who believed rather than knew, he would get angry at the other person's ignorance and end the argument. Eventually, he realized that he couldn't get through to these people and stopped arguing.

“The rumor on the religious side is that there was a witch who was with the king and he was brainwashed by this witch. The witch made him believe that he was the human form of the Great Dragon.”

“The human form of the Great Dragon... Sounds cool, no wonder he wants to believe in such a thing.”

Yu wanted to believe that he was a special person, that he had a mission. Every human being does.

“Since Rie was a cardinal, Yu Zao is your enemy too.”

“Yes, but my mother said he had a point. She too believed that religion was badly run and that they were working to line their own pockets.”

“But wasn't your mother one of Zodia's cardinals? Did she become part of it to reform the religion?”

Rie didn't strike him as a religious woman. Had she really died in pursuit of some absurd ideal of reforming religion? Yu wouldn't want to die for such a cause.

“It was for her own good, she said, that she joined the Zodian religion and rebuilt the Virgo Cathedral.”

“That's a more acceptable reason.”

Yu believed that civilization could only advance if people pursued their self-interest. Of course, to do that, they had to be educated and able to understand what was best for them.

“For what purpose did Rie join the religion?”

“I don't know.”

“What do you mean you don't know?”

“I don't know, she didn't tell me.”

Yu remembered again. He was closer to Yurine as he didn't have many people to be friends with and they talked a lot about their missions and their daily lives.

But Rie saw her as just a child and didn't tell her things that a child doesn't need to know. So Yurine was not aware of some of the information they needed to know to help Rie.

“But I know there was something she wanted to kill.”

“Kill,” he repeated. The word made him uncomfortable. He would never get along with the word.

“You say it's a thing, not a person?”

“I don't know.”

"A system, an order, a wheel, a belief, a kingdom or an entity... The word thing can mean many things."

Could there be a connection between what Rie wanted to kill and the murder? Or was the murder independent of that thing?

“It should come as no surprise that the thing she wants to kill wants to kill her.”

Earlier, Yurine had said that Rie thought the king was right. Perhaps Rie's opinion did not sit well with the other members of the religion and they decided to have her killed to keep order among them.

Or it could have been the king who was behind her death. If Yu Zao wanted to destroy all religion, he could start with the weakest of all cathedrals, the Virgo Cathedral.

Another possible motive could have been related to what Rie wanted to kill. If it was a matter of revenge, it would not be easy to resolve the issue without the death of one of the two parties.

“Maybe there's a completely different reason than the ideas I've come up with. We're trying so hard, I'd be really pissed off if the murder was done for a fuckosonic reason.”

If it turned out to be a crime of passion, Yu would think that everything that had happened to him was all bullshit and he wouldn't be able to let off steam without hurting someone.

“So what if there's a logical reason behind it?”

Would it be possible to turn back time? Was Yurine really right? And what if it wasn't possible? Yurine expected him to avenge her mother.

“Who do I take revenge on? Who will we take it from? From how many people? Do I have to kill myself in the end to punish all the guilty parties in this case?”

His name was on the list of those to be avenged.

“Even if we want to take revenge on someone else... What have I gotten myself into, my God...”

This was not the parallel world adventure he had imagined. Yu sank deeper and deeper, the webs wrapped around his body in ways he could not untangle.

“It's not just the fighting power, it's the people we want to take revenge on that we can't easily mess with. Let's say it was the king or the religion that killed Rie, how do we get revenge on them? They're not even easy to get close to, and if the murder was planned by the very thing Rie intended to kill, how do we find it? Even those closest to her don't know anything. Off... Off...”

So many events, each of which could be connected to another, a blind knot, and Yu, who had not yet touched that knot. He wondered what to do, what would happen in the future.

If he saw a single particle of light, maybe everything would be different.

“What do you plan to do when we find the people who killed Rie?”

“Of course we will kill them! What else do you think will happen, didn't I tell you before? We will avenge my mother!”

“We will...”

Why, he wondered, was the future getting darker every day?