“Wait a minute.”

Following her condensed retelling of the past few weeks’ events, including her earlier interactions with Anten and Simon, Dauma had proceeded to give Renare a quick update of the situation based on what he had learnt from Anten.

However, unlike the retelling which had been quickly accepted by them as the truth without any questions asked, she was having a hard time believing what he was telling her.

“So, you’re telling me that Brother Simon has accepted the Goddess’ Gift?”

“It’s a Particle, but yes, it seems that way.”

“And he is currently fighting with Anten?”

“Yes, that is correct as well.”

“…”

She went silent for a few moments, her brow lowering by the slightest bit as she slowly sat down by the pond, looking down at its surface as she carefully pondered his answers.

“That is all we have,” Dauma nonchalantly continued with a serious expression, “if you know anything else, you should tell us now. We cannot plan our next move if you keep things from us.”

“Yeah,” Blake added on as he stood by the dusty windows of the Garden, having been continuously looking out for any activity outside during the entire recollection, “we are running out of time, lady. If you have anything to say, just spit it out.”

“… what do you want me to say?”

Under their prodding, she finally opened her mouth and responded to them, her voice cracking a little with all the pent-up inner thoughts she had.

“Huh?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say. You show up out of nowhere, ask for my help, attack the people that I know and now you’re telling me that Brother Simon is a bad person?”

“No—”

“There’s no way you guys saw him. There’s just no way. He would never do such a thing to Sister Anten, even if you really are friends with her. You are wrong in accusing him. Do you even have any proof other than what she said?”

“… I guess you’re right,” Dauma immediately concurred with her point, “unless you see it for yourself, there’s no way you can trust just our words. However, what if, even if you believe it is impossible, it is true, and your friend is currently a threat? What would you do then?”

“…”

“What if you leave, and then he attacks or kills you because you lied to him? I don’t believe that he’ll let you off easily since he’s not doing the same to Anten.”

“That can’t—”

“Renare,” he bluntly warned her as she continued to hesitate, “this is a matter of life and death. No matter what you choose to believe, we may have to kill your friend. That is the truth, plain and simple.”

“…”

In response, Renare’s hands gradually tightened, and she lowered her head even further before reluctantly replying.

“Okay, if hypothetically, what you have been saying is all true, then by my logic, he should not be reacting this way.”

“Really?”

“I know him. He’s a good kid. If he is not listening to reason, either I was wrong about him from the start, or receiving the Gift changed his mindset along with his physical body, and I choose to believe the latter more.”

“So, you believe that the Particle is the one that is causing all of this?”

“I mean, I don’t believe he is doing this out of need. If I could guess, he is going after Sister Anten likely because he is being influenced to do it, not necessarily because he must do it. It’s just not like him to be so unreasonable.”

“You know, lady,” Blake turned back towards her and instantly jumped in with his opinion, “you keep talking about how you think that your friend ‘is this’ or ‘isn’t that’, but you don’t give us a valid reason why or haven’t explained it clearly. How are we so sure you are telling the truth, huh?”

“…”

“Blake, I don’t think this is the right time.”

“No, he’s right,” she replied, “I haven’t told anyone how I’ve felt about Brother Simon, not even him. That might be one of the reasons why he’s so angry at me right now, because I never told him the truth. I wish I still can, but—"

“Look, we’re getting off topic here,” Dauma raised his hand towards her to interrupt the self-reflection, “as much as we don’t know who is lying or being honest to him, that doesn’t matter now. Renare, do you have anything more you can add to solve this problem? Like how to stop him or what the Particle does? Anything at all?”

“And uhm… just a heads up for you guys. They are closing in on us,” Blake quickly added, having turned back towards the window.

Sure enough, they could already hear the soft pattering of footfalls, and the ominous chanting growing louder with each passing second. There was, well and truly, little time left before they found their hiding place.

“If there’s nothing else, I suppose we can still kill all of them. I’m pretty sure we can take them; don’t you agree, devil?”

“No,” Renare suddenly spoke, forcing all the attention back on her, “no. I don’t want you to kill anyone else.”

“Lady. Since you don’t have anything else that you can tell us, we have no choice. It’s either them or us, you know. You heard it as well, remember?”

Despite his sound argument, the girl still stood her ground, refusing to back down from her own side.

“I might not know anything more that could help you, but there is still another way to fix this problem. A way that involves less, if not no bloodshed at all.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“I hope you don’t mean talking to your precious ‘Brother Simon’.”

“No. I’m going to talk to the Elder, see if I can get him to convince the people to stand down.”

There was a short pause before Blake started to laugh sarcastically before clapping very deliberately and slowly.

“Talk? Are you fucking serious right now? You think you can convince the angry mob that everything’s good, we can all happily sing songs and have some tea? What kind of stupid idea is that?”

“Realistically, it’s still much easier than killing them all, which I don’t think is a good plan either.”

“I…” he tried to criticize her again, but he quickly stopped, having been trapped by her logic and rendered speechless.

With him unable to say anything sarcastic back, Dauma stepped in for him, “I agree with her idea, if it can be done… can it be done?”

“Yes,” she immediately nodded, “I know where he is broadcasting his message from. As long as I can get in, I can try to get him to say something else. If not, we can try your method.”

“So, it’s settled, we make for the broadcast room. While we’re there, maybe we can also find out what the hell the Particle can do, since, as you said, he is the leader.”

“… fine. Whatever you say,” Blake begrudgingly conceded before walking back towards them, and they swiftly began to move back to the staircase leading out, where the noises of rage had only gotten much louder, with Dauma taking the lead and going first.

“Once we’re outside, we need to move quick, otherwise…”

“BOOM!”

Before the other two could respond, there was a loud explosion, and Dauma found himself suddenly cut off in the middle of his sentence as he violently flew backwards the second he took his first step outside.

“The fuck?”

“What?”

Both Blake and Renare were simultaneously shocked and confused as they saw him fall back and down into the Garden, but as they turned, they saw what had caused the explosion.

“… Mother Abigail?” Renare responded as she stared at the person standing in front of the staircase.

“Hello dearie.”

The one who had fired at Dauma point-blank without hesitation, the person currently holding a grenade launcher in her hands, was someone that she knew all too well.

Mother Abigail, the lady who had first announced Simon’s qualification for the trials. The kind and sweet old librarian, who had treated her and everyone in the Church nicely to occasional sweet treats and stories, was now smiling as she pointed the large and most definitely unwieldy weapon at the pair.

“Now,” she spoke in a shaky, soft voice as she helpfully gestured to the side with the launcher, “would you please kindly move away for me? I have to finish off the devil myself.”

“As if we would fucking—”

“Wait.”

As Blake began to step forward angrily, he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned back to see Dauma, having already gotten back up and climbed the stairs again, shaking his bruised head.

“I’ll take the old lady myself. You two have to go now. The crowd would have likely heard the noise and are coming here, which means Renare would be in danger. You can’t waste time killing her.”

“But—”

“Don’t worry,” Dauma remarked, “unless you taught me absolutely nothing, I’ll be fine. It’ll be quick anyway.”

“Fuck… don’t you fucking lose pointlessly then! Come on, lady!”

With that, both Blake and Renare quickly left the scene, leaving him alone with the grenade-toting grandma.

“… so, are we going to do this or what?”

“Let us.”

“BOOM!”

“Guh!”

Even though he fully expected her second attack and moved away as quickly as he could from the grenade, Dauma still found himself getting slightly disoriented as it exploded close to him, catching him in its blast radius.

“Damn!”

He was certain he could tank the blasts, which had allowed him to completely shield Blake and Renare earlier, but that did not mean the sheer force from them could not affect him, with the blast causing a quick stagger in his step as he exited the staircase and rushed towards Abigail.

“Please kindly stay still, devil,” she unfetteredly spoke as she began to reload her launcher, giving him the chance to strike.

Aim for her head! Cut it off!

Creating his sword before he charged, he determinedly swung it towards her, letting it successfully make contact and pass through the flesh before he reflexively stopped a few inches behind her and turned back to see the result.

“…”

However, instead of a burning, dead corpse, he saw the launcher immediately turning back and pointing towards him, with the still-alive old lady pulling the trigger again before he could escape.

“BOOM!”

As he got caught in the blast again and flew backwards into the wall of the building behind him, he saw that he had definitely sliced her head horizontally open, starting from the nose and exiting at the back, but that had clearly failed to do the trick.

She was not only still kicking like nothing had happened, but she had recovered at a much faster speed to what should have been a mortal injury than any of the others they had faced before.

Both halves of her head were staying on despite the visible cut, and she only had a mildly distressed face from said injury, almost as if she had only gotten a small paper cut instead of her whole head being bisected.

“My, my. What a violent devil. I need to take care of you much quicker in that case,” she continued to speak as she fired her weapon at him again.

“BOOM! BOOM!”

Ah, hell!

Using several rolls to dodge the blasts as much as possible, Dauma knew that he had to take more drastic measures at this point.

“Mnngh!”

Changing his intended target of attack, he extended his sword in the blink of an eye before running back towards Abigail, grunting in exertion as he slammed it into her chest before forcefully pushing her back towards the direction of the Garden’s staircase.

“Ah.”

That was the only reaction she gave, a mildly inconvenienced yell, as she was quickly pinned to the wall right next to the staircase, and Dauma subsequently twisted her arm carrying the launcher, disarming her using his strength, albeit with some difficulty.

Holding his sword in place and preventing her from trying to take it out and recovering, she was essentially immobilized, meaning to him that he now had the chance to interrogate her. However, on account of the approaching mob, he had to make it quick, direct, and fast.

“Tell me! How do we stop Simon? What is the Particle… the Gift’s power and weaknesses?”

“Ha!”

In response to his question, the old lady simply laughed haughtily before looking into his eyes with derision, a far cry from the sweet and kind air she was originally exuding earlier.

“There’s nothing you can do to stop this,” she jeered, “the belief in our Goddess will keep us strong forever, and all the usurpers will pay the ultimate price in the end. Face it, you have run out of time, devil.”

“…”

“There he is! Get him!”

As if it was perfectly timed, he heard the shouts of the mob as they began to appear at the ends of the alley, wasting no time at all as they aimed their weapons at him in unison.

“Damn it!”

Much like she said, he had run out of time. He could not waste any more to finish her off either, so he opted to flee the scene instead, leaping up the walls and towards the roof of the building above them.

As he did so, he carefully considered the words she had said to him, trying to find some meaning behind them, any clue at all even if they did not seem particularly helpful to their objective.

Think, think! Was there anything she said that could help us? I know… no, I believe that there is something… wait.

Suddenly, something clicked inside him.

“The belief in our Goddess”? Could it be?

Running across the roof before hopping to another, he slowly began to connect the dots, beginning with something the god Michael had said to them about the Particles.

How the hell could we have missed it?

The word that he had heard repeatedly over and over again, in the Elder’s message, in the conversation with Renare, and finally the interrogation of Mother Abigail. The one simple word that made sense.

If Simon now had the capability to defeat his enemies all without a sweat, why did the Elder need to rally his followers to attack? Was it to help their champion, or was it perhaps for another purpose?

If the Goddess truly was who he thought she was, why, of all places, would she have given the Particle to a Church, a society that championed faith above all else? What was the connection?

It was not the first Particle they were handling either, and based on their experience with Yuu, there were obviously going to be parallels and similarities between the Soul Particle and it, the one that he had finally deduced the name of.

The Belief Particle. It was not hard for him to figure out how it worked and its potential weaknesses from there.

If it collects belief, and makes the user stronger as a result, then most likely, the number of believers or the strength of the belief is keeping Simon and the other followers strong, essentially creating a cycle of giving. In that case…

Renare’s idea of infiltrating the broadcast room quickly seemed like the best option now, and as for the Simon situation, he knew he had to inform Anten as soon as possible in order for their idea to work.

Bzzt.

“Anten!”

… Dauma?

“I think I’ve figured it out.”

You… have?

“Listen to me. We have a plan.”