Chapter 453

Chapter 453: Pointing to the God

The whirlwind, wrapped around pale dust, slowly faded from Duncan’s sight.

Agatha had left.

“I keep feeling… she’s changed a lot compared to before,” Vanna finally broke the silence only after the last strand of Ashen Wind vanished into the air. “Especially those last words she said. That’s nothing like what the old ‘Gatekeeper’ would have said.”

“Experience changes a person, especially everything she has gone through,” Duncan said calmly. “And besides, the role she carries now is more than just ‘Gatekeeper’. That means she is bound to change.”

Vanna sounded a bit curious: “You don’t seem worried?”

“Because she hasn’t wavered. People who have truly seen through things often end up more firm,” Duncan said offhandedly. “She is rational. She won’t take some extreme or wrong path just because of the city-state’s survival pressure. Her last few sentences might not sound very pious, but at least she is very clear-headed.”

Vanna did not answer for a moment. Duncan turned his head and looked at the young Inquisitor with quiet meaning: “The one you’re worried about isn’t really Agatha, is it?”

“…My faith doesn’t allow me to lie,” Vanna said at last, after a brief silence and a soft sigh. “Yes, I’m worried about my own state. In Agatha, I see myself—the same shaken faith, the same rebellious words and actions.”

Duncan stayed quiet and simply waited for her to go on.

“…I once believed that, as long as I kept firm faith and unwavering courage, I could face and solve any problem,” Vanna said. “The deity laid down the order by which the world runs. We were like gears, just turning peacefully in the frame.

“But the truth is… that order was as fragile as bubbles on the sea. Pure faith and courage cannot save our city-state. The understanding of the world that we built up over so many years is being tested…

“‘The Sun’ is not eternal. The ‘Boiling Gold’ that supports modern civilization might be a product of the Elder Gods. The gods cannot always shelter the city-states. Beneath The Deep Sea lies an unknown darkness that no religious scripture has ever described or explained—and your appearance has overturned my understanding of Subspace from the last twenty-plus years.”

“As for that last point, I suggest you hold back a bit on drawing conclusions—but the other things you said are fine,” Duncan said, shaking his head, his tone unhurried. “Human understanding of the world is partial by nature. From the start, we shouldn’t assume there’s some simple and eternal ‘logic’ that can roughly explain all things.

“Maybe such a simple and eternal ‘Truth’ really does exist, but it’s not something humans at this stage can understand. On that basis, having your worldview overturned is a necessary step in the progress of civilization.”

Listening to Duncan, Vanna slipped into thought. Her expression grew more and more complicated. After a moment, she spoke almost to herself: “Then where do the gods stand?”

“I don’t know, because I haven’t dealt with them directly,” Duncan said openly. “Maybe I’ve seen them from far away, but that isn’t enough for me to judge them.

“But I admit two things. First, the Four Gods really do exist in this world, at least as objective beings. Second… up to now, they have, to some degree, protected and guided the civilized world.”

Vanna looked stunned. In over twenty years of life, this was the first time she had heard someone talk about the Four Gods in such a way—without any trace of good or evil, fear or worship, as if simply judging an object.

That way of describing them held no reverence at all. It was almost arrogance.

Yet when those words came from a being who had returned from Subspace, Vanna only felt…

Those words were cold and accurate, like a ruler used to measure the world.

Just then, Duncan’s voice broke through Vanna’s thoughts: “Vanna, don’t think too much. You still believe in Gamona, don’t you?”

“Yes. My faith is unchanged,” Vanna answered at once.

“That’s right. Your faith is unchanged. Agatha also still believes in Bartok. And neither of your deities has abandoned you because your thoughts have changed. Their divine blessing is still there. That means your thinking right now hasn’t gone against them,” Duncan said seriously. “Thinking doesn’t necessarily lead to heresy, and neither does doubt.

“To think and to doubt, then still choose to believe—that is a true devout believer.

“Keep a proper and healthy faith, and also keep a proper and healthy doubt. Try to understand this world. Accept that it’s not what you imagined. Accept the narrowness and bias in your own understanding. Accept your own wavering.

“To be honest, if Gamona can accept your prayers to her on the Vanished, what else can’t you accept?”

Vanna started, then unconsciously raised her head. She looked toward the Upper City, toward the silent grand cathedral at the highest point of Frostholm.

By now, Agatha had likely already returned to that temple on the Ashen Wind. Would she go back to her prayer room and, before Bartok’s statue, keep thinking about the cooperation she had reached with the Subspace Shadows?

Would she keep thinking about the city-state’s future and again draw the conclusion that “anyone who hinders survival is a heretic; besides that, everything is permitted”?

After a long time, Vanna withdrew her gaze from the distance and murmured: “…The Lord doesn’t mind?”

“I don’t know. But if it were me, I wouldn’t mind,” Duncan said with a shrug. “And from what we’ve seen so far, the God of Death and the Storm Goddess don’t seem to mind either. They may care about something else.”

Vanna fell back into thought. Beside her, Morris, who had not spoken this whole time, could not help but sigh softly: “I didn’t expect you to have such deep thoughts about faith… I thought you weren’t interested in these things.”

“How could that be? I’ve always been interested in any theory that tries to explain this world,” Duncan said, his expression very serious. “For example, right now, I’m going to study another ‘faith’ that tries to explain the world.”

Seeing the confused looks on Vanna and Morris’s faces (Alice was an exception, since she had never understood in the first place), Duncan smiled: “We don’t need to worry about the city-state for now. Next, it’s about time we went to look at that ‘Blasphemous Tome’.”

…

Shirley had fallen asleep—while she was working on the fourth math card.

The chains gave a small clink in the cabin. Dog carefully held the black chain with one paw as it raised its upper body. With its mouth, it picked up a blanket and draped it over Shirley. With its other paw, it casually pushed around the math cards on the table so they wouldn’t get soaked by Shirley’s drool.

As Dog straightened things, its gaze swept over the cards filled with simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Its movements paused: “…She actually got most of them right?”

Dog muttered in surprise, then turned its head without thinking. It saw Shirley shift her position in her sleep, mumbling some dream-words, a shiny line of drool hanging from the corner of her mouth.

“…I guess she did take them seriously,” Dog said to itself.

Dog shook its head and lay down again. Then it steadied itself, as if after a long hesitation and weighing of choices, and stretched out a paw to drag a book from its own pile on the floor.

The cover was plain—just a paperback textbook you could buy in any city-state. On the front were the words “Algebraic Calculations”.

Dog lowered its head. The blood-red glow in its eye sockets flickered as it stared quietly at the book in front of its paw. After a long time, it slowly opened the cover.

But right after that, Dog suddenly jerked its head up and quickly scanned the room.

Everything on the bookshelf looked normal. The shaded corners of the room were calm. sunlight streamed through the window into the cabin. From outside came the soft, gentle sound of the waves.

“…All right. The environment is safe. Distractions cleared. The book is still math… Try again… Third test.”

Dog muttered, then finally lowered its head and began to read the book with full focus.

It tried to understand the formulas, remember the symbols, work through the numbers. From the knowledge and wisdom of those who came before, Dog tried to understand how the world worked.

At first it was hard. Stray thoughts and awareness of the room kept disturbing the process of thinking. But soon Dog’s mind grew quiet. As always, math helped it concentrate and sink into thought.

Symbols and numbers combined in its mind. Its understanding of the world slowly filled its head. Dog studied with full attention, and gradually, it felt as if something appeared in its mind…

A study partner.

Someone was reading with it.

Someone was thinking with it.

Some presence was watching this place with curiosity—a gaze that held neither good nor evil.

Dog tilted its head.

Under the white pages of the book, in the gaps between the words, inside the city of knowledge traced out by symbols and lines, a red light was surrounded by countless flickering, matrix-like points of light, like an eye staring at Dog.

Dog froze.

It stared back at the red light.

It could not help staring at that red light.

It even felt itself leaning forward—actively drawing closer to that flickering matrix of light.

But that feeling lasted only an instant.

The next second, a force suddenly surged from the symbiotic pact chain and yanked Dog back, tearing it free from that strange pull.

“…What the heck…”

Dog cried out, snapping awake from the brief vision. The next second, it instinctively looked at the black chain on its neck.

At the last moment, the power from that chain had dragged it back—clearly, Shirley had given it a pull.

But the chain still lay loose on the floor, not tight at all.

On the other end of the chain, Shirley was still sprawled over the desk, dead asleep.

She had not woken up at all.