The night was pleasant, yet achingly dull.
Dense trees grew in silence; a lone star flickered in the loneliness. A few broken frog-calls rang out, murmuring against the stifling heat of summer.
The Demon Race responded to the outside world only faintly — they feared neither ordinary cold nor heat, and had no real concept of rest. Only when their Mana ran low did fatigue ever show on them.
"My lords, my Mana's running low again..."
Hafleet's weary voice drifted up from behind.
Nanoda and Solitär flew on side by side.
Solitär was an ancient Great Demon, her Mana far exceeding that of an ordinary Demon; Nanoda, meanwhile, had a constitution that let her absorb Mana directly — so long as she wasn't within the bounds of a Magic-Nullifying Crystal, her supply was practically endless.
"Pathetic, Hafleet. And here you call yourself a Demon General."
Solitär slowed to a stop with a smile, glancing sideways at Nanoda's easy, relaxed expression.
After spending these past few days at Nanoda's side, she found the woman ever more baffling — a marvel she simply couldn't make sense of.
It wasn't just that Nanoda kept feeding her ideas alien to Demon thinking, ideas Solitär somehow could never quite find the words to refute. The way Nanoda handled her Mana unnerved her even more — she carried almost none in reserve day to day, yet when she actually drew on it, the well seemed bottomless.
It left Solitär half-convinced Nanoda belonged to some entirely new species.
"Let's rest here, then."
Nanoda picked out a reasonably open stretch of ground and touched down, the other two Demons close behind her.
Having witnessed firsthand just how powerful their superior was, neither Demon so much as considered running.
"Um... sorry, Lady Nanoda."
The instant Hafleet landed, he dropped straight down, closed his eyes, and began resting to recover his Mana.
He carried himself with abject humility, well aware he was the weak link of the group — terrified that this walking calamity might vent her temper on him, or that Solitär might strike from behind.
In truth, Nanoda didn't much care either way; her body never tired. But going by the habits she'd picked up from Humans, she supposed that after so long a journey, a bit of rest was only proper. She picked out a rock and sat down.
Beside her, Solitär simply stood, gazing up at the sky.
The three Demons fell silent, still as the night around them.
"Solitär, feel like talking?"
Seemingly a little bored, Nanoda extended the invitation to the ever-talkative Miss Solitär.
"No. I don't feel like it."
Miss Solitär refused flatly.
She still felt her worldview simply didn't mesh with Nanoda's.
"Fine."
Nanoda didn't press the matter. She simply pulled the Scripture she always carried out from inside her robe.
She still felt a certain nostalgia for the Bible back home.
For some reason, the moment Solitär saw Nanoda about to open the Scripture, she instinctively stepped back a few paces.
Fingers resting on the worn, time-worn cover, Nanoda opened the Scripture.
[Hello]
?
Nanoda snapped the Scripture shut on the spot.
Had she been using flight magic too long and started seeing things?
She opened the Scripture again.
[Hello?]
Faint golden characters lined the Scripture's yellowed pages, as though something on the other side of the paper were greeting her.
Wait — where did my great big Bible go?
Ignoring the golden text, Nanoda flipped straight past to the next page.
The second page of the Scripture was still blank.
But soon a line of golden characters surfaced one by one, as if drawn there by an invisible brush.
[Hello???]
It had even tacked on a few extra question marks.
[If it's inconvenient to speak, you can talk with M (crossed out) — with me — on the blank page beside this one. Just write with your finger.]
Another line of golden text spread out beneath the first hello.
Nanoda's expression shifted, just slightly — this was the first time she'd ever seen anything like it.
Her first thought: had the Scripture turned into a spirit?
As Nanoda's finger traced across the blank page beside it, black characters appeared one after another: [Who are you?]
It felt exactly like typing out gestures on a phone screen. Watching the black text she'd written appear, Nanoda found the whole thing rather fun.
After a short pause, the faint golden text beside it began vanishing character by character, as if being erased.
Two large golden characters were written in its place.
[God]
[Or, you could say — a God.]
God? That word didn't even exist in this world.
[Are you this Scripture? Or are you speaking to me through it?]
Nanoda dashed off another line.
Off to the side, Solitär — who had been secretly watching her — narrowed her eyes, then quickly looked away again.
[It's a medium for communication.]
Nanoda swallowed back a startled gasp, forming her own guess about the being speaking to her through the Scripture.
She soon wrote out another line, one she needed to confirm.
[You're the New God of the Church of the New God?]
[Yes]
The faint golden text appeared almost the instant Nanoda finished writing.
Nanoda suddenly recalled the prophecy that had once appeared on Schwenk's Scripture.
A real god? Was what Schwenk had said — about a god slowly awakening — actually true? Did the New God, or God, or whatever it called itself, truly exist?
oh my god
[You're not the Goddess?]
[I am not Her.]
Nanoda didn't think this God was lying to her — after all, this was supposedly the very Scripture the Goddess herself had granted to the Goddess's Order, an artifact said to guide Holy Power and even grant insight into Holy Power spells.
When she'd first obtained the Scripture, Nanoda had studied it herself, but perhaps because Demons had no affinity for Holy Power, she'd never managed to make sense of it.
In her own hands, up until now, the Scripture had only ever displayed the contents of a Bible; in anyone else's hands, it stayed perfectly blank.
This so-called God couldn't possibly have followed her all the way from her old world, through her death and rebirth here... could it?
[What's your purpose?]
Nanoda threw the question out bluntly, straight to the point. She cared a great deal about what this God actually wanted.
But the answer she got wasn't what she expected.
[I'm a little bored. After all, I can't come down to earth and play.]
?
Another line of faint gold text appeared: [I've also only recently managed to pilfer the Goddess's authority to chat through the Scripture like this.]
Pilfer?
These gods sure knew how to entertain themselves.
At the very least, she could now be fairly sure this being chatting with her through the Scripture meant her no harm.
[Can you see the future? Was that earlier prophecy something you sent, too?]
Nanoda still wanted this confirmed, without much caring whether the question might be rude to ask a God.
[Ah, I was still half-asleep at the time. That was just me experimenting.]
It didn't answer Nanoda's question head-on, but the phrasing alone hinted at just how vast this God's powers really were.
For some reason, Nanoda kept feeling an uneasy sense of being secretly watched.
[Why are you paying attention to me?]
[Guess □>□<□]
?
So it really had followed her here all the way as a fellow countryman.
[Let's talk about something. I've got plenty of free time right now.]
Nanoda finally let herself relax. This was the strangest thing she'd encountered since arriving in this world.
[Who around you now would you call companions?]
[Let me think.]
After a moment's thought, Nanoda slowly wrote out her answer.
[Aura, Aaron, Linie...]
Familiar names lined up, one after another.
However long had passed, Hafleet — who'd spent the whole while recovering his Mana — finally stirred, and Solitär snapped out of her daze as well.
Nanoda closed the Scripture and set off once more on her way home.
____
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