Glan Natural Science Academy

Gradually, the crowd calmed.

Regrettably, Ryger was still unable to see what was going on.

“Hm?”

Suddenly, Ryger sensed something and, together with the many followers gathered around him, looked up at the sky. The sky had been overcast by grey, gloomy clouds. But as a murmur from outside the crowd sounded, ringing in everybody’s ears and soothing their soul, a ray of holy, gentle light pierced through the layers of cloud and amidst the many followers’ joyful tears and feverish gaze, illuminated the world.

“Miracle!”

At this moment.

In Ryger’s eyes, it was as though a sky-scraping giant gently peeled away the layers of gloomy cloud in the sky, and looked at the horde of puny ants below. Under this magnificent miracle, even the spiral of energy at Scholar’s Tower that represented the peak of human wisdom gradually stopped.

“This…”

Ryger looked at all of this in disbelief. It was a plainly warm light that came yet at that moment, his soul felt as though it was frozen – the hostility in the deepest part of his heart made him feel boundless terror. This here was an unimaginably strong enemy.

In that very moment, the world in his eye completely lost its colour, leaving only monotonous black and white.

A speck of dust landed. It was a wave that ripped out. Eternal light spilled down. In this descent of light and darkness, Ryger, ignorant, puny, diminutive, gazed at the higher-order being up there.

“Light Creator Deity.”

Teeth gritting, Ryger followed his inner instincts and muttered to himself.

Sokal’s eyes had completely fallen, leaving only a glimpse of that gentlest light. His mouth was murmuring as though he was being held in his mother’s embrace.

Ryger felt some tingling at his chest. He could clearly see that under the bathing of the miracle of Light now, the scar at his chest that he had gotten from the red-eyed sorcerer was now growing new cells incessantly and glowing with astonishing vitality, like a baby in a mother’s womb growing from nothing to something.

Nearby, a middle-aged woman with a plain scarf around her head, hands held together and tears overflowing, was piously praying and bathing in the miracle of Light. With a speed apparent to the naked eyes, the woman’s crow’s feet around her eyes faded and even her rough skin appeared to have new vitality injected into it, growing younger by ten years.

All of those who had basked in the miracle of Light had certain changes occurring to them to varying degrees and even the plants nearby became lusher and more vibrant.

After some time.

The miracle of Light gradually faded.

Gray, gloomy clouds yet again overcast the sky, covering the hole made by the Light while the followers awakened from their stupor. All that remained now was bawling. Like babies that just woke up from deep sleep, they cried instinctively.

Perhaps, they dreamt of that utopian Heaven and were crying because of cruel reality.

“It’s Him. I saw the Lord in Heaven. He was grieving for our fall into the Box of Original Sin, grieving for our selfishness! I saw!”

“I saw the origin of all life, and that is our Lord!”

“Oh, my God, please forgive me…”

Weeping and wailing sounded on and on, and the pious believers were repenting. It was to the point where it was only through the cardinal’s mercy, love, long consolations and holy power of Light that the crowd gradually calmed.

“Today, I received the Lord’s instructions to come here and rally his followers, bring goodness and wash away sins of the world.”

The aged cardinal made a praying pose.

This here was an extremely contagious voice. From it, Ryger could as though hear lamenting compassion for the people, tolerance towards the ignorant and the foolish, the conversion towards the lost lambs, and the taking in of all that is good in the world. Only towards heretics did the voice give cold cruelty. It was unknown who started it but the sea of followers made a praying pose while singing a hymn praising the Lord.

“You are the One True God. You are the world’s creator. You are the origin of life. You are the roots of all things. You are the voice of all goodness. You shine light towards the land. You look at those redeeming themselves. You shed tears of mercy…”

This hymn was so familiar to Ryger and even now, he could still hum it. Sadly, with his loss of faith, the sound voiced out lacked the soul of him putting all he had into it, leaving only an empty shell.

“O’ lost lambs, the Lord is merciful. He forgives the foolishness of all that is ignorant. Even if you do not believe in the Lord’s existence, the Lord won’t lose anything because of you. As the One True God, He will live eternal.”

The cardinal smiled compassionately and looked at the nervous and affronted scholars like he was looking at a bunch of ignorant children, not even deigning to argue with these ignorant fools, showing only tolerance and sympathy.

But it was this tolerance and sympathy that deeply mutilated the scholars’ pride! It had already been several hundred years since Baniwen’s death. Were the studies into the truth that they had spent their entire life on nothing more than some games played among a group of fools in the eyes of the Church? Did they not even feel a shred of fear or anything?!

Matching the hymn, the cardinal praised the Light God.

Doubtlessly, in such an occasion, any questioning of the Light God would result in any who dare do so to be torn into shreds by the frenzied followers, even if it was the emperor1 of the principality who did it.

In this moment, the cardinal acted as the representative of the Light God in this world, possessing infinite sanctity and authority. All followers of the Light were an extension of the limbs.

“But!”

Immediately afterwards, the cardinal suddenly changed the topic.

“Although the Lord is merciful, but we, as servants of the Lord in this world, must not make His mercy for us a shield for our ignorance and foolishness, and blaspheme Him publicly, denigrating His kindness, leading the masses of believers into confusion, making them lose their chances of salvation and giving chances for the heretics and devils to sink their claws in!”

“Who dares denigrate His kindness?”

“I will never allow anybody to blaspheme the Lord’s sanctity…”

The followers’ loud reply came one after another, forming a cacophony of voices, and never stopped.

A suffocating level of oppressive force!

At this very moment Ryger could clearly sense that for the Glan Natural Sciences Academy’s scholars who believed in atheism, the cardinal needed to only speak a few words and declare the Academy as heretical, and the countless followers would launch a war of faith against them at all costs.

Even if the Academy managed to restore order within the Academy grounds, they would then become a rootless plant and be eventually destroyed.

The cardinal looked down at the endless followers gathered in the Glan Natural Sciences Academy and smiled. He stretched out his hands and made a reassuring gesture.

“Before me are the 17642 books stored by the Glan Natural Sciences Academy. These books are extremely dangerous. They preach of a power called natural sciences and believe that… even the Lord is unable to interfere with the workings of natural sciences? But they do not know this “natural sciences” and “True Law”, this “magical power” is nothing more than an insignificant speck of dust under the infinite greatness of the Lord.”

As the cardinal spoke, chuckles and denigrations came from the crowd.

" "

“Hahaha. Those magician’s brains are really full of shit. So arrogant that they think they can stand above the Lord? It’s time to teach them some lessons!”

“Those greedy nobles. All they do is increase the taxes and extort more money from us so that they can study magic for their own enjoyment. Damned bastards, mother fuckers, son of a bitch…”

At the front of the square, the nobles heard the vitriols of the peasants behind them and unconsciously frowned, directing a gaze of suspicion and anger towards the cardinal. 

Hmph, even the Light Creator Deity can forget about touching their stuff. But if it’s letting these dim-witted people scold and let it out, it’s not like it matters…

As for the scholars at the edge of the square and the scholars mixed with the crowd, they could only clench their fist and show an unwilling expression.

The cardinal saw all of this. 

This place was not the Light Empire of Aurora, and he naturally did not come to this far-away land of subordinate gods despite the great distance to declare a holy war on the rulers here. He came here just to spread the Lord’s faith, and at the same time, teach some lesson to the principality that dared challenge the Lord’s might and proclaim that everybody could become a god!

Thinking of that principality, a grim spark passed through deep in the cardinal’s eyes.

In the human states, the principalities, both large and small, numbered in the two digits. But even if these principalities pooled everything they had, their population, area and degree of richness was far behind the Grand Empire of Aurora. They were the rural frontiers of the human states. These lands they occupied were originally lands of chaos where the many secondary gods propagated their faith and where wars of faith occurred. But because of the emergence of those damned atheists, a state of order led by the Six Principalities were formed and they became a force that matched the various temples of the secondary gods.

In the eyes of the cardinal, that the Light Empire of Aurora was able to spread the faith of Light and edify them was the supreme gift for the barbarians living here. Aside from those heretics who dared to publicly desecrate the supreme faith towards the Light Creator Deity and to which punishment must be given, the Church didn’t care much. Since these native-born “atheistic sciences academies” were not willing to receive the gift from the Lord, from the Light Empire of Aurora, they can stay here and continue living ignorantly. These barbarians in these distant lands were ultimately undeserving of the Middle Land’s edification.

As his thoughts reached this point, Cardinal Klein spread his arm high, making a gesture of embracing his followers, just like a benevolent elder high above them giving out grace.

Footnotes

Apparently, Glan is ruled by an emperor. Except the author uses emperor and king interchangeably later on in the story. I’ll change any mention of emperors into kings later on since ‘king’ fits better