Chapter 516

Returning to the matter at hand, I picked up the astral-projection cigarettes and the metal rod the Archduke had left on the desk.

“So I just smoke this and carry the metal rod around?”

“Not quite! That would be a very incomplete development. If we’re going to find the lever simply by carrying it around, we’d have to turn the whole room upside down looking for it. Practical technology should always be reliable at its core, of course, but it also needs to be easy and convenient to use.”

“I see.”

He was right. It wasn’t as if Maria could casually fire the quantum gun he had mentioned earlier in the middle of a fight with the enemy…

The Archduke snatched the cigarette from me and began speaking enthusiastically, gesturing with his hands like a fish that had finally found water.

“It is a good idea to smoke the cigarette. We could make this as incense or as a cigarette, but since it makes entering the astral plane easier, it would be best to begin detection while inhaling it. Even if we aren’t actually going into the astral plane, it can increase our sensitivity enough to make detecting the aether easier.”

“All right. I understand.”

I knew how to make these cigarettes, too. Maria had told me the method a long time ago.

This time, the Archduke put down the cigarette and picked up the rod.

“But this rod is still incomplete. We’ll need to modify it or add something to it. To improve the technology, I’ll need to analyze a ‘real’ lever.”

The Archduke finished speaking and looked at me quietly. He wanted me to take him to one of the objects that allowed passage into Pleroma’s world.

I glanced at Emanuel, then looked back at the Archduke.

“Your Highness.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t even know whether there’s a real lever in this area, and fundamentally, I don’t want you to meet them in person. Do you really have to see one yourself to improve this rod? Is there no other way?”

Now that the Archduke had already been to l’Éclat Littéraire in France, it was impossible to prevent him from becoming a target of Terminus Eukairia. In the original history, he had become a target of Pleroma very early on, so Pleroma would have recognized his importance by early 1888 at the latest.

This time, I wanted to delay the point at which the Archduke became a target of Pleroma, which was why I had to ask. The Archduke nodded with a confused look.

“Really?”

“Of course. Otherwise, I’d have to make an artifact for every possible situation, and I’m not sure how efficient that would be.”

I gave him a firm warning.

“Then don’t let anyone find out that you’re a mage. Keep your talking to a minimum, and whatever the other person says, don’t let on that you know anything about it.”

“As I just said, I’m quite good at keeping my mouth shut.”

He had become the person he was today because of events that weren’t exactly cause for celebration, but at least it was reassuring to know he was good at keeping things hidden. After remembering how hard he had tried not even three months ago to keep me from finding out that he liked the occult, I wasn’t worried that he would be unable to contain his enthusiasm. He only showed that unusual enthusiasm around people who shared his tolerance and understanding. He wasn’t like that outside.

This wasn’t the time to bring it up, but I was tempted to tell him to give up the Hermetische Gesellschaft while I was at it. It was something I would need to approach with more time and care, so I decided not to bring it up yet. It was a subject that needed to be handled very carefully, but another decent idea had occurred to me as well. I decided to save that for later too and focused on what was relevant to the situation at hand.

“I’ll change your face for you. We’ll come up with a new name and change the way you speak, too. If we change everything, no one will recognize you, so if you absolutely have to come along, I think that would be the best way to do it.”

The Archduke clapped his hands delightedly.

“You’re going to use divine power, right?! Excellent. Then may I show you a face I’ve always wanted to try?”

“No famous people.”

“Ahh… I see…”

Was he disappointed? I was caught off guard despite knowing exactly why. After thinking about it for a moment, I tried to reassure him.

“If it’s too similar, people might realize it’s fake instead…”

“I know. That was thoughtless of me.”

The Archduke quickly regained his usual seriousness and composure, waving a hand as he backed down. I thought I might be able to accommodate him a little. Should I ask?

After a moment’s hesitation, I cautiously asked, “Whose face did you want to try?”

“The former German Emperor’s.”

I decided not to think about it any further. Emanuel seemed to feel the same way. In any case, that wasn’t what mattered.

First, I had to wipe out the Pleroma in Bavaria in 1898. Second, I would stop the Pleroma here before they could carry out mass killings driven by greed. I couldn’t guarantee that I would succeed in stopping them, but I would do everything I could. That is, if the problems in the world where my friends are can be brought to an end, and if that unknown System allows me enough time to do so.

So even if this was an Extra Chapter, I had no intention of acting recklessly. I needed to use a method that wouldn’t leave too much trouble behind. In other words, it would be dangerous to take advantage of Father Ralph Huber right away and leave after betraying him outright.

How was I supposed to meet Father Ralph Huber? What would be a refined, clean way to go about it? I didn’t have to think for long.

“Is this right?”

“It is.”

Ignoring Emanuel’s comment, I hurriedly hung the banner I had made on the tree behind us, then climbed onto the bench beside the fountain in front of it. From there, I could look down at the people passing through the square and along the streets beyond. I climbed back down and looked over the spot where I would stand, seeing it from the audience’s perspective. The banner I had paid a fairly good price to have made fluttered in the wind.

<The Lord’s Call: A Brief Treatise on Death and Resurrection>

As I looked at it with satisfaction, Emanuel poured cold water over my enthusiasm from beside me.

“Why do I hate this so much…”

“You’re a Christian, Your Highness.”

“Just looking at it makes me sleepy.”

“I’ll make sure I speak well enough to keep you awake.”

I pressed down the strands of hair that ended around my ears. I had carefully styled them with wax so they wouldn’t blow around in the fierce wind in the middle of the night. For now, I had slightly altered my appearance because I needed to look like an ordinary, unremarkable religious figure.

Emanuel looked me over before making a comment.

“Short hair suits you. Though your face looks rather bland.”

“I know it suits me, too.”

“I like how straightforward you are. Then why don’t you just remove the divine power from your face?”

“I can’t.”

I couldn’t show myself with short hair without cognitive distortion magic. Naturally, anyone who saw me like this would immediately think of Georg Askanien, so I had no choice. Emanuel pressed his lips together as if disappointed, then leaned against the fountain.

“Hardly anyone uses divine power like that. Hm… I learn quite a lot while spending time with Sir Everett.”

It was only because I frequently used divine power to make my hair grow faster or illusion magic to change my eye color as part of my disguises. Most people didn’t use divine power for things like this.

First, it was an enormous waste from an economic standpoint. Second, the spell was far from easy. Third, other divine power mages simply didn’t have enough mana to maintain such advanced magic using a difficult spell. They would rather save that divine power for use during working hours. Fourth, perhaps because there were hardly any situations in which a person needed to disguise themselves in the course of their life, most people didn’t even think to try it. Covering one’s face with cognitive distortion magic also consumed a considerable amount of divine power, since it interfered with the minds of everyone who saw the altered face.

I took out the papers and boards I had brought and handed them to Emanuel. Emanuel took the boards in his arms and said, “What is this? ‘New Believer Registration List. If you were moved by the sermon, please sign.’ Good grief, you really came prepared…”

“The sentence underneath is the important part.”

“‘I will pray to the Lord for your peace’… Hahaha, Sir Everett, the atheist, is going to pray?”

“Of course. Now, let’s get started.”

I unfolded a small portable desk in front of Emanuel, then climbed onto the fountain in front of the banner and shouted, “Who fears death!”

My altered voice rang across the square. From this moment on, I would be a pastor from America, making use of one of the defining features of an age without mobile phones. Namely, if someone stood on a flat stone in the middle of the street and passionately spoke about something, people who found it interesting would naturally gather around the speaker. If the subject wasn’t interesting, the audience might remain at three or four people. But if it was, the speaker could receive a surprisingly enthusiastic response, even enough to make people wait around for the next sermon.

If I had tried something like this in the 21st century I had lived in, I would have felt the crushing loneliness of being alone in a crowd. But things were different now.

My voice was still loud, but a tone lower than before, as I answered my own question.

“Those who have sinned fear death. And who else fears death!”

After answering, I shouted again at the top of my lungs. Leaning toward the square, I replied in a solemn voice.

“Atheists and materialists fear death!”

“Huh.”

Emanuel, already knowing that I was an atheist himself, put a hand to his forehead in disbelief. Ignoring such a trivial reaction, I shouted again.

“And who else fears death!”

As I continued shouting, people who had risen early and were passing through the city center turned to look this way. I met their eyes and declared, “Those who have been led astray by ancient aesthetics, and the pagans, fear death.”

Emanuel, standing beside the fountain with his hands clasped behind his back, muttered, “You’re incredible.”

“How am I doing?”

“Completely unlikeable.”

“Thank you.”

I straightened up again and shouted toward the empty square.

“True Christians do not fear death—! Those who truly belong to the Lord do not fear dying!”

As people passing along the road began to take an interest, there was still no one gathered in front of me. Then Archduke Maria, who had been wandering between the buildings in the distance, approached while pretending to be interested—though perhaps he wasn’t pretending at all!

He, too, had altered his appearance with my divine power, so to anyone looking, he appeared not as a nobleman but as a perfectly plausible commoner intellectual.

I made eye contact with my first audience member—a fake one—then looked back toward the empty square. My goal was not a single audience member, but to fill the square. That was why I shouted once more in a firm voice.

“In John Bunyan’s Pilgrim Progress, the Pilgrim was afraid of death.”

“What the—”

I deliberately rolled my tongue as I mixed English into my German, and Emanuel turned away, running his tongue over his lips. I thoroughly ignored his thoroughly unhelpful reaction and shouted on.

“Why? Because he was afraid that he would be judged after death and cast into Hell. Hell—ah, what a terrifying word! How pitiful the trembling Pilgrim was. And so, what does the Evangelist say to the poor Pilgrim when he finds him?”

A few more people gathered. The Archduke, standing at the very front, answered.

“He asks whether he can see a little gate in the field.”

“That’s it! The Pilgrim says he cannot see it. So the Evangelist asks whether he can see a shining light. Only then does the Pilgrim answer that he thinks he can see it. And so the Evangelist tells him to go straight toward it. What is there!”

Another old man approached. The Archduke answered seriously.

“There is a narrow gate.”

“Exactly. The Evangelist advises the Pilgrim to knock on the narrow gate, and someone will come out and tell him what he must do. Of course, the Pilgrim cannot go straight to the narrow gate, and even after he does, the road is far from easy. But if we pass through the narrow gate according to Christ’s will, salvation awaits us—in other words, eternal life.”

“Who is the man giving the speech right now?”

Someone approached and quietly asked Emanuel. I caught the small remark. Emanuel answered.

“This is Pastor Ulrich Wirth, who has just returned to his homeland from America.”

“A pastor! So he’s a Protestant!”

“But it’s worth listening to. It’s Christianity, after all. Surely we should all be heading toward the narrow gate.”

Emanuel answered calmly, despite having been mocking me just moments ago. The passerby seemed to agree, standing in front of the fountain and rubbing his chin. I stared into the air and shouted.

“Just as the Pilgrim was terrified at first, those who have not yet passed through the narrow gate are afraid of death! Then tell me, why should true Christians—why should we Christians who have passed through the narrow gate and walk along the narrow path—have any reason to fear death? What, exactly, are we afraid of!”

Once five or six people had gathered, everything moved quickly. Seeing a crowd, passersby would stop to see what was happening, listen for a while, and then move on, only for another person to do the same. With every word I spoke, more elderly people and a few young people gathered around.

I cried out as though I were a man standing on the brink of the end of the world.

“The very heart of Christianity is the resurrection. Christianity is a religion that does nothing less than fight against death and triumph over it. God and Jesus Christ have conquered death and shown us that victory with their own lives. Scripture bears witness to the resurrection of Jesus! While every other religion tells us to accept death, tells us to await the afterlife, we Christians name death as our enemy and proclaim that it will be destroyed in the end!”

“Wow…”

Emanuel covered his mouth. I could guess what had prompted that reaction. At least he certainly wasn’t impressed simply because I had managed to quote First Corinthians¹ at exactly the right moment. I waved my hand and shouted.

“The world has fallen into decline. We place far too much value on reason and free will, repeating the same sin that caused humanity to think only of itself and be cast out of Eden in the first place. We are turning away from God’s embrace! And what makes matters worse is that, whether in America or Europe, Christendom surrendered to science long ago and abandoned the doctrine of biblical inerrancy! As a result, we Christians have begun turning away from the truth, saying things like, ‘Only the soul is immortal,’ or, ‘We will only live again in the afterlife after death.’ This is the result of an age that can no longer accept the Bible as truth in the face of scientific progress. Even we Christians must not look upon Scripture with such cynicism!”

“Is the afterlife heaven, then? What happens if we don’t come back to life in heaven?”

Someone in the back of the crowd shouted the question. I nodded deeply before answering.

“Our flesh will rise again right here!”

Silence fell. I widened my eyes and shouted at the frozen audience.

“How can the flesh come back to life scientifically? The resurrection of the flesh is scientifically impossible!—That is what young atheist intellectuals, heirs to the blood of the Enlightenment, will say. But they are wrong. Scripture tells us that ‘the flesh will be resurrected’!”

“You dispensationalist! Go back to America!”

Someone shouted angrily. One person’s opinion was not the opinion of the whole crowd. The fact that so many people remained was proof that my words were convincing them. I pointed toward the heckler and raised my voice even higher.

“This is exactly what I mean! Our age is steeped in science and reason, and refuses to accept the mysterious truths contained in Scripture. The belief that truth must always be based on science is ruining our society. Science fills us with fear of death and drives us away from Jehovah!”

“Right!”

Someone shouted as loudly as I had. I nodded, my eyes filled with righteous conviction, and lowered my voice into a firm tone.

“We must remember the Scriptures. There is a passage in First Corinthians that says, ‘But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith!’²”

“Amen!”

The sermon wasn’t even over when someone shouted it out. Even Maria now looked slightly bewildered. Emanuel was even more obvious. I would have to tell the two of them to do a better job of keeping their expressions under control.

I spoke with renewed fervor.

“Isaiah says this as well: ‘But your dead will live, LORD; their bodies will rise— let those who dwell in the dust wake up and shout for joy— your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead!’³ We put everything we find difficult to believe off as something that will happen after death, then pray comfortably in church. Even when Jesus died and rose again, the belief that the soul was immortal was already widespread, while the resurrection of the body was dismissed as utter nonsense. But if ‘God did not make death,’ is it truly the way of a Christian to withhold all these truths from our faith simply because we cannot fully accept the glory of the truth proclaimed by Scripture, and instead cast them off into some unknown world beyond death?”

“No—!”

An old man shouted from the crowd. Then countless voices answered him in unison. A few people left, while even more gathered at the back of the crowd.

“You think that only after you die and go to Heaven or Hell will you learn what true resurrection and eternal life really are? No. Everything happens here on earth. The Day of Judgment will come upon the earth! Our resurrection and eternal life will happen here on earth as well. I ask you again. Is it truly the way of a Christian to withhold all these truths from our faith and cast them off into some unknown world beyond death?”

I immediately brought my hand down through the air and shouted.

“No! That is why the Lord tells us: Open your eyes now! The time has come to open your eyes! The Lord is calling you now. Jesus calls us!”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake…”

I heard Emanuel mutter. Perhaps it was because I had switched from German to English, but it was exactly what I needed right now.

A small round of applause rose from the crowd. Several people turned their heads toward the sound. The faint show of approval quickly swelled into thunderous applause and cheers. It might not have looked like much from below, but from up here, it felt as though the entire square were surging.

I grinned and raised a clenched fist. Then I bowed politely. I bent down and whispered into Emanuel’s ear beside me.

“Here, Your Highness.”

“Go away. This is embarrassing.”

“Be reasonable. Please gather the names of everyone who gathered here. Anyone this interested in eternal life is a very likely candidate for Pleroma.”

Emanuel still didn’t understand why Pleroma had to be eradicated. He hadn’t experienced it for himself. Still, he didn’t refuse my request—Emanuel gave a hollow laugh, picked up the board with the registration sheet clipped to it, and approached the audience. As he began passing the pen and registration sheet around, a few people waved him off and left the square, but many others wrote down their names with faces full of righteous conviction.

After the audience dispersed, I carefully put the registration sheet into my bag and whispered to Emanuel.

“Now that we’re done with the sermon in Hallstatt, we should head straight to Bamberg, the neighboring city. It’s only an hour away by carriage.”

“We’re doing this again? Wow…”

“Of course. Rumors spread in an instant. Even more so in such a small clerical community. We can’t afford to miss the opportunity.”

Emanuel didn’t answer. He placed a hand on my shoulder and asked calmly, “I understand. But more importantly, Sir Everett, let me ask you something. Were you really a pastor in America?”

“Of course not. I clearly told you I’m an atheist.”

Emanuel tilted his head with a hollow smile.

“…Right. Let’s say that’s true. We went to Bamberg City Hall last night, too, and from the beginning, your target was the Archdiocese of Bamberg, where Father Ralph Huber serves. If that was the case, why didn’t we just start in Bamberg?”

“Not really. Isn’t there a difference between having at least one place to ease into things and not having one?”

I pulled Emanuel into a deserted back alley and prepared to warp.

“Let’s go after my lesson. After lunch, more people will be out and about than they are now, so the timing works out.”

And so, I was standing in a square in Bamberg. Not far away stood Bamberg Cathedral and the City Hall on the river. It was one in the afternoon. Under the blazing sunlight, I spread both arms wide and called out with force.

“The Lord is calling you now. Jesus calls us—!”

“He’s using that line again…”

Emanuel shook his head and whispered. He took the pen and the registration list and passed them around the audience.

I saw several people standing in the distance wearing cassocks. They were Catholic priests from Bamberg Cathedral, and when the list came around to them, they waved it away. The thinnest of them began gesturing to his colleagues. Before long, the other priests left. Only one remained behind—the gaunt priest. He stood at the edge of the audience, watching me even as people began to disperse one by one. Once the square had emptied out, he approached me.

“I was deeply impressed by your sermon, Pastor.”

“Thank you. You’re one of the priests from here.”

“That’s right. I’m a priest at Bamberg Cathedral.”

He pointed toward the large cathedral in the distance.

“Your views on death and resurrection were quite impressive. I would like to hear more of your thoughts. If you don’t mind me asking, how long will you be staying in Bamberg?”

“Your name?”

“Ralph Huber.”

Yes, that was a name worth remembering. The time he spent with Pleroma must have played a part in his eventually becoming an auxiliary bishop…

I slowly nodded and gave him a friendly smile.

“Of course. I’d be glad to talk with you as well. I was planning to head straight to Bayreuth and Nuremberg after finishing this sermon, but if you wish, I can stay in Bamberg through today.”

Translator Note

1. According to 1 Corinthians 15:26, ‘the last enemy to be destroyed is death.’ ↩︎
2. From 1 Corinthians 15:12-14 ↩︎
3. From Isaiah 26:19 ↩︎