Chapter 700 Jessica’s Parents

“I’m back. Home, after all this time...”

Before taking action, Loren and the others first returned to their old house to rest for a while. Starnight hadn’t stopped once along the way, and the journey had been exhausting.

Anna looked unusually excited as she stepped inside. She had lived here before, of course, but living here alone and living here with Loren were completely different things.

“Let’s eat something first, then we’ll get moving.”

Loren noticed that Jessica seemed nervous, so he offered her a few words of reassurance.

“I’m not in a hurry... I just feel like I’m causing you trouble...

“Rescuing me was already enough trouble, and now I’m asking you to rescue my parents, too...”

Jessica lowered her head and clutched the hem of her clothes. Her voice caught in her throat:

“I’m truly... grateful to you...”

“Good is rewarded with good, and evil with evil. You stood firmly by Luna’s side before and helped her resist the nobles’ bullying.

“So now, I’ll help you.”

Loren’s words seemed to help. Jessica raised her head.

“Is there really such a thing as karma in this world?”

“I’m karma.”

Loren’s answer was brisk and utterly irrefutable.

The idea that good is rewarded with good and evil with evil was just something people told themselves for comfort. Loren didn’t believe karma existed in this world, either. Otherwise, the Orthodox Gods couldn’t have ruled it for so long.

So Loren had decided to become their karma.

……

With Scarlett around, Loren didn’t need to worry about ingredients. Whatever they needed, he could simply ask her to take it out.

As they ate, Loren also laid out the plan for what came next:

“After this, we’ll go find Jessica’s parents. It wouldn’t be convenient to bring too many people, so just Luna, Jessica, and I will go.”

Loren didn’t specifically say that Reflection Naclis should come along. That went without saying.

Loren wouldn’t discuss anything too secret in front of Jessica. Even if she wouldn’t betray him, it would be a problem if someone had an ability that could read memories directly.

The God of Dreams had a similar ability, for one.

Since they had to follow the projections, bringing too many people would only get in the way. Loren had originally planned to take Jessica alone, but she might panic. It would be better to have someone she knew, like Luna, with her.

Come to think of it, Jessica had never been alone with Loren. Every time she got to see him, it was thanks to Luna.

The others had no objections. Anna knew Loren wouldn’t be going far this time.

“Good. No time to waste. Let’s get going.”

Loren glanced at Jessica. She was staring at the food in front of her, not making the slightest move to pick up her chopsticks. So Loren quickly ate a few bites himself and prepared to leave.

After all, Jessica’s parents could die at any moment. It was only natural that she couldn’t eat.

Even if word of Jessica’s death reached them, they wouldn’t release her parents. They would just execute them instead.

“Let’s go.”

Luna had finished eating, too. She could see how anxious Jessica was.

“Let’s go!”

Loren picked Jessica up and flew into the sky. Luna followed close behind. She could fly, too.

That was another reason Loren had chosen to bring Luna. Among all the Witches, she was the only one besides Starnight who could fly freely.

Laila could fly, too, but her ability was limited. She could only fly in the direction she had marked.

“Remember to guide me.”

Loren couldn’t pinpoint the exact location just from Jessica’s description. It would be more reliable to have her guide him.

“It’s not far from the Royal Capital...”

When something happened to Loren, Jessica’s family had still been in the Royal Capital. They had heard the commotion and planned to flee, but the Church intercepted them before they could escape.

“Good.”

Back when Loren had traveled to the Royal Capital, he’d had to take a train. Flying was much faster.

Luna wasn’t slow, either. As long as Loren wasn’t flying at full speed, she could keep up with him.

“It’s here!”

When they reached the Royal Capital, Jessica pointed out a location to Loren.

“I’ll never forget this place!”

“Okay.”

Loren brought Jessica down to the ground and began adjusting the time according to her description, until the projection of Jessica’s family appeared there.

Loren had explained his methods to Jessica before, so she wasn’t particularly surprised when she saw the projection.

Everyone could see the projections. Previously, Loren had hidden them with the Hermit card as a matter of course, but the Royal Capital of Gedlan had become a dead city, and there were hardly any living people around. There was no need to conceal them.

Still, Loren kept one precaution in reserve.

Once Jessica’s family appeared, Loren began playing the projection forward.

This was a source of trauma for Jessica, so Loren had no intention of watching it in detail. He rapidly sped through it, skipping the middle and going straight to the moment they were separated.

At the time, Jessica had gone with the soldiers to the border. Back then, the border of the Bountiful Church’s territory had still been the Gedlan Kingdom. It was only after Anna returned here that the place became a dead city.

Both the Bountiful Church and the other Churches had abandoned the area.

Anna had never harmed innocent people, either. They had left of their own accord.

After Jessica left, the Church’s people began taking her parents elsewhere. They were headed toward the Nofica Theocracy.

“So they do take this seriously.”

Normally, something happening in a small country like the Gedlan Kingdom wouldn’t reach the Nofica Theocracy. But this incident involved Loren, so the people above were taking it seriously.

“We’ll have to speed up from here.”

Loren picked Jessica up again. As the projection sped up, Loren flew faster as well. After all, they were heading to the Nofica Theocracy, which was some distance away.

Eventually, the projection stopped inside a prison near the border of the Nofica Theocracy. There weren’t many guards there, and people didn’t pay the place much attention.

The less attention they paid to it, the more anxious Jessica became.

“I’ll go in and take a look. You two wait outside.”

Loren set Jessica down beside the prison, then walked through the wall as if no one were there and entered. He found the location shown in the projection. It was an ordinary cell, with two cells side by side. Each held a haggard man and woman.

Almost all of their fingernails had been pulled out. Though they had grown so thin they were barely recognizable, Loren still identified them. They were Jessica’s parents.

Loren immediately shared the good news with Jessica and laid out the next step of the plan:

“Luna, Jessica, I’m going to blow up the Church now. Take the opportunity to rescue Jessica’s parents.”

With that, Loren flew toward the Church.

Just as he was thinking about how to deal with it, he discovered something absurd.

The area beneath the Church was already packed with bombs. They were so well concealed that they didn’t even look like bombs. They looked like gemstones, and they happened to be piled up in the Church’s underground treasury.

“Wait, who else besides me wants to blow up the Church?”

Loren casually picked up one of the bombs and began examining it.

These bombs were very stable. They could only be detonated using a specific magical circuit, and they would set each other off in a chain reaction. With so many exploding at once, their power would multiply.

There were also an absurd number of bombs here. If they were detonated, they really could blow the Church sky-high.

“Now that’s a talent...”

The gemstone bombs worked on roughly the same principle as the Spirit Thought Rings Loren had made, which gave him a suspect.

“Could it be William? Did he figure out how my rings work, then make a whole pile of bombs by copying them...?”

Church treasuries generally didn’t store gemstones, gold, or other things with monetary value. They stored magical items instead.

So Loren’s guess had actually been right.

Loren tried connecting the gemstones using the same method he used to detonate his rings. After experimenting for a while, he found that he had succeeded.

If he wanted to, he could detonate the whole pile of gemstones at any time.

In the end, though, Loren chose not to. Whoever had planted these bombs, he and the Church were enemies.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Loren decided to help that person keep one of their trump cards hidden. Besides, he had plenty of ways to destroy the Church.

Loren entered the Church. Because of the war, everyone inside was busy. The Nuns kept plucking out their own eyes and sending the eyeballs to the front lines. A Nun’s eyeballs had healing properties.

Branches growing from their eye sockets kept bearing fruit that looked like eyeballs, or perhaps eyeballs that looked like fruit. The moment these things grew, they were plucked off, only to grow back again almost immediately.

Normally, these fruits grew very slowly and were meant for emergencies.

To make them grow quickly, the Nuns had to drain their own life force, which also damaged their eyesight.

But there was no point in being able to see now. They didn’t need to move anymore. All they had to do was produce as many fruits as possible before they died.

And there were far more Nuns in the Church now than before. Becoming a Nun, a clergyperson who could borrow divine power, had once been very difficult, but the requirements had now been greatly relaxed.

Basically, anyone who was willing to come could be accepted.

“How pitiful...”

Loren sighed, then slowly rose into the air and dispelled the Hermit card’s invisibility.

“Ahem. People of the Nofica Theocracy, I, Loren, have returned!”

To announce his arrival, Loren used wind magic to carry his voice across the entire country.

Once everyone knew he was there, Loren pointed his finger at the sky. The Feather of the Threshold activated, and the Nofica Theocracy plunged into darkness. Only Loren, glowing in the sky, remained.

He became the only sun in the land.

“I am the Perpetual Observer, the only true god still living in this world!

“You have forsaken the true god and worshipped the False God, the God of Bountiful Harvest. You shall be punished!”

As soon as he finished speaking, flames began falling from the sky like a fiery rain.

“You shall face the punishment of heavenly fire!”

Loren had appeared so suddenly that people hadn’t even realized what was happening before the flames swallowed them.

This was Loren’s original spell, the Eighth-Tier Magic [Heavenly Fire]. He had adapted it from the Sin-Burning Flames, greatly increasing its range and the speed at which it spread.

Unlike the Sin-Burning Flames, Heavenly Fire could burn buildings. In fact, it would only burn buildings tainted by “sin.”

For example, Heavenly Fire would burn down the Church, but not the homes of innocent civilians.

Loren had infused Heavenly Fire with the Perpetual Observer’s authority, so there was no problem with its judgment.

In an instant, the entire city was swallowed by flames. Screams rose from every direction. As soon as those evildoers touched the Heavenly Fire, they were reduced to ash, with barely enough time to scream once.

The prison holding Jessica’s parents was burned down along with everything else. Quite a few prisoners were reduced to ash by the Heavenly Fire.

What Loren hadn’t expected was that only a small number of the prisoners were burned. The guards, on the other hand, were all burned.

That left Loren feeling a little wistful.

“Why isn’t anyone coming after me?”

Loren stood in a high place and watched the situation below for a long time, but no one came to confront him.

Not an Angel, not even a Scarecrow.

Although the Heavenly Fire had burned most of the Scarecrows to nothing, there had been so many of them that plenty had survived.

Loren simply watched Luna and Jessica rescue Jessica’s parents and take them somewhere safe. From beginning to end, no one appeared to stop Loren.

It made Loren want to burn down the Royal Capital of the Nofica Theocracy, too. In the end, though, he managed to restrain that urge.

If he really burned down the Royal Capital of the Nofica Theocracy, the Bountiful Church would lose nearly all ability to resist. The other two Churches would be able to crush it however they pleased.

“Boring...”

Loren merely glanced at one of the surviving Scarecrows, and it fainted in fright.

As the Church most familiar with Loren, the Bountiful Church understood better than anyone how terrifying he was.

They also knew perfectly well that they were the Church that had wronged Loren the most. Ever since Loren appeared, they had been constantly afraid he would take revenge. So many high-ranking Church members had developed PTSD, dreaming every night of Loren tormenting them.

After being steeped in fear for so long, they could no longer bring themselves to resist Loren.

In the end, Loren couldn’t be bothered to finish off this pack of broken-spined dogs. Besides, the people who had survived weren’t especially guilty.

Of course, the main reason no one fought back was that so many people had died. This was Loren’s first time testing his Heavenly Fire ability, and its effects were far stronger than he had expected.

It was a precise strike against an entire city. From now on, Loren could destroy whole cities at will.

After witnessing the power of Heavenly Fire, people’s fear of Loren would rise another notch.

“Looks like I’ll have to figure out a way to teach Panike Heavenly Fire... If nothing else, I can have her pretend to cast it while I release the Heavenly Fire...”

Loren had no use for other people’s fear. Panike was the one who needed to be feared.

As it happened, Panike could become Loren’s Angel, a being who would go forth and destroy those who defied him.

With that in mind, Loren returned to the place where they had agreed to meet. Jessica’s parents looked much better now. Jessica had a Healing Potion with her and had just given them some.

“So, you’re Jessica’s parents. Next, I’ll...”

Before Loren could finish, Jessica’s mother suddenly began to roar:

“This is all your fault, and your Witches’! It’s all because of you...”

“Shut up!”

Jessica shouted as she clamped a hand over her mother’s mouth. At the same time, she glared fiercely at her father, who was about to say something.

Her eyes were bloodshot, and they brimmed with madness. Even her parents felt afraid of her.

“The Church framed us. Master Mentor saved us. That’s all!

“If you have a problem with that, then go back to prison!”