* * *
Dark clouds that seem ready to pour rain at any moment stretch across the sky.
Occasionally, lightning bolts illuminate the interior of a chapel that has become a ruin.
This place used to be a village that was attacked and destroyed by a horde of monsters, left to be forgotten.
What this village was called in its heyday… hardly anyone remembers now, and the chapel that was once beautifully painted white and kept clean is now left to decay.
…That was supposed to be the case.
A loud thunderclap lights up the chapel once again with its intense lightning.
It illuminates decorations inside the chapel that were made by human hands recently.
Yes, the chapel of a village that should have no inhabitants is indeed decorated in honor of a god.
However, these are not decorations of flowers or wooden statues depicting gods.
They are severed heads.
Wolf, boar, deer, mouse… and human.
Their faces contorted in agony are neatly arranged on the chapel’s tables, and the walls are painted with blasphemous patterns using blood, as well as hymns dedicated to the gods.
In the center of this space, which would drive any devout holy believer mad in less than five seconds, sit five men and women completely covered in black robes, forming a circle around a strange magic circle.
“…The oracle has descended.”
A bald man wearing a robe with particularly lavish embroidery… the cult leader Dahachie, said so with a faint smile, yet solemnly.
“Oh…!”
“What kind of…?”
“Blessed be…”
The cult members murmur, awaiting the next words of the cult leader.
Once the room quieted down again, Dahachie continued.
“Our miko, the Miko of Slaughter, will descend. The daughter with white hair, the youngest daughter of Tóveil.”
“What…! A miko…!”
“Tóveil… The count’s family of the Démès country?”
“Let’s go to welcome her at once…!”
They are the cult of the Death God, “The Purple Dual Rings.”
Among groups that uphold the faith in the Death God Alogoros, they are one of the most notorious cults.
Skilled in assassination, they gather to kill people and offer their souls to the Death God, accumulating virtue and obtaining “purified wealth” to live in this world.
Their goal is to continue accumulating virtue, become beloved followers of Alogoros, and engage in eternal slaughter.
“…There is more to the oracle. We must not be hasty.”
Holding back the cult members who stand up, ready to head to the Démès country immediately, Dahachie continues quietly.
“The guide for the miko is not among you. It is the ‘Grim Reaper of Ashgo’ who dwells in the depths of Zahun. You must bring the miko and the guide together. That is the divine command given to you.”
Shocked by the content of the oracle delivered by the cult leader, the cult members freeze.
“What, did you say…!!?”
One man, in fury, confronts Dahachie.
“We are the faithful believers of the noble god Alogoros! Why are we not fit to be the guide for the miko!?”
Dahachie, without breaking his gentle demeanor, quietly and calmly says one word.
“Silence.”
He said.
It was the next moment.
The man who had confronted Dahachie was sliced into pieces by something invisible and died.
Chunks of flesh fell to the floor, and a sea of blood spread, covering the magic circle.
“Oh, revered God Alogoros… we offer a new sacrifice to you. Please accept it…”
“Please accept it…”
Bowing and forming symbols with their hands at their chests, they pray to the god for several minutes… Then Dahachie speaks again.
“Zahan is a sacred peak that towers at the border between the countries of Rayvlake and Teenidys… We hear that the youngest daughter of Tóveil, our miko, is but six years old. The journey to Zahan might be too harsh for her young self. It would be wise to first make contact with the guide and then proceed to the Démès nation with him.”
No cult member voices any objection to the cult leader’s plan.
Each nods and begins to prepare for departure.
“Nevertheless, ‘The Grim Reaper of Ashgo’… the legendary assassin said to be ‘the one who cannot be killed’…”
“I had heard he disappeared ten years ago, but to think he was hiding at the sacred peak of Zahan… in the very presence of the guardian sacred beast Jarnayaharma…”
“To bear the same epithet as our god, what blasphemy…”
The cult members’ conversation continues, while Cult Leader Dahachie listens silently, never letting his smile fade.
Then, someone spoke to him again.
His name is Yóron.
The youngest and least experienced believer among the cult members.
“Nevertheless, Cult Leader, it still bothers me. Why were we not recognized by Lord Alogoros as the guide?”
“Night and day, we kill, kill, kill… and offer souls to Lord Alogoros. Yet why…”
“Cult Leader, have you received any oracle regarding this? What were we lacking?”
Cult Leader Dahachie does not answer.
He just smiles and stares at Yóron.
In the next moment, Yóron, too, becomes sliced into pieces of flesh, lying on the ground like the man before.
“Oh, revered God Alogoros… we offer a new sacrifice to you. Please accept it…”
“Please accept it…”
“…Then let us go, everyone. To welcome the guide, and our Miko of Slaughter.”
Under still-darkened skies, three members of “The Purple Dual Rings” set off towards Zahan.
The thunder continued to rumble in the distant sky, endlessly.