“Are you feeling alright?”

I silently looked at the passage through which the sorcerer had entered.

‘It’s not blocked… if I pretend to accidentally make a loud noise.’

Just as I was thinking this, he spoke as if he had read my mind.

“Screaming won’t help. There’s a special spell on the entrance of this place. No sound from here can be heard outside.”

“……”

“Are you feeling better? Are you still uncomfortable?”

The sorcerer asked, looking up at me.

“Excuse me, what do you mean by ‘goddess’?”

When I spoke, ignoring his words, he finally smiled with relief.

“It means exactly that. White hair and those eyes… you are the woman I saw in the oracle.”

A strange way of speaking with mixed honorifics.

He seemed somewhat unskilled in using the imperial language.

As I silently observed him, he placed a hand on his chest and said.

“My name is Raku. Sorcerer of the Bannaku.”

‘I know.’

Bannaku was the name of a tribe the emperor had subjugated.

Those who lived on Mount Kroom and worshipped demons.

‘Could he be trying to use me as a hostage to revive his tribe? Or for revenge?’

I stared at him blankly while my mind raced.

‘The worst case…’

In the worst case, he might have kidnapped me simply to vent his anger.

Then I would be imprisoned here and unable to avoid all sorts of harsh treatment.

‘…Like in <Vengeance is Mine>.’

“……”

That such thoughts came to me first in this situation made me belatedly realize I wasn’t quite in my right mind.

I took a light breath, “Hmm.”

I felt that I indeed lacked some sense of reality.

What was funnier was that even after realizing this, I didn’t particularly care.

I just felt slightly empty.

Perhaps to hide this emptiness, I unconsciously smiled brightly.

“Are you going to kill me?”

I found myself saying that while looking at the man called Raku.

And with a warm, gentle voice that didn’t match the content at all….

Raku just stared at me without answering.

“If your purpose is to play with me and then kill me, I suppose asking you to kill me quickly wouldn’t work, right? Hmm, in that case….”

‘Rather, I should…’

It might be better to take the initiative before even the option of death is taken away from me.

‘……’

Just as my vision seemed to darken…..

“Your expression doesn’t look good. Are you in pain? That’s strange. It was just a spell to make you sleep.”

Raku suddenly stood up and reached for my forehead.

Thanks to that, I could snap back to my senses.

I hurriedly avoided his approaching hand.

‘…No, wait. Come to think of it, I shouldn’t give up yet…! I haven’t even seen Arkle’s crying face yet!’

Right, I absolutely cannot die before that.

Raku looked surprised, as if he hadn’t expected me to avoid his touch.

I laughed cheerfully, “Ahaha,” and said.

“Revenge won’t change reality. Besides, I’m not even part of the imperial family. Rather, send me back to Arkle, and for a ransom—”

“It’s not revenge. The opposite. The reason I brought you, goddess, is….”

Raku, who had trailed off momentarily, slowly opened his mouth.

“For atonement.”

“Atonement?”

When I asked again, doubting my ears, he nodded.

“Yes, atonement. There’s something I fear. Life after death.”

“……”

“The Bannaku people all believe in a god. And we serve the god.”

The “god” he mentioned seemed to refer to the demon they worshipped.

“We regularly made offerings, and made plans to expand the place where the god would live.”

‘Offerings obviously means sacrifices.’

The plan seemed to refer to the operation led by the tribal chief to invade imperial territory.

Although they were subjugated by the emperor before that.

‘Still, they had quite a large number of tribespeople… if they had actually invaded, it could have been quite dangerous.’

“I didn’t do anything. All I did was create cursed weapons to become an excellent sorcerer.”

‘That’s not doing nothing.’

I thought, but I just agreed, saying, “I see.”

It was a soulless reaction, but he didn’t mind as he was absorbed in his story.

“But the plan failed, and the chief died. The elders who planned together also died. I survived, but then I thought.”

Raku raised his head and looked up at the sky.

Of course, it was blocked by the cave ceiling, but he seemed to be looking at the sky beyond it.

“What comes after diligently serving the god…? What happened to the chief and the others? Could they have been rewarded by the god…?”

“……”

“Actually, I might have known. The god we served… wasn’t the kind of being who would save dead souls.”

“Wow. You discovered something amazing.”

I didn’t mean to be sarcastic, but the blunt words came out unconsciously.

The emperor’s decision to subjugate the Bannaku wasn’t solely because they worshipped demons.

In Bannaku, all sorts of inhumane acts, including the living sacrifices Raku just mentioned, were established as ‘customs.’

Such ‘customs’ often caused harm even to the villages near Mount Kroom.

Anyway, it seems Raku had unconsciously been aware that such acts were not right.

‘So after witnessing the deaths of the chief and elders, he became obsessed with atonement.’

In other words, this man is now seeking salvation.

‘…But what does that have to do with me?’

I’m someone who is more confident in corrupting people rather than saving them.

‘Of all people, to choose someone like this… tsk tsk, he drew a blank.’

As I was feeling sorry for him in my heart, Raku, unaware of this fact, looked at me with a strange light in his eyes.

A low voice flowed from his lips.

“It’s you, goddess. The way for me to atone.”

“Why on earth?”

“I prayed to… a different god, not the Bannaku’s god. I begged anyone, please help me. Tell me how to be forgiven. So that I could be rewarded in the life after death….”

“You’re very confident that ‘life after death’ exists.”

Raku ignored my cynically thrown words.

“That day, an oracle came to me in a dream. A white space with nothing… a woman with silver hair and pink eyes standing in the middle… She looked at me and smiled brightly. It was such a warm smile. After waking from the dream, I realized….”

Raku knelt before me again.

His golden eyes looking up at me flashed with madness.

His excited voice grew louder and louder. He spoke almost shouting.

“That it was an oracle…! The way for me to be saved after death is to serve you, goddess, with my whole body.”

“Puhahah—!”

Laughter burst out of me involuntarily.

Only then did Raku’s face, which had remained unmoved no matter what I said, contort.

“…Why are you laughing.”

“No, it’s just that you’re crazier than I thought. Ah, I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“……”

Raku, who had been quietly watching me giggling, opened his mouth again. His voice seemed somewhat calmer.

“No. It’s okay. Goddess, you might think it’s ridiculous, but my resolve won’t waver.”

“Ahaha… how did you know I would come to Kelston?”

“After receiving the oracle, I stayed here and kept thinking about how I could go meet you. Then one day, I looked at divination and realized.”

Raku carefully wrapped my hands with both of his.

“I don’t really like this kind of skinship.”

Pretending not to hear my indifferent words.

“That I didn’t need to go… I learned that you were coming here. Indeed, all of this was God’s will…. You and I were destined to be like this.”

“Hmm. Unfortunately, you need more practice in seducing women. The most cliché flirting line is ‘destiny’… something like that.”

When I said this with a bright smile, as if regretful, Raku just silently looked at me.

He doesn’t seem completely oblivious.

“And touching without permission is also a deduction point.”

I mercilessly pulled my hands away from his grasp.

Though I was speaking with a smiling eyes, a chilly atmosphere flowed between us.

Raku broke the silence first.

“…I’ll ask just one thing.”

“You can ask a hundred things. Can’t we get out of here and have a leisurely Q&A session?”

“Do you think I cannot atone?”

“Why not? People can change if they set their minds to it. But, wouldn’t doing this make your sin even greater?”

A moment of silence passed.

“…I understand. That’s your answer.”

As Raku rose, unfamiliar language flowed from his mouth again.

“ɵʞØßŋđ, ɵʞØßŋđ….”

I tried to quickly cover my ears, but my arms stiffened and I couldn’t move them.

Unlike before, my consciousness didn’t blur, but my whole body seemed to have stiffened.

I glared fiercely at Raku and smiled.

“Haha, with this, your sins have accumulated more. Congratulations.”

He was no longer swayed by my sarcastic provocation.

He looked at me with a smile.

“Goddess, you don’t need to move. I’ll be your hands and feet. I’ll take care of you for the rest of our lives here.”

He exclaimed with his arms spread wide, as if overwhelmed.

“This place is now our temple, yours and mine. Miss Goddess, only yours….”

BANG—!!!!!

A heavy sound that seemed to tear my eardrums swallowed Raku’s words.

Raku’s expression contorted as he identified the source of the sound.

One side of the cave wall had collapsed miserably.

In the debris where dust was rising, someone’s silhouette was visible.

It was Arkle.

“No… there was definitely a barrier… how did he do it?”

I spoke to Raku, who was muttering in confusion, with a voice full of regret.

“What a shame…. The temple collapsed as soon as it was built. Did you have insurance?”