Liana left to fetch a small towel and water bottle for Shed’s room, just as Werner had asked. No one had ever actually told her, but she had a rough sense of where the servants stayed and where things were kept.

There was a small building beside the annex—the one the heretic had destroyed—not far from the main house. It had been built long ago for the servants of the Count of Ideana.

“Li—Liana!”

Someone called out, and Liana stopped in her tracks, turning her head.

“High Priest…? May the Lord be with you.”

She stepped back, pressed her hands together, and bowed her head.

“Oh, no, please don’t. I mean, you’re not well—no need for such formality…”

Dietrich, waving his hand, shuffled toward her. He didn’t have the stern air of a high priest; instead, he seemed almost friendly, but Liana still felt uneasy around him. Whenever they met, she couldn’t help but tense up, afraid he might discover her black magic.

‘He probably can’t sense it unless there’s direct contact… Still, it’s a relief we don’t run into each other often.’

Dietrich was always busy—rebuilding protective wards, purifying corrupted land, overseeing the restoration of the damaged temple. But as long as they both lived in Faradel, she couldn’t avoid him forever. Liana tried to guess why he’d called her out.

Just then, a round cluster of purple flowers appeared in front of her eyes.

“I, uh… wanted to congratulate you on your recovery…”

Liana stared in surprise as Dietrich, looking awkward, held out a bunch of purple alliums. The alliums were almost as large as her own head, their soft, spherical blooms glowing with an elegant light.

“Um…”

“You—you don’t like flowers?”

Dietrich stammered, shifting anxiously as Liana hesitated to accept them.

“No, it’s not that…”

“I—I found them blooming while purifying the forest, so I picked some… The fact that they’re this big means the land of Ideana is recovering well, and that made me happy…”

Liana nodded, gazing at the giant allium in his hand. Just as he said, if a flower could bloom so lushly, it meant the soil of Faradel had regained its strength. Realizing that, she thought maybe it would be all right to accept this meaningful flower.

At the same time, she was reminded of just how inexperienced Dietrich was with people. Of all the flowers to offer, he’d chosen one that smelled distinctly like chives.

Still, it would be rude to refuse the high priest’s kind gesture.

“…Thank you, High Priest.”

As Liana accepted the allium stem, Dietrich twisted a strand of his silver hair, blushing shyly.

“And, I also wanted to tell you not to worry about the heretic…!”

Dietrich, suddenly finding his courage, clenched his fists and all but shouted.

“The priests and I are tracking him down right now. We’ve actually made quite a bit of progress. Uh, it should all be resolved within a month.”

He adjusted his glasses and smiled.

‘Hunting the heretic…’

Liana had been preoccupied with the heretic’s situation lately. He was both a perpetrator and, in some ways, a victim. She couldn’t help but worry about him.

‘But if he continues to hurt people…’

She couldn’t just stand by and let more innocent lives be lost. For Ideana’s sake, too, this had to be resolved.

While listening to Dietrich, Liana absentmindedly fidgeted with her fingertips, then looked up.

“High Priest, I’m not sure if I should be asking this…”

“Please, ask me anything! Whether it’s about doctrine, blessings, prayers—anything at all…”

“If the heretic is caught, what will happen to him?”

For a moment, the gentle look on Dietrich’s face was replaced by a flash of cold resolve.

“…Of course, he’ll be judged.”

“Will he… die?”

“Of course! And in a very painful way, at that.”

For the first time, Dietrich replied without stuttering, his voice full of certainty.

‘A very painful way…’

Dietrich’s judgment would surely be the same for ‘Luise Ideana.’

As Liana’s expression turned solemn, Dietrich stepped closer, as if to comfort her.

“The good news is, he’s not a true black mage. Judging from his actions, hmm, I think he’s unstable.”

“Unstable…?”

Dietrich seemed to know far more than she’d expected, even assessing the heretic’s state.

“Bl—black magic is forbidden because it draws power from life itself. That comes with all kinds of side effects.”

He didn’t go into the details, but Liana understood his meaning.

‘To survive, I need a sacrifice. A human sacrifice.’

If the heretic couldn’t kill, he would eventually be consumed by his own power and fall apart. That must have been the side effect Dietrich meant.

“Self-destruction—that’s how black magic punishes itself. So… in the end, their own sins are what judge them. It’s painful enough that one might almost wish for death to come quickly.”

Dietrich spoke of the heretic’s fate with a pure, innocent smile.

Liana looked down at her hands, silent.

“You said he’s unstable. What if he’s stable—what happens then…?”

What would the Temple do with a fully formed Black Mage who didn’t self-destruct?

Dietrich blinked, surprised by the directness of her question. Had she gone too far? Liana hurried to add,

“Just in case… If he really is a stabilized black mage…”

“Th—that’s simply impossible. In all of history, there’s only ever been one person who fully succeeded in that kind of sorcery.”

“Mephisto the demon… right?”

Liana recalled a story she had read long ago in the Book of Desidera—about a powerful priest who fell into corruption and reached the pinnacle of black magic. He was no longer priest, nor even human, but a being called a ‘demon.’

Mephisto.

“Th—that’s right! You really know your doctrine, Miss Liana!”

“As far as I know, the story ends with Mephisto being sealed away. So, was sealing him really the end of the matter?”

“Yes, the seal. It’s the last resort we know of.”

Dietrich seemed to come alive at the scholarly topic; very few people would listen patiently to his stammered explanations, especially when it came to doctrine or research.

“The sealing ritual is very complex and strict. First, you pierce the demon’s heart with a blade, bind its limbs with chains inscribed with prayers and trap it in a crystal forged from sacred power.”

Although he was describing a harrowing process, Dietrich seemed absolutely confident that it would work. This confidence was well founded — the current generation of high priests was said to be the most blessed in the order’s history. Giselle Marlhein, the so-called Saint, was said to possess the greatest sacred power of all time. She might have a difficult personality, but she would be the first to roll up her sleeves when it came to sealing a demon — she was a passionate and righteous woman.

“In that way, the demon is condemned to eternal suffering. Pierced through the heart, their body burning with holy fire, suffocating as if drowning, yet unable to die—they live on, trapped in endless agony. The priests call it ‘infernal punishment.’”

“It really is the perfect judgment for a demon. They’re forced to bear every pain a human could possibly feel, unable even to sleep.”

No matter how powerful, a demon locked away in infernal punishment would spend all its energy trying to heal its wounds and would be left powerless. Awakening was impossible unless someone broke the seal.

Liana looked down at the ground as she listened. She had known about ‘infernal punishment’ from an early age, even before she realised what she herself was. She had read about it in the scriptures as a child.

“So Mephisto will suffer forever? That’s so sad…”

Luise had teared up at Mephisto’s story when she was young. Her father, Felix Ideana, had told his daughter,

“But he gained eternity, didn’t he?”

At the time, she thought her father was saying that such agony was the price one had to pay for immortality. In hindsight, perhaps he was suggesting that despite all its risks, eternity was worth seeking.

Liana had always been afraid of that punishment. That’s why she’d spent so long searching for another way — not sealing, but a way to truly die. She had worked for the Godwin barony and the former head of the temple library, among others, seeking different wisdom.

But after all those years, she found herself right back where she started, no closer to finding a solution.

“Then… is Mephisto still alive somewhere?”

Alive, trapped in eternal agony…?

“Hmm, probably. The latter part of the Book of Desidera is missing, so no one really knows where Mephisto ended up.”

The sacred text left behind by the paladin Desidera ended with the demon’s sealing. People believed that the missing portion must contain the location where Mephisto was imprisoned. Many had searched for that lost ending, driven by curiosity or greed. But in the end, no one ever found it. The fate of the demon remained a legend—lost forever.

Liana pictured the demon, left all alone, abandoned in endless pain.

“Um, there’s no need to be afraid. I—I promise I’ll find the heretic and see that he’s judged…!”

Dietrich gently patted Liana’s shoulder, trying to reassure her.

She flinched at his touch—

And in that instant, a cold and all-too-familiar voice rang out behind them.

“…High Priest Dietrich.”