The conclusion was simple. They were the first to reach the bottomless pit, and this scene was evidence no one could have tampered with.

In other words, the Holy See had murdered Mother Earth's spiritual master, the one called the Grand Master.

Both the Military State's history and the undying one's folk tale were wrong. Tyr's story had come closest to the truth.

Was time, after all, the greatest distorting influence on history?

Or perhaps the Holy See had influenced every source the Military State consulted when compiling its history books.

Looking both hollow and furious, the Earth Sage trudged forward, holding all her anguish inside like a volcano sleeping deep beneath the earth. Then she stopped short.

With a quiet smile, she looked at the figure blocking her path.

"Yes. I knew it would come to this. That fleeting sense of presence I felt from the moment we met... The scent of those who live without planting their feet upon the earth. Only that dreadful breed who justify every sin merely because they can see the future gives off such a stench."

Naturally, the person blocking her path was the Regressor.

She stood facing the Earth Sage, her blue and red eyes shining. The Earth Sage's quiet smile grew still more benevolent.

"Even after hearing this hidden history, do you intend to stop me, boy?"

Facing the Earth Sage with grim resolve, the Regressor swallowed, uncharacteristically nervous, and asked,

"... Let me ask you one thing."

"What is it?"

"If you take her 'keepsake' from here and return to the surface..."

The jet-black staff resting carefully in the woman's hands atop the mountain of corpses.

Pointing to it, the Regressor asked the Earth Sage again,

"What's the first thing you'll do?"

The Earth Sage asked no questions. Neither what the staff was, nor how the Regressor had recognized it.

She simply nodded, accepting it without comment.

"Is that not obvious?"

Her smile widened as she answered, as though stating a self-evident truth.

"I shall hold the Holy See accountable for its sins."

A calm declaration. In matters of religion, the Holy See was a powerful organization that ruled the world in both name and fact, a group possessing all manner of secrets and mysteries.

At the Earth Sage's declaration of war against them, the Regressor questioned her again.

"That happened in the past."

"It is a sacrament of the present."

"A lot of people will die."

"Not as many as they have killed."

"You'll die in the end, too."

"I am not afraid."

The Regressor knew this much would never persuade her. Instead, she asked a different question.

"Even if it leads to an even greater tragedy?"

The Earth Sage snorted. Rather than giving her pause, the Regressor's question seemed only to strengthen her resolve.

"... That precious future again. You speak as though you have seen it yourself. How strange. A man cannot become a Saintess."

"You must have heard it from someone," the Earth Sage murmured, without asking further. She seemed to consider the prospect of a greater tragedy unworthy of a moment's thought.

The Regressor spoke desperately.

"In just a few years, something that threatens the world will appear."

"Is that so?"

"Even if the Holy See falls, even if an age of Mother Earth's faith and vampires comes, he'll appear. No, he'll come into the world even sooner, and more powerful than before."

"So it seems."

An indifferent reply. Growing desperate, the Regressor revealed the truth she had kept tightly hidden for fear of alarming people.

"The King of Sin. A judge who commands the Demon God's power and passes judgment on humanity's sins. The Holy See's Saintess, the Magic Federation's Demon King, even the Sword Saint who protects the Empire—none of them can withstand a single move from him. He's so powerful that even all of humanity together can't defeat him."

"The Demon God, you say. A name the Holy See is fond of."

"That thing is born from all the world's vices. If you, the renowned Earth Sage everyone respects, wage war on the Holy See... If you strike a blow against them single-handedly and die a heroic death... That alone will ignite a war. The world will be engulfed in conflict, sin will flourish within it, and people who throw the world into turmoil will emerge from the chaos. And among them..."

The King of Sin would be born.

Bearing all the despair and vice wrought by humanity.

The Regressor tried to speak of the terrible catastrophe that lay ahead, but...

"So what?"

"... Huh?"

That single remark from the Earth Sage left her able to do nothing but respond blankly. To the Regressor's bewildered question, the Earth Sage replied with a perfectly clear, resolute expression.

"I asked, 'So what?'"

SPLASH.

Her foot came down on a corpse. After more than a thousand years of something akin to coagulation and sedimentation, the bodies were as hard as packed earth and supported her without wavering.

"If they committed persecution to avert a tragedy, they must have been confident they could withstand the resistance as well. If they lack the strength to suppress even our struggle to survive, press onward, and defeat the coming catastrophe, they should never have done it in the first place. For there was no place for us in the future they envisioned."

Even had the footing been otherwise, the Earth Sage would not have fallen.

She was the Un-topple-able One. One who kept walking without falling.

Merely standing in her way could never stop her.

"That's not what I mean! Instead of fighting each other, we need to cooperate and overcome the crisis...!"

"If they sent a champion to stop me, they must be confident they can do so."

"No! I don't have to stop you! If you take the sword of the earth, Earth's Ripple, but promise not to use its power, I'm willing to let you have it...!"

The instant she heard those words, the Earth Sage's face twisted like a wrathful demon's, and she shouted,

"LET! ME! HAVE! IT!"

Veins bulged in her neck. A sound like crushing rock came from her clenched fist. She flung out her hand, and the five rings clattered with a harsh metallic clang.

Then she shouted, as though spewing out everything inside her.

"That is ours! This is our land, our grave! A mere champion of the Holy See! By what right do you offer to let me have the Grand Master's keepsake?!"

RUMBLE.

Her shout rebounded off the mountain of corpses and the slanting Tantalus, echoing outward. It was so thunderous that even the bodies beneath our feet stirred.

"Do not presume the future belongs to you! Even if you claimed it in some future where I was absent, that would give you no right to it!"

CRUNCH.

The Earth Sage clenched her fist and drew back her arm. Her muscles swelled, and the five rings joined into one, encasing her right arm without a gap.

Having steeled both body and mind, she glared at the Regressor with terrifying intensity and shouted,

"Raise your sword, champion! I shall go forward! With the keepsake of the woman buried in this ancient grave, I shall call the Holy See to account for its sins! I am Mother Earth's apostle, and the scream of those dying along with her name! If you would bury this question in the earth, kill me and bury me in the bottomless pit!"

The attempt at persuasion had failed. In this run, too, the Regressor had failed to stop her.

That now-familiar sense of defeat. The Regressor bit her lip and lowered her head. Then her eyes happened to meet mine down the slope.

'If someone else had tried to persuade her instead of me... Yes. If it had been him, would anything have changed?'

Not a chance.

All I did was grant wishes. How could I possibly stand against the Un-topple-able One's raging gale?

Besides, even I hadn't known. I'd known how much anguish and longing she held inside, but I'd never expected such ferocious hatred to emerge.

I was a mind reader, not a prophet.

The Regressor sighed and spoke slowly, as though drained of strength.

"The future has never once belonged to me. It's always been my enemy. Always trying to fuck me over in the most outlandish ways."

The Regressor reached upward and grasped her sword. Sky Cherry Blossom, the sword of the sky that had always been with her.

The compressed space she had painstakingly saved for this day alone. Releasing its restraints, she seized the surging power in her hand.

"Let me correct one thing. I'm no champion of the Holy See. I've never prayed to a god in my life, and no god has ever granted me anything. Fighting and cursing each other, maybe."

'The first time, I was relieved to be alive again. The second, I was happy to have gained a strange new ability. The third, I was excited. I thought I'd become someone special. But this special gift wasn't a blessing. It was a curse. Far too much for an ordinary person... like me...'

After that brief moment of self-mockery, the Regressor raised her sword again.

The vast bottomless pit stirred.

Wind raged between the slanted ceiling and the mountain of corpses. It was as though the bottomless pit had reclaimed its sky and summoned the wind once more.

WHOOOO.

The wind's cry flowed over the corpses in a mournful howl. At last, that cry converged on a single point and was sucked into the Regressor's sword.

Shrouding her sword in tremendous power, the Regressor shouted,

"Fuck! Even so! We still have to stop the world from ending!"

The Regressor kicked off the floor of corpses, and the Earth Sage slowly slid her right foot back. The earth behind her foot packed itself solid, firmly bracing her body.

The invisible sword collided with the five rings.