G: I don’t know what the author is on, but he keeps writing long (4103 words) chapters, so here we are with another 3 parter.
“Are you here, Ziffnel?”
In the middle of a bloody battlefield, a boy clad in thick silver armor—holding a spear in one hand and a broken sword in the other, with blood streaming down his head—bowed carefully before the great angel.
He was a soldier in the rebel army and a man who would later be called the greatest saint.
Telmere walked toward Ziffnel, a noble angel who regarded the dead bodies around them with an indifferent expression, with heavy steps.
“Ah, Telmere,” Ziffnel said. “Little boy, do you have anything to say?”
As if everything in the world were trivial, Ziffnel turned her gaze away from the heretic army that had been annihilated with a single flap of her wings and stroked her black hair.
Narrowing her eyes, she looked at the little boy standing before her—a child with attractive blonde hair.
Telmere had been chosen by her older sister Tapnel in this war and was the first among the insignificant creatures on earth to accept the power of an angel.
What did someone like him would want to say?
The angel slowly raised her head toward the little boy, her eyes shining as if she had discovered an interesting toy.
Upon seeing the angel with her overwhelming and perfect beauty, Telmere blushed, stepped back from Ziffnel, and bowed his head, “I, Telmere, a lowly servant of God, was very sorry, but I had come to visit you because I had something to say to the angel,” he declared.
“Do you have something to say to me? Interesting. It seems fun, so I will allow you to spea.” Ziffnel replied, raising her thin white hand and laughing.
Standing before her, Telmere—who mourned a world in which kindness and love had vanished and where the Angel of Love had been forsaken—took a deep breath and retorted in a loud, arrogant tone, “Great angel, no matter how heretical they might have been, I did not think you needed to kill them more cruelly than necessary!”
“What?” Ziffnel scoffed. “I decided to listen to you because it seemed that you would say something pleasant, but your arrogance must be skyrocketing to bring up such a trivial topic.” She frowned at the young boy’s insolent remonstrance, glared at him for a moment, and then, as if her excitement had faded, turned to leave the scene.
But then the boy’s voice called out from behind her, “Wasn’t Ziffnel, by nature, an angel of mercy and love? At times like these, we humans needed your kindness and love. Please, calm their anger, show kindness and love, and lead the foolish people to Rom’s side.”
The angel halted her departure at the words the boy had spat out, as though he were spitting his own blood. She slowly turned her head and looked down at the foolish child of God, saying, “Why didn’t I show kindness and love? The reason was simple: you humans were not worth it.”
With those words, she adjusted her clothes and vanished, walking through the battlefield filled with the stench of rotten blood.
However, Ziffnel—who had secretly watched Telmere kneel and pray until the sun had set, the rain had fallen, and the sun had risen again—shook her head in exasperation.
“I can’t understand it at all,” she murmured.
No, she had been damaged from the moment she was born.
As the angel of mercy and love, she was supposed to be kinder and more loving than anyone else, yet she remained empty inside. With no mercy or love to give, what could she offer?
Until the angel of faith soared above the boy who prayed ceaselessly, Ziffnel could only watch the foolish child from afar.
***
“Women’s fight. Isn’t it always fun to watch a drama involving love?”
‘Ah, she said it was a mission to slay the devil. Heh…’
A beautiful woman smiled leisurely and watched the fight between the two women.
Judging from the three pairs of wings that extended from her waist, like a work of supreme art, her identity seemed unmistakably that of an angel.
Ziffnel, the angel of mercy and love, was in a very bad mood at the moment.
She had to carefully descend to the mortal world—it wasn’t because she was a being who disliked descending noisily, but because she had to watch out for the devils. It was humiliating to say the least.
Also, it wasn’t enough that she had to take such steps because of the weak, evil devils who could not come to their senses; the people responsible for the incident had all been priests of the Telmere Church.
Although she didn’t say it out loud, Saint Telmere was the only person she could call a friend in her long life as an angel.
The angel, looking down on the priest who had defiled a name that should have remained holy for eternity, slowly but gracefully set her feet on the void.
—Boom!
The graceful movements of an angel could not be compared to those of the kingdom’s top dancers. However, the void beneath her beautiful feet cracked repeatedly, and it was crushed before the majesty of heaven.
“Heretic Inquisitor Julius Tapnel— for the sin of daring to break the strict laws of heaven and succumbing to the whispers of Nirhil, a wicked devil who had to be sealed away, Rom’s second daughter and an angel of mercy and love—I, Ziffnel, have come to punish you.”
Ziffnel, glaring arrogantly yet elegantly at the fallen heretic inquisitor with a heavenly glow, spread her wings wide.
It was an incomprehensible display of explosive brilliance, each feather woven into a thin tapestry of divinity.
The man in question, Julius Tapnel, silently and neatly corrected his posture in the face of the violent angel’s majesty—a majesty that would have caused an ordinary person to collapse from weakness.
The heretic inquisitor, who was more possessed by the madness than Cecil, the devil mad with love, bowed his head neatly toward the heavenly being who had come to punish him.
“May the glory of Rom be with you. I, heretic inquisitor Julius Tapnel, greet you, Ziffnel, the angel of mercy, one of the pillars of heaven.”
“Even though you have dared to take the path of heresy, your current unscrupulous attitude is nothing short of audacious. I don’t appreciate your arrogance.”
“… What arrogance. Is such a thing even possible,” The man murmured.
If she said that she had come to kill his wife—who was fighting with the black-haired girl a bit far away at the moment—would the man have remained so calm?
Ziffnel’s mouth twisted strangely as she recalled a troubling thought. “So far, many people had turned a blind eye to you—Brukin, Priestess Emily, and even that guy Krail. Everyone pitied your love and ignored you and Cecil. However, I cannot turn a blind eye to your actions. I am the angel of love who administers the laws of heaven. All things in existence is equal under the law of Rom.”
“…”
“All the devils in this world are beings who must eventually vanish into the void in the name of heaven—even if that shell were your wife. As Tapnel’s representative, you should have burned the devil in that flesh.”
“… Yes, that would have been the correct attitude for a priest,” replied heretic inquisitor Julius, as he lowered his head with a bitter smile.
However, a pale golden brilliance leaked from his slowly clenched fist.
“Stop doing unnecessary things. Even though you might be a rare genius who has surpassed Tapnel, do you think you can contend against me? I hope you will stop engaging in foolish acts such as instigating a never-ending fight,” Ziffnel warned.
“If you attempt to harm my wife, I will gladly engage in that never-ending fight,” Julius calmly declared.