Chapter 469

Day 106 – Afternoon, the Theocracy, Road

Wheat fields with scattered houses began to appear amid the wide grasslands, and beyond them, villages and towns could be seen here and there, until finally we reached the first city. Holy West, the fortress city that serves as the eastern transportation hub of the Theocracy. It’s a military city that houses the Theocracy’s eastern garrison and church troops, but more importantly, it’s the essential crossroads through which every road from the east passes.

And so, we lined up in the long queue for passage. The sheer out-of-place aura produced by our dread-inspiring horse and the heavy armored eight-car train of pitch-black carriages is staggering! Because right in front of us was a genuine church carriage, a simple wooden thing pulled by just two ordinary horses. Compared to other stagecoaches, it was certainly quite splendid, but still nothing more than a normal carriage, with the words『Church Carriage』written on the side. Actually, that 『Church Carriage』was the ONLY common point between our carriages!

The church carriage(real) pushed forward by shouting at those around it, forcing them aside. It seemed to be carrying high-ranking members of the papal faction, the driver whipping at the air as they cut through the line, routing those who were waiting their turn.

And our fake has the driver seat occupied by a priest that looks far too wicked, holding a scythe dripping with red liquid. Yep. Demon Scythe-chan, hurry up and eat that strawberry jam already! It looks tasty, but the visuals are just fatally grotesque! He looks so villainously sinister that if you called him a suspicious person, all the suspicious folk across the entire world would probably file complaints for slander!!

Yes, what everyone’s fearful eyes fixed on from a safe distance was this thorny, ominous, self-proclaimed church carriage. It almost made you worry Haruka-kun had confused 『Church Carriage』 with some kind of demon-haunted monster-wagon. It didn’t even count as a disguise anymore. In fact, no one in this world had ever seen a carriage quite like this.

To be frank, coming this far it was actually painful to the conscience to even try calling this a camouflage. The people around us are visibly recoiling at a sight of it, but so are we, the ones riding inside. We want to climb out, pretend to be strangers, and join the crowd in recoiling!

Only Haruka-kun himself seems satisfied, with Slime-san sitting atop his head, happily playing with the horse and Demon Scythe-chans. In this bizarre scene, he is the only person who looks genuinely happy?

And naturally, or perhaps inevitably, or maybe even far too late, the gate guards finally noticed the strangeness. Rushing over they are calling for reinforcements. Of course they found us suspicious. Yeah, you think? Took you long enough? Like, it’s way beyond suspicious, you know? Well, even if they noticed, it wouldn’t matter. If anything, not noticing would’ve been a blessing… but alas, they noticed.

And then came destruction, unleashed by the destroyer that could shatter anything, possibly even the god of destruction himself, who sat there, having no doubts about this disguise, and well posed to smash both the language and common sense.

「Wh-who the hell are you people! Hand over your travel permits and wagon certification!」

「Is this where I go, when asked『Who the hell are you?』bestowing the answer is the way of compassion? I guess?」

(((You don’t have to do that!)))

「Y-you suspicious lot, get down from the wagon at once!」

They said nothing to the other carriage that cut in line, the one carrying the supposed papal dignitaries, but came over to complain about ours. The real one looked stately, but the contents were rotten. Ours, the fake one, looks vile, but the people riding it are also wicked? Yeah, it is suspicious, isn’t it?. And yet, despite their fear, they started the conversation… with Haruka-kun.

「Utterly useless gate guards, aren’t you? What, you don’t recognize this uniform? And really, 『who the hell are you?』 When it literally says 『Church Carriage』 on the side? If it says 『Church Carriage』 then it’s a church carriage. If it said 『Church Carriage』 and turned out to be a boat, then sure, that’d be a church ship. But it says 『Church Carriage』 and it’s a carriage pulled by horses, so who in their right mind would think it’s anything but a church carriage? Yeah. Don’t think. Feel. That kind of thing?」

(((All we’re feeling is wrongness!)))

「Eh!? Ah, ahhh! W-well, yes, it does say 『Church Carriage』… but doesn’t something seem off? Or everything?… Father?」

(((Yes, yes, well said!)))

「So what exactly is different? A horse is pulling a carriage, the carriage has 『Church Carriage』 written on it, what else could it be but a church carriage? Do you perhaps see a stagecoach here? It says church carriage! If it were a stagecoach, it would say stagecoach. If it were suspicious, it would say suspicious. Since it says church carriage, how could it possibly be anything other than a church carriage? Use your common sense a bit?」

(((If there really were a suspicious guy with Suspicious Person written on him, he’d actually be honest and a pretty good guy, wouldn’t he?!)))

「I… I see. I understand now?」

(((He actually bought it!)))

「This is why amateur gatekeepers are such a problem. You lack the common sense proper to gatekeeping. Look at that carriage ahead. What do you think it is?」

「Uh, that looks like an ordinary church carriage to me.」

(((Yup-yup.)))

「And that’s where you’re wrong. Ordinary common sense makes for extraordinarily nonsensical gatekeeping sense. If a villain wanted to pose as a church carriage, what would he do? Think carefully, what would you do?」

(…?)

「I would make it look exactly like a church carriage!」

「Right? Then tell me, which is the suspicious carriage, this one or that one? Which looks more like a church carriage?」

「That one does, Father!」

「Excellent! You’ve finally realized. Now that is the mark of a true gatekeeper. Go, seize them at once! Or something like that!」

「「「Y-yes, Father! Thank you for your guidance in the proper way of gatekeeping!」」」

(((They actually believed him! Why!? Why is that the common sense!?)))

Yeah. That’s why you should never talk seriously with Haruka-kun. If you listen to him in earnest, things like common sense and sound judgment get completely broken. He spouts it so smoothly, so naturally, so logically, as if it were utterly reasonable, declaring nonsense as if it were obvious truth, with such solemn confidence that the moment you even wonder if maybe you’re the one mistaken… your common sense gets destroyed. His words, cloaked in a veneer of logic, trick you into accepting absolute gibberish as a fact. Later, when you think back calmly, you know it makes no sense. But in the moment you catch yourself thinking, 『Hmm, maybe he’s right…?』 That’s the insidiousness of his wicked words. Some say Haruka-kun’s nonsense is far worse than the fairly straightforward temptations of the demon Mephistopheles. You absolutely must never take him seriously.

「Father, they’re insisting they’ve done nothing wrong!」

「And when you’ve arrested criminals before, what did they always say?」

「「「They all said they didn’t do it」」」

「Exactly! Criminals always say 『I didn’t do it』! Or something like that!」

(((Look who’s talking!? And besides, innocent people say that they didn’t do it too!)))

「As expected of you, Father! Those people must all be interrogated. Restrain them.」

「「「Yes, sir!」」」

(((They’ve put their trust in the one person they should never trust…)))

And so, while the innocent church carriage of the papal faction was seized and searched, we passed on by with calm dignity. Intimidated by the solemn authority of the priest’s robes, beguiled and misled by wicked wordplay, they suspected the carriage that looked the most legitimate. If looking genuine was grounds for suspicion, then in this world everything ought to be suspicious. But with no hesitation, the guards pursued their baseless suspicions, while the carriage that looked far too suspicious to be guilty rolled onward through the commotion.

High-ranking clergymen were dragged out from the particularly luxurious papal carriage, bound, and searched, as they hurled furious curses at the guards, pointing back toward us. But oh well, they’d opposed the enemy of god, and now they’d been made enemies themselves. You picked that fight so just accept your fate and get duped? Even a god had been bullied by this habitual criminal, after all.

Yes, this other world had no such words as rip-off or Magnate-sama. It didn’t. Yet now, somehow, those words had twisted their way into use: helping those in suffering came to be called 『ripping them off』 and the one who came to rip you off was called 『Magnate』 Only those mistaken words carried the truth. After all, pretty words are nothing but meaningless decorations. Back at the frontier, people would revere the Magnate-sama who went around shouting 『I ripped you off!』 while bringing happiness to everyone, more than any Pope with some splendid title… not for names, ranks, or authority, but purely for their deeds.

And yet, he himself is the only one who doesn’t know. Haruka-kun would shout 『I totally ripped them off!』 or 『It’s magnate time』trying to sound evil, but he’s the only one who believes it. He never factors his own labor costs into the equation, does he? Without including that impossible level of technical expertise, he shortens work that would normally require huge teams and long months into a mere instant with the Magic Hands, then eliminates the exorbitant costs of mass transport and long-term storage entirely with the Item Bag. Yes. Which is why, even now, he alone keeps believing he’s turning some massive profit.

And even now, the priests of the Church are shouting abuse at us 「What do you take us for?」 Well, nothing, really? Because if someone hasn’t done anything, there’s nothing to think about them at all.

They might be great and mighty, perhaps, but we don’t care. Because, setting aside their personalities, and even their appearances if we shut our eyes, the Magnate-sama’s virtue ranks far, far higher than any Pope or papal faction. We have no interest in a religion that cannot make anyone happy; and if a religion only causes suffering, then no matter how correct, it is evil.

So the only one worth believing in is the twisted, lying pretender, the fake villain who’s always wrong about everything. Even if he is evil, it’s a kind of evil that makes everyone smile, so there isn’t the faintest shred of shame in being pointed at as a villain!

Yeah. We can’t deny he’s a bad guy. Because what they say is correct, and what we’re doing is deception. But still, we did follow the rules and waited our turn in the queue.