novelraw Chapter 77 : Love and Obsession (1)
Chapter 77 : Love and Obsession (1)
Chapter 77: Love and Obsession (1)
Crunch!
Primal greed swallowed everything that existed between heaven and earth.
Joy and anger, love and pain.
Endless greed kept swallowing and swallowing, hoping there was truth in everything it devoured.
“W-What… what is this…?”
Hestia covered her mouth and wrinkled her nose.
A foul stench streamed over the boundless ground. Bones of beasts and humans rolled across the floor, and rotten ichor and blood formed puddles. In those puddles, putrid bubbles popped.
It was so horrific that even Nike felt sick.
Hestia narrowed her eyes and swept her gaze around. Something extremely dangerous had swallowed her and Nike whole. When she opened her eyes again, this hellish scene lay before them.
Nike shook his head and asked a question.
“Tia. Are you okay?”
“…Yeah. Are you okay?”
Hestia asked back with a pale face. Nike had already had his whole body torn apart and regenerated several times. At this point Hestia no longer considered him human.
She also thought she wasn’t normal for loving such a man from the bottom of her heart.
Person and person.
The boundary between love and love grew blurrier.
“I am sturdy!”
Nike rose as if nothing were wrong and supported Hestia. They had to walk. If they stayed, the stench would make them pass out.
Hestia walked pressed to Nike’s side.
After that fierce battle, her whole body had no strength.
She was in such poor condition that even walking felt like a miracle.
After walking a little while in their weakened state, they found a half-collapsed temple-like building. It was, for the moment, safer than the reek and the pools of filth.
They barely found a place to sit and then collapsed as if felled.
“…Sigh. What even is this place.”
“The witch’s stomach.”
“…A stomach?”
“It is where I was earlier. Before you pulled me out, I was here.”
“…Really?”
There was a reason Nike seemed calmer than expected. When Dionea swallowed him, he had come here. Since it was his second time, there was no need to panic.
“Strictly speaking, only the mind came here.”
“The mind…?”
Hestia rolled onto her side and murmured softly. If this was a realm of consciousness, what had become of their bodies?
“Then are we unconscious right now?”
“We might be dead.”
Nike looked up at the dim ceiling as he answered. He sounded unruffled, like someone with an escape plan. In truth, he had no plan at all.
“…Then how do we get out?”
“I don’t know. Someone has to pull us out.”
“Like I did before?”
“Like when you rescued me.”
Satisfied with that answer, Hestia rolled back to stare at the sky.
She was too exhausted to be startled or to struggle with a frantic need to escape. Only a feeble laugh leaked out.
After sticking by Nike for so long, the mindset of “we’ll figure something out” had set in.
‘Well… I guess this wouldn’t be a bad way to go.’
Dying together with Nike at the end of hell.
In its own way, that was not a bad end for Hestia.
At least in the final moment she would have Nike all to herself.
A girl who had found true love had no lingering regrets.
“…Nike.”
Hestia called him quietly. Instead of answering, Nike turned his head to look at her. His gray-white eyes always looked like they would pull her in.
“I’m fine with dying here.”
“I’m not?”
“…Why?”
“I still haven’t eaten the best meat.”
Hestia let out a breathless laugh.
“What meat is that?”
“The royal meat of the desert kingdom!”
“…What?”
“It’s the best meat the boss talked about.”
There wasn’t a spoonful of romance in it. At that unexpected answer, Hestia let out a disbelieving laugh. Nike, pleased that he had made her laugh, lifted his shoulders.
“…By the way, this temple is beautiful.”
With a little spirit returning, Hestia spoke. The architecture of the old temple was astonishingly lovely.
“Hah?”
Nike, who had no interest in aesthetics, only scratched his head.
“…Wait.”
Hestia pushed herself upright. Groaning, she rose and went to one of the temple’s pillars.
As she slowly examined the pillar, Hestia’s eyes flew wide and she gasped.
“…This is a Gestine ruin…?”
“Gestine?”
Nike reacted to a word he felt he had heard somewhere. Hestia turned her head and spoke.
“…Two hundred years ago, the most prosperous desert nation. The Kingdom of Stars, Gestine. In its brilliant age, it fell in a single day, that ancient kingdom.”
“Aha.”
Nike nodded listlessly. He never cared for history.
“Nike, the best meat dish you mentioned is probably this country’s cuisine.”
“Hah!?!?!?”
“W-What. Weren’t you just lying there…?”
Nike thrust his face to within a hair of Hestia’s nose. He moved so fast it felt like teleportation.
“Say that again!”
“…If it is a desert kingdom, there is only one that comes to mind. That is common knowledge.”
“Common knowledge. Hah. Tia, that is rude.”
Hestia fixed Nike with a steady gaze. She was cursing him with her eyes. Perhaps resigned, Nike let out a long sigh.
“…Whatever. Forget it. Look at this.”
Hestia pointed to the carvings on the pillar.
Three great stars were drawn in the sky. Beneath them, the king, the queen, and the people seemed to worship the heavens, and such images were carved into every pillar.
“Hm.”
Nike had no interest in the images. If there had been a carving of roasting meat, he would have been delighted. Hestia forgot Nike and studied the carvings.
The pillars linked together to form a single story.
“…Look at this, Nike.”
“Boring.”
“…One night, stars appeared in the sky, and the royal house of Gestine worshiped them as gods. That is what this says.”
Hestia murmured to herself, full of wonder.
“This… I think it recorded the moment the first evil god arrived.”
Even the Hall of the City God and the Order had never defined it precisely.
“If this is true… the witch’s history goes back farther than known. That is absurd.”
Splash.
Lost in the carvings, Hestia stepped and a wet sound came from underfoot. Blood and filth splashed onto her leather shoe.
The temple ruins had sunk into a pool of blood. She could not look any farther.
“…I want to know more.”
If they followed this to the end and deciphered it, they might unearth secrets about the witch and the evil god.
The Kingdom of Gestine, which vanished in a single day, had become a legend in the present era. That was because all traces were gone without a mark.
‘If the cause was Mother… the Witch of Greed.’
The witch had tried to erase everything the kingdom had left.
If she swallowed it with an overwhelmingly vast mouth of greed, it would not have been difficult.
Hestia’s thoughts grew deeper. If she could only learn the witch’s origin and weakness, she could remove the root of evil.
Then she would spend peaceful days with Nike for the rest of her life.
Desire stirred.
“Nike… can’t we pull this whole temple out?”
“Not possible.”
Nike answered from a short distance away.
“I think, we are about to get out.”
“Hmm…?”
Rumble—.
When Hestia lifted her head, the Witch of Greed’s belly began to shake as a whole. Her consciousness grew hazy.
* * *
“Ugh…”
Elena woke up. There was no strength in her arms and legs, and no power in her grip, so her fingers trembled. Her brain felt scorched and empty, and her nose kept bleeding. A great wave of lassitude swept over her.
“Ah… I welcomed an angel.”
Elena sighed. It was an astonishing, wondrous experience that left her with no regrets even if she died on the spot. Bringing an angel down into one’s body was every Archbishop’s wish.
It was a path that proved the faith she had built.
Because the miracle was so intense, the side effects were equally powerful. It would take three more months to recover.
“Nike.”
Once she had gathered herself a little, Elena looked for Nike. He lay collapsed a short distance away. He was asleep with Hestia.
“What is going on.”
Hestia was asleep with Nike’s head in her arms. The sight alone was unpleasant. Their tender closeness made her jealous.
“Move. Get off my man.”
Elena pried the unconscious Hestia away from Nike. Then she let her exhausted body fall over him.
Thump.
Thump.
Elena closed her eyes and felt Nike’s heartbeat. Slightly fast yet steady, it gave her a strange sense of calm.
“Ahh…”
Body and heart both worn out, Elena took comfort in Nike’s warmth. With her brain melted and empty of thought, primal instinct rose first.
It was lust, the lust of the flesh.
With the tip of her finger, Elena stroked the tip of Nike’s nose. She lifted herself and brought her face level with Nike’s eyes. In the silent ruins, Elena craved love.
She kissed his sleeping face, and she caressed the muscles of his chest and forearms.
“Ah, ahh.”
Elena let out quick, heated breaths. Her body grew endlessly hot. Overcome by desire she could not control, she twisted her legs.
“Ah, ah… I want to eat you.”
Under the sky, no one was watching.
Not the priests who monitored her.
Not Hestia, who pestered her with vexing checks.
A sinful act could be repented after it was done.
Slide.
Elena undressed. When she let the straps fall from her shoulders, a beautiful curve revealed itself without reserve. She climbed on top of Nike and moved her hips.
She saw Nike’s sleeping face.
No jewel in the world could be more beautiful than that.
Nike’s face was mesmerizing.
She reached to strip off Nike’s pants.
Her heated lust could no longer be contained.
Reason snapped, and the devout Archbishop of the Hall of the City God became a beast.
A vile beast that lived only in obedience to instinct.
“I want to eat it. Your heart. The heart of the greatest and most beautiful witch…”
Like a horse that had slipped its reins and sprinted at full speed, her greed galloped madly.
Carnal desire was also one face of primal greed.
Greed was an emotion that wanted to obtain.
The naked, golden-haired beast wanted Nike’s heart.
Darkness filled Elena’s eyes. She raised her nails and began tearing at Nike’s chest.
Endless craving.
A wish without shame.
A desire that had shed what was human.
The conditions were met.
…the sky grew dark.
It was the moment when gazes of a transcendent kind, which human eyes could not perceive, fixed upon her.
[You have shown your ugly true face, Your Excellency Archbishop.]
“…?”
Rustle. A black snake slid from Nike’s mouth, flicking its tongue.
The black wash drained from Elena’s eyes. With her reason returned, Elena panicked.
For an Archbishop to eat a human heart. It was not enough to call down divine punishment.
“Morgana… sinful witch. How dare you, do you know where you are.”
[Elena Serdevine. Greedy Archbishop. Your desire is honest, and I like that. The more transparent a human is, the more I like them.]
“…What?”
The black snake turned into a human form. It was unmistakably Morgana, and in perfect health, the Morgana of her witch days.
A breathlessly beautiful, just as lethally dangerous woman glared down at Elena.
“But you should have known your place. How dare you touch what is mine.”
“…You.”
Swish!
Morgana summoned an obsidian blade from empty air. The flashing obsidian edge drove into Elena’s chest.
“Ugh… kgh. What are you… doing…?”
“Nike is mine. Do you understand?”
“And you think… you will get away with this?”
“That is not your concern. You are about to die.”
“Vigo… do you think that old hound will not leave you be…?”
Morgana laughed into her hand. She did not even answer.
“…”
Elena dropped to her knees. Morgana stood before her, seized her hair, and looked down with contempt.
“In any case, I am not present at your death. No one can know.”
“…”
“Even to Vigo, your existence is a hindrance. You stole a hound we are raising in our Order without leave.”
“…”
“He has tacitly allowed it as well. Humans are entertaining like this. That foolish look they have, believing they are truly clever.”
Morgana lifted the corner of her mouth. Her smile was so sharp it looked like it would cut if touched.
Elena turned her eyes to Nike. He still slept on.
For a brief moment, Elena had loved Nike sincerely. Whether that feeling sprang from her true heart or she had been enchanted by a male witch, she did not know.
Her journey with him had been a sweet dream. That much was true.
‘Goodbye… Nike.’