The furious priest Barry stormed out of the church, dragging several believers with him. In the central square of Mountain Town, the patch of open ground usually used for gatherings, they saw the townspeople clustered together.
For once, the residents were animated as never before, crowding excitedly around a group of outsiders dressed in white robes. Each outsider clutched armfuls of solid bars and bottles filled with blue liquid, clearly the so-called soap and laundry detergent. Even from afar, their fervent, almost frenzied preaching rang out.
“Everyone gets one! Faith in the goddess Aqua shines in every heart and purifies all filth from your body… here is your soap, take it carefully!”
“That’s right! Everyone can worship the goddess Aqua. Our goddess loves all humans equally!”
“Yes, yes! As long as you sign this form, you can join our cult and receive soap and laundry detergent blessed by the goddess Aqua herself!”
“It’s free anyway, and you get soap too. Believe a little, you absolutely won’t lose out!”
“Don’t walk past without stopping! You deserve the faith of the goddess Aqua!”
…
Barry felt his rage intensify. He clenched his fists tightly. This was Church territory. These people dared to come here spreading their cult, and in such a blatantly ridiculous way, using soap and laundry detergent to seduce the townsfolk? Was this how you preached?
Utterly laughable!
Yet…
“I want to join! Give me the form!”
“Can I join on behalf of my late father too?”
“Can I sign up my fiancée and our unborn child together?”
The eager faces of Mountain Town’s residents struck Barry like a slap. These people looked far more excited now than when they listened to his sermons!
This was not hard to understand. The Church controlled its followers with intangible spiritual promises. Preaching relied on words alone, and spreading the faith required believers to donate hefty sums. Barry himself had monopolised the town’s hot spring in the name of faith. Such a faith had always been fragile. How could it compare with the Axis Cult’s practical benefits?
Join and get free gifts. Soap and laundry detergent might be small things, but the immediate sense of value hit hard. For these numb, impoverished townsfolk, switching faiths in minutes was only natural.
“These idiots deserve divine curses and torment by hell demons after death!” Barry snarled. He turned to the believers beside him. “Drive those ridiculous missionaries away!”
“Y-yes, Lord Barry…” The believers agreed, yet their eyes remained fixed longingly on the beautiful soap and laundry detergent, desire written all over their faces.
“You lot!?” Barry’s anger surged even higher.
At that moment, he happened to glance at the missionaries and spotted a thin, withered figure. His body involuntarily trembled, eyes widening. “That’s… Archbishop Eliza!?”
Barry had once studied scripture at the White Monastery in the Sacred Heart Kingdom, where he had seen Archbishop Eliza, though she had only been an archbishop then, not yet a cardinal. Her profound understanding of the Bible had filled him with admiration, and he remembered that slightly gaunt face. Decades later, the face had aged but not changed much. He recognised her instantly.
But… Archbishop Eliza was spreading the faith of another cult?
Impossible!
Just as Barry noticed Eliza, she raised both arms high and began chanting strange scriptures in a low voice: “Aqua is the most beautiful goddess in the world,” “Running away may be shameful but it works,” and so on. As the chants continued, pure white holy mist suddenly gathered above her head. With crackling sounds, bars of soap began condensing out of the mist and falling to the ground…
She was manifesting soap through holy words?
What the hell kind of holy power was this!?
Aqua was the goddess of water. Though thoroughly incompetent, water itself represented purity and freedom from filth. Thus, followers of Aqua could convert their faith into soap, laundry detergent, and similar items. The primary method of the Axis Cult for spreading faith was handing out soap and detergent to trick people into signing the membership list…
Very high-end, right?
As a sect-leader-level believer, Eliza could precisely control the power of faith, endlessly producing Goddess-brand soap and turning clear water into laundry detergent.
Barry stared at Eliza for a long moment, brow furrowing. According to the information he had received, Eliza had been killed by Yechui. Yet here she was, clearly no longer the same cardinal, and now leading this cult. Something was seriously wrong… With that thought, he hurriedly turned to leave.
“I must report this to the Church at once… This might earn me a promotion and get me out of this place!” Thinking this, he immediately headed back toward the church with his believers.
The church in Mountain Town kept several messenger birds for communication. Upon returning, Barry rushed into the bedroom at the rear, searching for his birds.
That was when he suddenly noticed a strange magical construct parked in the courtyard behind the church. Its slightly odd yet powerfully aesthetic design left him stunned. He walked out blankly, a strange expression on his face. What was this? When had it appeared?
The other believers also crowded curiously behind him.
Just then, Barry heard voices.
They came from inside the hot-spring stone building. Steam still billowed out; someone was clearly bathing in the spring.
“This soap really is excellent. It has a natural fragrance, and most importantly it feels wonderful on the skin.”
“But we shouldn’t use too much. I’m worried it might turn us into idiots… Sigh, this hot spring is lovely, but I bet the big pool inside is even better. Bigger pool, warmer water…”
“President, are you planning to peep on Miss Debbie, Miss Winsha, and the others?”
“Nonsense! How could that be called peeping? I’m just concerned. What if they encounter danger in there… Green, don’t make a sound. I’m just going to take a quick look…”
“President!”
“Quiet! This is the brave decision of your president. You are not allowed to object!”
“No, President, I think someone just came outside…”
“Huh?”
The conversation stopped abruptly, followed by the sound of splashing water. Whoosh. Amid thick steam, a teenage boy appeared outside the stone building with a bath towel around his waist.
Barry and the believers outside now wore expressions of pure outrage. The church hot spring was supposed to be their exclusive privilege. These strangers had brazenly occupied it, and were even using soap from that Axis Cult? The nerve!
“Who exactly are you people? You’re clearly not from this town. Are you with that Axis Cult!?” Barry demanded coldly, advancing on Yechui while pulling out his Bible.
Yechui, meanwhile, summoned his iPad-like magic book.
Seeing the white, thin, and tattered magic book, a flash of contempt crossed Barry’s eyes. A trash magician like this would be easy to crush!
Of course, Barry had not yet connected the dots. Recently, there was indeed a magician who used a similarly white and battered book and had turned the world upside down, but in Barry’s subconscious, such a figure would never visit a remote place like this, and certainly could not be a boy who looked barely eighteen or nineteen! He had already flipped to a certain chapter of the Bible, preparing to chant, when he casually asked, “Who are you? Give me your name!”
“Yechui, president of the Casual Magic Guild,” Yechui replied lightly with a calm smile. He still held a bar of soap, and as he spoke it accidentally slipped from his fingers with a squeak, sliding across the ground and coming to rest right beside Barry’s foot.
The name Yechui sounded familiar to Barry at first. Then his body jolted. Yechui!? The magician rumoured to have killed Eliza?
He had just seen Eliza alive. She was clearly no longer the same cardinal, something Yechui must have done to her. If she was here, naturally Yechui would be too… This boy was actually Yechui!
The realisation filled him with instinctive terror. He spun to flee, but his foot landed squarely on the soap. With a twist and a thud, he crashed to the ground, landing flat on his back with his rear end pointing skyward toward Yechui… while yelling, “Mercy! Don’t kill me!”
The other believers knew even less about current events. The name Yechui rang only a faint bell, and they had not yet realised who he was. Seeing Barry like this, their eyes widened in shock: their priest had been defeated by soap…
Yechui’s own shock surpassed theirs: Holy crap, what an exquisitely humiliating surrender pose… Thanks, but no thanks.
