An overwhelming radiance of justice blazes forth, driving away all wickedness.
That lone sacred army descended upon Mynoghra's warriors with absolute, crushing force.
"Everyone fall back!"
Career, already locked in combat readiness, issued the evacuation order to all non-combatants.
Simultaneously she raised her own weapon and fixed Nerim with a sharp gaze, ready to strike down her life at the first opportunity.
Nerim seemed to take interest in the Elful sisters, whose power had been amplified under the moonlit sky. She stared at them with an expression of pure innocence—utterly devoid of malice or ill intent.
"Ah! Who are you two? Hmm... Oh! You're followers of the Ira faith! You're bad people! I'm gonna beat you up!"
The ground erupted, and in the blink of an eye, Nerim—the Saintess of the Diary—stood right before them.
Career frantically defended herself with her weapon against the diary, which was draped in divine blessing and swung without the slightest finesse. She cast a quick glance toward her sister and screamed:
"Sis!"
They were twins. Communication between them came easily. Mearia grasped the intent from that single word alone and launched an attack with her weapon at Nerim, who was still focused on Career.
But...
"W-w-wah! That was close! But that's not nearly enough to beat me!"
Despite her flustered manner, Nerim deflected Mearia's attack as though she had anticipated it all along. She then pulled back, checked her diary once more, and began flipping through its pages.
"My abilities aren't working... Did I forget everything?"
"Tch! You should've just obediently turned traitor!"
Neither Mearia's "Moron Infection" nor Career's "Plague Infection" had shown the slightest effect since the fight began.
They were most likely being suppressed by her overwhelming holy aura.
Their abilities were not perfect. Extremely powerful, yes—but against beings of a certain level of strength, they could be resisted.
At the very least, it was clear that the Saintess before them stood at a height beyond reach, even for a witch enhanced to near-maximum power by the moonlit night.
Moreover, the situation was deteriorating at an accelerating pace.
"God! Give me power! More and more! The power to defeat bad people!!"
"Ka—!"
A divine miracle was unleashed, and the sisters were sent flying.
At the same time, the world was bathed in light, blazing like high noon as the radiance scoured away the darkness.
The balance of power was now unmistakable.
With the moon hidden and their strength diminished, the sisters might avoid taking damage, but suppressing Nerim would be extremely difficult.
Yonayona, who had remained on-site to coordinate the faithful's retreat in the face of that overwhelming force, couldn't help but tremble as she spoke.
"Wh-what kind of power is that... Is that the Saintess going all out?"
"Oh no, not at all! The Diary Saintess's power is inherently limited and requires sacrifice. Even if she gained tremendous abilities along with her memories, losing every last memory would mean losing her very identity! Ordinarily—ordinarily she should have been reduced to nothing more than a doll wielding immense power!"
It was Vittorio who started explaining the situation at length, lounging nearby.
He had no combat ability, so there was little he could do, but even so, his timing was spectacularly poor.
And yet... his words did give Yonayona a certain degree of understanding.
"The diary! She's reading that and deciding what to do based on it!"
"The act of reading the diary has likely been ingrained as a habit. That's why even after losing her memories, she never forgets to read it. And once she reads it, she knows what she must do."
True to his words, Nerim began reading her diary again.
She was completely wide open—practically begging to be attacked—but it was obvious to everyone that this was an unintentional natural trap. The infinite light enveloping her tolerated no ill intent whatsoever and shielded her completely.
As if standing in for the memories of her father...
"But my goodness, is this the kind of devastating power she gained by sacrificing her memories of her father? Ah, how beautiful! How fleeting! I absolutely adore things like this!"
Vittorio cackled with delight.
At this point, things had gone too far. Nothing could be done. It was all well and good that his specialty was stirring up chaos with words, but there was simply nothing more he could contribute.
Of course, using his abilities would be pointless too. The holy barrier surrounding her would never permit it.
That was why he had been content to remain a bystander...
"You there, you're too noisy! My diary says it's bad to let bad people talk too much!"
After a brief pause, Nerim materialized right in front of Vittorio.
In the next instant, she swung the diary at his skull at a speed too fast for the eye to follow.
"Gwaaah! Emergency dodge!"
He barely avoided it. But the attack didn't end with a single strike.
Nerim stumbled slightly from the missed blow, but quickly regaining her footing, she swung the diary again with undiminished momentum—aiming squarely at the jester's torso.
The next hit would be unavoidable. It seemed Vittorio's life was about to end.
But at that very instant, cutting in with the speed of a falcon, Career and Mearia intercepted Nerim's attack with their weapons.
"Thanks a million! You seriously just saved my life!"
"Tch! If you have time to flap your gums, do something about it! What exactly is that useless spinning brain of yours even for!?"
"I really need you to figure something out fast, Jester. At this rate, everyone's going to get wiped out."
Despite the harsh words and snide remarks, both sisters' faces betrayed their anxiety.
Blocking the previous attack had taken their combined effort just barely. If Nerim got even slightly serious and went on the offensive, it was obvious the situation would collapse immediately.
"Hmm, indeed..."
Vittorio glanced at Nerim. She was once again gazing blankly into the distance before remembering something and consulting her diary.
It was precisely because of these absent-minded actions that Mynoghra's side was managing to hold their ground.
The unspoken demand from the twins was that he come up with some plan at this critical juncture.
But was there really a way to turn this situation around?
Or perhaps even this dire circumstance was no great challenge for Vittorio?
Expectations rose despite themselves, but the loquacious hero remained silent and motionless.
"Nerim! Nerim! Stop this! Please stop!"
"Um, who are you? Hold on a second..."
And there was someone else who had grown anxious in the face of this stasis.
It was Kree, the Inquisitor, who had been left stunned—unable to follow the overwhelming events and the lightning-fast exchanges that had just unfolded.
Even as she despaired at the transformed state of the precious girl before her, she called out as though refusing to let go of hope.
Perhaps moved by those words... the Diary Saintess consulted her diary for a bit longer than usual.
"Oh! It says here about Inquisitor Imreis! It says she looked after me! She was always kind to me! She was so kind! She was someone I loved! It says I have to save her! No matter the sacrifice, I absolutely must save her! Um... this page is all torn up from tears."
There, inscribed in that diary, were the wordless feelings of the lost gentle girl.
Had Nerim foreseen that it would come to this?
Had she known she would lose herself?
Her desperate wish directed at her future self gave the innocent girl a sense of direction—something to call hope.
...Or so it seemed.
"But why is this? You've been corrupted by evil. Um... I'm supposed to defeat bad people, but I have to save Inquisitor Imreis... Hmm? What should I do?"
And there, the worst possible scenario reared its head.
The wish inscribed in the diary to save Kree and the wish inscribed in the diary to vanquish evil had come into direct conflict.
Two diametrically opposed directives given to a blank-slate girl.
Nerim flipped through the diary's pages over and over, unable to figure out how to reconcile the contradiction.
"Maybe... I should start by defeating everyone except Inquisitor Imreis?"
"Nerim! Please listen! Your father would be heartbroken by this!"
"My father? I have a father?! How wonderful! Where is he? Um... Huh? There's nothing written about it."
Kree had made a grave mistake.
Nerim's diary contained no memories of her father. That was the result of how desperately she had clung to those memories, refusing to let anyone—not even the diary—have them.
Some part of her had felt that if she wrote even a little about him, those memories might someday slip away and be lost.
That girl's fragile attachment had kept her from inscribing any of it in the diary.
And precisely because of that... the current Nerim could never learn of her father's existence, no matter what means were used.
Mentioning her father's name in front of her was useless.
"Father" simply did not exist for the Diary Saintess.
Fittingly enough, those were the same words the heartless clergy had bombarded her with every day when she first became a Saintess, trying to sever Verderel's influence...
"That... can't be..."
"You lied to me. You really are a bad person. Die."
Nerim's merciless attack... aimed to pierce the face of the despairing, frozen Kree.
"I told you too—stop blabbering!"
"Guh—!"
It was Career Elful who saved her life.
She had predicted the attack was coming and threw herself in as a shield at the last possible moment.
But she couldn't deflect the blow the way she had before.
Instead, she drove a kick into Kree's torso, sending her body flying far behind them.
There was no small amount of damage, but it was still far better than having her skull crushed.
"Huh? Why did you hurt your own ally? Isn't Inquisitor Imreis a bad person?"
Career answered that question with silence.
Mearia hovered behind, looking for an opening, but seemed unwilling to commit too aggressively since she lacked a finishing blow.
Far in the background, Kree clutched her stomach, groaning as she staggered to her feet.
"Hmm? ...Oh! I see! Bad people really can't get along with anyone after all! Heh heh heh. How terrible!"
One step forward.
Career involuntarily retreated, quietly clicking her tongue at her own cowardice.
Another step. Nerim advanced once more.
"Huh? What was I doing? Huh? Who are you two?"
As though the entire exchange moments ago had never happened, Nerim had lost her memories again.
Had she requested some miracle from God, or had the mechanism of the miracle already begun to malfunction?
Either way, that girl flickering in and out of memory was beyond eerie—almost pitiful.
"Oh, but first—I need to save people! My diary says good things happen when you help people! I wonder what good things will happen? Well, whatever. It's in the diary, so it must be true!"
Slowly, the two sisters created distance between themselves and Nerim.
They had undoubtedly been saved by that episode of memory loss.
Her interest had shifted elsewhere. If her words could be trusted, she had apparently decided to prioritize saving people.
Thanks to the Ira faith's proselytization, plague and loss no longer existed in this land. All of it had been swept away through a staged operation.
So the notion of "saving" people did seem rather peculiar.
"God! God! Give me power! More and more! Give me the power to save people!"
Once again, an aurora enveloped the surroundings.
That light was far too blinding for those of evil—not merely in terms of sheer luminosity, but because the holy nature contained within it sought to sear their very existence.
The Elful sisters grimaced at the dazzling spectacle but never once averted their eyes from Nerim, watching intently for any change in the situation.
Behind them, Yonayona spoke in a low voice.
"Career, Mearia. The number of Ira faithful in this city keeps dropping."
It was the loss of Ira's followers.
As the acting Pope, she had a unique ability that allowed her to track the movements of the faithful.
That singular power was telling her that followers were vanishing from this area at a startling rate.
"A divine miracle, is it... That's far too powerful. Career's Plague isn't having any effect either. This is looking bad. What do we want to do?"
She couldn't say for certain, but it was most likely that the teachings of Ira had been stripped away and the city had been converted back to the Holy Faith.
Career had watched Vittorio's ability carry out that very kind of religious conversion time and again before her eyes.
She understood that something like this could easily happen.
That said, it was an unavoidable fact that it was an extremely unwelcome development for Mynoghra's side.
"Giggle. This might be a bit much for us. If we don't hurry, people are going to start dying, Vittorio. And that would be a blunder. The King would be so disappointed."
Mearia delivered yet another urging nudge.
A warning: time to act. Bringing up the King's name—meaning Takuto—was a clear signal that they could wait no longer.
It was a well-known fact that he placed his unwavering faith in Ira=Takuto.
With the King's name invoked, the sisters knew full well that he could no longer act with his usual freewheeling abandon.
Still, pushing too hard risked triggering countermeasures, so they kept it as a trump card.
This time, it seemed to have worked.
"Well, I suppose it's time. Even I didn't expect things to deteriorate this badly. I'd rather make my escape while I still can, but..."
Vittorio glanced at Nerim.
Whether it was bad timing or perfect timing, Nerim stood there with a vacant expression.
"Huh? Who are you two?"
Her attention had turned their way.
She had lost her memory again—along with the purpose of saving people she had held moments ago.
If that was the case, then what she would do next was obvious: deal with the people in front of her.
...Snap.
The diary closed shut.
"Hmm... Are you bad people? Then I have to beat you!"
"I shall take the vanguard."
In a voice tinged with tension, Vittorio made his declaration.
...
...
After everyone had departed, only two shadows remained at the former stronghold of the Ira faith.
Beneath a colossal pillar of light, one vessel of evil was reaching its end.
"Guh..."
Vittorio, battered beyond recognition, had nothing left.
His limbs had been shattered to fragments, his body riddled with bruises and caked in blood.
Yet his dark eyes gleamed as they locked onto Nerim—his ghastly, grim smile deepening as though it were the last thing he had left to be proud of.
"Phew... I'm tired. This person can really run. I was quite surprised. But now it's over!"
The diary—her precious record—was raised high with both hands.
Vittorio, eyes forced wide open so as to burn this final image into his mind, let his last words ring out:
"My lord, Ira=Takuto... as you commanded, I shall die! O great God! My God—"
"This is goodbye."
A dull sound echoed through the air.
That was it. That was the end.
What remained was silence. An eerie, hollow stillness descended upon the area.
Some time later, the girl looked around in surprise, and, with a puzzled expression, began reading the blood-soaked diary.