I Quit Being a Priest

I looked around the accommodations in the Central City for a while, but I couldn’t find a vacant room.

Everywhere I went, I only heard that reservations were full, and there were no vacant rooms anywhere.

No, to be precise, there were many vacant rooms, but they didn’t seem willing to rent them to me.

They must have received some kind of threat.

I didn’t fully understand their methods, but if it was this blatantly obvious, I’d be an idiot not to notice.

[It would be good to secure lodging early.]

Who would have thought that’s what he meant before leaving.

I grabbed my throbbing head and exhaled a deep sigh.

The sun had already set in the Central City. The sunset painted the sky black, and twinkling stars took their place in between.

Having failed to secure lodging, I had nowhere to go. At best, I was just aimlessly roaming the streets.

“Hoo…”

The streets of the Central City, which were usually bustling with people, were unusually quiet. It seems hard to believe that the scenery could change so much just from day turning to night, but it was a familiar sight to locals.

Eventually, I directed my steps towards areas with fewer people. Towards what was called the back alleys of the Central City.

I didn’t particularly have anywhere else to go, and since they were the ones to pick a fight first, I had no reason to just sit still.

It was dark. This place was excessively devoid of light. Perhaps that’s why public safety was poor.

In such darkness, nothing one did would be noticeable.

“The subject is Ignition.”

I gathered holy power in my hand and formed a sphere of light. Such a simple spell didn’t require engraving a circuit.

The opposite of darkness is light. I was a priest who handled holy power, which governed that light.s typically fear pitch-black darkness where light doesn’t reach, but coincidentally, I didn’t fall under that category.

The weakness of light is also darkness, but the weakness of darkness is also light.

So at least the darkness blocking my path couldn’t hold my ankles.

And.

-Bang!!

In the space where darkness was driven away and replaced by light, a dagger flew towards me.

The dagger that flew through the light that had dispelled the darkness bounced off the barrier and fell. Since converting the holy power I had released into the air into a barrier was simpler than breathing, the dagger that was flying toward me couldn’t wound my body.

I turned my head to examine the trajectory from which the dagger had come. There was no figure in the direction I looked. Only silent darkness had settled there.

“Light.”

However, if the opponent was going to act like that, I wasn’t going to just stand still either.

If they were hiding in the darkness, concealing their appearance, I just needed to remove the darkness they were using to hide.

I boiled the holy power within me and extended my left hand. A vast amount of golden blooming holy power rose into the air.

And simultaneously, the moment my staff was gripped in my right hand, the risen holy power naturally engraved circuits and constructed runes as if dancing.

The subject I placed in the spell formula was of the same kind as when I first created the sphere of light.

Only, its output was explosively increased as it passed through dozens of runes.

-Flash!!

A light bright enough to dazzle the eyes enveloped the dark back alley. Though not applicable to me, who was accustomed to handling light, such a light was not something those who had been hiding in the darkness for a long time could endure.

Human figures, who had been hiding somewhere unknown, fell to the ground. Their number was not small.

At least five or six, or even more.

It’s puzzling why there are so many people just to catch one of me, but it wasn’t over yet. If anything, it was closer to the beginning.

I wrapped my body with holy power and accelerated. Fighting in such an alley was disadvantageous.

It was right after a massive light had enveloped the area, but the dark alley still gave me a bad feeling.

A pursuit followed behind me as I ran through the alley. Judging by the presence, probably three, and there was one presence blocking my way ahead.

So I judged that breaking through the front would be more rational than retreating.

“The subject is Creation.”

I converted part of the holy power enveloping my body to construct a sword.

If someone blocked my path as I tried to break through, a golden glowing sword would pierce their body.

And as expected, when a figure blocked my path, I shot the sword toward that form.

However, the sword didn’t pierce the black figure.

-Slash.

The black figure cut down the light sword. Even though it was constructed in the form of a sword, it was merely a beam of light shaped like a sword.

If the opponent’s skill was sufficient, they could cut it down.

The colorless blade that had cut the light cluster shaped like a sword was now directed at my flesh.

That fast and irregular sword, after cutting down a piece of holy power, immediately changed its trajectory and slashed through the air towards me.

“Barrier.”

But I didn’t just stand still either. Before his sword could touch my skin, I engraved a circuit and solidified the holy power.

Holy power is infinitely weak in harming others, but it exerts a strength stronger than anything else in protecting something.

I extended my hand towards the incoming sword. In front of it, a thin curtain-like barrier of golden color had settled, blocking the incoming sword.

-Clang!!

In a moment, the golden barrier and the sword collided. It wasn’t a hardness that any mere human could penetrate.

I had spread it a bit thin now, but it was a barrier that had even blocked a shell dragon’s breath.

The man, pushed back by the barrier, briefly paused his movements, arranging his sword.

“You’re skillful in actual combat. Your judgment of the situation and reaction speed are excellent.”

Familiar voice and physique.

And soon, entering the range of the light sphere floating around me, it was the same bastard who had grabbed my shoulder at the tavern.

Wasn’t his name Dialo? Regardless, it wasn’t a particularly welcome face.

“What is your purpose?”

The movements he just showed. That appearance of quickly leaping as if swimming through darkness was definitely not a beginner’s movement.

For someone of such skill to go to the trouble of controlling all the accommodations in the area just to kidnap one woman, there would be no greater fool, so there must be a separate purpose.

I asked his purpose while being wary of the people behind me and the figure watching me from the roof.

“Orders from above to bring humans with holy power, as they are nutritious. We’ve caught all the priests in this area to the point of extinction, but who would have thought we’d find one in a place like this.”

“From above?”

“I won’t tell you the details. You’re just a shell that will soon lose all memories anyway.”

So there was a mastermind after all. I had heard about it. A story about a terrorist group attacking the Order of the Sun God and kidnapping numerous priests and monasteries.

This must be related to the people in front of me now. I don’t know the exact purpose, but they want me.

What they want is humans with holy power, and the output of holy power I showed at the tavern would be at a level they’ve never seen before, so they must have wanted to secure me even while enduring troublesome methods.

But.

“Hey.”

He shouldn’t have said that in front of me.

“Kidnapping priests?”

Is there a priest who would stand by and watch when people from an already scarce profession are being kidnapped for some purpose?

At the point where one just stands by and watches, they’re already disqualified as a priest. Although I had given away my morality to a dog long ago, as someone who had once been from the Order of the Sun God, it wasn’t something I could just let slide.

I retrieved the holy power I had spread for the barrier. Since the holy power I had expended to construct the body hadn’t returned yet, I couldn’t waste even a tiny bit of holy power.

And I twisted the trajectory of that absorbed holy power and covered the entire ground around here with holy power.

The output of that holy power is greater than the output I had when I burst the light cluster earlier.

I raised my staff. The holy power flowing along the ground found its path, drawing circuits and constructing a massive rune.

It’s a spell formula that’s complex in structure compared to the spell formulas I had demonstrated just now.

The intricately intertwined circuit completes the most ideal form of the spell formula.

The advanced stage of holy magic. A high realm that only skilled individuals in this field can handle.

“Do you want to die?”

I’m not usually coarse in speech, but this time, it was difficult for kind words to come out of my mouth.

The air sinks heavily, and the flow of mana surrounding this area is disturbed.

“This is…”

Dialo, who was about to draw his sword, hesitates. The foot he was about to step on the ground and leap with is bound by the holy power blooming in gold.

“The subject is Bondage.”

I had been away from the Order for a while, staying in the secular world, and my faith had waned.

Therefore.

Now, as if repenting for my past self, I offered a sincere prayer.

Sun God, grant me the authority to punish those who try to insult the name of God.