Surviving without God

Crunch—

Footsteps came from behind. They were extremely close. His instincts began sounding the alarm.

Memories from barely thirty minutes ago flashed before his eyes: the iron hammer flying at him, the Straight Line of Despair shattering into pieces, and that distinct, horrifying sensation of his skull being crushed.

“Damn it...!”

He understood perfectly well that this opponent was beyond him. But he could not simply waste another life without resistance. He had to squeeze at least a scrap of information out of this situation.

Whoosh—!

Gunther clenched his teeth and spun sharply with his entire body. At the same instant, his two-handed sword whistled through the air.

Clang—!

Sparks flared in the darkness. Along with the flash of light, a longsword emerged from the void, intercepting the path of the Straight Line of Despair.

Skreeeech—!

The weight of the two-handed sword pressed down on the opponent’s blade, but the other side did not resist directly. The trajectory shifted. Steel slid along steel, and the Straight Line of Despair predictably veered aside. At a flawless angle, the opponent completely redirected the force of the strike.

“A longsword?”

It had been a long time since Gunther had felt someone surpass him in pure swordsmanship.

Despite the inertia, Gunther did not lose his balance. He instantly bent his legs and drove his boot into the attacker’s side.

Bam—!

“Kh—!”

The moment that short, low groan reached his ears, the sense of déjà vu sharply intensified. If it had been the Hierarch of Justice, there was no way they would have staggered from a kick like that. Only then did something “out of place” enter Gunther’s fear-clouded vision. He stopped the follow-up swing at the last possible moment.

“...A uniform?”

In the moonlight, what appeared was neither the vestment of a Luthien priest nor the luxurious armor of the Archbishop. The stranger wore a bluish-black uniform. On the shoulder gleamed an engraving: the Holy Sword thrust into stone—the symbol of the Kingdom of Valloren. And on the breastplate were etched a shield and scales. Gunther knew exactly whose uniform it was.

“The insignia of the Public Security Bureau.”

The Valloren Bureau. An organization separate from ordinary guards or knights. In essence—an intelligence service. They did not deal with theft or brawls, but anomalous incidents beyond the capacity of regular troops. This bureau was run by the Camaril family, the fourth of the Round Table houses.

“Why is the Bureau here?.. Did they sniff something out too?”

When Gunther lowered his sword, the stranger also tilted their head in confusion and sheathed their weapon. However, they still remained on guard. Staring intently at Gunther’s mask, they slowly said:

“...Night Raven?”

Gunther was genuinely thrown off. After a short silence, he asked back:

“...You know about us?”

“How could I not?”

“Then you must hold no small position in the Bureau.”

“What difference does rank make? A Bureau operative is simply required to know about the Night Raven.”

Ding!

[Effect applied: Night Raven Reputation Lv. 4]

[The other party has realized that you belong to a secret organization fighting for justice and freedom]

[The target’s hostility decreases]

[A faint sense of affinity forms]

For Gunther, who remembered the time before the Reality Rewrite when they had been seen as nothing more than foreign mercenaries, this was a rather unusual experience. In any case, the tension in the air eased a little.

“By the way,” the Bureau agent continued, lowering the blade. “What is Night Raven doing at the mill? I don’t imagine you found yourself a girl for a secret rendezvous on your very first day.”

[Alphonse of Red Street fumes, declaring that this upstart is underestimating you.]

Instead of answering, Gunther carefully studied the other man. His appearance offered few clues—as befitted a member of an intelligence service, he did not advertise himself. About 180 centimeters tall, solidly built. Stubbornness could be read in his light-green eyes. He did not seem young.

After a brief pause, Gunther answered:

“...We detected Luthien activity.”

The words were short, but the effect was powerful. The agent’s gaze wavered. Surprise, instant denial, and finally anger flickered across his face in fractions of a second.

“Luthien? In the capital? Could it be...” After a brief pause, he asked sharply, “...Then why are you acting alone? Where are your comrades?”

“Until this moment, there was no certainty.”

Gunther replied expressionlessly:

“Now it’s certain. And you? What is a Public Security Bureau agent doing at the mill in the middle of the night?”

There was a strong sense that they were “digging into the same thing.” However, the agent was not in a hurry to show his hand.

“I’m investigating a case. The rest is top secret, so forgive me...”

“I just shared fairly valuable information, and the Bureau, from what I can see, is not especially generous in return.”

At those words, the agent’s gaze softened. After a moment of hesitation, he said:

“...There are signs of an epidemic. That’s all I can tell you.”

“An epidemic?”

At that moment Gunther’s brain began operating at maximum speed. After all, he had just confirmed that Audrey had come back to life.

“On top of that, she seemed to recognize me as Raymond.”

The fact that the Cult of Healing was involved in this was no longer just speculation. His thoughts naturally converged into a single point.

“The Cult of Healing... intends to cause sabotage in the capital through disease?”

This method was known in history. It was exactly how the foreign state in Badland—Nomadis—had fallen. However, an epidemic was not a universal weapon. The spread of disease always required specific conditions.

First of all, Valloren was a northern nation. The conditions here were radically different from tropical Nomadis. Long winters, low temperatures, dry air—this was the worst environment for pathogens to survive and spread. On top of that, the ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) capital, Zeros, had excellent water and sewage systems, and its citizens were disciplined enough to impose quarantine immediately.

“...To trigger an outbreak here, they’d have to pay an enormous price. It’s not worth it.”

Something. He was missing something. Feeling an inexplicable unease, Gunther looked at the agent again and spoke more quickly:

“Are you certain you detected the early signs of an epidemic right now? What disease is it? Did you determine the transmission method? This can’t be ignored. The stakes may not just be the peace of the capital, but the fate of all Valloren—”

“Wait, wait,” the agent interrupted, shrugging. “Don’t make such a serious face. I have nothing more to add.”

“...What?”

“I don’t give a damn about Valloren’s fate. I was just tracking down the reason people started getting sick. I learned a few things, but judging by it, you don’t have any more information worth exchanging...”

The eyes behind his face covering narrowed mockingly.

“That’s where we part ways.”

Gunther froze for a moment. But even in that short instant, the Bureau agent had already turned away. Was that a final refusal? Or a hint that Gunther should offer something more? He could not tell for certain.

Only one thing was clear: this man was different from Valloren’s other knights. There was something about him that carried the spirit of Border City. After hesitating, Gunther called after him:

“I have more information. Let’s trade.”

“...Oh-ho?”

Gunther spoke quietly, but clearly:

“...The Archbishop of Justice has entered the capital. There is a high probability... that they will appear tomorrow at the Holy Sword Festival.”

The moment he finished speaking, the atmosphere changed. The agent instantly turned around. His green eyes widened. The feigned carelessness vanished without a trace, and his gaze locked onto Gunther.

“The Archbishop of Justice... in the capital? Is that true? How?!”

And then... another voice, completely ordinary in tone, cut into the conversation:

“Yep, I’m here. How did you figure it out? Honestly, impressive.”

Both of them froze instantly. Primitive terror locked their bodies in place.

Step.

Something emerged from the shadows.

Step.

The sound was quiet. Yet from that single footstep, Gunther and the agent—two battle-hardened men—could not move, as if crushed beneath massive boulders. This was not a logical conclusion. It was not a calculation based on experience.

If you move, you die. The human instinct awakened by mortal danger simply paralyzed the muscles.

Grrr—

The iron hammer of the Archbishop of Justice dragged across the ground. Gunther knew this weapon possessed unimaginable mass, but seeing deep gouges carved into the mill floor as if by an excavator bucket made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“Well now, you really got this far. Such clever boys.”

The moment their eyes met, Gunther became completely certain: her power was beyond all common sense. A being that acted outside the rules. A monster that had far surpassed the limits of violence allowed in this world. The Archbishop tilted her head and smiled.

“But that’s the end of it. If you dig any deeper, it’d be a shame for the people working so hard to prepare everything.”

She slowly raised the hammer. Only then did Gunther’s and the agent’s frozen gazes meet. There was no haste in her movements. Every gesture radiated absolute certainty that they had no chance of escape.

“Whiiiich oneeee should I swat fiiirst? The smart one? Or the cheeky one?”

She was almost singing it to herself. Gunther began slowly backing away. He could not die here. The key to the “sabotage” was right in front of him. If he got even one more clue, he could push farther in the next life.

[Skill “Restructure” Lv. 1 is ready for use]

However, no matter how he looked at it, escaping the Archbishop in his current state felt impossible.

“What do I do...”

At that moment...

Thud—

Gunther was suddenly shoved backward. It was the Bureau agent. An action Gunther had never expected from someone so calculating. The agent’s back began to recede.

“The sweets! Check the sweets being brought into the capital!”

It was a declaration: he was entrusting the completion of the investigation to Gunther. Only then did Gunther realize that the man had remained “calculating” until the very end. He had chosen the option that gave the highest chance of survival—at least for one of them.

“Ah-ha? Ahahaha!”

Seeing this, the Archbishop burst into genuine laughter. She did not kill him instantly, instead lazily swung the hammer as if swatting away a fly. But even that careless motion was enough for the Bureau agent’s longsword to explode into splinters.

“Khaaaa—!”

The agent was hurled backward like a cannonball—straight toward Gunther. Gunther seized this one and only chance.

“Now.”

[Skill “Restructure” Lv. 1 activated]

Vwoooosh—!

At the exact moment Gunther caught the agent’s body, the ground beneath their feet suddenly gave way.

Boom—!

At the same time, the section of ground beneath the Archbishop’s feet bulged upward and shot sharply into the air. The unexpected alchemical mutation removed both of them from her line of sight. Gunther did not miss the moment. As he sank underground, he released sword energy in every direction. Thin. Wide. He minimized its destructive force to maximize the radius of effect.

Sweeee—

The sword energy sliced through the outer walls of the mill like threads. The supports buckled, the walls cracked, dust rose, and in the same instant the flour sacks burst. The air was instantly dyed white.

“Oh?..”

The Archbishop let out a puzzled sound.

GROOOOM—!

The compressed flour dust caught a spark and detonated. A blinding flash devoured the oxygen, and colossal heat and pressure engulfed the mill building. The thermal wave penetrated underground in an instant.

“Kh.”

Gunther immediately directed mana to suppress the shockwave and interfered with the soil structure again.

Crunch—!

Within the collapsing earth, a hastily created tunnel formed, large enough for two people to crawl through. Dragging the limp agent with him, Gunther rushed into the darkness. Behind them, explosions and the thunder of collapse continued.

Even the Archbishop of Justice, nearly invulnerable to physical attacks, could not help but be disoriented in the chaos of a dust explosion that robbed sight, breath, and scorched the lungs.

He had gained a few seconds of lead.

Now only one thing remained.

Gunther took a deep breath and slapped the agent across the face.

Smack—!

“Wake up! This is no time to sleep!”