Grandfather's Sacrifice

Karen drove the hearse carrying Diss to the hospital. Perhaps due to his previous encounter with the beguiling aberrant demon here, Karen still felt a slight aversion toward hospitals. But that aversion was something he had to overcome, since a good portion of the family's business came from hospitals. Most importantly, when Diss was standing right beside you, the sense of security went without saying. Diss walked ahead with Karen following behind as grandfather and grandson climbed the stairs of the inpatient building. Actually, back when Mr. Hoffen shouted right to his face that he "wasn't Karen," Karen had once entertained the thought of whether he should just choke the old man to death. At the time, he had felt very insecure. Now, however, he had no such thought. Whatever happened, he could simply leave it to Diss to decide. The best part about being an Inmerlais was that whenever you ran into difficulty, you could ask yourself: Why not ask your grandfather? Even so, Mr. Hoffen's ability to be wheeled into the resuscitation room again and again and rolled back out alive—despite having terminal cancer on top of a severe blow to the back of his head—truly commanded admiration. The old man's will to survive was genuinely stubborn, like doing sit-ups in the hospital. The ward door was open. Diss walked in and switched on the light. The caregiver, who was usually rather responsible on night duty, was currently fast asleep on the floor tiles, snoring away. Diss pointed at her. Karen stepped forward and helped her up. Still half-conscious in her sleep, she didn't resist. Instead, driven by residual instinct, she let Karen help her onto an adjacent empty bed, clamped the blanket between her legs, and drifted back into a deep slumber. Diss walked over to Hoffen. Karen brought over a chair from nearby and placed it behind Diss, who took a seat. Hoffen's eyes were open. When his gaze fell upon Karen, it displayed an unmistakable revulsion. Karen had long grown accustomed to this. Then, he looked at Diss: "He came." "Oh," Diss acknowledged. "I've told him everything about the evil god's descent." "Mm," Diss responded again. "I think it's still not too late for you to kill him," Mr. Hoffen urged once more. Karen had once suspected that the sole reason Mr. Hoffen was clinging to life by a thread was that this "evil god" hadn't died yet, and he couldn't die in peace. Yet facing Mr. Hoffen's instigations, Karen showed no reaction. Instead, he quietly picked up the thermos flask, rinsed a cup with hot water, and poured hot water into it. The first cup went to Diss, who took it. When he poured the second cup, Mr. Hoffen instinctively reached out to take it. Karen kept it in his own hand, blew on it, and took a sip. "..." Hoffen. "He didn't come to me first," Diss said. "Though that was expected." "I think when Rasma left Headquarters, he was coming for you. Back when you yielded the seat of High Priest to him, I told you that wouldn't earn his gratitude. Instead, it would sow a seed of hatred that wouldn't dissipate for decades. What he coveted with all his might was, in your eyes, just a plaything you could give away. That grudge runs deep." "I never did like coddling the mediocre. It's too tiring." "Heh heh." Hoffen chuckled. "You're still the same. After all these years, you haven't changed a bit." "You can close your eyes and rest in peace. He will see to the funeral arrangements." Diss glanced at Karen standing beside him. Karen quietly set down the cup. "I don't know why, but even though I've wished for him to drop dead this whole time, having an evil god manage my funeral personally actually stirs up an uncontrollable excitement. Is this the thrill of the forbidden?" "Want to hear him call you Grandfather too? You'd be even happier." "Who'd care to have an evil god call them Grandfather?" Having said that, Mr. Hoffen pursed his lips, a hint of temptation flashing in his eyes. Diss said nothing. Mr. Hoffen said nothing either. Karen blew on the cup again, then placed the lukewarm water before Mr. Hoffen. "Grandfather, have some tea." "Heh..." Mr. Hoffen gave a disdainful snort, but still took a sip of the tea. After swallowing it, he closed his eyes. Immediately, his hands uncontrollably clenched and unclenched. His feet instinctively tightened and loosened. Then, small movements like that were no longer enough to express his inner turmoil. He simply tossed and rolled back and forth on the bed, bursts of laughter spilling from his mouth now and then. If Diss hadn't remained sitting there motionless, Karen would have genuinely thought Mr. Hoffen was having a seizure. After a long while, Mr. Hoffen stopped and took a deep breath. "Diss, I understand your joy now." Diss shook his head. "You misunderstand." "No, this joy is more than enough. My whole life I've obeyed the doctrines of the Church of Principles, studying painstakingly, strictly upholding rules and restraints. I never imagined that in the final stage of my life, I'd agree to go crazy with you." "Do you regret it?" Diss asked. "It's not a matter of regret. I just find it a pity—a pity that after walking inside the lines my entire life, in the end I actually jumped outside the lines. Yet in my heart, there's an indescribable joy. Especially in the dark of night, I often find myself waking from sleep with a sudden, inexplicable laugh. Just like when I was a boy and rain poured from the sky. Once, I ran through the rain with my playmates. We didn't care that our clothes would be soaked through; we didn't care that we'd face Mother's punishment when we got home; we didn't care about the mud splattered on our pant legs. We played, roughhoused, and leapt to our hearts' content in the rain, letting splashes of mud coat our bodies. That feeling... it was truly wonderful." "It was," Diss nodded. "I always envied you. Back when I was young, I heard that a young man in the Church of Order said right to the faces of the Temple Elders that Order is merely a mask one puts on when needed. Do you know, when I heard about that, I thought to myself: what a fascinating person that must be. I really wanted to meet him. How did he dare? How could he... Ah, heh heh. Later, you saved me. I felt that our fate was already sealed then. I was even looking forward to you taking me along on a crazy ride. Perhaps I should have studied divination, because my premonition really did come true." "Perhaps," Diss said. "Regardless, Diss, it has been wonderful to know a friend like you in this lifetime. Of course, I also know you've never lacked friends like me." "No, Hoffen. I've never had many friends around me." Diss reached out and smoothed Hoffen's thinning hair. "After all, how many people could tolerate a temper like mine?" "If it weren't for what happened to his parents..." "It has nothing to do with his parents. I grew tired a long time ago. Perhaps because I walked too fast, I experienced all too early the state of mind of the Church of Light's last mad pope: He said he didn't believe the God of Light truly existed." "Is that your loneliness, Diss? You are truly pitiable. A person without faith is truly pitiable." "Yes," Diss nodded. "However, I have family. I cherish my family. They are my faith." "Including him?" "Yes, including him. My grandson, Karen." "You really do care for him. I can feel it. Perhaps my luck was just poor—I fell the very first time I met him, so I missed out on something." "Yes. Karen is very much like me. He is the spitting image of me when I was young." "Doesn't your heart ache for him? The spitting image of your younger self, and in the end..." "There is one difference." "Where?" "He has faith." "We all do. The old you had it too, didn't you? What's so strange about having faith?" "In his faith, however, there is no god." "..." Hoffen's eyes flew wide open. "Can a faith without a god still be called faith? How can a house be built without a foundation?" Karen spoke up: "Houses are built by humans, and foundations are laid by humans. God has never contributed a single brick or added a single tile." Mr. Hoffen stared at Karen. "Heretic! Evil god!" Karen shrugged, used to the dying old man's attacks. "If there is no god in your world, what use is an empty shell of a house? A real house at least shelters you from wind and rain. Heh heh." "I don't believe in gods, but I believe in truth." "Believe in truth?" As a believer of the Church of Principles, Old Hoffen's excitement was instantly stirred. Should he... recruit... an evil god... into the Church of Principles? Heavens, what an insane idea. And yet, he really wanted to try. Watching the shift in Hoffen's expression, Karen knew he had misunderstood. The truth Karen believed in had no god presiding over it. Hoffen took out the cross necklace. Seeing the necklace, Karen suddenly felt the palm of his left hand ache again. Hoffen looked at Karen and said: "Take it, evil god. This is a gift from your grandfather." "Thank you... Grandfather." Karen carefully picked up the necklace by the chain, doing his best not to touch the cross itself. Mr. Hoffen snapped peevishly, "Without prayers performed over it, it has no harming effect on aberrant demons." "Oh, really?" Karen touched it with a finger. Mm, indeed, nothing happened. Seeing Karen do this, Hoffen asked: "So last time, you actually got burned by it, didn't you? You just pretended nothing happened in front of me, didn't you?" "Yes." Karen the evil god admitted it openly. Moreover, he held out his left palm, revealing the faded cross-shaped scar in the center. Hoffen stared hard at the scar: "Do you know what this means?" "I recall you saying that if I were an aberrant demon, grasping it voluntarily would incinerate me. But it didn't." Hoffen's eyelids drooped. "That means you are a very powerful aberrant demon—an evil god. So a prayer of my level combined with this sacred relic could only singe your surface." Karen chuckled. "Yet I've never noticed where my strength lies." Mr. Hoffen said, "Your grandfather used to say that all the time when he was young." "..." Karen. "Diss, I'm tired. Truly. They took far too long to arrive." Hoffen took Diss's hand. "There's something that feels rather embarrassing to say now, and I didn't want to say it, but if I don't, I won't have the chance anymore. Diss, do you know, in this life I didn't just revere the God of Principles. I always admired you—admired the person you used to be. A pity that ever since that incident, you sank into gloom." Diss leaned in close to Hoffen's face and said softly: "I told you, it wasn't Karen's parents' deaths that made me withdraw." "Truly not?" Hoffen's eyelids grew heavier, his voice turning faint. "It was because I felt I could no longer suppress my realm. I felt I had already touched the core of Order. I couldn't keep going. I had no choice but to lie low, at times even deliberately squandering my power of faith to force my realm to drop. Otherwise, I would have had to enter the Temple of Order and become a Temple Elder. That distressed me greatly. After all, compared to serving that God of Order up close, I much prefer sitting at the dinner table every evening with my family." Hearing this, Hoffen grinned. Then, his smile froze in place. He was gone. Diss straightened up and said to Karen: "Bring up the gurney. We're taking Hoffen home." Karen immediately ran downstairs to the hearse in the parking lot to retrieve the gurney, then carried it back up to the ward in the inpatient building, somewhat out of breath from rushing. Yet he felt no fatigue, for Diss's words kept echoing in his mind: Grandfather was distressed—distressed that he couldn't keep his realm suppressed. Just how strong was Grandfather, then? So his grandfather's wanton defiance that night hadn't been backed by his status as an Inquisitor of the Church of Order; it had been backed by his own sheer power. "Put it here." "Right away, Grandfather." Diss supported Hoffen's back while Karen held his legs, and together grandfather and grandson lifted Mr. Hoffen onto the gurney. "Let's go home." "Okay." Karen pushed the gurney, and Diss walked alongside him. "Grandfather, who is Rasma?" Karen asked. "The High Priest of the Church of Order." "He came to Ruilan?" "Mm. Before we arrived at the ward, he was here in person." "Mr. Hoffen told him about the god descent ritual?" "Yes. Old Hoffen held out against death just waiting for someone to come ask him. In truth, he was exhausted long ago." "Then we..." "In a few days, an exceptional god descent ritual will be held in Belwin. A powerful aberrant demon will attempt to summon his progenitor, who was suppressed by the God of Order in the previous epoch." "A powerful... aberrant demon?" "Compared to him, Alfred is like a clown." "Then..." "Before me, he is just like Alfred before you." "Understood." That analogy made it crystal clear. "I gave him the method for the Church of Order's exceptional god descent ritual that Hoffen helped me refine, and even assisted with his preparations. He is going to fulfill his lifelong wish of summoning a true evil god, but he is doomed to fail. His strength and realm fall short; he is destined to turn to ash during the summoning ritual. Most importantly, he lacks sufficient offerings for the sacrifice." "Then why would he..." "For a dream. He knows he cannot truly summon his progenitor, but before he perishes alongside the altar, he should be able to meet his progenitor and exchange a few words. That is all he ever wanted." "So, we're..." "Yes. I help him fulfill his dream, and he helps me wipe away all blame and suspicion from the previous god descent ritual. That was why I told you the ritual regarding you wouldn't bring any repercussions to our home or our family, nor did we need to fear an investigation. In fact, before that ritual was held, those involved included not only Hoffen and Purr, but him as well." Karen understood. It was a closed loop. Mr. Hoffen had clung to life solely to undergo "questioning" before he died, shifting all suspicion onto that powerful aberrant demon. Soon after, that demon would initiate a "second" god descent ritual, bringing the "truth" to light. Diss had said he would never do something so foolish as "resurrecting" one family member only to drag the rest into the vortex. It turned out Diss truly had arranged everything well in advance. Looking at Hoffen lying on the gurney, Karen couldn't help sighing inwardly. This old man, who had constantly called him an "evil god" and urged Diss to kill him, had actually endured tremendous agony and refused to die just to help Diss close this loop—to protect the Inmerlais family. What a stubborn yet endearing old man. Karen reached out and tucked in the white sheet over Mr. Hoffen. The Inmerlais family had a duty to hold a proper funeral for him. With Diss's help, Mr. Hoffen was lifted into the hearse. The wheels of the gurney folded in, fitting into the rectangular depression in the middle, and straps resembling seat belts were pulled from both sides and buckled. In the new hearse, carrying only a single passenger actually caused no jolting. Last time, the only reason Mr. Morf and the editor-in-chief kept embracing each other in the back was that they had been dumped straight into the recess without anyone bothering to secure them. Karen started the hearse and prepared to head home. Along the way, Karen suddenly remembered a word from what his grandfather had said earlier: sacrifice. Purr had mentioned that word before too. Purr had been very curious about what Diss had sacrificed in the god descent ritual. For she had thought an exceptional ritual like that couldn't possibly succeed, yet then she witnessed "Karen" come back to life with her own eyes. It undoubtedly succeeded. So what had been the price? What on earth did Diss offer as a sacrifice to the God of Order? "Grandfather, may I ask you something?" "Ask." "During the god descent ritual, what exactly did you sacrifice?" "Ask that again." "What did you sacrifice?" "The sentence before that." "Grandfather, may I ask you some—" "I'm tired." Then, both grandfather and grandson laughed. Since Diss didn't want to answer, Karen pressed no further. The hearse pulled up in front of the house. Karen got out, lowered the steel ramp, unbuckled the straps holding Mr. Hoffen, and rolled him down the ramp. Throughout the process, Diss remained seated in the hearse, watching Karen work on his own. To resurrect his grandson, he had prepared to sacrifice everything—anything and everything he possessed. To that end, he hadn't hesitated to unseal himself and revoke all suppression on his realm. His realm, his faith, his power, even his very life. He had prepared himself: whatever offering the God of Order wanted during the ritual, the deity could take its pick. He had believed he could afford it, that he could surely satisfy the God of Order, because his own strength was infinitely close to that of a Temple Elder. The only difference was that he had always resisted taking that step. The Temple that everyone in the Church of Order yearned for, the place closest to the God of Order, happened to be the one place Diss held in utter contempt. "Grandfather, shall we head inside?" Karen had safely positioned Mr. Hoffen on the gurney and was ready to push him through the front door. "All right." Diss stepped out of the hearse. Karen came over to lock the vehicle doors, then walked back to open the courtyard gate before pushing Mr. Hoffen's body inside himself. Diss stood by the front door, watching his grandson toil away. Until his death, Old Hoffen had held back from asking. Purr had been dying to know and asked him many times. Even that man had asked: *I know that in my insignificance I cannot compare to you, but I still wish to inquire reverently in the hope of receiving your guidance: what, exactly, did you sacrifice?* Diss had told this answer to no one. Even when his grandson asked in the car just now, he had still withheld it. He couldn't answer the question at all. There was no answer. Because, during the god descent ritual, after preparing to offer up everything he possessed as a sacrifice, when the ritual concluded, he discovered to his utter astonishment that the God of Order... had taken nothing at all.