“How about over there?”
“Yes! It’s okay!”
“…What do you mean by ‘okay’? You’re the type to act recklessly while pretending to smile, so I can’t trust you.”
“But really, it is okay, you know?”
“…Ah, Grace. What happened with your family?”
“I’ve cut ties with them!”
“…Uh, oh, I see. You can come back now.”
Grace Arclight.
No, not anymore; just Grace now.
The family I was born into had a deep connection with the church.
But now, thanks to what I learned from Exus, I know that it was a form of “collusion” that hinders “fair capitalist competition”… real “evil,” as I was taught.
Ah, ah…
I am foolish.
I knew nothing.
Perhaps even now, I still don’t know anything at all.
Locked away in the church, spending meaningless days training and such.
“Reality,” cultivated without knowing anything.
The “saint” created for political convenience…
A proud, all-saving, representative of God’s will…!
“…Ahahahaha!!! Aahhahahaha!!! Are you kidding me?!!! A saint?! There is no god in this world!!!”
“G-G-Graaaaace?!”
It’s laughable, really.
I had been deceived for so long.
Father, Mother, the bishops of the church.
Everything I learned from all of you.
All of it… was truly meaningless! Hollow and empty! It only served to elevate your authority, restrict the freedom of all people, and strangle each other in a closed world… pathetic and disgraceful claims!
“You said! ‘If you pray, God will save you’! But, who has been saved by that? I saw it, I was shown! By Exus!”
Sometimes in the slums, sometimes in villages with poor farmers and serfs, and at other times with the bandits lurking in the forest.
People starving to the extreme, sucking the blood and flesh of others.
Young, even child-like, children selling themselves for a few copper coins to survive.
Sick and injured people, cursing the world, dying without anyone reaching out to help.
Children committing crimes, parents abandoning children they can’t raise, relatives selling their own to strangers, disabled children being bullied to death by their families, corrupt officials overlooking the rich’s crimes for bribes, the rulers ignoring unsanitary conditions, conservative and stubborn old men denying innovation and progress, the craftsmen’s guilds dragging each other down without fair competition, and the people lacking education and sharing ethics or common sense…
Ahhhhh, ahhh, ahh.
Everything, everything, everything, everything!!!
“It’s all wrong!!!”
“Wha?!”
Isn’t it strange? Isn’t it wrong?
I prayed, more seriously than anyone else.
Even so, death, hunger, poverty, war, despair, injustice, suffering—none of it has disappeared from this world!!!
…That day.
The day I first met Exus at the academy.
My world was redrawn.
Before being shown the world’s despair by Exus, I…
Knew him at a glance.
That beauty, that beautiful figure.
Long black hair that seemed to melt the night into black iron.
Eyes filled with a strong power that seemed to draw me in.
Everything, all his features told the story of that person, that being, as something mysterious, something divine…
His words naturally entered my ears, permeating my heart, giving me peace and courage.
When held in his arms, I felt a burning love and ecstasy.
That man is a god.
In reality, he taught me everything.
He opened the eyes of ignorant me, showing me the truth of the world, the path I should take, all the solutions…
“Yet, what are you all doing? Why aren’t you following that man?!!!”
I don’t understand. I can’t comprehend.
Exus truly saves people and punishes people, unlike a god whose existence is uncertain!
He said that to him, it was merely a performance to showcase his own abundance… but with that performance! With a casual, playful attitude! So many people were saved, and many injustices and deceptions were rectified!
So I said.
“Follow Exus!!!!”
To follow Exus, using all my power to grant “freedom” to the people.
To widely teach and nurture the way to handle “freedom,” how to use “human rights.”
Through “fair competition,” to advance human society!
This is the path I believe will make humanity happy!
Our hands and feet are not meant for kneeling and praying to God!
They are meant to work, to teach, to nurture, to advance, and to convey! That is their purpose!
“At the very least! I cannot forgive those who deceive and use their daughters and the people for their own unjust interests!!! I absolutely will not allow it!”
Thus, I returned to my beloved Exus by blowing up my family and the church that colluded with it…
I recognize “freedom of faith,” but there should not be any existence that goes against the “public good!”
Excerpt from the Great Lives of the Biltrion Kingdom
Grace Arclight
The only daughter of the Arclight family, which had a collusive relationship with the church at the time. Also known as the saint.
While she is strongly associated with the image of the “Saint of Freedom,” a banner for the later-started “Movement for Civil Liberties,” her records show that she was actually a teacher imparting advanced studies at the Auroral Corps.
Furthermore, beyond being a senior executive of the Aurora Corps, she became the organization’s stabilizing force, working hard to solidify its foundations. Many assert that she should be praised for generalizing and spreading the progressive ideas of the Aurora Corps, but she always maintained a position of supporting the organization and Exus from a step back.
