"No! I'm a Child of God. There's no way I'd do something like peep on a girl."
As expected of him, he instantly nailed the image of a deluded chuunibyou teenager overwhelmed by lust after being completely duped, yet still stubbornly refusing to admit it.
"Hahaha, there is no need to hide it, Your Majesty Cid. While many ascetics in the Church still practice abstinence, what the Church has always advocated is moderation."
"W-Wait, wait!!! R-Really?"
You'd even say something like that just to trick people?
How do people like you manage not to get found out and beaten to death by the Church?
"Of course it is true, Your Majesty Cid. However, I cannot hand Astarte over to you. She is an artificially created lifeform possessed by a Demon from another world. She will sink to the bottom of the sea with me."
Wow, this is getting more ridiculous by the minute.
Uncle, are you going through a chuunibyou phase too?
Now we've got artificial Demon Possession involved.
Let me ask, is your criminal organization called the Cult of Diablos?
No, wait. Your version is even more hardcore than the Cult from a few months ago.
Did your script get another update?
Here was the funny part.
The "Demon Possession" originally native to World Three began appearing in women from the other worlds after the worlds fused, for reasons still unknown. Since no one could explain it, people could only treat it as a curse, a conceptual curse tied to one specific world.
Originally, it should not have been that big a deal.
The so-called Demon Possession was basically just a bloodline disease. If people were willing to throw away all moral limits, they could have come up with a cure within a few months. Even if they kept basic ethics intact, a solution still could have been researched within a few years.
The fact that Cid developed a cure in one month while others with full teams still needed several months did not mean he was smarter than them.
To this day, Cid still thought he had simply been lucky.
The reason he found the cure so quickly was because he basically guessed it.
For example, if Demon Possession were a math problem and the cure were the answer, everyone else was carefully writing out the formula and calculating it step by step until they reached the solution.
Cid, on the other hand, just wrote "1" as the answer, got it marked wrong, rewrote it as "2," and somehow got it right.
If you asked him to show the work, he would definitely get a zero.
Unfortunately, this was not an exam.
He guessed right on the first try, and that was that.
After the worlds fused, once people from the other worlds stopped viewing Demon Possession victims through a medieval lens, the combined post-fusion medical technology should, under normal circumstances, have saved those afflicted soon enough and cleared their names.
But as everyone knew, anything guaranteed not to go wrong usually went wrong in the most natural way possible.
At first, people sympathized with Demon Possession victims and established a medical research institute.
A few days later, that institute exploded.
And in the ruins, a spatial crack leading directly to the World Battlefield appeared.
Afterward, the World Battlefield reported that the other world had gained an additional SSS-rank top-tier combatant.
In other words, a Transcender.
That was enough to scare everyone into abandoning further research.
Later, after investigations by several factions, they came to suspect that Demon Possession originated from another world.
That other world was actually stronger than the combined total of all three worlds.
However, for some reason, they seemed unable to descend unless certain conditions were met.
And one of those conditions was complete Demon Possession.
In its early stages, Demon Possession was not very obvious. In fact, it could even greatly enhance Magical Power and physical ability.
In the middle stage, the body would begin to mutate and rot, though the victim still retained self-awareness.
Complete Demon Possession was the late stage.
At that point, the entire body would turn into a writhing lump of flesh.
Then, anywhere from a few days to a few minutes later, a rift would tear open and transport the victim to the World Battlefield as a vessel for the other world's combat forces to descend into.
That terrified the whole world into banning research on Demon Possession altogether.
After all, one failed attempt would immediately push the victim into the final stage.
If they failed dozens of times, there would be no point fighting anymore. They might as well just wait to die.
As a side note, in order to speed up the fusion of the three worlds, and under the assumption that Demon Possession victims were beyond saving anyway, the major powers reached a tacit understanding to dump all the blame onto the other world.
For example, they spread claims that their worlds had always been under invasion, and that most of the historical figures who had started wars across the worlds were actually Demon Possession victims, only those incidents had already been discovered, dealt with, and covered up.
As for these claims, the official stance was neither confirmation, nor denial, nor clarification.
Then there was one piece of exclusive information known only to Cid.
At the moment of world fusion, his senses picked up something absolutely enormous, packed with vast amounts of Magical Power, being ground into powder by the collision between the worlds.
When he went to the scene afterward, what he found was a gigantic underground pit that had clearly been buried for at least several hundred years.
Judging by the residual traces there, what had been buried in that pit was most likely the rotting flesh of a gigantic creature.
It was only because the terrain had shifted during world fusion that the pit was exposed again.
Which was why Cid still insisted that Demon Possession was a bloodline disease.
His own summary of it was simple.
Two magic worlds ran into a bioweapon-style virus and got completely outclassed because the problem was outside their field of expertise.
"U-Uncle… is she really… really Demon Possessed?"
A voice full of disbelief and fear came from Cid's mouth.
"Yes. I know this is my sin. In order to drag this cursed land into the bottom of the sea, I need this power. But as atonement, I will have Astarte sink into the sea together with me."
To be honest, Cid considered himself a serious chuunibyou.
But right now, he was starting to feel that maybe he was not actually chuunibyou at all.
Maybe he just had a few more adolescent fantasies than most.
The real chuunibyou was the man standing in front of him.
"R-Right, right. I don't know why you're doing this, Uncle, but I'm sure you must have your reasons."
"Hahaha, I am honored to receive Your Majesty Cid's understanding."
That was enough already.
The secondhand embarrassment was so strong Cid felt like he could claw out a whole three-bedroom apartment with his toes.
"Uncle, I understand now. There are still some things I don't quite get, but I feel like I've already understood everything I was supposed to."
"Hahaha, as expected of the Child of God. You possess wisdom bestowed by the Lord."
In truth, Cid did not understand at all.
He had completely lost track of this man's chuunibyou setting.
But in order to avoid dying from secondhand embarrassment if the conversation continued, he simply lied so the topic could end as soon as possible.
After casually brushing off a few more lines toward the man in front of him, who seemed like a scammer whose chuunibyou had flared up again, Cid suddenly looked as if he had remembered something.
He walked up to Astarte and reached out to the fluffy ball in her hands.
He tugged hard.
It did not move.
"Um… Astarte-san, that cat you're holding belongs to me. Could you let go?"
Astarte stared at Cid calmly. His face was reflected in her hollow eyes.
Then she simply turned her head toward Rudolf.
"Your Majesty Cid, you do not need to treat Astarte that way. She is an artificial lifeform and has no emotions."
Rudolf explained briefly to Cid before turning to Astarte.
"Astarte, grant Your Majesty Cid the same level of authority as me. Now execute His Majesty's command."
"Order acknowledged."
Upon receiving Rudolf's command, Astarte raised her head expressionlessly, as though trying to memorize every feature of Cid's face.
Cid ignored her gaze.
This time, with just a light pull, Cat No. 24 easily slipped out of Astarte's hands and into his arms.
Holding No. 24, Cid began walking toward the cat nest while gently stroking the kitten's fur.
"Your Majesty Cid, I must now go fulfill my duty. Forgive me for not accompanying you. Astarte, remain here. Escort His Majesty Cid home, then come find me afterward."
Astarte followed closely behind Cid, her lifeless eyes still fixed on his face as she answered.
"Order acknowledged."
After watching Cid head toward the other side of the monastery, Rudolf turned toward a corner of the building.
From there he pulled out a massive crescent axe more than two meters tall.
Judging from the heavy sound it made when he pulled it out of the ground, it must have weighed several hundred kilograms.
Yet Rudolf lifted the enormous weapon with one hand as if it were nothing.
Looking out toward the city beyond the monastery, he revealed a savage, bloodthirsty grin completely different from the kind and gentle expression he had shown in front of Cid.