The Radiant Artifact installed at the highest point of Banks City was still operating. On this second gloomy night, it continued to protect the suffering land. Its shelter extended beyond the city itself, covering a vast surrounding area, almost like a "divine kingdom on earth" beneath the light.
Though the artifact represented no religious symbol, for people trapped in desperate circumstances, seeing the light still shining was the most heartening thing of all. In the chaotic city, besides the soldiers of the Pioneer Legion, the busiest people were the followers of the Holy Light who had been stranded there.
They had keenly sensed the effects the Radiant Artifact was having on the city's residents, and had begun preaching of their own accord, describing the light that kept out the cold, indifferent night as a blessing of the Holy Light. In doing so, they had truly attracted a number of anxious civilians.
Ever since the Ten-Year War, when King Louis had personally destroyed the Plantagenet Kingdom's system of faith, the unblessed hearts of the people in this country had posed a serious problem. King Louis himself had once said that the spiritual world of his subjects was a barren wasteland, in desperate need of faith's nourishment. If this country's administrative system weren't so strict, and if the Old Church's conduct in its final years hadn't been so outrageous that the entire nation remained wary of it, all sorts of cults would probably have been flourishing here long ago.
Now, in Banks City, East Prussia, which had been physically cut off from everywhere else, the disaster and the protective artifact had made mass conversion to a faith seem only natural.
In the past, this situation would have immediately aroused the vigilance of the city's administrators. Anyone preaching without permission would surely have