12. With Fire (4, 11,000)

I knew Kael Lohars.

What I meant was, I knew the man himself, not his other side.

That side had been written into secret histories, then sealed away. Only a select few could read those books. I was one of them, but that did not mean I was lucky. On the contrary, the things recorded in those books were almost a fatal blow to any Imperial citizen living under the doctrine of the God-Emperor the Savior—provided his faith was still devout enough.

Interestingly, I had indeed been very devout for a time. Without boasting, I had been devout enough to become a priest.

I had truly tried.

I had attended an acolyte seminary.

The cleric in charge of recruiting acolytes had clearly known what my father did, yet he had still allowed me to enter that holy place. He adhered to the noble principle of teaching all without discrimination. I had been grateful to him and respected him greatly, and he had thought highly of me too.

But later, I left on my own, because I realized that the God-Emperor described in those books was not the same one I had seen while following my father from place to place.

They were not the same person at all.

The books said that the God-Emperor would extend a helping hand to every suffering, devout person, but I had seen people starve to death with my own eyes. I had seen people die of illness, collapse by the roadside and freeze to death, even nameless corpses. The books also said that the God-Emperor would bless us and let us enter a world of light after death, yet I had also seen the souls of the dead suffering in places that looked like hell.

That left only three possibilities.

First, the so-called world