Miracle Fruit on the Miracle Tree, You and Me Beneath It

Keir exhaled with all his might—though he had thought of a faster, better way to vent gas, it simply was not very elegant.

"Villed."

The angel's legs were nearly touching the ground, so he raised his head and called toward Nese. He did not know Nese's name. He had only heard Yicha address this young friend that way.

The blond demon-form youth was no longer where he had been.

Keir looked around in confusion. In the distance, the red stream burbled with bubbles, and a lone hand thrust out of the water, grasping desperately at the air as it continued drifting downstream.

"Uh... is that you, Villed?" the angel asked blankly.

At the same time, the red stream began to churn violently. More than a dozen withered, skin-and-bone claws burst from the water and yanked that raised hand back beneath the surface.

The water there began to boil, as if someone below was struggling desperately.

Yicha had described this place.

Chaos Hell's infamous punishment ground, the Fire-Thunder Zesan River.

Recognizing the evil, unnatural sight, Keir's face went pale as he cried out, "Miracle! Miracle!"

It was worth mentioning that, unlike most angels, Keir did not use this innate angelic ability very often.

For one thing, most people devoted to theoretical research preferred things that were more precise and stable.

For example, rule-based spells that could be shaped at will, harmless natural Vine Spirit incantations, and those targeted methods of drawing upon order energy. Keir had a decent grasp of all of them.

For another—compared to the Seraphim, whose powers were immensely potent and pure—Keir's "miracles" were simply far too unstable. He could not even guarantee that they would always have a positive effect.

Miracles were affected by too many things.

A faint breeze, for instance, or the communion bread being too hard that day.

"Believe me. If you weren't always so jumpy that it affected your thinking, your miracles would work better," Yicha had once said.

Keir found that very hard to refute.

But he had once thought it did not matter.

The other techniques he knew, the ones that were not innate, were enough.

It was just that those techniques required enough power to cross a threshold before they could be used.

Innate abilities within an innate domain were not subject to that restriction. This was the only method he could use right now.

Keir regretted it a little.

He should have calmed himself down before summoning a miracle. Nese probably could have held on for one more second.

His emotions at the time had been far too complicated. Specifically:

He wanted to escape his bloated, weightless state; he wanted his strength to return; he wanted to catch up and save the person in the water; he wanted that person to get free on his own; and he wanted the Fire-Thunder Zesan River to stop flowing—

Because that churning mass beneath the water was already nearing the cliff edge, about to plunge into the pitch-black abyss.

The resulting miracle was a patchwork of all those thoughts:

His bloated, already round body suddenly became incredibly heavy, and like a lump of iron, he slammed into the obsidian riverbank with a bang.

Before he could thank Order, the angel realized that his face was rapidly approaching the ground, then approaching the sky in a steady rhythm—

Keir realized that he had become a huge, hard sphere, rolling in the direction the stream was flowing.

And the worst was yet to come...

The gas inside his body had not vanished with the hardening. It had been concentrated in a place that made him feel ashamed.

Pfft!

That foul gas erupted from behind him—

Sending the giant-ball Keir hurtling forward with unstoppable force.

"Forgive me!"

As radishes flooded his mind, the angel prayed with all his might while rattling and clattering over more than three hundred uneven pieces of obsidian.

Smack!

Near the cliff's edge, his body struck a cleverly angled stone ridge and bounced into the air—

Splash—

Keir landed heavily at the point where the Fire-Thunder Zesan River plunged into the abyss.

His enormous, round body had, in the literal sense, miraculously plugged the stream's entrance perfectly and completely.

The Fire-Thunder Zesan River's brilliant red water was blocked. It began to rise and spread from around a third of the way up his body.

Keir felt many things scratching at the place that had once been his stomach. It tickled.

"Ha ha—"

His laughter was cut off by an impact.

A mass of something, mixed with a great deal of chaotic debris, crashed into his body from a deeper spot beneath the water.

A hand broke through the surface and gripped the upper half of Keir's body.

Great.

"Villed, climb up!" Feeling the miracle's power fading, the angel urged him hurriedly.

"I... can't get up yet..." he heard the young man say with difficulty.

From below and behind him.

Below and behind him.

Keir tried to twist his head around in terror.

But unfortunately, his entire body had become part of that hard giant sphere. His neck could not turn, so he could only watch helplessly as another hand stiffly stretched out of the water and seized him firmly from the other side.

The person in the water wasn't the one I was looking for...

Another hand climbed up.

Then a fourth, a fifth. More than a dozen hands gripped his round body from every direction.

That young man named Villed definitely didn't have that many hands... right...

Keir desperately tried to lean backward.

Splash!

A distorted gray ghost face appeared an inch in front of Keir's face.

"Aahhh! Aahhh!!" The angel screamed his heart out, shaking himself frantically. "Miracle! Miracle!!"

The miracle came.

Of course, the miracle happened according to the angel's words.

But this was another miracle mixed with many complicated emotions and needs—such as getting away from the evil ghost in front of him, returning to his original physical state, and getting to Villed's side.

Those were all perfectly normal.

But at the very moment Keir shouted, a thought slipped into the angel's mind without invitation.

It was:

Things can't possibly get any worse, can they?

They could.

They could get worse.

A great lesson.

Keir thought.

At that moment, he had returned to his normal, injured, weakened state. He and Nese were dangling halfway down the cliff, hanging from the same precarious branch.

Below their feet was a faintly surging tide of pale worms, and a dizzying dark abyss.

The Fire-Thunder Zesan River's crimson water poured endlessly from the break above, drenching them both. It not only kept them from lifting their faces, but also made their entire bodies itch uncontrollably.

Yet even though they could not see, they could hear that those monsters had not left. Instead, they had gathered directly above the cliff, letting out bone-chilling, shrill cries down at them.

"How... are you?" After a while, Nese broke the silence.

"I'm fine," Keir said firmly. His shoulder hurt as if someone were repeatedly kicking it with a pointed boot.

"Good." Nese lowered his head and stared at the hem of the angel's robe, trailing a string of crimson droplets. After hesitating for a moment, he said, "I mean, do you have a way out?"

"No." Keir looked resolute.

No matter what, he had no intention of using miracles again.