Evil Has Come. Please Intervene, My Lord

Norway's president, Fres, had gone slack-jawed the moment Iceland's president, Anderson Streicher, named the first weapon. With each name, his mouth opened wider. By the time Anderson said the third—"Gungnir, the Eternal Spear"—Fres could have fit an egg in it.

Fragarach, the Sword of Vengeance; Longinus, the Godslayer Spear; and Gungnir, the Eternal Spear. All three were legendary Divine Artifacts.

Using Divine Artifacts against Jormungandr... that seemed reasonable enough.

Fres faltered. His hand went instinctively to his pocket, but found nothing. Only then did he remember he had left his cigarettes behind for the meeting.

After naming the three weapons at his leisurely pace, Anderson looked at Fres's gaping mouth and felt a small, secret thrill.

Was this what people meant when they said sharing happiness doubled it?

After a brief moment of surprise, Denmark's president, Jitson Andrew, thought it over and said, "Fragarach, the Sword of Vengeance, is in Buckingham Palace. I can ask Her Majesty to use her personal connections to borrow it from the queen of the Land of the Setting Sun."

Anderson nodded, unsurprised.

The relationships between European governments were tangled, but the nobles had always been on good terms.

Go back a few generations, and the queens of Denmark and Britain might even turn out to be close relatives.

"Longinus, the Godslayer Spear," Finland's president, Virtanen, murmured. "As far as I know, the Papal State took it back. It's now enshrined in St. Peter's Basilica."

St. Peter's Basilica?

So the Papal State was telling the truth.

You people really do love your games. You hide things behind truths and lies until no one can tell which is which.

Anderson grumbled to himself.

Longinus, the Godslayer Spear, had long been displayed at the Hofburg Museum for the public to admire. Then one day, the Papal State announced that it was kept in St. Peter's Basilica. It also declared that it had made four boxes, with Longinus in one of them.

The announcement might as well have said, Come steal Longinus! and This is a trap! Yet Longinus really was in St. Peter's Basilica, in the Papal State.

When Anderson finished grumbling, he asked, "Who's going to borrow Longinus, the Godslayer Spear?"

The Presidential Palace's conference room fell silent. Virtanen pressed his lips together and said no more.

Borrow Longinus, the Godslayer Spear?

Who had that kind of pull?

The Papal State was the smallest country in the world, true, but who knew what it had hidden?

Even Shinto in the Eastern Isles, which barely registered in Blue Star's religious world, had a high priest serving Amenominakanushi. The waning Norse Gods had someone with supernatural powers who could drive the Sun Chariot.

The Papal State was the "holy land on earth" for Christians worldwide, God's "Divine Kingdom on earth." No one would believe it had nobody with supernatural powers.

If I asked the Papal State to lend me Longinus now, one of its people with supernatural powers might turn up in my country with the Holy Crown of Thorns or the Shroud of Turin. That would show us what their anger looked like.

Anderson dealt with these presidents often enough to know what they were thinking from their silence.

They're just people with supernatural powers from Christianity. Whether the Papal State has any or not, the man beside me is far stronger than them.

Anderson had seen that man drive the Sun Chariot and crash into Jormungandr like the sun itself. Ever since, he had placed the man's strength on a level beyond anything he could imagine.

He could drive off Jormungandr, an enemy of the gods. Even if Christianity's people with supernatural powers came, he would smash their heads in with his hammer.

Seeing the other presidents so wary, Anderson opened his mouth to volunteer.

But before he could speak, the Bear Nation's president, Alexander, took the task upon himself. "I'll borrow it."

"And I know where Gungnir, the Eternal Spear, is. I'll borrow that too."

It was time to choose.

The Norse Gods, or God?

That depended on how many people with supernatural powers the Papal State had hidden away, and how strong they were.

Alexander spoke firmly. "I have one condition. If I bring them back, the Five Nordic Countries must become six."

So the Bear Nation wants to put its faith in the great Norse Gods too... Startled, Anderson looked toward the man who had remained silent.

He did not want the Bear Nation to gain the backing of the great Norse Gods, but the decision was not his to make.

The man nodded, his tone softening. "All Norsemen beneath the gods' radiance are brothers."

Aboard his private plane, the Il-300, Alexander took a satellite phone from his secretary and called Saint John XII, the pope of the Papal State.

Holding the phone, he found himself speaking with unaccustomed respect. "Your Holiness."

Saint John XII was the religious leader of three billion believers in God, God's shepherd on earth. "Your Holiness" was only fitting.

Of course, Alexander had never called him that before.

In the past, he had seen Saint John XII as nothing more than the president of a small country, distinguished from other small-country presidents only by his immense prestige.

But politics was not entertainment. Popularity did not make a leader powerful; a leader's political standing depended on the strength of his country.

Alexander had not treated Saint John XII as someone he could summon and dismiss at will, but he had certainly looked down on him.

Things were different now. The Norse Gods truly existed, so God might exist too. And as God's shepherd on earth, Saint John XII might himself have supernatural powers.

Why had he always been so respectful to me, then?

He must have been following the example of Christianity's Son of God.

When the Son of God and his twelve disciples preached in Rome, he never displayed the slightest miraculous power. Only as he faced death did he reveal the mystery of death and resurrection.

Alexander is calling me?

And calling me "Your Holiness"?

Saint John XII felt oddly flattered. Since when did that iron-fisted president flatter anyone? Is he trying courtesy first, only to turn forceful when I refuse?

While Saint John XII was lost in speculation, Alexander spoke from the other end of the line. "Your Holiness, evil heretics are encroaching on the Lord's domain. As His shepherd, when will you take up arms to defend His lambs?"