Chapter 484 — Taking Root

At first people assumed that the knights of the Holy See would, as in the religious tales they had heard before, be righteous men who held fast in adversity and stepped forward to uphold justice—but the truth was that they too were ravenous, and in the face of hunger they abandoned the basest line of human nature more utterly than anyone.

When Emily fell, the people grieved for her; when the White Knight was born, the people cried out and were stirred.

In this era without entertainment, starved of information, where the life of the common folk was dull and joyless, people's emotions were far easier to stir than those of Earthlings who had endured an bombardment of information, and the range of their emotional shifts was more violent, more vivid as well. Against this peculiar backdrop of the age, the brand-new "Magic Web broadcast," like the newspapers before it, produced an impact at its very birth far beyond all expectations.

The principle was simple—the drier the soil, the more swiftly it drinks in water.

"...On that day, I became a White Knight. I think I had already embraced the true meaning of the holy light, and that true meaning is this: the holy light should not be bound by a person's station or status; it belongs to every righteous man..."

Wright brought the story to a close, and Gibri, sitting opposite him, reacted half a beat late—Miss Witch too had apparently been moved unawares by Wright's telling, so much so that for a moment she forgot she was meant to take up the thread that followed.

Fortunately the technicians across the room reminded her in time, and she recovered quickly: "That really is a moving story, Mr. Wright... So then, about that little girl Emily... I think you ought to tell us how she is doing now?"

The crowds gathered on the plazas grew curious one and all—could some miracle have befallen that little girl who had already died?

A miracle had indeed occurred.

Wright smiled toward the "camera," then raised his hand slightly, and a hazy mass of holy light rose into being behind him.

When that semi-transparent little spirit girl appeared in the frame, the citizens before the Magic Web terminals cried out again and again.

Under ordinary circumstances, the sudden emergence of such a girl, so close to a ghost, would surely have given people a great fright; but with Wright's story beforehand as a foundation, people were scarcely frightened when Emily emerged—instead many let out cries of joyful surprise:

"She's alive!" "That little girl came back to life?!" "The holy light preserve us!" "No, she looks like a ghost..." "Ignorant! Can't you see all that holy light?"

Wright did not know what was happening outside, but he could guess. He casually summoned a small mass of holy light and fed it to the girl floating behind him, saying with a smile: "I will praise the holy light forever, for it has brought Emily back to this world. As you can see, Emily is a spirit body formed entirely of holy light—her appearance proves precisely that my understanding of the holy light is close to the truth. She is a miracle of the holy light."

Emily clutched that little ball of light and gnawed at it greedily, then suddenly turned to the camera and flashed a great big smile; next she waved her hand, as though greeting the audience, and only after a few seconds did her figure slowly dissolve into the halo of light around Wright.

A miracle of the holy light...

Tens of thousands of people had gathered in the town squares of every region, and at one and the same moment they all marveled at this miracle of the Holy Light.

The fact that the Church's knights had harmed the innocent, the fact that the White Knight had "borne witness to the way of the Holy Light with her own body," the fact that the Church was not holy, the fact that Emily herself was a miracle of the Holy Light...

One fact after another entered the minds of tens of thousands of people with such ease, and took root there.

(Oh, right, right—nearly forgot: everyone, please keep an eye on the fan-fiction event in the review section! For details, see the pinned post in the review section.)