"─ Eh."

The female knight Elmia woke up with a severe headache and tiredness, pain in her shoulders.

"Hey, what's this?!?"

Elmia stood - - No, she stood.

Chains were hoisted from the ceiling and her hands were fixed with the restraints attached ahead.

Both legs are also connected to chains and restraints that are fixed to the floor, making little movement possible.

The chain stretched out of the ceiling that binds her hands is a length that Elmia stretches back to reach critical, and if she doesn't stand on her toes, she will weigh all over her shoulders.

"Gu."

I don't know how long, but her shoulders were dislocated because while she was unconscious, she supported her own weight on her shoulders alone.

Severe pain strikes her. I put my strength on my toes and managed to reduce the load on my shoulders.

I tried to use heels on myself, but seemed to have the power to seal magic in the restraint, and instead of activating magic, I couldn't even release magic.

"What... where, what is this place?

Even a woman, Elmia is a holy knight who endured rigorous training. More powerful enough to ascend to the seat of the Commander of the Holy Knights.

She took perfect control of her body and let it rest completely, even in what was supposed to be an unstable posture of toe progression. Thanks to this, my shoulder pain is a lot easier.

I am dislocated so I am not completely out of pain, but I have experienced many times that my shoulders dislocate even in combat training etc.

Ouch, but I managed to put up with it.

"Seira-sama!?"

Her consciousness, which suppressed the pain, was directed more towards the existence she should protect than what was happening to her.

The Holy Knight's mission is to protect the Virgin at his own expense. Protecting the Virgin is a priority in everything.

Elmia was in such a dark place that her hands and feet could barely be seen. I look around, but for some reason I can't look far out of focus. Wake up, your consciousness is clear, but sensations like vision and hearing don't work the way you think.

Was it even poisoned?

If so, when the hell and how?

Before she woke up, Elmia tried to remember her last memory.

"But... me and Lady Seira greeted the clergyman with Isha."

Elmia planned to go to the sanctuary, a short distance from the Holy City of Sanctum, with Saira and a daughter named Esha, a candidate for the Virgin.

Isha has been the best Virgin candidate in the last few years. For her to be a Virgin, Saira, the active Virgin, needed to baptize Isha in a fountain in the sanctuary.

If baptism is over and the Creating God allows us to replace the Virgin on Isha's sixteenth birthday, it will be sunny and the birth of a new Virgin.

It was Elmia's last memory that she went to report to the clergy that she was headed to the sanctuary.

At that time, I don't remember the sacrament the priest behaved to bless us on our way to the sanctuary - after the three of us drank it at the same time, while the priest urged us to do so.

No way, a cleric took us?

Well, that came to mind.

But it was the priests who had dedicated themselves to the Holy Capital and Saira for fifty years that the Elmians went to report.

It was unthinkable to Elmia, such as his betrayal of Saira.

Then how the hell...

While I was trying to sort out the situation, my vision was returning to normal.

It was dark, but I managed to see what was going on around me. What you see in Elmia's eyes...

"Dear Saira!!"

It was the figure of the Virgin, laid on a stone table about the height of her hips. No noticeable trauma, etc.

Seira's hands and feet were fitted with wooden restraints.

"Dear Saira! Are you safe!? Wake up, Dear Saila!!"

I call him over and over, but Saira never wakes up. Next to the platform on which that Saira lay, there was a similar stone table, and there was Isha, the candidate for the Virgin.

Isha, like Seira, is restrained in her hands and feet.

"Are you okay, Etha!? Wake up, wake up!

No matter how many times I called, the two of them didn't open their eyes. But my chest is moving up and down, so I'm breathing. They're both alive.

For starters, Saila was safe and relieved.

Elmia looks around to get an idea of the situation. This was a stone room with five meters of square windows.

At the edge of the room, the holy armor of Elmia was thrown down in clutter.

There was a door in the front of Elmia, and with the light slightly shed from its clearance, he had managed to see what was going on in the room.

─ ─ Suddenly, the door opened.

"Shut up! Are you awake already..."

Because he was staring desperately in the dark, his eyes dazzled by the pine light the man who came in had.

Still, with his voice, I could figure out who he was.

"Duke Ifel... do you know what you are doing!?"

It was the Duke of Ifel, ruler of this holy capital, who appeared before Elmia.

"What are you doing? Of course I know and I do. They're holding the Virgin prisoner."

That's what the Duke says and reaches out to Seira's body.

"Stop it!"

The Duke withdrew his hand.

I didn't follow Elmia's words, but the moment I tried to touch Saira, that hand was bounced off to something.

"Chip, it's an abominable junction"

The Virgin is always protected by the Holy Order.

The Duke of Ifel's hand was bounced by it.

But it's crazy.

Originally, the Holy Crossing is to people (...) tribe (...) is to (...) respond (...) and (...) to (...).

No matter what kind of bad guy it was.

"Duke, are you..."

Part of the Duke of Ifel's body was changing when he was bounced by the Holy Conclave that covered Saira.

The humanization of the right hand side touched the Holy Crossing was solved, horns grew from the right side head, and the right eye was stained black.

He was not a human.

"Oh, you've solved the humanization... well, then, shall I introduce myself? My name is Guscion, the devil who serves the Evil God."