Chapter 190

Envoy from the Imperial State
The knight guarding the borders of Arland thought to himself:

(Another troublesome one has arrived.)

Standing before him was a high-ranking priest.

A man named Stein, holding the rank of bishop within the Holy Church, had come to Arland.

Priests from the Imperial State’s Holy Church were, as a rule, denied entry. But this man was persistent.

The knight who dealt with him let out a sigh. He wasn’t fond of priests from the Imperial State. No matter how many times he rejected them, they’d lash out, shouting things like “Accept the doctrine, you savages!”

For some reason, Alicetia had been formally recognized as a Holy Maiden by the Imperial State. And under the treaty set by the Central Nations Alliance, the Holy Maiden’s affiliation was to be with the Imperial State. Using this as justification, they were now demanding Alicetia be handed over. It was the height of foolishness.

“As I’ve said, our nation is not a signatory to that treaty. We have no reason to comply with a handover.”

“Silence. The Holy Maiden should not remain with you heretics. Can you not even read the scriptures?”

The knight sighed again, wondering how things could be so different when they all worshiped the same Goddess. The Orthodox Church’s priests were much more reserved.

There were two major religions on this continent. Both the Orthodox and Holy Churches originated from the same faith. Their chief deity was a goddess. The other major belief system was the Spirit Faith—a naturalist religion without any formal institutions. Since the Spirit Faith didn’t proselytize, it rarely drew attention.

Most people recognized Alicetia as being aligned with the Spirit Faith. Loved by the spirits, Alicetia didn’t believe in the goddess. And since she often treated the spirits as friends, she didn’t really “worship” them either. However, after discussion between the priests of both the Spirit Faith and the Goddess’s faith, they had agreed not to demand faith from Alicetia.

The knight consulted his superior. Even he was at his wit’s end. No matter how many times they refused the priest entry, the man only preached louder, not understanding their words.

Eventually, the superior pleaded to the Arland government that troublesome guests had arrived.

Arland, with a sense of detached amusement, permitted entry—as if observing a fool. This visitor was exceptionally unreasonable, and while there were no intentions of handing over Alicetia, the permit was granted with the hope of turning it into a laughable tale among allied nations. It was an unpleasant motive. Officially, however, the reason was to gain any information they could about the Imperial State through the priest.

To avoid any incidents, the priest was escorted to the royal capital under heavy “guard” (more like surveillance).

Incidentally, Alicetia would be participating this time as well. The visit had become a hot topic—“some idiot of a priest has arrived”—and her curiosity was piqued. She also just wanted to say, “We don’t need your pot.”

However, Arland’s nobles came to regret that decision. Once inside the audience chamber, Stein’s speech began—and it was long. He passionately declared the Holy Church to be the one true faith, condemned the Orthodox Church, and spoke of the folly of supporting it. This went on for three full hours.

Just as the bored nobles were starting to nod off while standing, Alicetia began to take an interest in Stein.

“Big brother.”

“What is it?”

“That man is a secret fluff lover. I can sense a fluffiness level even greater than mine.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

Gilbert was thoroughly confused.

“It’s not good to hide his inner fluff lover. I’ll awaken his true self.”

Alicetia approached Stein, who was still delivering his speech. She moved so quickly, teleporting from side to side, that her image blurred. Stein stopped speaking, tilted his head, rubbed his eyes, and looked again—still blurred.

“There’s no longer any need to hide your fluff-loving self.”

“Wh-What are you saying?”

A nameless fear began to rise in Stein as he looked into Alicetia’s eyes. Deep within them, something pitch-black stared back.

He must not make eye contact. But Stein’s gaze couldn’t pull away. His body trembled, sweat dripped from his forehead.

Desperately, he tried to step back. But Alicetia instantly teleported in front of him and grabbed his head. Since she wasn’t tall enough, she floated using “Float”.

“Come now—set yourself free.”

A fog clouded Stein’s vision, and he lost consciousness.

He found himself in a world of darkness. There were many windows around him, each showing fragments of his memories.

“Where is this…?”

For some reason, he didn’t feel afraid. As if drawn, he stepped in front of an old, worn window. Inside was a memory he had sealed away.

“Stop… please, don’t… I don’t want to remember that…”

But the window showed his past self. He was walking hand-in-hand with a dirty child—that child was a beastkin.

He was born an orphan. Raised in the slums, one could say he was lucky in some ways.

His slum was home to many demi-humans. Despite their hardships, they loved their children. They raised any child as their own and lived as a community.

He had loved a girl. A childhood friend, born in the same slum, with no family—she was a beastkin.

In the persecuted slums of demi-humans, there was no discrimination. They helped one another to survive the same harsh lives.

He had promised his future to that girl. But he hadn’t known the world.

He wanted to be a man worthy of her. Stein studied using tattered old books he found. He thought that becoming a priest was the path to success in the Imperial State. He also wanted to improve the miserable lives they all led in the slums. That was all he had in mind.

“Stop… please stop…”

Stein clutched his head, tears streaming down. This was the past he had discarded.

Yet the window continued to show more.

After much hardship, he was fortunate enough to become a priest-in-training. A cardinal had happened to pass by and took him in, impressed by the intelligence in his eyes despite his appearance.

When he told the others, they were confused but happy.

“I’ll rise up and make life easier for everyone!”

His young words brought sobs from the demi-humans who saw him off as he left with the cardinal—unaware of the look the cardinal gave the slum dwellers.

Afterward, Stein endured harsh training. Many children were trainees at the church, but only he became a full priest. He had won the one available seat. It took him five years to do so.

He grew up seeing the distortions within the Holy Church, but believed they could be fixed. Though still a fledgling priest, he dreamed of rising quickly and building a peaceful life for everyone. And then he fell into despair.

When he returned to the slums, they were engulfed in flames.

It was the purifying fire. The heretics had been burnt to ashes. The cardinal who had picked him up was in charge.

"Why are you burning this place!?"

"Because those who live here are not human. And above all, the past where my child once lived must be reduced to ash."

Stein was the secret child of the cardinal. He had taken him in because he was his own son. The earring Stein had possessed since birth was proof of that. It was his only possession, usually worn on a string around his neck.

He was never told what had happened between the cardinal and his mother. But that didn’t matter now—Stein dashed into the flames of the slum. He could use healing magic. He should be able to save even just one more person.

But what he found was an even deeper despair.

In the center of the slum, people had been piled up like a mountain. They were all already dead.

Those kindhearted people who had treated a young, unknown boy so well were now corpses, stacked like garbage. And among them, she was there too.

The girl with whom he had promised a future looked even more haggard than in his memories, but her beauty remained intact. However, there was no life left in her.

He recalled a single memory of touching her tail. For beastkin, only family or a mate were allowed to touch their tail. As he was leaving the slum, she let him touch it just once. Her deeply flushed face had been a source of strength for Stein. Remembering that face had helped him endure even the harshest training.

Stein screamed and fainted.

When he awoke, he was already back in his private room at the church.

"Revenge..."

He considered killing the cardinal who claimed to be his father. But that scene had shattered his heart. All that remained in Stein was fear of the cardinal.

Though the cardinal was ordinarily a devout clergyman, he had carried out the massacre with a serene expression. There was no anguish in his face. He killed beastkin as naturally as breathing. That was what terrified Stein.

In the end, Stein never took revenge. He made excuses to himself and rose through the ranks, just as his father had wanted.

He blackmailed rivals and concealed his own corruption. He flattered his superiors and climbed to the rank of bishop in what could be called record time.

Eventually, he began to blame the people of the slum. He told himself being born a beastkin was the real problem. He wasn't to blame. That was how he ran away from it all.

Now, seeing his own past again, Stein couldn’t stop crying. He had been forced to face the past he had avoided—abandoned.

—Fluffy is good—

A voice echoed from somewhere.

"Yes... her tail was wonderful..."

Stein still remembered the feeling clearly.

—Worship the fluffiness!—

A voice resonated in Stein’s heart. Yep, he’s being brainwashed.

And then Stein awoke.

"What do you think of fluffiness?"

To Alicetia’s question, Stein answered with a refreshed expression.

"It is supreme."

"Very well. Then you are a fluffman."

"Yes, I am a fluffman."

"From now on, you shall go by the name Darth Fluffman."

Thus, Stein fell to the dark side of fluffiness.

"Understood, comrade fluffman. I shall return to the Imperial State and preach fluffism."

Alicetia nodded with satisfaction. Then she handed him a small vial.

"This is a miraculous potion that turns people into fluffies. A gift from me."

Alicetia showed absolutely no remorse. The potion was an infectious transformation potion (beastkin) EX. Its effect duration had been extended to one week. Unaware that she'd later be scolded by Sylvia, who would turn into a raging demon, Alicetia smugly handed it over to Stein.

And then, a historical incident would occur—later discussed by experts as proof that Alicetia might have been a brilliant tactician.

Upon returning to the Imperial State, Stein immediately assassinated his father. More than ten years had passed since that event, and the cardinal, believing Stein to be an obedient son, had let down his guard. As he turned his back to get wine from the cellar, Stein plunged a knife into him.

“W-why…”

“‘Father’... I should have done this long ago.”

The man he called father for the first time collapsed, vomiting blood. Stein felt nothing.

Stein was not incompetent. His behavior in Arland had been an act. He had understood from the start that Arland would never agree to hand over Alicetia. However, even with the Imperial State’s intelligence network, it was difficult to grasp the inner workings of Arland. He had been sent to gather firsthand intel.

He had been ordered to pretend to be a fanatical priest in order to gather information. The idea was that people would let their guard down around a foolish priest. But that plan ended in the worst possible way.

He pretended to sell information to other cardinals—his father’s rivals—and approached them. Then, using the power of the dark side of fluffiness, he turned them into fluffman comrades. Stein, who surpassed even Alicetia in fluffiness power, had no trouble doing so. While Alicetia could only reach the latent fluffman, Stein could convert even the unawakened.

He converted several fellow bishops and priests into comrades and launched a massive fluff terrorist attack within the Imperial State. He spread the infectious transformation potion (beastkin) EX across many cities.

And it didn’t stop there. They exposed all the corruption and misconduct they had uncovered in the church and the Imperial State, releasing it publicly across the nation.

This enraged the church leadership. The Inquisition, otherworlders, and the full force of the church knights were dispatched to hunt down Darth Fluffman.

The Holy Church had gone too far. The Pope had tried to stop them, prioritizing the war with Arland, but years of human supremacy and beastkin oppression had turned the church into a cult-like extremist group.

The church simply would not forgive heretics or traitors. Thus began the Rebellion of Darth Fluffman.

The church, frantically searching for Darth Fluffman—Stein—was thwarted by the fact that he knew their methods too well. He evaded a kill-on-sight pursuit by the full force of the church for four years.

And this came to be known in later generations as Alicetia’s miraculous counterpunch.

If not for this incident, Arland would have had to pay the fatal price of losing Alicetia. But that future was avoided.

Q: Is it really okay for the Imperial State to have beastkin slums?

A: They're maintained as a way to deflect public dissatisfaction. The goal is to make the citizens feel fortunate when they see the wretched beastkin. They also serve as a place for venting frustrations—through insults or throwing stones.

Q: Is fluffism contagious?

A: Absolutely (no doubt).

What do you think about this chapter?