Chapter 43: Hidden Agenda

“Did… did we do it?” Seeing Peng’s hand piercing through the angel’s heart feels like a giant boulder has been lifted off my chest. “We did it… We actually did it! Everyone comes out alive! Come on, let’s congrat…”

Before I could rush over to the hero of the duel, Benkei’s hand has already placed itself on my shoulder, and along with it comes the slow shaking of the head from the young man himself.

“What’s wrong?” Seeing the oddly melancholic expression on his face, I ask. “We won. That’s it, right?”

“Listen around you.”

The words confuse me, but I try to follow them anyway. And once I put my mind to it, I soon realize the oddity that has happened around us. The stands are all silent. Too silent. I know that the crowd is split, so something like this would be impossible. Are they just afraid? Or…

As I turn my gaze towards the audience, my suspicions are cleared, but not in a way that I would expect. The stands are completely empty. As if that giant crowd has vaporized off the face of the earth. I don’t get it; if they had left this colosseum, I’d have noticed that already. Was I too fixated on our fight?

“A large-scale illusion spell,” Benkei, meanwhile, lets out a bitter smile along with a strange statement. “Since when was someone like Galahad so adept at magic?”

It’s a rhetorical question, of course, but another voice comes from behind us to answer anyway:

“It’s the only spell that he knows, and it apparently took him a hundred years to get it to this level.”

Turning around to see none other than the towering giant George, I immediately take a step back and go into a fighting stance:

“What are you planning?” I ask with a cautious look.

“Easy, Petra,” answers Benkei before my opponent could. “He means no harm. Am I right?”

“You also knew?” The giant is shocked before the reaction.

“More or less. But I don’t know the reasons, nor the details.”

“Since when?”

“I’ve had my doubts since we first met, actually, and the duel confirmed them.”

“It’s easier for me to explain, then,” George breathes a sigh of relief. “Come with me to my old home. Everything that you need to know will be there.”

“Don’t worry. He means what he said,” as if knowing my mind already, Benkei turns towards me and gives a reassuring nod. “The only thing left for us to be worried about, however…”

His eyes turn to the young man who defeated the archangel. Peng, even after withdrawing his bloodied hand from Raphael’s corpse, stands motionless. Upon closer inspection, his eyes are blank, as if forever trapped in a dense fog.

“… You okay?” I try to snap my fingers right before his face in an attempt to wake him up from whatever was on his mind.

“… Let’s go,” answers Peng. The action from before has shown some effect, but I can still clearly see that his mind is still far from returning to normal. Nonetheless, it is still enough for us to at least discuss our next step.

Our stop is a rather large house residing on a rather average street. Its grey tone blends in well with the road beneath our feet – another strange feature about this land, although I’m not the type to be too curious. Nevertheless, the dull colors right now do nothing but further drag down the mood in our group, since throughout the entire trip to this place, the only one that actually opened his mouth for a conversation was the guy that should be our enemy.

“Here we are,” George gestures towards the house. “This is the orphanage that Peter and I grew up in – our old home.”

Answering him is, strangely, yet expectedly, a silence from Peng. Strange, since just before the duel, he was so quick to smack-talk with the giant, but expected since, after all, his lips were shut afterwards.

Opening the door, we are immediately greeted by a large group of children of all ages. With a glance, I can see quite a few little ones, six or eight years old, a couple of slightly older, twelve or so, and one or two fourteen or fifteen years old. Since George had already introduced the place, having a bunch of children greeting us is not weird at all. What is weird, however, is their all too familiar faces to those I saw at the duel, along with their unusually well-off clothes. They’re nothing fancy like the ones worn by those rich people in the illusion, but these are certainly far better than the rags I saw them wear, hell, from what I’ve worn before.

“Big bro Peter… welcome back,” what looks to be the eldest kid tries his best to muster up a smile for the young man next to me, but no matter how hard he attempts it, the sadness in his eyes is still all too apparent.

“Hey, guys. I’m back,” the one in question also doesn’t show too much joy either, which causes the air around us to become stuffy and awkward all of a sudden.

“This way,” gestures George towards a small room far at the end of the hallway.

Inside the room, there’s only a single desk with a drawer and an ink bottle with a quill pen still inside. The leftover ink stuck on the rim has already dried out, meaning that the owner didn’t even bother to close the bottle when he was done. A sloppy work, perhaps? Or is it that he didn’t need to?

George silently approaches the desk and opens the drawer. On his hands now are two closed letters, one with a large title “To my son”, while the other is left blank.

“This is yours,” giving the titled letter to Peng, George says. The young man in question, meanwhile, finally decides to answer back, but not in a sense anyone would expect:

“Don’t wanna,” with a shake of the head and an almost sulky voice, Peng replies.

“Read,” George repeats himself.

“No,” Peng doesn’t back down either. And this doesn’t bode well with the giant in front of us.

“Don’t be childish! Just read the goddamned letter!”

“And I’m telling you I don’t wanna!”

“Are you really disrespecting the wish of the dead?”

“Did you think I wanted to kill him like that?”

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“READ!”

“FUCK OFF!”

“ENOUGH!” Finally snapped at the scene before me, I stick a flaming spear right in the middle of the two, completely separating them from each other. “Can you just stop for one second!? I’m already clueless as it is, I don’t need your family bickering to confuse me further! Now both of you, calm down and explain to me what the hell is going on!”

“… You wanna figure things out? Do it yourself,” Peng, after being cut off, returns to his sulky mood and turns around, lazily waving goodbye to us. “I’m getting some fresh air.”

“Peng! You stay right here…” I try to keep him in the room but it’s already too late. With a speed faster than I can see, the thief has already left the building.

“Hah…” Benkei, the only one that has remained quiet until now, lets out a sigh. “I’ll go get him. And besides, I already have a gist of what’s going on anyway.”

“If the guy doesn’t want it that bad, then don’t bother,” turning to George, the young man continues. “The dead are dead, after all. They can’t come back to haunt us. Give it to someone that actually needs it. Later.”

Benkei wastes no time flying away in a gust of wind as well, leaving only me and George in the room. And with no one else to share the information, the giant has no choice but to turn to me in the end.

“Here,” giving me both of the letters, George scratches his head. “I still feel bad about it, but it can’t be helped. Can you tell Peter the contents of his letters afterwards?”

“Sure,” I nod to confirm, finally opening the first letter to see what kind of secrets everyone around me has been hiding.

 

To my son, Peter Peng,

If you’re reading this letter, it means that I’ve finally died by your hands. I know it’s weird to have your worst enemy, and not to mention the loser of your duel, writing a letter to you like this, but I have no other choice. I at least want you to know my true thoughts after I’ve left this world.

To start, let’s talk about my past. I might be an Archangel currently, but in the distant past, I was a human just like you. My real name is Galahad, one of the fabled Knights of the Round Table in England. Back then, I was just a young and naïve boy who was obsessed with the idea of justice. And so, when my father, Sir Lancelot, committed a sin beyond repair, I did not hesitate to join the angels, becoming one to give him the punishment he deserved.

Oh, how wrong I was.

My father received his just deserts, by my hands, no less, but afterwards, things were nothing but a living nightmare. The angels I once thought to be the faces of justice turned out to be naught but another bunch of hypocrites, tormenting humans and enslaving them under the guise of “enlightenment” and “guidance”. And when they purged humanity with that giant flood, I’d had enough. I tried to escape from their clutches, but I was already in too deep. Thanks to my work, I was bestowed the title “Raphael” from God himself, but in reality, it was just another chain to keep me leashed. Archangels can never kill themselves, and they are given eternal youth to forever survey the humans in God’s place. And I can’t refuse or relinquish the title, either, for that is something only God gets to decide. Despite having seemingly no way out, however, I managed to form a plan: if I can’t lose my title, and I can’t kill myself, then I’ll let someone else kill me.

Easier said than done, however, because none of the angels would kill their own kind, and none of the regular humans had enough courage to stand up to me, let alone kill me. And it was then that I remembered my old adventures with the Round. A cross bearer would fit my description perfectly, and I still had Zagan’s cross that I’d kept hidden all those years. All that was left to do was to find the perfect person. In my case, it was you.

At the start, I couldn’t find a desire strong enough to wake up Zagan, despite me trying everything I knew. And finally, I came to a decision: if I couldn’t find one, then I’d make one. I started opening an orphanage under the pretense of fulfilling the “normal” brainwashing education by the angels and took in kids all over the continent. I purposely treated them horribly to fuel their hatred towards me, but I wasn’t able to keep up the façade. That is… until I found you.

From the first day I saw you, I knew that you were special. Somehow, you reminded me of my younger self, the naïve boy that longed for justice from the days of old. I knew that I’d found my heir, my killer. I beat you up more badly than any others; I was stricter towards you than any other; I let you stole Zagan in my office without you even knowing what it actually was… all of it was to give you all the power, and all the reason, you needed to put a knife at my throat without any hesitation.

I know this is selfish of me, but I hope that you can accept this late apology for everything I’ve done. And… I’m proud of you, son.

Your sorry excuse of a father,

Galahad.

 

“So… that’s how it is, huh?” Closing the letter, I exclaim, even if I’m not sure myself what kind of emotion I should be feeling. In the end… everyone is a victim. Nobody left with a smile on their face. This bitter taste of victory… I’ve tasted it once before, but it’s still too damn hard to swallow.

“After Peter left all those years ago, Father gathered everyone and told them the truth,” George replies with a saddened look on his face. “And since then, he’s treated the kids with nothing but the utmost love and care in the world. I know it’s unfair to let Peter be the carrier of all that burden, but at the same time, I’m glad that Father could be his real self again, even if it’s for a short while.”

“And that’s why he had to use that illusion spell since none of the kids were abused anymore. And it’s also the reason he was holding back against us the entire time.”

“That’s right,” nods the hulking man. “He wanted Peter to fully awaken Zagan like he did, to finally reach the strength that he once had. It was rough for you, though, and I’m sorry about that.”

“Nah, I’m used to it at this point,” letting out a sigh, I answer. “But there’s another thing bothering me though: what is this letter, then?”

“I don’t know,” George shakes his head as an answer. “Even I don’t know when he wrote that letter. And his request was oddly vague as well – give it to the one that looks like their leader.”

“The one that looks like their leader? Since I was the one who got those two to come along, that means me, right?” With a puzzled look, I tear open the envelope. Even though I said that; I’ve already had another person in my mind. And as soon as the contents are revealed, I know that my intuition was correct:

To the current wielder of Excalibur,

I do not know your name or your appearance, but it doesn’t matter. All I’m sure about is the fact that you’re leading my son in the conquest of defeating God, and for that, I shall share with you what I know.

As you might have figured out on your journeys, Archangels aren’t specific beings, they’re just titles, powers to bestow upon certain individuals that God deems worthy. Even if you kill us, the power remains and will be passed down to another when the time comes. However, this isn’t always the case, since Mordred – currently Archangel Uriel – managed to completely destroy eight Archangels when I was still human. I suspected that his Clarent was involved, and began to dig for more information.

Hidden deep within the vault of the current Royal Palace lies a hidden chapter of Arthur’s diary that details the powers of the sacred swords of England – Excalibur, Clarent, and Galatine. If you find a way to obtain that information, I’m sure your quest for God’s demise will be one step closer. I wish you luck on your journey.

Once a fellow Knight of the Round,

Galahad.

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