I’m an Immigration Officer!

– Thud. Thud.
The grotesque monstrous bird took a heavy step toward Erzena.

Its pitch-black eyes glinted menacingly, its feathers bristling and trembling in threat.
“Explain.”
The words came out as she forcibly held back her rage.

“What about the Evil God Cult?”
She advanced until her wings could have slit a throat with the slightest flick.
“Can you prove that’s the truth?”

At the sight, the Intelligence agents rushed forward in panic.
“Saintess Erzena! Step back!”
“Eliza, if you come any closer, that’ll be considered a threat—!”

Erzena raised her hand to stop them.
“No. Leave her be.”
She didn’t avoid the gaze of the monstrous bird that Eliza had become. She faced it head-on.

…I have to do this.
Nathan’s final words echoed in her mind.
[Forgive me… for entrusting to you the duty that should have been mine.]

The second request he made—his voice filled with guilt and concern.
Erzena spoke.
“I’ll show you directly.”

 
A few hours earlier.
“M-me? You want me to do what?”
Inside the crystal orb, Lamia stared at Erzena with a serious expression.

You have to convince the Master of Black Hand.
A bolt from the blue. As Erzena stood frozen, stunned, Melanie continued.
Shock tactics only work if they defy expectations. You need someone totally unexpected to appear.

“You mean me!?”
A former Saintess of the Holy Church is no minor appearance. You're a symbol—pure and simple.
It was true.

Just the name Saintess alone would be enough to make Black Hand hesitate.
But that wasn’t the issue.
“Even so… will she actually believe me?”

Authority had no correlation with credibility.
There was no reason to think someone in grief could accept cold logic.
And there was no guarantee she'd believe Erzena just because she said so.

“Even if I show her the body, she’s going to suspect it was our doing.”
Melanie smiled slightly.
But you’re not just a Saintess. You’re also a victim—caught up in the Black Hand abduction case.

She gestured with her tail tip toward the golden glow surrounding Erzena.
And divine power—it doesn’t lie. Isn’t that right?
“…Yes, that’s true.”

That’ll be the evidence.
Divine power was the natural counter to the Evil God Cult.
If used properly, it would clearly expose the Cult’s interference.

As the idea crystallized, Erzena murmured to herself.
“That’s right… The Cult’s energy would still be lingering in the Submaster’s body…”
One more thing.

Melanie added:
Black Hand knows who you are. But they don’t know about the Immigration Authority—or the Chief Inspector.
“…”

Like I told the Chief Inspector—once you’re perceived, you’re no longer safe.
Only then did Erzena realize why she was the one who had to step forward.
If the Chief Inspector himself appeared to prove the truth, Black Hand might see him—the head of border security—as a threat.

But she, as the former Saintess, had always been a target.
Black Hand had already come after her once. So any further contact wouldn’t change anything.
“…So you’re saying I have to go out there for Nathan’s sake as well.”

Melanie flinched slightly.
…Nathan?
Erzena hastily corrected herself.

“I-I mean, for the Chief Inspector’s sake.”
This wasn’t a private conversation.
Hmmm…

Melanie narrowed her eyes.
Slowly flicking her tongue, the Intelligence Director said:
He really is the type to throw himself into danger, huh. Always worried about him. You wouldn’t believe how much trouble that caused me back in the day.

Erzena flinched.
“…‘Throw himself’?”
Ah, sorry. I meant the Chief Inspector.

Now Erzena narrowed her eyes.
“Hmmm…”
A short silence.

Golden eyes and serpentine yellow ones locked together.
No emotions showed. No energy stirred. But an unspoken current passed between them.
Erzena spoke first.

“So… we’re going to use the Submaster’s death.”
She was pulling things back to the mission.
Melanie’s expression hardened.

…She was going to die anyway. And she’s your enemy too. Using her is just self-defense.
It wasn’t wrong.
She was someone destined for execution.

Still, something didn’t sit right.
It wasn’t sympathy.
But was this truly the right way?

Melanie, catching a flicker in Erzena’s expression, narrowed her eyes.
Steel your heart. If you show sincerity during operations like this, it’ll all come crashing down. Treat her like a pawn to be used and discarded.
Her voice turned cold.

In a cruel world, only the cruel survive. This isn’t Utopia.
 
****

“I’ll show you directly.”
Taking a deep breath, Erzena turned her gaze toward the coffin.
Stay calm… stay cold…

The first thing she had to do was dispel Eliza’s suspicion.
She may have been startled at Erzena’s arrival—but she still didn’t know what to believe.
Which meant Erzena had to show the most irrefutable proof.

She slowly brought her hands together and closed her eyes.
– Ffff...
A soft golden glow spread gently from her body.

“Divine power…”
Eliza frowned and stepped back a pace.
The divine energy floated forward, gently surrounding the Changeling in the coffin.

But the moment it touched Shahal’s body—
– Crackle!
It flared violently, as if repelled.

Eliza flinched, whispering in shock.
“What… is this?”
She showed it again.

– Crackle!
And in that brief instant—Eliza saw it.
A faint, foul red-black energy still lingering over Shahal.

A thorned aura in the shape of a briar bush, violently repelling the approaching divine light.
She recognized it instantly.
The power of the Evil God Cult.

Which meant Erzena’s words… were the truth.
Slowly, in a much calmer tone, Eliza turned to the Saintess and asked:
“…What exactly happened?”

Erzena swallowed.
This is where it starts.
Only now had the hostility faded enough for dialogue.

“The Changeling was given a mission by Hatenchilla. She was ordered to abduct me.”
She gave only part of the truth.
Exactly as the Intelligence Director had planned—it was time to shine a light on only the culprit.

“And during the interrogation, when she tried to speak of Hatenchilla, the curse was triggered.”
She pointed to the magic circle carved into the floor.
“Your sister didn’t die at our hands.”

The real objective would be delayed until the very end. For now, they needed legitimacy.
We weren’t responsible. Your wrath belongs to the Cult.
She didn’t mention the fact Shahal had already been slated for execution.

No—her job was to provoke no more anger and direct all hostility toward the Evil God Cult.
That was the Intelligence Director’s strategy.
Erzena spoke as calmly as she could.

“I wanted to show you that the one you should be angry at… isn’t us.”
“…The one I should be angry at?”
But Eliza saw through it instantly.

“…Ha.”
A contemptuous scoff.
“Of course. That’s what this is.”

The bird of ill omen narrowed her eyes.
“So in the end, you’re just trying to use us as pawns.”
“…What?”

“You think I don’t understand? Shahal was killed by the Cult, so now you're telling me not to blame you, but to take up arms against them instead?”
Right to the heart of it.
“Don’t make me laugh. You bear responsibility too.”

Her talons curled threateningly.
Her voice grew rough again.
“You’ve always been like this. Scorning us, rejecting us—and then groveling when it suits your needs.”

“W-wait! That’s not what I meant—”
“And now, you’re trying to use even my sister’s death.”
Disgust.

At the Evil God Cult. At the Saintess before her.
They all wanted to use them.
It had always been that way, even before Black Hand was born.

Selfish. Unfair. Damnably insufferable.
She spread her wings violently.
“Do you know why we became what we are? Do you know how Black Hand was formed?”

“Do you know what it means to be born cursed, to be hunted like monsters, to survive in the filth of the streets?”
“Have you ever tried to understand the scorn we lived through, even once!?”
She roared her fury.

“You never even knew we existed, and now you want us to fight and die for your enemies!?”
But Erzena—deep in her heart—felt something rise as well.
Eliza was shouting her grief and despair.

Not only the loss of her Submaster, but a lifetime of suffering as a harbinger of misfortune.
All while ignoring the torment she herself had inflicted on others.
As the leader of an assassin guild, she’d stolen countless lives without cause.

Why is it only your suffering that counts?
Erzena clenched her fists so tightly they turned white.
Why do you act like you’re the only one in pain?

– BOOM!
Eliza slammed her wing into the wall beside her and screamed.
“How dare someone like you—someone at the top of the world—pretend to understand what it’s like to crawl at the bottom!?”

At last, her true heart was revealed.
Resentment. Delusion. The cry of one long persecuted.
And Erzena exploded.

“I DON’T KNOW!”
A sharp cry burst from the Saintess.
“I don’t know! Why the hell should I!? Why should I understand people who tried to kill me!?”

She was furious.
So angry she wanted to stomp her feet, to grab that monstrous bird by the throat.
The way this woman spoke—like she carried every tragedy in the world on her back—

And yet all she did was pass that pain onto others.
“Is this what your sister wanted!? After stirring up chaos at the border, after trying to kidnap me, now you talk about revenge!?”
All the emotion she’d been suppressing exploded.

“What makes you so pitiful!? What makes you so tragic!?”
Her voice cracked. Her hands trembled.
“Don’t pretend you’re the victim! Compared to the innocent people you’ve murdered, your pain isn’t even a drop in the bucket!”

No one lived without scars.
That was what Erzena had learned after hearing countless confessions and acts of repentance during her time as Saintess.
No matter how unjust and cruel the world is, there have always been those who chose a better path.

But you—you chose to drag others into sorrow.
You chose the path of assassination. You built your own darkness.
You were the ones who chose self-pity and turned into monsters.

“You’re a bird of ill omen because you made yourself one!”
She struck the deepest wound.
Eliza’s eyes flew wide open.

“You…!!!!”
She spread her wings in a threatening arc, the feathers trembling as if they might tear the woman before her to shreds at any moment.
“Yeah, I know! Raven Harpies. Changelings. I know both are treated like monsters.”

But Erzena, instead of backing away, took a step closer to the bird of ill omen.
“But if you had that kind of power, that kind of ability—you should have thought about changing the world, not hating it.”
She pointed to the coffin.

Right in front of it, the tears the harpy had shed while screaming were dried onto the stone floor.
“If you could grieve her death like that—then you should’ve, even once, thought about the people you killed.”
How thick was the innocent ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) blood that stained them?

How many widows and orphans wept because of her?
And with all that, what right did she have to resent them?
She looked down at the shriveled, violet eyes inside the coffin.

“This is the result of misdirected rage. Of pouring it onto the wrong people.”
“…”
“If you were going to live in tragedy, the least you could’ve done was avoid creating more.”

She murmured quietly.
“I won’t pity you. Not ever.”
She would never feel sorry for them.

Not until they knelt before the Lord and sought forgiveness for what they had done to the dead.
“But that fury of yours—it must never be directed at the innocent.”
And this wasn’t about her personal sorrow.

Raising her head, she spoke clearly.
“Choose.”
She extended her hand.

“Will you accept your sister’s body with dignity and avenge her true killer, or stay here, murder us all, and remain forever the blood-crazed bird of ill omen?”
A final ultimatum.
No manipulation, no tactical deceit—just truth, brutal and honest, laid bare.

With enough force to shake the soul.
“The decision is yours.”
Erzena’s golden eyes stared down the crow without wavering.

“…”
Eliza’s gaze turned toward the coffin.
And only then did she realize what condition Shahal was actually in.

Her body, once crushed and twisted by some unknown force, had been reassembled—made to resemble a person again, somehow.
She was going to be executed anyway—just killed for a different reason.
From their point of view, it probably saved them some trouble.

And yet, instead of desecrating the corpse, they had placed it in a coffin, preserved it with a measure of respect, and waited for her to come.
Eliza asked in a low voice,
“…Why go this far?”

She knew in her head.
She knew why they were doing this.
They want to use our grudge to kill the Evil God Cult without getting their own hands dirty.

A scheme to eliminate multiple problems at once, using Black Hand as the sacrificial pawn.
Disposable pieces for cleaning up the filth.
That’s all Black Hand ever was.

But when she looked at this woman—she felt something different.
From Erzena’s eyes… something came through.
It wasn’t cheap sympathy.

It wasn’t that look of disdain she’d always gotten.
It was the gaze of someone who had made a decision.
“…The world’s a cruel place.”

A statement, honest and raw.
She acknowledged it.
Melanie wasn’t wrong.

Even without the Evil God Cult, the world was filled with injustice, misfortune, and distrust.
Nathan had nearly broken under it. Erzena had once been blinded by it. And it still lingered all around them.
“That’s why people—more than anything—must change. Even if we rage, even if we hate, we cannot lose sight of where to direct it.”

But people can change.
Erzena had seen it.
Mohaim, who had never once defied the will of the Church, had begun to question it—and left in search of answers.

The old knight who had walked the path of bloodshed in the name of holy wrath had turned himself around.
If even the Church’s sword could change, then so can you.
She didn’t expect repentance.

But just once—just once—choose a different path.
Don’t turn your rage into another innocent tragedy.
That was all she wished for from them.

And so, for the last time, she said to the bird of ill omen:
“Decide, Eliza.”
“…”

The Raven Harpy stared down at the former Saintess in silence for a long time.
A long pause.
She didn’t answer.

She didn’t take the hand that had been offered.
Instead, she turned and approached Shahal.
“I’d rather cut my own throat than become a dog of the state.”

“…”
“But… I’m grateful you cared for my sister’s body.”
With the tip of her wing, she gently closed Shahal’s wide, staring eyes.

– Thud.
Then, she closed the coffin.
“…Black Hand has a rule.”

Her now-calm voice echoed through the cell.
“A rule?”
“A grudge is repaid threefold. No matter who it is.”

A grudge repaid threefold.
It meant vengeance.
“I will not stop until I tear out the hearts of three leaders. Only then will the revenge be complete.”

Erzena realized then that the bird of ill omen had accepted the offer.
She nodded.
“That’s enough.”

– Ka-thunk.
Eliza’s talons grasped the coffin.
Then slowly, she made her way out of the cell.

Just before stepping through the door, she turned back and said:
“One day… I’ll come find you again. Saintess.”
Erzena frowned.

“Can you promise it won’t be for kidnapping, murder, robbery, assault, threats, fraud, or theft?”
She listed off the likely crimes in one breath.
“…”

“…”
Silence.
For about three seconds, a storm of expressions flickered across the harpy’s face.

And then, bluntly, she nodded.
“…Yeah. I promise.”
“Good.”

That was all.
The harpy, now returned to human form, dragged the coffin and left the underground prison.
– Step. Step.

The sound of footsteps receding.
Erzena stared motionless at the cell door, and only when the steps had fully disappeared did she finally exhale.
“Haa… Haa…”

Her legs gave out beneath her.
“Saintess Erzena!”
The Intelligence agents behind her rushed forward in alarm.

“I-it’s fine. Just let me sit here a bit.”
Her heart pounded, her hands shook.
Even with divine power at her side, even with God watching, standing face to face with a two-meter-tall, rage-maddened monstrous bird took no small amount of courage.

Leaning against the wall, she whispered:
“…I did okay, right?”
It had gone completely against the plan.

She was supposed to approach discreetly, with deception and subtlety—but in the end, her anger had taken over, and she’d said what she wanted.
But the agent answered with awed admiration.
“You were incredible.”

“…If the Director hears about this, she’ll definitely try to recruit you.”
Whatever the method, the result was what they’d hoped: Black Hand now bore a blood feud against the Evil God Cult.
Remembering that fact, Erzena barely managed to smile.

“Ha… haha… Not doing that again…”
Then Nathan came to mind.
Waiting for her at the Immigration Authority.

How many times has he done things like this?
Her heart had nearly given out after just once.
She turned her gaze past the cell, into the distance.

Right now—
She missed Nathan terribly.