Overlord of biblical proportions: Return of the Biblical God (12)

Ewald slowly read his way through the mountain of documents placed before him, carefully, and with all his attention. God would ask no less from him. 

All kinds of summaries, reports, instructions, and directives – documents sorted by importance and urgency, area of responsibility and zone of operation, relating to all possible areas of activity of the Holy See on this earth. From requests to install an additional coffee machine, which none of Ewald's previous deputies or subordinates could figure out, somehow… To reports on secret operations of various Church departments that were not publically available even to low-ranking angels, let alone exorcists or ordinary believers.

Ewald, having carefully worked through all the documents with efficiency and experience cultivated over years in his current position, did not show any possible reaction to any outside observer who might be near him. As ridiculous as the thought might be that the office of a person dealing with intelligence and counterintelligence operations of the church was not secure, it was precisely because Ewald held such a position, that he very rarely allowed himself to say or do anything that could reveal his current thoughts or emotional state. 

Throughout his life and work in his current position, Ewald had become convinced that absolutely no place in the world was completely secure – including the insides of the human mind, the past, or His Throne Room, where the [Heavenly System] was located. Risk could never be reduced to zero, and therefore all that a person in his position could really do was reduce this risk as much as possible with each of his actions.

Therefore, folding his hands in a praying gesture and resting his chin on his bent fingers, Ewald looked more like a man contemplating what he would prefer for lunch than a man considering the fates of hundreds, if not thousands, simultaneously.

"The Khaos Brigade’s current movement is causing concern," Ewald turned over in his mind the overall picture assembled from multiple sources, from ordinary agent reports to the best of his analysts, who transmitted top-secret information through the most secure of channels. 

"Their actions were difficult to predict on the best of days, information sometimes became outdated during the time it took for an agent to deliver it, but their current actions are causing heightened concerns."

The Khaos Brigade was an international terrorist organization threatening any mythology in the world, but for such a grand title, they usually behaved ‘relatively’ peacefully. Periodic attacks here and there, underground, criminal businesses, and kidnappings, certainly, all these were terrible crimes against not only the Church but also any other mythologies. 

Even ordinary people would join together with highly unlikely allies under such dire circumstances – but for an organization capable of declaring war on the entire world if desired, these were rather petty actions. 

After all, if ordinary police could shut down an underground drug production or a secret brothel that is under the control of the Khaos Brigade, no matter how tentative the connection is. An organization that is, officially speaking, under the leadership of one of the strongest beings in the world. It clearly indicated that the Brigade definitely did not use its forces for open actions. 

No, the organization was either accumulating strength or waiting for some signal known only to them before starting doing things openly. 

Ewald, in turn knowing about this fact, does his best to interfere with them, accumulating forces and sowing discord in the Khaos Brigade, trying to identify the pain points of his opponent long before he could strike at them. However, this recent development, with the absorption of old mythologies, had become an unpleasant surprise for Ewald, forcing him to redouble his efforts to place his agents into Khaos Brigade. 

The old mythologies, the Old Pantheons of forgotten Gods, individually speaking, were weak, weak enough for even Ewald to include them in his plans as ‘factors’ rather than ‘potential opponents’, but this only applied to the Old Religions individually. Their total number was extremely large, as through the breadth of Human history, countless pantheons had risen and fallen. 

All together, if someone capable of forcing them to work together were found, they represented an incredibly formidable force.

However, doing this was as difficult as listing the names of all the forgotten gods of the old religions. Having lost their believers and therefore their power, they had retreated to the background of the world, locking themselves in their insignificant worlds. They showed no desire to change their status quo, fearing for their lives if they tried to emerge from the shadows and compete with the religions of modern followers and their [Faith]. 

For them to unite among themselves? Another unattainable dream. Half of the old gods harbored wounds and grievances a thousand years long against each other. And, even if some of them decided to do it? The stronger religions would not wait for the outcome of such a unification and would strike while they could, crushing the nascent alliance. 

Or, at least, that was the way of thinking before, the old paradigm where the Old Gods were irrelevant.

No one simply expected the speed with which the Old Gods would suddenly fall before some external force, apparently intent on uniting them all under its aegis. A couple of Finnish gods appearing from somewhere in the form of elven children managed to subjugate a dozen religions to their control before information about their appearance made its way to Ewald's desk. Five more while Ewald was reading the report. 

With dizzying speed, the Old Gods began to fall under the control of a few, before creating a new faction within the Khaos Brigade. When the reports of the event began to flow to Ewald, it was already too late to do anything, the situation had already spiraled out of control.

For this news to be compounded by information that the renegade Azazel and the remnants of the Fallen Angels who survived the final extermination had joined the Khaos Brigade, and the picture came together in Ewald's mind. Finally, the Khaos Brigade had begun to move. 

No matter how much Ewald had anticipated the moment, he was still unprepared for it and missed the window to act. 

To be fair, it was not all the fault of his inattention. It was already difficult to predict the actions of the Khaos Brigade in the first place, the many factions within it making it difficult to get a clear picture. And, to be honest, the Khaos Brigade was never one for subtle approaches to their goal, preferring the blunt hammer of overwhelming force, rather than the scalpel of intrigue.

A way of doing things exemplified by their leader.

Ophis usually ‘recruited’ people to her organization by showing up at their front doors, and then a new ‘faction’ of the Khaos Brigade would be formed. Until this moment, the Khaos Brigade had never shown itself to be full of strategists capable of manipulations and using others' hands to gain power or force others to follow them. 

Therefore, when the whole picture came together in Ewald's mind, he was both awed and worried by the display of brilliance. Many incidents in the reports that had landed on his desk were not the product of happenstance, but careful planning. 

Someone had used the Fallen to provoke the Devil, and then pitted the Fallen and their Angelic brethren against each other, taking the surviving remnants of the Fallen for themselves. And all while this was happening, the Old Gods were suddenly united into one force.

Ewald, despite all his reluctance, could only applaud the beautifully played plan of his opponent. 

But the fact that he wished to applaud his opponent did not mean that he now did not wish to break his next plan with all his might. Predicting the next plan of the Khaos Brigade was not easy, but such a sudden accumulation of forces could only mean that they were preparing to use them. For what purpose, Ewald was busy pouring through his report to find out.

The Church would nary survive without grievous injury should Ewald fail in this task.

He would say it with all due respect, but the Holy See could not marshal its forces in the same way as the Khaos Brigade could. Especially now, with the peace between the Three Factions broken down. 

And thank God that it did, in Ewald's opinion, otherwise half of the faithful followers of the church would have rebelled against such an agreement, and Ewald would have supported the rebels as well. The Holy Church did not preach for thousands of years about the absolute evil of the Lord's Betrayers, only to simply shake hands with them and forget about all past grievances. As if their Great War was nothing more than a sandbox fight over a new toy, and not a bloody war that took the lives of countless of the righteous and Himself.

But this also meant that the Biblical Faction right now could not fight against the entirety of the Khaos Brigade alone. At least not without suffering absolutely severe losses in their numbers, even if the Most Holy Seraphim Michael would use the [Heavenly System] to battle the threat. 

And the Most Holy Seraphim would not use such power until it becomes truly necessary, when losing seems inevitable. It was too dangerous to control the creation of the Heavenly Father without understanding the principles of its operation – a secret that none of His children and followers have yet unraveled.

If things really come to such a thing, it would mean that the Apocalypse is truly close to its beginning, and quite possibly, Archangel Gabriel will begin breaking the [Seals] to free the Horsemen. Such a situation could not be allowed. 

Only He, the One God, could recreate the world anew after this event, and without His intervention, it meant the death of everything. And so, the mission of preventing such events fell on Ewald's shoulders. 

Which meant searching for allies.

But despite the outstanding position of the Heavenly Host as the eminent religion of the world – without the power of the Biblical God, their strength was insufficient to forcibly compel other religions to follow them. And treaties were not Ewald's strong suit, so he would have to pass this information to competent specialists… But in Ewald's view, such negotiations always took too long and were always too vague and fragile. Especially if one of the negotiators didn't have absolute power behind them, capable of conveying to the other side that breaking the agreement would be more painful for them than fulfilling it.

But, before he could contemplate about the subject more, a noise distracted him.

Ewald's trained hearing caught the quick steps of a hurried person. No, judging by the cadence, it was already an exhausted run, behind the door of his office. Soon, a sharp knock on his door, made Ewald slightly furrowed his brows, expressing his extreme displeasure with the disturbance and the breaking of decorum. 

He had taught his deputies that excessive reaction could show their enemy that the information they possessed was important, and therefore nullify its importance by such a reaction. In the phrase ‘Secret Service’, the word ‘secret’ was not in the first place before service for nothing.

"Enter," Ewald said calmly, thinking about whether he should conduct an educational conversation with the exorcist who decided to run to his office in such a manner, but a moment later his eyebrow involuntarily raised. 

"Innokenty, hmm?"

Ewald's first deputy had always excellently absorbed all of Ewald's lessons, including the one about the need to always keep his reaction under control. So much so that Ewald was already grooming Innokenty as his replacement in the future, when he would have to retire due to his age and health. So, seeing him so out of breath, gulping air like a man would gulp water in a desert, standing at the threshold of Ewald's office, was incredibly surprising. 

Considering that Innokenty was looking so exhausted, despite his training as an Exorcist, and with his current job to check the ‘special correspondence’ communication hub – this meant only one thing. He had been running with all his might and at full speed from the communication hub straight to Ewald’s office, a not inconsiderable distance.

Not entrusting the necessary news even to transport, let alone messengers, told Ewald that the news he brought was information of absolute importance.

Upon entering, Innokenty closed the door behind him, silently, thankfully, then with slightly trembling hands, from fatigue most probably, handed Ewald a red envelope. It was the standard form for ‘information of special secrecy and importance’ used by exorcists to transmit messages between the Holy Church's communication nodes, and it was already opened. But Ewald didn’t chastise his second for this, Innokenty had the right to read such information after all, like many people forced to check such letters. 

Humanity had taught the Church that methods of assassination could be most exotic and sometimes hide even between sheets of paper.

Ewald's quick glance at the letter itself noted the sender's name and personal seal of Irina Shidou — a rather outstanding young exorcist with the rare talent of a natural [Holy Swordswoman]. A quick overview of his memory told Ewald that she and Xenovia Quarta had been sent on their first training mission to Japan. With the official reason being to search for and capture an important apostate, Galilei, and with the unofficial purpose of reconnaissance of the situation in Kuoh after changes in the Devil situation, after which they had disappeared for several days. 

During their disappearance, Ewald had not only managed to obtain information about the state of the Devils, but also pondered the unfortunate fate that befell the two outstanding future exorcists. He had sent an official ‘request’ to the youkai of Kyoto, which they could not ignore, to investigate the matter. As a servant of the Lord, he, of course, had kept faith that the two would be okay, but, as a pragmatist, he knew full well that the two had returned to the side of the Lord in heaven.

And so, suddenly receiving a report now, one of special importance from her no less, was extremely unusual.

Even more unusual was that the place of dispatch was listed as the communication node in Guangxi, China. Of course, the Holy See's position in China was still going quite strong since the time of the Taiping Rebellion, but this did not mean that Irina could not send information from Japan, which also had its own communication center in Shimabara. And it was also strange to discover that only Irina's seal was on the letter, without Xenovia's seal, as a double confirmation seal would serve as greater proof of the truthfulness of the provided information than a single one. 

Could it be that Xenovia died in battle in Japan and Irina had to flee? This information was highly negative then, especially under current conditions when the Church needed allies, not new conflicts.

Taking the letter from Innokenty's hands and making his way to his desk unhurriedly, nodding to the chair where Innokenty himself could sit down, Ewald took a seat himself. He then perused the short sheet of parchment, covered in small, dense handwriting from the envelope, immersing himself in reading it.

Innokenty, who had just sat down on the chair, instantly jumped up when Ewald jumped to his feet, his emotion clear on his face. A very rare occurrence to the usually placid man.

The news was indeed just that shocking.

"Arrange a meeting with the Supreme Pontiff, organize direct communication with Heaven. We need to open contact with the Ten Seraphim," Ewald delivered his commands sharply and clearly, as soon as he reached the final signature with the personal seal at the bottom of the letter and looked at Innokenty, "Immediately!"

Innokenty didn't even bother to respond to the commands, immediately rushing away, he had read the letter himself after all. Meanwhile, Ewald used a particle of his powers, and burned the letter with Heavenly Fire, which left not even ashes. 

Though he would never compare to the true [Holy Flame] of the Great Seraphim Uriel, he was capable of such parlor tricks.

A moment later, he picked up the phone for direct communication with his secretary. "For the next two hours, I am unavailable. Absolutely no guests."

Usually after these words he would clarify that the only exceptions being only if war was declared on the Church or a direct attack on the Vatican was carried out, but this time no clarifications from Ewald followed at all. For the first time in his life, when Ewald said ‘absolutely’, he truly meant absolutely.

A moment later, having received confirmation, Ewald put the telephone receiver back and quickly headed out of the office.

At this moment, the Holy Church needed allies, not conflicts, but the information transmitted by Irina could mean one of two things.

Either they had regained Absolute Power, capable of opposing even the entirety of Khaos Brigade that had begun to move.

Or they had just started a conflict that would truly require the removal of all the [Seals].

***

Johan looked at the group of students gathered before him with an inner shudder – not because he feared them or feared for them, but simply from the realization of just how monumental the current situation was in their lives. And, perhaps more importantly, in his. 

Johan had been a teacher several times before, and as a mage, he had trained Rias Gremory and even young Millicas, explaining to them the simplest principles of human magic creation. But, his lessons with them ended rather quickly after they cast their first spell, their education then taken further by their Gremory teacher. Though unspoken, the main reason wasn’t because Zeoticus didn’t trust him, but simply because he was too weak to teach the two heirs anything. 

Devils, especially ones born from the Pillar families, were already too powerful from the moment of their birth. Their magic didn't require careful study or training, and the only possible risk for them was putting too much power into a single spell and being exhausted afterward… Well, barring some exceptions. Meanwhile, a mage always danced with death when trying each new magical formula. 

While human magic relied on training, intellect, and finding out certain laws, Devil magic simply required their desires, will, and imagination. Of course, there are things that needed to be taught and certain things that a Devil needed to do to be good with their magic, but Johan could not teach that. 

So, his training of the heiress and grandson of Zeoticus Gremory lasted only a couple of days to provide them with basic information about magic itself and the human principles of it before he could teach nothing more. Therefore, while Johan was familiar with magical training, he had never fully taught anyone before.

As for regular teaching… Johan's experience here was also quite modest. As a school principal, he had, of course, taught a few classes a couple of times when teachers couldn't make it to their own lessons due to emergencies, and the substitute could not make it. But he didn't even have any specialized education in the matter. 

His position as Principal, was because Zeoticus had simply placed him in his current position, while being not particularly interested in legalities or even the normal course of such procedures. And the education of Rias and Millicas regarding ordinary human knowledge was generally reduced to information that humans didn't have wings and lived up to a hundred years in the best of cases.

But Johan wasn't nervous because he was suddenly asked to do things that he isn’t used to. It wasn't Johan's specialty or expertise, but at least he was confident that he could ‘somehow’ handle the job assigned to him. Even if before him gathered a motley group ranging from Aika Kiryuu, who still didn't know why she was here, to Xenovia Quarta, an exorcist with a [Holy Sword], who could tell Johan more about the inner workings of the church and its relationship with the paranormal world than Johan could ever know.

No, Johan was worried because next to him was Lord Momonga – that is, the Biblical God, directly observing Johan's educational process. This meant Johan could not, under any circumstances, allow himself to perform at anything less than eleven points out of ten; ‘somehow managing’ was an unacceptably low standard before Him at this moment.

And so Johan was nervous, watching as Lord Momonga, still maintaining, apparently, his familiar disguise as Issei Hyuodo's older brother, stepped forward and raised his hand, clearing his throat and seemingly preparing for a grand speech.

That is, before He was so rudely interrupted, and suddenly Johan became nervous beyond belief.

"Principal, maybe you can explain to me what's going on here?! Why have you gathered all of us here and..." Aika glanced at Asia, and then at Xenovia, who was in her battle uniform, the one that looked more like fetish wear rather than anything related to the Church. Aika looked unsure whether she was looking at a nun, or a very erotic cosplay of them, waving her hand in the air in the vague direction of the two nuns.

"What are they doing here?"

Johan froze at such words, then immediately shot Lord Momonga, though he should try to call Him by his name, Satoru Suzuki – a hunted look, waiting for his reaction to the interruption of His speech. Thankfully, rather than having a front row seat of someone getting smote, no such thing happened.

"Excellent question, Aika," Lord Momonga, however, didn't even change his facial expression, maintaining the same benevolent smile he had all this time as he answered the question. "And before I could answer your question, I would like to start with the information that… magic exists."

Hearing such an incredulous statement, Aika raised an eyebrow, clearly not believing the words coming out of Lord Momonga’s mouth for a second, before shifting her gaze to her surroundings, to see if she was being pranked. Only to see that everyone in the room’s expression was unchanging. 

Everyone present except Aika, after all, was already well aware of this fact. 

But of course, Aika misinterpreted their lack of reaction as support for her own position of disbelief as she looked back at Lord Momonga, "So, this is the dark secret of the perfect brother of Kuoh Academy's main pervert. One peeps at girls, and the other is a chuunibyou? I knew you couldn't be as perfect as you appeared until now."

Johan's face paled slightly, Aika’s insults were truly out of bound. He, of course, knew the Christian basics about forgiveness and so on, but he was no less aware that this information was outdated by an incredible number of years. As well as the fact that many Gods burned cities to the ground for less audacity.

And judging by the Old Testament, the God standing next to him, was quite well practiced with that as well.

Lord Momonga, however, just looked at Aika, then disappeared from his spot and instantly appeared behind her back. A trick that Johan himself could pull off, and an excellent choice to convince a skeptic.

"What?" Aika blinked, surprised by the sudden disappearance of Satoru, only to then take a step back and bump into Satoru's figure, before quickly jumping away from him and turning around, shock clearly written on her face. 

"What the…!?"

With no small amount of panic and disbelief, Aika began shifting her gaze to Satoru, then back to the place he had just occupied, a dozen meters in front of her. Looking back and forth in confusion, as if trying to explain the incredible trick to herself.

Fire from fingers and rabbits from hats had long been the standard tricks of magicians completely devoid of magical abilities, while teleportation? They had only mastered that trick in darkened rooms, as opaque as the Great Wall of China. Doing such a thing in a brightly lit room? 

Such a ‘trick’ was too far beyond the bounds of what was possible in the perception of an ordinary person.

"That is…" Aika, however, clearly wasn't going to give up so easily, urgently seeking a reason for Satoru’s ‘trick’. She wasn’t going to give up her rational view of the world that easily. 

"A trick with mirrors! Or with a trapdoor…"

Aika was grasping at straws, tricks which were unrealistic in any case, but she wasn't allowed to come to her own realization of the current situation. 

"How long will you defile Lord Momonga with disbelief?!"

Xenovia, who had been devouring Lord Momonga with her eyes in silent adoration all this time, turned to Aika with an angry expression, "Enough!"

"And you'll just believe this?!" Aika instantly tried to defend her position, to which Xenovia responded as if it were self-evident, nodding.

"The Apostle's business is faith!"

"A-apostle?!" Asia finally spoke up, clearly looking like she wanted to fall into a coma right now from observing such a scene, then staggered again when all eyes in the room shifted to her, 

"I-I'm sorry!"

"No need, Sister Asia, for we are the same, doing God’s work in carrying His Word!" Xenovia smiled approvingly at Asia, as if she was trying to make her fellow nun proud, but from such encouragement, Asia herself tried to shrink a bit more.

"Ahem!" Lord Momonga's voice returned all gazes to him again – even Aika no longer looked at him with mockery or disbelief. For the past few moments, she instead looked contemplative, clearly trying to process such information in her head, information that turned everything she knew about the world around her upside down.

Lord Momonga, however, deliberately ignored her as he made his way back to the center of the class, then turned to them and spoke again. Aika, with a simple handling from Xenovia was manhandled back to her seat so that she could hear Lord Momonga much more clearly.

"In this world, there are many non-human races and species. Dragons, elves, demons…"

Pausing for a moment, Lord Momonga surveyed the room to see their reaction, but the only one who still didn't believe such information was Aika, still processing the information about the existence of magic. 

Seeing that no one would be speaking up, Lord Momonga then glanced at Johan before continuing. 

"And you were chosen because inside each of you lies enormous potential."

Johan was ready to swear that Lord Momonga's gaze reminded him of the many new teachers he had hired many times in the past. A gaze that says, pleading, ‘help me, I don't know what to do’. But, since the embodiment of the Biblical God absolutely could not be conveying exactly this information, Johan interpreted it as a silent reminder that Johan himself was the one who selected the people present here as suitable for training. Excluding perhaps the two church nuns…

Although, to be honest, there was only one addition that Johan actually chose, since all the other people present here had already come into contact with Lord Momonga before. But Johan, of course, would not say that out loud. After all, formally speaking, it was indeed Johan himself who selected the composition of the current study group.

Lord Momonga, after looking at Johan for a few more seconds with a gaze that under other circumstances could be called ‘pleading’, returned to observing the teenagers standing before him. "Yes, exactly, you were marked with special potential, and that is why I, the Biblical God… That is, the God, who was mentioned in the Bible, decided to train you."

After these words, Lord Momonga fell silent again. Johan was ready to swear that if it wasn't Lord Momonga before him, but someone else, then such a manner of speech would indicate that he was literally praying for someone to interrupt his uncertain speech with some objection or distracted comment, to which the speaker could react and lead the dialogue away. But since the speaker was Lord Momonga, instead, his slow speech seemed majestic, as if slowly saturating the classroom atmosphere with its significance.

After a few moments passed that everyone in the room could digest the words that Lord Momonga was speaking, He continued.

"I think that each of you can become an incredible asset in the future. All of you were selected for your special qualities and… I would like to teach each of you, magic," Lord Momonga glanced at Johan again, then sharply turned back. 

"That is why Director Johan agreed to undertake your education."

Johan understood his assignment, it is after all quite the ego to believe that God Himself would teach ordinary, or perhaps not so ordinary, but still humans. And Lord Momonga’s explanation only planted the idea further.

"My magic… That is, divine power can be studied… However, mastering it is part of your training," With each word Lord Momonga spoke with increasing confidence, as if finding the right way to continue this dialogue… But since, of course, it could not be exactly like that, instead his words, gaining strength, seemed to tune the future students of Lord Momonga to the right mood, 

"If I simply passed information about it to you, your training would stop at the moment when I ceased to give you new knowledge. No, instead I want each of you to learn this magic through your understanding, to achieve real success. Only by realizing independently, without hints, the principles on which my magic is built, will you be able to independently gain power and grow beyond yourself."

After these words, Lord Momonga, as if pleased with the effect he produced and his own speech, leaned back slightly, then moved his hand to the side, finally directly pointing at Johan, "Director Johan here will teach you basic information regarding using magic, while I will conduct a demonstration of abilities and allow you to independently study them, to try to understand their principle, and then repeat them for yourself."

Director Johan, finally being introduced to the students, even if some of them really should be familiar with him, took a step forward, drawing attention to his person. He then bowed, trying to hide his unexpectedly widened pupils from such a realization of God’s great plan.

He had never even considered such a method of teaching. Usually mages simply passed their own knowledge to their apprentices, after which they trained them in their own spells, explaining each process and reason, creating an heir with their own, almost identical set of abilities that they once possessed themselves. It was the way things have been done since forever – Magic was an excessively dangerous art for humans, where any, even the slightest deviation, could cause terrible consequences, where death was not the worst of all possible outcomes. 

Therefore, mages typically stopped developing at the level of their teachers, perhaps slightly surpassing them in their twilight years, thanks to the already established teaching methodology and the addition of a few specific abilities they’ve learned with blood and tears. After which they entered into exactly the same process of training their own heirs. Rare figures of geniuses who surpassed such an approach and possessed abilities not only to repeat memorized formulas but to understand magic itself were only born once in a generation. Their names became world-famous, such as Le Fay or Walburga.

The fact that Lord Momonga departed from such an expected approach not only spoke of his wisdom or faith in the abilities of the students selected by Johan, since just one mistake could forever put an end to their further career as mages. It also spoke of his endless love for humanity. After all, the most rational way of teaching would be not to entrust such a secret to ordinary people, instead training them enough so that they would be prepared as mages in the future and could teach the next generation of mages. 

But instead, Lord Momonga allowed them to touch and see a real miracle, to rise above ordinary mages and stand alongside the famous ‘geniuses’, gaining power and wisdom that an ordinary mage would sell their soul for…

A moment later, Johan realized how familiar these words sounded, and suddenly understood that it was the same words directed at him, when he switched sides from Zeoticus, to serving God. The salvation of his immortal soul from the clutches of servitude to demons. That his past servitude under a Devil was not rightfully repaid with eternal damnation, but mercy. 

Lord Momonga had not only forgiven his sin or granted him a new life, to be under the protective aegis of his patronage, but also gave him the opportunity to understand magic. To rise above the shackles of his previous mere existence and gain the power with which he could finally overthrow Mephisto Pheles from his unshakable throne as Archimagister. 

A man who defeats a demon in this field by the grace of the Lord…

Now realizing this, Johan suddenly found that he could not contain himself, falling to the ground, after which he pressed his forehead to the ground, wishing with all his being to repent for his petty thoughts until this moment. 

"I beg you, my God, forgive me!"

"Eh? Umm, you are forgiven?" Lord Momonga reacted instantly, as if he were accustomed to such a scene… Although, of course, who else but God would be accustomed to forgiving sinners?

After these words, when Johan finally rose from the ground and wiped away a tear that had somehow appeared in his eyes from the realization of the extent of Lord Momonga's magnanimity, he raised his gaze to the students before him. 

They're watching the scene of their Principal scraping the ground before who was once his student with different expressions. From Xenovia's understanding to Aika's absolute confusion, and nodded briefly, "I think it's time for our first lesson in that case!"

Lord Momonga, observing such a scene, only nodded and thereby gave Johan additional strength.

‘Watch me, Lord Momonga,’ Johan swore in his heart, full hearted allegiance to something for the first time in his life. 

‘I swear, whatever it costs me… I will fulfill your will!’