SWNOVELXO chapter 252
Chapter 252. The Evil God is Surprisingly Cute (Sarcastic Tone)~
Regarding the incident that recently happened to Clotilde, Noah of course knew she had been deceived.
As for who was behind it, Noah had a pretty good idea.
After all, this was the red-light district where the unidentified person pretending to be ‘Lilith’ was.
Noah had originally figured that as long as she didn’t stir up trouble, he wouldn’t bother with her.
But now it seemed that her period of lying low was finally over, and she was starting to make her move.
The timing of ‘Belinda’s’ appearance was too convenient, as if she’d shown up specifically to rescue Hilda, making it impossible for Noah not to be suspicious.
But the current development wasn’t bad either.
It was just a matter of adding a storyline about the succubus Hilda to Noah’s grand plan to corrupt the nun.
So, even though Noah knew Clothilde had been deceived, he chose to pretend he hadn’t noticed.
He didn’t tell Clothilde the truth, instead feigning more concern over the fact that the succubus Cornelia had directly infiltrated the church’s holy city and turned a nun into her thrall.
Soon after, they were walking out of the red-light district’s underground and back to the surface, discussing the succubus Cornelia.
Now that she had confirmed information about the succubus who had deceived her, Clothilde naturally declared there was no need for further discussion, they should just charge right in.
Hearing this, Noah really wanted to say, “You little ero-game heroines, that’s why you get so many defeat plays.”
Don’t just think you can brute force your way through everything with sheer stats, okay?
Although brute forcing with raw strength can indeed solve ninety-five percent of the problems, against the other five percent, brute forcing is no different from actively collecting defeat CGs.
Moreover, Noah himself wanted to give Cornelia a surprise after Clothilde had become a succubus queen, Cornelia being the one who wanted to turn Clothilde into her lowest-ranking thrall.
Charging straight in was definitely not the way to go.
She needed to trigger Bishop Horace’s event in Water City and become corrupted first.
Otherwise, wouldn’t the two-plus months of effort and Noah’s sacrifice of his own s*x appeal and body be a complete waste?
He’d gone to all that trouble precisely to see the nun, who always had a miserable fate in the original story, turn into a corrupted bad woman and then kill off all the other villainous b*stards, right?
Therefore, Noah rejected Clothilde’s suggestion to return to the holy city and confront the succubus, using the excuse that ‘it’s not appropriate to return to the holy city, we should go back and check on Hilda’s situation first.’
And Clothilde, to some extent, also suspected that Noah wouldn’t support her rushing back to confront the succubus directly.
But in her eyes, Noah was purely trying to protect her from danger, to prevent her from walking into a trap.
–Mr. Noah must be worried that I’ll lose to that succubus and get turned into her thrall, so I won’t be able to be his believer, huh, hmph, what a shame~ Mr. Noah, I’m a nun of the Goddess, I don’t plan on pledging my loyalty to either you or a succubus~
She liked him, but she had her faith; right now the nun considered Noah important, but only on the same level as her faith.
So she had no intention of changing her religion.
But in fact Noah had never planned for her to convert to him, so that was a misunderstanding on her part, or perhaps a little self-centered thinking.
And the nun wasn’t exactly the kind of proactive person that Princess Delia was.
Otherwise, the nun would definitely ask Noah triumphantly if he liked her and wanted her to become his believer.
At that point Noah would just point at her face and burst out laughing at her narcissism, and she would end up standing dumbfounded like a steam-powered machine, completely fl*stered.
As for tonight’s agenda, the nun would naturally choose to take Noah to see Hilda, who had turned into a succubus.
It was only then that she realized she had forgotten to ask Belinda which church Hilda had been taken to, causing her some mild embarrassment.
In the end, she had no choice but to head to the largest central church in the small-to-medium-sized city to pay her respects to Bishop Deite, the head of the church in this city.
If luck’s on our side, we might find Hilda locked up directly. After all, they’d need a big place to hold her, somewhere more secure.
And even if luck isn’t with us, Clothilde can ask Bishop Deitus where Belinda went. Belinda claimed to be acting under the orders of Bishops Deitus and Horace; Deitus can’t possibly not know.
And when the tip of the central cathedral came into view in the distance, Clothilde, who hadn’t mentioned the subject all along, finally decided to surprise Noah.
“…Mr. Noah, before we meet Bishop Deitus, could I ask you a question?”
Having learned her lesson, Clothilde didn’t directly ask something as blunt as ‘Mr. Noah, are you not a dark god?’.
Instead, she adopted the quiet, restrained demeanor of a nun, using a calm, gentle voice to first ask Noah if he would be willing to answer her question.
“What kind of question, your impressions of the pleasure district?”
Noah didn’t sense what was coming. He was still just acting like anything but a priest.
A single casual remark from him was enough to make the earnest nun’s expression shift to one of unease, even disgust.
“It’s not about the pleasure district. What I want to ask is, what are your thoughts on the dark gods who were once sealed by the Goddess?”
Having anticipated that Noah would react this way, Clothilde wasn’t fazed by his response.
Walking not far from his side, she simply shook her head calmly and then posed her question designed to test him.
She was playing the game of using her calmest tone to utter the most terrifying words.
That was the only way to see Noah’s true reaction.
“Dark gods? Didn’t I tell you I’m an atheist? Dark gods, goddesses, they don’t exist. They’re just creations of humans for some purpose.”
“Either for the sake of ruling, or for the craving of power, or for the hope that their wrongdoings can be forgiven. It’s based on all kinds of ‘desires’ that humans need gods.”
“As for dark gods, of course, the Goddess Church made them up as an antithesis to the Goddess to promote their orthodoxy. I don’t have any opinion on them. But if someone doesn’t believe in the Goddess, but in a dark god, then I’d be very interested as a human observer to see, exactly what kind of mindset would lead them to worship the dark gods that have failed.”
Admittedly, Noah was a bit surprised at first that the nun had brought up this question.
But since Noah had actually foreseen this situation, he had already prepared his answer in advance.
All he had to do was remain expressionless and reply with a sneer.
“Ha… Mr. Noah, you really are a hopeless case. Sooner or later, some religious fanatic is going to attack you.”
“Haha, that would be truly interesting. Let them come at me.”
Noah still thought that he hadn’t revealed his identity as a dark god, and was just seen as a weirdo.
So, when the nun warned him to be careful in a worried tone,
Noah just revealed a fearless, slightly barbaric, wild grin.
However, there’s a saying that goes—if a person has already decided on a certain fact, then everything that happens will only serve to prove that they are correct.
Noah’s very serious atheist speech was not understood by the nun in the way a normal person would.
—Heh~ Acting! Keep acting!~ Mr. Noah, you’re quite the actor~ You’ve completely exposed yourself~ You’re saying all this because you want me to think that you aren’t a dark god, aren’t you! You’re even going so far as to demean yourself, how adorable (kawaii koto.JPG).