Chapter 187: The Cathedral (3)

Within a white room that was completely empty of anything, Kristina was kneeling down in the center of the room. The room had no windows, nor did it have any lights. Even so, it wasn’t dark. This room was white because the walls themselves were able to emit light.

This was the chapel building near the Fount of Light. Kristina was familiar with this room but didn’t find it the least bit comfortable. The day that she was bestowed with the Light, and it first began to dwell within her body, was the first day that Kristina had come to the Fount of Light and had entered this room.

After ten years of this, the room had become familiar to her, but it was as uncomfortable as her. The walls shone as softly as ever while she sat in the center of the room and went through the process of preparing for the sacrament. Without doing anything, just sitting there and settling her heart.

It was just a repetition of what she had done before. Nothing had changed.

Even ten years ago, she had had these sorts of thoughts. Was all this really necessary? Why? Was there any meaning to this — no, there was definitely some meaning. However… was this the right thing to do? Was this truly God’s will?

Could the Saintess really be such an existence?

“…,” Kristina silently repeated such thoughts to herself.

She had pondered the same questions dozens, even hundreds of times, but in the end, she had still stayed in this room.

Compared to the success of the sacrament, the fact that she wasn’t able to understand her own role in this was as insignificant as a speck of dust. That was what Kristina had been taught ever since she was a child. That was how she had grown up.

She had been told of the role of the Saintess, and she knew how significant becoming the Saintess was. That was something that Kristina had never doubted.

She lived to become the Saint.

Kristina Rogeris’s whole life had been dedicated to earning the name of the Saint. Now, after everything she had endured for the past ten years, her goal had come within her reach. After all, hadn’t a Hero finally appeared in this era? The presence of the Hero added even more value to the price that Kristina had paid her life for.

It wasn’t long now.

Kristina opened her eyes and looked down. The dagger that had been placed in front of her knees caught her eye. The blade had been sharpened to the point where it couldn’t be any sharper. She had already spent enough time in hesitation; now, she had prepared herself and made up her mind.

Kristina immediately reached out and grasped the hilt of the dagger and lifted the ghastly blade. Just like how this room was familiar yet discomforting, the hilt of the dagger that her fingers were wrapped firmly around also felt familiar yet uncomfortable.

Kristina’s face was reflected within the polished blade. A face so stiff and lifeless that even she couldn’t recognize herself in it. Without any trace of joy, the corners of her mouth drew a straight line across her face, and her eyes were dull and sunken. Such a face was the true essence of the person called Kristina. Most of the time, Kristina didn’t feel much of an urge to smile.

‘Did you notice that?’ Kristina silently asked Eugene.

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He probably had. Kristina tilted the dagger slightly so that her own face was no longer visible within it. She had sensed that he had seen through her during the months they had wandered through Samar together, and she had also felt it during the short time they had ridden the train together.

‘Is something wrong?’

‘You had a strange look on your face.’

‘It feels like you’re forcing yourself to laugh.’

‘Compared to a few months ago, you’ve regressed back to the way that a Saint is supposed to speak to the Hero.’

Kristina saw Eugene’s face in the slanted blade of her dagger. A face that was full of ill-tempered mischief. A goading smile that could hardly be imagined to come from a Hero.

‘I don’t care if I give off that feeling.’

Eugene’s voice rang out inside her head. The corners of Kristina’s mouth twitched in a smile.

‘Rather than a bond between the Hero and the Saint, I would prefer a bond between one person and another.’

‘Because such a bond is much deeper and more sincere.’

“No, it isn’t,” Kristina muttered as she looked down at the dagger.

There was no way that a bond between one person and another could be deeper and stronger than the bond between the Saint and the Hero. Kristina sincerely believed this. She couldn’t help but do so.

Kristina Rogeris didn’t know anything about the bond that could exist between two different people. All the bonds she had forged were based on her identity as the Saint Candidate. Kristin was well aware of the fact that everyone around her was an actor in a play that starred her as the Saint Candidate.

In her view, the ties that existed between one person and another were so light and thin as to be insignificant. That was what she believed. That was what she had to believe. Kristina no longer saw Eugene’s face in the dagger.

The only thing that she could see was herself wearing a pure white shroud. Without any hesitation, Kristina brought the dagger to her wrist.

In order for her to be reborn as the Saint….

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In order to build the bond between the Hero and the Saint….

The future she had longed for and envisioned for the past ten years would soon be ushered in.

With emotionless eyes, Kristina slit her own wrist.

* * *

Even though Eugene had slept while hugging the sword all night long, he didn’t receive any dreams. In the end, he just ended up greeting the following day.

“Fuck,” Eugene spat out a curse as he got out of bed.

The natural lighting in this damn room was a bit too good for him to fully appreciate. The sunlight pouring in from the window was so bright that it stung his eyes to the point of pain. That alone would have been irritating enough, but there weren’t even any curtains installed on the windows to block out the sunlight.

“It seems that you didn’t have a nice dream,” Mer said with a giggle as she sat next to the bed and read the scripture book.

Eugene squinted his eyes at the scripture book, its densely layered pages rendering it quite thick, in Mer’s hands.

“Is it interesting?” Eugene asked.

“It’s more interesting than I thought it would be,” Mer admitted. “Hm… as long as I just consider it to be a novel, that is.”

“Is it more interesting than the fairy tale that Sienna wrote?”

“Please don’t try to fool me so sneakily. No matter what you say, I don’t believe that Lady Sienna is the one who wrote that fairy tale.”

Eugene clicked his tongue at Mer’s exasperated denial. He then shot a glare at the Holy Sword that he had placed beside him. Even though it had invaded his dreams of its own volition and showed him a vision of the past, this time, when he had gone so far as to do something crazy like hugging it in his sleep to get it to show him something, it had failed. Even though Eugene had practically set the stage for it to show him whatever it wanted, the Holy Sword had refused to show anything this time.

“Should I just break it?” Eugene muttered to himself.

“If you do that, the zealots of Yuras will be sure to try and capture you for execution,” Mer warned Eugene with a forceful stare and a solemn expression as she got down from her chair. Then she brought her hands together in front of her chest and took up a praying posture as she said, “‘Divine Punishment!’ is what they’ll shout while trying to grab you. I know that you are strong, but wouldn’t it still be scary if hundreds or even thousands of fanatics who are prepared to martyr themselves were to attack you?”

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“I don’t know if that’s scary, but it sure sounds annoying,” Eugene said as he glanced towards the door.

He could feel a presence coming from beyond the closed door.

“They’ve been waiting there for about two hours now,” Mer informed him.

“What a uselessly sincere person,” Eugene commented sarcastically.

Mer shrugged, “It’s probably just to keep an eye on you, Sir Eugene.”

Rensol was the one waiting outside the door.

As soon as Eugene opened the door, Rensol smiled broadly and approached with a greeting, “Sir Eugene, did you have a good night? How would you like to have your breakfast? We can have it delivered to your room if you wish, but if possible, how about having breakfast together in the dining hall?”

Eugene hummed, “Hm…. What’s the difference between having breakfast delivered or eating in the dining hall? Is there a difference in the contents of the menu—”

“Not at all!” Rensol immediately denied. “It’s just that I was hoping that the other clergy who serve in the cathedral would be able to offer their welcomes to Sir Eugene….”

“To me? Weren’t the things regarding my identity meant to be kept a secret from the ordinary clergy members?” Eugene asked in confusion.

“Ah… you don’t need to worry about that. All that the other clergy of this cathedral know is that Sir Eugene from the Lionheart clan is currently visiting as the friend of the Saint Candidate Kristina,” Rensol revealed as he lowered his voice to a whisper. “It’s just that the name of ‘Eugene Lionheart’ is so famous. The younger priests seem to want to meet with you, Sir Eugene, and have a talk with you about the gracious light.”

Although he’d expected this, Eugene feigned a puzzled expression. These priests weren’t really trying to meet with Eugene to evangelize him. The truth was that the church’s finances and the clergy’s pockets were all filled by generous donations from believers and noble patrons. Since the Lionheart clan was a prestigious clan famous across the continent, the priests must be hoping to secure ample donations by establishing a strong connection with Eugene.

“I’ll have my breakfast served in my room,” Eugene decided. “Since I don’t have any reason to go out on my own, just bring my meals here whenever it’s mealtime.”

“Ah… that’s quite a pity,” Rensol sighed. “The chapel at noon, when the sun is at its highest, is extremely beautiful….”

“But wouldn’t that beautiful chapel be crowded with clergy and believers?” Eugene grumbled as he looked out of a window.

Believers who had come to worship in the cathedral were already lining up outside. Eugene didn’t have the slightest desire to mingle with the other priests or believers.

As such, Eugene just shut himself up in his room. He filled himself with the meals Rensol brought him each time for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Ever since Eugene had woken up, he had held on to the Holy Sword, focussed his thoughts on it, and tried to get it to respond.

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However, nothing happened. Like before, while it was possible to get the Holy Sword to emit light whenever he used it, the back of the girl he had seen the previous day never reappeared. Time after time, Eugene called upon the Holy Sword’s light, but nothing special happened.

So, in the end, he just went to sleep. Still hugging the Holy Sword, Eugene went into a deep sleep that lasted until the following morning. Perhaps because he so desperately wanted to see a dream… he really did end up dreaming.

Inside his dream, Eugene ran around on fluffy clouds….

He couldn’t figure out why he was running. However, he knew that the cloud he was running on wasn’t actually a real cloud, but one made up of sweet cotton candy.

After running around on the cotton candy like this… at some point, the cotton candy became a lake of chocolate. In the middle of the lake, Mer was pedaling a boat in the shape of a duck. With her arms packed full of marshmallows, Mer pedaled across the lake. Then she bit off a wet marshmallow and rescued Eugene, who was drowning in the chocolate lake.

Sir Eugene! Sir Eugene has turned into chocolate!

“…What kind of dream was that?” Eugene grumbled upon waking.

What a shitty dream.

Eugene scratched his head, then picked up the Holy Sword and threw it away. The sharp blade pierced through the floor, but that didn’t bother Eugene.

“Sir Eugene, you really have a nasty personality,” said Mer, gnawing on a piece of chocolate next to the bed.

Eugene spotted the skewers from a piece of cotton candy and a marshmallow wrapper next to Mer.

“Are you treating my cloak like your storeroom?” Eugene demanded.

“Rather than a storeroom, it’s more like my house. So it’s up to me to store whatever I want inside my house,” Mer declared proudly.

“Strictly speaking, you’re not really the owner of the house. I’m the landlord, while you’re just a tenant. Though you don’t even pay any rent,” Eugene complained.

Mer argued back, “Of course I pay rent. Aren’t I a great help to you, Sir Eugene? Just imagine, Sir Eugene, what would it be like if I wasn’t at your side? You would surely have been very lonely and bored. Even now, Sir Eugene, I’m at your side and talking with you, aren’t I?”

“…Hm…,” Eugene hummed, unable to deny Mer’s words.

Mer changed the subject, “In any case, Sir Eugene, did you still fail to have a dream?”

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“I did dream about something.”

“What kind of dream was it?”

“A shitty dream,” Eugene grumbled as he pulled out the Holy Sword embedded into the floor.

Eugene spent the next two days inside the room. His isolation wasn’t completely pointless. Thanks to spending so much time holding to the Holy Sword, he was able to come up with several hypotheses.

The revelation he was looking for hadn’t appeared in the summoned light, nor had it interfered with his dreams. Since that was the case, he couldn’t help but think that the chapel might be the vital location. Those pillars of light and the Holy Sword. What if the Holy Sword had managed to touch on something while it was there?

After having spent two days verifying his suspicions, Eugene now had no choice but to take a closer look at the cathedral. Thankfully, Cardinal Rogeris had gone away, so there were no Inquisitors there to keep watch.

‘This is the second day,’ Eugene realized as he thought of Kristina.

Since he had been told that the ritual held at the Fount of Light would take three days, the ritual should be over by tomorrow. Eugene still didn’t know what kind of ritual was taking place at the Fount of Light.

Was the ritual that Kristina was taking part in something that needed to be done even if she didn’t want to? Eugene couldn’t help but suspect that.

If Kristina had just told him, ‘I don’t want to go,’ Eugene would have ensured that Kristina didn’t go to the spring.

However, Kristina hadn’t said that. The ritual at the spring seemed important, and for Kristina herself, her title of the Saint held a lot of meaning. In the end, Kristina had still decided to head to the Fount of Light. While desperately hiding her expression that openly said she didn’t want to go, she resolutely chose to show her resolve. Then she had left Eugene behind.

As for Eugene, he wanted to respect her decision. Kristina hadn’t asked for Eugene’s sympathy. All she wanted was to become the official Saint and build a formal bond with the Hero.

The Saint and the Hero…. Eugene definitely couldn’t empathize or sympathize with her desire for such a relationship, but he knew that was what Kristina had desperately wished for.

Or at least that’s what he thought.

* * *

That night, the believers who had filled the cathedral from dawn until sunset had all gone home, and the clergy had returned to their quarters. As midnight approached, the vast cathedral fell silent as not a single person remained within.

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It was rare to find any shadowy places in this cathedral, but that didn’t matter to Eugene. He was able to use stealth magic and could even suppress his presence. Using these, Eugene snuck out of his room and entered the cathedral.

Eugene raised his head to look up at the pillars of light. The light was still pouring in from the glass on the walls and the ceiling. He hadn’t taken the Holy Sword out yet, leaving it inside his cloak. It would be annoying if he were to take it out, only for it to needlessly run while emitting light all on its own like it had the day before yesterday.

[Aren’t your eyes dazzled by that?] Mer asked, surprised at the sight of Eugene looking straight at the pillars of light.

She definitely wouldn’t be able to look straight into the light like he currently was. It was so bright that Mer wouldn’t even be able to see it properly, and it felt like her vision would be covered in red and white splotches.

‘I can’t see too clearly,’ Eugene silently admitted.

Eugene’s eyes could peer through even the deepest darkness, and no matter how bright the day was, he could even look straight at the sun. But even he couldn’t see through this light. The closer he tried to get a look at the center, the more his eyes began to tingle, and his vision began to shake.

But if he couldn’t see it clearly from a distance, he would just need to get close. Eugene leaped up into the sky into the pillars of light. He had been trying to ascend to the ceiling all at once, but his body couldn’t float up as lightly as he had expected. As if the light itself had weight, it was pressing down on Eugene’s body.

‘So what,’ Eugene snorted and drew on his mana.

Using it, he was able to slowly climb up into the light.

Although the ceiling had seemed quite high… it wasn’t this high, was it? In the middle of his rise, Eugene realized something was off and looked down at the ground.

But he couldn’t see the floor. All he could see was light.

Everything below seemed infinitely low, and everything above seemed infinitely high. And the light that had been weighing down on Eugene… at some point, had begun to pull Eugene upwards.

Eugene had a sudden thought.

Was this what a Divine Ascension felt like?

In the scripture book that Sergio had given him, there were many stories of Saints who had ascended to heaven and gone to sit at the side of the God of Light. Perhaps Anise had ascended to heaven like this and became an angel.

Eugen spotted something, ‘That’s….’

The source of the light, which had seemed infinitely far away, had already started approaching him before he knew it. It was so bright that it was hard to see, but by squinting his eyes, Eugene could see what lay on the other side of the light.

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…What he saw there… was a large rice bowl.

Three hundred years ago, while the party was traveling together, most nights were spent resting and making their own food. The order of who made the meals always changed, but they each had their own tableware set aside from the others.

Molon’s rice bowl was the largest, followed by Vermouth’s. Unexpectedly, Vermouth was quite the big eater. Then Hamel came third.

As for Anise, she didn’t actually use her rice bowl for food. She used that large bowl to hold her holy water. Whenever the time came to open up the lid of the large keg they kept stocked, Anise was the first to run over and grab a drink using her bowl.

Anise called the bowl her Holy Grail.

At the other end of the light laid that same rice bowl, no, the Holy Grail. Eugene looked at the Holy Grail, which was tilted crookedly to the side, with blank eyes. There were cracks here and there, and a few chips were missing… but it was unmistakable. That was Anise’s Holy Grail. The light was pouring down from her Holy Grail.

‘…That’s… just why… no, before that,’ Eugene shook himself and approached the Holy Grail.

It was clear to see that if he just pulled it out like this, something irreversible would happen. So, instead of reaching for the Holy Grail, Eugene retrieved Akasha from inside his cloak.

Then he immediately used the Draconic spell to try and find Anise. A faint light was emitted from Akasha’s Dragonheart. As the Draconic spell unfolded, it forged a connection with Anise’s Holy Grail.

A little more…

A little deeper…

Just a little bit closer….

Eugene’s vision was suddenly consumed with light.

He saw a young girl standing there absentmindedly, wearing a white dress.

Unlike when he saw her last time, she wasn’t standing with her back facing him. Her age seemed… a little over ten years old at most. She had long blonde hair and blue eyes.

Then came the smell of blood.

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Ever so slowly, the smell grew stronger. The stronger the smell got, the more blood began to spread across the girl’s clothes. Blood flowed down from both her wrists to drip on the floor. It wasn’t just her wrists. Her ankles, calves, thighs, stomach, sides, and chest… bloody lines were drawn all over her body with blood dripping down from them.

However, the girl’s face was determined. As if she didn’t even know what pain was, the girl stood there resolutely, covered in blood, without a single twitch in her expression.

The girl’s spilled blood collected on the floor. Then the pooled blood began to flow away like a river.

Now, there was another girl.

The new girl was very similar to the girl standing next to her, but there were a few differences.

She had a mole under her eye, and then there was her facial expression. Lines of blood were drawn one by one on the new girl’s body, but she couldn’t endure it and stand tall like the girl next to her. She bit her lip as she endured the pain, her eyes furrowed, and in the end, she wasn’t able to take it and burst into tears. The girl’s tears flowed down alongside her blood.

The first girl standing next to her didn’t look at the crying girl. But her blood that had pooled on the floor flowed over and collected at the feet of the crying girl. The blood pouring down from the crying girl mixed with the pool of the first girl’s blood. And then… then the blood flowed up in reverse and seeped into the crying girl’s wounds.

Eugene watched this happen with a blank look. Naturally, he had recognized the two girls. Anise was the girl with the determined expression, and Kristina was the one crying next to her.

What was going on?

The moment Eugene thought of this question and reached out with his hand, the distance between Anise and Kristina grew far apart. And then many other girls were suddenly standing in between them. The newly arrived girls didn’t resemble Anise the way that Kristina did. However, standing in the middle of the river of blood that started from Anise, they all shed their blood together, and the long river of blood that was created through this method continued all the way to Kristina….

“Look closely, Hamel,” the girl, no, Anise, spoke up.

Anise was still in her younger form. She didn’t have any wings spreading out from her like when she had appeared in the form of an angel. Instead, she raised her bloody hand and reached out to Eugene.

Anise continued speaking, “At this abominable bond.”

Anise.

The moment that Eugene was about to call out her name.

Craaaash!

The light exploded. The glass walls and ceilings of the cathedral, from which the pillars of light had poured down, were now shattered. Countless shards of glass fell down like rain. In the middle of all this, Eugene reached out his hand to catch the falling Holy Grail.

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The moment he caught the Holy Grail, a vivid memory was engraved within Eugene’s mind. It was the traces that Anise had left behind in this holy relic.

“…….”

Eugene remained silent, confusion at what had just happened running through his head.

“Sir Eugene?!”

“Oh my god, what on earth…!”

The pillars of light, which had been displaying their majesty within the Tressia Cathedral for hundreds of years, had all been destroyed. Shards of glass mixed in with the light as they all poured down. In the midst of this scene, Eugene was staring down at the Holy Grail and Akasha in his hands.

He knew what he had just seen.

However, he just couldn’t understand what it meant.

The Holy Grail was an item with a soul. Among all the holy relics, physical remains were more valuable than any other relics, as they hadn’t just been close to a Saint; they had been part of a Saint.

Perhaps that’s why he was able to get a closer look than when he had tried the spell on the necklace. The result might be blurred, but it was still recognizable.

Within the Tressia Cathedral, the altar that lay beneath the pillars of light.

Through Akasha’s Draconic spell, Anise’s Holy Grail was pointing to the holy relic stored beneath the altar.

He had been told it was the jawbone of a Saintess from four hundred years ago.

So why were Anise’s holy relic and Akasha’s Draconic spell pointing to that jawbone?

Eugene couldn’t think of any guesses.

But he didn’t even want to guess.