Parting Does Not Mean Farewell (2)
"…Huh?"
Lee Han had been crushed for some time beneath the weight of two elephants when a familiar presence brushed his senses, and he cocked his head. This was not a presence that belonged here. So why was he feeling it now?
He blinked and turned his gaze toward the source. Sure enough.
"What are you lot doing here?"
Familiar faces.
"Sir Santa!"
"……."
…That one was a cunning little bastard, all right. How long had it been since he dropped the Santa act? And because the man didn't know the fine details of the situation, here he came running, calling him by the alias.
"Sir Santa! It has been six hours, nineteen minutes, and fifty-seven seconds!"
"…Anyone watching would think I was your keeper."
Meeting that exaggerated delight, Lee Han grasped two facts. One was the curious truth that he had been in this place for roughly two days, while barely six hours had scraped by outside. The other…
"You met the Margrave, I take it."
"Yes, yes! Before I came here, I saw the return from a distance, if nothing else. The domain is in utter chaos just now. Their lord has come home after five years."
So the Margrave had safely made his return known. And this man had come to so dangerous a place, no doubt, because he had realized that the Margrave's return meant Lee Han's victory.
And yet…
"If I won, I won. Why did you have to come?"
"Celebrating the victory is all well and good, but I came to stop Sir Santa from leaving at once."
"……."
"Do you think I don't know you, Sir Santa? The work was more or less finished, so you would have vanished like the wind. And then I'd be left alone to clean up everything you did in Wales, wouldn't I?"
"…Your instincts really are too sharp."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
This was why a man who was both quick on the uptake and sharp in the head was such a problem. You couldn't even run.
"Simon? Chairman Simon of the Guild Association?"
"Hoo— an honor to meet you, my lord Marquis."
"At last I lay eyes on the man I have heard of in nothing but rumors."
"I am grateful that one so high would take an interest in a nobody from the back alleys…."
"Haha! Who could dismiss the youngest chairman of the Guild Association as a nobody? They say your skill is extraordinary. Barely after you took the chair, you grew the Association some fivefold?"
"…Nothing but a small trick from an unremarkable man."
"Is it, now?"
"……."
Marquis Jenimia's words drew looks of interest. People knew the Guild Association existed, but few had cared how capable the man who led it might be, and the information was fresh to them. Even the duke and the grand duke turned their eyes his way, and Simon was pouring cold sweat like a waterfall when—
"But why is the old maid here?"
"Y-yes?"
As if a saving hand had been offered, Simon's head snapped around, and he answered in a rush.
"Ah, th-that person—when I said I was going to meet Sir Santa, she said she would come along. I think she has business with you…."
"Hm? Did you come in person to get your things back? You didn't need to. I was going to return them any—"
Whoosh!
…He was still getting the rest of the word out when his head whipped backward.
"Oh my. This time you noticed I was here."
"…I'm a little on edge. If I weren't, I nearly would have missed you again."
"Ho ho, I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to tease you. I was only glad to see you."
"Well, that doesn't matter. What brings you to a place this dangerous? If it was the Sacred Relic, I would have given it back anyway."
"That isn't why I came. And I have no intention of taking the Sacred Relic back, either. It has already chosen its master. What would I do with it if I took it?"
"No, something that precious, like you're haggling over secondhand goods—…huh?"
…What was this?
Lee Han felt a sudden wrongness. The camp, unbearably loud only a moment ago, had gone abruptly still.
And what is wrong with those gentlemen now?
Even the elephants had grown strangely docile. Lee Han wondered what on earth was happening, but soon—
"Uh, ma'am. You look a bit younger than the last time I saw you."
"Oho ho, you mustn't say such things to an old woman. Save talk like that for a young lady."
"No, I mean you've actually gotten younger. And also…"
—Why was there light in her eyes, and why were flowers and trees growing along every path the elder had walked?
…How very strange.
According to historians, some thousand years ago the southern continent lived through the most barbaric age of any land. The most lawless ground on the continent, and the one most empty of morals. It was an insulting verdict, but the historical records that proved it were so numerous that the people of the South, however they hated to admit it, had no choice but to swallow the judgment.
And yet, it was said, there had been one person who first taught morality and order to those living through that dark age—and that person was none other than a woman healer. In a time of war, a savage age with no use for morals or order, she treated countless people, man and woman alike. She nearly came to harm at the hands of those she had helped, and she stood at the edge of death more times than could be counted, but in the end she overcame every danger, and it was told that she never once hesitated to spend her whole life on the side of the powerless.
On the day she at last grew old and died, a vast crowd gathered to grieve and to raise a tomb in her honor. But her body was wrapped, in a moment, in light and rose into the sky, and a million people witnessed it. So the histories recorded.
And the people called her this: the first hero of the southern continent who had truly lived; the South's first wielder of Holy Law; the woman healer said to have saved ten million lives; the woman who planted a hundred million trees in a land left with nothing but ash by war; and, unofficially, the one who ascended to heaven at the call of the Light of Radiance.
Light always dwelt in both her eyes, and flowers and grass were said to grow wherever she passed. She was the South's first Saint.
Among the women called saints after the Great Saintess, not one had ever appeared with power great enough to form a Light Source in the eyes, as she had. The hypothesis that drew the widest support was that some special condition had to be met before one could possess a Light Source. One thing, however, was certain: in all the thousand years since, not a single person had wielded Holy Power as mighty as hers.
Not only among saints, but counting holy men as well, she could be nothing less than the greatest of them. Because of that, there was no one living in the South who did not know the legend of the Great Saintess. In a sense, she was the one who had saved their ancestors and made this South abundant. At the very least, no learned person who had never read The Myth of the Great Saintess or A Primer on Healing had any right to call themselves learned.
And so.
"…A Light Source."
"A Saint… th-the Great Saintess has returned."
"O Light of Radiance……."
Thud.
People sank to their knees of their own accord, pressed their hands together, and prayed. It was the return of legend. Anyone who did not tremble at that was no southerner. The Grand Temple might have rotted and burned, but the faithful had not cast aside their belief in the Light of Radiance for that. The knights were not ashamed to bow their heads. The Great Saintess, child of the Radiance, had come again to this land…!
"Live long enough, and a day comes when you meet even a glory such as this."
"The Great Saintess… I thought she was nothing but a legend the temple invented. Hah."
Even the lords of Galahad and Lionel, who would not so much as acknowledge an emperor, could not hide their dismay. In a sense, she was an existence more mysterious than an Aura User.
Every gaze remained fixed on the woman who, in a world without a single point of light, showed the wonder of making grass and trees flourish.
And then—
"The Great Saintess? What's that supposed to be? No, more importantly, ma'am—you were a Saint?"
"When I left the temple on a training journey, I was nothing more than a novice nun who had only just begun. Someone like me could never be a great person such as a Saint."
"…That's not what it looks like. Right now you seem incredibly great."
"Pardon?"
"Look behind you. Behind you."
"…Oh my? Why are there suddenly flowers…?"
"……."
Lee Han watched the elder startle at the flowers and grass that had bloomed behind her, as if she truly hadn't known.
No, what in the—
"Why'd you go and evolve all of a sudden?"
At this rate, ascension. In other words…
She isn't about to rise to heaven in broad daylight, is she?
Lee Han was seriously worried she might just up and leave for the sky.
The encampment was wrapped in shock at the appearance of a Saint—and the Great Saintess, at that—but the elder hardly seemed to care. Or rather, from the start, she herself…
"I am not so great a person. There is no need for any of you to be ill at ease."
She had no awareness of being a Saint at all. Instead she bowed her head and offered courtesy, and for a moment they were horrified.
"P-please, do not do that. I fear heaven's punishment…."
"Saint, do not honor us with your speech. We are nothing but the children of mere humans."
"There is no one in this world to whom you owe courtesy. Most noble of women."
Superhumans who would not so much as blink before an army of a hundred thousand—no, a million—who looked as if they would only snort, were utterly flustered before the woman. She might not yet realize her own station, but she was a Saint with the eyes of the Light Source, the first in a thousand years. However high one's rank, however one might be called a Superhuman, a mere human could not assert station before a child of God. Unless one were a fairy or a land-god, there was likely no one on this earth who could claim to be nobler than she.
And so…
"…You flatter me. Still, I thank you for the kindness. Noble ones."
The woman smiled with gentle eyes and offered them her thanks, and for a moment—
"!!"
Duke Blake's eyes flashed.
"……Hah."
Grand Duke Magnus let out a hollow laugh.
Having given the two lords a gift in nothing but words, she turned her gaze once more to Lee Han.
"Might the two of us speak alone for a moment?"
"…Who am I to refuse?"
"Ho ho."
He hadn't meant to refuse in the first place, but refusing those words now would have made him a wretch fit for the wrath of heaven and earth, so Lee Han bent at the waist in a hurry. She thanked him for the courtesy and climbed onto his back, and in the next instant—
Whoosh!
Like an arrow, they collapsed into a single point and vanished.
Watching this…
"…At this point, I could believe that man really is on familiar terms with the fairies. Wouldn't you agree, Your Highness?"
"I feel the same."
People gazed at the place where Lee Han had vanished and murmured so, unable to hide their bewilderment. As if it were absurd that he had called down a giant who overwhelmed even them.
And then,
"You said your name was Simon?"
"……."
"There is something I wish to know. Let us talk a moment."
"……Yes."
The moment Lee Han was gone, Simon—selected as the next target—answered, and inwardly his face crumpled toward tears.
…I should have just stayed in Wales and worked.
That day, Simon learned he got violently queasy around the high and mighty.