Imprint (2)
Cult Hereticus had been born bearing the destiny of a Prophet.
From the very moment of his birth, he could clearly see and perceive what lay ahead for him. Yet ironically, he had been forced to spend more than half his life engulfed in total darkness. A young child's mortal frame was far too frail to withstand the staggering divinity dwelling within him. Thus, until relatively recently, Cult had remained entirely blind to the world—the very reason his closest friend, Dietrich, had always believed him to be sightless.
Because of that, Cult had never seen the faces of the parents who abandoned him. He did not know what expressions they wore when they cast him away in that desolate corner of the city. He remembered the moment he was left behind, and he remembered the trembling voice whispering an apology, but...
I never saw their faces. I will never know if their apology was sincere.
He could never fathom their true heart.
Unable to see even an inch ahead of him, let alone peer into the future, young Cult was discarded. Incapable of properly bearing that vast divinity, his body was frailer than that of an ordinary mortal child; he was left there to slowly wither away, gnawed at by freezing flagstones and a biting, flesh-shearing wind.
Yet Cult survived. His life was saved by the hands of other children.
"This is our turf. Hey, you're a new face, aren't you?"
That had been Cult and Dietrich's first encounter. Back then, Dietrich had been somewhat rough and rebellious, but the innate goodness of his heart had never wavered, not even once.
"Wait, you can't see? Ah, damn it all... Guess we've got another mouth to feed."
And just like that, Cult was taken in by Dietrich's ragtag pack. Like Cult, Dietrich was an orphan discarded in the back alleys, yet he possessed strength and a sense of responsibility rivaling that of any grown adult. He was the leader of the abandoned.
Cast out and forsaken by all the world, they forged a family among themselves in that squalor. They begged from passing strangers, while Dietrich ventured far out into the wilderness to hunt game in the forests. Rough as it was, they scraped by and truly lived. They were perpetually starving, defenseless against the biting frost and the sweltering heat, but whenever the children huddled together to talk, bursts of laughter never failed to ring out.
They were happy. Yes, even in a life like that, Cult believed they were genuinely happy. Even in such a desolate, barren corner of the world, people could lean on one another and survive. Cult believed that with all his heart.
Yet the world was never kind to the forsaken.
It happened on an ordinary day. A day when the summer heat hung unusually heavy in the air.
"Run—"
"Charon!!"
The pack was ambushed by grown men. Their only reason: wandering the back alleys in a ragged bunch looked unsightly to noble eyes.
Charon, one of the children in Dietrich's circle, was the first whose neck was snapped like a dry twig. Enraged, Asher lunged forward, only to collapse with a blade driven straight through his heart.
And in that very instant, Cult, who had perceived the world only through an eternity of darkness, opened his eyes.
"Ah..."
On that day, the bird broke out of its shell, bursting forth from the dark, and beheld the world. Through the deaths of his friends, he learned what the world truly was. The moment he witnessed that hideous, horrifyingly distorted world, the Prophet understood.
"So... this is what the world is."
Strangely, he felt no rage. Nor was there any surge of sorrow. Cult simply accepted it with detached calm.
Why at that exact moment? Why of all times had Cult been granted sight then? What message was God trying to impart to him?
There is no such thing.
Nothing was predestined or set in stone. God had merely posed a question: This is the world. What do you think of it?
To young Cult, the world had still seemed warm. Yet the world reflected in the newly opened eyes of the Prophet was unimaginably cruel. And so, the Prophet, Cult Hereticus, gave a radical answer to God's silent inquiry.
"This world is fundamentally flawed at its very roots."
Cult, who had lived a humble life alongside the abandoned children of the slums, leapt into the wider world from that very second. And having lost his companions, the very first place he directed his steps was the Ereticus Marquisate.
Cult recounted his past life to Helena once she opened her eyes. It was an unnecessary explanation. Helena needed only to live as her pure, untainted self. There was no reason for her to learn of the world's ugliness, nor any need for him to expose his own warped ideology.
Why, then? Why had Cult laid bare his life to her?
Perhaps it was out of pity. Perhaps it was nothing more than the rambling laments of a boy who already foresaw his inevitable end. Or perhaps it was a petty excuse to ease his lingering guilt.
To this, Helena replied:
"Still, it wasn't as if you had no happy moments at all."
In her ever-innocent voice, she spoke of the beauty of the world. Watching her, Cult found himself offering a faint, unintentional smile.
"Your friends never changed, did they, Brother? Weren't they your friends until the very end?"
"They were."
"Then why do you insist on looking only at the ugly side of the world? Weren't the times you spent together filled with happiness?"
"Helena, that is where you are mistaken. I have never once forgotten those moments."
Cult unraveled the bandages that concealed his eyes. Irises the color of the clear blue sky gazed directly at Helena. And in doing so, Cult met eyes that held the exact same hue as his own.
The Holy Relic God had prepared for Cult. A girl who, unlike him, strove to see the beauty within this world.
To this girl who was so much more mature than himself, the young Prophet spoke.
"It is precisely because I know what beauty looks like that the ugliness stands out so starkly to me."
"..."
"The word 'misfortune' exists only for comparison."
Because happy people exist, there are those who feel miserable in contrast. There are those who plunge others into despair simply to secure their own happiness. And there are those who take pure pleasure in another's suffering.
"And all of that exists because we are beings born of deficiency."
Cult wanted to dismantle that very framework. He wished to build a flawless Paradise where even the distinction between good and evil would become obsolete. For that to happen, humans had to become entirely complete beings in their own right.
"...So you've already made up your mind, Brother."
"Are you disappointed?"
"No. But... Brother." Facing his stubborn petulance, Helena looked back with serene eyes. A steadfast gaze that seemed to pierce right through him, as though she understood everything. "Then what is it that you're hesitating over right now?"
"..."
Cult could not utter a single word in reply. Because just as Helena said, he was hesitating.
"I wonder." Cult offered a dry, self-deprecating chuckle.
There was still time. A little while remained before Helena fully awakened as a Holy Relic. He merely needed to steel his resolve before that moment arrived. Yet the fact that he still needed to steel himself for a decision he had already made meant...
"I suppose, in the end, I'm only human after all."
Cult turned and fled the room. Helena merely watched the empty space where he had stood.
At the Robinhood estate.
Yuna and I had come to ask Emily for a favor, but somehow we found ourselves trapped in an impromptu card game—Old Maid, to be exact.
By its very nature, a game of Old Maid tends to foster one of two atmospheres. Either people laugh and chat amicably while trying to guess one another's cards, or everyone glares at each other's hands in deadly serious contemplation. Unfortunately, our table fell squarely into the latter category.
Emily was a girl of few words to begin with, so she stayed silent. Yuna maintained her trademark unchanging poker smile. And I was struck dumb purely because the suffocating silence was driving me up the wall.
"I think this is fun."
"Huh?"
In the midst of that suffocating quiet, as our hands grew smaller and smaller, Emily smiled bashfully and broke the silence. Fun? To me, this just feels like an assembly line manufacturing misery.
"I had no idea Old Maid was such a thrilling game."
"...In what universe?"
"The fact that you can't deduce someone's hand through their facial expressions. It's truly fascinating."
"???"
Emily stated the obvious as if she had just experienced a grand epiphany. She then displayed the Joker she had just drawn from Yuna's hand. Since Yuna's poker face was impenetrable, Emily apparently hadn't anticipated drawing the trap until her fingers touched the card.
"Whenever I play with Oppa or Master, their faces completely give away what cards they're holding. I thought that was just how everyone played."
"Well... that makes total sense."
Stan might be a cold, calculating sniper on duty, but in front of his little sister, he was utterly helpless. And naturally, Koron Reckias, who doted on Emily like a daughter, would be just as transparent.
"Until now, I always believed Old Maid was a game where I could decide whether I won or lost on a whim."
"..."
"Turns out I was wrong!"
Emily's face showed genuine, unmistakable wonder. This was the most emotionally expressive she had been since the day I somehow managed to save Koron Reckias. Is playing card games without your doting family really on the same level as saving your master's life? Or was saving her master actually just that trivial to her?
"I feel like a bird breaking out of its egg and beholding an entirely new world."
"Well, I'm glad you're having fun... Yohan, I kind of feel sorry for her."
"Emily just didn't know any better. Stop pitying people for no reason."
Even Yuna, who had looked mildly peeved a moment ago, sounded genuinely sympathetic. After that, the stiff atmosphere softened considerably. Yet I found myself somewhat struck by her unexpected turn of phrase. It wasn't that her statement itself was profound.
"A bird breaking out of its egg, huh..."
It was just that her metaphor was eerily coincidental given the present state of affairs. What did they call it again? The imprinting effect? They say a hatchling recognizes the very first thing it sees upon cracking out of its egg as its parent. In the same vein, whatever that bird witnesses the moment it hatches will shape its entire perspective of the world. How could someone ever shake off a worldview that had been branded into their mind like that?
The answer was simple.
"Hey, Yuna."
"Yeah?"
"You know, there's actually a Joker in my hand right now too. So how on earth did Emily just draw one from you?"
"There's normally two Jokers in a deck."
"We took one out before we started."
"Puhihi! Just a harmless little prank."
Even a bird that has broken free of its shell cannot claim to understand the whole world. Breaking the egg was, after all, merely a metaphor.
"Well, that certainly opened my eyes..."
All you have to do is make them break through the shell a second time. Of course, that was far easier said than done, but...
"Redeal the deck, you little cheat."
A chance doesn't only come once.
After leaving the Robinhood estate, Yuna and I walked down the streets bathed in the golden hues of the setting sun. Time had flown by. By the time we made it back to the Cradle, it would likely be late into the night.
"Hey, Yohan."
"Yeah?"
"We've got a tail."
"Is that so?"
I wasn't particularly surprised. Not because I had anticipated being followed, but because whenever I wandered outside, trouble had a knack for finding me, so I had learned to just accept it. Say what you will, but I supposed I had thoroughly assimilated into the Cradle's twisted mindset.
"Are they strong?"
"Weaker than me."
"Hostile toward us?"
"Hmm... doesn't seem like it. But the situation is a bit peculiar."
"Oh? What's going on?"
"It's someone we know. Speak of the devil, there they are. Can you tell who it is, Yohan?"
I came to a halt. Just as Yuna said, a figure stepped into view right in front of us. Draped in a black hood, they were relatively petite. The deep hood shadowed their face from immediate view, but I could vaguely tell who was standing there.
"It's been a while. I never expected we'd meet again like this."
"You're..."
A sinister aura of death, and a familiar voice.
"...Jesse, was it?"
"It's Melana."
"I knew that. Just cracking a joke to lighten the mood."
"..."
Right, her name was Melana.
Melana. Now I remembered clearly. The agitator from Class F and a mole planted in the Cradle by Under Chain. She had tried to kill me, only to get thoroughly dismantled by Ariel, before being scooped up and spirited away at the end by... what was his name again? Right, that guy who received power from Cult.
To be fair, chronologically speaking, it hadn't actually been that long ago. But given the sheer density of madness I had lived through since then, forgetting her name was practically an occupational hazard. Besides, those two had derailed wildly from the original storyline. And in doing so, they had flung open the gates to my endless suffering.
Should I kill this b—no, let's hear her out first.
For a split second, my petty grudge flared up and nearly dictated my judgment, but I held it in. Much as my instincts screamed to have her erased, I wasn't the one who would actually execute the kill—Yuna was. I couldn't just order a murder over personal spite.
"I'd imagine you're plenty busy running for your lives right now. What business do you have with me?"
A duo of traitors being hunted by both Under Chain and Eden had gone out of their way to track me down. There had to be a damn good reason.
Thud.
Without warning, Melana dropped straight to her knees.
"Jeff was captured by Eden. Please... I'm begging you. Please save Jeff."
"If that's what you want, aren't you asking the wrong guy...?"
I mean, it's not like I'm turning you down outright, but shouldn't you be begging heavy hitters like the Princess or Ariel for something like that? All I know how to do is stir up trouble and con people!