Cotton Candy and the Saintess
After disguising ourselves as a priest from the Cotton Candy Order and his accompanying attendants, Lily and I strolled leisurely through the city, sharing all the stories we hadn’t been able to tell each other before. I spoke about what I had done and how I had lived after sending my disciples down the mountain. How one day had passed like this, and another like that. They were truly dull tales, lacking any real fun or emotion—just plain boring. Yet even so, Lily listened with a bright smile, nodding her small head in encouragement.
“Let’s put aside this boring master’s even more boring stories for now. It’s your turn. I want to hear about you.”
“Ah… shall I?”
At first, Lily spoke a little about herself. But perhaps she had noticed that I was also curious about the others. She quickly changed direction and began telling me things I hadn’t heard through letters—stories that were partly trivial and partly worrisome. Still, most of them were things I could simply laugh off. A few, however, were impossible for me not to worry about.
“Garam and Jenia blew up an entire forest?”
The most shocking news was, of course, the fight between Garam and Jenia. They themselves claimed it had been nothing more than a light quarrel. But what kind of light quarrel results in an entire forest being wiped off the map?
“No, seriously—why on earth were they fighting?”
“It really wasn’t anything serious. According to the people who were nearby, they happened to run into each other, and Garam apparently told Jenia that she looked like she had gained a little weight.”
“…And?”
“That was it.”
“That was the end of it?”
“Yes.”
“And they started fighting right after?”
“Yes.”
…My head hurts.
Garam and Jenia. I had told them so many times. Yet here they were, unable to hold back again and bickering like always.
“That’s strange. Garam never said anything like that to me. They had such a huge fight, but she didn’t breathe a word of it? Those two, I swear…”
“There’s a reason for that. Luckily, the very next day they made up right away.”
“Made up? Garam and Jenia made up? The day after they fought? Not next month?”
Is the sun going to rise in the west now? Garam and Jenia, whose growling at each other was practically a daily ritual, had reconciled immediately after a fight. When I thought back to the days I taught those two—when there wasn’t a single day I didn’t have to stop their fights—and remembered how they would stubbornly keep their mouths shut until I forced them to apologize… Lily’s words were genuinely hard to believe.
“It’s because things aren’t the same as before, when they were simply your disciples. Garam is the Sword Hero, and Jenia is the Spear Hero. They realized that if word got out that their relationship had soured, it could cause problems outside our circle.”
“…I see. They’ve both grown up a lot. That kind of thing would have been impossible in the past.”
My first disciple, Garam, and my second disciple, Jenia Violet. Unlike the others, whose arrivals were separated by anywhere from several months to several years, those two had become my disciples exactly one month apart. Because of that, while the rest of the disciples had a clear hierarchy, those two fought like twins or siblings born in the same year—constantly, fiercely, and without end. Whether it was because of that closeness or because they simply didn’t get along, they gave me endless headaches with their daily squabbles. It got so bad that I had even warned them, “The two of you must never turn on each other.”
It looked like I would need to give them a stern warning again when I saw them next. Thinking about what lay ahead, even the smallest crack could become dangerous.
“What about the youngest? No, the seventh—what has she been up to?”
I quickly changed the subject and thought of the disciple who had been gloomy from the very first meeting. She had held the position of youngest before Iris joined us, and in the game she had been the assassin character I picked before Iris. A disciple unmatched in stealth.
“Ester? She’s the same as always. She works alone, without anyone around her. It seems she mostly investigates sewers and back alleys that other people avoid. The letters she sends are always short and to the point, too.”
“That does sound like her. I told her to live a little brighter before I sent her down, though.”
“She’s gotten better lately—she even talks to people now. At first, she wouldn’t say a single word even when you met her, you know?”
It probably wasn’t that she wouldn’t speak; more likely she couldn’t. She was extremely shy and painfully passive. Considering her past, the fact that she had improved this much was actually a relief. Still, she was so withdrawn that I had worried whether she could even manage daily life. Yet strangely enough, once she stepped onto the battlefield, she became a cold-blooded assassin without a drop of blood or tears. Anyway, the game really had captured each character’s personality perfectly. If only it hadn’t been so shameless about pushing in-game purchases and treating its users like pigs.
“Master. And this is something I experienced while on pilgrimage this time…”
Lily chattered away with a big smile on her face, completely absorbed. In front of the people from her order who followed her, she always showed the most dignified and noble appearance. But in front of me, she revealed her true self without reservation.
While I was listening intently to Lily’s stories, a certain shop up ahead caught my eye.
“…Ah, Lily. Wait here a moment.”
“Yes?”
“Stay right here for a bit.”
I wondered if anyone in the order could even imagine it. Their spiritual pillar, the very proof that a god existed, the being who was light itself—the Saintess, the Divine Hero. That she actually loved snacks and sweets more than anyone.
“Here.”
“This… is what you went to buy?”
“How could I forget how much you love these? Whenever we went down to the city, your eyes would stay glued to them. I ended up buying them for you several times, remember?”
What I held out to Lily was none other than cotton candy. Among all the snacks she loved, this was her absolute favorite. The moment she held one in her hand, she would break into such a happy smile. There were times I bought it on purpose just to see that smile.
“…”
“Ever since you began working as the Divine Hero in earnest and started being called the Saintess, receiving everyone’s attention… it must have been hard to eat things like this. Am I wrong?”
“…You’re right. All this time, I could only look at them from afar…”
How long it had been, and how much she had longed for it—Lily’s expression as she gazed at the cotton candy grew wistful. I quickly placed not one but two cotton candies into her hands, one in each.
Lily stared back and forth at the cotton candies in her hands as if she couldn’t believe it.
“It feels like… almost three years since I last had one.”
“It’s been that long?”
“Yes. Actually… after I left your side and came down the mountain, I haven’t eaten it even once.”
At her words, a stupid “Huh?” slipped out of me before I could stop it. I knew better than anyone how crazy she was about cotton candy. And she had gone three whole years without it? That was genuinely impressive. Or else it meant there was some serious problem. If I had to compare it, it would be like King Sejong giving up meat.
“You were holding back that much? There was no need to go that far just because you’re the Saintess…”
“Of course that was part of it. It felt a little embarrassing for the Saintess, the Divine Hero, to be grinning like an idiot over cotton candy. But the real reason is… well… if I tell you honestly… you won’t laugh, right?”
The request not to laugh. When I nodded, Lily glanced around nervously before speaking.
“Actually… I missed the cotton candy you used to buy for me too much.”
“Hm?”
“I do like cotton candy, but… I like the cotton candy you gave me more than any other.”
“Wait… so you didn’t eat any for three years because it wasn’t the kind I bought you?”
“Well… yeah. That does sound a bit weird when I say it out loud, doesn’t it?”
A sigh escaped me. I shook my head and urged Lily to eat quickly, to take a bite. I knew better than anyone how much she loved cotton candy, yet this kid had refused to eat any because it wasn’t from me. Now that I thought about it, the very first thing I had ever given her was cotton candy.
I had known that Lily’s character setting included a love for snacks. But I hadn’t known exactly which snacks. So I chose cotton candy—the one that would stand out the most, feel the most magical, and at the same time be incredibly sweet and soft.
“Eat. No one’s watching, so enjoy it to your heart’s content, Lily. If you finish those, I’ll buy you more.”
“Really?”
“Yes. So eat up. Ha, seriously. I was worried you might get so addicted to cotton candy that you’d flail around without me, or that you’d eat nothing but cotton candy for every meal.”
“At first, I really did plan to do that. Because while you were with me, I never got to eat as much as I wanted. So I was going to devour it as soon as I could… but it just didn’t taste good unless it was the cotton candy you bought me.”
Having said that, Lily couldn’t hold back any longer. She hurriedly tore off a piece of cotton candy and put it in her mouth. Soon her expression brightened as the melting texture reached her.
“…This is the taste. Sweet, but with another kind of sweetness added on top.”
“I didn’t add anything. It’s just regular cotton candy you can buy anywhere.”
“To me, this is the most different, and the most precious.”
So saying, Lily put another piece of cotton candy into her mouth. Watching the sugar threads melt and disappear in an instant, I suddenly thought that this kid really was peculiar in the strangest ways.
I watched Lily munch happily on her cotton candy for a long time. To others she was the revered Saintess and Divine Hero, but to me she was still just the disciple I had raised.
“Master. There’s one thing I’d like to ask you.”
“Go ahead.”
“That woman who was next to you earlier.”
“You mean Iris? You’re probably thinking the right thing. She’s the youngest.”
“I thought so… She was sticking so close to you and eyeing me warily. So she was the new disciple you took in.”
“That’s right. Unlike the rest of you, though, she’s a terribly frustrating disciple who just can’t seem to follow my teachings.”
“She can’t follow your teachings? That’s strange. You’re not someone who can’t teach, Master.”
Lily kept tilting her head in confusion. From Garam all the way to Ester, every one of them had grown splendidly under my guidance. Of course, that was only natural since they had been born with the fate of Heroes, and because I knew their individual traits down to the finest detail. But Lily, who knew none of that, could only mutter that it was odd.
“I even took her to see my own master, and still no progress.”
“Even Grandmaster? Um… then doesn’t that mean the problem is quite serious?”
If even Lily was saying that, then there really was a problem. Iris, you damn disciple. Your senior is worrying about you this much. Can’t you at least achieve greatness now and ease this master’s worries a little?