Midterm Evaluation (10)
"Isn't it obvious? The one I serve is none other than Her.."
Ignoring the Saintess as she stood before me expounding on that bastard's greatness, I tried my best to smother the killing intent flaring up inside me. I clenched both fists. My nails bit into my palms, and blood began to seep out. I set my jaw and bore down harder — I could hear my teeth cracking, but I paid it no mind. My heart slammed against my ribs, and it felt as though I could sense the very blood shifting through my veins.
Even as my mind shrieked at me to calm down, my body had already plunged into a state of frenzy, as if it might bolt at any moment. As though she had sensed something amiss with me, the Saintess abandoned her litany of praise and came toward me.
"..You.. what's wrong? Your hand is bleeding.."
Calm holy power flowed into my body. I could feel my bleeding stop, feel new flesh knitting itself over the wounds.
Holy power itself had never repulsed me before. Its source was that bastard, but the ones who wielded it were other people. Of course, some part of me had always flinched at it — but those who used it did so for the sake of helping others, and so I had never paid it much mind.
And yet — I am needed? Because your proxy is in danger? To say it so flatly, as though it were the most natural thing in the world for her to expect my help. The very fact was nauseating.
Even this holy power healing me felt like an extension of that bastard's will rather than the Saintess's. As if I were being patched up for no reason other than that I was still useful.
Goosebumps prickled across my entire body, and a nausea like stomach acid surging back up wrapped around me. I shoved away the Saintess's healing hands and tore the freshly healed skin back open. I slashed, split, and gouged with enough force to rip apart even the sealed vessels beneath. I ignored the searing agony. I ignored the cold blade sinking into my flesh. I wanted to tear every last drop of that fucking energy out of my body. Hoping that the more I bled, the fainter the traces of holy power inside me would grow, I pulled the knife out and drove it in again.
"W-Wait a moment!! Why.. why?!"
Even with the horrified stares boring into me from every side, I didn't care. Once, twice — past five times as I gouged at my arm — until someone seized my wrist. No, to be precise, several someones. I shook off the hands gripping me, and in the instant I moved to sever the arm entirely—
"C-Calm down!!"
"What's gotten into you?! Why are you—!!"
"W-Wait, Jenison!!"
Albert locking both my arms from behind, Lianna clinging to my waist. And before my eyes, the Saintess, healing my wounds yet again. Beyond her I could see the Imperial Princess, face drained white, hands clamped over her mouth, and Isabella rushing toward me with trembling pupils. The murmurs of the cadets watching the blood drip from my hand grew louder and louder. Ordinarily the attention would have made me avert my eyes in discomfort, but right now I had no room in my head to care about any of that.
Holy power seeped into me once more. It made my skin crawl with revulsion.
"Don't!!!"
It was a sound I had let out myself, and yet it was utterly wretched — the cry of a wounded beast howling in its final struggle. The Saintess, hearing at close range the words I barely forced out through a voice shattered and frozen over, went rigid on the spot, and Albert and Lianna, still holding me down, seemed struck dumb as well — I could feel their grip slowly slackening.
"Why.. why.."
Haah... haah...
With the Saintess's mouth still working soundlessly in front of me, I set about cutting off this defiled arm.
Krrk—krrk—
The blade snagged on bone and refused to cut through in a single stroke, but after sawing back and forth a few times, the arm came away — a mangled rag of meat. The pain of grinding bone, shredding muscle, and crushing flesh registered vividly in my arm, and yet, in perfect contrast, my heart felt a rush of exhilaration, of something finally set down.
"KYAAAAAH!!"
"H-His arm!!"
The surroundings erupted into chaos once more, but I paid it no heed and simply created a new arm and let it grow. A dead silence settled over the Saintess and the other cadets who had witnessed the severed limb springing forth.
"Saintess.."
"Y-Yes?!"
She answered with a start, evidently never having imagined I would address her; bewilderment was written plain across her face. A flicker of fear showed through as well, but I set that aside for the moment — there was something I needed to tell her.
"From now on, please do not use holy power on me."
"B-But!!"
"Do not."
She didn't look like she would take no for an answer otherwise, so I glared at her as if I meant to kill her — and only then did she finally seem to tuck her tail.
Once I had calmed somewhat and looked around, I felt every gaze in the place fastened on me again — and in those stares I could read bewilderment, fear, and disgust. I sighed at the eyes that kept boring into me and turned back to the Saintess; bewilderment showed on her face as well. From her own standpoint she had acted out of pure goodwill, so no doubt my behavior made no sense to her whatsoever.
"Saintess."
"...Yes"
"Are you able to speak with Her?"
This was the crucial question. If the Saintess could hold a conversation with that bastard, it meant this world and the divine realm were connected in one way or another. Which meant there was hope I could meet the Goddess — that bastard. I had no idea what I could even do once I met Her, but at the very least I wanted to hear the reason. Why She had done this to me. If I could have, I would have gone at Her with a knife in hand.
"..I cannot reach out to Her of my own accord... it is Her who speaks first, you see.."
"But you can answer Her, can you not?"
"Yes.."
Then that was all I needed. I didn't know the reason, but the Goddess cherished the Saintess, and had judged that She needed me to keep her safe. In other words, if I didn't step forward, she would die. For the first time ever, this was my chance to hold the upper hand in my relationship with that bastard.
"Saintess."
"..?"
"Please deliver a single message to Her."
"..Yes?"
"Tell Her that once this is over, She is to meet with me."
At my words, the Saintess — and every cadet around us — gave me a look that plainly asked what kind of bullshit I thought I was spouting.
"W-Wait just a moment!! Do you understand what that means..!"
"And? What did She say?"
"No!! I'm saying that's..!! ...Yes?"
Apparently, an answer had come. Judging by the hopelessly dumbfounded expression on her face—
"Th-that's... one moment, please.."
"So... what did She say, exactly."
"Sh-She said... She would meet you.."
At that single sentence, every jaw in the place dropped — from Lianna and Albert right behind me to the Imperial Princess and the other cadets standing far off. It was just that earth-shattering. Even the Pope, sovereign of the Church, had never been granted an audience. A being known to exist, and nothing more — that was what a God was. So what did it mean for a commoner like me to meet one? Depending on the interpretation, it could be read as the Goddess holding me in special regard — and in the worst case, that I might be elevated as the Saint. Whoever was chosen as Saint would enjoy benefits so extravagant they might as well be called privileges, but I had no use for a single one of them. The only thing that mattered was getting to meet that bastard.
At her answer, the corners of my mouth tore upward. I must have looked twisted — like some deranged wreck pickled alive in madness.
"..Jenison.. are you okay?"
"Is he okay..?"
Someone had spoken to me as if pitying the mad smile I wore even after severing my own arm. Lianna and Albert, the ones who had asked, looked dead serious — a stark contrast to me, snickering away. I smiled at them once more to say I was fine, and somehow their expressions began to change. No, not just theirs. Everyone's.
"Isabella. Can you use ──?"
"Yeah.. I will."
Albert, who had been studying my face the whole while, whispered something to Isabella, and she began weaving her magic as if in answer. Countless curved and straight mana circuits linked together one after another, and the completed magic circle began to glow blue. In the same instant, sudden fatigue crashed over my body, and my eyelids hung heavy as lead. Some corner of my mind warned that this could be a monster's trap, and I fought it with everything I had — but there was no beating back the oncoming tide of sleep, and little by little, I began to sink under.
"So... what exactly happened here, Saintess?"
"...."
"What did you do to him, to leave Jenison in that state..!"
I don't know!! I keep telling you, I don't know!!
The Saintess, Hildegard, was on the verge of going mad from the injustice of it all. She had truly only meant to heal him!
From the moment she had become Saintess, her purpose had been all but decided for her: the salvation of others. She had believed it the destiny handed down to her — the very reason she had been chosen. And so she had saved countless souls, though there had certainly been some she had no desire to save. A middle-aged man who had raped a girl the age of her own daughter. A young thug who beat children weaker than himself and extorted their money. A shameless woman who abused her own child while carrying on with other men. But they, too, were the Goddess's creatures. Salvation had to be meted out equally — criminal, child, young, or old. She could not discriminate simply because her personal feelings were involved.
So she had healed him as well. And the man had pulled a face as though he were gazing at vomit, then carved open the healed flesh with his own blade. Shocked out of her senses, she had poured holy power into him once more — and he had torn the entire arm off and hurled it to the ground. Then, without warning, a new arm had sprouted from his shoulder, and his face had burned with a staggering fury.
Why? What for? What had she done to make him turn on her like this? He had accepted treatment at the infirmary without the slightest complaint. Even that, she could have borne. It was his next words that were beyond insolent. Meet the Goddess? The One whom not even the Pope — not even she herself — had ever beheld? Nothing in everything he had done until now had shown so much as a speck of faith; if anything, he had seemed to loathe the divine. And a man like that claimed he would meet the One whom even the Church's most devout faithful had never once seen?
The sheer audacity of the request had stunned her for a breath, but she had gathered her wits and moved to rebuke him — to say that insignificant beings such as we could never dare to look upon Her. She had been about to.
[Yes... tell him that I shall.]
If not for the voice that had echoed through her mind. A voice that set the soul soaring at the mere sound of it — the voice every believer dreamed of hearing at least once in their life.
The Goddess had said She would meet that man.
The shock of it had frozen her body solid — and yet her mouth had already been relaying the message to him.
"Sh-She said... She would meet you.."
The instant those words left her lips, the corners of his mouth had begun climbing skyward like a drawn crescent — and she had felt a creeping dread. Because his eyes had not moved in the slightest. Those tearing, upturned lips, set against black pupils as still as a lake with never a ripple — so unnervingly placid she felt she might be dragged under — had chilled her to the bone. A grotesque sensation had crawled up her body, like a broken doll imitating a human being.
And she had not been alone in feeling it; most of the people around her wore the same expression she did. And when his face had twisted into that smile yet again, Lady Isabella — evidently unable to bear the sight any longer — had cast a sleep spell over him. Thus the present situation.
Her head was already bursting at the seams trying to fathom the Goddess's will, and this man arguing in front of her only tangled it further.
"I did nothing, Brother Albert.."
"..Then why did he fly into a fit like that, Saintess?"
Me either!!! I keep telling you, I don't know!!!!!
Unable to hear her soundless wailing, that man sleeping so peacefully became, today of all days, all the more detestable.