Rignil
News spread through the Empire at lightning speed. Words without feet, they say, travel a thousand miles—and only now did I truly grasp what that saying meant. A human favored by the Goddess had appeared.
That single baseless rumor alone was enough to send the Empire into an uproar. After all, the Goddess had never once been known to show favor to anyone. Watching a mere crest stir up this much commotion, I couldn't help but marvel at how well she had managed her image all these years. It was as if an unshakable faith—the kind you'd sooner expect from fanatics—held dominion over this entire country.
Fortunately, the Church had yet to state its position publicly, so most people seemed content to write the whole thing off as nonsense.
"Oh, if it isn't the Holy Son! Hahaha!"
"Good day to you."
Of course, I had revealed my crest openly within the Church, so its members all knew it existed. Some of the faithful had already taken to calling me the Holy Son, and every so often I caught wind of efforts to heap ever more extravagant treatment upon me. Presumably the idea was to make me think that joining the fold wouldn't be such a bad thing. I didn't know who had given the order, but the intent was plain as day.
Which was how I came to be here, now.
"Holy Son, would you care to try this?"
"Hahaha, Holy Son!!"
"Holy So—"
Fuck!! I said I'm not joining!!
If there had been malice, that would be one thing—but there was none to be found in them. And that made it harder to respond. Had they shown real malice, I might simply have killed them where they stood. At the Academy I'd had no proper backing to speak of, but the me of now was different. The Goddess's chosen, killing a few of the faithful? Nothing would come of it. If anything, the fault would lie with those who dared show disrespect to such a person.
Even so, I avoided clashing with others as much as I possibly could. I had lived as an assassin at times, as a mad scientist performing human experiments at others. I had lived as a slave who knew nothing but ceaseless beatings, without a moment's respite. Somewhere along the way, distrust of people and disregard for life had taken deep root in me, growing all on their own. So, judging that this could not go on, I set myself a single rule: I refused to become a murderer who killed whenever the mood struck him. Anyone who didn't touch me first would receive the bare minimum of courtesy. At some point, that became my rule—a minimal code of conduct, kept for my own sake, so that I might get along with the people around me.
Which meant that something like this, I could endure well enough. They bore me no malice. Even if they kept bursting into hymns right in front of me, or held forth on the beauty of the statue carved in the Goddess's likeness, or recited prayers over me with a rosary in hand—there was no malice in any of it, was there? If it was goodwill, then these were acts of goodwill. What's wrong with praising the object of your faith and trying to share it? They knew nothing of the conflict between the Goddess and me, so from where I stood, these were all perfectly forgivable behaviors.
The Saintess was much the same. Her office alone made clear that her faith ran deeper than anyone's, so it was only to be expected that her attitude toward me left something to be desired. So long as that beautiful faith of hers never touched my life, I had no intention of making an enemy of her.
"Ah! Don't sit there!! That's the statue...!"
"You must always be giving thanks to the Goddess..."
"Come, join us for our hour of prayer..."
Of course, from my standpoint she was merely one more tiresome woman, but even as she pestered me like this, not a grain of hostility could be felt in her tone. Which made her utterly different from the man now standing before me.
"Ahem. Holy Son, might I borrow a moment of your time?"
It was the considerably plump bishop who had taken a public scolding from the Pope not long ago. Rignil—that was his name, if I remembered correctly. Either he saw no need to hide his schemes or simply didn't know how, because he approached me with all the subtlety of a charging boar. The greasy aura in his voice seemed to crawl up my whole body, and from the way the corners of his mouth curled upward, he hadn't spared a single thought to the possibility of his plan failing.
"What business do you have with me, Bishop Rignil?"
"Oh! You remember my name. I hardly know where to put myself, heh heh."
How could I forget, when you tried to undermine me in front of everyone like that?
"You left quite the impression. What is it you want with me?"
"Ah, nothing much—I simply wished to have a conversation with you, Holy Son."
He said this with a warm, friendly smile, but to me he looked like a fly rubbing its hands together in fawning flattery.
"What kind of conversation, exactly?"
"Well... you know. A conversation between men, hahaha!!"
"You know what I meaan," he said, jabbing me in the ribs with his elbow—and I very nearly snapped it at the joint. To think a creature like this was a bishop of the Church. That Goddess, and this bishop—the two of them deserved each other perfectly. As if we had ever so much as exchanged a word, he slung an arm around my shoulder without a trace of hesitation, promising to "take me to heaven" tonight and to come collect me once everything was over. A lunatic, through and through.
Perhaps he had been waiting only for my conversations with everyone else to end, because he sidled up to me without ceremony and kept pressing his invitation. Naturally, I found it repulsive. A mouth reeking of food, and hands that had been fondling a woman's flesh mere moments ago—the mere fact that they were anywhere near me was deeply unpleasant. I dodged giving an answer, put distance between us, then wiped the shoulder his hand had touched with a handkerchief and tossed it away. His brow seemed to crease a little as we parted, but what did I care?
"Huh? You dropped this."
"Ah..."
The Saintess, who had somehow ended up behind me, had picked up the handkerchief I'd discarded and now came trotting over to press it back into my hands. I wanted to tell her it was contaminated, but if I explained the whole story, she would only get angry. Something along the lines of: you soiled a handkerchief over that? It was a handkerchief I had no further use for anyway, and since the spot where she'd struck me yesterday still ached, I decided to tease her a little. Meeting the eyes of the girl waving the handkerchief back and forth in front of me, I laid it gently back into her hands.
"A gift for you, Saintess. It suits you well."
"Uh... wh... what?!"
"I do hope it's to your liking."
"Uh... yes?! ...Y-yes..."
For some reason, her face seemed to have gone a little red. Must have been my imagination. I released her hand. Just before our fingers parted, I thought I felt her fingertips cling to mine for an instant—but saying so out loud would only invite misunderstanding. The mere thought of a scandal between the Saintess and the Holy Son circulating through the Church was already making my head throb. I turned to hurry away from the scene, but her voice pulled me back around.
"Ah! The Church will be making an official announcement shortly."
"I'm aware."
"Once that's finished, if you go to see the Pope, you'll be free to return home."
"Must I go see him?"
"He wants to discuss the Church's support."
"I'll present myself as quickly as I can."
Message delivered! And off she trotted again with quick little steps. She walked away with her hands clasped over her heart, as though cradling something precious.
Time slipped by, and before anyone noticed, the Church's announcement was moments from beginning. The entire clergy was bustling about—and the Goddess's own representative was no exception. A woman made her way quietly down the corridor of the great cathedral. Hildegard was feeling terribly restless just then.
So... what exactly is this supposed to mean?
It was all because of the handkerchief—the gift from Jenison, the man who at some point had come to be venerated as the Holy Son within the Church.
I don't believe I've done anything lately that would... warrant a gift...
If anything, her own conduct toward him had been quite the opposite. To be sure, everything she had done had been in keeping with her faith and her convictions—but they were also the sort of acts that would have made anyone short on patience fly into a rage. That was how irreverent Jenison's behavior had seemed in her eyes.
She had crossed paths with people who hated the gods from time to time, but someone like Jenison was a type she had never once encountered. There were those who denied the gods' existence, and those who laid their resentments at the gods' feet—after all, blaming an unhappy life on the gods rather than on oneself was all too easy. If the gods exist, why do these things happen only to me?I despise the god who sets before me trials I cannot overcome. As the Saintess, she came into contact with such open hatred all too often.
But Jenison was somehow different. People describe the gods as beings beyond mortal reach—invisible to our eyes, omniscient and omnipotent. And that is precisely what makes them so easy to blame, so easy to resent. But he did not stand in awe of the gods. No—what he felt was closer to contempt. Every time she laid eyes on him, he was doing, without the slightest hesitation, things that would have made any other believer collapse in shock. And what unsettled her most was that none of it seemed deliberate. She found herself wondering whether the Goddess's statue was, in his eyes, nothing more than a chair. He sat upon it so naturally that not even a flicker of hesitation remained.
"I really must give him another warning one of these days..."
"Saintess."
"Hm? What is it, Bishop Rignil?"
"Ha ha, there is something I wished to discuss with you..."
Bishop Rignil, appearing from who knew where, was—for some reason—beading with sweat, one drop at a time.
"Is something the matter? You're perspiring..."
"Ha ha... I suppose it's nerves."
"...Well, this announcement is a grand occasion, after all."
"Th...that it is."
Though the Saintess had raised it precisely to put him at ease, his eyes trembled with an unnameable anxiety—and those eyes were fixed not on her, but on the space just behind her.
Then, in an instant, a shadow materialized behind her and sealed her mouth with something, while a second shadow clamped an unidentified bracelet around her arm.
"Mm... mmph?!"
"...."
Caught in the sudden ambush, the Saintess lost consciousness without even a chance to resist. As her eyes slid gently shut, the last sight they captured was Rignil rushing toward the shadows—toward them, not toward her—shrieking at the top of his lungs.