Reunion (1)
“...Celia.”
The name had barely touched Raul’s tongue before he realized he had already spoken it.
At once, a dozen emotions surged up through him, and his mind began to race as quickly as it always did when battle was about to begin.
How was she here?
He couldn’t feel even the faintest trace of any other divine presence nearby.
Then was she alone?
No. Just as there were powers that concealed miasma, Exeria also had relics that could hide divinity.
So she had one of those relics?
Was this an opportunity?
Or a trap?
Where was the Saint Pursuit Squad?
Since when had Celia become this skilled at moving in secret?
Had she trained separately?
Was she really still the same woman Raul knew?
Confusion, tension, joy, and doubt all took hold of his mind at once.
Then, soft skin covered the hand Raul had awkwardly raised.
“Raul.”
She enclosed his hand in both of hers and looked up at him with amber eyes.
“There’s no Saint Pursuit Squad. I’m alone.”
Only then did Celia come fully into focus before him.
She was still looking at him with that beautiful smile.
“...How?”
Raul asked in a drier tone than even he had expected.
For a moment, she looked painfully lonely, then she said, “You called for me. So I slipped away from them.”
As she spoke, she tugged at the necklace hidden beneath her clothes, and at the end of the long silver chain, he saw the identification tag firmly fastened there.
It was the Silver Bullet tag.
The very same as his own.
“You left the Holy Knights and came here by yourself?”
“You left me and went off alone, didn’t you?”
It was a reply that stole his words.
Only then did Raul notice the single pearl-like tear clinging to her large, sparkling eyes.
Had she always been this emotional?
No, she definitely hadn’t.
What had changed that cold, doll-like woman so much...?
...Was it me?
All at once, Raul felt as if his chest had filled with lead and oxidized iron.
Then Celia spoke again.
“I have a lot I want to ask you. But I should confirm it properly first.”
“...Confirm what?”
“Draw your sword, Raul.”
When Raul frowned at the sudden request, she lightly wiped away her tears and lifted the blunt weapon wrapped in cloth that she had set beneath the chair.
Golden light burst from the tips of her fingers.
“Master.”
Without warning, she flicked a gold coin into the air.
In this tavern, a single gold coin meant only one thing.
Repair costs.
Whoosh-!
“What, is the pretty lady finally going to throw down?”
“It’s been ages since the arena saw action!”
“Hey, Master! I’m betting everything on the holy knight lady!”
The adventurers and mercenaries around them turned their attention here at once.
From the way they were talking, it seemed Celia had not been seated in this tavern for just a day or two.
“...So she’s been holed up in this place ever since she came to Fatal.”
“You told me yourself: start with places where the foot traffic is heavy and the alcohol flows freely. Raul.”
Raul looked at Celia, whose eyes had already gone cold and dry, with none of the moisture from before, and said, “Did it really have to be like this?”
“I need to confirm something.”
“What?”
Raul never got an answer.
What came back instead was a hammer flashing with blinding gold.
Whoooosh-!
Crack!
The holy knight’s blunt weapon, flying like a streak of light, pulverized the chair Raul had been sitting on.
Srrrk-
Realizing she meant it, Raul drew the Sun King’s sword without delay.
At that instant, a massive shock rolled through his entire body.
Bang-!
And yet he still managed to block the blunt weapon as it came in on a curve.
Raul read the follow-up trajectory of the hammer in a single glance and kicked off the floor.
The wooden planks shattered as he drove the sword forward and forced back the hammer meeting it head-on.
But at the same time, golden light rose from Celia’s entire body like an active volcano.
It was Motala’s authority.
Celia’s physical abilities shifted in an instant.
Her thin, pale arms produced power more astonishing than Raul’s thick, muscular ones.
Rrrrkkk-!
This time it was Raul who was shoved backward, grinding the floorboards beneath him.
Her growth was truly remarkable, but unfortunately, a Saint could not be defeated one-on-one by a priest unless the heavens themselves came crashing down.
The Wisdom of the Founder responded!
You have witnessed a miracle of justice. Would you like to acquire the corresponding authority?
Holy authority acquired: Holy Weapon [Lv. 8], Holy Armor [Lv. 9].
Raul accepted the message floating before his eyes and immediately drew up the radiance of the Halo.
Fwoosh-!
Flames rose from his shoulders and wrapped all the way around the Sun King’s sword.
“...!”
Celia’s eyes flew wide at the sight.
But it was already too late.
Raul swung the blade, manifesting the Lv. 8 Holy Weapon, a power of Motala on an entirely different level than anything before.
The sword felt feather-light.
In a world that had slowed to a crawl, a single swing left three separate trails.
The afterimages of his blade carved across the air as blindingly white streaks of falling meteors.
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-!
A hammer that had suddenly accelerated beyond all reason had no hope of catching up.
The seam where the hammer’s head met the shaft.
Thirty strikes of searing force hammered precisely into that short, delicate gap.
The steel hammer, once wrapped in gold light, broke apart with absurd ease.
Thud-!
At the same time, Raul punched the back of Celia’s hand hard enough to make her lose the haft she was still gripping, then threw the sword into the air and pressed both her shoulders down.
Thwap- whoosh-!
She was forced onto the tavern floor, and Raul caught the sword he had tossed up and held it to her head once more.
Only then did the mercenaries, who had been standing with their mouths hanging open like dislocated jaws, seem to remember how to breathe.
“W-what...”
“What the hell just happened?”
“I-I didn’t even see that guy’s sword move!”
“He was pushing the lady back, then suddenly the whole fight turned around, and then... now she’s on the floor?”
“W-why is the hammer broken too? Wasn’t that Motala’s hammer?”
“Damn it, what the hell happened?”
Raul kept the sword pointed at Celia’s face for several seconds.
When it became clear the commotion around them was not going to die down on its own, he finally spoke without changing his posture.
“So... what exactly were you trying to confirm?”
“If you were really Raul, there was no way you’d be weaker than me.”
“...And if I’d lost?”
“I would have smashed your head in. Then I would have gone after the real Raul again.”
The white-haired woman delivered that terrifying statement without a hint of expression.
Raul stared at her with a look that was part disbelief, part exhaustion.
She had tried to decide whether he was real or fake based on whether he was stronger than her?
And not just anyone, but a genius holy knight who had awakened divinity and authority through her own strength?
He was still processing her answer when he finally managed to speak again.
“Anyway. So what’s the result?”
Then, ignoring even the blade still aimed at the center of her forehead, Celia pushed herself upright.
She did it without even drawing up the holy power of a holy knight.
She must have been certain Raul would not harm her.
As Raul reluctantly lowered the Sun King’s sword, Celia leaned close enough that her face was almost touching his.
And in the next instant, her lips pressed against his.
It was not only the adventurers and mercenaries crowding around them who were stunned by the sudden move.
Celia continued the kiss with unmistakable affection, then finally pulled away, breathing hotly.
Her face was flushed as she gave him a breathtaking smile.
“It’s been a while, Raul.”
Her lips carried the sweet scent of flowers.
***
The arena ended before a proper bet could even be placed.
And yet not a single person there had the nerve to complain.
Leaving behind the spectators who looked as if they were the first slaves ever to touch gold coins, Raul headed to the third floor of the tavern called Eat Money, Eat Money.
It was a tavern, not an inn, so the lodging was expensive, but Celia said it did not matter.
“I asked whether I should bring Motala’s donation box or simply take a room. They gave me a room.”
“...That’s called extortion.”
“A contribution born of generosity. I’ve also prayed sincerely for the past few days, so it’s fine.”
She glanced at Raul, who was following behind her, and grinned.
Maybe it was because she had been spending time with Motala’s hard-drinking devotees, who were notorious across the continent for shamelessness.
She had grown a lot bolder since he had last seen her.
Once they reached the room and Celia locked the latch, she spoke.
“Now. No one can hear us here. You can tell me, can’t you? Why did our saint, who always ran away the moment I tried to get close, call for me using the name ‘Silver Bullet’?”
Raul gave a faint smile at Celia’s habit of getting straight to the point.
Not because it was funny, but because he felt a grief too hard to name and a trace of nostalgia brushing the bridge of his nose.
“This.”
Raul immediately took the purple potion from his coat.
He told her everything he knew about the spider queen in Coyad and the mysterious secret organization called Exceed.
“...It’s hard to believe. A potion that interferes between a god’s grace and a faithful warrior’s faith?”
She said that with a slight furrow in her brow, but a serious line of thought was already visible on her face.
“And yet I can’t just dismiss it either. The materials are oddly convincing.”
“The spinal fluid of priests?”
“Yes. Apparently, the solitary priests who remained in the western front over the past several decades all disappeared without leaving behind a single body.”
No body.
In other words, it was possible they had not simply been killed, but abducted alive.
“Demons have spread, priests have vanished. And then a drug made from the two appears...”
Celia seemed deep in thought now, tapping her index finger against the back of her hand as she narrowed her brow.
It was a habit unchanged from the past, and a faint smile naturally touched Raul’s lips.
Then Celia tucked the purple potion into her arms and said, “Thank you. Honestly, I’d never even imagined something that could interfere with authority. It’s genuinely shocking.”
“...I didn’t give that to you.”
“If I take it with me, I can hand it over to the main cathedral. And aren’t you curious about what’s inside?”
“Well. I am curious.”
“Good. I’ll take responsibility and figure it out. Give me one.”
Her skill at shaking people down was impressive.
Raul remembered that he had never once beaten her in an argument and immediately let go of any lingering attachment.
There were four more purple potions besides this one anyway.
“Raul.”
Then Celia called his name.
“Can I ask how you’ve been?”
“Was there anything my eyes could have missed?”
“...Not what you saw. I want to hear Raul’s voice. Raul’s story.”
Celia said that with a face that somehow looked sad again.
Raul turned toward the broad window in the room.
The dark clouds that had gathered had already swallowed the crimson sunset.
Beneath it, the white snow beginning to fall once more looked so much like the Celia before him that it became a key turning an old memory over in its lock.
“...By chance, I ran into the famous Jacot Merchant Guild in the central continent.”
Raul told her calmly, and in no hurry at all, about what he had eaten, whom he had met, what he had talked about, and how he had been dragged into one thing after another until he finally ended up where he was now.
It would have been an unbearably dull story to anyone else.
But Celia listened all the way through.
Whether or not her earlier words had been sincere, she wore a genuinely happy smile as she listened.
Then, suddenly, Raul stopped speaking and looked into her amber eyes.
“...Aren’t you going to ask?”
“Ask what?”
“Why I left without saying a word.”
No one had ever decided such a thing, but the words felt almost taboo as soon as they were spoken, and Celia’s gaze trembled for a moment.
But then she smiled and said, “I went through proper Motala instruction, and I understood. You were the Saint of the End they speak of in the Three Great Churches.”
“The Saint of the End...”
So that was how they were twisting the Saint of the Beginning.
He had expected as much, but hearing it directly still felt strange.
“And yet you don’t oppose me?”
Raul asked carefully, and Celia answered with a soft, crescent-shaped smile.
“No. I thought that teaching was wrong.”
“...Wrong?”
“Yes. It’s strange, isn’t it? Everyone says the reincarnated saint is the one who will bring the Demon Lords to Exeria. But the Raul I know was never that kind of person.”
“Then why did you become one of the Saint Pursuit Squad?”
Raul’s tone came out drier than he intended.
But her expression remained calm.
“My eyes are suited to tracking, and I was on a team with someone suspected of being the reincarnated saint, of course. But personally, I thought if I stayed in the pursuit squad, I might be able to see you again.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
And now, here we are again, aren’t we?
She added those words softly, smiling as she did.
Raul had never imagined he would be receiving such direct, overflowing affection from her, so he froze for a moment, visibly flustered.
Then Celia, who had been sitting on the bed, moved close and rested her head against Raul’s shoulder.
“But unfortunately, the other holy knights in the pursuit squad don’t feel the same way. They honestly believe you’ll bring about Exeria’s end.”
“As for them... well, I never expected much in the first place.”
For an ordinary holy knight, the Scripture of Justice was a window through which the world was seen, and a truth in itself.
They would never doubt the contents of the scripture, even if the sky split in two.
Not from Motala, the people’s own iron hammers, anyway; they would never bend their convictions.
Celia was the same.
Because she believed Raul was not a wicked man, she had become the kind of holy knight who trusted him even when the scripture said otherwise.
“Thank you.”
Raul sincerely thanked her for believing in him with her own convictions.
“It’s nothing.”
It was late.
Outside the window, where twilight had once fallen, night had already come, and not even the insects were calling anymore. Raul continued speaking with Celia for a long time, almost as if he had returned to the days when he traveled as Silver Bullet, until at last he stood up.
Celia, who had opened her eyes roundly, asked, “Why?”
“I should get going.”
He had said it before. He was traveling with a royal I wanted to introduce to you.
“Do you really have to leave right now?”
“This city has plenty of people who’ll do anything for money. Just in case.”
The moment Raul, having gathered up all his things, was about to say goodbye and tell her they’d meet again, a slender hand seized the sleeve of his turned back.
“Celia?”
Before the questioning Raul, she lifted her gaze with a flushed face unlike any he had seen before.
Then she looked away in apparent embarrassment.
After swallowing once, she said, “Can’t you stay?”
The room filled with a strangely heated air.
Something sticky and hot seemed to be spilling from her eyes.
Raul had missed things before, but when the meaning was laid out this plainly, even he couldn’t pretend not to understand.
The moment Raul’s hand covered her small white hand still clutching his sleeve,
Fwoooosh-!
a pillar of crimson flame shot up outside the window.
Both Celia and Raul turned toward it at the same time.
“Damn.”
Raul had intended to ignore it unless it was something serious, but the instant he saw the blaze, the curse slipped out of his mouth.
The magical pattern in that rising pillar of flame was...
Walter, the palace mage of Therion.