The Blind Seer
Aila woke about ten hours after Raul had used the power of abundance on her.
"Mmmph."
Groaning, she looked around through half-lidded eyes, and the moment she saw Raul, her eyes flew wide open.
Then, for some reason, she wore a resigned expression and said in a bitter tone, "So you got taken out too, huh? Well, that weird monster really was freaky."
"What are you talking about?"
Thwack.
Raul flicked the forehead of the half-awake Aila.
"Ow! That hurt."
"Yeah. It hurts. You think it'd hurt if you were dead?"
"Huh? You're right."
Aila blinked several times, then raised her arms and flexed her fists open and shut.
"It doesn't hurt."
"I healed you."
"You use healing magic too, Ajussi?"
"Not magic. Power."
"Huh? That's possible? I thought a battle priest couldn't encroach on a healing priest's power."
Raul paused at the unexpectedly informed remark from Aila, who was supposed to be bad with heads and numbers and all the rest.
"You say your head's bad, but somehow you know the Church's carefully hidden information?"
At Raul's exhausted question, Aila gave a dazed grin.
"I told you. Don't underestimate 'us'."
"Still, you really worked hard this time. If it hadn't been for you and Horus, we would have been in serious trouble."
If no one had been there to hold back the bloodfiends, the Ascendant would have absorbed far more miasma and blood energy indiscriminately and grown even stronger.
In that sense, Aila had clearly played a major role by blocking the underground entrance for more than thirty minutes.
Raul gave her honest praise, and Aila let out a smug, nasal laugh.
"So, what the hell happened inside?"
When she asked, Raul thought for a moment and then told her everything that had happened there.
He saw no reason to filter the information for Aila.
Yet Aila's reaction, while lying on the hard floor and listening to Raul, was strangely specific.
"So what, you're saying you didn't sleep or rest at all from the day those knights were slaughtered until now?"
"You're more curious about that than about the clown demon Malphas and the Ascendant?"
"Of course. God's power, demons, Ascendants, whatever, I honestly don't know what half of it means."
"..."
Raul laughed at Aila's absurdly shameless answer.
"You did rest with me on the first floor."
"You didn't even sleep then. And how do you still look this normal? Are you actually some kind of monster in disguise?"
"Didn't you call me Dad once?"
"That was when I couldn't tell if you were the legendary Holy Grail Knight or Motala's Inquisitor."
"So now I don't seem like either?"
"Nope. You seem like a monster. How can a human rampage like that for three straight days and still look fine?"
In truth, without the sacred relic and the clear reward from the achievement, Raul would probably be the one lying here with a blue face and blood dripping from his mouth, but...
"Whatever. Think what you like."
Too tired to explain all of it, Raul simply stretched out beside Aila, who was sprawled in a cross on the stone floor.
Startled, she opened her legs a little, then came crawling back like a curious puppy and began poking at Raul's shoulder and arm with her fingers.
Thwack.
Raul laughed at the ridiculous behavior and gave her forehead another flick.
"Ow!"
Aila, whose "aura" still hadn't fully recovered, naturally failed to dodge and rubbed her reddening forehead with a tearful face.
Raul watched her, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly, then pressed his head to the ground and closed his eyes for a moment.
It was three more days after that before the two hundred elite explorers assembled in the labyrinth city of Asmos reached the lowest floor where the two of them were waiting.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
As soon as they returned to the surface, Raul was half-forced into bed, which at least let him hear Dmitri's report while lying on a soft mattress.
Having become a devout fanatic of Motala together with the knight Lergal, Dmitri told him everything he had seen and heard without embellishment.
"Were there seven 'pure-blood bloodfiends' discovered on the sixth floor?" Raul asked.
Beside Dmitri, Lergal went rigid with surprise.
"Y-yes! There were. It was the one giving orders to the other six pure-blood bloodfiends."
Good. So he had been there.
Raul quietly let out a breath of relief and nodded.
Then Lergal asked in a worried voice, "Lord Raul, who said he took the secret passage straight to the seventh floor... how do you know about that one?"
For some reason, the young knight's face was full of worry, as if he were afraid of something.
Probably because of that, Raul thought.
The story he had casually heard earlier, about how even the two hundred-member "elite exploration team" had bloodfiend lackeys mixed in with them.
That incident seemed to have left a considerable shock in the young knight Lergal's heart.
I don't know exactly what happened, but...
There was no trace left in the young knight's eyes of that naive innocence soaked in ideals.
That was a good thing.
It meant he was seeing this damned world more clearly now.
Looking at Lergal, who swallowed hard, Raul gave a faint smile.
"Don't worry. That guy is simply the bloodfiend I've been chasing all along."
"The one you've been chasing... sir?"
"I've been tracking down a secret organization called Exceed. And those bastards are deeply tied to Zern as well. Do you remember what happened in the mountain village?"
Raul told the questioning knights of Zern the truth behind the people they had been chasing all this time, along with information about Exceed.
He judged that it was time for them to understand their enemy properly.
After hearing the full story, Lergal spoke with eyes full of admiration.
"Then, Lord Raul, ever since then... all this time..."
"I've been chasing them."
In truth, he hadn't exactly been wandering around with that intent in mind, but well, if the result was good, wasn't that enough?
Then, suddenly, Dmitri's eyes also grew hot and red, and he spoke in an uncomfortable, trembling voice.
"Ah, how noble you are."
Ugh.
Raul nearly lost his lunch, but he managed to swallow it down and continued.
"So, what happened to the bloodfiends on the sixth floor?"
The knights' report was brief.
It seemed that, even after all the frantic firepower exchange, the Exceed executive hadn't expected a two-hundred-man elite exploration team to show up.
After being crushed under a barrage of insane firepower and making a few desperate counterattacks, he had vanished at some point and fled.
"So you couldn't kill him?"
"...We're sorry. At the time, we judged that rescuing Lord Raul came first."
"No. Catching that was probably harder anyway, given that you didn't even know Exceed existed in the first place."
They hadn't killed the executive himself, but they had wiped out the "Cradle of Ascension" he had been preparing, along with the bloodfiend horde.
This battle could probably be counted as more than ninety percent of a victory.
Having cut off yet another of the Abyss Grand Duke's hands here in Asmos, Raul finally brought up the last matter left in this city.
"So, can you answer me now? Where exactly is that astrologer who supposedly told the Zern knights where to find the sacred relic?"
At Raul's question, Dmitri and Lergal exchanged silent glances.
Seeing their careful hesitation, Raul added defensively, almost unnecessarily, "You probably know this by now, but I don't mean to harm her. I just have a few things I want to ask."
Only then did the two men, letting out low breaths, nod at the same time and answer.
"We will bring her here."
Bring her here?
Did knights really talk like that when referring to an astrologer?
Raul was a little surprised by the choice of words, but the two knights bowed politely and then actually walked out of his hospital room just like that.
They returned about thirty minutes later.
The one who rolled into the room with the sound of wooden wheels was a small girl with brilliant sky-colored hair, her eyes covered by black cloth, no more than about Aila's age at first glance.
The woman was seated in a wheelchair.
Evidently, her legs were impaired.
She also had both eyes covered by black cloth that let through not a trace of light.
Evidently, she could not see.
And yet, the gesture of the woman placing a hand over her chest was undeniably that of a noble.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Holy Grail Knight, of whom I have only heard rumors. My name is Violet. Violet de Zern."
Violet de Zern.
That name and family name could mean only one thing.
"The trustworthy astrologer... was she the daughter of House Zern?"
When Raul asked, looking toward Lergal, he nodded stiffly.
Only then did he understand the strangely secretive behavior of the Zern knights regarding the astrologer's whereabouts.
Of course they couldn't simply show the noble family's daughter to a holy warrior.
If they misstepped, something might start flying from his hand first.
Then a disgruntled voice reached Raul's ears.
"How cold of you, Holy Grail Knight. I'm right here, and you're looking everywhere but at me."
Looking straight ahead, Raul saw Violet, seated lower than himself beside the bed, tilting her head directly toward him.
"Can you see me?"
"I lost my sight when I awakened my astrology at ten. I lost the feeling in my legs the following year. But I can still faintly sense the objects around me."
Despite her youthful appearance, Violet had a remarkably composed manner and an adult's smile.
Raul watched her for a long time, then finally spoke with complete honesty.
"That's an impressive level of astral perception."
So this was an astrologer who was blind and crippled, yet still carried the burden of those limitations.
In Exeria, risk and return went hand in hand.
Raul was not looking at the small girl in front of him, but at the immense river of stars beyond her, stretching into the heavens like a galaxy.
Then the girl with the lush, wavy sky-blue hair answered.
"You, Holy Grail Knight..."
The girl's head lifted away from Raul, higher and higher.
Following that line of sight, Raul saw nothing but the ceiling, but whatever Violet's eyes perceived made her mouth open wider and wider.
"How on earth did you carry such a massive tower on your own?"
It seemed her blinded eyes could still see the true form sealed behind Raul's back.
The true body of the Halo.
Watching the girl's face shift from awe to shock and then from shock to fear, Raul snapped his fingers.
Snap.
"Violet. Don't stare at the Halo for too long."
Raul didn't know the exact reason, but so far, every human who stared directly at the Halo's true body had fainted.
As if they were standing face to face with a divine being.
"Ah..."
Only then, brought back to herself by Raul's voice, the daughter of House Zern let out a delayed, dazed sound.
"May I touch you for a moment?"
Then, all at once, the girl said that.
When Raul nodded, Lergal, who had been pushing her wheelchair, moved.
Soon a small, soft hand touched Raul's cheek.
"So this is what you look like."
"Is knowing what I look like part of the astrology ritual too?"
At Raul's curious question, prompted by the sincerity of Violet's touch, the girl stuck out the tip of her tongue and answered playfully, "No. I was just curious what you looked like, that's all."
"..."
"I'm sorry. Still, please don't be angry. From your point of view, this may be our first meeting... but this girl has been waiting for such a meeting with you for years."
"For years...?"
Raul understood exactly what she meant.
"Don't tell me you can see the future?" he asked in disbelief.
A person other than a saint using future sight?
If that were true, it was a major incident big enough to shake the three great churches to their foundations.
Then Violet covered her mouth softly and smiled with elegance before answering.
"Hehe. Of course not. Such a vast celestial movement would be beyond this little girl."
She then looked past Raul and out into space again, speaking in a distant voice.
"I only dream. I see and hear something unstable and incomplete, where if I dream ten dreams, one proves true, and if I dream a hundred, ten come to pass."
Something like prophecy with only a one-in-ten hit rate, then.
Well, that did sound more like an astrologer.
As Raul nodded, half convinced in his own way, Violet spoke again.
"But even in the thousands of dreams I've had, Holy Grail Knight Raul, your story and your rumors were always there."
"I was always in dreams that might have been future sight?"
At Raul's question, Violet nodded.
"Sometimes as rumors, sometimes as memories already past, and sometimes, as now, appearing right before me."
"So that's what you meant by waiting for years."
"Yes. That's right."
Raul looked at Violet's black veil, where her small white hands were now folded over his left hand.
"Then do you also know why I came to ask you something?"
When Raul asked, the girl nodded as if it were only natural.
"The time of the eclipse that will fall over Therion Royal Castle, and the whereabouts of the holy sword."
"I see..."
That was an astonishing level of foresight for an astrologer who had borne the risk of losing both her legs and her sight.
"Though I am nothing more than a pitiful blind girl who cannot even keep hold of her own body, I have still remembered two prophecies that never changed across thousands of dreams, for exactly today, for this very moment."
Please, don't be angry, and will you listen to the end?
For some reason, the sky-blue-haired girl looking up at Raul spoke in a very careful, almost whispering tone.
"All right."
And with that one word from Raul, a bright smile bloomed across the girl's face, pushing back the clouds that had settled there like a flower field.
It seemed she had been worried that her years of effort might all turn to foam.
But why would Raul refuse an event like this?
All this time he'd been wearing the outrageous title of the Beginning's Saint and had received nothing but threats instead of respect or treatment.
Honestly, even Raul hadn't expected to encounter a special prophecy event reserved for the Beginning's Saint.
But the moment of joy on Raul's face truly hardened into stone in an instant.
The cause, of course, was the little prophet's very first words...
She said this:
"Since the Cradle of Ascension is already complete, the grand duke who has stolen the essence of the black sun will ascend into the heavens."
"...What?"
Raul narrowed his brow sharply, doubting his own ears.
Because Violet's prophecy, however he heard it, meant only one thing: that he could no longer stop the Abyss Grand Duke's ascension.