A True Miracle (2)
The cost of opening the Halo was, quite literally, enormous.
Raul had planned to set out again as soon as he finished this business, but instead he ended up staying in Latina Village for another four days.
Fever, headaches, muscle aches, even toothaches.
The frail body of a saint had turned the whole of itself into an orchestra of pain, playing a five-part suite of suffering from head to toe.
It was only this morning, on the fourth day, that Raul finally managed to sit up and breathe out, feeling as though he could live again.
“You’re looking better today.”
Sam came over to Raul, who had spent four days sitting in front of the inn’s fireplace like an old man who had outlived the world.
“I nearly died and came back.”
Maybe because of what had happened at the mouth of the cave, Sam was the only person in Latina Village who knew Raul’s identity and still treated him like a friend.
“Glad to hear you’ve recovered. That was what you called a divine ailment, wasn’t it?”
“Kind of. It’s like when mages overuse mana and get laid out for a while. It’s not common, but it won’t put my life at risk.”
“Ha. I see. Thank you, truly. To think you’d help our village this much. I don’t even know what else to say.”
“Enough thanks and I’ll start losing my hearing.”
Heh.
Sam knew the whole village owed Raul an enormous debt, so whenever he found a chance, he’d offer thanks like this.
Since Raul himself found it awkward, he couldn’t do it too often, but still.
“More importantly, we finally got a reply from the lord. Raul. Once I told him you were a magician, he said he’d invite you straight to the lord’s mansion in Zern. Said he has plenty of requests he’d like to make.”
“You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?”
“Of course. I already told him to just send the reward money. It’ll arrive tonight.”
“How much?”
“Don’t be shocked now. Ten gold coins. All of it is money that goes back to you, Raul.”
Then that was that.
Of course it should be.
Raul nodded with satisfaction.
“And our villagers agreed to pool together whatever compensation and reward money they could for their share. Add everything up and it’ll come to about four gold coins, I think.”
“I told you, that’s fine.”
“No, take it. We barely managed to stop Jack from saying he’d sell the deed to his own house just to repay the favor. Just take it.”
Raul let out a short laugh at Sam’s cheerful tongue.
Even that small reaction made his head throb faintly, but he felt like he could probably go wandering around again soon enough.
Latina Village had forced him to stay four days longer than planned.
While taking an unexpected rest, Raul had once again come to realize just how good these people were.
Normally, the whereabouts of a cleric were information beyond price.
In an age where anyone and everyone could become a demon contract holder, it meant you could sell the information to just about anyone and get not twenty gold coins, but far more.
And yet no one in Latina Village had gone around spreading Raul’s location.
What an incredible village.
This generosity was surely the work of the village chief, who had nurtured the village’s holiness all by himself.
It was a village blessed with sanctity to begin with, so it would have been difficult for suspicious people to live there for long.
“So after everything, it comes to fourteen gold coins.”
“Is that not enough?”
“No, I just thought it was a little strange that we’d gathered the money I was aiming for sooner than expected.”
At Raul’s words, Sam asked with obvious curiosity.
“A holy knight needing money. You must have something you need to do in secret.”
“You know me well.”
“Back when I was young, I even shared drinks with a priest of abundance. That kind of thing is easy to read.”
“I see. Sounds like you had a good time.”
“Great Mother of Earth, what a thought. Now that I think about it, that’s not much of a boast for a holy knight, is it?”
Raul chuckled under his breath at Sam’s flustered reaction, and Sam, pleased by the response, wore a satisfied expression of his own.
In the fireplace, crimson flames burned brightly, and before long Yuna brought out a meal that looked delicious enough to make anyone drool.
A good meal and entertaining conversation.
That alone seemed reason enough to keep living in this world, and yet Raul could only smile wryly at the strange tingling he felt from inside his coat.
Late that night, Raul returned alone to his room and took out it.
Soulstone That Swallowed the Abyss and Abundance
Grade: Legendary
“So there really was a soulstone in there.”
A soulstone was an item that absorbed all kinds of energy existing in Exeria—holy power, demonic energy, magic power, strength, aura, and so on—and converted them into a pure mass of energy.
And since its item grade was legendary, the internal capacity of this soulstone was likely comparable to half of the western kingdoms.
In that vast space, the demonic energy and holiness the dark mage had steadily gathered for at least three years were packed away intact.
Tod. He probably meant to use this for the resurrection ritual of the Abyss Archduke, Velvet, but...
Raul knew a place where he could use this item far more usefully than that bastard ever could.
“The map I got as a reward last time, and this soulstone too... Somehow, it feels like the places I need to go just keep multiplying.”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Early the next morning, Raul took his leave from the room he had, unwillingly, occupied for half a month.
The croaking of frogs drifted through the dim fields.
The river and mountains had already fully changed into autumn colors, each one displaying a vivid palette at a glance.
Maybe that was why.
Raul hadn’t been able to say goodbye to anyone, but he didn’t feel lonely in the slightest.
How long had he been walking when he finally heard a voice behind him?
“Leaving already, are you?”
He turned and saw a face that had become fairly familiar by now.
“I’m in a hurry.”
It was Egil, the village chief’s grandson.
Raul had found him odd already, and only now, today, did everything finally make sense.
“I thought there was only one priest of abundance in this village. Turns out there were two.”
Though faint, it was unmistakably there.
A trace of holiness.
He had failed to judge it properly before because it had been buried beneath the holiness of the wooden house, but now that he had encountered it here on the road, he understood.
Egil. The chief’s grandson had also been born with a talent for the holiness of abundance.
“Compared to you, Raul, it’s embarrassing, honestly.”
“What are you talking about? To me, the chief and you seem even more impressive. This was a really good village. No pretenses. That kind of place is rare.”
“You flatter us.”
But then Egil stopped him again as Raul was about to go on.
“Raul. I know it’s rude to ask something like this, but... before you leave, could you see my grandmother once? She’s in the southern fields right now.”
“...The southern fields?”
Raul had been about to refuse without a second thought, but then his interest sharpened all at once.
“At this hour, in that rotting ground?”
“Well... my grandmother’s holy power has changed a great deal recently.”
“Changed how... No, you said she’s there now, right? Let’s go see her.”
The southern fields were reached in no time.
Under the deep pre-dawn dark, an old woman knelt neatly on both knees in the blackened mire.
The village chief had her hands clasped together.
The instant Raul saw the sight, an astonishing message appeared before his eyes.
‘The Wisdom of the Progenitor’ reacts!
I have witnessed a miracle of abundance. Do you wish to acquire this authority?
Authority of abundance: ‘Prayer of Recovery [Lv. 1]’
Authority.
It was the blessing of the goddess Mimir, a gift that only priests of abundance could wield.
Without any teaching at all, the chief had reached understanding on her own in the end.
“On the day you swept away the dark mage and the undead before, Raul, my grandmother said she saw something flashing beneath the earth. After that, she suddenly awakened to an authority.”
That explained it. The aftereffects of the open Halo had apparently played no small part in the chief’s awakening.
Raul watched the scene in silence for a long time before finally stepping forward with slow, steady strides.
“You’re leaving now?”
The chief rose naturally, as though she had known he would come.
Her trousers were stained heavily with the mud of this decayed land, yet where she had knelt, tiny green sprouts had emerged in surprising abundance.
Life had put forth new shoots in this ground that had rotted after losing all its vitality.
Prayer of Recovery.
A mid-tier authority that increased the natural recovery power of its target several times over, one that could only be awakened by someone with a kind and warm heart.
For this to be the first authority he awakened.
A soft smile soon settled on Raul’s lips.
“Yes. I think I’ll be going now, elder.”
The polite tone came out naturally.
He felt that this chief was truly one of the few people in this world who deserved proper respect.
“Take care of yourself. I may never know what burden is pressing down on the shoulders of someone as noble as you, old woman that I am... Still, I’ll pray, however weakly, that the goddess’s protection remains with you always.”
Raul felt a warmth he could scarcely put into words at the chief’s utterly sincere voice.
If anyone should have been expressing gratitude right now, it was Raul.
Because thanks to the chief, he had received the enormous gift of a mid-tier authority.
Raul walked on in silence.
Where he headed was the filthy, sodden farmlands of the south.
He closed his eyes and slowly drew out the holy radiance of the Halo.
Prayer of Recovery.
At once, from beyond the horizon in the far distance, a yellow sun seemed to lift its head.
And then the miracle came.
The instant dawn’s dim light reached Raul and swept away the gloom, golden crops, bright as sunlight, began to grow from beneath his feet and race outward into the distance.
“Hah!”
“Th-this is...”
A golden sea, swaying softly in the wind.
The barley field, blooming so expansively that it stretched all the way to the horizon, was so lush it seemed to contain the scent of autumn and the sweat of farmers themselves.
“The barley all at once...”
“It’s, it’s even ripe. So healthy, and the grains are so solid. G-Grandmother!”
Raul turned toward the voice trembling in awe and gave a faint smile.
“This is a gift from me.”
“Just who are you...”
Facing a miracle in the flesh, the chief could not finish her sentence. Her voice shook.
Raul, still wearing that amused expression, added, “What can I say? I’m just a passing shaman with no strength at all.”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Clunk.
A woman with her hood pulled low opened the inn door and stepped inside.
The place was empty, the innkeeper left to swat flies away from a room with no guests, and for some reason the man didn’t seem especially pleased to see her.
“Who are you?”
“Lodging.”
The thin voice made him pause.
Her voice was too clear, too beautiful.
But after a moment, the man shook his head.
“Sorry, but this inn is closed. If not for the lord’s orders, I wouldn’t set foot in a place this creepy.”
“Creepy?”
“Looks like you don’t know, so listen carefully. There was a murder here in this inn not long ago. And the investigation found that the owner had long been working with demon contract holders, and that this place was filled with the ‘ash dust’ left behind when contract holders die.”
The man lowered his voice and said it in an ominous tone, clearly trying to scare her off entirely.
But the woman’s reaction exceeded his expectations.
“Isn’t this inn called the Dawnbird?”
“...You came knowing that?”
“I heard about it. That traces of demon contract holders had been found.”
The woman walked over without a shred of concern and sat down as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Then she pointed at a bottle on the shelf and said, “That one. A glass.”
“What kind of person are you? No, more importantly, do you even know what that liquor is before asking for it...?”
The man started to object to her shameless behavior, then found his voice catching in his throat.
Because the face revealed when she pushed back the hood she had been wearing so low was absurdly beautiful.
Plump lips, a straight nose. And above all, that pure white hair that called to mind the snowfields of the far northern wastes.
The expressionless woman looked at the speechless man and parted her lips slightly.
“White Lewis, forty-two years.”
“W-what?”
“You asked if I knew what it was.”
“Ah...”
The man stood there stupidly for a moment, then reached for the liquor on the shelf.
He had no authority to mess with a dead man’s belongings as he pleased, even if he was Jeros, a mercenary sent here personally by the lord of Zern, but there was nothing he could do about it.
He had felt something impossible to describe radiating from that white-haired woman, a presence that made resistance feel futile.
Going over the earlier exchange, Jeros suddenly voiced a thought that had come to him.
“A demon contract holder. Or a cleric.”
“Who knows?”
The man felt he had met the wrong person and tensed up.
He adjusted his stance so he could draw the sword at his waist at any moment and pretended to be unconcerned as he kept wiping the dishes.
“Haa.”
The woman let out a soft breath, apparently pleased with the liquor.
Then she asked, “You said a holy knight came through here.”
“That’s what I heard. But apparently he killed the demon contract holders and the accomplices himself, then disappeared.”
“Black hair? Not that tall? Looks skinny when dressed, but has substantial combat muscle...”
“H-hold on. I don’t know anything. I’m just the man the lord sent to clean this place up.”
“Really?”
“Y-yes.”
Tsk.
The woman clicked her tongue in disappointment and sipped what remained in her glass.
Clunk.
Then the inn door opened again.
What came in was a woman whose beauty matched the white-haired woman before her.
The moment she stepped inside, she looked straight at the white-haired woman and said, “You should at least tell me when you’re going somewhere, Lady Celia!”
“Your feet are too slow, Annie.”
The white-haired woman, Celia, looked at Annie, the blond-haired woman, and held out the rest of her glass.
“Don’t tease me. You know I can’t drink! More importantly, is this the place? Where the demon contract holders showed up?”
“Yes. But there aren’t any traces left.”
“Sigh. Then what about the man who was pretending to be a holy knight?”
“Hm.”
Celia hesitated for a moment before answering Annie’s question.
“I don’t know. Nothing’s left.”
“Even Lady Celia’s golden eyes can’t see anything?”
“The demon contract holders were annihilated here, and the fraud pretending to be a holy knight left no trace behind.”
“This trip is going to drag on longer than I thought. Oh, what a fate I’ve got.”
Celia tossed a joke at Annie, who was kneading her own arm like an old woman.
Then, as abruptly as they had arrived, the two vanished again.
Yet for some reason, just before leaving, the white-haired woman named Celia stared for a long while at the place where the innkeeper of the Dawnbird had been found dead.
Even though Jeros had already wiped the spot clean and erased every trace.
Then Celia moved only her lips without making a sound and said:
Found you.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“Ugh.”
Raul woke from a light sleep and rubbed his arm, feeling a chill with no clear cause.
A cold?
The thought made no sense for a saint, and yet he pushed himself upright.
A cramped room in an old building. A narrow window. A shabby inn room with half-eaten fruit and a candle burned down to the stub on the desk.
But for Raul, who had spent the last ten days doing nothing but walking and walking, it was the best place to rest in the world.
When he went to the window and looked outside, he could see the small village laid out beneath him and the crescent moon hanging over the mountain peak.
It was deep night, but it seemed he wasn’t going to fall back asleep anytime soon.
All of it was thanks to the newly acquired authority, Prayer of Recovery.
He had spent ten days eating and walking without pause, and yet with only half a day’s sleep, his condition had already returned to normal.
Unbelievable.
If he used it well, it looked like he might be able to reduce the risks of opening the Halo in a truly revolutionary way.
He’d need to think it through more, of course.
After packing his things, Raul passed through the candlelit corridor and stairs and went down to the first floor.
Beyond the middle-aged men who had drunk themselves senseless and collapsed in heaps, he spotted the innkeeper, whose arm muscles were rather impressive. The man was staring at Raul.
“...Leaving already? I’ll say this now, but if you want half your room fee back, you’re not getting it.”
“I’m not planning to ask.”
“Then why are you leaving at this hour?”
“Feels like someone’s following me.”
“A criminal?”
“No, nothing like that.”
Raul smiled at the innkeeper, whose expression had gone strange, and was about to set out on the road again.
“Hold on.”
But then the innkeeper suddenly called him back and stopped him.
Raul looked at him in question, and the innkeeper went into the kitchen, where something clattered and crashed around for a while. Only after some time did he return and hold something out.
“Thirty coppers. It’s only dried meat, but this much should be worth the price. Take it.”
“Why?”
“I’m a hard man on those without a shred of conscience, but I’m generous with the ones who have it.”
There.
The innkeeper thrust the meat toward him as if telling him to take it already. Raul accepted it quietly.
“Thank you.”
“If you’re grateful, come by again sometime. Next time, drink a bit more too, you hear?”
“Sure, I will.”
Huh. Raul replied with a faint smile at the unexpected kindness.
After all, it was because of people like this, encountered now and then, that he couldn’t just stand by and watch this world collapse.
After a brief bow, Raul was about to leave the inn again, but this time a name he couldn’t ignore brushed his ear.
“Just in case, even if you do go, don’t go anywhere near that big mountain visible to the northwest. I hear Tetra Mountain’s been seeing ghosts again lately.”
Raul turned and looked back at the innkeeper.
“What mountain did you say?”