The Unchanging Sun
I still can’t forget my first mission. Some lunatic tried to summon a demon in the sewers and ended up waking a vampire that had been buried during the construction. There was no way a sixteen-year-old rookie could kill a high-ranking vampire, so while my senior fought the bloodsucker, I was stuck wrestling ghouls in the filth.
What kind of insane romance-fantasy novel makes the protagonist roll around in sewage, covered in muck, fighting half-rotten corpses?
Of course, since I didn’t know the original story that well, it could have been a dark fantasy misery piece wearing a romance-fantasy mask—completely devoid of dreams or hope.
“Consider it an honor. Truly few are worthy of knowing Our name.”
If that was the case, then the woman before me wasn’t a twisted but competent empress—she was just twisted.
“Your Majesty. Have you lost your mind?”
Yeah. The real madman was me for trying to be polite to a crazy woman. I might end up locked in the imperial dungeon for this, but as an exorcist, some things had to be said.
“Oh…?”
The golden eyes behind the veil gleamed with a dangerous light. For someone who wasn’t even possessed by a demon, that look in her eyes proved her basic humanity was already broken.
“We did not command you to move. Why do you act on your own? Does the blade dare to possess a will of its own?”
A soft click echoed. The things that had been crawling out of the shadows around the audience chamber pillars froze, then melted back into darkness. They must have been the Ravens—the secret guard the Empress had created before ascending the throne.
“We often hear Ourself called a madwoman. Naturally, those who spoke such words have since gone elsewhere.”
Probably to the bottom of the ocean near the empire’s shores or beneath the imperial vineyards.
“If you do not wish to be sent somewhere other than the academy, explain why you called Us a madwoman.”
“Because I have to drink this.”
I hadn’t touched the stuff since I was twenty, but the person in front of me was someone who could bring down the country if things went wrong. I had no choice.
“Stop him!”
The moment I pulled out the dark purple liquid and tried to drink it, a dagger flew from behind a pillar and shattered the bottle.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“What are you doing, committing such blasphemy before Us? Why would you seek death…”
“Are you crazy? This is a memory-erasing potion. It’ll leave me weak for a couple of days, but it wipes out a full day’s memories…!”
Who the hell said anything about dying? Sure, she was probably ridiculously stacked and beautiful, but I wasn’t about to kill myself over a woman I’d just met.
“Memory-erasing potion…?”
“Yes. The chance that demons could extract my memories is small, but I have no desire to bet the fate of the nation on that tiny probability.”
“Sigh. Lift the carpet.”
I was the one who wanted to sigh, but somehow she beat me to it. Still, she told me to lift the carpet, so I stepped back and checked underneath. A magic circle—obviously a magic circle—lay there. At first I thought the Empress was trying something shady, but it didn’t look like any sinister spell.
“What is this?”
“It is a name-sharing contract magic circle. While both parties stand upon it, they may exchange names. Only the two involved will know them; anyone else in the room will hear nothing.”
“Why does something like this even exist?”
“We created it Ourself. Is it not magnificent?”
What a waste of talent…
Continuing this conversation would only give me a headache. The best move was to take what I needed and get out fast.
“Enough with the jokes. Please just give me my undercover identity and let’s be done with it.”
“Follow Us.”
I wondered if it was proper for an empress to lead the way, but with the Ravens staying quiet, I had no reason to complain. A faint humming reached my ears. After living the same bleak, repetitive days, maybe adding a new element was genuinely entertaining for her. I couldn’t tell for sure. At least she didn’t seem angry about me calling her crazy, so I probably wouldn’t get chewed out by Homerus.
“Here we are.”
When the chamberlain opened the door, I saw a heavily made-up man. A hair salon? The style was different from modern ones to fit the era, but it was clearly a place for hair care.
“You there, sir.”
You’re a man too, aren’t you? Still, when he pointed at me I followed his beckoning finger.
“Sit.”
I trudged over. He told me to sit, and when I looked at the Empress she gave a slight nod to obey.
“If this weren’t a request from Her Majesty, I would never touch a man’s hair who has done this to it. This is violence!”
“…Isn’t smashing demon skulls more beneficial to the world than worrying about hair care?”
“Nonsense! You have insulted these follicles!”
“Your Majesty. I’ll just leave. Can’t I live as a beggar at the academy instead?”
“Follow him. He is the empire’s greatest hair designer, personally acknowledged by Us.”
With my only escape route blocked by the Empress herself, I had no choice but to submit. I ignored his constant muttering until he finally started cutting my hair.
“Your Majesty. What shall we do about the color and facial hair?”
“Both eyes and hair shall be black. The beard is unnecessary.”
“What are you two talking about?”
After their incomprehensible exchange, something was applied to the areas where my beard grew.
“Huh?”
The sudden heat made me frown, but that only lasted a moment before searing pain dug into my skin.
“What is this!”
“It is localized hair-removal magic. The copyright is registered under Our name.”
“No, I mean why are you doing this?”
“For your undercover identity. Did you truly plan to go as you are?”
Apparently every humiliating thing I was enduring was part of the disguise process. Knowing that, I couldn’t exactly complain, but the atmosphere definitely felt like they were enjoying themselves.
“Anyway, is this finally over?”
After the beard removal, they placed a necklace engraved with the Cheonil Church’s symbol around my neck. My hair and eyes instantly turned black.
“Oh.”
“P-perfect!”
I heard their admiring gasps, but I wasn’t pleased. The man in the mirror had a decadent, tired beauty—like a wet cat that had given up on life. All my original ruggedness was gone, replaced by dark circles that only intensified the worn-out, decadent look.
“Why did you turn a person into a—”
“Now for the final touch!”
The prickly man left, and five maids rushed in, practically dragging me away.
“Hey…! What are you doing!”
I might drink and have little respect for the gods, but I still had some sense of dignity as a priest. The maids hauled me to the bathhouse, practically ripping my clothes off and tossing them aside.
“I just got those fitted today!”
“You were fitted for rags.”
“Rags?!”
To be honest, they were rags. The standard priest robes issued to exorcists were often handed down and patched.
“Whoa! Don’t touch me there!”
“Hold him down!”
“Why are you grabbing that?!”
“Where exactly are we supposed to grab then?!”
“You told us to grab—hiiik!”
I could only pray that Homerus would never learn about this.
After being scrubbed like laundry, I finally emerged wearing the priest robes the Empress had prepared.
“Excellent.”
“I look like absolute sh—Never mind.”
That was probably crossing the line. I swallowed the curse and replaced it with something safer.
“Was all this preparation really necessary?”
“At eighteen, one would have debuted in high society and sharpened their discernment. Such people cannot be fooled by simple methods.”
“What a waste of effort. I don’t see how distinguishing one priest makes any difference.”
“It makes a great difference if that priest is an exorcist. The nobles have not forgotten the Inquisitors.”
“Please don’t compare me to those lunatics.”
They were the greatest stain on the Cheonil Church’s history—human butchers more than demon butchers. Burning entire villages just to find hidden evil was the only way to describe those madmen.
“Hehe. If you are angry, We apologize. You truly hate being compared to them, don’t you?”
“It’s because Your Majesty has never witnessed them screaming that they were right until the very end, even as they burned in the Sun God’s purifying flames.”
They burned in the very divine power that was supposed to burn evil and demons, yet they still refused to admit they had strayed from the divine teachings.
“Anyway, it seems we’re finally done. May I leave now?”
“Surely not.”
I had wondered why she kept me waiting in an empty room after dressing me. At her gesture, a photographer entered carrying a camera.
“We will need a photograph for your identification papers, will We not?”
“Damn it.”
I couldn’t hold back the curse this time. Fortunately the photo session didn’t take long. I finally returned to the audience chamber and stared at the identification papers I had suffered so much to obtain.
“Whew. This time it really is over, right?”
“Yes. It is finally finished.”
I sensed a hint of regret in her voice but desperately ignored it. I had zero interest in becoming the Empress’s dress-up doll.
“We would like to go to the academy Ourself, but the position We must guard is too high to descend so easily.”
“Even the sun rises and sets repeatedly. You will have your chance someday.”
“Do you truly believe so?”
“To us it looks like rising and setting, but the sun simply remains in its place at all times.”
“You speak of the heliocentric theory in such a romantic way.”
Romantic, my ass. I was just stating facts. Some within the Cheonil Church claimed the heliocentric theory weakened the church’s authority, but I disagreed. Wasn’t the heliocentric model precisely proof that because the sun exists, humans can live?
The fact that a guy from the 21st century was thinking this way showed I had fully become a person of this world.
“Then I shall take my leave.”
“After all that preparation, you leave looking the same as when you arrived.”
“It would be annoying to walk around outside the academy looking like that.”
Since this appearance was meant for operating inside the academy, I removed the necklace for now.
“We shall bless your path.”
“I pray that blessings accompany Your Majesty as well.”
After exchanging blessings, I left the imperial palace. The academy was far from the capital, and the only fast way to reach it was by train.
I really don’t want to ride it.
That damned train. It was cursed or something—every single time I got on one, an incident occurred.
The ash-gray-haired exorcist had left.
Elysee felt relieved that he still did not recognize her.
“Are you anxious?”
Albert, the chamberlain and leader of the Ravens—Her Majesty’s personal guard unit—sensed the change in Elysee’s demeanor even through her veil.
“Us? Surely not… As the one he personally saved, We trust him without reservation.”
The Golden Eyes, a trait only the tiniest fraction of the imperial family possessed. Because only those with Golden Eyes could stand equal to the Pope of the Cheonil Church, Elysee had suffered assassination threats since childhood. The church itself had never sent assassins. They were too busy smashing demon and monster heads to bother with power struggles.
“Even I, at the time, never imagined a foolish imperial relative would contract with a demon to seize the throne.”
Albert, who had also served as the previous emperor’s guard captain, still remembered the scene he had arrived at too late. A throne-blinded royal had contracted with a demon, forcing the Cheonil Church into the succession war—an utterly terrible move. The target was naturally Elysee. And the one who had stopped the demon and its followers targeting her was Dante, who had only just awakened his divine power.
For security reasons, only a handful knew the exact identity of the person being protected.
“At this moment, We wish to set it down for a while.”
The sun disappearing beyond the horizon. As Elysee watched his back vanish into the deepening sunset, it overlapped with the image of him from the past—bloody, refusing to fall no matter what.