The One Who Failed to Protect (1)
Kallen's eyelids fluttered open on reflex.
"…"
The first thing he registered was the soft warmth of a blanket tucked beneath his chin.
A faint hymn drifted through the air as he stiffly turned his head this way and that. The bed he lay in belonged to some unfamiliar room he had never seen before in his life.
His wandering gaze soon settled on the window, where the morning sun poured in. Beyond the glass, a pair of birds perched on a branch sang a courtship song to one another, preening each other's feathers—a scene of perfect peace.
And then his dazed, unfocused eyes went wide all at once.
"Mmph—mmmmmph!!"
The memory of his final battle was seared into his body, vivid as if it had happened mere moments ago.
He tried to bolt upright, but his body refused to move, as though pinned down by something invisible.
"Mmph! Mmph…!!"
For some reason, he couldn't even force out a proper sound. As the panicked Kallen thrashed desperately against his restraints, he heard footsteps approaching from outside.
"What on earth is all that commotion—oh my!"
A woman in the vestments of the Church of Aten had come running at the sound of him. She took one look at the newly awakened Kallen and froze in shock before dashing off somewhere in a hurry.
Moments later, a white-haired old priest appeared at his bedside, stroking his beard, plainly unable to hide his astonishment.
"By Aten's grace. Thank the heavens… thank the heavens, truly…"
"Mmph! Mmmmph!!"
Unlike Kallen, who was inches from losing his mind, the old priest remained perfectly composed, offering a quiet prayer of gratitude to his god. When the prayer was done, he stepped closer and spoke in a calm, soothing voice.
"Steady now, young man. You are in the embrace of Lord Aten. Nothing that tormented you remains in this place."
"…"
Only after his eyes fell upon the sacred relics of the Aten Church arranged around the room did Kallen's struggles slowly begin to subside—belatedly, but surely.
Still, his mind remained a hopeless tangle of chaos. There were far too many questions he wanted to seize the old priest by the collar and demand answers to, but his voice, unfortunately, had given out entirely, producing nothing but ragged, hacking coughs instead of words.
At the very least, he managed to learn a fragment of what had happened while he slept, from the priest's own mouth.
"Hmm… where on earth should I begin…"
Kallen was in a territory called Belote, at the southernmost edge of the north—the very doorstep of Monastin, where his last memories remained. And remarkably, six full months had passed since that day before he finally opened his eyes.
"Truly, no explanation short of a miracle could account for it. Honestly, I had half given up hope…"
While Kallen reeled in silent horror, the old priest simply clasped his hands together and breathed another admiring sigh. Kallen barely managed to cling to his consciousness as it threatened to drift away, and the priest's placid voice continued on.
What Kallen had endured was already on everyone's lips by the name of the Disaster of Monastin. It was an unprecedented catastrophe—a wicked demon and the covens of witches who worshipped it had wiped out an entire territory and the most fearsome mercenary corps in the north.
"Baron Alanda was a truly good man. I myself received his help more times than I can count…"
Clicking his tongue in sorrow, the old priest traced a holy sign and turned back to Kallen with a solemn nod.
"Those who survive the descent of a High Demon could be counted on one hand across the whole history of the Empire. Simply keeping your life is a blessing of fortune. And for it to have been Gamalot of all beings… O, Aten above…"
"…"
"Your wounds have healed, but you'll need at least another month or two of rest. Recover well, and your body—and your voice—will return to normal on their own, so there's no need to worry. Now, don't go stirring up any needless fuss. Devote yourself to your prayers."
Having said his piece, the old priest hurried out, leaving Kallen behind. But the idle mutter he let slip at the very end struck Kallen's dazed ears like a thunderbolt.
"And this, too, must be the grace of Saintess Elise. The Lord has not yet abandoned us…"
"Mmph—mmmmmph!!"
"Now, now. I told you to keep the noise down."
Despite Kallen's desperate, convulsive cries, the old priest only chuckled and shuffled out into the corridor, vanishing from view.
Time crawled all the more slowly for a man who could do nothing.
Left entirely alone, Kallen had to fight with every ounce of his strength against the loneliness and grief that came calling at all hours, without warning. The cold touch of the necklace against his chest inside his shirt only deepened the ache.
And through it all, the old priest's parting words continued to churn restlessly in his mind.
He had no idea who this Saintess Elise was, but the fact that she bore the same name as someone he knew stuck in his throat like a thorn, refusing to pass. So too did the fact that Ellie's whereabouts remained unknown—and that Kallen himself was now recorded as the sole survivor of the Monastin Disaster.
It was maddening beyond words that his stolen voice left him unable to demand a proper explanation.
So the days passed, his heart bleeding as he waited for his body to recover, and gradually even the sanctum where he lay began to change. The brutal northern front produced wounded men faster than they could be treated, day after day. Every time word arrived of another battle, soldiers were carried into the temple by the dozens, and the priests bustled through the ward on hurried feet to tend to them.
Kallen had been given a spacious room all to himself, but no wall could shut out the voices drifting over from beyond it. And as ill luck would have it, the wounded soldiers' favorite topic of conversation was the newly appeared Saintess—yet another stroke of misfortune for Kallen.
"They say she's already closed more than seven rifts."
"I heard she drove the heathen barbarians back beyond the mountains."
"Just the touch of her hand healed the sick, they say…"
Elise. The first Saintess to appear in the Empire in nearly two hundred years. Wielding the most potent divine power of any Apostle of Aten in history. The teetering northern front had reversed itself in one sweeping stroke the moment she arrived.
Naturally, Elise had joined Noel's party, and without even a period of adjustment, she went on delivering one dazzling feat after another. The wounded of the temple vied with one another to sing their praises: with both the Sword's Successor and the Saintess of Aten gathered together, the north would soon know peace again.
And there was something in their talk that grated on him in a way he couldn't quite name.
"The Sword's Successor and the Saintess, eh. That's a rather fine picture."
"Ah, come now. Her Highness the Imperial Princess would have something to say about that…"
"I caught a glimpse of them from a distance last time. They were practically joined at the hip. Seemed quite close…"
At the idle jests about the Saintess and Noel, Kallen found himself grinding his teeth without meaning to.
These were people he had never once met, and yet whenever Elise's name floated over, his heart would stutter and slam in his chest as though it had broken. Each time, Kallen had to force down the inexplicable dread, and comfort his raw, festering wound by dreaming of a reunion with Ellie.
Then a month passed—a month that felt like ten years.
At last, Kallen hauled himself out of bed on crutches, more by will than by strength.
"You haven't recovered enough yet. A little longer, and…"
"This will do."
Cutting off the old priest's protests with a hoarse rasp, Kallen unleashed the barrage of questions he had been hoarding. Unfortunately, the answers differed little from what he'd been told before. The most important thing of all—Ellie's whereabouts—remained beyond anyone's knowledge.
All Kallen could cling to was the priest's one small comfort: among the bodies recovered from the plaza, there had been no woman of Ellie's age.
Chewing the inside of his lip, Kallen hesitated, then posed another question.
"Um… might I ask where I could go to see the Saintess?"
"Well, last I heard, she keeps her residence in Peros. Why do you ask?"
Finding Ellie was the most urgent matter, and yet for some reason his instincts were shouting at him, loudly and insistently, to lay eyes on the Saintess. That oppressive, uneasy feeling still brimmed full in his chest. Kallen did his best to rationalize it—surely a Saintess who was rushing all over the north might know where Ellie was—and murmured the excuse only in his heart.
"…I'd simply like to see her, that's all."
He could hardly bring himself to admit the real, personal reason. Kallen just averted his eyes from the old priest's gaze and fudged his way through the answer. Then, after receiving directions to the territory of Peros and offering a brief word of thanks, he left the temple at once.
The nun and the old priest watched his retreating figure from behind—the man limping away on his crutches, dragging his weakened legs step by painful step—with pity in their eyes.
"Will he be all right? It seems like something is weighing on him…"
"Leave it be. There are things in this world better left unknown."
Unlike the worried nun, the old priest simply said it with quiet resignation. Watching Kallen shrink at last to a dot on the road, he traced a holy sign and murmured under his breath.
"May Aten guide that young man…"
Because of his faltering legs, Kallen arrived at the territory of Peros long past his intended schedule.
The inner walls of Peros were already so packed with people who had flocked from every corner at the rumors that he could barely find a place to set his feet. Jostled and staggering in the crush of the crowd, Kallen caught sight of himself in a puddle on the ground and locked eyes with his own reflection.
An unkempt, overgrown beard. A shaggy mess of hair he'd had no way to trim. Hollowed cheeks, and arms and legs so gaunt they trembled as though they might snap at the slightest knock. He looked every bit the beggar from the slums.
It was as though he had gone back to that day years ago, when he had fled the ducal house with nothing to his name. As Kallen laughed hollowly at the sight, a voice came from behind him.
"You here to see the Saintess too, friend?"
The man was a soldier, one arm wrapped tightly in bandages. Though Kallen hadn't bothered to reply, the soldier seemed to feel some mistaken kinship and kept chatting away in a friendly tone.
"Well now, you've timed it just right."
"…What do you mean?"
"The Saintess has been away for months, making the rounds of the front lines. Everyone who came hoping for a glimpse of her turned right around and went home disappointed."
Kallen's heart lurched and plummeted—but the soldier only shrugged carelessly and went on.
"I heard from an acquaintance that we won a total victory at the Elbe front. She's due back in Peros by this evening at the latest. Though with a crowd like this, I doubt any of us will catch so much as the hem of her shoe…huh?"
The soldier, who had been chattering away in high spirits, suddenly went round-eyed and stared off into the distance. Kallen's gaze followed his of its own accord.
Far beyond the city gates, a great cloud of dust had risen without warning. Moments later, several knights in heavy armor came galloping ahead on horseback, blowing horn calls and shouting at the top of their lungs.
"The return of Sword's Successor Noel and Saintess Elise! Pay homage to the heroes who brought the Empire victory!"
The street erupted into pandemonium in an instant as the welcoming crowds surged forward. Because of his bad leg, Kallen found himself shoved to the very back of the throng.
With the grand performance of a choir as the signal, the triumphal ceremony began. And as the procession beyond the gates approached in orderly ranks, a deafening roar of cheers poured in from every direction, enough to make his ears ring.
"It's the paladins of the Church of Aten!"
"The Imperial Guard is there too!"
"Lady Caldis! A true elf of the forest!"
"Lady Celine…!"
After the passing knights, the members of Noel's party were called out one after another from every side. Buried in the crowd, Kallen strained and groaned, desperately searching for anything tall enough to climb.
And just as he managed to scramble onto a low, crumbling wall—
"It's Noel! Noel Aramis! The Sword of the Empire!!"
At the sound of that name, Kallen turned his head—and froze solid where he sat.
A figure rode atop an open-topped four-wheeled carriage, thrusting a sword high into the sky in naked ostentation.
At the sight of Noel, a roar erupted in every direction that dwarfed everything that had come before, shaking the very air.
Even from that distance, Kallen recognized the sword in his hand instantly. It had been years since he'd last seen it, but the memory remained as sharp as last night's nightmare.
Prominence. The divine relic that had once been his now blazed in the blond young lord's grip, flaunting its radiance before the eyes of ten thousand.
It was the first time Kallen had ever come face to face with the man who had replaced him. And yet somehow, his gaze was fixed, rigid, not on Noel, nor on Prominence, but on the precise spot directly beside them.
"It's Saintess Elise!"
Because there—clinging affectionately to Noel's opposite arm, wearing a radiant smile—was Ellie.