Encounters (2)
Having concluded his audience with the Imperial Princess, Kallen stepped out of the hall — and through the corridor beyond, he caught sight of someone waiting for him.
A cloak the same pristine white as polished plate armor stood out strikingly even beneath the afternoon sun.
With his snow-white hair and piercing, luminous eyes, the old man looked every bit the aged lion who had not yet surrendered his dignity.
The Supreme Master of the Aten Church.
Lord Sibilik approached with a courteous bow and spoke.
"Professor Kallen of Elysion. Might I have a word?"
"W-with me?"
Kallen asked back, bewildered by the wholly unexpected encounter.
Sibilik nodded, and his gaze shifted to Garnet, who stood at Kallen's side.
"I have come to beg forgiveness for the persecutions of the past, my lady Potts."
Bowing his head even lower than before, he offered her his apology.
"In our blindness to true evil, we drove an innocent soul into suffering. This foolish old man can scarcely lift his head for shame."
"...I-it's quite all right."
After a moment of flustered surprise, Garnet quickly composed her expression.
"...I doubted my own father, after all. I don't blame anyone else for thinking the same. And now that you've come to say this in person... thank you."
"To be granted such mercy... this old man can only be moved by your grace."
It was an extraordinary sight indeed — one of the most powerful figures in the Aten Church paying formal respect to a mere student in a brilliant blue uniform.
"Then, if you'll excuse me..."
Sensing her cue, Garnet offered Kallen a quick bow and slipped away down the corridor alone.
"There was such admiration in the way that child looked at you."
Sibilik spoke as he watched her retreating figure thoughtfully.
"You are a true teacher, it seems. No doubt that is why you stepped between her and the demonic blade that day in the forest, even at the cost of being run through yourself."
"I'm hardly anyone so remarkable as that."
"Heh heh. No need to be quite so modest."
At Kallen's sheepish deflection, the old paladin let out a hearty laugh.
"Why, even Margrete, the diocesan head of Caliburn, sang your praises until her lips wore thin. Says you are a man of most devout faith."
"Haha..."
Faith, in this day and age, was the kind of thing one could buy for any amount of money.
Kallen, who knew exactly what lay beneath, could only manage an awkward curl of his lips at the oblivious old knight.
"Then why is it you were seeking me...?"
"You were the one who resolved the affair. It is only proper that the aftermath be reported to you."
Sibilik said this as he walked slowly along the corridor where the sunset poured in.
Kallen had been curious about the follow-up himself, truth be told.
The church's clandestine internal affairs — unknowable to outsiders — held their own particular fascination.
"...First, Enrak was a demonic human. And Cardinal Seden was a devil wearing human skin."
He continued in a low voice, gazing at the scattering dusk.
"After long hours of interrogation, we wrung a confession of their true nature from them at last. Posing as devout believers and, in the end, seeking to devour the church from within — that was their purpose."
A fierce storm of purging was raging through the Aten Church's inner ranks as they rooted out the collaborators.
And the man commanding it all was the old paladin calmly recounting the affair before his eyes.
"Enrak was put to the pyre, and Seden has been sealed beneath our main temple. In time, I intend to entrust his execution to the Sword's Successor."
"...That is a relief."
"Corruption runs deep in this world, I knew — but never in my wilest dreams did I imagine evil had penetrated to the very leadership of our church."
Deep sorrow had settled across Sibilik's face.
"I felt a terrible dread, I tell you. Seden had even been named a candidate for the next Pope. That such a man could have been a devil all along..."
Having uttered his lament, Sibilik turned to Kallen once more and inclined his head in respect.
"It is because there are wise souls such as you that the order of this world yet endures. Allow me to offer my thanks once more."
"You flatter me. This time, I only stumbled into it by chance..."
"Is there anything you wish to ask? So long as it lies within what I may speak of, I shall answer with a full heart."
"Then... has any cause been found for Tessak's destruction?"
"How professorly of you, putting your students' concerns before your own. But that matter is still at a standstill, I'm afraid."
Sibilik shook his head, looking troubled.
"What on earth could have snapped an Apeiron-class demonic sword like that? No matter how thoroughly my lady Potts overcame its dominion through sheer will..."
Kallen, unlike his companion, was quietly breathing a sigh of relief inside.
Publicly, he was known only as the professor who had been stabbed through the chest by the demonic sword while trying to stop Garnet and had passed out.
The unidentified black aura, the shattering of Tessak — as far as anyone knew, he understood none of it.
He had been questioned several times by investigators of the Aten Church to verify his account of the forest and his testimony at the tribunal, but neither he nor his sword had ever surfaced above the waterline.
Discerning evil that lurked in hiding, concealing its true face, was never so easy a thing.
"Hmm... well, then..."
Relieved, Kallen feigned a thoughtful pause.
As it happened, there was something he had been meaning to ask.
A question that had been with him since the first moment he'd heard the name Sibilik spoken in that hall.
"By any chance... do you know the name Lenart?"
After a brief hesitation, he glanced sidelong at Sibilik and asked.
"I heard you had dealings with her in your younger days."
"Wh-why, how could you...?"
Startled, Sibilik's eyes went round.
Then he nodded and went on.
"...It must have been just after I'd risen to the lowest rank of Supreme Master. Word came of a mercenary captain making a name for herself in the north, and in my hubris I challenged her to a duel — and was thoroughly, magnificently crushed. I was an arrogant creature in those days. When the whole world seemed to lie beneath my feet."
"I also heard that you lost the duel, and she took your necklace with it."
"Good heavens — do you work for the Imperial intelligence bureau? That is a thing none but the parties involved could know."
Despite his words of mock horror, Sibilik only chuckled and continued in high good humor.
"It's true. Thanks to her, I became the laughingstock of my peers for quite some time. There was even a period when I plotted revenge out of sheer shame."
His eyes narrowed faintly, as if sinking into remembrance.
"...But in the end, that defeat gave me the impetus to hone both myself and my faith. In a sense, I owe her a debt of gratitude."
"...What kind of person was she?"
"A woman who, for all her might, possessed the grace to embrace the very foe who had fallen before her. Were I not sworn to Aten, I might well have followed her with fervent devotion myself."
"That's a rather dangerous thing for a Supreme Master to say."
"Which is why her loss grieves me all the more. When I first heard of the Tragedy of Monastin, I could not believe it. That such a woman should meet so hollow and meaningless a death..."
"..."
A bittersweet smile had crept onto Kallen's face before he knew it.
Shaking off the reverie, he asked Sibilik once more.
"Do you not wish to reclaim your lost necklace?"
"I let it flow away long ago, together with the rash follies of my youth."
The old paladin simply laughed heartily and shook his head.
Before they realized it, the two had reached the end of the corridor.
Sibilik bowed his head to Kallen one last time.
"Let us hope our next meeting comes by happier circumstance."
"I'd rather we never met at all, frankly. Getting tangled up with holy knights always gives me a headache..."
"What was that? Heh heh."
Sibilik burst out laughing at Kallen's sly remark, and soon departed.
As he watched the old man's retreating back, a familiar, dearly-missed voice tickled at his ear.
-Next time you meet Sibilik, ask him about it, ever so casually.
-He'll probably turn bright red and fly into a rage.
Once again, the corners of Kallen's mouth twisted into a bitter smile.
"He doesn't exactly fly into a rage, though."
At the prickling sensation in his right hand, he tipped back his canteen and drank, long practiced in the ritual.
"I suppose even you... get it wrong once in a while."
Muttering to himself, Kallen turned on his heel and walked away.
Climbing down from the carriage upon returning to Elysion, Kallen spotted someone and squinted his eyes.
"Huh?"
It was because he found himself meeting eyes with a bespectacled figure just stepping down from the carriage in front of his.
Professor Jiya, returned at last from her long medical leave.
"...Ha."
Her eyes flared up at once, and she spun away as though the very sight of him offended her.
Then, without exchanging a single word with Kallen, she disappeared straight through the main gates.
It was beyond him what grievance she had cooked up this time, or why she had to throw a tantrum the instant she laid eyes on him.
"...That's my role model? A woman with an appetite that sour?"
Recalling the Imperial Princess's words from earlier, Kallen shook his head in exasperation.
"Absolutely not."
Thump-thump-thump!
Ellie, spending her time alone inside the house, whirled her head toward the knocking at the door.
"Hm?"
Short little arms and legs, cheeks plump with baby fat.
This was a memory from her earliest childhood.
Through the door came a chorus of rowdy, chattering voices.
-Elise! What are you doing? Still asleep?
-We said we'd play together today!
-Come on out! We'll be late for the festival!
Three friends' voices called to her noisily, back and forth.
"Oh, right!"
Springing up with a bright smile, she rose to her feet.
Today was the day of the great festival in the village.
She had promised her friends they would go watch it together.
"Wait for me! I'll be right there... Hm?"
Just as young Elise headed straight for the door without a shadow of doubt —
suddenly, someone seized her arm from behind.
And then came a voice, pierced through with longing.
"You must not open that door."
"Huh?"
Turning around, Elise swallowed a small cry.
When her eyes opened, all that greeted her was the ceiling of a lightless bedroom.
"Ah..."
A sigh escaped Ellie's dry lips of its own accord.
She stirred and sat up, blinking blankly around the room.
Beyond the dream, scattered like sea foam, only the cold and gloomy weight of reality remained.
"That dream again... why do I keep having the same one..."
Sighing, she murmured to herself as she drew something carefully from within her breast.
A hairpin exquisitely wrought of silver and jewels. As her fingers closed around it, the faintest smile bloomed at the corner of her mouth.
Tucking it tenderly back against her heart, Ellie tidied her clothes and stepped out of the bedroom.
"Come ooon, let's go for a walk!"
"Ugh... don't wanna..."
Outside, quite a commotion was in full swing.
A woman wrapped up in a blanket like a cocoon was being vigorously shaken by another, who was shouting at the top of her lungs.
The one being shaken had ears that stretched out long and pointed, nearly level with her face.
Ellie frowned at the sight and spoke coldly.
"...What do you think you're doing?"
"Ah, Elise! You're awake?"
Caldis, the party's archer, finally noticed her and waved cheerfully.
"The Gloomy One... I'm trying to get Celine to take a walk."
"What?"
"She shuts herself up in her room every single day. You need a little sunlight now and then to stay healthy."
Caldis scowled down at the woman curled into an even tighter ball beneath her.
"What are you, a mushroom? Or growing mold? I will never understand how someone like this graduated second in her class from the Imperiale..."
"Quit it, pointy-ears... unless you want to die..."
"Honestly..."
Giving the sprawled woman a couple of kicks, Caldis shook her head and came over to Ellie.
"So? How was it? The Illusion Realm?"
"..."
Ellie only shook her head in silence.
"See? I told you it was hopeless..."
Caldis continued carefully, stealing a glance at her face.
"The Illusion Realm is endless... how are we supposed to find Gamalot in all of it? It'd be simpler to just wait until he comes out through a rift..."
"And if he never does."
At Ellie's ice-cold interruption, Caldis flinched, shoulders jerking as though caught off guard.
For the most part she faced the world with the detachment of a passing breeze — but every so often, suppressed feelings like these broke through.
"Five years already, just gone like that! What if he doesn't show up for decades at this rate...! Haah..."
Having cried out with choking emotion, Ellie's shoulders abruptly sagged.
"...I'm sorry. Pretend you didn't hear that."
Offering her apology, she turned to Caldis with eyes grown desolate once more.
"Did you... find anything on his whereabouts?"
"Nothing at all..."
"..."
At the sight of Caldis shaking her head, Ellie bit down hard on her lip.
Caldis, having watched her a moment, came closer and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder in comfort.
"He's probably living quietly somewhere out in the countryside. No news reaching us at all — that's actually a good sign..."
"And if something truly terrible has happened to him instead..."
"It hasn't. I'm telling you."
Caldis said it with firm emphasis.
"I told you back then, remember? His fate is still bound up in Gamalot's current. As long as that current carries him, nothing can kill him outright. And we've taken precautions for now — temporary ones, but they'll hold..."
"...Which means he could still get swept up in a fate even greater than that monster's."
"You're joking, right? Gamalot, of all beings. The 'Head Steward of Pestilence' — the strongest of all High Demons."
And Caldis shook her head as if the very idea were absurd.
"Short of a Demon God descending in person, there is absolutely no way that could ever happen."