Heretic (3)
The market was as peaceful as ever. The streets bustled with the usual crowds, shopkeepers called out with bright, lively energy, and smiles lingered on every face that passed by, making the whole place look impossibly cheerful.
I walked quietly among them. My only purpose was to pick out beef and fresh vegetables for lunch, nothing more. Just another face in the crowd, heading toward the fruit stall I always visited.
“Oh~ It’s been a while, Great Cavity young lady!”
The moment the stall owner spotted me, he greeted me warmly. I returned his smile and answered politely.
“It’s been a while. Have you been well?”
While choosing the ripest fruits and checking the vegetables beside them, I listened as he chatted about this and that. Then, just like always, he leaned in and lowered his voice.
“That recent White Night business—was it Shinryong’s doing?”
I made an uncomfortable face and offered a bitter smile. The uncle, apparently unable to contain his curiosity, kept asking until I finally nodded.
“I knew it! I just knew it~! All that nonsense about the world ending—I figured it had to be her!”
Having apparently held that belief for some time, he burst into vigorous delight the instant he confirmed it was Shinryong. When I asked what had happened, he answered with visible excitement.
“I believed that since Shinryong saved my daughter before, she must be stepping in to stop some great danger again this time~!”
His words suddenly brought back the memory of the couple Shinryong and I had rescued long ago. Could that girl have been his daughter? As I searched my memory, the uncle pressed a few more fresh fruits into my hands.
“It suddenly occurred to me that I never properly thanked you.”
I flusteredly told him it was nothing, but he shook his head.
“I always had my doubts when she brought home that boy who seemed a few screws short of a full set. Thank you for saving her in so many ways.”
I thanked him for his kindness. In return, he asked me to continue looking after the Great Cavity and Shinryong.
I stood silently before him for a moment, then spoke softly.
“Is she… is your daughter doing well these days?”
His eyes widened. He stared at me for a long while before breaking into a broad smile.
“Yes, she’s doing well. Healthy and happy.”
I nodded, relieved. Perhaps because I had asked about his daughter, he looked at me with warm eyes and added,
“Since our daughter is doing fine, you should take care of yourself too.”
I bowed my head in gratitude and slowly walked away.
“Precious children like you, who help us purely out of goodwill, need to do well so the rest of us can live happily too.”
Later, the uncle remarked that it was the first time he had ever seen me lost in thought about someone. He often saw me thinking of Shinryong, but never anyone else, he said as he sent me off.
I wondered whether I truly appeared that cold to others. Leaving the stall, I wandered aimlessly, absently brushing the corners of my mouth.
My reflection appeared in the large glass window of a bakery. I stopped and stared at myself.
“…It’s dark.”
My expression was indeed gloomier than it had been at the shrine. I had tried my best to maintain a gentle, friendly face, but it seemed the effort had fallen short.
Perhaps the scars from long ago still lingered in my heart. No matter how hard Shinryong had worked to lighten that burden, the things that had taken root so deeply back then still occupied a corner of my chest.
But unlike the ignorant girl I had once been, I understood now.
…Maybe I should smile a little.
Humans can never live alone. Because they cannot live alone, they commit countless sins and cannot break the cycle of hatred and rage. And yet they are foolish creatures who someday wish to wash away all that sin and live anew through atonement.
Therefore, they absolutely cannot live alone.
Sin requires another person to be committed, and atonement requires another person to acknowledge it. Even beyond sin or redemption, humans need someone beside them to accomplish anything at all. Not merely for necessity, but because this short yet endless lifetime cannot be walked alone—humans have emotions, after all. Hearts.
Not only humans. Me. Shinryong. Even the Abyss possesses emotion and heart.
To live through this long lifetime, one needs someone to soothe the loneliness. Whether that person hates me or loves me makes no difference.
Others are necessary.
So I quietly closed my eyes, then opened them again. I faced the reflection of myself smiling.
The girl who had once hated humans to the point of madness was no longer there. That was a relief.
The burning nightmare had been severed. All that remained were the dried, twisted remnants of sin, like gray ash after the flames had died. They simply waited for atonement from me, who had already finished repenting.
I smiled. The path of atonement continued unbroken, and it was not a path I could walk through my atonement alone. Everything in this world was telling me so.
I turned my head, pulling my gaze away from the past, and faced the new road stretching before me.
My life had not ended that day. It had been granted a brief respite so it could begin again, so I could meet new bonds and new fates. Shinryong herself had given me that chance.
Hadn’t I vowed to start over? I could not sink back into the lingering echoes of the past.
I smiled.
“….”
I walked forward. I would not turn back again. Remembering once more the firm resolve I had made to my past self, I carefully gathered the shattered fragments of memory so they would not fade.
Wounds eventually become scars, yet sometimes one must reopen them—not to repeat the same pain, but to ensure it never happens again.
Therefore, no matter when, I would keep walking forward.
“Excuse me…!”
Someone called out from behind me. I paused and slowly turned toward the owner of that delicate voice.
When I asked what she wanted, the girl hesitated, fidgeting with her black hair that carried hints of purple.
“You’re… Niyu from the Great Cavity, right?”
She spoke my name shyly. At that moment, my expression began to harden.
“…Who are you?”
The girl wore a black nun’s habit. There was no way ordinary people in the city could know my name. Whenever visitors came to the shrine to pray or to greet Shinryong, we always referred to each other only as servant and Divine Dragon in public.
Aside from Lee Seha, very few should know my name. Yet she had called it without hesitation.
I sharpened my voice and gaze, glaring at her. The girl stared back for a moment, then shyly touched her hair again.
“Could you… talk with me for a little while…”
She ignored my demand for her identity and simply asked me to go somewhere else with her.
“Sorry, but I don’t communicate with people who answer questions with questions.”
My wariness had reached its limit. I turned to leave.
“People like that usually have no intention of talking from the start.”
But the instant I spun away, the girl darted forward and caught the fluttering sleeve of my shaman robe in a tight grip. She stared straight into my eyes.
When I looked at her in confusion, a strange sensation flickered inside her pupils.
“You… what exactly are you…”
From that moment I felt it—an alien warmth that was somehow familiar, somehow foreign. As I stared at her in shock, the girl’s face hardened into something almost frightening. Then, just as quickly, her expression softened. She released my sleeve as if realizing her mistake and stepped back.
“S-sorry! I just… I really needed to ask you something…”
She blushed and bowed her head. I found her so suspicious that I tried to leave without another word, but her next sentence froze me in place.
“Aren’t you worried about Shinryong being all alone at the shrine right now…?”
“You really should talk with me…”
I turned back and stared at her with pure contempt, but the girl only smiled, as if my hostility pleased her.
“Ehe… ♪ I won’t do anything bad, so please follow me…”
Her smile and voice dripped with an incomprehensible ecstasy. For some reason I could not ignore her. Against my better judgment, I followed where she beckoned.
The girl already seemed to hold my weakness in the palm of her hand.