The Third Companion. As Always, the Moment of Choice Arrives (5)
“…Saten, I understand. You want the letter sent to the Sicilia family, right?”
“Yes. Please ensure that my presence here is not discovered.”
I nodded. A letter threatening her own father, Lennon Sicilia. After answering Saten, I sent her back to her room. Then I tucked the letter into my coat, prepared to head out immediately, and dashed out the front door.
Tadadak—
‘Saten, just what are you?’
She was human, yet had no emotions. She appeared to have a living soul, but in reality, it was hollow inside. Even her common sense wasn’t common sense at all. Everything about her seemed slightly unhinged, as if some crucial screws were missing.
“Minerva—!!”
“Buu—! Buu—!!”
Kwaang—!
I flung open the door to the library with force. Minerva’s Owl hooted angrily, but I ignored it. The one I had business with wasn’t the owl.
“Zzz… Hmmnya…”
“Minerva—!! Wake up—!!”
“Ugh, uwaah…! I’m falling… Wait, no I’m not. What is it, Junwoo? It’s so early in the morning. Even a goddess needs her privacy, you know.”
Minerva had been sleeping while wearing a cone-shaped nightcap. She rubbed her eyes and stretched. Then, still half-asleep, she grumbled.
“Junwoo… why are you bothering a goddess first thing in the morning? Do you have a death wish?”
“Sorry about that. But first, just listen to me for a second.”
“…Fine. I’ll listen and then decide.”
I told her everything that had happened with Saten so far, without holding anything back. The strange mage from the hero party. How I had successfully kidnapped her, yet couldn’t understand her at all.
“Hmm, I see…”
Minerva thought for a moment, then nodded as if she understood.
“So, Junwoo! You want to see that child Saten’s past, right?”
“Yeah. It seems like the only way for me to understand her.”
And it was also the only way to save her from hanging herself alone. Only if I fully understood her could I decorate Saten’s story with happiness. I could never watch the lonely death of a mage who died by her own hand again.
“If I’m going to live with the child I kidnapped, I need to see her past to understand her.”
“Haa… Junwoo, are you a pushover? Why do you care so much about other people’s business? You’ve only just met her. There’s nothing good that comes from looking into someone else’s past. Just leave her be.”
“…But she seems so pitiful.”
“Pitiful? Junwoo, are you pitying her right now? Do you even know how terrible that is for the other person?”
“I know.”
Pity. Sympathy. Yes, I was pitying Saten. Born with a fate that stripped her of all emotion, unable to enjoy even the smallest happiness. She was pitiful.
“Minerva, show me. Show me that child Saten’s past.”
“…Fine. But don’t regret it, Junwoo. This one’s going to be quite painful.”
I was prepared for that much. Pain was something I was used to.
Minerva sighed deeply while looking at me. Then she brought over a single black book from far away. It looked similar to a Grimoire, but the cover read ‘The Past of Sicilia Saten.’
The lives of all humans are recorded here.
Those who are born, those who live, and those who die.
This is Minerva's Library.
“Born, recorded in life, and documented in death. The only person who would use this grand Minerva's Library—which holds such profound meaning—just to peek at someone else’s past is you, Junwoo.”
In Minerva's Library, the ‘lives’ of every person are recorded. The anecdotes that occur while living are written into books. For heroes who left their mark on the world, the volumes are so numerous they sometimes require two entire bookshelves. The completion of a book signifies death, and deeper within this library, mountains of such completed series are piled high.
“Here. Read it or don’t, it’s up to you. Hmph, I’m going back to sleep. Do whatever you want!”
“…Thank you, Minerva.”
“Don’t thank me! I hate it, you idiot!”
Minerva huffed and returned to her bed. Despite her words, she was worried about me. Reading someone else’s past came with side effects, after all. She simply didn’t want to see me in pain.
“Well then… shall we read it now…”
The Past of Sicilia Saten.
I gently stroked the cover with that title, steeled my heart, and opened the book.
It was a world of endless darkness.
The genius mage, Sicilia Saten.
For most people, life begins to twist after they become adults. But for her, her life had been twisted from the moment she was born.
“The child’s mana is abnormal…!! Ah, the mistress’s mana is all flowing into the child…!!”
“What did you say…?”
Lennon, the head of the Sicilia family. People said he had no emotions, but when he was with his wife, he was a man richer in emotion than anyone. He was happy living with her and wished that happiness would never break.
But the happiness he so desperately wished would never break was mercilessly torn apart the moment Saten was born.
“The child has been born… but the mistress has drawn her last breath, my lord…”
“…”
The cry of the newborn echoed from his wife’s womb. Lennon held his dead wife in his arms. He clutched her cold body tightly and glared at the child with eyes full of hatred.
This child. This demonic child has stolen my wife’s life.
The hatred with nowhere to go after losing his wife naturally turned toward Saten.
“It’s noisy. I want to shove a sword down its throat. Shut it up immediately.”
“M-my lord… the child’s name…”
“Call it Saten. And never let this child appear before my eyes again.”
“But Saten sounds just like Satan! Is that not too similar to the Demon King’s name…!!”
“…To me, she is no different from the Demon King. She was born with the fate of a devil. It is a fitting name.”
Satan. And Saten.
Born with a cursed name, Saten received no proper treatment from the family. For the first three years, she lived in the main house, but her crying reached Lennon’s ears. In the end, she was confined to a small cabin deep in the family’s forest.
No food was given to her. Saten survived by eating the wild plants that grew around the cabin.
Happiness makes one dream, but pain forces one to face reality.
At the age of seven, living in a hellish existence, Saten realized something.
“…Why am I even alive?”
The people in books all lived with some kind of meaning. Some sought adventure. Some sought love. Some sought knowledge. But Saten could not relate to any of those meanings. Her world was a terrible monochrome without a single color.
From the moment she was born, pain had been her entire life.
‘Still, like the people in the books, someday a light will come to me too. Not a black light, but a bright one like the dawn…’
Even so, Saten lived while holding onto hope. Soaked by the rain leaking through the cabin roof, shivering in the cold. She had even eaten poisonous mushrooms and stood at death’s door. All while holding onto the meaning of hope.
But after three more years, when she turned ten, Saten finally let go of even that hope.
“I’ll just… let everything go… I want to die…”
The hope that had kept her alive had actually been torture. The pain grew deeper, and not a single ray of hopeful light could be seen. Her surroundings were always dark.
In the end, Saten forced a handful of the poisonous mushrooms she had once nearly died from into her mouth.
Munch. Munch.
The poison churned in her stomach, and hallucinations took over her vision. It was a strange experience. The faces of parents she couldn’t even remember floated in the air.
“Mother… Father…”
Saten reached out her hand. Her mother turned away from her, but her father seemed to try to take her hand.
“Mother is ignoring even my death…”
The poison spread through her entire body. Saten felt her body gradually becoming paralyzed. Soon her airway would close and she wouldn’t be able to breathe.
But the moment she tried to cross the threshold of death, a sudden ‘mana awakening’ began.
It was a process that normally occurred around the age of fifteen. However, because Saten had possessed her mother’s mana from birth, her awakening had begun earlier than others.
The mana pushed out the poison and began detoxifying her body.
“…W-why? Why do I have to live…?”
I tried to die… Why…?
But Saten could not have predicted it. That the mana awakening would be far more painful than the poison.
After the mana finished its detoxification, the power scattered throughout her body began rushing toward her heart.
“A, aaagh…!! It hurts… K-kill me…!”
When there is too much mana, one experiences pain that can shatter the mind. That is why awakening normally takes place beside a master skilled in magic. The master gently guides the mana and reduces the pain as much as possible.
But Saten had always been alone. She had no such master. She had to endure that agony by herself.
“K-kill… me…”
It hurts too much… Just kill me…
Her nerves were entirely focused on the pain. How could she escape this suffering? Her body, unable to endure any longer, made an automatic judgment.
The cause of pain was emotion. One feels sadness because of pain. One feels fear because of pain. One feels anger because of pain.
‘Emotion is the root of all pain.’
Saten’s body decided on its own and flipped every emotional switch to off. So she would no longer feel any pain. It was a self-defense mechanism in its own way.
In that manner, Saten blocked all pain and lost every last one of her emotions. The world turned entirely black. It was the best possible method to overcome the suffering.
“…So the true identity of that mana was you.”
“…”
Afterward, Lennon, who had sensed the mana wave, approached the cabin and shouted at the servants.
“Move this child to the main building. And call for a teacher to teach her magic. Since she has talent, she will be ‘useful.’”
His eyes looked at her as nothing more than a tool. They were absolutely not the eyes of a father.
From that day on, Saten was forced to endure a study load akin to abuse. When she made mistakes, she was made to slap her own cheeks. She always studied magic alone in a dark attic.
She had tried to die, but she could not die as she wished.
And so, the dark days continued…
Though it seemed the dark days would continue forever, I was currently staring at the ceiling of the library. Above me, I heard Minerva’s voice.
“Junwoo!! Snap out of it!!”
“…What is it, Minerva?”
I had definitely been reading Saten’s past…?
When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on the floor. A faint, stinging pain lingered in my heart. And Minerva was on top of me, grabbing my collar and shaking me. I felt like I was about to throw up.
“M-Minerva, stop…”
“Stop? Stop what…! Junwoo, do you even know what just happened?! Your heart stopped for a moment!!”
Hic.
Minerva wiped away her tears as she explained. More importantly, my heart had stopped for a moment?
While my consciousness had been inside the book, the recoil must have stopped my heart. Since the pain was no longer present, I didn’t feel it strongly and felt somewhat dazed.
“The recoil was that severe… It must be from when Saten was undergoing her mana awakening.”
My mind felt a little depressed right now. A sense of lethargy where I didn’t want to do anything swirled through my body, and an impulse to end my life if given the chance remained. This was the rebound from reading someone else’s unhappy past. The remnants of the past were affecting both my mind and body.
Minerva patted my chest and shouted.
“T-this is exactly why I didn’t want to show you…!! You almost died again, just like last time…!! What am I supposed to do if you’re gone, Junwoo…!!”
“…Well, you could just live with Myeong-i.”
“I told you not to shorten its name! Even if the owl is here, I’d be bored without you…!! I’m never lending you another book!”
Saying that, Minerva buried herself in my arms and wiped her tears. To think this was how a goddess behaved. Her followers would surely be disappointed.
I stroked Minerva’s head and said,
“It’s fine. I’m not going to die. Well, unless I die of old age. Since you’re watching my future, there’s no way I’ll die.”
“…That’s not true. There is no such thing as ‘never,’ Junwoo.”
I hugged the crying Minerva and comforted her. And in my heart, I agreed with her words that there is no such thing as ‘never.’
‘…Yeah. There really is no such thing as never.’
A future that would never change. However, after seeing Saten’s past, I had discovered a light called hope.
Rehabilitation. If I could return her emotions and teach her happiness, Saten would not choose death on her own. That fact was clear.
‘I will change Saten’s future.’
So she wouldn’t die alone by hanging herself in loneliness. Recalling the emotions and memories of Saten that remained inside me, I made a firm resolution.