Erkia, City of Water - 06
It hadn't taken long to bring the food, so I had been listening to the conversation from the middle.
Lois seemed not particularly inclined to punish Belita.
Precisely, she had committed a wrong and deserved punishment, but she appeared to hope it wouldn't be too severe.
The girl who had never known even a flicker of light in her entire life.
No one who didn't understand that asking a child who wanted to die yet refused to die to bear the weight of guilt would yield no proper result.
Being young couldn't serve as an excuse for a crime, but it could justify leniency.
The absence of choice in life wasn't necessarily the same as being bound hand and foot, unable to move.
It meant that one was forced into a state where options were progressively cut away, leaving no room to imagine choosing anything else.
"……."
"……."
"……."
Within the silence, the faint clink of dishes and the soft gulping sounds of someone trying to swallow were all that could be heard.
Belita quietly glanced at Lois from the corner of her eye, and of course Lois noticed and spoke.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"N-no, I thought you wanted to die..."
"Huh? Ah, I've been hurt badly."
"W-would you like me to heal you?"
"...Are you sure? I'm the enemy of the 'Alex' you chose. If I heal you, you'll truly be unable to turn back, right? You should use your head now, slip out of here, go to Alex, and tell him that we are here. Isn't that the best option?"
"That would be..."
"Lois."
"I know. The healing is already done. I'll do it later once things calm down."
"Why?"
"Just because."
"..."
Lois's arm was now bound by a curse, and attempting to regenerate it would cause the curse to spread to the other party.
In a normal situation, Belita would have simply said to heal the head and heart.
But right now, Belita was far from normal.
'A burning desire for destruction that has taken root deep in her chest, spreading out of control to the point where she can no longer control herself with reason.'
Even the way she had approached Lois, who had seemed ready to kill her, like a savior had appeared, showed just how severe the situation was.
In other words.
While trying to heal only the head and heart, Belita was considering healing the arm as well, which carried a real risk of deliberately absorbing the curse.
Lois was quietly enduring it, but if it were transferred to another person, the consequences were unpredictable.
Even if it didn't change, if Belita refused to resist the curse, there was no guarantee she wouldn't die on the spot.
The curse could spread to others in some cases, and if it did, Lois would be fine, but Belita might be in grave danger.
And if she didn't even try to resist it, the risk would be even greater.
Although the body regenerated thanks to the Spirit Core, it wasn't clear whether it would automatically resist curses as well.
Moreover, this wasn't just any curse—it was one infused with the power of the Evil God, which would likely tear through even ordinary resistance.
'If this situation hadn't arisen, I would have made her heal.'
Even if healing caused the arm to regenerate and something went wrong, it would still be Belita's mistake.
But as I said, if I entrusted Belita with the healing now, she might deliberately absorb the curse into her own body.
'I could simply not mention the curse on my arm, but Belita is thinking more clearly than I expected.'
Lois wasn't the only one who saw Belita as an unreliable girl; I had too.
Alex had viewed her as a weak coward.
It wasn't an act, but she had observed far more than expected, and as a priestess, she was sensitive to such matters.
If I gave the order not to heal the arm without revealing the curse, and Belita anticipated that I knew about it and understood it was a powerful curse, she might deliberately seek contact with it again.
In the end, I couldn't allow a being like Belita, consumed by destruction, to have any real chance of true ruin.
"Y-you want to live like this instead of being healed...? ...But your wounds look severe. Even if it's not me, there should be a priestess who can regenerate."
"...Do you know anything about Alex?"
"..."
Belita reached for her wrist again, but Lois shot her a warning glance, quickly pulling her hands away and crossing her arms to stop her.
It seemed she couldn't endure the urge to scratch unless she did so in that way.
It wasn't just lightly irritating the skin; she was tearing at it as if the skin itself might rip.
"Ah, Alex-nim doesn't trust anyone, so he rarely shares information. He only told me he found out I lack the Saintess Stigma."
"When was that?"
"After Lois-nim left the party."
After I left, things really began to move?
Thinking about it, the Geas on Reyna had also been placed after I departed.
If that was the case, had I been the one to annoy her?
Since I knew a lot about Alex, I might have noticed even the smallest changes and realized what he had done.
But now that I had been banished because of Lois, there was no one left who could notice if he did something.
That's right—except for me, no one else knew Alex's true nature.
Still, I hadn't thought he would go that far.
The old you had seen your own nature as something shameful.
The new you seemed to feel no shame at all.
"So after that?"
"After that, we simply had times when we talked normally, just the two of us."
"What kind of conversations?"
"Huh? Um..."
From her reaction, it didn't seem like she had been directly blackmailed.
Or perhaps it had been, but Belita hadn't realized it was blackmail.
Right now, Belita was not in a normal mental state, and from childhood she had endured abuse under the guise of experiments.
No, her entire life had been nothing but abuse.
"E-even without the Saintess Stigma, you are still a saintess..."
"Was that praise?"
"Mostly. That if the truth came out, the Bright family would be in danger, that as a saintess I should just do my best, that despite my young age I showed a respectable determination to protect the family, things like that."
"..."
"..."
"And he explained what would happen if it was revealed I wasn't a saintess, and when only the two of us remained, we talked about such things often. Apart from that, there were no particularly notable conversations."
Indeed.
Belita, who had already become too broken to be called fragile, had become even more shaken after meeting someone who knew she wasn't a saintess.
On top of that, by speaking about the saintess, about the family, and about having to do anything to protect them, he had made an already unstable Belita even worse.
Hmm.
"You were rather kind to me."
"I wouldn't say kind. Sometimes your eyes were incredibly cold. Olivia-nim also had cold eyes sometimes, but if Olivia-nim used that look on monsters or criminals, Alex-nim uses it on anyone."
"..."
She had observed far more than I realized.
She hadn't completely given up, but her eyes weren't completely blind either.
"If there's one thing that bothers me..."
"What is it?"
"The strange aura I sensed from Alex-nim... after betraying Olivia-nim."
"What do you mean?"
"Before that, he was only occasionally cold-eyed, but after betraying Olivia-nim, I could clearly smell the stench of monsters and feel an unpleasant presence."
"..."
The unpleasant presence was probably the power of the Evil God.
Could she distinguish it?
"Ah, this person betrayed humanity."
"..."
"That's what I thought."
She hadn't asked why he had stayed silent, which was a good thing.
Asking a girl who couldn't even decide her own life or death whether he had done it would have been cruel.
"Then did Alex know about those experiments too?"
"W-well... probably the entire family knew."
"What!?"
"T-that's right. The Reynolds family provided the funding and information concealment that allowed the Bright family to conduct those experiments."
"One of the Four Great Noble Families?"
"No, depending on the case, it could be two or three."
"Three?"
"If they caused such a huge scandal, I'm doubtful that even King Cromwell Clifort truly didn't know."
"...Did King Cromwell also know?"
"It's possible."
I remembered that Cromwell had a particularly good relationship with Alex and was a person who could never be called kind by nature.
But if it was a necessary talent for someone who governed a country, I supposed it couldn't be helped.
After all, there were times when one had to ignore harm to another country for the sake of one's own.
"I think so too."
"Why?"
"My father often said that information about the experiments had to be reported to someone... Ah, my father is the head of the Bright family. Who would the head of that family report to?"
"One of the Four Great Noble Families."
"The head of the family called royalty."
"I think so."
Belita was trembling as she said everything she had to say.
Moreover, she seemed to have gathered quite a bit of information.
"So three of the Four Great Noble Families were collaborators in that mad experiment?"
"Indeed. It makes sense that no news has leaked outside."
It was easy to deceive one person with three liars.
Even if three powerful families colluded to deceive, they could easily pull it off.
"Then the remaining one is the Courtney family?"
"It hasn't been mentioned, but they may be cooperating."
"Should we go meet them? Surely at least one person from the Four Great Noble Families isn't coming to this Human Alliance Conference?"
"The Courtney family is the family of justice."
"In other words, they are often involved in law or judgment."
"If they don't go rogue, they are likely to offer help."
"Belita?"
"W-we're here... Lord of the Courtney family."
"Eh!? You're here!? D-do you know where? No, I don't."
"I do."
"Why do you know?"
"Every time I see the head of the Courtney family, he buys me something delicious and takes good care of me. I don't know why, but he also says that if I get into trouble, he will come find me."
"..."
"..."
There were two possibilities.
Either he knew about the experiments but felt sorry for Belita's suffering and showed sympathy.
Or he didn't know and only learned later, wanting to help the victim Belita.
Whichever it was, it was worth a visit.
"Let's go, Belita."
"Where?"
"To greet the head of the Courtney family."
"Huh? Suddenly? L-let me come too?"
"If you don't come, who will guide me?"
"W-wait a minute. My appearance is too conspicuous! This blue hair is a characteristic of the Bright family, so maybe the fight earlier has already been reported! If I do something even more noticeable here..."
Belita trailed off, unable to finish her sentence.
"What happens then?"
Unable to find meaning in life, she sought death.
Yet because she feared death, she still pursued life.
That contradiction was rapidly breaking Belita further.
If this continued, even if I did nothing, she would collapse on her own like a broken doll with its strings cut.
"Let's go."
Lois grabbed Belita's hand.
"Ah..."
"You have to fulfill your role. I don't like making you use that cursed power, but since your power has already awakened, I can't just deny it."
"..."
"Save people."
"Save people?"
"Yes. In all that will happen in Erkia, save as many people as possible, and prevent things that could lead to death before they occur."
"..."
Lois looked at Belita and said.
"If you think what I did—betraying you and trying to kill you—was wrong, then do it."
"Olivia-nim..."
"Ah, you just can't die. If you die, I will kill you."
"Eh? ...E-eh?"
If Titania returned in the evening, there was still time.
Personally, I thought it would be better to talk properly with Titania first, but.
She probably wouldn't listen even if I spoke.
And I couldn't hold Belita for long.
Meeting the Courtney family carried a certain element of gambling, I supposed.
But Lois's intuition had been surprisingly accurate.
It might be worth trying.