Cleric Besia (5)

I'm seeing this wrong. I have to be.

That was what she thought, watching Argal crumple like a bird that soars in a blaze of glory only to fall — every last spark of life leaving him in a single instant.

"Ah— uh, ah…"

Besia couldn't form a single word.

Should she have thanked him, in those last moments before he died? Should she have said she was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sorry? None of that mattered now. He was already gone.

"A lunatic to the bitter end."

Tiagris knew the fight was over in all but name. She descended to the ground. Her black robe swayed, and the hood that had swallowed her entire face slipped back. A black-haired beauty with an unreadable expression regarded the two of them.

"You— if it weren't for you—"

Besia tried to pour every ounce of her homeless regret and hatred onto Tiagris. A vast surge of Holy Power locked onto the Tower Lord. But Tiagris cut her down with a single, merciless denial.

"Ha! ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠So a Tower Lord is supposed to just let the one who brought down the Black Magic Tower walk free? A clash with him was inevitable. If anything, aren't you the reason he's dead?"

"What?"

"He looked like he was leaning on artifacts, but his talent for black magic is considerable. Honestly? If he'd tried to escape alone, I couldn't have stopped him. But he had dead weight hanging off him, didn't he?"

Every word out of Tiagris's mouth carved into Besia's chest. She couldn't deny a single one of them.

If Argal had wanted to get out alone, a single stroke of his blade would have set him free. Instead, he had scraped the very bottom of his life to save a girl he had known for a single day. He had overcome the worst possible encounter — a meeting with the Lord of the Black Magic Tower — and he had died for it.

There had been no reason. There never was a reason, when it came to saving someone. And that fact was almost too much to bear. Because he had been more devoted than she was — a cleric. More willing to sacrifice than she had ever been.

"Nngh— nngh…"

"I'd love to kill you, but I can't even lay a finger on you thanks to that demon. It's enough to drive a person insane. Let's just write today off as a bad-luck day and leave it at that."

"Where the hell do you think you're going…!"

"Oh my. So you want to kill me? That look in your eyes is downright murderous. But what can I do? I have no intention of fighting."

The moment they clashed, the demon would get involved — and Tiagris would be the only one to lose. As a black mage of utterly cold reason, why would she ever accept a loss like that?

Tiagris simply wore a faint smile and conjured a storm of Magi. The Black Magic Tower had been half-destroyed, a collapse only she could contain. She couldn't afford to stay rooted here.

"See you later, little cleric. Something tells me we'll cross paths again."

"Don't you dare leave!"

"Listen to you whine."

When Tiagris was gone, Besia stared at the empty space the Lord of the Black Magic Tower had left behind, her eyes hollow. The enemy she had been fighting, the target she could hate — both had vanished, and only the cruel truth remained.

She could feel the cold seeping from his body. There was no strength left in him at all. His heart didn't beat. He wasn't breathing. Every sign pointed to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a complete and total death, and looking down at Argal, Besia couldn't endure an agony she had no words for.

Perhaps that was why she made a choice she never would have made under any other circumstances.

"Don't die…"

Pouring Holy Power into a corpse that was already dead. Something she shouldn't do. Something that meant nothing. And in a body this wrecked, pouring out Holy Power could kill her — yet Besia didn't stop healing. Until he came back. Until his heart beat again.

Even this, in the end, was meaningless. Besia felt her vision growing steadily dimmer. There was no miracle waiting. Only the ending that had already been written.

"You stupid bitch…"

What was she thinking, rendering even his sacrifice pointless?

"You idiot…"

Regretting it after you die because you couldn't even say you were sorry?

"Just a complete moron…"

Why did you try to die for me? She didn't know. He'd said there was no reason.

"I don't have a reason either."

There's no reason needed to save a person. Right?

So please, God. Please.

She felt the end approaching. She'd done something stupid, and now she would die stupidly. That, she thought, was how she would be remembered.

Then she felt something strange.

The Holy Power that should have run dry any second now… didn't stop. As if she were drawing from an infinite spring beneath the earth, she kept pouring it out without end.

"Huh?"

All at once, a colossal tide of Holy Power began to flood forth. Was this really the output of a single cleric? Besia couldn't believe it. This was at least a bishop's level… no. Beyond even that.

It surpassed the kind of Holy Power that could jolt even a half-dead wreck back to life in an instant. The light grew so fierce she couldn't even see Argal's form anymore.

In the same moment Besia realized she had awakened… she knew that a heart which should not have been beating had begun to beat again.

"I— I saved him."

The moment it became known that someone had brought a person back through Holy Power, that person became a Saintess or a Saint on the spot — no procedures, no process required. Proving it wouldn't be easy, given that she'd done it in a space with no one else around. Besia didn't particularly care.

She'd saved Argal. She'd made the heart of the man who'd sacrificed himself for her beat again.

But there was no time to revel in the joy. Besia seized Argal in a tight grip and started dragging him — far from this place, as far as she could possibly go. The only person Tiagris couldn't attack was Besia. If the Tower Lord came back and discovered Argal had been revived, the same catastrophe would play out all over again.

What followed the joy was pain. The long imprisonment had wasted her muscles away. She had starved for a long time. Dragging a fallen man was an absurd thing to attempt in the first place. She was holding herself together with Holy Power alone, and a pain beyond even that tore at her. It was an ordeal no Holy Knight could have endured. She didn't stop.

"…Bishop."

It had been quite some time since she'd last called out to God. Only just now — a brief prayer, to save Argal. She no longer looked to God.

"Bishop Revega. I want to see you."

She just wanted to see the bishop who had looked after her since she was small.

"Wouldn't it be better to withdraw, Your Excellency?"

The Holy Knight spoke carefully. A full month of searching for the missing cleric. Their provisions were gone. The knights' morale had sunk low. Even for a bishop, pushing the Holy Knights any further was becoming untenable.

"No progress at all?"

"None, Your Excellency. Not even the faintest trace…"

"Hmm."

Bishop Revega looked grave on the surface. Inside, he was rotting away. The child he had cherished like a daughter. He couldn't find Besia no matter what he did.

"Just one more week…"

"…"

"One more week. If there's still no progress, we'll withdraw."

"Understood, Your Excellency."

The Holy Knight nodded, feeling the desperation in the bishop. As if any of them — the ones actually suffering through this search — wanted to give up. Not a single knight had given less than everything to every last scrap of a trail. That was how desperate they all were over Besia's disappearance.

"Where on earth did you go… my child."

The bishop gazed into the forest, his heart in ruins.

Besia had vanished without warning while on patrol near the Capital with the Holy Knights. Every ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠other cleric around her had been perfectly fine. Only that one child had disappeared.

Given how strange it was, more than a few of the clergy had speculated that Besia had simply grown bored of the Church and left. Bishop Revega was certain that wasn't the case.

"If that were true, she would have at least given me some kind of word."

She was a prickly child, always snapping at people — but she'd always been warm toward Bishop Revega, the man who had raised her himself since she was small. For a child like that to vanish without a word to the man who was as good as her father… something had to have happened. He was sure of it.

The bishop's worries were deepening when, far in the distance, a massive storm of Magi erupted.

"Your Excellency! A storm of Magi has erupted in the distance!"

"I felt it."

Yes. This might be their last chance. The bishop steeled his will and gave the order to the Holy Knights.

"By the will of God, let us strike down this evil."

"Yes, Your Excellency!"

An entire order of knights set out toward the place where that enormous storm had poured down — hoping, at the very least, to find some trace of Besia.

When the wound is too fatal, or when black magic has burned through every last drop of life I have, I slip into a temporary state of suspended animation.

Or, to put it another way — I die, for a little while. Unable to breathe. Heart not beating. A state that has arrived at death itself.

But I didn't stay dead.

I woke up anyway. My heart beat again. I breathed again. No matter how badly they wrecked my body while I was dead, every scrap of flesh would knit itself back together until I was whole.

I can't die even if I want to, so they call it a curse. And because I don't want to die, I come back from death — so you could just as well call it a blessing.

Thump—

Thump—

I can feel a pulse. The candle of life that had gone completely out has begun to burn again.

As consciousness returns, I feel a powerful surge of Holy Power pouring into me. Don't tell me she's casting a heal on me? Why would she do something that stupid. What if she dies from depleting her Holy Power?

My pulse is going, but my body hasn't fully come back yet. Meaning I still can't move. Now that my heart is beating again, Besia must have decided I was revived — because she started dragging my body along.

…She's going to drop dead from overdoing it like that.

I didn't have a choice. I wasn't fully back, but I forced my body to move as much as I could and tried to stop Besia from wrecking herself.

"…St— stop."

"Ah!"

The moment I opened my mouth, she startled and set my body down. I worked my locked-up muscles and pushed myself upright. I'd only just come back. Even standing properly was hard.

I looked at Besia — she looked even worse than before — and started to scold her.

"I went through all that trouble saving you, and now you're trying to get yourself killed—"

"Hic— hhik!"

Then Besia threw her arms around me and started crying, and I couldn't get another word out.

"You crazy bastard— why the hell— sniff— why did you try to take everything on yourself and die like that?"

"…"

It's a hard thing to explain. To tell her what I intended, what I was thinking, I'd have to bring up my immortality — and I can't put that on the table.

In moments like this, I always thought of the Hero. Among everyone I knew, the only person who would risk her own life to save someone else was the Hero.

What had the Hero said at times like this?

Because that is my duty.

…That doesn't fit me.

Even thinking it over again, almost nothing she'd ever said lined up with who I was. The Hero existed to save humanity. She carried an enormous duty.

I couldn't find a way to put my own position into words, so I just stayed still until Besia calmed down. It took about three minutes before she let me go.

Besia seemed to realize what a scene she'd made. Both her cheeks were burning red. Things had gotten a little awkward, but that wasn't what mattered.

What mattered was this: we'd escaped the Black Magic Tower. The Black Magic Tower where I'd spent five years as a slave, in the past. I'd gotten out in a single day.

I somehow got my uncooperative body upright and spoke.

"Let's go back."

"…Yeah!"

Thud—

She'd been putting on a show of walking forward with her head high, and then Besia was the first one to crumple to the ground. She'd burned through all her stamina dragging me.

I let out a hollow laugh and held out my hand. I hauled her up somehow and tried to get us moving, but my own muscles were still locked stiff. We ended up lashed together, more or less, just to walk.

And even then, Besia never lost her smile.

"Home— let's go home!"

The fate of a girl who had died in agony in an underground prison… had just been rewritten.