Before Death Comes (3)

"...I—"

As always, I had been about to offer some plausible excuse. Something to soothe her anger, something that would let me join them and kill Tiagris.

But my cheek still stung. Was it the curse, bearing down on me? The bishop's unshakable certainty kept circling through my skull, refusing to settle.

That a Transcendent's single remark — that I am not an Immortal — could shake me this badly.

Faced with Fran's interrogation, I sank into thought. I had believed I was an Immortal. But if I actually died — then what?

Fran wiped at the tears running down her face, as if she could not endure another second of this.

"...We'll take care of the Lord of the Black Magic Tower ourselves."

"..."

"Argal, please don't do anything. Stay at the church for a while. The Hero is here too — can't we take down one Tower Lord together with her?"

Besia and the Sword Saint would likely join them as well. They could probably manage it. And yet the possibility that any one of them might not come back alive kept turning over and over in my mind.

The Lord of the Black Magic Tower was no easy opponent. I myself had no confidence I could beat her one-on-one. How could they possibly win against someone like that without anyone getting hurt?

In the end, drowning in that tangle of doubt, I nodded. I would let it go — for now. I would sort through my thoughts as thoroughly as I could and arrive at a conclusion. Either I would reclaim my certainty that I was an Immortal, or I would find irrefutable proof of it. Or I would accept that I was not.

I did not truly believe that last possibility was very likely. It was not as though evidence of immortality had been entirely absent. There was the way my life force recovered faster after I came back. There was the fact that I was still alive after using that dagger again and again.

Of course, even those things could be explained away if I were not immortal. If the Origin of the Star had been restoring my body — and restoring my lifespan along with it — then that itself would become proof that I was no Immortal at all.

There was no strength left in me. My head ached so fiercely I could barely think. A ruined body, a curse layered on top of it, and Fran's raw emotion piled over everything — the whole world felt like it was coming apart.

"Argal, you're okay, right?"

"...I'm fine."

"I— I'm sorry. I got too worked up earlier."

She apologized for slapping me. I did not particularly care. It was simply that my body was in such wretched condition — or rather, that was the entire truth of it. My body was on the verge of death. A frame that had already been failing, now compounded by a curse. I had become a critically ill patient.

Originally I had intended to die once from the bishop's curse and be done with it. But with things as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠they were, even dying once felt strangely unsettling. First I would gather the Hero and the Sword Saint — everyone — and then decide.

"For now, perhaps we should move the patient?"

A priest who had been channeling a little Holy Power into me spoke up carefully. The Church was hardly above suspicion, but they were not openly hostile, so staying a short while should not cause any real trouble.

At the priest's suggestion, Raelly — the strongest of us — hoisted me onto her back. The moment I was laid on a bed, my body began to sink toward sleep.

In the blur of fading consciousness, Fran spoke.

"...So we just need to take down the Lord of the Black Magic Tower together with the Hero, right?"

"Reinhardt will probably come here too, not just the Hero."

"What? Why would someone who went back to his family estate return to the Capital?"

I did not know either. But the bishop had said it would happen, which meant it would. A Transcendent's peculiar insight could reach even as far as events yet to come.

"...So wait."

"I can't wait for long."

Fran wanted to go after the Lord of the Black Magic Tower alone, without even needing the Hero. The curse was eating into my body even now, and that made her frantic.

If only for a moment, I wanted to ease the anxiety written so plainly across her face. I set my hand on top of her head. Her eyes, bright with unshed tears, were painfully clear.

Even if the bishop's words had shaken me for a moment. Even if I did not yet have complete certainty. I still believed it.

"So don't worry."

"...I really can't believe you."

Fran clenched her teeth and chewed over her own words again.

"I absolutely cannot believe you."

That distrust ran down to the bone. Even I could not say where it had come from. She was terribly unstable.

"Argal, you're such a terrible person."

"Yeah. I'm a bad person."

Before the regression I had been humanity's greatest enemy, so that much was true. I had heard words of hatred more times than I could count.

"Saving people and then trying to die all by yourself — that's a really awful thing to do."

So that was what she meant.

Fran slowly lowered herself until she was pressed completely against me. The clean scent of her hair drifted into my lungs. She laid her face against my chest, as if she needed to hear my heartbeat — to secure definite proof that I was still alive. After holding me tightly once, some of the anxiety seemed to loosen its grip. She lifted her face, looking a little more herself.

There was a grim resolve in that single line, and beneath it a will to put some physical measure in place. Her magic ignited. A blue magic circle unfurled across the room.

Cold sweat slid down my back. It was what I thought it was, wasn't it...?

Unfortunately, the prediction did not miss.

In other words, I was imprisoned.

"Hey, Fran, maybe you should rethink this a little..."

"If you don't change, Argal, there's no chance my mind will change."

She was utterly unyielding. There was not the faintest intention of allowing me even a single step out of this room. Fran walked out through the barrier in silence, as if she could not stand to look at my face any longer. On the surface it looked like she was sulking.

Kids these days sure know how to sulk with a vengeance.

Trapped in the room, unable to move an inch, I muttered to myself.

"...What now."

As if setting fire to water already spilled, Raelly sided with Fran completely.

"Argal, rest in there for a while! We'll definitely take down the Lord of the Black Magic Tower and come back."

"How about letting me out instead, Raelly."

"So you want to get hit?"

Raelly wore a vicious little smile. I could feel it clearly — the instant I showed even a hint of trying to slip out, she would slam me right back into this room.

What exactly had I done wrong to deserve this? I was trying to risk my own life to save other people, and all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it earned me was this smothering, excessive worry.

I let out a long breath and lay back on the bed. This was my karma. Saving others was not an unalloyed good. But if I went back... I would have saved them the same way again.

The bed was soft. Just for a little while, I set down everything heavy and fell asleep in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that comfort.

"He's asleep?"

Unlike Fran, Raelly did not leave entirely. She simply watched over Argal from outside the door.

His body had been shattered. He had endured pain no one should have been able to withstand, and through all of it he had held to a will that hard. And yet, sleeping so quietly like this, he looked unbearably fragile — almost innocent.

This was the man arranged as her marriage prospect. The one she would be engaged to. It had not happened yet. She would make it happen.

"I do get the feeling that more and more rivals keep turning up."

Even so, Raelly was not particularly worried. She had something none of the others did. If they had been saved by Argal, she alone could say that she had saved Argal's life. That was why he had told only her about being immortal, wasn't it? He had regarded her as special, and so he had given her a truth he shared with no one else.

"But I don't believe that immortality talk, Argal."

To anyone looking, it was a lie meant to stop people from throwing their lives away for him. Who on earth would believe that? As if Immortals existed in this world.

But if he himself genuinely believed he was one — that was a problem of a different kind. Which was why Raelly had agreed to lock him in. It was a way to hold onto Argal, who might otherwise sacrifice himself in any number of terrible ways.

She murmured it quietly. If the other girls clung to him with emotions that burst and overflowed, Raelly's devotion was something thicker — a clinging intensity that rose from somewhere beneath thought.

"Even if it means I take your curse upon myself."

If I took the demon's curse you inherited — what kind of face would you make, Argal?

She wanted to know so badly that she swallowed the feeling down in silence.

"I'll protect you. I swear it."

Sacrifice for his sake was more satisfying than she had expected. A small smile touched her lips.

I drifted along the edge of death for a time. When I opened my eyes, the Hero was standing in front of me. I thought I was hallucinating.

"...Hero?"

"Are you all right?"

How long had I been unconscious? Even after everything I had endured before the regression, there had not been many times I had been this sick. Sweat soaked my body. My heart beat so faintly it seemed it might stop at any moment.

"...How long have I been out?"

"Three days have passed."

"...Damn."

I had been unconscious far longer than I had thought. I had not even woken before the Hero, who had briefly left the church, returned. At this rate I really might die once and then go after the Lord of the Black Magic Tower.

The Hero's expression was as stern as ever. She laid out, one by one, the things she had uncovered in the meantime.

"I have learned facts that are difficult to believe."

"Have you."

"Starting from the corruption of the Royal Family, all the way to the darkness within the Church."

She bowed her head. The weight of her responsibility seemed to press on her even from the simple fact that I had collapsed like this.

"My negligence has caused ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you to suffer."

"You don't need to think that way, Hero."

"No. Had I known sooner, I would have taken Besia out of that prison and saved the bishop from the curse. You performed the work that I, as the Hero, ought to have done."

That was how she saw it. The guilt of failing to carry the enormous duty she bore as the Hero darkened her face.

My thoughts on the matter had not changed.

"...I told you. You don't have to carry it alone."

"I... see."

"Even a Hero has limits. It is not something you can do by forcing yourself past what you are."

A door rattled open. Someone else stepped into the room — and that, too, was a familiar face. That insufferably self-assured man with the blue hair had actually come. The Sword Saint had arrived in the kingdom's Capital, and at the church no less.

"Then what about you, Argal."

"...What are you talking about."

"I asked why you are shouldering something even the Hero finds hard to bear."

He appeared with that same expressionless face as always. He must have heard the entire conversation with the Hero from outside, because he asked about a subject that heavy as if it were nothing at all.

It was a difficult question to answer. I could hardly tell him it was because if the Hero took these things upon herself, she would awaken or grow stronger — and then the Demon King would grow stronger too.

"You're a strange one."

"..."

"But if that's what you want, I can play along."

Something came flying toward me. It looked like a potion, and it looked rarer than anything I had ever seen.

"What's this?"

"An elixir. A miracle potion that can almost fully restore your reduced lifespan and your present condition. A life elixir capable of reviving anything on the brink of death."

"...You're giving this to me?"

"It was hard to obtain. I acquired it to restore your reduced lifespan — though now it will have to serve a different purpose."

I looked at the elixir and swallowed. At the same time, it felt maddeningly wasteful. Did an Immortal need to drink something like this? It would be better to simply die once and be done with it.

Thinking that, I started to set it down. The Sword Saint's hand closed hard around the one that was trying to put the elixir aside.

His grip clenched.

"Your life is hanging by a thread."

"..."

As if that were all he had intended to say, the Sword Saint released my hand. He simply watched after that, as though whatever I decided next was my own affair.

I stared at the elixir. It glowed with an intoxicating rainbow light, and that light made a promise: the instant I swallowed it, my fallen body would rise again.

Even if a demon's curse could not be erased by an elixir, one thing was certain. My death would take a single step further away.