Among That Multitude of Stars (3)
Filbar ran his gaze over the sword that was giving off a faint, holy glow.
"I've heard the stories a hundred times, but… to think I would witness the birth of a Sacred Relic with these very two eyes."
A half-ruined blade, its edge shattered down the middle.
And yet something dwelled within it — something set unmistakably apart from anything ordinary.
An ordinary person could never perceive it.
But Alesia, being a Saintess, could see through it more clearly than anyone.
"Truly…."
It had happened mere moments ago. And yet the time since had stretched out long and endless, like an eternity.
When Rueld — no, when Cariel had revealed his name, she hadn't been all that shocked. And Grandeus? She'd only vaguely heard the name before, so even mentioning it hadn't rattled her.
But when he went on to say that he and Saint Cariel had been fellow disciples, she had genuinely wondered what on earth was going on.
She had steeled herself, ready to smash that insolence to pieces at any moment.
Because she had the power to do exactly that.
What had stopped her was…
— Give it up.
— This is a battlefield prepared for him. A trial meant for him alone.
— It is not for outsiders to meddle in.
Outsiders?
And so she had simply watched, and kept watching.
From their bearing, she could understand that ordinarily, none of them should ever have been brought to this place — let alone been allowed to glimpse the memories of Saint Cariel.
Which meant…
It was because Cariel was here, in this place.
Because of that, we were able to glimpse Saint Cariel's memories.
Because of that, we were able to discover his footsteps — and follow them.
…So that's what it meant.
Perhaps they had simply been lucky.
The openness with which the Baron's family welcomed outsiders, and the fact that Alesia herself had taken a liking to Cariel and wanted him close at hand…
Had all of those chance accidents pushed them toward this place like some inevitable fate?
No — pushed wasn't the right word, was it? Hadn't they, rather, been led in through the door?
"Come to think of it — didn't the old woman who gave the prophecy in his memories say something to that effect?"
Baron Roia Varonens remarked, as though the thought had only just returned to him.
"That among that great, countless multitude of stars, one of them would come to you."
"…'So many and so many stars' — that would be all the countless children named after Saint Cariel, wouldn't it?"
Of course Alesia remembered it too.
In which case, one among that multitude of stars was…
Even the great Hero Rueld and the Saintess Ermina had chosen the name Cariel for their firstborn son's baptismal name.
And so the old woman's prophecy had, at long last, come to pass in the here and now.
"Father. Come to think of it…."
Ludhi spoke carefully, as if the thought had only just struck him.
"The name Cariel has become common enough, but someone so young carrying that kind of profound skill and character — that can't be all that common."
"What are you trying to say?"
"…Also, back when I was at the Academy, I caught a glimpse of him. Just once, in passing."
A strikingly handsome boy with black hair.
Two eyes the color of molten gold.
"I wasn't sure at the time, but… could that boy possibly be… the child of Lord Rueld and Lady Ermina…?"
"……"
The Baron fell silent as an old memory surfaced unbidden.
He had once been invited to their wedding, children in tow.
It was after losing his wife that he had resolved, come what may, to raise his two sons well.
And it was the end of the Demon King's invasion that first announced that peace had finally arrived.
The union of the Hero Emperor and the Sorcerous Empress.
And then, the union of the Radiant Knight and the Saintess.
The moment peace truly sank deep into every heart in the land was the very moment those heroes publicly laid down their burdens — the moment they proclaimed to all the world that their duties were fulfilled at last.
Luke grumbled, looking utterly lost as to what was going on.
"So what, then — Cariel's some scion of the Heroes?"
"Too early to say for certain. But probably, yes."
Ludhi couldn't quite bring himself to drive the nail all the way in. Even so, he was half convinced of it already.
"……"
Alesia owed her very place as a Saintess entirely to Ermina.
If not for her, Alesia would have been thrown to the Demon King's army by that false Pope as nothing more than feed — or else exploited in some other fashion until she met a wretched end.
It was they — Rueld and the others, Ermina included — who had uncovered that conspiracy in advance, cut it off at the root, and dragged the false Pope down from his throne.
And as it happened, Alesia herself had been one of that crowd of children — standing there at so tender an age, basket of flowers in hand, to celebrate their wedding.
The memory of it lingered still, faint as a mirage.
A distant keepsake she could only glimpse now and again in her dreams.
"There it is! Magnificent! Quick, everyone, look over there!"
The boy was facing down warriors twice, three times his size.
With that small, slender frame of his.
And he felled them with such practiced ease.
"…His movements are a work of art."
"I caught a brief look before, but… right now he's beyond even that."
Luke added his own words to the Baron's admiring sigh.
"……"
Yes. It was the same back then.
In the fighting that Alesia herself had joined by nothing more than a chance encounter, that boy's movements had always stood apart, singular in a way nothing else was.
And watching him scale the outer wall of the church earlier, she had gained a fair measure of certainty about it.
That is the movement of the elves.
No human, no matter how skillfully they wielded mana, could ever move like that.
Flowing like water, riding like the wind.
And yet all the while dancing, drifting.
The steps of the fair folk.
The wingbeat of a wind spirit.
A gait that cut against the gust.
She had seen it once before, and that was the only reason she'd noticed.
She'd been told that such movement came not from mana, but from an affinity with nature itself — a gift of attunement.
Less a technique or a trained art than an inheritance of the blood.
That was how the elf of the Forest Clan had put it, though not so readily, back then.
And now, over there in the distance —
a small boy stood, wielding every ounce of it with practiced grace against an enemy he had no right to resist.
His figure was like a butterfly caught in a storm.
Like a moth swept away in the gusts.
Fragile to the point of heartbreak, somehow.
And yet, for some reason —
he would not fall.
He did not crumble. He did not break.
Instead, he brought the enemy down, one after another.
It was no scene of overwhelming dominance.
And yet something more than that — or something on par with it — pressed against her chest.
He never stopped moving, unraveling the encirclement before it could tighten.
He seized the advantageous ground, and struck where the weakness lay.
At a glance he looked utterly unstoppable.
Even his evasions flowed naturally, and his defenses were seamless.
Even when he was struck and sent flying, he turned the tumble itself into yet another opening for a counter.
He turned his small stature into an advantage, toying with enemies who towered over him.
How heartbreaking a sight it was.
That the weak cannot defeat the strong is self-evident.
And yet if he could bring them down all the same —
was that mere coincidence?
Or was it a miracle?
Anyone.
Everyone has a weakness. Everyone has a flaw.
He acknowledged his own, and then turned it into his greatest weapon —
and with it, he crushed theirs to pieces.
It was a simple truth, and yet — where on earth was such a thing ever easy?
That relentless, breathless, fist-clenchingly absurd battle —
before anyone realized it, it had reached its end.
Suddenly, he turned his gaze to one side, as if looking at something.
Then he walked slowly forward, lips moving softly.
As though holding a conversation with someone.
— With this, the trial is concluded.
— A satisfying result, truly.
The ancient spirits of the barbarian warriors who had watched alongside them all wore the same look — one of a burden finally eased.
As though the moment had come, at long last, to set down a load they'd carried on their backs for ages untold.
Their shoulders looked lighter than anything.
"You all…."
Alesia couldn't bring herself to ask.
What had she even meant to ask?
She had no way of knowing, herself.
When she turned her head, Filbar was already badgering the servants, pen and brush flying alongside them in fierce strokes, while the rest of the company fixed their eyes on the whole spectacle as if to carve every last detail of it into memory.
Down upon this reality, a miracle had descended.
Heaven and earth alike were washed in light.
Before long, those warriors — invaders once upon a time, but guardians in the present day —
began, as if summoned by some unheard call, to slowly disperse.
And then they gathered once more, all of them, in a single place.
And they looked.
At the sword in Cariel's hand, breaking apart even as it shone.
And yet —
toward that broken half-blade, glowing more sacredly than before, a soft light building within it,
every gaze in the gathering converged.
And the boy who held it walked slowly forward and held the sword out to the Baron.
"Please, take it."
"……"
The Baron felt as though he were accepting some utterly preposterous relic.
He took it into both hands without thinking — and then,
"No. This won't do."
he turned straight around and offered it instead to Alesia.
"This is not a thing I am capable of bearing. And so… I must ask that you, Saintess, take charge of it."
"You mean… me?"
"We will have to report this miracle to the Holy See regardless, will we not? Let this serve as its proof."
"……"
Greedy as he might well have been, to pull something so coldly practical out of the air at a moment like this —
even Alesia herself had been thinking of something else entirely.
"Do you know what our family's creed is?"
the Baron said with a faint laugh.
"…Before Saint Cariel, it was 'Achieve glory.' But after his passing, it was changed to this."
Strive over what you cannot bestow — for to lack that striving is to lack courage.
"Read one way, it also sounds like a warning against being led by greed, doesn't it."
It is common enough for those who have to give.
So why is it that when those who have not are the ones who give, the act is hailed as noble?
Because not just anyone can do it.
And being able to do what no one else can is proof that you are, by a little, the better person.
And so —
"We are only trying, desperately, to become a little better than we were. If a treasure were to clamp the shackles of greed upon us and call it sin, then for us it would be no holy relic at all… but a bribe handed over by a demon."
"But isn't this a miracle that occurred in this church, my lord?"
"Then simply return it the next time you come. What could be simpler?"
"……"
"A treasure, after all, is a thing that clouds every eye that falls upon it. I trust that you, at least, are clear-sighted enough to place it back where it properly belongs, unseduced by any of it."
A proposal laced with more cunning calculation than she'd expected, it seemed.
"Hah."
And yet — however this was handled, the Baron would neither resent Alesia nor reproach her for it.
He was saying all of this only because he thought it would make it easier for her to accept.
If she took it now and returned it later, so much the better.
And in the end, treasure breeds nothing but fresh strife.
The Holy See's monopoly over holy relics and Sacred Relics alike was, when it came down to it, partly a matter of leaving certain dangers contained where they were.
…Which is exactly why they stand accused of hoarding treasures and seizing them for themselves alone.
And the accusation was true.
Not a false word in it.
To shoulder such dishonor was, perhaps, simply another responsibility that fell to those who led.
…And by bearing it, they would be tested without end, wouldn't they.
"I swear it on my honor — I will carry it back to the church with my own hands. But before that…."
Alesia looked at Cariel and asked.
"This thing belonged to you, rightfully. Even so — are you truly all right with that?"
"I have no need of it. I've already received what was mine to receive."
To expect anything beyond that would be greed.
…And, just maybe —
if the true owner of that thing really was Cariel himself…
then someday, it would come back to him.
Not that I would ever wish for it.
By the time anyone noticed, even the barrier had come undone, and the sky above was still nothing but dark.
That long, long stretch of time had, in truth, been only the briefest of moments.
"Everyone! A midnight stroll suits us well enough, but with the festival practically at our doorstep, isn't it about time we all got some shut-eye?"
Filbar offered his opinion to the assembled company.
"Fair enough, that."
"There's a great deal I'd like to say, but perhaps a little… rest comes first."
The Baron and Luke both conceded the point.
"Or perhaps a nightcap, by way of an after-party?"
"……"
Luke, still loath to let it go, tossed out one last remark — then hastily looked away, pretending he'd said no such thing, under the Baron's flat stare.
"I'll return to the church and deliver a preliminary report on all of this."
Filbar approached Alesia and asked, in a tone pitched just below the surface:
"You won't be needing my assistance, I take it?"
"…If you're offering to help with the report itself, then by all means, whenever you like."
Suddenly, Cariel found Filbar's eyes on his.
Something no one else could see.
A single point of understanding, shared between the two of them alone.
Let's talk later.
His soundless whisper carried that intent and nothing more.
It would be about Grandeus, no doubt.
Cariel gave a small nod, as if it were no concern of his either way.
The night was still long.
Somewhere in the distance, the festival preparations were in full swing, and except for the darker lanes, the lights still blazed in full glory.
Cariel climbed into Filbar's four-horse carriage for the ride to the Baron's estate —
and quietly closed his eyes.
Nothing, in truth, was over.
And yet.
One person's long-cherished wish had, with this day, finally run its course.
There was no need to lament it.
No need to grieve it, either.
He would simply hold it, and remember it. That was all.
Everyone wore composed faces, but they too seemed to carry the lingering echo of what had passed, each of them deep in their own fatigue — and so the inside of the carriage grew quieter still, hushed and still as a held breath, carrying on in a way it never had before.
Even after Alesia had stepped down at the halfway point.
All the while.
Suddenly —
he found himself recalling the night sky he had seen earlier.
A sky without a single cloud.
Stars of every color, great and small, gathering in numbers beyond all counting.
That brilliant, and yet somehow peaceful, spectacle.