325. The Boundary of Faith
325. The Boundary of Faith
- 1 -
Saintess Assistant, or Apprentice Saintess.
Whatever the title, Leticia's work was never easy.
Again today, she woke before the rooster crowed at dawn and began her day by trailing Esther.
"Leti. Please ring the bell."
"Yes!"
The cold dawn air bit into her lungs.
Teobeok. Teobeok.
The task of climbing the cathedral bell tower.
She was far more accustomed to it now than at first. Three months was quite a long time, after all.
At first, everyone had been confused.
'Making the Apprentice Saintess do work only novice priests are supposed to handle?'
People who called it unreasonable had directed their stares at Esther, but her attitude had been unwavering.
[If one never experiences the very lowest rung, it's easy to lose gratitude for what one enjoys. Even unpleasant tasks must be experienced.]
Though it meant hard work, Leticia gladly followed that guidance.
Because Esther's words were right a hundred times over.
"Huah..."
Having reached the bell tower, Leticia took a deep breath.
The whole of Hylash spread before her eyes.
The days when nobles, drunk from dawn, would vomit in the streets were gone.
The city now was dyed in black, yet not dark, possessing a serene and refined beauty.
It hadn't been long since she had first been able to climb the bell tower at her leisure.
Leticia smiled, thinking her body seemed to have grown healthier lately.
Her white ceremonial robe sparkled in the morning sunlight.
Deng — deng — deng —
The bell chime announcing the temple's dawn prayer meeting woke the world.
The whole city began to stretch awake.
Here and there, Leticia glimpsed the figures of believers heading into the streets.
She looked down at them beginning to stir, then quickened her own steps.
To handle the full day's work, she had to move fast.
"Today you have a lecture, and then you're scheduled to care for patients in the eastern poor district. In the afternoon, the royal prayer meeting."
After the temple bell rang, a busy morning schedule awaited.
Preparing breakfast for the poor, healing prayer meetings for the sick, catechism for children, and even confessions from nobles.
Leticia shadowed Esther's entire schedule.
The schedule in her notebook packed every hour of the day tightly.
"Thank you, Leti. Without you, I would have missed so much."
Esther always expressed her thanks with a gentle smile.
A smile that managed to hold dignity, warmth, humility, and kindness all at once—as befitted a saintess.
Every time she saw that smile, Leticia felt her heart race.
"Lately I've been hearing praise for you everywhere. Truly wonderful."
"Hehe... ah."
Leticia quickly realized how she had laughed and clamped a hand over her mouth, but when she caught Esther watching her as if she were adorable, she pulled a grimace inwardly.
It couldn't be helped.
In front of Esther, for some reason, she simply couldn't control her expression.
Maybe because Esther guided her just like an older sister—or a mother back home.
"Is something on your mind?"
"Ah, oh, no. I'm still at the stage of working through it myself... I'll ask later."
"All right. Take your time."
The same was true of this matter now.
Leticia held one question about Esther.
A question that had only grown larger over the three months she had spent observing her.
'Why are the Saintess's teachings different from what I learned in the Holy Kingdom?'
Of course, it wasn't a large difference. Enough to be called a mere regional variation.
At that level, she might have simply thought the form of faith in the Kingdom of Haisen differed from the Holy Kingdom and moved on.
But as time passed, the difference Leticia felt gradually widened.
Wide enough that it was difficult to dismiss as mere 'regional variation.'
Her posture toward the poor, the messages delivered to nobles, even the form of her prayers.
Instead of the Celestial Church's core doctrine of 'the Lord's mercy,' she used the phrase 'light welling up from within the heart,' which was strange.
"Saintess, in this sermon as well—will you speak of 'the Goddess's mercy'?"
What slipped out was a question she couldn't quite suppress.
'I said it!'
Though she knew she had misspoken, Leticia did not retract the question.
Instead, she met Esther's eyes. The Saintess's eyes possessed the power to discern falsehood, and the same was true of her own, candidate though she was.
"I will speak more of 'will and heart,' not 'mercy.'"
"In the Holy Kingdom, isn't the focus usually on what the Goddess gives us?"
"That's correct. But what is most necessary in a person's heart is not acceptance—it is the will to move forward. The 'hand that pushes from behind' that the Church speaks of is also about that. You know this, don't you?"
"Yes..."
The young Saintess Candidate could not press deeper. Esther's explanations were always measured and reasonable.
She was an excellent student and Saintess Candidate.
Leticia exceeded the expectations of those around her in every way.
When she was named Saintess Esther's successor, it was taken for granted that she would readily absorb the teachings.
It was strange in itself that someone like her would doubt her teacher's lessons.
But then, one night in that state—
"I offer a prayer."
'Saintess?'
The moment she discovered Esther praying alone in the small chapel behind the cathedral.
Leticia's doubt hardened into certainty.
"Oh one who holds radiant light within the darkness."
She was reciting a prayer utterly unlike her usual ones.
"Look graciously upon this lamb held in Your bosom. O one who rights the world with a strong hand, I shall become Your eyes, Your hands, Your mouth..."
It was as if her breath had stopped.
Leticia clamped her hand over her mouth.
It was not a prayer of the Celestial Church.
The Celestial Church never described faith as 'shining in the darkness.'
The Goddess had always been 'light above the heavens.'
And above all...
"Haah... O master of my heart..."
The emotion in Esther's voice shook her heart to its core.
It was a yearning that transcended a clergywoman's reverence.
More than directed at faith, it sounded like a voice whispered to a lover.
After that night, Leticia could not sleep.
The fact that the teacher she revered—the continent's greatest saintess—was serving a different faith...
She didn't know how to receive it.
After a week of anguish, she reached a decision.
'I cannot let this pass.'
She had no choice but to ask directly.
- 2 -
Tok-tok.
"Saintess. There is something I wish to ask you."
After evening prayers, Leticia went to Esther's private chamber.
- Come in, Leticia.
Standing before the door, she clenched her fist.
Her heart pounded madly. Cold sweat seeped into her palm.
On trembling legs, the disciple steadied herself and entered the room.
Carefully gripping the doorknob, she pushed it open.
Her teacher was seated beside the window.
Her platinum hair shone silver in the moonlight. Esther, not at all surprised, looked at Leticia.
"Have you finally come to voice the question in your heart?"
Leticia swallowed hard.
Esther had already sensed days ago that there was turmoil in her heart, and had let her know that 'she was ready to be questioned.'
That was how she had been able to gather her resolve.
It was a question she could never have dared to ask otherwise.
Fearing the unexpected truth that might come to light.
"Saintess..."
"You are truly a good and clever child. But learn this: if you cannot hide your heart well, it can at times become an obstacle on the path of the weak."
Though she knew what question was about to be asked, Esther fulfilled her duty as a teacher with a serene smile.
Leticia felt her heart beat violently at that smile and that quiet voice.
She interpreted that violent heartbeat as mere fear and tension.
'There's no way it could be that.'
She repeated to herself that it couldn't be any other emotion.
"Speak."
In the end, she closed her eyes and gave voice to that question.
"The one... the one you serve, Saintess. Who is it? Is it truly the Goddess?"
When Leticia opened her eyes after a long moment.
Esther was looking down at her with an expression she had never seen before.
An expression that seemed to hold no emotion at all, and yet also seemed to have gone blank because it could not contain deep pain and sorrow.
Wearing that expression, she opened her mouth.
"I was a servant who served the Goddess."
"That means...?"
"My body still employs the Goddess's power, but my heart upholds another."
Leticia was staggered by the blunt confession.
"That's... that's heresy!!"
Unfiltered, raw words.
Realizing her mistake, she immediately covered her mouth, but it was too late.
"Well..."
But Esther's expression remained calm.
Watching her utterly unchanged face, Leticia felt her confusion deepen further and further.
"Look."
When Esther raised her hand, the room was instantly filled with warm light.
Holy power.
Leticia also possessed that power, but Esther's was on a different plane entirely.
Seeing a force rivaling the archbishops, cardinals, even the pope she had witnessed back home flood the room, Leticia stared, mouth agape in disbelief, then snapped back to her senses.
"But how...?"
Leticia was confounded.
That a heretic could wield such mighty holy power—no doctrine she had learned in the Holy Kingdom could explain it.
"Because it is not a god who bestows holy power. It is a human, Leti."
Esther's eyes gleamed.
But it was not the gentle, kind gaze she usually showed.
Resentment, or perhaps hostility.
Those were contained in her white eyes.
"Saintess...?"
After shutting her eyes tight and opening them again, Esther's gaze had returned to its usual gentleness.
Yet the fierce flame of resentment glimpsed in that brief moment was seared like a brand into Leticia's eyes.
"Leti."
Esther drew closer and stroked Leticia's cheek.
Realizing that the meaning of that gaze was 'pity,' Leticia could not calm her stricken heart.
"Faith is in the heart."
"Pardon...?"
An incomprehensible statement. Yet, as she heard the words seep into her heart, Leticia blinked.
"It is only the heart of the believer that turns a subject into a god. It is solely one's own heart that decides one's path. That is why I, too, resolved to walk the path my heart follows."
Though their eyes were facing each other, Esther's eyes seemed focused somewhere far beyond.
"I am a lamb. That person is the shepherd who leads my leash. Is it not only natural for my heart to follow that person?"
Leticia shook her head.
She was confused.
The morals Esther taught—helping the weak, never forgiving injustice—clearly aligned with the values of the Celestial Church.
But if the source was different... how was she supposed to accept that?
"That person... who is it?"
She startled herself with the question that slipped from her lips.
Even knowing a heretical god is a sin in itself.
Yet she, who had been judged to possess a will for sainthood second to none, had spoken this question.
But this time too, Leticia did not retract it.
'I need to know.'
She had to bring Esther back.
Whatever it was that had seized her heart...
Right now, no one but Leticia could do it.
"Are you curious?"
Esther stroked Leticia's head.
"But you are not yet ready. Once more time has passed, I will guide you to that person myself."
Leticia bit her lip.
It was her own question, yet more than disappointment at being refused an answer, what she feared was that one day she would indeed come to know that answer.
"Do not worry too much. Everything I do still serves to relieve the suffering of the people, protect the weak, and repel evil. That alone will never change."
Esther took Leticia's hand in both of hers.
Her hands were rather cold.
Traces of long hours praying in a chapel that could hardly be called warm.
Sensing that, Leticia was seized by an even more complicated feeling.
"Take your time to think. Whatever decision you reach, I will continue to teach you."
Esther's voice followed Leticia as she left.
There was sincerity in it.
Dalkak.
"Haah..."
Stepping out of the room, Leticia's heart grew even more tangled.
Should she report Esther as a heretic?
Or should she take time to think, as she had been told?
But what was most terrifying...
'If I try harder... will she tell me? No. What am I even thinking.'
Was that within herself, the desire to follow her teacher Esther was already impossibly vast.
- 3 -
"...such a thing happened."
As Esther's smile faded, one crept onto my own lips.
"You could have simply brought her to me."
At my words, Esther bowed her head lower.
"How could I. As a teacher, it is a shameful thing to show my disciple's unworthy state to you, Master."
I reached out and stroked her hair.
Esther, ever benevolent, gentle, and courteous.
A sense of self hidden beneath a flawless clerical demeanor.
At first, it had been buried under guilt toward me, but gradually, that glimmering heart was revealing itself and drawing my interest.
For her to act so deferentially...
It was intriguing.
"You seem quite fond of that child."
"In a previous life... in a future that will no longer come to pass, she was the child who would have borne that karma in my place. Now that the chance has come, I want to ease that child's burden."
I nodded.
"That's admirable. But I've heard the child is also growing well as a cleric. You may take some pride in that. And..."
When I trailed off, she lifted her head with a puzzled look.
With a gesture, I sat her beside me and whispered while stroking her hair.
"I may not know as Libertas, but as Philia—couldn't we speak a little more openly?"
"That is..."
Esther hesitated briefly.
She had two worlds.
The world where she lived as a saintess, and the world where she lived as my believer.
Overlapping those two worlds was a matter to be decided with care.
"You are right, Master. I understand."
When I extended my hand, she pressed her lips to the back of it.
A kiss so fervent it was unlike a saintess.
In another sense, it was a gesture entirely befitting a 'saintess.'
At the sight that conveyed her heart thirsting for me, I smiled faintly, pretending not to notice.
"Leticia is truly a fortunate child. To meet a teacher such as you."
Esther's face reddened a little more out of embarrassment.
She averted her gaze but did not let go of my hand.
"It is all thanks to your grace, Master."
"Esther."
I cupped her face in both hands.
A subtle glow shimmered over her fair skin, lending her a sacred aura.
"What I give you is not grace, but a fitting reward. You are my light."
"Master..."
When she laid her own hands over mine, her eyes were faintly moist.
I wiped away the moisture gathered at the corners with my finger and smiled.
"Let's stay together a little longer tonight."
Feeling her fingers dig into my waist, I paused to think.
Esther was a capable subordinate and close aide, but in the future I envisioned, she held a far deeper meaning.
The most essential virtue for a Demon Lord candidate was, after all, to deny and cast down the authority of that absolute being who had ruled the continent since its foundation—the Goddess.
Perhaps even the me from the first round had known that.
I can't be certain, since I hold no memories of it.
'For this, the presence of the Goddess must be slowly erased from people's memories and faith.'
According to the doctrines of the Celestial Church, the world exists beneath the Goddess's merciful gaze.
And that Goddess has stood in opposition to the Demon King since primordial times.
A dichotomous worldview: all good flows from the Goddess, all evil from the Demon King.
As long as such a doctrine spread across the land, no matter how strong I grew or how far my influence extended, I would only ever be branded an 'evil presence.'
That was not the image the Demon King desired of his successor.
'The Sun Church will be a new turning point.'
Gradually altering the Celestial Church's doctrines, eventually transforming it into a wholly different faith.
When people abandon the Celestial Church and embrace the Sun Church, the Goddess's authority will crumble.
And the one who will sit upon that place of the sun—
'Will be me.'
A new sun to illuminate the surface.
In the end, I would become a new existence that supplants both the Goddess and the Demon King.
That was the future I must walk toward.