Just Like Helios
What was the difference between a duel and an assassination?
The former could be defined as a contest in which both parties, by explicit or tacit consent, fought to decide a winner and a loser.
In the latter, the two figures were divided from the start into victim and perpetrator. Unlike a duel, it was an act of secret murder, and the principle was to operate in complete secrecy.
But here…
For the Lady who held a black parasol, the boundary between duel and assassination was ambiguity itself. That was why, at some point, she had stopped casually judging or defining them.
Stepping forward to face an enemy head-on was closer to a duel, yet bestowing death before the opponent even noticed was intimately tied to assassination.
This time was no different.
Taking a life was, for her, so taciturn that it carried a kind of solitude.
The violet lines drew soft patterns as they first flew toward the black-haired girl.
"……"
The girl managed to fling her body onto the bed and evade the Lady’s assassination attempt.
Meanwhile Ares Heliace, standing right beside her yet completely consumed by terror of the Lady, could neither react nor even grasp the situation.
Tap. Tap.
The Lady tapped the worn wooden floorboards, faded to a deep brown, with the tip of her parasol.
"……"
"Ares, get ready to run."
Black energy began to seep from within Rin’s pajamas.
It started dampening the room like a street after rain, and for the first time it made the Lady’s eyelids tremble.
"Authority?"
She knows about this.
Rin had sensed she wasn’t ordinary, but to recognize it at a glance… Rin adjusted her pajama collar and took a deep breath to hide her tension.
Why is she targeting us?
At first she had naturally assumed the woman had come after Ares. He had learned a secret he was never meant to know, so she had come to silence him.
But that explanation left pieces that didn’t fit.
The information Ares Heliace possessed was simply this: a nun of Helios had murdered a nun of Demeter and fled.
Yet he had added something more.
The cathedral side had no intention of hiding the matter; they would announce it as early as tomorrow.
Trying to silence Ares over something the entire city of Vatian would know by tomorrow feels off.
Caught in this coercive, unjust violence, Rin wanted to say anything at all to buy time and gather information, yet extracting anything through conversation from the woman wearing that chilling smile seemed far from easy.
"Why the hell are you doing this to me?!"
But sometimes action before thought was the right answer.
Just like Ares Heliace right now.
Perhaps the raw injustice in his voice provided a touch of amusement. The Lady answered with a small smile.
"Just as you and that child possess the unique ability called divine authority… I, too, have a somewhat special sense. I call it a sixth sense."
"……A sixth sense?"
People were born with five basic senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.
Rin had read in books that other senses were being discovered as well, but that wasn’t the point.
A “sixth sense” usually meant some kind of supernatural ability, and the Lady declared, as if it were nothing, that she possessed exactly that.
"My sense told me that if I followed you, I would obtain some kind of clue."
"A clue?"
"Yes. Happening upon a child who bears the Mark of Helios was quite fortunate. Not going straight to the nun was rather wise of you."
Ares’s expression stiffened for a moment at the sense that the conversation was going astray. The Lady did not miss it; she slowly furrowed her brow.
"You don’t know."
Though he had said nothing, she exhaled as if she had grasped everything.
"You know nothing about the Helios nun who fled. So a child who simply happened to bear the mark just visited the cathedral? But…"
The Lady continued tapping the floor with her parasol as if organizing her own thoughts. The sound rang in the two students’ ears like a warning not to move, to wait.
But these two were not the sort to simply stand still.
Weaponless.
Rin gathered mana, loaded it into her fist, twisted her body, smashed the window, and flung herself outside.
If I stay in that spot, I die.
She didn’t look like someone who would apologize for a misunderstanding and leave. They would be silenced one way or another.
True to their childhood friendship, Ares followed the moment Rin landed on the street. They exchanged a glance that said they were in sync and prepared to run—
"Huh?"
Something shot out of Ares’s thigh.
She couldn’t see it clearly, but Rin caught the afterimage of a violet butterfly brushing past her vision.
"Aaaargh!"
Ares Heliace rolled across the ground, clutching his thigh. A clean hole had been punched through his right thigh, and blood poured out endlessly as if a faucet had been turned on.
"I rather enjoy a night stroll myself."
Even after leaping from the hotel window, not a speck of dust clung to her, not a single fold of her clothes was out of place. The Lady approached the two with leisurely steps.
"Unintended, yet a harvest beyond expectations. To think I would obtain two people who bear the mark of a god."
"Don’t think it’ll be that easy."
Black energy now poured from Rin’s entire body.
Her bare hands—no sword, no staff—trembled violently, but she clenched her fists tightly to hide it.
"I’ll admit it’s a formidable power. If you had handled that strength with even a little more skill, I might have had a hard time myself."
The Lady covered her mouth with a soft laugh, letting out a sneer.
"But, beautiful young lady… at night, especially on a night when such a thin crescent moon hangs in the sky…"
The violet lines began to move again. Rin struck the soft, flexible things away with black energy, yet—
"One is all the more easily captivated by a clear light."
Crack. Crunch.
Two new lines that had stabbed in from behind precisely pierced Rin’s thigh and shoulder and passed through.
"Hahk!"
Rin exhaled as if vomiting and collapsed forward. The surging black energy immediately wrapped around her to protect its master, but—
"In pitch-black darkness, the thing you must be most wary of is light itself, lovely girl."
A soft violet glow clearly revealed itself before Rin. What had begun as one soon became three, and then it squared.
Before long it had become an entire swarm of butterflies.
Countless violet butterflies circling as if to protect the Lady on her night stroll.
And within that swarm, the Lady received the moonlight pouring down upon her and smiled a smile as thin as the crescent moon.
"Mmph… mmph."
Unfortunately, the place where the Sun God’s nun awoke was a cold, dark room where she could feel none of the divine mercy she had so devoutly believed in and worshipped.
Forcing open her heavy eyelids, Sister Lucia reached out to check her surroundings, only to realize something was binding her limbs.
She slowly looked around, yet everything remained pure darkness. Even with the gag in her mouth hindering her breathing, Lucia took slow, deep breaths and waited for her eyes to adjust.
She could not see everything clearly, but faint outlines began to enter her vision like the rough sketch of a drawing.
Ah…
Recalling what had happened to her, Lucia poured out tears as if she had been waiting for the chance.
Someone who supported the nun serving the goddess Demeter had set an assassin on her. Thanks to her reliable friend May, she had managed to return to the cathedral and had intended to confront the Demeter nun at once—
But she was already dead…
That was not all.
The priest who had been with her her entire life had laced a handkerchief with drugs and knocked her unconscious.
It was horrifying, and she did not want to believe it.
That the person she had trusted, followed, and relied on most had betrayed her.
What on earth was going on?
In this situation, rather than simply being afraid, she thought it more reasonable to act and find a way to escape—
Yet Lucia could not move at all.
Though she bore the grand title of Saintess candidate, she was in truth nothing more than a simple village nun.
In short, she was an ordinary country girl.
In this coercive, violent situation she could do nothing but cry, offering no resistance whatsoever—
Until a creaking sound came and harsh light flooded in.
A lantern that gently illuminated the priest’s face from below.
"Mmph! Mmmph!"
Lucia thrashed, begging for mercy, but the priest merely offered a small smile and made the sign of the cross of the god Helios.
"Lucia, you must have been quite startled…"
"Mmmph!"
"But this is for the sake of the god. You are becoming a martyr right now."
"Mmph!"
"I will explain slowly. Once you hear it, I am certain you will fully understand and agree."
"Mmmph!"
"Quiet!"
A violent impact struck the back of Lucia’s head, and the vision that had just begun to clear swayed once more.
In that reeling vision she saw the priest snatch her mouth with his hand and slam her head straight into the wall.
"Shut up, Lucia. The noise is unbearable."
"Ugh…"
She wanted to say something, but the fear that he would smash her head into the wall again kept her silent this time.
"Good. Very good. First of all, the Demeter nun you killed—or rather, the one you will be framed for killing—was the First Prince’s confidant."
What was he talking about?
I killed her? Framed?
Lucia could not understand at all, yet the priest continued without the slightest consideration for her.
"How could a mongrel of the royal family dare bear the noble name of Saintess? Isn’t that right, Lucia? That is why you sacrificed yourself. You murdered Demeter’s whore, and by burning your own body you bestowed warm light upon us."
Just like Helios.