The Message and the Priest's Cross
Lunchtime.
Simon finished his meal faster than usual and stopped by the Class L lecture hall for a moment before the next class began.
Not here.
Among the Class L students in the room, there was no one he was looking for. The building where his next class was held was quite a distance away, and if he lingered too long, he might miss it.
Hmm, should I come back tomorrow?
As he hovered anxiously in front of the lecture hall, someone was approaching from that direction.
It was a pretty girl with a pink ribbon in her hair, hugging her textbooks to her chest.
"Excuse me. Sorry, but a quick moment."
"Hm?"
The girl blinked and stopped in her tracks.
"Your class has a girl named Lorraine, right?"
"Yep, that's right. Lorraine's in our class. Why?"
Simon carefully pulled a letter envelope from his jacket.
"I was hoping you could give this to Lorraine for me."
"……?!"
As if someone had pressed a pause button, the girl froze mid-motion, her mouth hanging open.
And then—
"Kyaaaaaaak!"
She suddenly let out a shriek.
Why are YOU screaming?!
Simon recoiled in alarm, glancing around wildly. Fortunately, there weren't many people nearby, so no one paid them any attention.
"That's right, I remember now!"
Looking thoroughly worked up, she rose onto her tiptoes and scrutinized Simon's face closely.
"You're Special Admission No. 1, the one who took the oath as the freshman representative!"
"……."
"Am I right? Am I right? Kyaaaaak! What do I do! I knew the elites all flocked together!"
She snatched the letter out of Simon's hand as if plucking it away.
"Yep, yep! Got it! I'll deliver this to Lorraine with my very life on the line!"
"……There's really no need to risk your life over it."
A sly smile crept across her face.
"This might be an obvious question, but you don't want Lorraine to know who sent this, right?"
"Doesn't matter to me."
"Oh, really? It's okay to tell her?"
Her eyes sparkled in a way that was almost overwhelming. Simon felt a sudden shiver of unease run down his spine.
"N-no, actually, better not. Just hand her the letter and say nothing else!"
"Hohoho! Got it! I thought you were bold, but you're really just a shy one, aren't you?"
She smacked Simon on the arm and laughed like some elegant young noblewoman.
Her whole demeanor screamed that this topic was the most fun she'd had in ages.
"……Hey, you."
Simon narrowed his eyes.
"You're not getting any weird ideas, are you?"
"Nope! Nope! Of course not!"
If that was her answer, then why was she winking?
Suddenly this letter errand-girl seemed deeply untrustworthy, but Simon didn't have much class time left either. Even sprinting at full speed to the opposite building might not be enough.
"……Then, I'm counting on you with that letter."
"Leave it to me!"
The moment Simon turned away with a nagging sense of dread, the girl bolted into the lecture hall at a tremendous speed.
"Kyaaaaak! Girls! Girls! Guess what I just got outside?!"
Simon pressed a hand to his forehead and sighed.
Once every class for the day had ended, Simon sought out the on-campus cafe alone.
First time in here, too.
As he gripped the cafe's door handle and pushed it open, a little bell chimed. Stepping inside, he found the place packed to a jaw-dropping degree.
Students crammed shoulder to shoulder at tables big and small were chattering away noisily.
The students settled against the walls were deep in their studies, flipping through textbooks briskly with one hand while scribbling notes with the other, sipping coffee through straws clenched between their lips.
It was almost fascinating to see their focus holding steady even with that much commotion all around them.
……Impressive. And apparently there are even more people here during exam season?
Simon found a reasonably empty seat and sat down, and just as he was looking around—
Murmur, murmur, murmur.
The surrounding noise suddenly swelled.
From the direction of the door Simon had just come through, a girl with jet-black hair cascading down her back was making her way inside.
"Wow……!"
"That's her, right? Right?"
Even her very presence set her apart from the other students.
A haughty stride, crimson eyes that seemed to gaze down on the world itself, and a cold, expressionless face.
She carried an aura so untouchable that a person honestly wondered if she was really a student like the rest of them.
Lorraine Archbold.
The only daughter Nephthys—the Death Witch who ruled half the world—had borne in three hundred years.
The moment the celebrity appeared, the surrounding crowd buzzed with people craning to catch a glimpse of her. Lorraine gave a small sigh and lifted her eyelids.
"Enjoying the show?"
At that single line—
Every student within a few dozen meters vanished without a trace. Those seated further away couldn't even meet her eyes and buried their heads.
Working the miracle of instantly clearing her surroundings, she walked on with crisp, measured steps.
"……."
And the place where her footsteps stopped was right in front of Simon.
Simon swallowed hard. A wave of tension crashed over him out of nowhere.
Why—why does this feel so awkward?
They had gone shopping together, eaten together, surely gotten close by now. And yet, seeing her in a Kizen uniform after so long, she felt remarkably hard to approach.
"It's, um, been a while. Haha……."
"……."
He worked up the courage to break the ice, but Lorraine's face remained frostily blank.
Just as a flustered Simon was wondering whether he'd made some kind of mistake, the corners of her eyes slowly curved into crescents, and a lovely smile bloomed across her lips.
"Hi there? Simon."
It was the very smile Simon knew so well.
The two of them carried their ordered coffees up to the cafe's third floor.
The visibly nervous cafe owner took their order personally, and when Lorraine mentioned wanting somewhere quiet, he promptly opened up the closed-off third floor for them.
Thanks to that, the two were able to take a spacious outdoor seat by the window. A cool breeze drifted in, and it felt wonderful.
"First time seeing each other since Langestin, huh."
Sitting across from him, Lorraine brushed back her night-sky hair. Simon, still unable to shake his nerves, nodded with a stiff smile.
"Y-your uniform actually suits you, surprisingly."
"Hm?"
She glanced down at her own uniformed self, then fixed Simon with a sulky stare.
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean? That I look old, is that it?"
Simon flushed and quickly waved his hands in denial.
How had the conversation turned into this?
"No, no! It's not that……! When I met you in Langestin, I just couldn't picture you in a school uniform, that's all……!"
"Why couldn't you picture it? Because I look old?"
That's not it at all!
Why did talking with Lorraine always tangle his words up like this?
From Simon's perspective, the force with which she had once driven a gang of thugs head over heels had been truly beyond even a professional necromancer.
With a girl like that now sitting across from him wearing the same uniform as his own, it had only felt a little strange, that was all.
But why is it so hard to explain that out loud?
Simon heaved sigh after sigh internally.
"I'm teasing you."
She sipped her coffee through the straw and winked. Realizing he'd been toyed with, Simon let out a wry laugh.
"Now, then."
Lowering her eyelids, Lorraine slowly crossed one leg over the other.
"The reason you wanted to meet?"
The air changed.
There it was. That untouchable, elder-sibling aura of hers.
Simon sensed it was finally time to get to the point.
After checking once more that no one was around, he spoke in a grave voice.
"……There's a traitor inside Kizen."
Simon laid out the story calmly.
How he had been chased by the Watchers and lost his way in the Forbidden Forest, and how he had witnessed a priest at that place, praying before a cross.
Of course, he left out the part about Pier helping him escape, glossing over it as a matter of falling into danger and being saved when the Watchers showed up at just the right moment.
"……."
Hearing the story, Lorraine sank into serious thought.
"Lorraine. I know it might be hard to believe, but I—"
"I believe you."
She raised her head.
"More importantly, that cross you saw—can you describe its appearance in detail?"
"……Uh, let's see. From what I remember, a woman was carved into the largest cross in the center. A naked woman entangled in vines?"
"That's certain, then."
Lorraine's crimson eyes flashed.
"That's the Goddess Deva. The sole deity the priests of Efnel worship."
Efnel—the holy college directly under the Pope.
It stood at the exact opposite pole of Kizen, which trained necromancers; Efnel trained priests instead.
Within the Holy Federation, it was an institution wielding recognition and power on par with Kizen itself. Its ultimate strategic assets, the Saintesses, were drawn exclusively from Efnel's female students—proof of just how thoroughly it monopolized that power.
Kizen and Efnel.
Efnel and Kizen.
Which side was stronger? Which side produced the better students?
Questions like these had long been a favorite debate across the entire continent.
"……The sheer nerve."
Crack!
The glass Lorraine was holding shattered in her grip, coffee spilling out in a stream.
"The audacity of some priest, sneaking into Kizen of all places?"
Her expression was genuinely furious. Though Simon knew the killing intent pouring off her wasn't aimed at him, he couldn't help but tense up.
"……Simon."
"Yeah."
"Besides you, who else knows about this?"
"Camibarez, who went into the Forbidden Forest with me. Just the two of us."
She gave a nod.
"Thank you for reporting this. I'll inform my mother right away."
There was a reason Simon had deliberately kept this a secret from everyone else.
Kizen's own professors were, technically speaking, suspects in this affair as well. Only if Nephthys alone held the knowledge could the investigation proceed from every direction at once.
"Let's go, Simon!"
Lorraine sprang up from her seat.
"Wh-where to?"
"The Forbidden Forest. There might still be some clue left at the site where you saw the priest."
Simon's eyes went wide.
"……Right now?"
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
Late that evening, Simon rode a Skeleton Horse for the very first time in his life.
A single one of these was said to cost as much as a house, and it was easy to see why. The Skeleton Horse ran faster than any living steed, never tired, and offered a smooth, comfortable ride to boot.
"You ride better than you look. Ever taken lessons?"
asked Lorraine, guiding her Skeleton Horse alongside his.
"Just briefly, back home."
Truthfully, it had nothing to do with riding skill—Simon and the Skeleton Horse simply meshed remarkably well.
Above all, the horse obeyed his every word. When Simon merely extended a hand, the skeleton steed nuzzled its face against him in coy affection.
"It's this way, Lorraine."
"Okay."
Having traveled the route once before, they had no trouble finding their way. They vaulted the Skeleton Horses cleanly over the ravine he had crossed with Camibarez, and pushed deep into the forest.
"Around here."
"Thanks for leading. We'll go the rest of the way on foot."
The two dismounted. Lorraine opened a subspace in the air, and the Skeleton Horses leapt inside and vanished.
Simon clicked his tongue.
And I wanted to ride more, too.
Once he started earning money, he now had two items on his wish list. The first was a skeleton forged from demon bones, and the second was a Skeleton Horse.
From then on, the two of them walked through the Forbidden Forest with every trace of their presence suppressed. Simon found the forest paths far easier to navigate than on his first trip with Camibarez.
Before too long, they reached the spot where he had encountered the priest.
"This is it?"
"Yeah, I'm sure."
The two began their search with grave expressions.
……The traces are gone.
The location itself was certain. But the altar, the ornaments, the cross—even the churned, battle-scarred ground where Pier and the priest had fought—everything had been wiped away without a trace.
As if nothing had ever happened at all.
Simon felt as though he were wandering in some ghostly illusion.
"What do you think, Lorraine?"
"……."
She was down on her knees, running her palm slowly through the grass. Before long, she shook her head.
"There's nothing here. It's almost eerie."
"……Ugh."
"Still, one thing is certain—someone erased the evidence."
Rising to her feet, she folded her arms.
"Judging from your story, Simon, this person is no small-time operator. Their combat skill for one, and the way they cleanly concealed traces across such a wide area for another. But what's most shocking of all is that they implanted a Core in their body and enrolled at Kizen while serving a god. Those people consider the Core a power that denies the divine."
"And if you open up a Core, a priest can't use their 'Divinity' anymore—right?"
Lorraine nodded.
"I don't understand the exact principle myself, but according to their logic, Jet-Black is the power of a cursed demon, while Divinity is power born of faith in god. Whatever the truth is, the two forces clash the moment they meet—that much is fact."
She turned her back to him.
"This is serious. Let's head back to Kizen. I need to see my mother right away."