Chapter 5. Conviction and Reality (8)
Chapter 5. Conviction and Reality (8)
Looking at the blonde girl in her arms, Ria couldn't think anything at all.
Hair like threads of gold shone under the light pouring down from the sky.
What she held in her hand was a pure white light without a single blemish.
That face slowly turned toward Ria.
It was an expression she rarely saw. Eyes of endless seriousness.
But eyes that weren't frightened at all, that didn't dislike anything, that weren't annoyed by anything.
Those eyes, like a lake so clear you could see straight to the bottom, looked squarely at Ria.
"Ria."
Anna spoke.
"Yeah."
"Let's go."
That face was so full of certainty.
As if she were the only person in this place who could do this.
Just like always, whenever she ran toward someone who was hurt. Just like now.
Perhaps that was why Ria could believe in her.
Even that expression that always seemed to be worrying about something—when it came to doing what she believed was right, even at moments when she had to bend her own convictions, Anna always willingly did what had to be done.
It was the same now.
Without rejecting the Holy Power she always scattered away whenever it appeared, taking it with her whole body, Anna held divinity itself in her hand.
"————!"
When she purified that black sphere, that enormous eyeball, Ria saw a radiant light unlike anything she had ever seen in her life.
A power so bright, yet one that rejected nothing. A warm power that seemed as though it could wholly embrace everything in the world.
"......."
And, as always after using such power, Anna soon lost consciousness and fell asleep.
"Anna?"
Ria tried speaking to Anna, who had collapsed into her arms with her eyes closed, but the only reply was the steady sound of breathing.
At the very least, there didn't seem to be anything wrong with her body.
Ria sheathed her sword at her waist and lifted Anna up. The sword probably wouldn't be needed anymore.
Ria looked around.
All she could see was white sand.
Did life simply never return to places where Mana had swept through once? The surroundings looked exactly like a beach that had suddenly appeared in the middle of a forest.
Still, it would recover little by little with time.
This was God's power, after all. Wasn't it Holy Power?
"......."
She looked up at the sky.
The gloomy clouds slowly cleared, and light shone down on Ria and on Anna in her arms.
"You expect me to look at this and think she's not a Saintess?"
Ria let out a dumbfounded laugh and muttered to herself.
Of course, no answer came back.
"......She's light."
Even though she was always feeding her all sorts of things, she was this light. Her frame was smaller than Ria's overall, so it was only natural, but even taking that into account, she still seemed a little light.
What that small body was bearing was the weight of being loved by God.
Ria thought she understood why Anna didn't want this power. It wasn't a power that just anyone in the world could easily accept. Surely this power had descended upon Anna because God knew Anna would act this way.
A power that made it seem only right for her to become the Saintess. Light itself, reassuring merely to stand beside no matter what great evil appeared in the world.
But at the same time, a power that always had to be beside the wounded, beside the fiercest battlefields.
Others might be different, but Anna would not refuse such a role—no, she would not be able to refuse it.
Because she had that conviction: that she would stand before God and boldly declare that the only sin she had committed was not believing in God.
Ria began walking across the sand.
On the way back, Ria's thoughts were a little complicated.
*
After sleeping soundly for a few hours, I woke up and immediately checked the situation.
First of all, I was unharmed, and Ria was unharmed too. The Hunters confirmed that the Mana Mass had completely dissipated, and they had even seen the explosive burst of light from the Holy Power I used.
That would probably be reported to the Church. I didn't like it, but there was nothing I could do. That situation, at least, I had no choice but to accept.
"Are you thinking of becoming a Saintess?"
"Mm...... Honestly, I don't want to. Even the fact that I'm still a Saintess Candidate doesn't appeal to me at all."
I answered while unwrapping one of the small chocolates Ria offered and popping it into my mouth.
"But what can I do? Sometimes you have to know how to accept reality."
"......Yeah?"
Ria's response was a little slow. Well, not that every answer had to come out instantly.
"Come to think of it, when I reconsider, I have bent my own thinking plenty of times, one way or another. And I do have enough sense not to say things like that in front of someone who's struggling."
"Is that so."
I tilted my head.
"Do you...... not like the idea of me becoming a Saintess?"
"Mm, no, it's not that. ......Isn't that something you should only do if you want to?"
The problem was that, if things went wrong, I might end up becoming a Saintess even if I did not want to. Looking at the way the Hunters watched me, it might already be difficult to avoid.
Since I'd ended up as a pretty girl anyway, I'd wanted to at least try dating someone. A woman, obviously, not a man.
I didn't expect to date the heroine at all. I had to keep living here anyway, didn't I? Just meet someone decent at a decent age, try dating...... well, I didn't know how marriage would turn out.
If I became a Saintess, all of that would be bye-bye, wouldn't it?
"......Anyway."
Feeling like the mood would get heavy if I kept this conversation going, I decided to change the subject.
"What about the Goblins?"
"They said they were bowing toward where the white light came from."
"......."
"We still can't communicate with them, but even when I carried you past them, they were lying flat on the ground."
Mm.
Let's drop this topic too.
I did not want to know any more. The Goblins...... well, the Hunter Association would handle them. Now that the Mana Mass had been dealt with, they could make the Goblins withdraw or something.
I let out a small sigh.
In the end, every plan I'd attempted had fallen apart. Well, they couldn't really be called proper plans from the start. The plan had just been to run off somewhere recklessly.
Other situations had gotten mixed in and thrown things off, and while I was changing the plan this way and that, everything ended up as neither one thing nor the other.
Well, whoever sent me here probably sent me expecting at least that much.
I glanced over at Ria.
Ria was leaning against the railing, lost deep in thought about something.
Damn. Of course she was pretty—she was the heroine, after all.
If she didn't occasionally get on my nerves, I probably would've been in trouble in all sorts of ways. Honestly speaking, I'm still a little troubled even now—well, just because there's a pretty girl in your class doesn't mean you automatically like her, right?
It wouldn't have anything to do with me anyway.
Ria seemed to remember something too, and as she looked my way, our eyes met. Then she grinned.
"What?"
"Nothing, just."
While trying to brush it off vaguely, I remembered that there was something I'd forgotten to say.
"......Thank you."
"Hm?"
"For trusting me and going with me back then. Thank you. ......If no one had gone, something really terrible would definitely have happened."
"......Yeah?"
Ria said, staring straight at me.
"Was that something God told you, too?"
"......."
What should I say?
If the Being Above really was the one who had written that story, then maybe that was true. It was a different world from this one, but at the same time it must have been the world where I was supposed to exist.
If so, then ironically, I would be someone who had heard a Prophecy.
Though the story didn't actually seem to be flowing the way I knew it. And besides, we hadn't even reached the starting point of that story yet.
I put another chocolate into my mouth. I let it sit on my tongue and savored the sweetness and the faint bitterness.
Honestly speaking, I was still hungry. Holy Power seemed to use up that much of my stamina.
......But for some reason, I didn't really feel like eating much right now. I was a little tired, too.
Now that I'd gotten a handle on the situation, should I go to sleep?
"Anna, let me ask you one thing."
"Yes."
"This Saintess Candidate thing—how far are you allowed to travel? I've heard bits and pieces about it."
"Mm."
Basically, it's a dispatch. And that dispatch usually means volunteer work. The Church decides on a volunteer location and sends a group, but I can designate one location of my choosing. Anytime I want, at that. And I can choose the scale within my authority.
So saying "anywhere in the country" would be a bit much.
Anyway, once I became an adult and it was settled that I would remain with the Church, nuns got free time too. As long as they did not cross any lines while outside, they could move around fairly freely and return before nightfall.
So, it's not exactly some grand privilege—
But for me right now, the story was a little different.
After hearing my explanation, Ria nodded.
"......Why?"
I asked, feeling a little uneasy.
"No, well, it's good if there are lots of places you can go, right? The Hunter Association isn't only in the mountains, after all."
"What?"
"Never mind. You're getting tired, right? Want to go in and sleep?"
"......."
The fact that those words felt a little strange was probably just me getting ahead of myself.
As I turned and followed Ria back, I shrugged my shoulders slightly for no real reason.