The Knight's Oath (4)
May, when the spring maiden departs westward and the summer general returns to the empire.
Every year around this time, a grand festival is held in Rest Town.
Toward the night sky where the first-magnitude stars Vega, Deneb, and Altair hang, they launch the beginning of summer.
A great festival that fires tens of thousands of fireworks in a single day.
Rest Town holds summer dear.
Because it was in some summer that they drove out the natives by force of arms, and in some summer that they raised the city itself.
To mourn the dead and commemorate the birth, Rest Town holds a magnificent festival every year.
Walking through streets where laughter echoed from every direction, Agnian closed his eyes.
For whom was this festival?
Among its purposes, there was clearly one of mourning the natives.
Yet nowhere could he find a solemn heart.
No—before even searching for that, there was no one who truly knew the festival’s purpose.
The empire had first held this event as a reflection on its ignorant past.
Yes, that had been the origin.
But what was this situation now?
Everywhere people chattered and laughed.
Merchants hawked their wares, hoping to squeeze out one more coin; travelers thoroughly drunk on liquor strolled the streets in high spirits; and snot-nosed brats wove through the crowds playing tag and the like.
And nowhere was there a single person thinking of the natives.
What angered him more was that no one even knew the natives’ name. Perhaps they did not even know how this city had been founded.
The Flame Lizard Tribe.
The only one who still remembered that name was Agnian himself.
“But starting today, everyone will remember.”
Agnian muttered to himself.
The pleasure filling these streets ends today.
So that the name of the Flame Lizard Tribe would never be forgotten, he would burn this excited city to the ground.
Black. Utterly black.
—Thud
Rolling a bead inside his pocket as he walked, Agnian collided with a girl coming the other way.
“......”
With bloodshot, vivid red eyes, Agnian looked down.
He saw a small head wearing a veil.
“I’m sorry.”
The girl lifted her face and apologized to him.
Silvery hair, fine enough to look soft, spilled across her lovely face.
Behind large glasses that covered half her face, violet eyes shone calmly.
I know who this woman is.
She wore ordinary clerical robes, yet this girl was a Saintess.
Ariel Violet—the one he had intended to deal with in the Night Sky Spring Forest.
Agnian stared down at her for a long while.
“I’m sorry.”
Thinking he might not have heard her apology, Ariel smiled kindly and apologized once more.
It made him nauseous.
The moment he saw the Saintess’s smile, dark, murky emotions swarmed like insects.
The words liar and hypocrite raced through his mind, ready to spill from his lips.
“I was looking around and didn’t watch where I was going. I’m sorry.”
Ariel, too, had been enjoying the festival.
She browsed the stalls lining the streets, snacked on anything that looked delicious, and when something interesting caught her eye she stood among the onlookers, giggling as she watched. Wandering the streets that waited for night like a little child, humming to herself, had been pure delight.
That fact only filled Agnian with deeper revulsion.
In the end, this Saintess was no different.
Even a being who ought to feel others’ sorrow more keenly than anyone was drunk on this atmosphere.
It was utterly disgusting.
He wanted to crush that small head right then and there.
If she was a Saintess—if she had been chosen as one—shouldn’t she at least carry a little pity?
With that thought, Agnian glared at Ariel.
“I’m sorry.”
Just as he was about to pull his hand from his pocket, Lowen stepped in front of Ariel, shielding her with his back, and apologized in her place.
“As her guardian I should have been watching more carefully. Please allow me to apologize on her behalf.”
Lowen bowed his head with formal courtesy.
“......”
Agnian stared hard at the back of Lowen’s head for a long time.
This was the man he was most wary of.
He clearly remembered the movements Lowen had shown in the Night Sky Spring Forest.
That courage—which made the blood of the Flame Lizard Tribe boil and set a warrior’s soul ablaze—told him instinctively that this man had to be watched carefully. He did not think it would happen, yet he felt as if this man alone might make the entire plan fail.
“Forget it.”
Agnian left at a leisurely pace.
From behind he heard Ariel call “I’m sorry!” once more, but he ignored it.
An ominous feeling pricked along his spine.
“It’s only a groundless fear.”
Agnian murmured quietly.
Far across the blue sky, a red wave was slowly rolling in.
He thought of the man they had just encountered.
A haggard face worn down by fatigue.
A vacant expression as if he were high on some drug.
Yet deep within those sunken, shadowed eyes sat clear crimson irises.
In the center of a murky red sea, a scarlet island was embedded.
Lowen knew those intense eyes well.
That brilliantly gleaming gaze belonged to someone who carried a vicious killing intent.
He could affirm it.
He could declare it.
Because that look had once been his own, right before he went to eliminate a target.
He did not know why murderous intent had settled in those eyes.
But of one thing he was certain: that man would see blood today.
His own blood, or someone else’s—either way, that man would see blood.
Lowen snuffed out his interest.
He was no champion of justice.
He had no reason to stop the man, and no duty to do so.
He had no desire to stick his nose in and get tangled up in some incident.
Quietly—just quietly—he would become part of the festival for a day, then leave for Windfield.
“Let’s go look around the outskirts as well.”
Lowen tugged on Ariel’s sleeve.
“Bishop Lowen.”
Ariel stood rooted as if her feet were stuck to the ground, staring into the crowd where the man had vanished.
In those eyes that seemed to gaze into empty air, gentle golden waves were rising.
“That man just now… I think we need to find him.”
Waves of rage reflected in Ariel’s eyes.
Like a brush soaked in blood painting strokes, red curves wove through the people.
Ariel’s head might be full of flower fields like an idiot, yet she was sensitive to others’ emotions.
Those bloodshot eyes that had glared down so fiercely.
The brow that twitched and crumpled every time she apologized.
Sensing something wrong from those signs, Ariel had used her authority to check the man.
He had vanished into the crowd too quickly for her to read his emotions directly, but she could still see the rage lingering in the air.
For an emotion to remain in the air meant it was truly powerful.
And whenever she saw emotions this strong, Ariel always had to hear bad news.
It was a long time ago.
Back when she still could not properly judge the strength of her authority.
A believer steeped in depression had come to Ariel for counseling.
He was a newly hired mage at the Magic Association, suffering through all-night paperwork and verbal abuse from his superior.
At the time he had been dyed a gloomy indigo.
The color was so thick and sticky that indigo footprints remained wherever he stepped.
She had not known then.
That when an emotion grew extreme enough, its color left a residue.
Ariel had listened to him with utmost care, and every time he came to the cathedral for worship she sought him out herself to greet him.
As time passed, a smile seemed to return to the believer’s face.
Then one day,
after the afternoon service, the believer had smiled and said to Ariel:
“Everything’s resolved now. Thank you, Saintess.”
After those words, the believer never visited the cathedral again.
He had climbed the high spire of the grand cathedral and jumped.
Crushed by excessive work and daily abuse, his emotions had finally collapsed and he had given up on life.
Similar things had happened several times.
Encounters with people who carried emotions strong enough to leave color behind.
Happiness was like smoke that lingered only briefly before vanishing; depression was something that clung stubbornly to the shoulders.
So most powerful emotions leaned toward the bad side.
No—not most. Everything Ariel had seen was of that kind.
And the endings were always bad endings or sad endings.
“Hurry!”
Ariel pulled Lowen’s sleeve and followed the waves of rage.
She pushed against the reverse current of the crowd.
“He’s… gone.”
Given time, it disappears.
Traces of emotion do not linger long.
Look away for a moment and they vanish.
She had kept following, but colliding with the throng she had finally lost him.
“What do we do!”
Ariel looked up at Lowen as if begging for the right answer.
“If we don’t find him, that man is going to make a terrible choice.”
Lowen was troubled.
He held the grand role of the Saintess’s guardian, yet he was not omnipotent.
And more than anything, he did not particularly want to find the man.
His instincts were speaking.
Get involved with that man and they would end up in a difficult situation.
“Bishop Lowen? Bishop Lowen?”
Ariel clung to him, bouncing on her heels.
If it were up to him he would rather tour the festival.
He wanted to hunt for new snacks and stroll through Rest Town at leisure.
Lowen let out a long sigh.
“Haa......”
Suddenly exhausted, Lowen smiled gently.
“Let’s walk around and look for him first. Red hair stands out, so we should find him quickly.”
Ariel, who had been clasping her hands anxiously before her chest, broke into a bright smile.
“Let’s hurry.”
Lowen seized Ariel’s hand firmly.
Ariel let out a startled peep like a chick and stared at Lowen’s hand.
His large hand was covering her small one completely.
This was no time to be distracted by something so trivial.
Yet every nerve in Ariel’s body focused on that hand.
Sweat beaded on her palm, which until a moment ago had been dry.
Lowen pulled her along as he wove through the crowd.
“Keep a sharp lookout.”
At Lowen’s voice, Ariel—who had briefly been lost in thought—nodded vigorously.
“Yes! Yes!”
Lowen sighed heavily in his heart.
His instincts kept refusing.
Every time he turned his head this way and that searching for the man, his mood soured.
Whatever.
Find the man first and stop him before he does something—that would be enough.
With that thought he continued against the lively festival atmosphere.