What She Refused to Lose
Two hours had passed since the Tower of Chastity collapsed.
While Cloud was away trying to contact the Holy See, Alice sat quietly at a distance from the ruined tower, staring blankly at the scene.
The Heroes and the knights of Hart had already rescued the priests who had not managed to escape, and the wounded were being rushed away on stretchers by an improvised rescue team.
“Over here!”
“Hurry up with the splints and bandages!”
“Emergency case here! This one first!”
“The bleeding’s too heavy over here! Someone get a blood pack!”
“This person’s heart has stopped!”
Men and women with limbs torn off one by one, or broken beyond use, clutched their own bodies and screamed, while those still bleeding groaned through the pain.
“No—Renny! Don’t…!”
“Aaaagh! Sophia….”
“Herold, please! Open your eyes….”
And that wasn’t all. The dead kept appearing, one after another.
A priest with half his head crushed under rubble had brain matter spilling through a split skull. A priestess who had fallen and been skewered clean through the chest on the tip of a banner pole stared ahead with dilated pupils, motionless. A corpse whose neck had snapped in the impact lay sprawled with excrement staining the pants beneath it.
Worse still, bodies flattened entirely beneath the debris had burst open, their organs torn out and spilled beyond anything a person should have to look at.
Even though the rescue team hurriedly threw white cloths over the dead to hide them, vomit and screams still erupted from all over the site. It was a landscape straight out of hell.
The Tower of Chastity had been a place where most people came to offer prayers of gratitude and donations to the apostles of the Lord God, so there were far more ordinary believers than priests.
Lovers, family, friends—watching the people they had cherished turn into cold corpses in an instant turned the entire scene into a madhouse of blood, tears, and screams.
It was a tragedy too horrible to look at. Alice watched it in silence, gooseflesh crawling over her skin as she rubbed her arms.
For some reason, her breathing began to roughen little by little. Her heart thudded as if it might burst, just like when she had been falling through the air, and her pupils shook uncontrollably.
When her anxiety passed its limit, the world before her began to ripple hazily. Alice couldn’t tell whether it was dizziness, or tears gathering in her eyes.
Her teeth rattled. She gasped for breath, then clutched at the fabric over her tight, suffocating chest, but no air would enter her lungs.
This is the result you created, Alice.
At the old man’s voice whispering softly in her ear, it felt as if the blood in her whole body had gone cold. She could bear it no longer. Her expression twisted, and she hurriedly dropped to the ground.
“Uwaaaagh—!”
She vomited violently, as if squeezing out even her stomach acid. Until Cloud returned, she had no choice but to keep her hands on the cold earth and continue retching until her insides turned over.
***
“You’re really not going to rest any longer?”
“I said I’m fine.”
“At least get a proper examination. Maybe you’re pregnant….”
“Oh, for God’s sake, will you just….”
Only after Alice’s voice filled with irritation did Cloud finally close his mouth.
Ungrateful, even when someone worried about her. He muttered to himself in gloom, as if that were somehow expected of a darkly inclined Hero.
Cloud shared the information he had obtained through communications with headquarters. First, the Holy See was aware of the current situation and, to understand the incident more clearly, planned to dispatch an investigator from the Order in four days.
Apparently, some complicated problem had erupted within the Holy See itself, so they didn’t have the capacity to send anyone sooner. Of course, they had confirmed that relief supplies and repair equipment would be sent first by airship.
Until the reconstruction work on the Tower of Chastity was completed, Alice would temporarily relocate to the Tower of Salvation.
It was still the grounds of the same great cathedral, but for the first time in twenty years, Alice would be leaving the tower where she had lived for half her life.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
Alice and Cloud wandered around the tilted remains of the tower. There wasn’t anything she particularly needed to take with her. There had never been any object in Alice’s bedroom that she had loved enough to cherish.
There was only one thing she picked up. A plain, unremarkable copper pendant.
The plating had worn away, the pattern on it was faded, and it was nothing more than some cheap trinket you’d find anywhere.
Alice held it tightly in her hand, as if it were precious.
“Let’s go back.”
“Yeah.”
Just as she turned without hesitation at Cloud’s words, Alice’s gaze fell on a flowerpot.
It was an ordinary broken pot.
And yet, for some reason, she couldn’t look away.
Laura….
The Apostle of Seeking the Way. The youngest girl among the children Alice had borne—the tiny child had given her a pink camellia flower.
Why was that catching her eye now? Before she knew it, Alice turned her body. She walked straight toward the pile of rubble.
Just then, one of the Flying River Heroes came up to speak to Cloud, and in that moment he lost sight of Alice’s movement for an instant.
Even the Heroes nearby, who were controlling the area and handling the aftermath, strangely failed to recognize Alice.
Only when they belatedly saw her walking beyond the restricted zone did they shout.
“Hey! You can’t go in there!”
“What the hell, is she crazy?”
“It’s dangerous! Get out of there!”
“Hey, where are you going?!”
Ignoring the voices around her, Alice kept staring only at the camellia blossom.
For some reason, that was all she could see. The only thought in her head was that she had to get it, no matter what.
Just as she was about to push herself into the gaps between the rubble, someone suddenly grabbed her arm.
“What the hell are you doing, wandering around in a dangerous place like that?”
It was Cloud. His hard grip stopped Alice in her tracks.
“No. I have to take it.”
“Alice?”
“The flower… there’s a flower over there.”
Alice kept mumbling about the flower as if she had lost her mind.
Cloud’s eyes moved along her line of sight. It was hard to see through the dust and broken stone, but sure enough, there was a blossom clinging to the shattered flowerpot and the small sapling.
As if by some miracle, the pink petals had somehow kept almost entirely intact despite the disaster.
Cloud asked, “Is it a flower you care about?”
“I don’t know….”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a flower someone I hate gave me.”
“Then it should be fine to throw it away, shouldn’t it?”
Alice fell silent for a moment. As if thinking about something intently, she said nothing, then slowly shook her head.
“…Even so, I need it.”
“Fine.”
Cloud pointed outside the restricted area with a finger.
“I’ll get it, so stand here and wait like a good girl.”
Alice nodded. The Flying River Hero, who had been watching them from behind all this time, finally approached them.
Albert, the Torrent Hero. The way he looked at Cloud was strange, as if he were thinking, What the hell is this guy doing?
“What is it, Albert? What’s with that look?”
“Tsk… no, never mind. I suppose you’ll handle it however you want.”
“……”
Albert led Alice back out of the restricted zone.
A short while later, Cloud returned with the sapling, still wrapped in dirt, and carefully set it down in front of Alice.
Alice crouched in front of the sapling and met Cloud’s eyes.
“If I replant it, it can live, right?”
“The trunk connecting it to the roots was torn. Considering it fell from so high up, the fact that it survived at all is already pure luck. You can’t see it well, but the fine roots have all been ripped away too. At this rate, it’ll dry out and die within a few days.”
“…Do you know a lot about plants?”
“Not really. My younger brother likes flowers, so I just picked up bits and pieces.”
“What do I need to do if I want to save it?”
Cloud’s lips moved as though he were about to speak, then he looked away and let out a sigh. He took off his outer coat and draped it over Alice’s lap.
“Camellias have hard wood and pretty strong vitality. If you close the torn parts and care for it properly, it won’t die.”
“…It can live?”
“Yeah. It fell from that high up and survived, so that’s already a blessing. A blessed flower. And please, for the love of God, act a little more properly as the Benevolent Mother Hero. There are a lot of eyes on you.”
“I’ll do what I want.”
“I’m sure you will…. Ah, cut off most of the flowers and leaves too. The stem was torn, so water won’t reach them easily, and if there are too many leaves it’ll dry out fast.”
“Do I really have to cut them?”
“If you want it to live, then yes. Even after cutting them off, you’ll have to care for it carefully for at least a month. Make a decisive choice, Alice.”
“Got it. I’ll cut them….”
“Good.”
Carefully, so as not to let any dirt fall off, Cloud lifted the sapling again.
“If you leave just a few buds at the ends of the branches, new shoots will grow and it’ll bloom again.”
“That’s a relief…. Get me a pot instead. They’re not going to let me outside anyway.”
“Understood. I’ll get one right away. How big was the one you were using?”
“About the size of your palm.”
“Get one a little bigger than that. Too large isn’t good either, since the soil won’t dry properly after watering, but something one or two sizes bigger than the old one would be best.”
At the more detailed explanation, Alice let out a small snort of laughter.
“You kept using your brother as an excuse, but you actually know more than I thought.”
“If you listen to it long enough, you end up knowing even if you didn’t want to. What about fertilizer or mixing soil?”
“Can’t I just put in any dirt? No, wait—why would you even use fertilizer if you’re not farming….”
“Never mind. You know how to set up a stake, right?”
“Don’t look at me like I’m an idiot. I can do that much.”
“……Fine. I’ll handle it myself.”
Cloud sighed for what must have been the umpteenth time that day and shook his head.