160. Watch Your Slip of the Tongue
160. Watch Your Slip of the Tongue
Fortunately, word that I'd wiped out the church apparently didn't spread.
It had all happened so fast, and Master Hulan was the only one who witnessed me. The students had apparently been told some confiscated item in the church exploded.
Normally, all kinds of articles would've come pouring out to bury me for what I did, but the moment the incident broke, Bishop urgently contacted the Holy See for backup, and it reached Carmel and McIntosh's ears.
What pissed me off even more was that those bastards had a direct line the whole time, yet they'd kept stonewalling me, claiming it wasn't possible.
Bishop even went so far as to give a separate explanatory interview saying all the strange speculation about me, the victim, was a misunderstanding....
Still, actions speak louder than words, and once a suspicious lead gets thrown out there, people who simply love fanning the flames of eerie conspiracies will pour everything into blowing groundless rumors way out of proportion.
My image was already rock-bottom with the other students anyway. I'd wondered if adding one more line to the list would really change anything, but,
it still pissed me off. My mood, that is.
Just you wait until the Summit.
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"Our Atlas...?"
Riber's expression soured at those words, which struck her as awfully familiar.
She was already angry about that reckless stunt, and maybe she'd walked in expecting to find me giggling and carrying on with another woman.
"Yes! I worried about whether he'd be able to adjust well to the Academy, but to see he has a friend who comes looking for him like this, it's truly a relief."
Riber immediately turned her fire on me.
"Atlas, who is this?"
"As I just said, she's the Holy See's Saintess. She just healed all my injuries."
"They were inflicted by Holy Knights, so of course she should heal them."
Riber's words were oddly sharp.
She was doing her utmost to keep Carmel in check.
'She's keeping Carmel in check?'
Antagonizing a Saintess was very strange.
The Power to be Loved by All Creation she possessed was still going strong.
The sweet fragrance filling the hospital room was proof of that.
Facing her should make you feel goodwill toward her, so how could she be acting like this?
Perhaps her heart and her actions were manifesting differently.
"I appreciate it, but if you've finished your business, could you please leave now? He was beaten by church people. He still needs to rest."
"Don't worry, every single wound has been healed. We still have many things to talk about. There's much we need to discuss together in private."
"...Just what is your relationship with Atlas?"
"I harbor very deep affection for him... and we've been working in sync for a long time, so we share a relationship of great mutual trust."
Mutual?
I don't trust her, though.
She's the one I trust most among church people, but trust? I'm not so sure about that.
If you look only at the heart, her unique blessing as Saintess makes trust bloom the moment you lay eyes on her, so conversely, my head ratchets up the wariness several levels.
"What sort of relationship are you? Just a classmate? I'm grateful you came to visit, but Atlas and I must now discuss very important matters. Pardon my rudeness, but could you please step aside for a moment?"
"I am..."
The Saintess pressed her, and Riber hesitated for a moment.
Thinking I needed to sort this out, I was about to step in when Riber clenched her fist as if she'd made a resolution and spoke.
"I am Atlas's lover."
"Excuse me??"
"Oh my..."
I was surprised, the Saintess was surprised, and even Amy, who had come in after, was surprised.
The atmosphere was no joke.
Having heard Riber's bombshell declaration, Carmel looked us over as if greatly intrigued.
Amy, who had entered behind her, sensed the strange current and trembled, not knowing what to do.
I should settle this once and for all.
"Carmel."
"Yes, Atlas. Are you uncomfortable anywhere? Shall I stroke your head?"
"You said you'd be staying a few more days, right? Let's call it a day here."
As if slightly surprised, Carmel glanced back and forth between my face and Riber's once each, then smiled dubiously.
"Hm~mm, I see. Yes, I'll do that. See you tomorrow, Atlas."
With a slight smile lingering in her eyes, Carmel left the hospital room.
"And... if you had a lover like that, you could have told me too, couldn't you?"
She slipped that remark in without fail on her way out.
I would be able to see her tomorrow.
She'd said she'd stay at the Academy until this matter was settled.
She wouldn't be able to stay long, though.
She told me that as soon as she'd heard about my business at the Holy See, she'd come rushing in a fluster, so even while she was here, back at the Holy See, tasks awaiting her touch would be piling up.
"Hoo-ah... I... I said it...."
The moment Carmel left, Amy slumped down, all the tension released.
Her face, which had been filled with firm resolve, flushed bright red.
I simply smiled and took her hand.
When I lightly checked her pulse, I could feel her heart pounding, thump-thump.
"It turned into a good opportunity, right."
"But she's the Saintess-nim... was that really okay...?"
"It's fine."
Having been indebted to her several times, Amy was somewhat intimidated by the Saintess.
"Revealing that aside... you were unusually aggressive, unlike yourself... is something the matter?"
"...I don't like that person."
"Really?"
The moment the Saintess left, Riber furrowed her brow and pinched her nose with her fingers.
"Let's air this place out. The smell is so thick my nose feels like it's going to bend sideways."
Riber threw the hospital room window wide open and breathed in the fresh air outside.
To me and Amy, it registered only as a very pleasant scent, but to Riber, it seemed oppressively thick.
"It's a really nice scent—you're not just rebelling because you can't be honest with your own feelings, are you?"
"That's not it. That person is genuinely strange."
I asked just in case, but she really did seem to dislike her.
It might be that the wolf god's essence inside Riber's body was rejecting the Power to be Loved by All Creation, which was a heavenly Authority.
"For the Saintess-nim to come in person...."
In complete contrast to Riber's reaction, Amy smiled as she gazed at the spot where the Saintess had been.
"You like Carmel?"
"Yes, she's kind, beautiful, and... she listens well to whatever anyone has to say. I received a lot of help from her... She's someone who seems to embody the love of God in human form."
"That person?"
Watching Amy praise the Saintess, Riber wore an expression that said she couldn't understand it.
"Saintess-nim is a very compassionate person. It might be awkward since this is your first time meeting her, but I'm sure that, given time, Riber will come to like her too."
"Compassionate... she is, I suppose."
She was a woman so overflowing with love that she said maternal affection surged up whenever she saw me, to the point she wanted to adopt me.
"So... you tell me directly. What's your relationship with that person?"
"She's just a business acquaintance."
"A business acquaintance?"
"We're not deeply acquainted. She's the top core figure of the Holy See, so as a Master, I need connections; we often end up working together."
"If that person came in person... does that mean the matter at the church was resolved well?"
"That's right. It wasn't something that would've blown up that big in the first place. Those rigid-skulled bastards blew it out of proportion. I told them to call their higher-ups, but they kept stonewalling me to the end, urgh...."
Just thinking about it made me angry.
I should go to the hospital room where the Holy Knights are admitted and give each of them one smack.
"Is it really okay? I have to wonder if I can even trust you these days..."
"That... I'm sorry... But it really is all sorted out now. I feel like I could even be discharged."
"What if you collapse again like that... Since you're already admitted, stay a few more days before going."
"The hospital room is boring, though...."
"Then the two of us will bring books. Let's at least study together here."
"That could be fun too."
"I'll go bring some things to study as well."
I felt deeply reassured, as if we had returned to our daily lives.
Then suddenly, Riber looked at me and spoke.
"Atlas, are you hiding something from me?"
"!!!!"
"???"
The words came out of nowhere, and both of them completely startled.
"H-h-hiding something!! Th-th-there's no way that could be-e!!"
"What's suddenly gotten into you?"
I was surprised too, but Amy was especially surprised and stuttered.
More than one or two things had cropped up recently, which made it all the worse.
"...Why so suddenly?"
"It's not just that you collapsed out of nowhere while seemingly fine... I just have this feeling. Like you're going to leave me here and go off somewhere... I get that sort of feeling."
"Right, since I collapsed, I hadn't been able to talk about it properly."
Let's tell her why I collapsed.
I had meant to tell her what happened, but the headache kept me from speaking properly.
Excluding the parts about Amy, if I were to just state the result first....
"There was a trap leading to hell on the Academy grounds, and I fell into hell and escaped."
"Whaaaaat????"
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
"You nearly died!"
"I nearly died."
I told her how, after falling into hell and fighting a bloody battle against a Great Demon, my physical condition had become a wreck from overdoing it, and how the horn of the Great Demon I'd cut off back then was the reason I'd gone through all this suffering. Her reaction was a mixture of emotions.
She seemed dumbfounded, as if she couldn't believe it, and concern was mixed in as well.
Fortunately, when I said that aside from falling into the trap at the mansion, I'd gone straight to hell, the explanation went over reasonably well.
She probably couldn't have imagined that such a thing had happened in the span of a single night after we'd parted.
"Why would something like that remain right in the middle of the Academy grounds?"
"Do you know which professor used that mansion?"
"Yes... definitely."
"They had decided to teach methods of dealing with demons, but while trying to summon a suitable demon for that purpose, they made a mistake and summoned one that was too strong, causing chaos.
Though the church people cleaned it up, the professor died, and I know the mansion became an abandoned house after the church people investigated it."
When I explained what I knew in Amy's place, she was extremely surprised.
"You know it very well?"
Of course, it's the original work's setting.
The church people took everything dangerous away, but the research materials the professor had used remained, so by students' standards, it was a place with decent materials and artifacts lying around. But because it was a place where demons easily appeared, I remembered Hayden having used it frequently.
Though I'd only recently learned, upon seeing it in the dark, that that place was that mansion.
"If it was already completely destroyed years ago, how could such a trap have appeared again?"
"Either the people who investigated it back then didn't catch everything... or it appeared recently."
If it's the latter, it would become a huge hassle.
If a trap like that appears not in an abandoned house but in an Academy hallway or an isolated lecture room, then people would go missing one or two at a time just wandering around the Academy.
And then they'd never be found.
"I want to investigate that place in detail... but in the end, will you destroy it?"
"It was a trap I couldn't even detect. How many more of those might there be— how could I just leave it? Smashing it to pieces is easier."
"Since the Saintess-nim is here, wouldn't it be easier if we asked her?"
We hadn't discovered it, but if it's the Saintess, she might be able to find it.
She spoke with that confidence, but,
"If we do that, the Saintess and I could end up falling into the trap together— can you handle that?"
"...I'd rather not, honestly."
When I asked if it would be okay for me to enter the trap I'd fallen into together with another person, Amy shuddered as if she could imagine it.
"Fall into a trap together— what on earth does that mean?"
Realizing I'd made a slip of the tongue, I immediately went into glossing-over mode.
"Ahhhh, I'm talking about going to hell! Hell!"
"That's right! If he fell into hell together with Saintess-nim, the Holy See would be in great trouble too!"
Watching us awkwardly raising our voices, Riber simply narrowed her eyes thinly.