The Weight of Truth
Flamena, the Grand Guardian of the Secret Archives, spoke first. “The church’s secrets….”
I didn’t need to ask. It was obvious. Whatever secret was important enough to bring the head of the Secret Archives herself into the open had to be tied to Marek and this exhausted snake.
My right hand tightened around the axe until the wood groaned.
Flamena didn’t seem interested in hiding anything. Red mana spilled from her like ink in water, flaunting her power. The energy looked lethally sharp, yet I sensed no intent to attack me with it.
“…Causing a disturbance inside the church headquarters would be awkward for the Secret Archives too, wouldn’t it? Especially since your job is guarding secrets.”
“Oh, that? Already taken care of.”
“Taken care of?”
“Look around. A huge commotion like this has been going on in the imperial capital’s church headquarters for a while now, yet neither the Heresy Inquisitors nor the capital garrison have shown up. Weird, right?”
She was right. It was strange. This was the main cathedral in the capital—priests and pilgrims came and went constantly. Someone should have reported the noise to the garrison or the inquisitors by now. The fact that the church’s own enforcers and the imperial guards were completely silent meant…
“You did something, didn’t you?”
“Exactly. I wrapped the entire building in a barrier and rewound the flow of time inside it. Oh, and I tweaked the memories of any priests or pilgrims who actually witnessed the mess.”
Flamena made a show of wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her hand, as if begging for praise for all her hard work.
“Do you have any idea how nervous I was, worrying that something might happen to our precious Saint candidate while I was running late?”
“Too bad. That precious Saint candidate already has a hole punched through her shoulder.”
“Ah, that.”
Flamena stretched an arm toward me and opened her palm. My mind raced through thousands of scenarios—throw the axe, sever the limb, end the threat. But her eyes held no hostility, so I waited.
It was the right choice. The wounds I’d taken fighting the snake began to twitch and knit closed. No, not just healing. It looked more like the injury was being reversed to the state before it happened.
“Healing magic… No. This is something else.”
“Partial time reversal. Pretty cool, right? No holy power needed and I can still patch people up in seconds.”
This time she lifted her chin and puffed out her chest, clearly fishing for compliments on how amazing she was. There was no harm in playing along for now.
“Uh… yeah. That’s impressive. I couldn’t do that even with holy power.”
“See? This is why you should only talk with people who actually get it!”
Cheered up, Flamena flicked her messy red hair like she was showing off a trophy.
“So, can I take that snake you chopped in half?”
Her tone stayed light, but the look on her face when she glanced at the serpent was anything but casual.
“What are you planning to do with it?”
“Hmm. Are you asking out of simple curiosity? Or did you sense something from this snake?”
“Then I will ask you the same question.”
I spread both arms so she could see them clearly and dissolved the axe in my hand into scattering particles of holy light.
“Is that question truly born from pure curiosity, or are you testing me?”
“…What?”
One of Flamena’s eyebrows shot up.
“You seem to be misunderstanding something.”
Her feet finally touched the ground through the broken window frame.
“I didn’t come here to do anything to you.”
She scowled like a commander watching incompetent soldiers fail to grasp basic tactics and jabbed a finger at me.
“I told you from the beginning—I came to protect the church’s secrets!”
“…Does protecting secrets usually include eliminating witnesses?”
“What the hell do you think I am? Some kind of witch?!”
She literally appeared out of thin air like one, though…
“Ugh… I came here expecting to meet the famous Saint candidate everyone’s been whispering about. If I’d known I was just going to waste time, I would’ve erased your memories from the start.”
The moment she finished speaking, her eyes flashed.
“Ugh!”
I squeezed my eyes shut, but the light had already pierced straight through my eyelids.
“……”
Nothing happened.
“…The hell?”
The light from her eyes grew even brighter.
“Um…”
Still nothing.
The glow pulsed, faded, flickered, and finally died.
“Why won’t your memories erase?! What are you?!”
Flamena rubbed her eyes with her fingers, tears leaking from the corners. Apparently even she was starting to get a headache.
“Uh… where… am I…?”
“Cut the terrible acting!”
She stormed right up to me, breathing hard. Up close she wasn’t as tall as Lenka, but she was still taller than she had looked from the sky. She glared down at me.
Or maybe I’m just shorter than I thought.
“What kind of divine protection do you even have that my Mystic Eye can’t scratch your memory?”
“Uh…”
I had no answer. If I were any good at making things up on the spot, I wouldn’t have let Nella keep me trapped yesterday either.
“Fine. Whatever. My original plan was to drag you into the next Three Holy Offices meeting anyway.”
“Drag me into… what?”
Flamena ignored my question and pointed at the snake’s severed upper half lying on the floor.
“You asked what this thing is, right? It’s an experimental subject closely connected to one of the secrets the Secret Archives protects.”
“Experimental… subject?”
“Yes. If you want to know more, you’ll have to prove your innocence to the church—at least to the three of us in the Holy Offices.”
“So it’s a deal?”
Flamena smirked, one corner of her mouth curling up as if my choice of words amused her.
“A deal… You probably didn’t mean it that way, but I consider that word an insult to us.”
She casually crossed her legs in midair as if sitting on an invisible staircase, rested her chin on her hand, and stared straight at me.
“Share the weight of the truth we carry. I believe you can handle it—even if you’re only half a person with incomplete memories.”
“……”
I delayed my answer by looking at the snake’s head. Marek’s face flickered across the dying serpent’s features one last time. I met Flamena’s gaze and nodded.
“This… individual. Was he human? Or at least, was he once human?”
Flamena let out a long breath before answering.
“…Yes.”
That explained why the Barrier of Rejection hadn’t affected him. Even in that form, he could still be considered human.
Questions flooded my mind, but the first one that actually left my lips was completely different.
“Then this individual was a soldier named Marek, formerly of the imperial guard. Do you know how he ended up like this?”
Flamena frowned and tilted her head slightly.
“Marek? This is the first time I’ve heard he even had a name.”
“…I see.”
“How did you know his name?”
“…Let’s just say it suddenly came to me.”
Was it because I was afraid to face the humiliating end of my previous life? Or because I still couldn’t fully trust them? Even I didn’t know the real reason, so I gave a vague answer. Flamena’s expression made it clear she wasn’t satisfied.
“Hmph. Keeping secrets in front of the Grand Guardian of the Secret Archives… Whatever. I don’t even care!”
She grumbled complaints at me, then suddenly paused and stroked her chin as if something had just occurred to her.
“Wait a second. Imperial guard… Ohhh, now that I think about it… Ah, that would make sense…”
Did she already figure it out?
‘Flamena.’
A warm, grandfatherly voice filled the air, gentle as sunlight.
“You have been maintaining the barrier for quite a long time. The pilgrims are beginning to notice something is wrong. Is everything all right?”
Flamena’s face crumpled in a way I had never seen before.
“You old fossil! I can handle my own business, so stop nagging me!”
“Hehe… Understood.”
The old man’s voice vanished.
“Tch. I’ve wasted too much time. Hey, Saint candidate! I have an absurd amount of work waiting for me, you know?”
Red mana surged around her as her body slowly rose into the air. At the same time, the shattered walls and debris began flying back into place as if time itself was rewinding.
“So if you want to ask any more questions, come to the next Three Holy Offices meeting.”
Everything inside the building was reversing—returning to where it had been before the fight. That included the snake’s blood that had soaked into my robes and even the shoe still embedded in the wall.
“Whoa!”
I quickly snatched the shoe flying straight at me upside-down.
“What about… the snake?”
I watched the serpent’s upper half wriggle its way back toward its lower half and asked.
“It’s an experimental subject, so I have to restore it. The truth is, this guy suddenly escaped on the exact day you arrived at the church headquarters. Ohen went after him but came back empty-handed, so we lost him.”
“Ah.”
I remembered the incident at the checkpoint and the unidentified gaze I had felt while passing through the city walls. I wiped away a bead of nervous sweat. Had Marek sensed my presence the moment I returned to the capital and come looking for me? If so, what had he intended to do?
I still had no solid answers, but one thing was certain—I now had something I had to find out.
“If I attend that Three Holy Offices meeting, will I learn more about what happened here?”
Even if it meant stepping blindfolded onto a gambling table.
“Obviously. My mouth is itching to tell you everything.”
Something I absolutely had to uncover.
“Then I accept your offer.”
“…I told you not to call it a deal.”
“…Right.”