The Saintess Weeps and the Idiot Box Speaks
The idiot box creaked open. That distinctive screech of old, rusted hinges whenever a large, ancient door was thrown wide always carved an ominous, skin-crawling premonition straight into my nerves. And it was twice as bad when what waited beyond the door was an abnormally vast, desolate white void that threatened to bleach my already hazy mind clean. A cold, unsympathetic expanse like an endless snowfield where even footprints refused to remain. No matter how many times I set foot in that demonic realm, the queasy feeling never seemed to fade.
“S-Saintess… I’m here…”
I cupped one hand around my mouth like a makeshift megaphone, trying to give my pathetic voice some volume. The echo that came back was just as weak as its source. It couldn’t be helped. The person I had to face from now on possessed the power to turn any human who displeased her into a soulless doll, and she hadn’t even developed enough basic humanity to restrain herself. Voluntarily crawling into the lair of someone like that was essentially the same as an idiot following a burning fuse in search of the dynamite it led to.
The real idiot who had lit that fuse was probably lounging somewhere safely across the river right now, doing breathing exercises or whatever without a care in the world. So why did I, an innocent bystander, have to shoulder this heavy burden and risk my life playing bomb squad?
It was a perfectly reasonable question, and it only weighed down my already heavy steps with thick regret. Still, the fleeting comfort of knowing I’d at least gotten to eat that thick slab of meat I’d been dreaming about before I died kept my legs from giving out completely.
Then it hit me.
Without any warning, an impact slammed into me and sent my body tilting sideways.
“Huh?”
It was like a crossbow bolt the instant the trigger was pulled—springing forward the moment I spoke. The unknown projectile that launched itself like a coiled spring and rammed straight into my lower abdomen was far too soft and fragile to be an attack meant to harm anyone.
No. It was someone.
“S-Saintess…!?”
While I pathetically landed flat on my rear from the unexpected assault, the Saintess’s small hands wrapped tightly around my waist like vines, clinging with desperate strength. I was so used to her usual indifference—sitting far from the door, staring at that broken television screen day in and day out no matter who entered—that this sudden, unimaginable strike left me completely stunned.
Trembling. Shaking.
As if she had finally reunited with a long-lost family member after years apart, her delicate frame burrowed into me, sobbing, refusing to let go. The sight slowly clued me in that something was very, very wrong.
“H-huu… Kk, kkeu, uueut… Kk, heut…”
“Saintess…?”
I doubted my eyes and ears. The Saintess usually seemed as emotionless as a soulless doll. Even so, she was still human and felt fear; on rare occasions she had shown me fragments of her feelings. But those had only ever been tiny pieces, mere slivers.
Never anything like this—her face twisted in anguish, vivid emotions spilling from her eyes like tears, letting out desperate, heartrending appeals. This was a side of her I had never witnessed before.
“H-huaa… A, aa… Hua, huaaaaaang—!”
“Uwaaa! D-don’t cry! Saintess! Stop! Please stop!”
Before the shock that felt like a spike through my skull could even fade, her sorrowful wail filled the quiet white space to the brim. The loud bang of the massive door behind me slamming shut barely registered; my thoughts were too violently shaken to notice.
It took a long time. A truly long time before the Saintess finally stopped crying.
Or rather, calling it “stopped” didn’t feel quite right. It was more accurate to say she cried and cried until she exhausted herself and collapsed. That scream-like, sorrowful wail had clearly carried thoughts far heavier than ordinary grief.
“Haa…”
It felt like a storm had passed. Anyone who had seen the protagonists in a disaster movie, trapped on a burning mountain, shouting for joy at the sight of rain falling from the sky would probably understand exactly how I felt.
My original purpose and resolve had grown blurry long ago. All that remained was a faint sense of relief at having successfully calmed the Saintess, who had been crying as if the world itself were ending. That relief was the only thing soothing my startled mind and body.
Now she breathed softly in my arms, as if the earlier tantrum had never happened. It was hard to shake the reasonable suspicion that the whole chaotic event had been nothing more than a daydream. But the red traces around her eyes and the faint ringing still echoing in my ears constantly reminded me that it had all been real. Turning away from the reality right in front of me was simply impossible.
“So… what now…”
The only person with any clue about what had happened had fallen asleep, making an already difficult situation even more uncertain. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to wake her after I had finally gotten her to rest. The saying that children are prettiest when they’re sleeping was clearly a polite way of saying they’re a bit hateful when awake—a lesson I had learned anew through this incident.
Besides, even if I did wake her, the Saintess had never been particularly good with words. Expecting a clear explanation of the events from her would have been asking too much.
And so I remained, serving as her human bed, unable to move forward or back, for quite some time.
“If I could at least figure out what happened between those two, maybe I could do something about this…”
The low, frustrated mutter had just slipped out when I felt it fade into the empty air.
Thud.
It was as if someone had pressed fast-forward on a paused video for about ten seconds. With no warning, no sign, the artificial object appeared before my eyes as though it had been there from the very beginning. Its presence was more than enough to snap my drifting consciousness back to full attention.
“Huh…?”
A small brown tube television with legs. The same familiar cube the Saintess stared at all day as if trying to burn a hole through it—one that often drifted into my own field of vision as well. A tiny doubt sprouted: how had it ended up right in front of my nose when no one could possibly have placed it there?
And more importantly—why did a “television” even exist in this world?
Like thick fog slowly clearing, one perfectly reasonable question finally took concrete shape in my mind, long overdue. It was almost as if someone had deliberately excluded “that thing” from my thought processes. That lump of incongruity that refused to mesh with the common sense of a world built on magic and supernatural powers. Yet it felt completely natural. An object that wouldn’t be strange to find here. As if someone had imprinted that idea directly into my brain.
The sensation was eerily similar to the faint unease that returns to the body as it slowly wakes from general anesthesia. A throbbing headache gripped me, like the puzzle inside my skull was being forcibly reassembled into its original form.
The clear green text that appeared on the screen—which had always been nothing but static—looked strangely like it was speaking directly to me. I rubbed my eyes, first checking whether something was wrong with my vision.
Fortunately, my vision seemed fine. But if that was the case, then I had to worry about whether my mind had finally broken, and the heavy weight on my chest refused to lift.
“…Who are you?”
It was the birth of an idiot human speaking to an idiot box. Still, with questions bubbling up like water from a spring, this was the only way I could think of to resolve them. No one was watching anyway, and I had nothing to lose. The impulsive question slipped out before I could stop it.
The answer came immediately. The thought that flashed through my mind wasn’t relief that I wasn’t crazy. It was a dim, creeping fear that I had somehow succeeded in communicating with an unidentified entity.
Ah. No, never mind. I really had just gone crazy. Whew. What a relief.