Unnie, I Want to Go Out
It was a strangely familiar scene. The Saintess suddenly throwing a tantrum, insisting she was going outside the monastery no matter what, and the nun firmly blocking her. The slightly heartwarming standoff felt exactly like a play with the actors swapped—reenacting the countless times I had shouted my resignation declarations and the nun had coldly shot down my desperate pleas.
The Saintess had claimed she’d decided on her wish, then abruptly bound me with chains and burst out of the audience chamber. That part might have been written off as an unexpected accident, a mere happening. But when the bomb dropped from her lips—that she wanted to leave the monastery right before the Grace Bestowal Ceremony—it became an undeniable catastrophe. So it was perfectly natural that both the nun and I, the ones left to handle the aftermath, had our faces twist in horror at the same time.
Humanity had only two fortresses remaining. We couldn’t possibly allow the Saintess, one of those pillars, to wander carelessly through the dangerous outside world. That was why Priest Lobel—also known as Priest Ranobel—who had assisted with her previous unauthorized outing (even though it hadn’t been intentional) was still stuck under disciplinary punishment.
I can only do this much. I’ll leave the rest to you, Priest Regis.
The image of Priest Lobel being dragged away by the Pope’s personal holy knights, unable to offer a single word in his defense, remained painfully vivid. That resolute back of his. For the first time, I almost understood why a distasteful man like him had seventeen fiancées.
What must that blond alien have felt when he lost his bald colleague to an unforeseen accident? A swirl of emotions too complex for words swept through my chest. Still, the guy had powerful backing, so he’d probably be fine.
“Move. Welna has to go out. Don’t get in my way.”
“No! Even if a blade is pressed to my throat, I absolutely cannot permit this! An unauthorized outing at this critical moment, right before the Grace Bestowal Ceremony? What if you encounter ruffians? What if you catch some illness from an unclean place? What exactly are you thinking?”
The fierce argument dragged on. Neither the Saintess nor the nun showed the slightest intention of yielding. They say life is a tragedy when viewed up close and a comedy from afar. Stopping the Saintess’s tyranny with everything I had was always my job, while the nun’s was to stand beside me and annoyingly support my tireless efforts. Now that those roles had completely reversed, I realized—somewhat belatedly—that a faint, shameful sense of relief was flickering in the corner of my heart.
In cruder terms, I was a little pleased.
“Priest Regis, say something, please!”
As if she’d read my devious thoughts, the nun suddenly raised her voice, irritation clear in her tone, and called for my help. The moment I came back to my senses and opened my mouth to add my own feeble support—
Shaaar!
“Ugh!”
“What!”
The pure-white chains that had been binding me wriggled like a snake charmed by a flute and instantly sealed my mouth shut.
“I promised. Today we do what Welna wants. Don’t interfere.”
I’d never made any such promise. Unfortunately, with my mouth blocked, that perfectly reasonable protest never saw the light of day.
“S-Saintess…!”
The nun’s face grew noticeably paler as she broke into a cold sweat and took a small step back, unable to hide her bewilderment at the Saintess’s resolute declaration. I couldn’t even begin to guess what she wanted to do outside with me, or what her true wish even was.
For a second I wondered if she was trying to act out the contents of the erotic novel I’d been holding. Right before the audience chamber door had opened, I’d frantically asked whether she’d read it. But the way she’d innocently tilted her head while staring at the book suggested she hadn’t read a single page—perhaps didn’t even know such a book existed in the audience chamber.
Still, I’d picked it up anyway. Not because I particularly wanted to read it, mind you. We couldn’t leave such improper material lying around in a sacred place, and I needed to determine who the scoundrel was that had brought it here. To figure out whether it was truly an erotic novel or something else, I had to examine its contents carefully somewhere away from prying eyes.
Besides, after skimming a few lines earlier, I’d realized the author’s message was far too philosophical to be dismissed as mere smut. The emotional exchanges between the characters were profoundly deep. So rather than some base urge to read something lewd, it was pure intellectual curiosity about what came next that had driven me to pick up the book. Especially that scene where the protagonist feeds the heroine a lactation stimulant and personally milks her—
“Still, what cannot be allowed cannot be allowed—!”
The nun’s sharp voice, ringing with the determination of a warrior ready to fight to the death, snapped my wandering thoughts back to reality.
“Welna told you to move. So move.”
“I absolutely will not! If you truly insist on going, then kill me where I stand and go!”
“Mmph!”
Even against that murderous attitude, the nun didn’t budge an inch. She spread both arms wide and solemnly blocked the Saintess’s path. I desperately wanted to intervene in the explosive situation that felt like a lit fuse on a stick of dynamite, but with my entire body restrained and my mouth sealed, I had no way to stop them.
Tap. Tap.
The eerie sound of the Saintess’s bare white feet striking the stone floor slowly draped an ominous tension over the already menacing atmosphere between them.
Stop.
The Saintess’s pale hand quietly grasped the hem of the nun’s skirt. That sluggish motion, like a video lagging behind, vividly resurrected a chilling memory on my retina.
The very day the Hero and the Saintess first met. When I had protested that I couldn’t respond to her affection with people watching, the Saintess had instantly turned every bystander into emotionless dolls. That same indifferent attitude—as if she were simply kicking aside a trivial obstacle—triggered an urgent alarm inside me.
“Eek!”
The nun, who had suddenly squeezed her eyes shut, didn’t seem any better off than I was. Her resolute determination to stand her ground contrasted sharply with her trembling, pitiful figure. She looked like a tiny rabbit caught in a thunderstorm.
The air was so thick with tension that letting your guard down for even a second felt unforgivable. How long did that silence stretch, the kind where you had to consciously remember to breathe or risk suffocating?
Soon the Saintess spoke.
“Unnie.”
“Huh?”
“Mmph?”
The deadly atmosphere, pulled taut like a rubber band, snapped like a spring at that adorable little sound.
For a moment I thought I’d heard wrong. After all, until now the Saintess’s voice had shown almost no emotional fluctuation, yet here was something that—though perhaps only in form—resembled cuteness.
To those of us who had served her most closely, the destructive power of that single word was comparable to the historic moment a cat had suddenly meowed with emotion.
“S-Saintess… w-what did you just—!”
“Unnie. Welna wants to go out right now.”
“Huuuh…!”
Overcome with emotion, the nun suddenly clapped both hands over her mouth. She collapsed to her knees like a puppet with cut strings, tears glistening in her eyes. The sight was so moving it felt like I was experiencing the same joy Sullivan must have felt the moment Helen Keller first spoke.
“Unnie. Welna wants to go out. I want to go out.”
“Hic… hiccup! Uuuugh! Kkgh!”
Every time the Saintess uttered the word “Unnie,” it was like pressing a tear button. The nun, who had been sobbing uncontrollably, gently pulled the Saintess—who had simply been staring at her blankly—into her arms.
Then the trembling words that slipped from the nun’s quivering lips dropped a massive bomb on my already stunned consciousness.
“Fine… Do whatever Welna wants…!”
Wait a minute.