Chapter 262
Chapter 262
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 262
Chapter Title: The Method of Distinguishing Good and Evil (10)
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In the dim light of early dawn, Abel slowly opened her eyes. As the incarnation of a dragon, she didn't strictly need sleep, but she occasionally indulged in it anyway.
"Good morning."
Abel smiled softly as she gazed at the bed. Her sleep pattern was once every three days—and it matched Fernandez's usual routine. Once every three days, for five hours.
The minimum rest required to maintain the physical functions of a Religiosa Demonica. Abel enjoyed drifting off alongside Fernandez and waking up together. But all she saw was an empty bed.
"...He can never just stay put, can he."
Abel let out a deep sigh and straightened her appearance. Being close to a spirit in form, she had no physiological needs, so it was merely tidying up the disheveled clothes from her light slumber.
* * *
The corridor was cool. Geographically, Paltennoia should have been warm and temperate, but the atmospheric layer perpetually shrouding the city made winters harsh and summers chilly. Blue light filtered in through the windows. Gazing at the hazy dawn sky, she walked slowly.
"Did you cough?"
"Yes. Do you know where he is?"
"In the inner garden."
"Thank you."
Abel exchanged greetings with a servant doing the morning cleaning as she headed to the inner garden. The residences of the seven Elector Counts—the empire's pinnacle of power—could hardly be modest. The duke's mansion was no exception.
The corridors and wide galleries leading to the inner garden were adorned with splendid paintings and tapestries, elegant wooden railings curving gracefully like vines.
Abel trailed her fingertips along the reliefs as she walked. It was the serene start of a peaceful morning. At least until she reached the inner garden.
* * *
'How many times now?'
-One hundred and fifty-three.
'Just seven more, then let's rest.'
Fernandez bent his arm with a sharp inhale. His muscles writhed across his body, emitting a grotesque screech. In the rear garden, he balanced upside down on two fingers pressed to the ground.
-Crack.
A strange sound came from his shoulder. A Religiosa Demonica's body was far from light. Supporting its full weight on two fingers while maintaining balance and doing push-ups was less the discipline of a warrior and more the feat of an acrobat.
Sweat poured like rain, reopening healing wounds that beaded with blood droplets. The thick muscles coiled around his forearms trembled like snakes. He slowly bent his arms until his forehead tapped the ground, then extended them again. One.
'One hundred and fifty-four.'
-Crack!
'Ah, that feels refreshing.'
It was physical therapy disguised as rehab training. His output exceeded his body's durability, so direct impacts for acupressure damaged the muscles. He needed more precise, controlled strikes with better rhythm.
The stamina drain from the recent battle was no joke. Even for a Religiosa Demonica, a physical body had clear limits. Without proper care, it would slowly break down.
He wasn't afraid of his body breaking. What irked him was being unable to perform when needed. Just as he polished his blade and sharpened its edge after battle, he was pushing his body with exacting precision.
It was abuse, plain and simple. The doctor had examined him and insisted on absolute rest. It wasn't just surface cuts; purging toxins had torn through his meridians, deeply wounding even his organs.
-Drip.
Blood finally trickled from his shoulder to the ground. At that moment, something else fell with a soft sound. Fernandez wiped sweat from his eyes with his left hand and looked ahead.
Upside down, his vision inverted. Beyond it, he saw Abel dropping a basket of bread to the floor.
"Oh. You're awake?"
"...Did you just say 'you're awake'?"
"Hm?"
"Get up right now!!"
Abel stomped the ground with a thud. Fernandez sprang up lightly, righting himself, and wiped his sweat with a towel. He steadied his ragged breathing and met her gaze.
"What in the world are you doing?! It's your body! Why treat it so harshly!"
"Because it's my body, that's why."
"What?"
"If someone else could do my work for me, I'd gladly hand it off and find a better way. But Abel—time flows equally for all, and my body is the lightest resource I can sacrifice."
Fernandez shrugged, uncorked his canteen, and gulped down water. Even then, blood still beaded on his residual scars, glinting.
"...How much time do you have left?"
"What do you mean?"
"Your remaining time, Fernandez."
Abel loved humans. More precisely, mortals—especially the ones who shone the brightest. Among all mortal races, humans burned the most brilliantly, the most vividly. Abel was captivated by that light.
Thus... because she loved humans, she had spent her long life observing them. In her era, no one understood the human body better than Abel.
She knew its limits. It wasn't just Beitasser. Numerous gods had blessed humans over the ages, and she knew the peaks of power those mortals could achieve by assimilating divinity.
A few might excel further. But all mortals had limits. Not averages, but the absolute ceiling—she could calculate it coldly.
So Abel knew Fernandez always walked a knife's edge. She knew humans well. Their limits. Even their fragile lifespans.
"How much life do you have left?"
No Religiosa Demonica had ever died of old age. Their graves were always at the demons' doorstep. So Fernandez could only backtrack from his previous life.
In that life, he'd lived nearly to ninety. Impressive amid hardships, but nothing compared to now. Without immortality's blessing, he'd relied solely on a Demonica's natural healing, pushing his body.
Assuming Demonicas lived 1.5 times longer than normals, factoring in cumulative overwork...
"Ten years at most. Three at least."
Even with good food, rest, and treatment, human wounds never fully reverted. Healing consumed lifespan—bit by bit, however minuscule.
For Demonicas bearing divine essence, it was subtler, harder to gauge. But it was undoubtedly being spent.
Abel gazed sadly at Fernandez's bare torso. Shirtless, the scars etched densely across it were plain to see.
A massive nail-like puncture over his heart. A long gash from shoulder to collarbone, spiderwebbed below with abrasions and cuts. Countless fractures scattering his forearms like shattered glass...
His hair, now half-gray. That silver streak hadn't been there when they first met.
Just two years. In that short time, how much life had this young man burned like flame? His only reward for the toil: hair faded to ashen gray.
No wound, no hardship stopped him. Falls, stumbles, collapses—he'd brace the ground, rise, press on. Never halting, always forward.
Like a blaze...
'Like a blaze, isn't it, Mother?'
'A blaze?'
'Look at me and my knights. My soldiers and their parents. Even when their grandchildren's grandchildren perish, they never willingly abandon hope. How could I not love them?'
The age of flame. The age of man. Words her son had spoken long ago rose in her mind.
Facing a man who embodied that life's essence, Abel smiled sadly.
'How could I not love this man?'
Abel couldn't hide her sorrowful eyes. Fernandez wiped his sweat, watching her, then donned his clothes.
"I'll sleep every night from now on."
"Time's too precious."
"Eight hours asleep adds eight to your life. Nights accumulate into days."
Abel grasped the implication behind sleeping every three days to maintain function. Other Demonicas she knew didn't act that way—not from ignorance, but lack of need.
Three days possible, four not? No. With will, one could go four, five, even six. But "function degrades" meant three days was the limit...
'His body's limit.'
Over these two years—perhaps longer—Fernandez had always pushed to that brink. At minimum, that had to change.
"Pushing to the limit is a nasty habit. One should always keep three spare coppers if human. Don't you think?"
"I'm no fool. I already..."
"No. You are a fool. Sharper than any human I've seen, yet more stubborn. Fernandez, you have no margin. You use your body to the limit, then invent more work if stamina remains. As if... you can't bear idle moments."
It was obsession. Abel gave a wry smile. She was one of the few who knew his past life. Thus, she knew why he couldn't stop.
Purpose. Guilt. Regret. Remorse. Those emotions haunted even his briefest pauses.
Why sleep every three days? Beyond the functional excuse, a simple reason: exhaustion forcing collapse.
"Afraid of dreams?"
"...What do you mean?"
"Sometimes, when you sleep peacefully unlike usual, you wake earlier than expected, seeking tasks. Nightmares?"
"Just fatigue lifting faster."
"No, it's not. Why not tell me sooner? I could've found ways to help—a thousand, even. Why not lean on me, Fernandez?"
I lean on you so much. Why do you always look elsewhere? Abel approached, wiping sweat from his nape with his collar. Fernandez didn't evade, meeting her eyes.
"Because it's my right."
"Your... right?"
"The right to regret my mistakes. To carry my life as my frame. To be me. It's mine, Abel. No one can drink my regrets for me."
Mages were scholars. Analyzing the world's mysteries and secrets with logic and reason, weaving new flows from mana to prove them.
Yet mages were also the most sentimental. Viewing starlight not just as mana flows—metaphysical—but reaching for the unattainable esoteric like children, imagining ideals and stretching toward them.
Those who could mistake concepts for phenomena, or phenomena for concepts. For Fernandez, regret held meaning beyond mere idea.
It was his life's gauge, compass, lighthouse. Regret and remorse framed him, fueled him. A heart's resource no one could steal. The body was expendable. Regret was treasure.
Reality was hell to him—a usurer ripping debts from his soul equal to time passed. From swearing to walk not for his salvation, but his regrets'...
Yet paradoxically, in his self-made hell, regret was a treasure locked in his inner world, beyond extraction.
"Fernandez."
"Enough."
Fernandez detached her arm, dressing. Scars vanished under broad fabric. What emerged: the same stoic young man's face.
"You won't like the other news either."
"...What's left?"
"Perfect timing. I worried most about your reaction—now I can settle it."
Fernandez pulled a paper from his pocket and handed it over.
"An era where good and evil blur, nobility relegated to history and fairy tales. Abelesas—you're the noblest being I've met."
Abel slowly read the paper Fernandez gave her. Her hands trembled. She didn't want to believe. She wanted to avert her eyes from the cold words sprawled there.
She couldn't. Fernandez's gaze pinned her.
"I want to give you a chance to leave. Ten years at most. Spend it in some deep mountain no one finds. Not that long, is it?"
Hearing that, Abel crumpled the paper.
"Is this really true? That you... did this? Why?"
"The emperor wants chaos."
"What? He stirs worldly strife, fine—but why did you encourage it?"
"If someone plans orderly amid chaos, crushing that plan with greater chaos is easier."
A few lives weighed little against intake costs and gains. Fernandez declared as much.
"Yes. I told the pope to do it. For greater chaos. To steal the emperor's moves, control variables, grasp all in my hands."
Abel tremblingly reread the paper. It was a concise report.
* * *
Papal States: Declaration of Holy War Army.
Target Area: All monasteries and subordinate knight orders' strongholds toward the Levinteir Empire.
Operation Goal: Detect and exterminate heresy.
Operation Progress:
1) Destroyed settlements: 13.
2) Total deaths: 8,412 suspected elements.
3) Detected heresy: 3 cases so far.
4) Identified threats: None.
Overall Responsible: Saint Paul III.
Overall Commander: Holy Cross Relief Knight Order Captain, Count Pavanni Vito Vincent.
As the Lord wills.
So it shall be.
* * *
"When...?"
"Ten days ago."
"In ten days... thirteen villages burned, over eight thousand dead."
"No. More than that. Report arrived this dawn, but dated days earlier."
Church forces marching locales, torching villages en route. No threats identified? Archaic euphemism for no survivors. Massacre, plain.
"Why...?"
"The emperor's inscribing magic circles across the empire. Vast, covert ones even I can't pinpoint. He ordered every suspicious village burned."
"Was that... necessary? If needed, investigate first—like always. Uncover one by one, minimize losses... No other way?"
Fernandez stared silently, choosing words.
'That was minimal damage.'
'I lacked time.'
'No alternatives. You know?'
'Had one person to handle my work, I'd find another way... or command the field myself.'
But all excuses. He couldn't voice them. No lies or justifications to her. Childish affection, perhaps.
Instead of words, he closed his eyes quietly. Hoping she'd leave. Disappointed, condemned him, loathed and departed...
In the future's mire. He hoped she'd not tread that filthy path beside him.
-Won't you regret?
'One more regret among ours—will it show?'
-No.
Feizashi grunted silent. Then—
-Swish.
Something brushed his cheek, passing behind. Fresh scent tickled his nose; shadow darkened his closed lids.
Tap. A warm droplet hit his cheek. He opened his eyes. Azure eyes like blue sky met his.
He parted to speak—a ha—lips met. Warm, sweet breaths intertwined. Neither closed eyes nor turned away. Straight on, souls bared—
Lips parted.
"I can't read minds, Fernandez. Dragons can do much, but I don't know that trick."
"...?"
Abel smiled playfully through tear-wet eyes, then bowed her head. Her shoulders shook.
"So... if you don't say it, I won't know. What you bear, what you think. What you endured. I can only guess—and the more I do, the bigger, uglier it grows. You rascal. How do you live in such a world? How do you live it alone? Am I just a flickering shadow by your side?"
"Abel..."
"I... I."
She buried her face in his broad shoulder, sobbing. Hot tears soaked it. Heavy—not physically, but her heart.
"I just want to share your nightmares."
It might negate her entire life. Soil her nobility.
Yet Fernandez, more than ever, was dazzled by this Abel vowing thorns and mire.
He could only close his eyes, whisper softly, and gently pat her trembling back.
"Thank you."