Ready to Hear the Truth
Ready to Hear the Truth
In the end, Rosaria hadn't slept a wink. The morning found her with hollow eyes, and it was anything but refreshing. To make matters worse, she had cried in embarrassment, leaving her in an even sorrier state.
But the Saintess, on the other hand, looked as though she'd had a full night's rest. Her complexion was even more radiant than the day before. After all, Rosaria's bed was surely more comfortable than a battlefield.
"...Did something happen during the night?"
The moment the Saintess opened her eyes, she looked at Rosaria and was instantly worried by her inexplicably haggard appearance.
"...It's nothing serious."
She didn't want to tell her the truth. After agonizing all night, she'd concluded to evade—not yet. Perhaps a good moment to ask would come someday.
A little longer—no, she had perhaps decided to wait until the Saintess spoke first. So she wouldn't resolve that question now.
Because she was a coward.
"...I won't press you. Still, if it ever becomes too much to bear alone, please tell me anytime. After all, I am someone who could die for your sake, Rosaria. And as I've said many times, don't forget that you are a person who deserves a lifetime of happiness."
Just what had she done to make the Saintess think of Rosaria that way? And just who was she stealing away from this woman? It was as the Saintess smiled that Rosaria realized shadows were beginning to fall across her own face.
"...As I thought, you are hiding something from me."
Was her expression so contorted that even the most unobservant person would have noticed? Or perhaps it wasn't that severe, and the Saintess simply noticed because she never took her eyes off Rosaria.
"...I do have something."
It felt like an interrogation. She hated the chill that crept in when a once-heated atmosphere suddenly cooled.
"...Is this perhaps a story I'm not meant to hear?"
The Saintess was genuinely worried. Right now, even seeing that expression on the Saintess's face was difficult to bear.
"That's not it..."
How could it possibly be something the Saintess wasn't meant to hear? Rather, she herself was the one not meant to hear it. Wasn't the Saintess the one who should be telling, not listening?
"......I just don't want Canaria to have to say it with her own lips."
If you're going to hide it, hide it completely. If you're going to reveal it, reveal it cleanly.
She had neither the courage to run nor the nerve to lie.
So she simply hemmed and hawed noncommittally. It was the dirty hypocrisy of her subconscious, cravenly hoping the Saintess would notice and speak of that past she wouldn't even want to recall herself.
"...I think I know what you want. And it is a truth that Rosaria must come to know someday, as well."
The Saintess looked pensive for a moment. Of course, she was no fool. Seeing that the Saintess had seen through her hypocrisy, a guilt like a stake driving into her heart began to coagulate in Rosaria's chest.
"...Then this time, I will ask you, Rosaria."
The Saintess looked at Rosaria with a thoroughly earnest expression.
"Rosaria, are you ready to hear the truth?"
Rosaria was flustered by the question that came back at her.
"I am always prepared to tell the story. The story of you before you lost your memories, that is. But Rosaria might be different, you see? I cannot know whether it is mere curiosity—a lighthearted inquisitiveness aimed at simply wanting to know about myself—or heavy philosophical contemplation, a desire to truly understand myself."
A question that was hard to answer on the spot had arrived.
Wasn't it the kind of question that would be difficult to answer easily even after agonizing for a day? An evaluation of her own heart, a contemplation that required defining her own character—there was no way such a thing could be light.
"...Could you give me some time?"
Thus she asked for a brief reprieve.
Naturally, the Saintess gladly granted that request.
"If Rosaria wishes, it doesn't matter how long."
The Saintess smiled kindly and held her hand. Soon she exercised her divine power and dispelled Rosaria's fatigue. A sensation of her body growing remarkably lighter, in contrast to the state of her heart. Wasn't it said that a healthy mind resides in a healthy body? With her fatigue lifted and vitality returning to her once powerless limbs, it felt as though she could breathe a little easier.
"...Thank you."
"I can do this much for you every day. So you must tell me whenever it is hard for you. Because Rosaria's burden is my burden. You must always remember that when Rosaria hurts, I hurt as well."
She was a comforting Saintess. But because that comfort wasn't truly directed at her, though she was glad, that unsettled feeling did not disappear.
So, seizing the courage that had risen, she resolved to throw caution to the wind.
"...But, the Rosaria that Canaria knows..."
I am not the person you know, she wanted to say.
"...No. You are the Rosaria I know."
But the one who answered first was Canaria.
"The you I see with my own eyes is Rosaria. So please, do not think such sad thoughts. In the eyes of the Saint, which can see both flesh and soul, the you reflected is indeed the Rosaria I know. Please do not doubt yourself."
So saying, Canaria gave her farewells and departed.
It could not help but be an answer that only raised more questions. Because she was someone who possessed a previous life. So why was she saying such a thing?
Was it comfort to soothe her distress? Or was it truly, literally meant, with no other intention?
She could not know any of it.
It was a morning that starkly contrasted with the happy night before.
It felt as though a foreign sensation had lodged itself inside her. And so, the moment the Saintess left, she collapsed onto the spot. Then, she simply knelt under the heavy headache that came crashing in. Cursing herself for not being able to answer even now, when she'd thought she'd been prepared.
*
The Saintess did not return to the Holy Kingdom. She had turned the carriage around because a slight hitch had occurred. Her destination was the Holy Empire, allied with the Holy Kingdom.
'...I might have to move a little faster.'
Because Rosaria had begun to experience emotional confusion. She did not want to torment Rosaria, but she also did not want to let her live in a paradise that was not yet complete. There were still too many enemies who could target her.
Every place besides the Holy Kingdom, the Holy Empire, and the village of the Versian territory was still not a paradise she had created. She also disliked the thought of letting her live in a world that was not beautiful, full of variables and ruffians.
Thus she changed her plan to move a little faster.
She decided to move up the apocalypse of this world a little sooner.
While she was thinking this, the Saintess had already arrived before the walls of the Holy Empire.
A sturdy gate guarded by countless sentries. But the moment they recognized the Saintess's carriage, they immediately opened the gate. Then they simply made bets among themselves, wondering why the Saintess had come without any word.
The place the Saintess was heading was, naturally, the royal castle—the place where the king of this sinful land, the first she had dominated and made into paradise, resided.
*
The Holy Empire had committed an indelible sin against the Holy Kingdom. The Saintess had now altered the world's memories, erasing it from the minds of most people, but there were still those who remembered that sin.
"The child of a sinner greets the Saintess."
One of them was Jik Seikrid, the First Prince of the Holy Empire. He now wore the crown of the Holy Empire and, like the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, was both a king and a hero. The emperor of the Holy Empire greeted the Saintess before him as the child of a loathsome sinner.
The Saintess looked at Zeke with an ambiguous expression.
"...By any chance, are you not the Saint right now?"
Zeke had detected the markedly different atmosphere. The crushing pressure he had felt that first moment she had overwhelmed him was filling this space. Just as he was wondering if today was finally the day he would die,
not the Saintess, but the Demon King opened her mouth.
"We will be moving the plan forward."
At that answer, Zeke was taken aback.
"...Preparations are not yet complete."
The deadline the Demon King had given was one year. The one-year period she had commanded him to use to swallow the empire, left masterless after the Holy War ended.
He had prepared without a single day's rest from the moment he had killed his own father and become king... but he was still not at the level where he could fight and win against all the empire's many enemies.
"Do not worry about that. I am not foolish enough to entrust everything to someone as incompetent as you. I intend to handle it personally, so moving up the schedule is of no consequence."
It was bitter contempt. But Zeke had no choice but to accept those words. Had it not been for her mercy, he would not even be drawing breath like this right now.
And compared to that Demon King, it was also true that he was incompetent.
"Before winter comes, I will make even the Ottoman Empire into paradise."
Paradise—at that word, Zeke recalled a bitter memory. The Demon King before his eyes had spoken the exact same words on the day she had turned the Holy Empire upside down.
—As of today, the Holy Empire shall become paradise. A white paradise that has forgotten all sin and filth. However, I shall grant an opportunity to those who cannot accept this. The opportunity to resign yourselves and take your own lives, or to oppose me in order to protect your own world.
That was the day the Demon King of the Holy Kingdom had first revealed herself. And the last day the Holy Empire had existed. The current empire was merely the first paradise, sharing only its name.
"Gather your soldiers within three days, Jik Seikrid."
"...The child of a sinner shall obey the Demon King's command."
As if swearing an oath of fealty, Zeke knelt and placed his hand over his heart.
He who had offered up even his heart to survive that day was already no different from the Demon King's puppet.
But he did not regret it.
Because no one would be able to kill this being.
"...I suppose I should give a reward to an obedient dog."
The Demon King snapped her fingers. Then the crown Zeke was wearing flickered. Soon it became a crown emitting an ominous black light.
"This is one of my authorities—the Authority of Conquest."
Demons were, by nature, beings who made deals. The demons of scripture were beings who made offers that could not be refused, seducing countless kings and heroes and leading them to ruin.
"If you return victorious, I shall grant you a portion of that authority."
And Canaria was the one who possessed the power of the king of such beings. Thus she knew to dangle what the Zeke before her desired most, and then simply manipulate him as she wished.
Because that way, when it was taken away later, he would obey, even groveling, in his desire to get it back.
But Zeke was a king. A being who possessed his own world and believed in it and acted upon it. That will was a single, solid conviction that even the Saint's authority could not reach.
Originally, he would have refused such a poison-like authority. Having reached his level through training, to tolerate becoming stronger through such a fluke was never a noble or upright action befitting a hero.
"...I shall obey."
However, his current circumstances were poor.
A half-baked king and a defeated hero— that was the man called Jik Seikrid.
His arrogance as a hero had long since been bent on the day he had failed to prevent the Holy Empire from becoming paradise. And his qualifications as a king—since he had not won them himself but thought of himself as a mere scarecrow who had gained the position by the Demon King's command—he had personally cast them aside and left them to rust in a corner.
Zeke was a hero king, and a being who had failed to become a hero king.
Thus, this time too, he could not back out of his deal with the demon.
The crown-wearing sinner of the empire, who had lost his nobility, accepted the Authority of Conquest. That power, from which even a foreign, seductive sweetness could be felt, was rotting the roots of Zeke Seikrid.
"As your master, I shall command you, servant."
For this moment, it was not the Saint but Canaria who commanded.
"...Do not return here until you have made the empire into paradise. So long as even a single soldier is alive, so long as your life burns with even the slightest flame, continue toward the battlefield."
And Zeke, who would never become a true king, accepted that command.
"...As a servant, I shall obey my master's command."
About three days after that day, the Holy Empire heads for the battlefield. The king heads for the battlefield, crying out for conquest, and the soldiers who follow him march behind a king being manipulated by a demon—for the empire's victory and honor, and for their own convictions.
Upon that land where the Holy War had ended, the wind of war blew once more.
This time, a war far from holy, a war of ugly humans, begins.
*
The maid Isabella had a new worry.
'...Did something happen to Lady Rosaria?'
The young lady's vitality had vanished since this morning. Had she heard something from the Saintess? Or was the young lady also suffering through a turbulent phase?
Because of this, Isabella had not even been able to deliver the bundle of cards she had made together with Rosaria, which had been delivered around 3 o'clock this morning.
Wasn't the change in Rosaria far too sudden? So much so that the moment she had visited for the morning cleaning, her expression had been so dark that Isabella had almost wondered if Rosaria was about to die.
Seeing her agonizing over something was pitiful.
"...My lady."
So she mustered an impertinent courage and asked.
"...Has something happened?"
At that question, Rosaria, who had been clutching her head, turned around.
She had become terribly haggard in just a short time. Though still faint, there were reddened tear tracks, disheveled strands of hair, and even her clothing unkempt.
All of it was different from the Rosaria she knew.
"...It's Isabella."
She could see her lips trembling. Perhaps she was trying to move her muscles to force a smile. But in her current mental state, such a thing was impossible.
For the first time, she greeted Isabella without a smile.
"...As it happens, your timing is good. I wish to be alone. Could you, just for today, tell everyone not to come to my room?"
She looked like a dying candle personified. Normally, Isabella would have left upon hearing those words, but
her instincts told her not to.
"...Lady Rosaria, I know this is an impertinent thing to say... but could you perhaps spare a moment?"
She looked far too precarious to leave alone.
"...What is it that you would ask?"
Thankfully, Rosaria had not given up on conversation. Thus Isabella racked her insufficient brain over how to lead the conversation from here.
And then, a good idea came to mind.
"Well... the sample of the card game you ordered earlier has arrived... Would you like to try it together?"
When times are hard, aren't you supposed to play? It was a one-dimensional solution born from an exceedingly simple thought process.
"......I see."
Rosaria began to smile bitterly. And understandably so—it was such a simple-minded solution, so utterly typical of Isabella, that Rosaria couldn't help but laugh in spite of herself.
People who live simply in the world sometimes save those who think with too much complexity. That simple, uncomplicated solution poked a small breathing hole into Rosaria's tangled heart.
That strange sense of liberation that comes when it feels like the very act of worrying is meaningless.
A single drop of water, the thing Rosaria's parching heart needed most, had fallen.
"...Shall we give it a try?"
A little color returned to Rosaria's face. She still hadn't decided on an answer, but then, wasn't it a problem that wouldn't be resolved just by agonizing over it right now?
Let's cool my head for now.
Wouldn't it be a decent idea to play with something she herself had made, cool her overheated head, and then think about herself afterward?
Just like when she had learned about gazes from Isabella that time.
"...For your information, I have no intention of losing. If Isabella beats me, I'll let you eat all the delicious desserts you want on my tab for a week."
If the burden is heavy, you just put it down for a while. The road ahead was long, so there was nothing wrong with briefly setting it down and resting.
"W-well then, if I lose, I'll live without desserts for a week! I'm not the type to lose at this sort of thing either, after all. I'll show you the true face of a card genius."
And so Rosaria and Isabella began to enjoy a duel, keeping to the rules and proper manners.