A Letter to the North
A Letter to the North
...And so Canaria sent a letter to the North, hoping for a peace alliance.
Regrettably, the North was no place a messenger pigeon could reach. Even a messenger pigeon wreathed in holiness and divine power would likely die unable to withstand the weather, or else become prey for the demonic beasts that roamed the northern skies. There was no choice but to send it by human hand.
And that, naturally, meant time. A human being could not simply ignore obstacles and fly through the sky as a bird could. You had to go around mountains. You had to take a ship across seas. The frozen northern seas, particularly, demanded that men break through that ice inch by inch as they advanced...
Given the circumstances, the letter would be slower than ordinary post. And perhaps it was precisely because of those conditions that there was so little news out of the silence-keeping North.
In the end, whether she wanted it or not, a stretch of empty time opened before her.
They could have stopped by the Magic Kingdom during that interval, of course.
But Canaria chose to remain in the Holy Kingdom, for the time being.
'...It isn't only Rosaria's physical condition that's an issue.'
She could tell, at least, that her own body was not in perfect shape. After all, the very act of Serena manifesting placed a strain on her body. She was nearing her limit even in enduring the aftershocks of the vessel's excessive expansion—a process that came of forcibly prying open a path beyond her innate talents.
Yet, from Canaria's perspective, annihilating the coalition army had been a necessary step. Several of the Tower Masters who had gathered that day were powerhouses who ranked among the Ten Great Powers, and aside from them, the remaining seven Great Powers who did not exist in the North had assembled in that very place. Those among them who resisted, she killed. Those who swore obedience, she bound in indisputable shackles... and now, truly, aside from the North and the Magic Kingdom, there were almost no lands left that held any variables.
Paradise was now truly close at hand.
The Eastern Continent and the New World did remain as variables... but they were nations that, throughout all of history, had almost no points of contact. They had been no more than simple trading partners; no relationship of grievance existed. Moreover, even if they were to harbor second thoughts after she had made the world into Paradise, by then it would already be too late.
The powerhouses she had shackled and turned to her side would hardly stand idle. Though she did not know their strength precisely, it ought to be impossible to overwhelm the full military might of a world that had become Paradise.
'...One more time.'
She could endure Serena's descent perhaps one more time. She could not promise anything with certainty beyond that, but she could say with certainty that her vessel would shatter. And so she simply had to be somewhat more cautious. She could still exercise divine power in an ordinary fashion, of course... but, regrettably, she was not perfect.
There were parts of her that were insufficient, and thus variables remained. It was because she thought that a moment might yet come when she would need Serena's help that she had left herself one chance. And Canaria merely hoped that moment would never arrive.
It was her own selfish desire—to fulfill Rosaria's divine mission with her own strength.
And so, washing her face every day and examining her own condition had become a daily habit for Canaria. She somehow maintained the vessel that had begun to crack under overexertion, using the Saint's divine power, and did everything she could to prevent any mishap. Afterward, she would rinse her face with cold water, forcing her mind into sharp clarity.
At the same time, her chest throbbed and the rims of her eyes began to sting.
"...Hah."
Canaria let out a sigh at that now-familiar pain.
Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she swallowed the bundle of medicine set before her, along with her worries.
Praying that, at least until they reached the North,
Everything might be resolved by her own power alone.
And so she only held back the deterioration of her ruined flesh.
*
Repeat a task enough, and you master it... and Rosaria's proficiency at mending her shattered vessel had risen considerably. She had spent her days clinging to that task desperately, without fail. Those past days of pushing herself to the point of fainting, sustained by a single-minded resolve to lighten Canaria's burden, had not been without meaning.
She calculated that she might return to her original state a little sooner than Canaria had predicted. Originally, she would have estimated a full recovery around next year... but Rosaria thought she could completely heal her body within this year.
After all, Canaria had based her estimate on healing another person, whereas Rosaria was healing herself—and she knew her own original form. The gap between understanding and proficiency accounted for the difference in speed. Thanks to that, Rosaria had recovered roughly six-tenths of her strength by now, before the North's reply had even returned.
A simple calculation told her that if she could restore about one-tenth every month and a half, she would be able to fully mend her shattered vessel by the time summer arrived. And once her vessel was repaired, healing her physical body would be quick work—no problem there.
'...I've got to get back to normal, and fast.'
Even at four-tenths, the Saint's divine power was immense. And if that power was Rosaria's own divine power rather than that of any other Saint, it amounted to the strength of several ordinary Saints combined. It was only because she had given it to Canaria that she could bear holding it. Had she handed it to anyone other than Canaria, their vessel would have shattered the moment they received it, never mind lasting a year.
Thinking that, Rosaria once again grew to dislike her past self. Though, of course, there had been no other option. She had known that Serena, dwelling within Canaria, would descend and rampage after her own death.
Even if it was the only way—handing over the full power of the Saint's divine authority as the sole backfire that could douse the flames about to ignite, the one method by which Canaria could survive without having her soul stolen away... it did not change the fact that it had been an irresponsible choice.
The stroke of fortune in all of it, however, was that Canaria possessed enough innate talent to bear holding both divine powers, and that as Rosaria gradually reabsorbed that power, the burden on Canaria lessened and her condition steadily improved. Before, the vessel of her soul had cracked precariously and trembled; now, it at least remained stable.
Canaria had talent enough that, once she fully received the Saint's divine authority, holding it would no longer strain her vessel or body. She could handle something on the level of the Demon King's divine authority without difficulty, so that alone ought to pose no problem.
In other words, if only she could return to her prior state, Canaria would no longer be slowly dying.
'...It is strange, though.'
Yet a question arose in her mind at the same time. She was simply curious: why did Canaria—a genius capable of storing and wielding both the Saint's and the Demon King's divine authorities—feel an inferiority complex about her own talent?
Judged solely by the size of her vessel, Canaria was unmistakably greater than Rosaria, the chosen Saint. For even Rosaria's vessel was nearly filled to bursting the moment it contained her own divine authority... yet Canaria had the talent to somehow contain the Saint's divine authority even while already holding the Demon King's.
And that was just as true when compared to a being chosen by the Star, the Hero. Even Zeke the Hero's vessel was small in comparison to Canaria's—they were hardly comparable. So why did Canaria assess herself as weak?
And what was stranger still was that this was no self-deception born of ignorance.
She spoke with a genuine sense of her own talent's limits.
Rosaria pondered that unknowable reason.
Why, with all that talent, could Canaria not reach the apex...?
But the pondering did not last long.
It was, after all, a worry built on nothing she knew.
And because, as always, the subject of that worry came to her room.
Rosaria set aside her thoughts and welcomed Canaria.
As ever, the first face they saw that day was each other's.
And the last face they would see, too, would be each other's.
So passed the happy days that Rosaria and Canaria had always dreamed of.
"...Rosaria."
And then, in that moment, Canaria asked her.
She said there was something she wanted, and made a proposal.
*
The North was, at present, in tremendous chaos.
The map had changed the moment House Crimson fell. The size of the existing territories shifted; in the process of absorbing the remnants of the survivors of Crimson, countless things—people, assets, lands—passed back and forth and merged together, and the North was suffering the growing pains of consolidation.
But Karen, the Empress of Snow White, paid none of that any mind. She was the Karen who, even at the very moment she killed Gerard, felt no joy or ecstasy, only the vast wall that loomed before her. Rather than politics, she had continued her training, spending her days striving to reach the path she sought.
And fortunately, Snow White was already accustomed to such things. The system had changed greatly since Karen's accession. Ever since the beginning, the one who held the final say had paid no attention to politics, and so, even in the midst of that chaos, Snow White somehow continued to run smoothly without Karen ever making a decision.
In fact, Snow White had grown in such an odd direction that it was more convenient when Karen did not intervene... and thus, bewildering as it was, they were weathering the waves somehow.
And into that half-dead administrative office, a single letter flew in.
A letter addressed on its cover, "To Her Highness Karen Snow White."
But it was an administrative office long accustomed to checking the letters that came for Karen, thanks to her constant requests, and they thought nothing of it. Just as they were about to open it...
They realized that the shape of the wax seal on the letter was unfamiliar. In all the world, there was only one being who could use the holy cross and the sacred emblem together as a personal seal.
But even once they had identified the sender, it only gave rise to a question.
"...A letter from the Saint?"
In the long history of the North, had the Saint ever sent a letter directly?
...Yet, even after mulling it over, there had been no such event in recent centuries.
And so, for the first time in a long while, they moved to report this fact directly to their Empress.