Interlude
Interlude
The vestments must not have fit him quite right.
The emperor stood holding the bag, lost in thought.
Lucas had been able to escape because he was wearing the vestments. Given that they had blocked the emperor's own sword-force and even the Sword Saint's, their raw performance could certainly be called overwhelming.
But the vestments had limits.
If the person wearing them was not impervious to pain, or lacked the ability to extract himself from a situation, then sustained attack would eventually neutralize him. Judging by the way a single bullet from Sylvia had left him in agony, perhaps, by Imperial Army standards, they were not so formidable a concern after all.
Because not everyone who wore those vestments could be like Lucas.
"It seems your skill does not match Lucas's."
"......I apologize."
Jaden answered with his head bowed deeply.
"No, it is not your fault. What else could be expected? It was impossible from the beginning."
"......."
The emperor had spoken out of goodwill, but it seemed Jaden had not taken it that way.
The empire's strongest knight. He must have had his pride in that title.
Come to think of it, the two of them had likely never fought in earnest with their lives on the line. At least among the children, I had thought there was a certain degree of brotherly affection.
"Berati is not dead, you say?"
"That is correct. She is currently recovering. Her life is not in danger, but they cannot say when she will regain consciousness......."
"The same as Sylvia, then."
Jaden's face twisted. He probably believed it had happened because of Lucas.
He was half right.
But the other half......
"Understood. For now, return to your duties."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Jaden had been wounded too, but it seemed the injuries were not that severe. Lucas had been pouring all his strength into fleeing, after all. Had it been a proper duel, Jaden would not have come out unscathed.
With a crisp motion, Jaden presented a salute, then turned and left the audience chamber.
Since then, Alice had remained constantly at Sylvia's bedside. Even after being told that the wounds alone posed no threat to Sylvia's life, she seemed unable to reassure herself. A caregiver was attending the room, but Alice wanted to tend to Sylvia with her own hands.
When had their sisterly bond grown so strong?
...... It was probably because of Sylvia. From the very moment she first arrived here, Sylvia had been considerate toward Alice.
"Hm."
The emperor opened the bag he had been holding.
Inside was a Divine Treasure.
It was not entirely unexpected. After going all the way to the Holy State, causing such a commotion, and making it out, there was no way he would have come back empty-handed.
But he had not known that this Divine Treasure possessed such an effect.
"Because I had never encountered that kind of human before."
As if answering his own question, the emperor murmured.
"No—can it even be called 'human'?"
In every nation across the world, particularly those whose myths were tied to the Church of the Goddess, most knew that the Divine Treasures were objects of great importance. Even a glance at the sheer quantity of magical power they held made it clear they were keys meant for some crucial purpose, yet those who understood that role precisely were few.
Yes. They were few.
The emperor was one of those "few humans."
From emperor to emperor, passed solely to those who inherited the imperial throne, there was a legend entwined with Fangriffon and the Goddess.
But according to that story, a Divine Treasure could not be put to use unless it was brought together with the others to form a complete whole.
It would be good to gather them all someday, but there was no need for the empire to be the one doing the gathering. The place where the Divine Treasures would ultimately have to be used was the Holy Land, after all. In the end, a war with the Holy State was inevitable.
Even if the empire secured only a single fragment of the Divine Treasures, it could simply overwhelm the Holy State by force at the final moment and seize the rest.
A cog in the mechanism that moved the world.
Fangriffon's unfinished machine, built to usurp the Goddess's power.
The shattered fragments of that broken cog were these very Divine Treasures.
"I never imagined that a single piece alone would possess any power of its own."
Fragments that comprised the components of a vital device. By common sense, a single shard held no value in itself, or at the very least, it could not activate the device.
But—
Did this mean that, even shattered, the objects contained the Goddess's power?
The masked woman had not been the crucial element. It was the Divine Treasure she possessed that blocked Sylvia's power.
And this Divine Treasure blocked the masked woman's power. If he thought of it that way, the logic fit.
Of course, questions still remained. If Sylvia was the Goddess, or an incarnation of the Goddess, why was she aiding Fangriffon, who was practically her sworn enemy? Why was she trying to make Alice, not herself, emperor?
Perhaps she was thinking the same thing I was. The emperor considered that possibility.
If she was waiting for the moment he gathered the Divine Treasures, intending to seize them in the end.
Even so, the Divine Treasures would still be necessary.
Sylvia had been able to use her ability even with a Divine Treasure present, though the aftereffects had been enormous.
And if the masked woman's Divine Treasure was no longer nearby, then once Sylvia awoke, there would be no restriction on her using that ability again.
If only to deal with any similar entities that might exist, the Divine Treasures absolutely had to be collected.
"This will prove useful."
The emperor looked down at the bag again and smiled.
*
I failed again.
Dragging her creaking body along, she thought.
Click, click. With every movement of her fingers, a mechanical sound kept repeating. In truth, it was not a sound she heard only when she moved her fingers.
Whenever she walked, shifted her eyes to look at something, or even tried to think, the sound continued endlessly inside her head.
She wanted to stop the noise, but she could not. The sound of those mechanisms moving was the only proof that she existed.
Her body clearly had blood flowing through it, bone and flesh—but everywhere she looked, she saw the same thing.
The sensation of floating in the center of a kaleidoscope. As if she had become something infinitely small.
Whenever she saw Sylvia, she heard a clicking sound inside her chest. What she felt was gladness. Longing. Joy and sorrow.
But in this body, she could not even produce a voice properly. She could not even laugh.
Alice—am I Alice?
I remembered. Because I remembered, I had to feel those emotions every time I saw Sylvia.
Sylvia wore a sorrowful expression. She was shooting at her—at “Alice.” But the bullet missed—
and then Alice’s wings—
Endlessly, endlessly, she had regretted and regretted.
But no—was it even right to call that 'regret'? Could I truly have regretted it? That was surely the wrong term. Alice had not been there then. To be precise, it was something that had not even happened yet.
Click, click. The more tangled her thoughts became, the louder the sound of something moving grew. Her head vibrated and trembled faintly.
In truth, the blood and flesh wrapping this body might be nothing more than decoration.
If these devices inside her head alone proved that she existed—
Who had made this body, and who had planted such memories inside it?
Why had they dropped her into a place like that and taught her nothing? What had they been thinking when they created a pawn like this—when they created me—
—and yet, there was at least one thing she could do.
Perhaps she could manage something as simple as conveying what she knew.
*
Inside the student council room, which I had visited for the first time in a long while, I encountered a somewhat uncomfortable person.
No—was "somewhat" even the right word? In a sense, we were practically each other's enemies.
Especially from her point of view.
"Lady Crowfield."
When I spoke first, Crowfield lifted her head and looked up at me. Deep shadows were carved beneath her eyes.
"...... Did something happen over the break?"
Before even greeting her, Charlotte, who had come in with me, asked that very question. That was how poorly Mia Crowfield looked.
Her eyes were dried out, which no doubt meant she had been crying that hard.
It was understandable. She had been forced to hear, to her face, that the family she had loved so dearly...... were those kinds of people. It could not be helped. Back then, Mia Crowfield had collapsed to the floor and screamed.
She probably did not even know whom to resent. It was easy to direct resentment in one direction, but when the causes were so many and layered.......
Still, there was hope, I thought.
She had not withdrawn from the academy, nor had she simply shut herself inside her dormitory. Though she had been unable to attend today's opening ceremony, she had come here to the student council room.
I could take it as a sign that she still had the will to talk.
"......."
I knew I had to say something, but now that I tried to speak, I could not find the right words.
Anything that contained the word "well" felt utterly wrong. Mia Crowfield was decidedly not well. For the same reason, I could not ask if she was "at peace."
Alice kept glancing my way, and Charlotte, Claire, and Leo all seemed to have gathered that this matter was connected to me. All four of them stood at a slight distance from Mia Crowfield and me.
"From now on......"
I slowly opened my mouth as I organized my thoughts.
"From now on—shall we try, well, to get along?"
What I managed to produce was hardly an impressive remark.
Not knowing how Mia Crowfield would react, I waited with an anxious heart. After a moment, Mia Crowfield gave the faintest possible nod.
With that, I was able to let out at least a small breath of relief.