The Timeless Slum
Roughly three days had passed, or thereabouts. It was impossible to say for certain… and that was due to the nature of the Slum.
During the hours when the sun should have been up, the shadow of the magic tower blotted out the light, denying it any warmth. At night, the scavengers wandering with their lanterns cast a hazy, flickering glow. The Slum was a murky void without distinction between day and night.
Of course, there were other reasons for his disorientation. The relentless pain wracking his body. Thoughts flickering and fading like a dying flame. Vera lay there in a state where death could claim him at any moment, unable to gauge the passage of time.
“Cough…!”
The moment he hacked up a cough, Vera felt his chest clamp tight, his breath choking off.
“Hah…!”
Drawing in another ragged breath, he assessed his condition. It came into grim focus.
…A week at most.
He would die within that time.
He had invoked a curse upon himself, but separate from that, his injuries were far too grave. He needed immediate medical care, but even that wasn’t an option. His only slim hope?
“Are you alright?”
The blind saint who had lost her powers, Rene. That was it. In other words, there was no way out.
“…As if.”
“Just a moment.”
“Guh…!”
As Rene’s hand brushed near his chest, a groan escaped Vera’s lips. He bit it back fiercely, watching as she summoned a faint, fading divine power.
“Stop wasting your effort. You know there’s no hope, Saint.”
“You never know.”
Her tone was resolute. Vera clung to his flickering consciousness and stared at her.
…What a strange woman.
In the short time they’d spent together, Vera had realized she was an utterly peculiar sort, one who deserved the label of freak.
She bore burn scars so twisted their original shape was unrecognizable, wandered the streets with sightless eyes begging for scraps. All she got for it was a bowl of gruel worse than livestock feed, yet she savored it like a delicacy.
Vera couldn’t comprehend it. How could he? In his days scraping by as a beggar in the Slum, that honeyed slop had been his most common meal—he knew its taste all too well.
Even funnier, for all that she ate it with such relish, she never finished it. She’d take two or three spoonfuls, then dump the rest into Vera’s mouth to ease the hunger of his immobile body.
Yes, waste. In Vera’s view, there was no greater squandering.
He was a dying man. His wounds had worsened to the point where he could keel over any second. He’d told her multiple times to just let him die.
“You never know.”
That was all she ever said.
Vera glanced at Rene as she held another spoonful to his lips, then muttered to the empty air.
“I must have underestimated how much of an idiot the Saint is.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve lived your whole life as a saint—you should know better than me what state this body’s in. And yet you pretend otherwise. Isn’t it natural I’d think you’re an idiot?”
He just wished she’d abandon him already. Her stubborn clinging only irritated him more. But Rene ignored his attitude, pressing the spoon forward again.
“You never know. You might eat this gruel, regain some strength, and get right up.”
“That’s not…!”
“Eat it first.”
Vera glared at her, his gut twisting. Rene stared blankly into space with her unfocused eyes, waggling the spoon toward where she guessed his mouth was.
“…Foolish human.”
“In the Holy Kingdom, we call that foolishness love.”
“Does the Saint get excited seeing someone on the brink of death?”
“I don’t think love means only lust.”
The burn scars bunched into wrinkles. At the edge of Vera’s vision, Rene was smiling.
“The Lord God commanded us to love our neighbors. How could I, once His most favored servant, turn away?”
“Well, if the Lord God truly valued such love, He wouldn’t have abandoned a saint like you here.”
Vera mustered a mocking sneer. Of course, she couldn’t see it—he just wanted to mock her.
“It was my choice.”
“In the Slum, we call people like you cripples.”
“I like that. And it’s not Saint—it’s Rene.”
Her response, as always, came with a smile.
*
Probably two more days passed.
Rene held another spoonful to Vera’s lips.
“This is maddening.”
“It’s called persistence.”
“Idiotic…”
“Love.”
Vera’s mouth snapped shut.
“Go on, eat.”
He eyed the spoon hovering over his face, let out a short breath, and lifted his head to take it.
“Well done.”
The praise made Vera look at her. She was smiling.
Now, he could tell.
Staring at that smile, Vera thought,
What a bizarre woman.
She had no duty or responsibility to him, yet she tended to him like this. It fit.
She looked nothing like the saint once praised by all. To a stranger, her grotesquely melted face might inspire screams and flight. Blue eyes peeking through barely open sockets. White hair matted with filth, lusterless.
With that appearance, begging would invite endless abuse, yet no shadow of darkness crossed her. Just the smile.
That was all that graced her face.
Vera couldn’t grasp it. Curiosity burned wildly, and he asked,
“…No regrets?”
“About what?”
“Giving up your powers.”
She wouldn’t have to live like this. Even if war ravaged the continent, she would have been safe.
As he watched her with those thoughts, she chuckled softly and replied,
“Not the slightest.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think I would?”
Her question stopped him cold. Not from a lack of words—too many surged up.
Life in the Slum wasn’t life; it was wretched, ugly misery. Starvation every day, scorn for being slum filth, winter winds claiming the frozen without shelter.
Why fear it not? Why not pine for lost glory? Why accept it smiling?
As Vera pondered in silence,
“…Did you know? There was a time when I could see, too.”
Her voice was soft, steady. Smiling faintly, as if grasping at memories, Rene continued.
“Very young. Around five or six, before I’d even lost my baby teeth. Back then, I could chase the world’s light with my own eyes, like anyone.”
She spoke of her past.
“I was a farmer’s daughter. My village was a small rural spot in the eastern corner of the Horden Kingdom.”
Vera didn’t know this. He’d never cared enough for her personal history.
“I still vaguely remember. Spring flowers blooming in every color, summer sun blindingly bright, golden wheat fields at harvest, the world blanketed white in deep winter.”
She closed her eyes, smile faint, as if holding onto those images.
“Everything was wondrous. Blissful. Life as a saint, living for others, was happy too… but selfishly, if asked my happiest moment, I’d pick that.”
She chuckled. Vera sat in stunned silence as she went on.
“So when my sight suddenly vanished one day, it felt like the world collapsed. Like my radiant world had plummeted into an abyss.”
“Even the Saint’s human, after all.”
“Of course. Utterly so.”
His sarcasm slid off her, as always, met with gentle deflection.
“I spent years crying like that, I think. Convinced I was the world’s most wretched, that fate was cruel only to me.”
Vera deeply related. He’d thought the same once. Not just him—the Slum’s bottom-dwellers all carried such thoughts.
As he reflected, Rene continued.
“Then the Lord God’s Stigmata came to me.”
A tale Vera knew well. How could he not? After nearly 400 years without one, the Lord God’s Stigmata appeared on a pubescent girl, upending the continent.
Vera had been busy unifying the Slum cartels and dealing with imperial nobles then—he knew it intimately.
“At first, resentment welled up. Blasphemous, but it felt like He’d stolen my light only to toss this Stigmata as charity.”
“The Holy Kingdom’s priests would faint hearing that.”
“My deepest secret.”
“You can just tell me? Ah, but I’m dying soon, so it doesn’t matter.”
As Vera mocked mid-story, Rene fumbled a hand to poke his chest, silencing him.
“Guh…!”
“Don’t say that. Think of getting better.”
Vera glared, but glaring at a blind woman was pointless. She chuckled briefly, then continued.
“Anyway, while living in resentment, I visited this Slum.”
“That’s new to me.”
“It was in secret. I was traveling incognito, spreading my powers across the continent.”
She paused, lips moving, then spoke.
“Even blind, the despair was palpable. Dying breaths, screams of agony, blood and filth stench, clammy air on skin. All shocking.”
Through her half-open sockets, her lusterless blue pupils gleamed faintly.
“That’s when shame hit me first. Knowing pity from my position was wrong, but seeing these people made my whining seem pathetic.”
A smile touched her lips again.
“Resentment gave way to other feelings. I thought maybe God took my light to share it with them.”
“That’s a leap.”
“Maybe. But does it matter? What matters is I made that vow. So I have no regrets living here now. Even feeble as I am, grateful I can still help someone.”
Vera’s gaze fixed on her. A serene smile, utterly unmarred, not a single wrinkle of doubt.
Suddenly, staring at her, Vera realized why she twisted his guts.
…Saint.
Why she bore the title. Her nobility made his stomach churn.
Back in the Slum, fearing starvation, he’d crushed everything in sight to shake it off. Her purity clashed with that.
Vera forced his eyes from her and closed them. Misery washed over him.
He’d never once regretted his life. Yet now, this ragged woman stirred regret in him.
This hell should sicken him to vomit, despair more utterly for her brighter past.
“…You’re insane.”
“I like that.”
Her clear laughter weighed like a stone in his gut.