Why I Collapsed (3)
As always, I watched the two of them as they came to visit their ailing professor.
"Professor, Professor Claudius keeps barking at me. Isn't she interrupting your rest? I think we ought to chase her out."
"Keep calling a person a dog one more time and I'll actually bite you, you know?"
"Look at that. She's slowly giving up on being human. It reminds me of Sebastian, the one Duke Feltner kept in his garden. Ah, by the way—Sebastian was a chihuahua."
"Oh, seriously!"
Every time the two of them showed up together, it was the same routine, so how could I not just sit back and watch? Perhaps, out of a desire to keep the bedridden me entertained, the pair had decided to put on a little duet. That was what I suspected, anyway.
"Did you know, Professor? There's a school regulation allowing students to file complaints against professors who treat them unfairly."
"And you're the subject of a complaint yourself, if I recall. Did you think professors in this day and age would just take whatever you dish out?"
That much, at least, seemed entirely plausible.
"Ah, well…, you two certainly look like you're enjoying yourselves, so I'm happy for you, truly. But there is something I'd like to say."
I spoke up to put an end to their happy little war. It just so happened that I also needed to tell them about my trip to the temple.
"Mm, it's true that we're having fun. I never expected to find such a perfect target for teasing so close at hand."
"Wh— I'm not having any fun at all! You're younger than me, and yet you keep being so rude!"
"How sad, that age is the only card you have left to play. Ah, but you did say your thirties were coming soon, so you are rather old, aren't you."
"No! I'm still young and green, thank you very much!"
Only, the two of them didn't quite turn their attention to what I was saying.
Hey, let me get a word in, would you?
Fortunately, their skirmish finally died down the moment the words I'll need to visit the temple left my mouth. If anything, Elia's face turned a little sullen when she heard them.
"I'm… sorry? You're suspending classes and going to the temple…?"
"Yes. I've come to believe that a stay at the temple would be best for my recovery."
According to what Mr. Niger had said yesterday—about keeping my wild theories to a reasonable minimum—the temple was the ideal place for recuperation.
Nowhere else in the Empire did divinity flow as thickly, and since it sat squarely within the jurisdiction of fanatics devoted to Elohim and Elohim alone, there was no danger to speak of.
The Grand Temple of Elohim was a realm of that particular kind of madness.
It was a strange way to put it, but the point stood: recovery came easily inside the temple. And as it turned out, the window for me to have visited earlier had long since slipped away, because the daytime hours belonged to me and no one else.
Elia's face went faintly pale as she forced out her words.
"Umm…, visiting the temple as a patient is a bit… much…."
"Haha…, I won't be staying long. Being a professor there, I intend to return as soon as I'm back on my feet."
So that was why she'd gone so deflated—she simply couldn't stand the thought of setting foot in the temple.
To the point of going green about it, right in front of me, an actual priest.
I gave an awkward laugh. I understood exactly how she felt. If I were honest, I wouldn't have been eager to walk into a place crawling with fanatics either, if our positions were reversed. For her to flinch at the very word temple even while tiptoeing around my feelings—that, too, was understandable.
After all, the reason Elia had been drawn to Niger's appearance yet never dared harbor a shred of romantic feeling for him was precisely that fanatical, Elohim-parrot streak of his.
And it was in the middle of these musings that Bellatrix's voice cut in.
"Hm. The temple is no concern of mine, so may I pay a visit as well?"
"Ah…, um. Are you certain? It's a little ridiculous coming from a priest, but it may not be… entirely an ordinary sight."
No wicked people, certainly—but neither would you find it easy to dig up a sane one. It was fanatics' land, after all. Come for a casual visit, and you might well end up getting evangelized by the Elohim parrots.
"Professor, really now—the Elohim Order is the Empire's state religion and its foremost faith. I don't believe in it, granted, but a duchess rejecting the official religion of her own empire would be the real joke."
"Oh…, I never even considered such a level-headed answer."
"Oh…, and I never expected such thoughtless agreement from you, Professor. I suppose that's the modern clergy for you. How remarkably impure."
Oops. My bad.
But honestly, if you're going to answer that sensibly.
"I—I think I'll be fine too! When I have the time…, ugh…, I'll come visit you…!"
And what on earth do we call Elia, who flinches openly at the very religion she lives under? Even her declaration that she would come was squeezed out through her tightly shut eyes.
Once I was able to move about again, I headed straight for the temple.
Truthfully, I was more than a little nervous—it would be my first visit there since I'd taken up residence in this body. Leaving the Academy grounds I'd grown used to, stepping into the den of deranged believers, all of it weighed on me, as I'd been saying all along.
Besides, in my capacity as the author, my sloppy grasp of my own worldbuilding meant I didn't actually know what the temple was like. Seriously, reflect on yourself, me.
Yes, sir. I will reflect.
As I was conducting this solitary question-and-answer session, Niger's voice soon sounded in my head.
[Do not be nervous. The priests of Elohim are simply devout. Nothing more.]
"You realize that coming from you, Teacher, that claim carries zero credibility…?"
[Brother, the words you spit at me grow more impious by the day. Do you not fear repentance?]
"Ah—sorry…."
But even if you're certified-murderer levels of devout, there's nothing there to trust, is there? This is a killer's reassurance, delivered with an ominous you're not afraid, are you? thrown in for good measure.
I let out a long sigh and looked up at the colossal structure before me. To be precise, I was looking at the fortress wall that ringed the temple, with only its spires peeking coyly over the top.
White, white everywhere.
The towering ramparts, the spires thrusting up their heads, the great gate, and even the armor of the holy knights standing guard before it—everything was drenched in blinding white, radiating devotion to its very core.
Hm.
I seemed to recall reading somewhere that staring at nothing but white things all day was bad for your mental health….
Could it be…?
[I am sensing a distinctly unpleasant emotion from you.]
"Haha…, surely you're imagining it."
Joking, joking.
I forced a smile and approached the gate. Looking at the holy knights standing rooted before it, exactly one thought crossed my mind. And that was—er, um….
I wanted to ask how on earth they'd gotten their armor painted white too. But that probably wasn't a question I should ask.
I moved forward, and just as I was about to address the knights, their voices reached me first.
"Welcome, Father Caritas. His Holiness the Pope is waiting for you."
"…?"
My head bowed politely on its own. The heavy armor clanked with the motion. Dignity radiated from that disciplined bearing—a rather splendid sight, truly.
"Please enter."
"Ah—yes…"
But.
Why would His Holiness the Pope be waiting for me?
That's the first I'm hearing of it.
So I passed the holy knights and crossed through the gate. I—or rather, Niger—was walking familiarly between the pristine white buildings of the Order.
And what was I doing in the meantime?
[Mr. Niger, so when exactly were you planning to answer my question?]
"…."
I was hounding him, demanding he clear up my confusion.
There was so much I wanted to ask. His Holiness the Pope himself, waiting for a mere priest like Niger—how could I not be curious?
It made perfect sense that I was. I knew nothing about any of this.
Though I was the original author, I couldn't fathom why there was so much I didn't know—but thinking it over, I had simply never fleshed out Niger in that kind of detail.
To me, Niger had been nothing more than a priest. Nothing more than a serial killer. A professor who taught his students by day; a murderer who took up his mace and waded through blood by night. Whenever he flitted through the pages of the story, he killed people amid laughter and cheers, and yet he was thorough enough to leave no trace behind—a sociopath, and that was all.
At least, that was what I'd believed.
Because that was all I'd ever written of him.
Every intricate layer of backstory and characterization I'd instead piled, layer upon layer, onto the protagonist Lutz and the heroines who would stand at his side.
According to the story, Niger had committed his murders without once being discovered, right up until the eve of the final arc. And the serial had ended before anything of his true intentions or circumstances ever came to light.
In a word: my own fault. My debt to pay.
So I sighed inwardly. Even to my questioning, Niger offered no reply. He simply held his silence and walked the path stretching out before him.
I spoke to him once more.
[Niger, you owe me an explanation later. That's not optional.]
"…Yes."
His quiet answer made me fall silent in turn.
Niger gave a soft knock, knock on the door.
Although this was where one as exalted as the Pope himself resided, no one stood watch before it. And so, when he knocked at the door at the end of the quiet corridor, what answered was the voice of an old, worn man.
—Enter.
At that voice, Niger bowed his head briefly before opening the door. Even with no one watching, he extended that courtesy, then stepped into the office.
"Your Holiness, this is Niger Caritas."
"Ah, it's been a long time indeed. So long, I wondered whether you'd abandoned the faith. Hoho."
"…Your Holiness, the joke goes too far."
To the Pope's laughing words, Niger replied with a face of stone. As ever, those frigid eyes met the old man's. Though—was I imagining it, or did his tone seem softer than usual? And those cold eyes, rippling faintly—could that also be my imagination?
As I turned this over in my mind, the Pope smiled once more and continued, as naturally as if this were any ordinary day.
"Your face has much improved since last we met."
"…Your Holiness's, however, seems to have worsened."
"Hoho, there's nothing an old man can't be told, is there. And growing old—that's simply what it means, in the end."
"…."
Watching the two of them talk, it didn't feel like a mere priest and his Pope. From where I sat, they seemed considerably closer than that.
And Niger fell silent. Something I could not yet name passed between them. Niger and the Pope each gazed at the other, and an ineffable feeling kept pricking at me, stab by stab.
Even before the Pope's benevolent smile, his expression did not change.
He simply met the Pope's eyes, as ever—cold, and hollow.
"Hm. Your complexion has clearly improved, but your eyes are as they ever were."
"…"
"You still haven't told me what it is you carry, so I cannot know. But you need not shoulder everything alone, you know."
"I was not trying to shoulder everything. I only…."
Whatever excuse Niger had been about to offer was cut short by the Pope's next words.
"From what I can see, you now have someone at your side. So share that mysterious burden of yours. It was for that very reason I let you leave the Order so easily, when you first asked to go."
"…"
The Pope's eyes gleamed as he regarded Niger. Before that gaze, which seemed to see straight through everything, Niger closed his eyes. And then he smiled, faintly and bitterly.
Call it a hunch, but the someone at his side the Pope spoke of seemed to mean me. Because the Pope, I realized, appeared to be looking at me.
There was no way he could actually see me—and yet his eyes swept over exactly the spot where I stood, once, precisely.
"Yes…, I shall do as you say. To some extent, I already am."
"Hoho, good. You've come all this way after so long—rest well before you return. And go see that child of yours, the one you've always been so eager to shelter."
"Yes. Rest well yourself, Your Holiness."
With those words, Niger bowed and left the office. The Pope beamed his kindly smile after him and gave a small wave with one gaunt, skeletal hand.
So why, exactly, had he asked to see Niger? I couldn't begin to guess. Watching their exchange had only left me with more questions than answers.
Niger, walking the corridor after leaving the Pope's office, murmured quietly.
"I leave the next part to you. The orphanage is straight ahead down this road."
Wait, what?
[Excuse me?]
"I have given it considerable thought, and I believe it would be better to entrust the meeting with Beati to you rather than to me. So, I ask this of you."
[No—no, hold on, you can't just—]
The world flipped upside down.
"…You're there, aren't you?"
You insane, murderous bastard.
You finish what you start before you hand things over!
