Accidents Always Happen When You Least Expect Them (3)
When I stopped dead with a bewildered sound, Lia, who had been walking ahead of me, came to an abrupt halt as well and spun around.
She stared at me in silence, her expression clearly asking whether something was wrong. I could only gape at her like an idiot, unable to form a reply.
...What is this? Why were Lia and I able to keep moving forward?
According to the original novel, only a man and a woman destined to love one another should have been able to pass beyond this point.
I had no idea why—or by what logic—we were able to walk right past the stone monument.
“……”
I stared dumbly at the monolith carved with ancient script, then abruptly turned my head.
Despite the lingering aftermath of battle, Lia’s hair still flowed in a lovely pink cascade. She blinked her wide eyes at me, meeting my gaze.
“You suddenly went pale. Are you hurt?”
Lia let go of my sleeve and stepped closer. The distance between us closed in an instant, and just before her hand could touch my forehead, I took a step back.
“Cain…?”
Startled by my reaction, Lia froze with her hand still half-extended. I hurriedly shook my head, trying to show her that this wasn’t because I disliked her touch.
“Ah, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s not that—I’ve been sweating a lot, you see. I just thought your hand might get dirty….”
Even as I muttered my excuse, I couldn’t understand why I was acting like this. How should I put it? I didn’t know why, but seeing Lia’s face up close felt as though my thought process had suddenly short-circuited.
Perhaps because of that, what came out of my mouth was clumsy and pathetic. Lia seemed to notice too; she tilted her head, then reached out again with a small laugh.
“Mm, I guess so. Cain’s still a boy, after all. You’re worried you might smell like sweat or something?”
“I’m not a boy, but… I won’t deny it.”
“Honestly, there’s no need to be so self-conscious.”
Smiling prettily, Lia touched my forehead with the back of her hand.
“Hmm, no fever. Maybe you’re just worn out from mana depletion?”
“Yes. I barely used any mana, so I doubt it’s that. I think my physical condition may simply have been poor for a moment.”
“You’re feeling unwell? Are you, like, really drained lately, weak and hollow and all that? Should I tell Dad to get you a potion that’ll actually work on your body?”
“……No, I’m fine. Thank you for your concern.”
One careless remark, and she was already offering me all sorts of absurd remedies. My body was perfectly healthy for a seventeen-year-old, so I didn’t need a potion for anything.
“Really? Then should we go take a look at that now?”
“Yes, let’s.”
Moving out in front of Lia again, I resumed walking while slowly sorting through my thoughts.
The reason Lia and I were able to pass the stone monument—that was probably because…
No, the idea that we were a man and a woman bound by heaven’s decree to be together was ridiculous. It was more likely that the inscription carved into the stone had no actual power at all. Just a hollow warning.
After all, even Edwin—who passed this very monument with Stella in the original story—cheated later and ended up taking some random woman as his crown princess, didn’t he?
If the words on the stone—Only a man and a woman who love no one but each other may go forward beyond this point.—had been true, then that absurd development would never have happened.
So this monument was, to put it another way, basically a tourist sign for couples.
You know the sort of thing you always see at famous sightseeing spots: toss a coin into the fountain and kiss there, and your love will last forever; that kind of cliché little placard.
Hmm. No matter how I thought about it, this had to be right. If it wasn’t, none of this made sense.
Deeply satisfied with my own conclusion, I reached the altar with a much lighter heart.
On the pure white altar, so pristine it seemed almost sacred at a glance, lay two rings exactly as described in the original novel.
The smaller one was for Stella, who would become the saintess, and the larger one for Edwin, her guardian knight.
“Wow… Cain, look at this ring. It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is beautiful, but….”
“Should we do it together?”
I had expected something like this from the moment we found the rings.
There was no reason to stop her, so I nodded readily.
“Very well. I’ll take the larger one.”
“Then I’ll take the smaller one.”
We hadn’t exactly agreed on it beforehand, but Lia and I slipped the rings onto the ring fingers of our right hands as though we had made a promise.
And then.
──My dear child.
Some unfamiliar voice rang in my head. Lia and I both turned toward each other at the same time.
For some reason, Lia’s cheeks had turned bright red.
“……W-what did you just say, Cain?”
“Pardon? What do you mean?”
“Y-you. Just now, you called me your dear child, didn’t you…?”
──My dear child, not you.
“A-again! You just called me dear child again…!”
“……Lady Lia, I wasn’t the one saying that.”
Tap, tap. I pointed at my own temple with my index finger.
“Someone is speaking directly into our heads.”
“Huh…? W-who?”
“I’m not sure, but probably the owner of this ring?”
That was how it had been in the original first volume too, when Stella and Edwin each put on a ring. The moment they wore them, they could hear the message of Venus, the goddess of beauty and love, directly in their minds.
So this saintly female voice had to belong to Venus. Certain of it, I murmured, “Isn’t that right, Lady Venus?”
──My dear child, how did you know?
At Venus’s question, I paused to think for a moment.
How should I answer to win her favor?
After about five seconds, a rather usable reply came to mind.
“A goddess worthy of being worshiped at such a pure white altar could only be the beautiful goddess Venus, who symbolizes chaste love, could she not?”
──……Ah, really? You truly think so?
“Yes. The altar is beautiful enough to resemble a goddess herself. I couldn’t think of any other deity than Lady Venus.”
──I-I see. …Ahem. So this time’s guardian knight is a very clever child, then? Dear child, what is your name?
“Cain Reinhardt, third son of the Reinhardt baronial house.”
──Cain Reinhardt…. Yes, I’ll remember that. Dear child.
The warmth in Venus’s voice when she said my name was unmistakable. My plan to make a good first impression seemed to have worked.
Thinking that was enough, I glanced at Lia. I wanted her to praise Venus in a similar way to what I’d just said, to curry favor with the goddess, so I caught her eye. But then—
“Cain. Lady Venus is the goddess of beauty and love, not the goddess of chaste love, isn’t she?”
──Hm…?
“Look. If she’s a pure goddess who has to be worshiped at such a spotless white altar, then she wouldn’t be Lady Venus, who falls in love with just anyone. It would have to be Lady Diana, the goddess who symbolizes chastity. Don’t you think so, Cain?”
“……Pardon?”
──Ch-child…?
The saintess who was now supposed to serve Venus alone was badmouthing Venus and seeking my agreement.
I was so dumbfounded—and so unable to believe what Lia had just said—that my mouth fell open.
“Cain, if I take this ring off and put it back, would I stop hearing this Venus goddess or whoever she is?”
“What? No, that’s not how—”
“……Hah!”
As Lia moved to remove the ring from her right ring finger and return it to the altar, I nearly panicked and hurriedly stopped her.
To briefly explain the original story: Stella, after putting on the ring with Edwin, had to undergo several trials in order to become Venus’s saintess.
There were four trials in total, and each one was held a month apart. That meant Stella officially became the saintess just before summer vacation of her first year began.
So if Lia, instead of Stella, had put on Venus’s ring, she should originally have had to go through four trials as well.
──W-what do you mean, dear child? You refuse to undergo the trials…?!
“Yes, I’m not doing them. Cain isn’t going to be some guardian knight either. So, goodbye, Lady Venus.”
──W-wait just a moment! Fine, then three! No, wait, two. If you clear just two, I’ll acknowledge you. I’ll recognize you as my saintess and share divine power with you! Please, just don’t throw my ring away on the ground…!
Because Lia was throwing a tantrum and saying she didn’t want to be Venus’s saintess, the original four trials had been reduced to two. Even then, Venus was still desperately trying to persuade Lia by saying she’d assign easier trials.
If I remembered correctly, Stella’s final trial was to help Edwin defeat a fairly powerful monster classified as a B-Rank danger class.
But if it was supposed to be easier than that, then surely it would be a C-Rank monster, or maybe even a D-Rank one, right?
If the original Stella had heard that, she would probably have jumped in outrage. During her final trial, Stella nearly shared a grave with Edwin more than five times over, after all.
“Hmm.”
Anyway, back to the point.
In theory, only a woman who passed through the monument with the guardian knight protecting her and then wore Venus’s ring on the altar could become Venus’s saintess.
So if Venus lost Lia—a woman who fit the conditions and had finally come to her altar after a full hundred years—then she would have to wait aimlessly for who knew how much longer.
From Venus’s perspective, this was probably why she was lowering herself so much. She really had no alternative but Lia.
Yes, I understood. After a hundred years of endurance since the last saintess died in the racial war, I knew better than anyone how desperate the goddess Venus must be.
And yet, the goddess of love who had once been such a noble, exalted being in the original story…
──Hey, dear child. You’re going to be my saintess, right…?
“Please stay quiet. I’m thinking.”
──Mm. Sorry. Take your time….
Seeing her reduced to this sort of pitiful pleading made me feel a little sorry for her, if I was being honest.
Venus was a kind goddess who showered her apostle with divine power and offered all sorts of support; she really wasn’t someone who deserved to be treated like this.
Seeing her struggling from the very start because she had met Lia instead of Stella, I began to feel a faint, almost embarrassed sort of sympathy. Maybe I should be a little more accommodating, at least in Lia’s place.
──Um, Cain…?
The moment I decided I ought to treat Venus better, her voice came again in my head. I was about to respond at once, but Venus hurriedly added in a strained tone,
──D-don’t answer; just listen. Cain, could you persuade the child for me? I’m afraid persuading her is more than I can manage….
She wanted me to persuade Lia, who was just being contrary for the sake of being contrary and stubbornly refusing to budge?
Was the goddess trying to shove her work onto a mere human like me right now?
The thought made me briefly skeptical, and I was just about to say something when—
──If the child becomes my saintess, it’ll be good for you too….
“……!”
At Venus’s words, promising something “good,” my eyes flew open.
This was my chance. If the goddess of love herself was going so far as to call it a good thing, then whatever it was had to be something extraordinary, didn’t it?
This was only my guess, but Venus was probably trying to give me a clue to the location of the holy sword Caliburn.
Really, if something good was going to happen for me as the saintess’s guardian knight, what else could it be?
Venus wasn’t the goddess of wealth, after all, so the only thing she could give me was Caliburn.
Convinced that she meant to hand over the holy sword Caliburn, the continent’s greatest blade and the sword Edwin was supposed to obtain in the original story, I asked quietly, “Yes. What do I need to do?”
──I’ll send my message into your mind, so just do exactly as I say.
If I could obtain the holy sword Caliburn, capable of cutting down every evil being in existence, then even if the ancient evil god Sisyphus were to be resurrected and descend upon the world, I would have nothing to fear.
So if the condition for reaching that holy sword was something as trivial as this, then it was practically a steal.
I nodded lightly, feeling quite pleased with myself.
──Then first, would you call for the child?
“Lady Lia.”
“……What.”
Lia turned her head with a sullen expression.
──And then, kneel on one knee.
Carefully, I followed the instruction and lowered myself onto my right knee.
──Hold out your hand, take the child’s hand gently, and repeat exactly what I say.
I softly took Lia’s right hand.
──Cain Reinhardt, guardian knight of the saintess.
“Cain Reinhardt, guardian knight of the saintess.”
──May I have your permission to offer the saintess a kiss of vow?
“May I have your permission to offer the saintess a kiss of vow?”
“……Huh?”