Chapter 117
Chapter 117
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 117
Chapter Title: Full Moon Festival (2)
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“…”
The strange sensation of feeling hunger for something other than food was frightening.
The moment I sensed the abnormality in my senses, my feet unhesitatingly left the worship hall and headed forward.
“Waaaaah…”
Hymns resounded across the nighttime campus.
Cadets clad uniformly in black robes stood in two lines from the worship hall entrance all the way to the park with the fountain where the wooden tower had been erected.
“Executor.”
“It’s Arma Cruise senior.”
The murmurs showed no sign of stopping.
Of course, a few cadets didn’t welcome me at all, but right now, that wasn’t what mattered.
‘Stop…’
Even though Enoch had suddenly dragged me out, I wasn’t in a state of ravenous hunger.
Becoming Eugene’s mannequin and trying on this outfit and that one had been a bit tedious, but it wasn’t my first time with something like that, so it was manageable.
“Haa… Huu.”
I’d deliberately kept my head bowed low, so the cold sweat trickling down my temples gathered at my chin before dripping off.
My consciousness was being dominated by something wielding overwhelming power.
‘Ma- mama, so delicious-’
It soon seized control of my thoughts,
-Thud. Thud.
And my actions.
“Stop.”
All I could manage was the faintest whisper.
Wearing a silver Thorn Crown and draped in all sorts of ornate accessories, I advanced bit by bit toward the crowd.
The terror of some entity overriding my actions and forcing my body to move against my will had sharpened my senses to an excruciating degree.
Even the dulled barbs of the Thorn Crown, carefully filed down to avoid injury, throbbed in my skull like it was about to split open.
‘Hungry hungry hungry. I’ll never forgive you for doing this to me, Arma Cruise.’
Had I done something wrong?
With every step I took, the beeswax candles placed at the feet of the cadets lined up in two rows ignited one by one.
Lighting the beeswax candles was a symbolic act representing Saint Johanna’s trials; the moment I set foot on the tower, they would topple like dominoes and set it ablaze.
“Damn it, I said stop.”
I issued a warning in a whisper so faint only I could hear it, but it was futile.
Even the sound of my robe dragging across the ground swallowed my voice almost instantly.
The bridge of my nose stung once more; a nosebleed could erupt at any moment.
‘It’s going to be fun, Arma Cruise. You’re fearless, after all. So insolent, daring to act so arrogant as a lowly, foolish creature.’
“What do you expect me to do?”
Insolent? Arrogant?
Conflict with it wasn’t something I’d sought out.
By the time I regained my senses, it had inevitably come to this, and for someone like me who had no idea how it had started, all I felt was resentment.
I wanted to ask my own questions.
Why me, of all people?
Why had you let that existence get discovered by me?
“Looks like this is getting to you.”
Now, in my contradictory garb of a splendid robe, I was being dragged toward the wooden tower.
From every direction came the sounds of cadets praying to the Creator God Egis in their own individual ways.
Each candle that flickered to life brightened the surroundings further, while the flowers brought solely for this event swayed, releasing their cloyingly sweet fragrance.
The closer I got to the wooden tower, the deeper the piles of plucked flower petals grew.
Scripture recorded that once, scalding stones and animal entrails had been scattered there, but the Full Moon Festival reinterpreted it in this fashion to recreate the scene.
-Creeeak…
Nearly every beeswax candle had been lit by now.
The path I’d walked was outlined by a long ribbon of flame.
From that moment, amid creaking sounds, I entered the base of the wooden tower.
The sacrificial tower was constructed from fire-resistant water elderwood, designed to collapse as late as possible.
As the flames slowly evaporated the moisture within the wood, the cadet portraying Saint Johanna would climb all the way to the top.
“…”
At last, a toppled candle flared up with a whoosh, catching on the tower’s very lowest section.
-Crackle, crackle.
The robe of [Saint Johanna] was a special one.
Its hem had been soaked for the ritual alone, and it had already undergone magical treatment to resist fire.
On top of that, I’d witnessed the Full Moon Festival’s climax ten times before, and Makina had never been harmed once across all those occasions.
“Haa, haa, heok…”
The issue was that those had all been Makina’s turns.
The air grew scorching, making every breath a struggle.
Had Makina nonchalantly endured this horrifying ritual every year around this time?
Watching her ascend the tower with that utterly serene expression, how much secret admiration had I felt?
Year after year, Makina had capped off the Full Moon Festival embodying the saint herself, and even I—who held little attachment to the Egis Church—would feel an inexplicable swell of emotion at the sight.
But that wasn’t the sort of emotion I wanted to recreate personally.
‘It’ll be fine…’
Why was the guardian angel imposing this unreasonable demand on me?
And why must I carry out these successive ordeals?
I was far too frail and unfinished a human to bear responsibility for the thousand or so cadets gazing up at me now.
Why me—no, precisely because I was like this, was I being forced into it?
Because I was a broken human who ruined everything, someone who could act exactly to its tastes?
I had no idea.
For now, all I could do was focus on climbing the increasingly blazing tower barefoot.
‘Climb up-!’
“Shut up…”
The sights before my eyes doubled, tripled, shaking.
Damnable thing, damnable ordeal.
What thoughts had run through Saint Johanna’s mind as she climbed this tower?
Magic was supposed to protect me, yet here I was trembling in terror—while the real saint had ascended a genuinely burning tower.
Had her conviction that Creator Egis would protect her made her strong? Or perhaps a belief that it wouldn’t matter even if He didn’t?
‘Scared? Regretting it? Wanna give up?’
Scared. Regretting it. Wanting to give up.
I’d never possessed a belief so sublime it could shoulder someone else’s life.
Belief? It was closer to deception.
Me, donning the saint’s guise and climbing this tower—it was deception toward everything.
Like a corpse dressed in lavish finery, I ascended the tower one step at a time.
“Euk, huu.”
I’d reached the point where I couldn’t even form proper words anymore.
The flames spread through the tower at an unnaturally rapid pace.
“Waaaaah!”
Yet the cadets watching me seemed to take even that as part of the grand finale’s staging, growing ever more ecstatic as the blaze intensified.
Were Judith, Shirley, Theodore, and Arthur watching me from somewhere in that crowd?
If so, did that mean I didn’t look the least bit off to everyone else?
-Thunk! Crackle.
The moisture-laden wood ignited fiercely, sending embers flying upward.
In an instant, my vision drowned in the flames’ vivid crimson glow.
“Executor…”
From somewhere distant, I heard someone murmur in awe.
The roaring fire and heat-charged winds drowned out any detailed talk.
Executor—what a laughable moniker.
The Egis executor they idolized so fervently was now trapped in suffocating heat, reduced to whimpering like a beast.
-Crack!
Part of the wooden tower gave way beneath my weight.
This event was far more perilous than I’d imagined.
Makina, lighter than me, had always climbed swiftly and gracefully, masking the flaw. And right then.
“Maki…na?”
The dancing flames parted perfectly to either side, and through the gap, I spotted Makina gazing calmly up at me.
The Makina directly ahead wore a gentle smile, as if to reassure me (or so I imagined).
It’s okay. You can go higher.
That’s what it seemed like she wanted to say.
Even Makina, locking eyes with me head-on, hadn’t noticed anything amiss about me.
As if seizing the perfect moment, it whispered to me.
‘Makina Christie. Blood Graduation Ceremony. The final survivor. Is that really true?’
Whether a manifestation of my own unease or that vile entity itself, it wielded nearly flawless speech.
Or perhaps my past self had muttered such things.
“Damn… shit.”
Spitting every curse I could muster, I kept climbing the tower.
For a tower meant to burn anyway, someone had invested absurd effort: stairs and ladders wove through its middle for <Johanna> to ascend comfortably, interspersed with floral decorations.
I’d never seen flowers burn before. At first, their petals curled inward like buds regressing—then they erupted into wretched flames.
The most vibrant, beautiful things reduced to ash in full.
Gathered in variety, the flowers mingled sweet scents with acrid smoke, evoking the aroma of sorghum liquor.
-As you come in light, as you come in light…
By the time I’d nearly reached the star cross mounted one level higher, the finale hymn “As You Come in Light” began to fill the air.
I stretched out to kiss the star cross.
Bowing my head, I pressed my lips to its jeweled tip.
Was it finally over? That’s what flashed through my mind.
-Whoosh!
“Wait!!”
“Huh? The fire!”
Flames caught on the robe—supposedly magically warded against burning.
In near reflex, clutching the cross to my chest, I seized my collar to rip off the blazing robe.
But I couldn’t.
The silver-threaded embellishments—those rib-like adornments that had creeped me out—encircled my waist, rendering the robe impossible to remove alone.
-Do you hear the Holy Spirit’s voice?
It addressed me.
The Holy Spirit’s voice? Nothing like that reached me.
Someone attempted to aid me with magic, but it fizzled out short.
A cluster of sparkling light dissipated rapidly near the tower’s base.
-Do you feel God’s authority?
No Holy Spirit’s voice. No divine authority.
“You bastard… you planned this from the start.”
It had schemed to incinerate me at the Full Moon Festival’s holiest climax, plunging the cadets into terror.
Clueless to it all, I’d merely danced to its whims.
Still clad in the burning robe, I surveyed my surroundings.
“I won’t let it happen your way. Not ever.”
Egis Academy was ringed by water.
Without hesitation, I leaped from the tower’s rear—straight down to the cliffs where waves crashed below.