The Saint and the Roasted Seed
Having lived in isolation among men for a decade, at some point it had become difficult for him to even exchange words with the opposite sex. Yet instead of mustering the will to overcome it emotionally, he remained trapped inside the well he had dug for himself, focusing solely on avoiding any encounters with women. He never created occasions where women might gather, and he declined every invitation. The castle’s original servants—those who had belonged to his father—were all replaced the moment they fell under his management, and the maids’ positions were filled entirely with young men.
You were quite busy driving every young woman away from the Saint’s side.
“Even if you call me pathetic, I have nothing to say in my defense. Rumors even circulated that I was a homosexual. But enduring that dishonor felt far better than facing women. I loathed them with every fiber of my being.”
The man recited the tragic history of his life in a tone that was somehow both calm and full of resentment.
Yet in the end, he had no choice but to admit the truth.
“No… I simply wanted to believe that. I’ve lived my life deceiving myself into thinking I hated women. If I didn’t delude myself that way, I wouldn’t have been able to stand how utterly pitiful and disappointing I was.”
It was a truth he had turned away from out of wounded pride, but one he could no longer deny.
“I wasn’t someone capable of rejecting women. I was nothing more than a coward who took several steps back because I feared being rejected by them.”
The Saint’s face remained tranquil and undisturbed, yet the voice of the suffering believer grew increasingly louder.
“Ah, Saint. What should this impure seed do? There was a time when I resolved to offer this inadequate body to the Goddess. I genuinely dreamed of becoming a Guarding Knight. But it seems I never possessed the qualifications from the start. I was no different from a filthy beast, always ready to indulge in lust the moment the opportunity arose!”
“A beast, you say? It is perfectly natural for a healthy man to pursue women.”
“No, Saint. Because of my impure desires, I committed acts that were far from natural.”
“What acts?”
“I harbored strange, dark intentions toward someone who held not the slightest romantic interest in me. Her smile was merely kindness offered between people, yet I deluded myself into thinking she might be interested in me. Simply because I felt my heart flutter for her, I arbitrarily assumed she must feel the same curiosity toward me.”
“Men are prone to such misunderstandings whenever a woman smiles at them. You are hardly the only one, my believer.”
“But imagine it, Saint. Standing under a tree that bears no fruit with your mouth wide open, waiting. Is there any sight more foolish? I feel as though I will never escape this shameful memory for the rest of my life.”
“Everyone experiences that level of embarrassment at some point.”
“It doesn’t end there. I couldn’t even contain that shame within myself—I let it erupt outward. I raised my voice at an innocent woman and took my anger out on her.”
“You are speaking of the woman you drove away earlier, I presume.”
Woman. Woman. That woman.
As the face of Tichite—who had only been referred to with pronouns—rose in his mind, Nyx’s cheeks burned fiercely. The fact that the Saint remembered her existence so clearly and pointed it out only intensified his mortification.
“Y-yes… that’s correct….”
Nyx could no longer endure the burning embarrassment and finally removed the helmet he had been wearing.
Only then did the Saint catch sight of the mottled, patchy face that this pitiful young noble so desperately wished to hide from maidens.
The Saint felt he could understand why the man was so frantic to disparage himself, but he offered no comment on that particular matter.
Instead, he steered his curiosity in an entirely different direction.
“Do you like that young lady?”
The war the knight had mentioned earlier must have been the long holy war. For such a man to be heartbroken over a mere Tilamin woman was a most unexpected revelation.
Nyx flinched and waved his hands in denial.
“No, no! That’s not it at all. Like her…? It wasn’t… it wasn’t any deep emotion like that. As I said, I’m not accustomed to such things, so….”
Nyx carefully retraced the feelings he had experienced until now, then eventually ruffled his hair into a mess, muttering that he wasn’t even sure himself.
“Her smiling face was just… a little… a little cute, I thought. A woman smiling at someone like me—it’s not something that happens often, so my heart… People usually say it’s like steel, but in that moment… how should I put it? I felt like I had turned into a bell made of iron. My heart… my heart rang like a bell. And it trembled so violently… Ah, it was agonizing.”
Nyx scratched at his breastplate as if he wanted to clutch his chest.
The Saint gave a light shake of his head. He let out a sigh mixed with a chuckle, as though he couldn’t believe he was dealing with a believer who was fretting like a boy who had just entered puberty. Listening quietly, it seemed this was an even lighter problem than he had anticipated.
“It is said that when men take a liking to a woman, they imagine everything from holding hands and walking into the wedding chapel on their very first meeting to the faces of the children they would have together.”
“Ah, no! It’s true that my heart betrayed me and ran wild, but I didn’t go that far ahead. Really, I swear….”
No matter how candidly he was laying bare his heart, that was truly something that would cause an uproar if anyone else heard it.
They had only known each other for a few days. The interest he felt toward Tichite was a very shallow, unripe emotion. Hadn’t there been no opportunity for it to develop into anything meaningful?
Yet that was precisely what made it all the more painful.
“The truth is, I will have to keep seeing her face from now on.”
When Nyx spoke as if the burden would kill him, the Saint offered reassurance on that point as well.
“I see… Does she find you uncomfortable, my believer?”
“No. She doesn’t even know I’m having these thoughts.”
“Then that is fortunate amid misfortune. All you need to do is keep your mouth shut, isn’t it? Of course, this old man’s tongue is as heavy as iron, so you need not worry about anything leaking from these lips.”
The Saint was right about everything. This shameful emotion belonged solely to Nyx; it was something he could sufficiently bury on his own. Had he not confessed it under the pretext of repentance, it was an emotion he could have carried as a secret for the rest of his life.
It was something that had never even happened. He could simply treat it as if it had never occurred.
Then why did it feel so uncomfortable?
“What weighs on your mind? You still wear a displeased expression, my believer.”
The sediment remaining in Nyx’s heart showed clearly on his face. Sensing that emotion, the Saint asked him directly.
After a long sigh, Nyx spoke.
“You are correct, Saint. If I simply let it be, this matter could pass without anyone ever knowing. And yet… why does my chest feel so heavy? Something feels unfair and resentful, but I don’t understand why I feel this way.”
“It must be the sorrow that inevitably accompanies unrequited love. After all, feelings directed toward another person are always accompanied by the desire for reciprocation.”
“Unrequited love…”
“It seems I never even reached that stage…”
Nyx swallowed the rest of his words. Though the expression might be an exaggeration, at its core, it held truth.
“I regret harboring such pointless feelings.”
“Emotion is simply emotion. There is no feeling that must be regretted. We are already busy enough regretting our actions.”
“Isn’t it a waste of the soul to squander it on feelings that could never even bloom?”
A heart that had not even been given the chance to sprout had withered away so futilely. The most miserable part was that the other party had no idea he was suffering like this.
“It feels as if someone took the seed I intended to plant and nurture with care and roasted it on a griddle. As if telling it never to even dream of growing.”
When the man spoke in a despondent tone, the Saint finally showed an expression of pity for the first time.
“Not all love in this world can bear fruit successfully, my believer.”
He nodded as if he understood, but he did not seem to have gained any genuine comfort.
The old man stroked his sparsely grown beard and let out a troubled hum.
Then, out of nowhere, he returned to the topic of roasting seeds on a griddle.
“Do you like roasted beans, my believer?”
“…Roasted beans?”
“I like them very much. They are far crispier and more aromatic than boiled beans, so I enjoy them as a snack. I sprinkle roasted flaxseeds on salads, and when I peel roasted pumpkin seeds one by one by hand, the basket quickly fills with shells.”
Nyx frowned at those words. He could guess what the old man was thinking. His gaze was that of someone looking at a senile elder who had lost his mind.
“In short, if they were delicious, then those roasted seeds fulfilled their purpose in their own way.”