People Can Cry, You Know
Soft and fluffy. Squishy and plush.
“Oh…”
To be honest, I never thought I’d need something like a giant stuffed animal. But the more I touched it, the more I couldn’t help but marvel. The texture was like something crafted by a master artisan, and just hugging it brought a wave of drowsiness so comforting it felt like the ultimate sleep pillow. As for the design… well, if it’s this cute, anyone would understand wanting to keep it.
I hugged the two enormous elephant plushies tightly and made up my mind. Let’s call the blue one Blue Coco and the pink one Pink Coco.
…
…
…
“Hup!”
What the hell am I doing? What am I even saying right now?
The saying that a person’s mind follows their body wasn’t empty words after all. The way I was acting and thinking just now was no different from a real five-year-old. I need to pull myself together and stay on guard at all times. One slip and not only would I regress into full toddler mode, but in a few years my body and heart might both become completely female.
I’m an adult, damn it! Even if my body turned into a woman, I don’t want my mind to become one too!
I hugged the two plushies even tighter with that solemn resolve. And please don’t ask why there are suddenly two when there used to be only one. I’ll just say that last night in my dream I went back to my past life, shouted “You’re back, my elephant!” and when I woke up there was suddenly an extra pink elephant by the bed. I decided to just accept it since it was given to me. It’s definitely not because I like it. Really.
Anyway, shouldn’t I be allowed to move around a bit by now? My body only feels a little stiff, there’s no pain, and my divine power moves exactly as I want it to. Yet I still can’t go wherever I please. That muscle-brained old man—no, Archbishop Carlo—had sternly ordered me to stay in bed until next week.
Even if I tried to ignore him and wander around anyway, Archbishop Carlo is standing guard right outside the door. I’m not the type to run around everywhere being super energetic, but this is way too extreme! There’s no internet, no smartphone, no TV here! I can’t take it anymore.
Yeah. That’s it. I’m sneaking out.
There’s one window in this bedroom. From what I saw last time, it’s about three stories high. With my divine power reinforcing my body, jumping down from that height shouldn’t be a big deal. Once I decide to do something, I do it right away—that’s the golden rule.
With that thought, I headed toward the window—
“You’re awake. I’m glad.”
Cheska entered the room.
…That damn sweet potato is getting in the way!! She made eye contact with Carlo! Give me back my chance! Because of you, my secret escape failed.
I shot her a glare full of resentment. Cheska’s complexion rapidly grew worse.
“As I thought… Of course you would resent me.”
No, that’s not entirely wrong, but the resentment I feel and the resentment you’re thinking of are two different things. Come to think of it, this is the first time we’ve met since that day.
“Um… how’s your body? I heard most of the bones in your body were shattered.”
“Yes, thanks to Your Eminence, I have fully recovered.”
“Sorry. I should’ve gone a little easier on you.”
“Not at all. If it weren’t for Lady Levia, I would have died…”
“Yeah, so I can beat you up more later. Tsk.”
“…”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“So why did you come?”
Cheska was holding a travel bag. It didn’t look like she was returning to her previous duty of guarding me.
“I have been ordered to return to the homeland… the Holy Empire of Eliac. And before I go, I wanted to…”
Cheska set down her bag, approached me, and knelt on one knee.
“I came to offer my apology.”
Cheska bowed her head. I looked at her for a moment, thinking.
Honestly, when I analyze the situation, I don’t think any of this was really her fault… She simply disliked me a little, and the Clown amplified that hatred and used it. But the incident still happened. I nearly died. If I hadn’t awakened my power, I would have started my third life right then and there.
That’s why I told Archbishop Carlo everything I knew about what happened, and he passed it on to Benedict. I had no desire to go out of my way to clean up her mess. I’m not generous enough to do that much for someone I met less than a day ago (since I have no memories, that’s how I perceived it). Even if my mind is that of an adult, I’m not a saint.
And this is the result.
Looking at Cheska with her head bowed and Archbishop Carlo standing behind her with a displeased expression, it seems being sent back to her homeland—the Holy Empire of Eliac, was it?—is some kind of punishment. It could even be considered exile.
I don’t particularly feel anything about it, but there was one thing I wanted to clear up.
“Cheska.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you hate me?”
“…So you knew after all.”
“Wouldn’t it be weirder if I didn’t?”
She was so obvious about it. This sweet potato from the criticism world seems terrible at hiding her emotions.
“…”
I thought she would tell me, but no answer came. Is there some reason she can’t say it?
I changed my question and asked again.
“Did I take something from you that I shouldn’t have?”
Her expression when she criticized me looked so much like someone who had something stolen from them that I asked. But—
“!!!”
Cheska looked at me with a face full of shock and overwhelming guilt. It seemed like I had hit the mark, but not completely.
“N-no… I was never robbed of anything. And it is not something I could monopolize alone. Therefore, the fault lies entirely with me…”
Her voice sounded somewhat choked as Cheska spoke.
“I… cannot ask for your forgiveness. I apologize once more. Lady Levia. I shall take my leave now.”
“Wait.”
I stopped her as she tried to stand and leave.
“You’re not going to remove that before you go?”
I wasn’t planning to dig too deeply anyway, so I would have let a vague answer slide, but ‘that’ was a bit much. A potential threat, you could say. Like taking a dump and not wiping.
“Pardon?”
Cheska asked again.
“You don’t know? Or are you pretending not to? I’m talking about the ‘thing’ planted in your body.”
I hadn’t noticed before, but now that I had awakened my divine power… I could see it.
“That ‘seed’-like thing.”
“Y-you can see this…?!”
Huh? She can’t see it?
“Ah, can’t you use divine power, Cheska?”
Maybe because she uses a sword?
“I can use it, but…”
What? She’s a holy knight?
“Then why can’t you see it?”
“…?”
I see. Cheska’s divine power is weak. Look at her, this frail… I mean, weak-bodied Cheska.
“Archbishop Carlo. You can see it, can’t you, Your Grace?”
I pointed at the spot between Cheska’s collarbone and the hollow of her chest—cough… anyway, right around there—indicating the ‘seed.’ It looked like a withered flower spreading outward.
I had expected Carlo to say of course he could see it, but his answer was completely different from what I anticipated.
“What… are you referring to? This old man does not understand.”
“Huh?”
Is it too small to see…? No, he doesn’t look like someone with presbyopia. Can I pull this out?
I reached out with my divine power and touched it. It twitched!
Oh. This might work.
“Cheska, it might hurt, so bear with me.”
I poured my divine power into Cheska’s body as if applying a buff, then wrapped it around the ‘seed’ to hold it in place. I gave it a light tug to check if the divine power and the seed moved together.
“Ugh… what…?”
“Three… two… one!”
I counted down and yanked hard!
Thudududuk!
“Aaaagh!!!!!”
It worked. The dark purple ‘seed’-like thing trapped in my divine power soon lost its shape and began wriggling in all directions. The sight was so grotesque it defied description. If I could, I would have mosaicked it.
I showed it to the two of them.
“See? I told you it was there.”
The two stared blankly at the thing in my hand, stunned. The first to speak was Archbishop Carlo, his expression grave.
“Saintess candidate, could you hold onto ‘that’ for a moment? Keep a firm grip so it doesn’t escape?”
Then he hurried out, saying he would bring Cardinal Benedict.
“Aah… aaah… ugh… huuugh.”
Suddenly Cheska began to cry.
What? Why is she crying?
“Ugh… huuugh… waaaaah!”
Whoa! Why is she hugging me and making such a fuss!
“Thank you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry… ugh. How could I have done this to a child like you…!! Hic… waaaaah…!”
Can you get off? Hurry and take your hands off my body… um… uh…
Cheska really has a big heart. Ahem. Well, people can cry, you know.
* * *
A dark place filled with countless rotting, decaying corpses reeking of stench. In this grotesque, twisted pile of bodies where intact corpses were as rare as finding a needle in a desert, one of the corpses suddenly sat upright.
“Aah… mmm…”
The corpse cleared its throat with a sticky, metallic-scraping voice.
“Even though it’s only a temporary ‘toy,’ the controls are terribly stiff. I should finish up quickly, find a new decent toy, or return to my main body.”
The identity of the corpse was the Clown.
The Clown climbed down from the corpse pile and touched a crystal orb resting on a crudely made table.
“Hmm~ It’s a bit of a shame. I had prepared some friends to send to Levia here~”
The Clown was humming for a moment when the crystal orb glowed and a voice emerged.
“The mission?”
“I don’t understand. Isn’t the thirteenth Saintess candidate a child who hasn’t even reached five years of age? According to the information, she was a doll who couldn’t even speak.”
“The thirteenth Saintess candidate was only nominated without receiving baptism, so she shouldn’t be able to use divine power either.”
The voice inside the crystal orb deduced other possibilities.
“Did you confirm which cardinal nominated the thirteenth Saintess candidate? The Entat Parish is so remote and closed off that the information we could gather was limited. All we learned was that there was a thirteenth Saintess candidate who couldn’t speak and couldn’t use divine power. That alone was enough, so we didn’t waste time on further investigation.”
“Be…net? Bedit? Ah! Benedict! I think… that was it? Something like that.”
“Ha! Benedict! So that’s where he was hiding. Then it couldn’t be helped. If he was protecting her…”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but ‘Prophet,’ my failure wasn’t because of the cardinal.”
“What do you mean?”
The voice inside the crystal orb—the one called the Prophet—asked again.
“The information was wrong. The thirteenth Saintess candidate spoke perfectly fine, and her divine power… what was it again? She ‘awakened’ it and used it like crazy, completely destroying my precious toy?”
“That can’t be.”
“There is no record of the thirteenth Saintess candidate receiving baptism in Eliac. Did she receive some kind of grace?”
“I have no way of knowing. But it was amazing. So amazing I want to play with her again! The way she compressed and overlapped her divine power to wrap it around her entire body was truly…”
“…What did you just say?”
“That the thirteenth Saintess candidate was amazing?”
“No—how exactly did the Saintess candidate do what?”
“She compressed and overlapped her divine power?”
“You think that’s possible?”
“She did it, though?”
That’s why it was so fun! It was on a completely different level from the other puppets! Kkikik…!
“There has only ever been one being capable of that from the distant past until now.”
“Oh? Who is that?”
The Prophet paused for a moment before answering the Clown’s question.
“The first Saintess.”