An Ancient Longing (3)
May this record reach future generations. I am Record von Angus. Shamefully, I am but a commoner known as the Second Hero. Some call me the Indomitable Hero. Indomitable… I rather like that title. True to its meaning, I have never yielded—no matter what danger approached, no matter what enemy stood before me. I have lived that way until now, will continue to do so, and even in death I shall remain unbroken. If there is a next life, I will be the same even after reincarnation. I will not abandon this world.
To the Hero who will succeed me. To my beloved, the Female Pope of the Holy Empire Eliac. And to all the people of later generations—remember. Prepare yourselves. This world marches toward destruction. @#$%!#$ is merely sealed. In time it will awaken and bring chaos upon the world. It will usher in the void, until only ruin remains. The Dark Clan conceals itself in shadow, biding its time, while the Light Clan has protected this world through sacrifice. Find the First Saintess. She is the only one who can overturn the predetermined fate. She is alive. She will remain alive until the day the world ends.
...I pray that I may meet her again.
“So… this record is from roughly eight thousand years ago?”
“That’s correct.”
“What about the erased part here? What’s sealed? The Demon King?”
“Something even greater.”
“The Dark God, Umbrio?”
“That’s a prejudice, dear. Why would Umbrio—one of the creators of this world—want to destroy it?”
She wasn’t wrong. Just because someone was a Dark God didn’t automatically make them a villain. Still, two creators? When I’d studied this world’s history, the church only ever taught that the Goddess of Light, Lumentis, was the sole creator. The official doctrine of the Church of Light said the same.
Anyway, even if it was prejudice, I couldn’t say the possibility was zero.
“Hmm. I don’t like the state of this world one bit. We could just flip the whole thing over and build a new one.”
“That’s… a logical statement. I can’t refute it.”
“Right?”
From the start, these so-called gods had dragged my family into this world for their own purposes. I still hadn’t heard exactly what they wanted from my parents or from me, but I had zero intention of playing along nicely.
“But that isn’t the case. He once told me directly that he cherishes this world in his own way.”
“And you believe him?”
“Levia, let me tell you one thing for certain. Gods cannot lie.”
“Why not?”
“A god’s words can become the laws of the world. If they spoke falsehoods, the laws themselves would twist.”
Good grief. What could possibly be so lacking in these supposedly almighty beings that they had to summon my family?
“That’s why gods choose silence instead of speaking lies. Sometimes they simply hide the truth.”
There was a weight behind her words. Well, she was the only person who could communicate directly with Lumentis, so she must have been through all sorts of things. From the context, it sounded like they had even met face to face. For just a moment, I caught a flicker of anger from her—gone so quickly I would have missed it if I hadn’t been paying attention. It seemed something had happened relatively recently.
Hmm… was it because of me?
It was obvious that she had been one of those involved in Lumentis’s crime of killing and reincarnating me. My mother’s heart must have shattered when she learned the truth. Had she held herself back the first time we met because I was standing right in front of her? She had always been a little bad at being honest with her feelings. If that was the case, I felt both glad and incredibly sad. It was proof that her emotions hadn’t dried up, yet at the same time I had—without meaning to—made her grieve.
I decided to think about it later. Right now I needed to focus on this meeting.
On the surface, this gathering had been arranged under every plausible and complicated pretext imaginable—sending encouragement to one of the few remaining Saintess candidates, and so on and so forth. In reality, we were discussing the mission that only I could carry out. All of my trustworthy inner circle had been invited.
That included the Pope and me—the nominal main characters—as well as the former Entat Parish group: Grandfather Carlo, Benedict, Chesca, and Venica. Then there were those who knew my secret: Skadi, Noah, and Mint. And finally, Mister Dominic, who had openly declared his support for me.
Whoa, looking at us all together, the balance is perfect. Five people who want to make me the Saintess, and five—including myself—who are against it. A meeting of ten people, not too big, not too small, had been born.
This was also the moment when Benedict finally opened one of the many tightly wrapped bundles of secrets he had been keeping. Even now he was still hiding a lot, but today he had clearly stated one thing: the reason I had to become the Saintess.
He had brought out the record we had just been discussing with my mother. It was a letter written by Record von Angus—the Second Hero, also known as the Indomitable Hero—to people of later generations. Even after eight thousand years, the original had survived and was stored in the basement of the Eliac Papal Palace. What I had read was a copy.
Organizing the information from this record and various other historical documents, it seemed that Record, who had never given up on protecting the world no matter what and could truly be called the model of a Hero, had entrusted this letter to his wife—the Saintess of that era and the Pope who had founded Eliac. After earnestly asking her to carry out and preserve its contents, he had disappeared somewhere.
The key instruction had been: Find the First Saintess.
Fortunately—or unfortunately—the world still strictly followed the Second Hero’s words that every Saintess candidate must memorize dozens of prayer books he had written. Thanks to that, Record’s request had been extremely well fulfilled. However, whether because he had asked his wife to keep it secret or because she later changed her mind and decided not to spread it, the record had been passed down but only a small number of Eliac’s upper echelons knew about it.
Perhaps that was why a prophecy had descended upon Eliac:
When the First Saintess, Eliac’s one and only Holy Emperor, returns, Eliac shall rise high into the heavens.
It was a statement that could be interpreted as promising Eliac tremendous prosperity. No matter how much it was a nation that put forward a Pope who could communicate directly with the Goddess of Light, Eliac was still a country built by humans. They wanted their nation to be stronger. They wanted it to be richer. They wanted to taste and wield even more power. Such desires had created a very old wish.
While conveniently forgetting the impending destruction that Record had warned about, Eliac had continued to hope for the return of the First Saintess.
“So that hope rests in my hands.”
“Indeed, Levia.”
“Benedict. Is there proof that the First Saintess is still alive?”
“Of course.”
Benedict answered with surprising simplicity.
“Still, the time for confirmation has come… This seems appropriate, Your Holiness. Please.”
“Very well.”
When Benedict made his request, my mother from my previous life—the Pope—rose from her seat. She radiated holy power and began to recite a prayer.
Manifest for a fleeting moment the power of she whom I beseech.
The moment the prayer ended, a dazzling white light burst from her hands—bright enough to blind—and began to take shape.
Clink.
It was a spear. The faded golden weapon had a circular ring where the blade met the shaft, and from that ring hung two pairs of smaller rings on either side, each holding a tiny bell. On one side of the blade was a red gem, on the other a green one. Their colors were strikingly similar to my own eye color.
The Holy Spear granted only to the Saintess, standing on equal footing with the Hero’s Holy Sword.
Its ego awakens only for its true master.
“If the Hero has a Holy Sword, then the Saintess has a Holy Spear,” my mother said, striking a slightly proud pose.
“Ooh…”
I had to admit it was pretty cool. There was something about it that stirred the heart—a real sense of romance. A Holy Spear! How awesome is that! Mother, you’ve developed quite the eye for coolness!
Gungnir! Longinus! Gáe Bolg! Kyaa! What’s the name of this baby(?) I wonder?
“I shall explain now, Levia,” Benedict began, but his words went in one ear and out the other.
Who cares about that right now? The Holy Spear, on the same level as the Hero’s Holy Sword, was right in front of me! That meant one of the strongest weapons in the world was here!
The strongest weapon! What a magnificent ring that had!
“To become the Saintess, one must receive three selections. The consent of three or more cardinals…”
“Mom! This thing! What’s its name? It has one, right? There’s no way a Holy Spear wouldn’t have a name!”
“M… Mom?”
“Lady Levia, what do you—”
“This is insane… No way.”
I heard Chesca—the mother candidate—having a mental breakdown at the word “Mom,” Venica sounding like she’d heard something incomprehensible, and Mint who seemed to have caught on, but I ignored them all.
“The name of the Holy Spear, you mean? Of course it has one.”
Mother didn’t seem particularly bothered. In fact, she looked rather pleased.
“…And one must also receive the selection of the Holy Spear that Your Holiness is currently holding…”
“It is called the Holy Spear El-Anat.”
“El-Anat!”
Ooh! That’s a pretty cool name! I wonder what it means?
While I was marveling—
Yes! Master!
Someone spoke. It was a voice I had never heard before.
“Who just spoke?”
Master was the kind of title Skadi would use, but unfortunately it wasn’t her.
Hah! It is I! El-Anat!
“…”
Wow. The spear is talking.