EP.142 Black Eyes
Shaking off my guilt, I opened the heavy door, only to be enveloped by a chilling silence that wrapped around my body and mind.
The regret that rushed in late was chewed over and swallowed back down hard.
If I even briefly reconsider the things I did here, it felt like my hard-won resolve would dissolve into nothingness.
The scenery of the Meeting Room remained unchanged.
A pure white sky. A pure white ground. A pure white horizon.
No matter how I looked around, this place filled with ominous whiteness had something that stirred a primal fear within me.
The memory of my first step into this place unexpectedly flashed in my mind.
Ignoring the pounding of my heart, I had marveled at the endless white landscape for only a moment.
Like ice melting away, the eerie calm slowly seeped into my thoughts, engraving an unprecedented fear into me.
Even now, having grown somewhat accustomed to it, I occasionally felt my body shudder.
“Saintess!”
Shouting with all my might, my voice echoed loudly in the Meeting Room.
However, after waiting for quite a while, no voice responded to my call.
I had thought I would confront her the moment I opened the door, so I felt foolish.
My only plan had already gone awry.
But just recklessly searching for her wasn’t an option either.
In this place where not a single means of pinpointing my location, like a compass or tracking method, worked, wandering around aimlessly would be as good as committing suicide.
I remembered hearing from Sister that a few of the Guardian Priests serving the previous Saintess had become lost after carelessly wandering around this place.
“Haa…”
After shaking off the cold shiver that passed through my back, I calmly thought of ways to find the Saintess here.
Usually, without me doing anything, the Saintess would come to me first.
When I couldn’t easily find her due to some situation, following the faint sounds of the TV would lead me to wherever she was.
But both of those methods were useless right now.
The first one was a given.
The second method became impossible because that peculiar TV, the key point of my plan, had mysteriously stopped appearing here at some point.
I was truly in a ceaseless siege.
What on earth was the Saintess doing living in this unnecessarily vast space?
No, why was there such a bizarre space inside the church in the first place, and why was it mandated by sacred law for the Saintess to be kept here?
As I continued to spin this useless nonsense in my head, it suddenly came to me.
‘Isn’t this just like a dungeon…?’
The words of Dawna I had heard just a little while ago flashed back into my mind.
It was a blasphemous theory I hadn’t been able to voice due to my profession, though it was one I had pondered on multiple occasions beforehand.
But once the fire of suspicion was lit, it wasn’t something that would easily die down.
The Meeting Room and the dungeon were eerily similar.
I had personally experienced that sensation when the dungeon incident had engulfed the Saint.
Now that I thought about it, how did I find the missing Saint back then inside the dark dungeon?
Right, definitely…
“…!”
As a new alternative sprang to mind, I immediately set it into action.
After all, if I lost, it was no loss. It was better to take action than to stand around like a scarecrow.
Rolling up the sleeves on the side where the Saintess’s Stigmata was etched, I closed my eyes and tried to reach back to the sensation from before.
“O Divine One, I am Your finger. Just a mere lamb. Under Your Authority, may I grant rest to all that dwell upon this land. All glory shall be offered to You.”
I had no idea how many times I had chanted this prayer, and now I couldn’t even remember.
Normally, it would be a devotional prayer to honor the Divine One, but I had never once aimed a prayer directly at the divine like this before.
How long had it been since that rusty music box’s shallow melody filled the air?
“…”
Even after the prayer was finished, time passed without any significant change in the white space, which simply remained silent.
Looks like it’s not working.
Before, I didn’t even have to whisper my prayers, and this Stigmata naturally guided me to the place where the Hero was.
Of course, since that judgment was based on intuition, I didn’t hold out big expectations, but it was only natural for a slight disappointment to bloom.
“Well, in that case, I have no choice… I have to prepare for the possibility of getting lost and go look for the Saintess…”
Crack! Crackle!
Right then.
A fierce explosion echoed from above.
The deafening sound and vibration made me feel like a terrible thunder was tearing apart the sky.
“T-This…!”
But it didn’t take long for me to realize how absurd that thought was.
It wasn’t an illusion.
The sky. The ground. Everything that made up this space.
The world was collapsing.
Just like old wallpaper curling away from the pressure of time, the white fragments that covered the true colors of this space began peeling and scattering, splattering all around like dirty snow filled with soot.
Hew! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!
And beyond those cracks in this world, I distinctly saw it.
A frail silhouette of a girl, collapsed atop a heap of papers, repeatedly letting out a pitiful whimper.
“Saintess─!”
It was more an instinct than reason.
By the time I snapped back to my senses, my body was already flying toward her direction like an arrow.
The hoarse cry that suddenly leapt out of my mouth was so unfamiliar I doubted it truly belonged to me.
Crash!
“Ugh…!”
But that desperate scream of mine was abruptly thwarted by a transparent wall that suddenly blocked my way.
Even more than the pain seeping into my bones and the blood trickling down my forehead, the chaotic situation around me caught my eye first.
The Meeting Room, which had begun to slowly collapse since the moment I murmured my prayer.
The Saintess, hiding behind that dark crack, was quietly sobbing.
The torn pieces of paper scattered around her were fragments of the Fairy Tale Book I had read to her whenever I could.
My blood ran cold.
It wasn’t just because I had witnessed her tearing apart the Fairy Tale Book she had so dearly cherished with her own hands.
Nor was it only because the usually emotionless face of the Saintess was twisted in dreadful despair.
It was due to the crooked words inscribed on every torn paper scattered across the floor.
“I’m sorry.”
Words drawn not with ink but with dark red blood.
It seemed like they were also blurred by fallen tears, with very few maintainable forms to recognize.
Was it perhaps because of all the time spent with the Saintess?
I was able to vaguely guess what the current Saintess was thinking and what she was trying to do.
The Saintess was being punished.
No, to be precise, she was administering punishment.
To her past self, who had committed irreversible sins.
To her own self, who had broken the promise never to hurt anyone again.
She was inflicting a cruel sentence on herself, one without due date or promise.
She was unthinkingly ripping the Fairy Tale Book that storms down on her with every paper, and when the blood dried, she would gnaw on her index finger to replenish the paint.
That series of actions resembled an emotionless machine, but the occasional pitiful wail escaping her chapped lips unmistakably signaled that she was a living being with real emotions.
“Sniff! Ugh! Aah! Aahh…”
“Saintess… It’s me… I’m here…”
I struggled to move my tongue, stiffened by shock, to stop the Saintess from such foolish actions.
But it seemed she was unaware of my voice, let alone my very existence, beyond that unidentifiable transparent wall.
Bang!
“Saintess, I told you I’m here…”
I struck that invisible wall with my fist, desperately trying to call out again.
Still, no answer came back.
“Sob! Ugh! O-Oppaahh…”
Only her heartbroken voice calling for me echoed like a haunting melody.
“…”
It was from that very next moment.
A brilliant beam of light started to leak from my tightly clenched fist, strong enough that crimson blood was seeping out.
