Chapter 24
He passed through the corridor and climbed the spiral stone staircase.
At the top of the stairs, he saw a heavy iron door.
Click.
Using the key Bishop Ronin had given him, he unlocked the door.
The iron door swung fully open, revealing what lay inside.
“Is this where the Holy Sword is kept?”
This place was known as the Holy Sword’s repository.
According to Bishop Ronin, it had originally been used as a prayer hall.
The ceiling bore a relief of what appeared to be the Goddess of Erotic Love, and dozens of enormous pillars stood nearby, supporting its weight.
Marble sculptures also stood throughout the hall.
They seemed to depict various figures: the Pope, Holy Knights, nuns, and others.
The marble statues were so intricately crafted that they inspired awe in anyone who saw them.
It certainly had the solemn, majestic beauty of a prayer hall.
Ashtein walked on, examining the marble statues one by one.
At the far end stood a white altar and a stained-glass window. Sunlight poured through the glass in a riot of colors, illuminating the altar like a dazzling display.
A crude-looking sword was embedded in the white altar.
It was the Holy Sword.
Ashtein gazed at the sword, embedded there in stately fashion.
‘They said I’d have to take a test if I tried to pull out the Holy Sword.’
Pulling a sword out of its resting place.
Ashtein thought it was a rather old-fashioned approach.
Without the slightest hesitation, he took hold of the Holy Sword’s hilt.
And his consciousness cut out.
When Ashtein opened his eyes again, he was in a pure white space.
The situation was bizarre, but since he’d been told beforehand what to expect, he wasn’t especially surprised.
He was in the middle of looking around when—
“A human has come to visit after quite some time.”
The voice was lively and ringing.
Ashtein slowly turned his head.
There was a young girl.
She wore a black dress and brown sandals.
She looked to be about 140 centimeters tall.
“You don’t look surprised.”
“I was told about you.”
“Even so, couldn’t you at least pretend to be surprised?”
“I don’t like empty formalities.”
“What a boring fellow.”
Ashtein watched the girl.
Her forget-me-not-blue hair fell straight to her waist like a waterfall.
Long, thin lashes like needles and crimson eyes like drops of blood made a strangely harmonious pair.
A small nose, a shapely bridge, and soft-looking jade-colored lips.
A tiny face and skin as white as jade.
She was a pretty girl, though not as beautiful as Aria.
The girl examined Ashtein as if he were a rare animal.
“So you’re this generation’s candidate to become a ‘Hero’?”
Ashtein nodded.
The girl folded her arms and looked him over from every angle, as if judging him.
“Hmm. You’ve got a decent build, and you’re fairly handsome, too.”
“……”
Ashtein’s expression twisted slightly at the girl’s flippant way of speaking.
Seeing his expression, the girl smirked.
“Does it displease you to have a girl appraise you? You came because you need this girl, didn’t you?”
Ashtein felt a headache coming on.
He asked in a calm tone.
“How old are you?”
“I turn five hundred this year.”
Five hundred.
Considering Ashtein was in his early twenties, the gap between them was truly staggering.
“You’ve certainly racked up the years, old-timer.”
“Indeed. Time is truly fleeting.”
The Holy Sword, looking like a little girl and spouting such tiresome remarks.
Ashtein seriously wondered whether Holy Swords could develop dementia.
“You’re not really a ‘girl,’ though, are you?”
At Ashtein’s perfectly reasonable question, the Holy Sword shrugged her little shoulders.
“But I look like a girl, don’t I?”
“……Why do you look like that?”
“It was the previous Hero’s preference.”
Unfortunately for Ashtein, he had no desire to know about the previous Hero’s bizarre sexual tastes.
Then a question suddenly occurred to him.
“I heard the previous Hero couldn’t wield the Holy Sword.”
A fierce light glinted in the girl’s red eyes.
“That vermin isn’t the Hero this girl was talking about.”
Her voice was filled with cold contempt.
Ashtein asked without letting his reaction show.
“Then who?”
“I meant the true ‘Hero’ who wielded this girl.”
Apparently, if someone didn’t meet the Holy Sword’s standards, she branded them a false Hero.
Having more or less grasped the situation, Ashtein changed the subject.
“Anyway, can’t you change your appearance?”
“Changing it wouldn’t be difficult.”
“Then change it. Try to understand how people feel when they have to look at an old hag who’s five hundred years old dressed up like that.”
The girl—or rather, the Holy Sword—snorted and twisted her lips.
“Why should this girl do that? You aren’t her master, are you?”
She had a point, leaving him no room to argue.
Ashtein scratched the side of his head and asked,
“I suppose you’re right.”
A brief silence followed.
He had no desire to waste time on pointless things, so he got straight to the point.
“I heard I have to take a test to become your master.”
The Holy Sword grinned.
“Would you like to try?”
“That’s why I came.”
“Very well. Then let’s begin without further ado.”
“Do whatever you like.”
The Holy Sword snapped her fingers, and the pure white space began to change.
A dark red sky came into view.
The stench of smoke and blood stung his nostrils.
Then a black-haired girl appeared.
“You’ll see the person most precious to you, won’t you?”
At the Holy Sword’s words, Ashtein stared blankly at the girl before him.
The most precious person to him had always been the same, both in the past and now.
His sister, Amelia.
So the girl standing before him should have been Amelia, too.
She should have been.
But the one standing there was Aria.
The shock struck his thoughts like a bolt of lightning.
‘So that’s it. I…’
That had changed.
Because of that girl.
At first, he’d seen her as a reflection of his sister.
They looked alike, and their personalities were similar, too.
But at some point,
he’d begun to notice the ways she differed from Amelia.
She was just as caring, but shyer than Amelia and unable to turn down a request outright.
And she was more dependent on others than she seemed.
There were other things, too: how she hated owing people, or how she grew fussy when she was sick.
He’d come to see all those little things about her.
Only then did Ashtein understand.
Aria wasn’t Amelia.
But she was someone who made him care about her.
Even more than the sister who had left him behind.
When Ashtein stood there in a daze, the Holy Sword raised her voice a little.
“Did you not hear what this girl said?”
“No, I heard you. Like you said, I can see someone precious to me.”
The Holy Sword mimed drawing her thumb across her own throat.
“Then kill her. That is this girl’s test.”
Kill her?
Aria?
Ashtein looked at the Holy Sword.
“Is that all?”
“That is all.”
The test was extraordinarily simple.
Was the Holy Sword’s test always this straightforward?
Then why hadn’t the previous Hero, or the one before him, obtained the Holy Sword?
Ashtein drew the sword at his waist.
Then he slashed.
Shhk.
Blood spattered.
The Holy Sword spoke, sounding displeased.
“………I didn’t tell you to cut me.”
A long gash ran from the Holy Sword’s right shoulder to her left hip.
Ashtein smiled coldly.
“I took it to mean you wanted me to cut you.”
The Holy Sword quickly reformed her body and snapped at him in a biting tone.
“I’m only something that was made, yet you act so precious. It’s not as if I asked you to kill the real one.”
“Do you enjoy playing with people’s feelings, Holy Sword?”
You conjure up someone precious to a person out of nowhere, then tell them to cut that person down?
Wasn’t that a cruel way to trample on someone’s feelings?
“Did you think you could obtain this girl without being prepared to kill someone precious to you? How laughable.”
In response to the Holy Sword calling him laughable, Ashtein raised his middle finger.
“If I have to break my convictions to obtain you, I’ll give up.”
That was right.
Even if it cost him his life, he would protect those he cared about.
That was Ashtein’s conviction, and Aria was becoming part of it.
In other words, it was impossible for Ashtein to cut Aria down.
“Then the test will end in failure.”
“I suppose it will.”
The Holy Sword asked,
“Don’t you regret it?”
“Do I look like I do?”
Did the Holy Sword glean something from Ashtein’s expression?
A moment later, she let out a hollow laugh.
“Ha. You never intended to take the test in the first place, did you?”
At her accurate observation, Ashtein’s eyes widened.
“Can you read people’s thoughts?”
“No. If you live long enough, you can more or less guess what someone’s thinking from their expression, their mood, and the way they speak.”
“So it’s not mind reading. I suppose experience really does count for something.”
Ashtein had learned that while he was away, the cult intended to harm Aria.
That was why he’d played along with them.
He needed them to reveal their true colors.
The Holy Sword poked her cheek with her index finger and asked,
“Do you know where the Saintess is right now?”
At the Holy Sword’s sudden question, Ashtein tilted his head.
“What are you talking about?”
“I suppose you don’t know. She’s in a darkroom beneath the cult’s headquarters.”
“……The darkroom in the basement?”
She waved her hand with a bored air.
“You’d better not be late. If you don’t arrive in time, you won’t like what you see.”
“What do you know?”
“Wouldn’t it be better to hear it from the Saintess herself than from me?”
The Holy Sword snapped her fingers.
Ashtein’s consciousness grew hazy.
His flickering vision crumbled away.
He tried to demand an explanation, but couldn’t even get the words out.
And so he was sent back from the space the Holy Sword had created.
Left alone, the Holy Sword murmured quietly.
“Until we meet again.”
* * *
I opened my eyes.
My whole body was damp with cold sweat.
How much time had passed?
I took my hand off the Holy Sword.
Whatever the case, there was no reason for me to stay here now.
By this point, the cult would have made a move against Aria.
‘The darkroom beneath the cathedral, was it?’
I hoped I wasn’t too late.
I left the chamber where the Holy Sword was kept.
I went down the stone stairs and through the corridor, heading for the entrance to the cathedral basement.
Since I’d memorized the route earlier, I was able to move quickly without dawdling.
When I reached the way down to the basement, one of the two Holy Knights guarding the entrance spoke to me.
“Aren’t you the Hero? You said you were taking the Holy Sword’s test……”
I gave a brief answer.
“It’s over.”
“I see. But what brings you here?”
“I heard Aria was here.”
“………This area is off-limits to anyone but authorized personnel, even for you, Hero.”
The Holy Knight made a mistake.
He should have simply denied that Aria was here.
That would have bought them at least a little time.
“Move.”
“Even you, Hero, can’t get away with such discourtesy……”
I struck the Holy Knight in the side with the sheathed sword.
It happened so quickly that he couldn’t react, and—
Thud!
He was sent flying through the air and tumbled across the floor.
He didn’t get back up.
He’d lost consciousness.
Seeing this, the other Holy Knight hurriedly raised his axe.
The huge axe came down in a sweeping arc like a meteor falling from the sky.
Bam!
What he struck was nothing but the floor.
The floor couldn’t withstand the axe’s impact.
Marble fragments scattered in every direction.
I had already dodged to the side.
The wide swing had left him open for an instant.
I closed in without hesitation.
The Holy Knight noticed and raised his axe, forcing the movement despite his awkward position.
The axe swept upward from below.
A move intended to take me out as I approached.
It was a truly threatening strike.
If it hit me head-on, it would split me in two.
But an attack that didn’t hit was useless.
If I slowed down, I’d only become prey for that axe.
Then I just had to pick up the pace and evade it.
The idea was simple, but putting it into practice required a different kind of ability.
So what?
Faster.
Quicker.
More agile.
That was all I had to be.
Shhk!
The axe cut off the tips of my hair.
The moment it cut my hair instead of my head, the outcome was already decided.
I smiled a sardonic smile.
Without the slightest hesitation, I gripped the sheathed sword with both hands.
After his consecutive moves, his stance was wide open.
Now was my chance.
My target was his solar plexus.
“Hup.”
A short grunt.
At the same time, I thrust forward.
It was a streak of light, a flash.
It struck the Holy Knight in the solar plexus.
“Guh!”
He’d have trouble breathing now.
That was a vital spot; the blow could make him lose consciousness or even kill him.
But whether this man lived or died was of no concern to me.
He should be grateful I hadn’t killed him outright.
Thump!
The Holy Knight collapsed to the floor.
I’d made quite a commotion.
But I didn’t care.
The Holy Sword had told me,
not to be late.
And that I wouldn’t like what I saw.
Come to think of it, I’d always been late in life.
“I’m coming, Aria.”
I walked.
Toward where you were.