Chapter 73
The Outer God that had been quietly eroding the academy.
Its purpose was unclear, but one thing was certain: using Astera as a conduit, it had definitely threatened the humans here.
Fortunately, Akion, the Saintess, and veteran holy knights dealt with it before the new year.
“Therefore, Lady Astera will be placed under protective custody for a while.”
It remained unclear whether Astera had done it of her own will,
or had been deceived and enthralled against her will.
They had to investigate and confirm which, then hold her accountable if she was guilty.
However, since no one was currently available to represent Eneresis… Akion had to go to the Holy See as the count’s proxy and hear the matter out.
“Under normal circumstances, we would put her straight behind bars… but after a council, we decided to show her a certain degree of leniency.”
Perhaps thanks to that, Astera Eneresis wasn’t thrown straight into a cell.
“Thank you for showing her consideration.”
“Not at all. Compared to the grace Saint Akion has shown us, it’s nothing.”
She was staying in the clergy’s quarters within the Holy See with her arms bound. Two holy knights stood guard over her.
Still, it was generous treatment for the Holy See, which opposed entities from beyond the world, such as Outer Gods and demons.
“May I see her?”
“Of course! Come with me!”
After the meeting with the Saintess was over,
Akion followed her to the Holy See’s guest quarters.
- Clank!
- Clatter!
With the holy knights guarding either side of the door remaining outside, the Saintess entered the room first.
Inside were a table for simple paperwork, a bed, and….
“Wh-who are you?”
Silver-white hair, with purple streaks closer to blue than red.
If they had been proper blue streaks, everyone would have named the family in unison.
“Astera Eneresis. You have a visitor.”
“Ugh….”
The second daughter of Eneresis, forgotten by everyone—or perhaps someone who wanted to be forgotten.
Astera shriveled beneath the Saintess’s aura.
“The moment I see anything untoward during this visit, I’ll have you taken straight to the underground prison, so behave yourself.”
“Y-yes, ma’am… So who’s with you…?”
“Sigh. Saint Akion.”
When Akion Eneresis appeared behind the Saintess,
“You…!”
Astera’s eyes went wide as she opened her mouth.
“Who are you…?”
“……”
“L-looking at your hair, you seem to be another Eneresis like me… You do look a little like Akion, but….”
Because the Akion she knew
wasn’t a gloomy, sickly man with such dark circles under his eyes.
“I’m Akion.”
“A-Akion? The always-bright Akion?”
“Ugh, I said I am.”
Before awakening memories of his past life, Akion had lived fairly cheerfully.
More precisely, he had to, at least on the surface.
“W-what on earth did Mother and Big Brother do to you…!”
“Ugh, I said that’s not it.”
Otherwise, he would have had to survive the countess’s, Juan’s, and Hermione’s direct and indirect torment.
What if this world were a female-oriented romance-fantasy novel?
Akion figured he would have become a young master corrupted by black magic and hunted down by his tormentors, or a male trophy heroine saved by the female lead.
“I really am Akion Eneresis.”
“Eek.”
And Astera Eneresis, as a gloomy otaku-ish secondary heroine, would have been the villainess who tormented the main heroine without making it obvious.
That was why she was a stereotypical pathetic loser who wilted the moment Akion raised his voice even slightly.
“Y-you. Akion… after how well I treated you….”
Of course, becoming arrogant while reminiscing about one’s former advantage was also textbook,
“Even when Mother, Big Brother Juan, and Hermione bullied you, I always covered for you and everything, aah….”
“I see.”
Somehow, Astera made Akion see… Hermione and Juan overlapping with her.
If he knocked her down and left her sprawled out,
wouldn’t she become his research slave? That was the scenario he had in mind.
“You’d always grab me and vent your stress by insulting the count, the countess, Big Brother Juan, and Hermione. That was you ‘covering for me’?”
“Ugh.”
Thinking about it made Akion’s mouth water.
He wondered if he could turn this into a family business if he played his cards right.
“And instead of covering for me, you just cowered and kept your head down. What kind of defense is that, you idiot of an older sister who only used me to vent your emotions?”
“Y-you little…!”
But if he didn’t say what annoyed him, could this really be a f***ed-up family business?
Astera, who could do nothing but tremble at Akion’s verbal execution,
- Keeeeing…!
“Stay still.”
“Eek, y-yes…!”
She calmed down at the Saintess’s furious words after hearing about Akion’s past.
“……Saint Akion’s past is even more horrific than I imagined.”
“Exactly. It felt like eating crabs and persimmons together every day.”
“Hmm. I don’t know what kind of ingredient a persimmon is, but I take it to mean eating the two together causes enough pain to kill you.”
“I’m not kidding. It really will kill you. Never eat them together.”
“My goodness.”
In the process, the Saintess also learned one more piece of Akion’s horrifying common knowledge.
After lightening the mood, Akion turned to Astera again.
“Now then, Sis.”
“Mm-hm.”
By this point, even Astera had figured out the hierarchy.
The great Saintess herself had followed Saint Akion here for a visit?
She realized that, at least for now, she shouldn’t act uppity.
“I came to visit you like this because I’m going to protect you on Father’s behalf.”
“P-protect me?”
“You’ve heard the charges, but what exactly are you accused of, Sis?”
Astera Eneresis’s charge.
“A-as an apostle of the Outer God, I tried to… invade this world… heresy….”
“Right. But they’ll determine your sentence after figuring out whether you did it willingly or were deceived.”
Heresy.
But she had been caught by clergy—and not just any clergy, but the Holy See, the Catholic Church’s central authority?
In truth, it was a case where immediate execution on the spot was possible, but Akion had stepped in and somehow gotten them to go easy on her.
“……”
Astera, unaware of these circumstances, grew curious as she listened.
“You…?”
Was Akion really so amazing that the Saintess would cover for him?
More precisely, the question was how amazing he had become.
Of course, the investigation records said her memories ended three years ago.
So Akion could forgive it out of his ocean-deep mercy.
“I suppose so. But the way you’re talking─”
It wasn’t that he intended to let her off.
Even if she hadn’t meant any harm, she had provoked him, so shouldn’t she pay the price?
“Halt─!!!!!!!”
“Eek?!”
“Oh, dear….”
But the Saintess beside Akion was angrier than Akion himself.
“How dare you insult Saint Akion while enjoying his boundless mercy and consideration!!”
“Eek, eek, eeeeeek…!”
“Will it take being thrown behind bars and tortured this instant for you to come to your senses?!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again, I was wrong…!”
The Great Saintess: master of discipline.
In an instant, Astera shriveled up even further and….
“J-just like Akion begged back then, just like he used to beg…!”
“Why are you suddenly taking off your clothes…?”
“Stop that!!!”
She hurriedly tried to take off her clothes.
The moment he saw it, Akion realized what Astera was about to do.
“Saint Akion? What does that mean….”
“She’s going to strip and bang her head against the floor!!”
“……”
He knew because the countess had done it to him in the past.
Akion’s remark.
And Astera’s words.
The Saintess pieced together the information from all of it and….
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I was born, I’m sorry I acted out, I’m sorry…!!”
“Hey, I said don’t take off your clothes!!”
“……What kind of family is the Eneresis household, exactly?”
She realized just how deep a pit the Eneresis family had been in.
*
“Sob, so snff, you’re now the great alchemist of the field called magi-engineering, snff?”
“It’s engineering.”
Once things had been sorted out to some degree,
their kind and considerate Akion explained everything that had happened over the past three years to his biological sister.
- Sparkle!
“……Beautiful.”
Since he even brought a working incandescent light bulb to show her, Astera had no choice but to believe him.
“Nine times the energy efficiency and five times the brightness… so in practical terms, that’s forty-five times….”
Astera also had broad basic knowledge, being of Eneresis blood.
“C-can I do engineering too?”
Naturally, she immediately grasped the potential contained in this engineering,
and being swept up in an inexhaustible thirst for inquiry was… in a way, very Eneresis of her.
“Before that, we need to determine whether you owe a debt for your crimes, Sis.”
“Y-yeah. Right….”
“Just tell the truth as you see it. I’m not going to let them torture or kill you, so don’t be too scared.”
Even as Akion told Astera to “make sure the investigation goes well,” he couldn’t help feeling uneasy and glanced at the Saintess.
“Right, Saintess? You won’t torture or kill her, will you?”
“……”
“Saintess?”
But why was she avoiding his gaze without answering?
Akion grew a little uneasy.
“I’ll do my best. I’ll speak to the Saint and ask him to be as… gentle as possible.”
“……I’d appreciate that.”
If she was even going to speak to the Saint overseeing the heresy inquisition, perhaps things would somehow work out.
Akion felt a little anxious about losing his new slave.
* * *
A few days before the new year arrived,
“Astera!!!”
Astera Eneresis was released from the Holy See.
Thus, the father and daughter reunion took place at a café in front of the Holy See.
“F-Father.”
“Huff, huff… Astera, huff…!”
The investigation confirmed that she had no memories at all from immediately after she picked up the grimoire.
Looking into her actions afterward showed no meaningful casualties,
and that the grimoire’s will had simply gnawed away at her blood and life while forcibly making her stronger.
As a result, the only penalties she incurred were the deployment costs and the academy dormitory repair bill.
“I-I’m… s-sorry, I’m sorry… I….”
- Hug!
“Whoa?!”
In that respect, she was truly, truly lucky.
Normally, people were often tortured, forced into confessions, and killed.
“F-Father?”
Count Delford had every reason to be horrified.
His daughter, whom he had completely forgotten for three years, had picked up an Outer God’s grimoire and become its apostle?
Under normal circumstances, he should have cut ties with her,
but how much had Eneresis, including Delford, changed lately?
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have neglected you children….”
“Pardon…?”
Thanks to Akion, they had softened, half through coercion and half of their own accord.
Even his paternal affection, dried up to the very bottom, had been revived.
That was why Delford had immediately sent a priority-mail owl and left Akion as his proxy.
“……Sniff, ngh, hnnng.”
- Squeeze.
Astera now understood those circumstances to some extent, so she could tell that Delford was apologizing for the past.
There was a little resentment and hurt mixed into her sobs. Astera had always been terribly timid, after all.
“Akion.”
“Yes, yes. Dear Father.”
Astera had seen with her own eyes just how much Akion had been tormented.
She had been ground down day after day by the obsession that she must never end up like him.
“What… should I do for you?”
“For what?”
“For all sorts of things.”
“Ah, you mean that?”
Under Delford’s neglect and the countess’s active harassment,
Akion had also been tormented by the three siblings, treated as a cautionary example.
There were plenty of cases in noble families where someone like that became self-made,
and usually they would reconcile with the family… but if they hit it really big, they would cut ties immediately.
“I don’t know. How about giving me the countship?”
“All right.”
“I’m joking, so please don’t take it seriously.”
But Akion hadn’t done that,
and was burying everything in exchange for putting them to work as research slaves.
Of course, he showed no sign of having forgiven them completely, but still.
“Things have been going well lately, so you don’t have much to do now that you’ve inherited the title.”
“No, thank you.”
“If you like, use the eldest as your chief butler. He’s quite clever, too.”
“Father. Do you think I don’t know what you’re plotting?”
“Tsk, what a perceptive boy.”
His attempt to casually hand Akion the entire family had failed,
and Delford gave the kindest smile of his life.
“Akion.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry… and truly grateful.”
Wondering how someone as brilliant in mind and heart as Akion had come from a man like him,
he offered Akion both an apology and his thanks.
“If you understand that, just keep doing exactly this from now on.”
“Heh heh, I will.”
Now that they were on the same team, even Akion found himself instinctively favoring them.
Of course, he hadn’t forgiven them completely, so he would keep watching them. Anyway.
“I hope you’ve been well too, Saintess.”
“Yes.”
Only belatedly did Count Delford and the Saintess meet face-to-face.
However, during the investigation, the Saintess learned about the Eneresis family’s past through Akion and Astera….
“Count Delford.”
“Yes, Saintess.”
“Your household is a complete mess. It seems Saint Akion suffered quite a bit.”
“Saintess…?”
It might have been meddling in Eneresis affairs, but she charged straight in,
demanding to know exactly what they had done to Akion.
Of course, the Saintess knew very well
that this was the medieval noble default.
“It’s in the past, and Saint Akion no longer wishes to pursue it; besides, it is another family’s business… I’ll leave it at that. But please don’t treat your grandchildren that way.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
Thus, that was the extent of the Saintess’s jab.
Delford readily accepted her painful advice.
“This applies to Countess Lucrezia as well.”
- Flinch!
She was also speaking to Lucrezia, who had been hiding behind Delford while reading the room.
More precisely, she was singling Lucrezia out for the jab.
“You… Saint Akion… Sigh. Stripping him and making him apologize….”
“Th-that was….”
The Saintess knew full well that, honestly, this had been a mild case too.
As Akion’s ally, she even considered seriously scolding Lucrezia.
But as always, this was apparently the default in noble families.
“As I said a moment ago, I won’t say anything more.”
That was why the Saintess decided to put on the brakes there.
Even this much would make them understand clearly that “the Saintess is on Akion’s side.”
“That’s what she says, Mother.”
“Y-yes. Hoho. Well….”
Akion, of course, was delighted.
He rarely got chances to openly and legally needle her in front of other people.
“Why are you embarrassed, Mother? Are you remembering how, when I was eleven, I spent a winter night in the storeroom with my clothes stripped off?”
“Cough, cough!!”
The Saintess fixed Lucrezia with a sharp, utterly incredulous look,
and Lucrezia felt the full weight of her past karma.
“Mother.”
“Cough, hack, cough, yes. Son.”
“I’m not your biological son.”
“……”
In fact, Akion was Delford’s son by his second wife.
Lucrezia had only started treating him warmly recently; in the past, she had tormented him as the child of another woman.
“That’s what I was about to say~! You take such good care of me like I’m your real son, don’t you?”
“O-oh hoho! You’re such a mischievous boy!”
“Then why did you do that back then?”
“Cough, cough!!”
So she had no choice but to silently endure every jab Akion threw at her.
Karma always came back around, after all.
*
Still, things seemed to be getting sorted out─.
“Mother, Mother, Mother.”
“I-I was wrong. Akion, please forgive me…!”
“Motherrrr!!”
“Eeeeeek!!!”
Not a chance in hell.
Now that he had the chance to needle her, Akion tormented Lucrezia without pause.
It was New Year’s, and the count and countess had brought the whole family to the capital.
Akion had plenty of pent-up feelings, so he decided to let them all out this time.
“Ho ho, Akion. That’s enough.”
“Do you really have the right to stop me, Father?”
“Ghk!”
Of course, he didn’t spare Delford either.
“Ah, Akion. I know you’re angry, but….”
“Why are you butting in, Sis Hermione? Do I still look easy to you?”
“Eeeek….”
The Eneresis family, relentlessly getting roasted like that, gradually became emotionally depleted(?) by Akion’s jabs.
- Bang!
“Akion! Can’t you stop already?!!”
Juan stepped in, unable to bear watching any longer, but
“Big Sis, you should hurry up and bring home a husband who’ll marry into the family.”
“Gyaaaaaaah!!!”
Since Akion pitied him instead of getting angry, Juan ended up feeling even more stung and ran away.
In tears, no less.
“Heh heh heh!”
“Eeeek, the young master is on a rampage…!”
“Leave him be. Releasing seventeen years’ worth of resentment to that extent is remarkably gentle of him.”
Akion secretly delighted in how much more estrogenic his obnoxious older brother had become.
“So, Sis Astera.”
“Y-yes.”
Astera, caught in the middle, was having a terrible time!
Akion, practically the king of Eneresis now, was taking an interest in her?
Though she had been a forced shut-in for three years, Astera had basically zero social skills, making this agonizing.
“Are you going to continue through graduate school at the academy?”
“G-graduate school!! Right!!”
But graduate school was a serious matter.
As it turned out, all records of Astera’s graduate-school enrollment from three years ago onward had vanished.
In other words, the entire year she had spent pursuing her master’s had been wiped out.
On top of that, once her supervising professor learned the circumstances, they rejected her with a “Reenrollment is a bit….”
“W-what do I do? My master’s degree…!”
“That’s why I was thinking.”
At this point, there was only one thing to do.
Akion had no choice but to take her in.
“I’m going to become a professor at the academy. Do you want to come work under me?”
“……”
“You probably won’t have a choice. I asked the professors in the Department of Magic, and none of them wanted to take you on.”
“Uuugh….”
Of course, it was voluntary enrollment (not really).