Chapter 33
The office door swung open with a heavy creak. Fatigue and anguish were etched deeply across Chris’s face, impossible to hide.
“Noah, I’ve got bad news.”
“Again? What is it this time?”
I let out an exaggeratedly loud sigh.
“Demon possession.”
I frowned despite myself.
“Wouldn’t Light Magic be enough to purify him? There are things even I can’t handle.”
—Probably rabies.
Even with my knowledge of modern medicine, once the symptoms appeared, there was no saving him.
“It’s rare for you to say something is beyond you.”
Chris looked genuinely surprised.
“But could you at least examine him once? They insisted that even if you refuse, we should have the best healer look at him first.”
“In that case, we’ll have to use ritual magic to satisfy them.”
Chris shook his head with a bitter expression.
“He’s the illegitimate child of a noble. We can’t let the public see him.”
In other words, I was being asked to secretly witness the final moments of a patient who was beyond saving—and whose circumstances were complicated besides.
“Understood. I’ll only examine him. But I’m telling you now, there’s no way I can cure him.”
“I’m sorry.”
Chris apologized weakly.
We crossed the covered passageway and entered the neighboring building.
An unfamiliar-looking holy knight stood before the door.
The knight glanced at us, then silently swung open the heavy door.
The antechamber we entered was completely empty—not even a maid to tend to him or a guard in sight.
The silence was unsettling.
—So it’s finally happening.
I cast ‘Life Protection’ on myself.
I opened the sickroom door.
In the stagnant air, a lavish canopy bed, absurdly out of place, sat in the center of the room.
From behind the curtains came a man’s low, agonized groan, more animal than human.
I approached slowly.
I stood beside the bed and reached out to peer inside.
—It happened in that instant.
The man who had been groaning sprang upright like a released spring.
It wasn’t the movement of a delirious patient.
It was a precise, utterly refined movement, devoid of wasted motion and driven by unmistakable murderous intent.
The dull silver blade of a knife came straight for my throat.
—And then, my consciousness abruptly cut out.
◇
“I thought you said there was no chance of this happening!”
Kyle’s scream echoed through the sickroom.
Beside the lavish canopy bed, in the direction of Kyle’s gaze, a gruesome scene unfolded.
At the center of a pool of blood spreading across the cold marble floor, Noah lay lifeless.
“The demon-possessed man escaped? Give me a break. The fundamentalists must’ve helped him get away!”
“Enough, Kyle.”
A low voice sounded from behind him.
Elios quietly walked over and placed a hand on Kyle’s trembling shoulder.
“Making a scene here will only please the fundamentalists. ...Have you already forgotten the words Noah left behind?”
Kyle turned around, poised to lunge forward.
Elios stood there, jaw clenched, his eyes burning with a quiet fire.
“If something like this makes our school of thought waver, that guy... Noah... would laugh in our faces. That’s the kind of man he was.”
“...I’m sorry. I lost my composure.”
Kyle lowered his gaze, his strength gone.
Elios looked up at the heavens once, then let out a deep, heavy sigh.
“First, the funeral. Just as Noah wished while he was alive, we’ll send him off quietly in Saint Volo’s small chapel. Those were his last wishes.”
“Yeah... I understand.”
At the tips of Noah’s cold fingers, mana still seemed to linger faintly.
◇
Two days later.
The air in the small chapel was filled with the scent of dozens of beeswax candles and the damp chill of stone.
The stone chamber, which usually felt so spacious, was now packed with the leaders of the School of Truth-Seeking, their stifled breathing weighing heavily in the air.
A plain wooden coffin had been placed there. The lid had been left open, and Noah lay inside, dressed in white burial robes as if asleep.
“...This is what you wanted, right, Noah?”
Kyle murmured softly.
His clenched fist trembled, hidden within his clasped hands.
Elios, standing before the altar, solemnly intoned the opening words.
As if answering him, the leaders’ voices joined in, gradually blending into a deep, rumbling chant.
It was a funeral hymn praising the Lord of Light.
“O eternal light, O bitter night.”
The low voices struck the freezing dome ceiling, then echoed down in layer after layer.
“O sunlight rising from on high, O abyss of mercy. Guide this soul, sunk in shadow, to the golden dawn.”
The hymn reached its climax, and Elios, serving as priest, sprinkled silver holy water.
“Truth is light. Light is life. Lord, let this vessel shine once more.”
The mana of those chanting in unison flowed with their voices.
The magic stone imbued with ‘Resurrection,’ hidden in the altar, responded to the mana surging to its limit—
—Suddenly, a pure white light burst forth, so brilliant it seemed to sear their eyes.
The light that had filled every corner of the small chapel slowly gathered back in.
When the light finally faded, Noah stood there with a gentle smile on his face.
No one could utter a word.
In the utterly silent room, only the candle flames flickered violently, as if to bear witness to the miracle that had just occurred.
At last, one person, then another.
Faced with the unbelievable sight, they knelt one by one, as though drawn to it.
This was no longer a funeral.
They were believers offering prayers from the depths of their souls to the embodiment of “Truth,” who had overcome death.