Chapter 162 - The People Who Returned (1)

The sound of someone praying echoed through the empty prison.

The stone floor carried the full chill of winter, but even so, the man knelt reverently upon it.

Bishop Pierre was looking at the small window cut into the prison wall as he murmured a prayer.

"... So Dragulia was standing by and letting this happen."

Gunther, who had been watching him from beyond the bars, could not help but frown at Pierre's final answer.

He could not believe everything the man said, but Bishop Pierre was also someone deeply involved in the current situation.

"What reason would someone bound by the Pact have to go that far?"

"I believe it is my turn to ask a question now."

Having finished his prayer, Pierre slowly rose to his feet.

A bishop of the Vatican who had returned to Moshiam to finish what he had left undone.

Behind his lanky, rising frame, a small cluster of morning light was gathering.

"Did you perhaps teach that Bayezid brat?"

"Teach him what?"

"The solemn will of God. The faithful blade that drives out evil."

Bishop Pierre's gaze was sharp as he stood before the bars.

Bishop Pierre and Gunther had decided to exchange questions and answers instead of making useless attempts at interrogation or torture.

Having answered Gunther's question honestly, Bishop Pierre was now asking a question of his own, as promised.

"I am asking whether the Northern Orthodox Church taught the essence of the Trinity to that fellow named Vlad."

"..."

The dark dawn of yesterday.

There had been a solemn will of God rising from the fog-filled city.

It was a pillar of light so straight and lofty that even Pierre, who had prepared the ritual, had been shocked by it.

"You should have shared what was meant to be shared. After going to such lengths to break away from the main church, is all you do play lapdog for nobles?"

That was why Pierre could not help but suspect them.

Because the single sword stroke Vlad had shown yesterday had been far too extraordinary to be dismissed as the improvisation of an ordinary knight.

The essence of unity, something impossible to achieve without being taught, had clearly gathered at the tip of that brat's sword.

"If you wanted to sell something, you should have sold indulgences instead. If you go so far as to give away the very essence of the Church..."

"We have never taught him."

"... You have never taught him?"

But his anger had been directed at the wrong target.

Just as Gunther said, the Northern Orthodox Church had never taught the essence to any outsider.

"Then was it Andreas, perhaps?"

"Bishop Andreas is not an exorcist priest. There is no way he would know our techniques."

There was an effect, but no cause.

Bishop Pierre had certainly witnessed the unity of worlds dwelling at the tip of Vlad's sword, yet he said there was no one who had taught it to him.

Then who in the world had guided that Bayezid brat down that path?

'Does this make any sense?'

The essence of the Trinity was something that could only be used with a proper origin.

For that essence to stand whole, there had to be a base supporting all worlds.

'It is a technique that cannot be used without someone supporting it correctly...'

Bishop Pierre's divinity, Nibelun's mystery, Vlad's aura.

And the lowest foundation supporting all of them.

Bishop Pierre had no idea whose world had been supporting that foundation.

But one thing was certain: the brat's world must have originated from someone far more orthodox than he had expected.

Otherwise, the light Vlad swung yesterday would never have cut down that vicious tree that defied Heaven.

* * *

The room was filled with warmth from the fireplace, yet Jean's lips, as he lay on the bed, were still blue.

Listening to the sound of his breathing grow shallower by the moment, as blue as his lips, Vlad could not relax his stiff expression.

"Does that mean there are about three days left now?"

"Probably. The Captain is doing everything he can to find a way."

They said the children infected by the curse had all died showing the same symptoms.

A deep sleep, the same dream, and a body temperature that fell little by little.

The children, who slept endlessly when the sun rose and only woke when the sun set to shiver with chills, had all failed to last a single week.

And today was the fourth day since Jean had fallen under the curse.

'He asked me to take good care of him.'

Thinking of Andreas, who had asked him to take good care of the young acolyte, Vlad could not help but sink into gloom.

He should have ended that damned tree somehow back then.

If he had, Jean would not have fallen asleep again now.

"..."

Justia was looking worriedly at Vlad, who would not leave Jean's side.

Though he needed to rest, Vlad was pushing himself, and he was clearly blaming himself.

"Please don't blame yourself too much. No one else, if they had faced that situation for the first time, would have done as much as you did, Sir Vlad."

Nibelun, who had been standing awkwardly by the door, nodded repeatedly as if agreeing with Justia, but Vlad himself gave no answer and only looked down at Jean with his head lowered.

"Are you busy?"

"Eek!"

In that instant, Gunther's voice suddenly came into the room that had been filled only with silence.

At his presence, which even Nibelun standing by the door had failed to sense, the gazes of all three people turned at once.

"No."

"Then may the two of us speak for a moment?"

His neatly combed but slightly disheveled hair hinted at Gunther's worries.

But Vlad's reddened, bloodshot eyes were just as painful to look at, and the two, who carried the same concern, did not hesitate to speak.

"First, I apologize. The reason we tried to forcibly take custody of Jean was because we believed our strength would be enough to break the curse."

Vlad and Gunther, having come out into the corridor, looked at each other carefully.

Though their first meeting had gone somewhat awry, the two of them were now people who had to solve the same problem.

"I admit my shortcomings. A far greater monster than I expected has appeared."

"I understand."

"Good. Then may I consider the matter between the two of us settled here?"

"There is something more urgent."

Someone in Gunther's position would not have needed to explain himself to Vlad, who was merely a knight.

However, Vlad of Soara was the man who had cut down the Tree of Qliphoth, the symbol of defying Heaven, and so this was also an act containing Gunther's own respect.

"The situation is more serious than expected. We will likely seal the city soon. I intend to issue an evacuation order and clear this vicinity."

"What about Jean?"

"That is exactly the problem."

The cause sickening not only Moshiam but the entire Barony of Uthman was undoubtedly the Tree of Qliphoth.

What they were each trying to protect was slightly different, but Gunther and Vlad agreed on the fact that they had to end that damned tree.

"The hole that tree fled into has already become a space where God's will does not reach. In other words, it cannot be reached physically."

The hole in the cemetery, investigated through the holy knights, was already like a bottomless abyss that had been pierced without end.

It looked like an entrance, but in the end it was a deception.

Just like the faint fog surrounding the city, they would never be able to reach the heaven-defying tree through that insubstantial hole.

"Then what do we do? Even you have no way at all, Captain?"

"It is not that there is no way at all."

With those words, Gunther began to study Vlad intently.

At that gaze watching him as if seeing him anew, Vlad could not help but become flustered.

"How old are you this year?"

"Why are you suddenly asking that..."

"It is important, so answer quickly."

The question was ordinary, but the force behind it was considerable.

It was the kind of pressure that could only be emitted by someone who had certainty and an alternative.

"Twenty."

"I mean your current age."

"Two months short of twenty..."

"So you are still nineteen."

Vlad had tried to pad his age out of old back-alley habit, but before the Captain of the Northern Orthodox Church, such a thing was hopeless.

"That is close."

He was not even twenty yet, and he had already reached this point.

Gunther wore an incredulous expression, as if Vlad's young age had struck him anew, but in the current situation, it was actually a fitting age.

"Why are you suddenly asking about my age?"

"Because I see one entrance that is still open."

The heaven-defying tree, which was even now eating away at the young acolyte and the barony, was not an existence belonging to this world, so it could not be reached physically, and it had already hidden in the darkness, where it could not be illuminated.

However, Gunther had succeeded in finding the only method that could connect to that tree.

"It is a curse that only afflicted children."

Gunther spoke while indicating the room where Jean lay with the tip of his chin.

"And as it happens, standing before me now is one knight caught between boyhood and youth."

And this time, he meant Vlad.

Before Gunther now stood a knight of a peculiar impression, mature enough that he could not be called a boy, yet still too young to be called a young man.

"If it is through dreams, you should be able to approach that tree."

"...!"

At Gunther's words, Vlad recalled the dream he had experienced in Moshiam.

The darkness that had been like a mother's embrace, and the campfire burning in the far distance.

The dream he had escaped from with the voice's help was certainly the same as the dream Jean had described.

"And that entrance must be a small one that only you, who can still be called young, may pass through."

"... I understand."

At Gunther's gesture, one of the holy knights standing in the corridor quickly approached and opened the box he was holding.

Inside that box were a syringe that looked blunt at a glance and a black liquid that sloshed within it.

"It is the curse extracted from Jean. It was urgent, so it is not perfect, but with this, your world should be able to connect to Jean as well."

Gunther's prediction was accurate, and Vlad, who had experienced it himself and was certain, quietly nodded.

All the entrances had grown faint, but just as Gunther had said, there was still one entrance left that could reach the tree.

The name of that entrance was Jean.

The young acolyte and the heaven-defying tree were still connected by the thread called dream.

"I will not force you."

The black liquid sloshing inside the syringe was ominous.

It was a color like the tears of the woman who had wandered in search of her child.

It would be a lie to say he did not waver as he looked at that familiar color.

"Do it. I will go."

But Vlad decided not to hesitate in taking hold of that syringe.

Jean, who must be trembling now just as he once had while standing in the mire, would also need a light he could lean on.

"Now I can finally live up to the name I received from the Bishop."

"Understood."

After confirming Vlad's resolve, Gunther nodded.

Indeed, one would need at least this much backbone to have built such a reputation at such a young age.

"I will make thorough preparations and return. Please wait a moment."

With Gunther's gesture, the door to the room opened once more.

Justia and Nibelun were there, waiting for him with puzzled expressions.

And Jean as well, still lying there, letting out faint breaths.

"Ha..."

With a short sigh, Vlad walked toward the bed where Jean lay and took the young acolyte's hand.

Jean's hand, clasped in his once more, had grown a little colder than before.

It was a small hand that would probably stiffen forever once those three days had passed.

* * *

There was no time, his resolve was set, and the preparations were complete.

Then all that remained was to put it into action.

Lying side by side with Jean, Vlad closed his eyes as he listened to the prayer Gunther himself was reciting.

The area around the bed where Vlad lay was already filled with holy knights and priests Gunther had carefully selected.

He could not open his eyes to check, but Justia was probably reciting the prayer he heard now together with them.

"Ghk!"

A sudden dull sensation struck the nape of his neck.

Together with that sensation, Vlad felt as if he were being sucked in, and he clenched his teeth.

That strangely warm feeling reminded him of a mother's embrace, but the chill sloshing through his blood was making Vlad shudder without end.

"Huuuh..."

The sensation, as horrible as it was warm, subsided.

Only then did he open the eyes he had closed, and the first thing he saw was pitch-black darkness.

Pitch-black darkness where Jean beside him and the prayers he had heard had vanished without a trace.

"... Looks like I came to the right place."

Though he could not see the campfire from that time, Vlad felt he had arrived properly and quietly took a deep breath.

"Hm?"

Just like back then, darkness surrounded him on every side, but there was one thing that was slightly different.

A single light he could see when he raised his head.

It looked like starlight descending through black clouds.

["If you lose your way in that place, follow the light I send."]

Gunther had not placed every burden on Vlad alone.

For Vlad, who would wander the world of the curse, Gunther had willingly volunteered to become his guide.

Even now, he was probably quietly reciting prayers beside Vlad to maintain that starlight.

"Urgh."

Vlad had still not loosened his body, stiff with the chill that lingered around him.

But when Vlad saw a hand suddenly emerge from the darkness, he froze once more.

["I told you to run."]

An unfamiliar hand suddenly emerged, and with it came a familiar voice.

Realizing the man's identity from that voice, Vlad ended up giving a small smile.

"What can I do? I have to repay my debts."

["Knights really are famous for never listening."]

There was a grace he had received, and an oath he had shouted that he would fulfill.

The voice standing in the darkness had no choice but to raise Vlad up, after he had returned to keep those things.

'Maybe this fellow rolling around on the floor right now came back because of what I said.'

["Let's go. I will guide you."]

"It feels new, holding you directly with my hand."

Vlad smiled as though amazed by the fact that he was directly touching the voice he had only ever heard.

Seeing that young fool, the voice could not help but laugh along with him.

["You stupid brat."]

The two worlds, finally touching, were holding on to each other that way.

Just like the moment when they had first made their contract, the starlight gathered in the night sky shone down upon them both.

* * *

All worlds in this world are noble, but not all of them can protect themselves.

But you are those who have sworn to protect.

If you are in the place where you must be, and if you stand at the moment when you must act, do not hesitate.

That shall be my second rule.

Do not hesitate to become a torch that lights the darkness according to your oath, my knights.