Chapter 2 - The Gutter - 2

Roughly three days must have passed.

He could not say for certain... because of the nature of the gutter.

During the hours when the sun should have been shining, the Magic Tower's shadow blocked its light. At night, dim light flickered from the lanterns carried by scavengers.

The gutter was a perpetually murky place, with no distinction between day and night.

Of course, there was also the fact that his body was in dreadful condition.

Pain assailed him constantly. His thoughts flickered out, breaking off again and again.

Lying there in a state where he could die at any moment, Bera had no way to judge the passage of time.

"Cough...!"

The moment he coughed, Bera felt his chest constrict, choking off his breath.

"Hhh...!"

Drawing another breath, he assessed his condition and gained some idea of the state he was in.

'... A week at most.'

He would die within that time.

The curse had been lifted, but his physical injuries were far too severe. He needed immediate medical treatment, yet he did not even have access to it.

His only possible hope was...

"Are you all right?"

Renée, the blind Saintess who had lost her divine powers. That was all.

In other words, he had no chance of survival.

"... How could I be?"

"One moment."

"Ngh...!"

As Renée's hand touched his chest, another groan burst from Bera's lips.

Forcing down his groans, Bera watched Renée summon divine energy that looked ready to fade at any moment.

"Stop wasting your effort. Surely you know there's no hope, Saintess?"

"You never know."

Her tone was firm.

Bera struggled to hold on to his consciousness as it began flickering again, watching Renée.

'... Strange woman.'

In the short time he had spent with her, Bera had come to feel that she was peculiar enough to deserve the label of eccentric.

Covered in burns so distorted that her original features were unrecognizable, she wandered outside to beg despite her sightless eyes.

All she obtained was a single bowl of porridge worse than livestock feed, yet she savored it as though it were some exquisite delicacy.

Bera could not begin to understand her behavior.

How could he? When he had lived as a beggar in the gutter, he had eaten more of that pig slop than anything else. He knew its taste all too well.

More ridiculous still, for all her apparent enjoyment, she never finished it.

After eating only a couple of spoonfuls, she poured all the remaining porridge into Bera's mouth, wasting it on easing the hunger of a man who could not move.

Yes, wasting it.

To Bera, there could be no greater waste.

He was going to die soon. His injuries were so severe they could grow no worse, and his last breath could come at any moment.

So Bera had told her time and again to leave him to die, but...

"You never know."

That was the only answer she gave.

Watching Renée offer him the spoon, Bera shifted his gaze into empty space and muttered,

"I hadn't realized the Saintess was an imbecile."

"What do you mean?"

"If you've spent your life as a Saintess, you should know the state of this body better than I do. Yet... someone who ought to know keeps pretending otherwise. Isn't it only natural that I'd think you an imbecile?"

He wished she would simply throw him out. For some reason, her foolish insistence on keeping him alive irritated him enough to say it.

But Renée paid no heed to his attitude and offered him the spoon again.

"You never know. Perhaps eating this porridge will give you the strength to get back on your feet."

"That's exactly...!"

"Eat first, please."

Bera glared at Renée, feeling his insides twist.

Staring into empty space with unfocused eyes, she waved the spoon back and forth where she thought his mouth would be.

"... What a foolish person."

"In the Holy Empire, we call such foolishness love."

"Does watching a dying man excite you, Saintess?"

"I believe love means more than sexual desire."

The creases in her skin pushed her burn scars upward. Under Bera's gaze, Renée was smiling.

"The Supreme God commanded us to love our neighbors. As one who was once His most favored servant, how could I turn away from that?"

"Well, if the Supreme God values love so highly, He would have taken pity on His Saintess instead of abandoning her in a place like this."

Bera mustered the strongest sneer he could. She could not see his expression, of course, but he did it simply because he wanted to mock her.

"This was my choice."

"In the gutter, we call people like that fucking idiots."

"I gladly accept that. And it is Renée, not Saintess."

Once again, she answered him with a smile.

* * *

Perhaps another two days had passed.

Once again, Renée was holding a spoon to Bera's lips.

"You're relentless."

"Persistent, rather."

"Foolish..."

"Love."

Bera's mouth closed.

"Go on, eat."

Bera watched the spoon waving back and forth above his face, let out a short breath, and lifted his head to take it into his mouth.

"Well done."

At those words of praise, Bera turned his gaze toward Renée.

She was smiling. He could recognize it now.

Watching that smile, Bera thought,

'She truly is a bizarre woman.'

She had neither duty nor responsibility to care for him, yet she insisted on doing so. The description seemed apt.

Looking at Renée, no one could imagine she had once been the Saintess praised by all.

A hideously melted face that would send an unsuspecting stranger fleeing with a scream. Blue eyes visible through barely open eye sockets. White hair caked in filth, its luster gone.

She must have suffered all manner of abuse when she went begging with that appearance, yet there was not a trace of gloom about her.

Only a smile.

That was all her face held.

Bera understood it so little that his curiosity became unbearable, and he asked Renée,

"... Don't you regret it?"

"Regret what?"

"Giving up your divine powers."

Had she not given up her divine powers, she would not have needed to live this way. Even if war broke out across the continent, she herself would have been safe.

As he watched her with those thoughts in mind, she chuckled softly and answered.

"I don't regret it in the slightest."

"Why?"

"Why do you think I would regret it?"

Her question left Bera speechless.

Not because he had nothing to say. On the contrary, he had far too much to say.

Life in the gutter was so miserable and ugly that it hardly deserved to be called life.

A life of daily hunger, of being despised simply for being the gutter's filth, of having not even a wall to block the winter winds and all too easily freezing to death.

Then why did she not fear it?

Why did she not long for those radiant days?

Why did she accept it with a smile?

While Bera remained silent, dwelling on those thoughts, he heard her say,

"... Did you know? There was a time when I could see, too."

With a quiet smile, Renée continued in a gentle voice.

"When I was very young. Five or six, when I still had my baby fat. Until then, I could follow the light of the world with my own eyes, just like everyone else."

She was telling him about her past.

"I was a farmer's daughter. My home was a small farming village tucked away in a corner of the Kingdom of Horden, in the east."

Bera knew nothing of this. He had never been interested enough to know every detail of her personal history.

"There are things I still vaguely remember. Flowers blooming in every color on warm spring days, the dazzling sun in summer, wheat fields turning golden at harvest time, the world turning pure white as winter rose to its height."

Renée closed her eyes and continued with a faint smile, as though trying to hold on to the moments surfacing in her mind.

"Everything was wondrous. And I was happy. Living for others after becoming the Saintess made me happy too, but... selfish as it is, if someone asked me to choose the happiest time of my life, I think I would choose those days."

She spoke with a soft chuckle. Even as Bera remained silent, dazed, Renée continued.

"And so, when I suddenly went blind one day, I truly felt as though the world were collapsing. As though my brilliantly shining world had fallen into the depths of a bottomless abyss."

"So the Saintess is human after all."

"Of course. I am human beyond any doubt."

His remark was sarcastic, but she gently brushed it aside as she always had.

"In any case, I think I spent years crying like that. I thought I must be the most unfortunate person in the world, that the world was cruel only to me."

Bera could deeply sympathize with those words.

He had once thought the same things himself.

Surely he was not the only one. Everyone here in the gutter, at the very bottom of misery, must live burdened by such thoughts.

Even as he reflected on that, Renée continued.

"While I was living that way, the Supreme God's sacred mark came upon me."

This was a story Bera knew well.

How could he not? The Supreme God's sacred mark, unseen for some four hundred years, had appeared on the body of a young girl just entering adolescence. It had turned the continent upside down.

Bera had been in the midst of uniting the gutter's cartels and opening dealings with the Empire's nobles at the time, so he knew the matter well.

"At first, I dared to harbor resentment. It was a blasphemous thought, but I felt as though the Supreme God had taken away my light and then tossed me this sacred mark as charity. And so I resented Him."

"The Holy Empire's priests would fall over in shock if they heard that."

"It is my deepest secret."

"Should you be telling it so readily? Ah, I suppose it doesn't matter since I'll be dead soon."

At that sarcastic remark from Bera as he listened to her story, Renée groped with her hand and silenced him with a firm poke near his chest.

"Ngh...!"

"You shouldn't say such things. You must think about getting well."

Bera glared at Renée, but glaring at a blind woman was, as ever, utterly pointless.

Renée chuckled for a moment, then continued.

"And so, after living with that resentment for quite some time, I once visited this gutter."

"That's another thing I've never heard before."

"Naturally. I was traveling incognito. There was a time when I journeyed across the continent in secret to share my divine powers."

Renée's lips moved briefly before she spoke again.

"It was a place steeped in a clinging despair that I could sense even without sight. Fading breaths, screams of pain, the smell of blood and filth, damp air against my skin. All of it shocked me."

Through her slightly opened eye sockets, her lightless blue pupils were visible.

"Coming to this gutter, I felt ashamed for the first time. I know it is wrong to presume to speak with such pity, but seeing the people who lived here made me look so wretched for indulging in self-pity. And so I felt ashamed."

Once again, a smile touched Renée's lips.

"For the first time, I felt something other than resentment. And I had another thought. Perhaps the Supreme God had taken my light because He wanted me to share that light with these people."

"... That's a leap."

"Perhaps it is. But what does that matter? Isn't what matters that I found that resolve? And so I do not regret living here like this now, not in the slightest. Though I have become terribly weak, I am truly grateful that even with this body, I can still be of help to someone."

Bera looked at Renée.

She wore a gentle smile. There was not the slightest shadow in her expression—not even a speck.

Suddenly, as he watched Renée, Bera realized why his insides twisted whenever he looked at her.

'... Saintess.'

He understood why she was called that.

It was because the Saintess was a person of such nobility that his insides twisted.

That nobility was so unlike him. Terrified of returning to the gutter and starving to death, he had trampled everything in sight at every turn, desperate to shake off that fear. The contrast twisted him up inside.

Bera forced himself to look away from Renée and closed his eyes.

Suddenly, misery spread through his entire body.

Never once in his life had he imagined he would regret the way he had lived. Yet now, because of this shabby woman, regret was rising within him.

Surely her circumstances were so agonizing they should make her want to vomit. Having known a brighter life, she ought to feel all the more despair.

"... You're insane."

"I gladly accept that."

Her clear laughter settled like a stone inside Bera.