IBTRFL Chapter 30

Where the Sunlight Falls

A merciful sun pours down without a single gap.

Light, having run diligently the whole way, arrives at last against the flawlessly shaped arched cloister.

Stained glass, arranged with painstaking care, glitters elegantly.

Each pane shines in its own place, in a color given to it alone—and yet, together, never do they collapse into disorder. 

Holding within itself the grain and refraction of dreamlike glass, it recreates the scenes of scripture in rapture.

The pure white statues, too, drink deep of the sunlight. The warm light they softly reflect resembles the smooth luster of a fine pearl.

Though long years have passed, none of it has faded in the slightest. Instead it only deepens with each day, like the miracle handed down through them without end.

The saints hold their places exactly as they have been passed down.

Rage, or rejoice. Cry out, or weep. Watch, or pray.

There, too, exists a place kept for one who left behind nothing but a short name before vanishing off to somewhere unknown.

Passing through that eternally unfinished cloister brings one, at last, to the pinnacle of beauty—the solemn nine-chambered space.

Carved away in penance, painted in with faith. The masters earned the glory of finishing their final masterpiece by setting their own souls alight.

The golden holy mural on the ceiling gives off light like a halo, and the white angels along the walls play a grand hymn.

The divine statue, adorned with rubies and sapphires, daring to take the shape of god, looks down upon the kneeling sinner.

The sinner, saved beneath mercy, climbs the tower to wash away sin. Hands clasped together, reciting a prayer, they move forward toward the place where god truly resides.

And so, having endured a long trial of patience, arriving at last at the tip of the spire, they finally come face to face with a white city, beneath a single inscription.

「This place, source of light, paradise of faith.」

The place promised by the merciful creator. The place where the living blood of true martyrs has soaked into the ground. The place where every wandering soul finds its rest.

Candesco. City of holy praise.

Valor let out a sigh and closed the book.

His neck and back, held stiff in the same posture for too long, ached in protest, and his mouth, not so much as a sip of water passing through it, was dry as sand.

His eyes, red-rimmed from drowsiness, drifted through empty air.

Five hundred years of time-honored, accumulated knowledge sat shelved in orderly rows. The smell of books, packing the shelves in disciplined ranks, felt like it might suffocate him.

"Damn it."

The low curse rang out through the solemn library.

No one was there to hear it. And if anyone had been, they'd have had to keep their mouth shut about it anyway.

Valor rubbed at his aching neck and got up from his seat. He meant to go back to his room and get his eyes shut, even if only for a moment.

There was exactly one reason he was digging through the library like this despite a packed schedule.

'A huge war broke out and the world half-collapsed. The whole continent, nothing but battlefield. No escaping it, nowhere to escape to. Things got so bad, you'd have been better off just dying in the fight. I went to the front—I was a mercenary, after all. And, well, you know how it is. Mercenaries dying in a war, that's an ordinary thing.'

Valor rubbed at the coarse, prickling growth on his chin. His murky brown eyes stared into the shattering sunlight.

Returned from death, back into the past. However many times he turned it over in his mind, it was a tale too outlandish and baseless to credit.

He could've written it off as some ugly, too-real nightmare. But Valor couldn't do that.

The child's eyes, gestures, the trembling in her, every expression—all of it had spoken the truth. And spoken of himself, as he used to be.

If it really was a dream, then it was the goddess's arrangement, meant to prepare him for the worst future that might come.

A sky where the stars were vanishing, and a mercenary come back from death.

It was certain: somewhere in a dark shadow he couldn't see, the seed of some ominous catastrophe he didn't understand was already growing—and that catastrophe, growing beyond anyone's control, would in the end swallow the whole world.

And yet he couldn't get any clear grip on a direction to move in.

He'd turned the conversation with Aer over and over in his mind, but only one vague clue remained: "war."

Humans are social animals. Unable to live alone, they form groups—and within those groups, and outside them, they generate endless conflict.

War, the terminus of that conflict, wears many faces.

The desperate face of trying to survive starvation. The greedy face of seizing another's land. The face full of rage, avenging a murdered child. The resolute face, serving the god one worships.

Unfortunately, war is an extremely human thing.

So there was nothing he could confirm for certain. The more books he read through, the deeper he sank into vagueness instead.

"Kid, you could've told me a little more."

Valor muttered it through a long, drawn-out yawn.

That wasn't to say there'd been no gain at all, though.

In the very back corner of the library, at the edge of the old-book section, he'd found a single volume, torn and tattered.

Its cover, made of some unidentifiable leather, was barely holding its shape, and the parchment inside had been ripped away almost entirely—only a handful of pages remained.

It was the section reserved for badly damaged books, but the state of this one's ruin felt like it carried a malice beyond description.

Still, the remains of that dead knowledge held an unexpected clue.

「Those Who Extinguish the Light」

Valor was instinctively certain that phrase had something to do with the vanishing stars.

He'd finally found a second clue. Since then, he'd been searching for anything related to "Those Who Extinguish the Light"—though the sheer volume of material made that no easy task, either.

Shoulders slumped, Valor was trudging his way toward the door—when a voice reached him.

"Not even dry behind the ears, and already wearing a corpse's face."

Valor's eyes went wide at the voice. He confirmed who it belonged to.

"Teacher."

"Yes, it's me. Your teacher. Ditio Remisa."

An old man who didn't look much like an old man at all.

His back held straight, without a hint of a stoop, and his arms and legs kept the firmness of a young man in his prime.

Valor mumbled, avoiding the sharp yellow eyes.

"...Why are you telling me your name?"

"You so rarely show your face around here, I worried you might've forgotten your own teacher's name. Busy as you are—is there truly no time to come see your teacher, even once?"

Ditio flicked an eyebrow up and cut in sharp.

His teacher's rebuke was undeniable, plain fact. Valor dropped his head at once.

"I'm sorry. Work's been busy lately."

The sincere apology, and the sight of the crown of a student he hadn't seen in a long time, quickly cooled the anger.

Ditio cleared his throat with a small cough. A student who'd watched his teacher for that long picked up the signal at once.

"You're not still angry, are you?"

"This little shit!"

Ditio threw a punch straight at Valor's solar plexus. Valor twisted away, familiar with the motion, dodging his teacher's fist.

The two of them moved as smoothly as a well-rehearsed play.

"You've gotten a lot slower."

Ditio answered, retracting his fist.

"I've gotten old too, is all."

That flat, single line dropped straight through Valor's chest.

Valor looked his teacher over, carefully.

They'd been together since childhood, so he hadn't noticed it creeping up—but seeing him now, after time apart, his teacher had unmistakably aged.

Ditio glared at his student.

"Disgusting."

"...I'll come visit more often, from now on."

"Please do, for heaven's sake."

Ditio answered curtly, and with his hands clasped behind his back, led the way forward. Valor watched him a moment, then followed quietly.

Idle, everyday conversation followed after.

The turn of the season. What might be for dinner. Some noisy business going on outside. How his health had been lately.

Valor didn't bring up "Those Who Extinguish the Light."

It concerned the fate of the whole world. Bringing it up would mean either revealing Aer's dark secret, or trampling all over the peaceful old age his teacher had finally earned.

Some truths are better left as secrets. This was one of those times.

"By the way, you've been holed up in the library lately—what's that about—"

"Bishop Valor!"

Both men turned, wide-eyed, toward the voice.

Merka came running up, soaked through with cold sweat, her face pale. Her hand, trembling violently, held a small letter.

"Merka?"

"I've been looking everywhere for you! Oh—Cardinal Ditio, may the goddess bless you."

"And you as well. So—what trouble has this useless student of mine gone and caused this time?"

Merka caught her breath, adjusted her glasses, and spoke.

"It's a letter from the Sacrosanct."

"...What did you just say?"

"It's a letter from the Sacrosanct."

Merka held the letter out, weakly.

The red wax seal on the letter bore the image of a woman weaving cloth.

The Weaver's Ring. A sacred symbol only the Pope was permitted to hold.

"......."

"Did you actually cause some kind of trouble? Why would Yana suddenly—"

Ditio eyed his student, suspicious.

Valor moved hands gone cold and stiff to open the letter.

On the wide sheet of paper, a single short sentence sat written, plainly.

"What does Yana say."

"Sometime soon... she says she'll come for a visit."

"That friend of yours. Cooped up in the holy city for treatment like that—of course she'd be bored half to death."

Merka let out a sigh of relief, hand against her chest. The tension that drained away left a fresh calm in its place.

"There happens to be some business scheduled that way already—might as well pay a visit while you're at it."

"Oh, excellent! Then can this old man tag along too? Been a while—I'd like to see an old friend's face."

"If it's Cardinal Ditio asking, I'll make room in the schedule even if there isn't any."

"You. This old man's taken quite a liking to you, I'll say."

Ditio laughed, loud and satisfied.

"......."

Meanwhile, there was one person who couldn't laugh along quite so easily.

His red-rimmed brown eyes sank, gloomy.

Sweat gathered on the hand holding the letter, and his stomach churned, uncomfortable.

Valor pressed at his throbbing head and gazed out the window at the green sprouting outside.

'I wonder what our brave young lady is up to, right about now.'

"This uncle's in big trouble."