MHHC Chapter 159

The Saint

The deliberate invocation of "doll"—needling, unhurried—knocked the breath from her chest.

The corners of Adelheid's eyes tightened, and he curved one side of his lips upward.

"Divine authority is the power to choose one's fate. And my son wished for you to live not as a doll, but as one who chooses for herself."

"……"

"And so, now, as he wished—you have become both a god and a human who has lost her purpose."

'I will give you every choice that exists in the world.'

The voice from memory made Adelheid bite down hard on her lip. Emotion surged through her; her throat constricted in a single, convulsive clench.

She understood now. From the very beginning. From the very beginning, Valentin had known everything.

And knowing all of it, he had loved her without reservation—had poured his affection over her, blindly, without limit.

Because he pitied her. Because he could not help but find her utterly, helplessly endearing. Because—even knowing she was a doll, fashioned and sent by someone else for the express purpose of bewitching him—he had known all of it, and had let it happen anyway.

She leaned slowly forward, bracing herself against the table's edge. If she stayed as she was a moment longer, she would humiliatingly burst into tears.

"……Please. Tell me the method for purifying the corruption."

"Impossible."

"Is there truly no possibility at all? Not even a single one?"

"Well……"

His eyes shimmered with a strange and particular light. Adelheid staked a brief, urgent hope on it—but then he slowly, deliberately, shook his head.

"There is only one being capable of receiving and sustaining divine authority. One who can know anger, and yet sacrifice themselves for the greater cause. In other words, one who will not pursue private interest."

"……"

"It was only natural that he lost his authority and fell to corruption……"

Because he tried to protect you as a private matter. The god's gaze seemed to lay that accusation out in the open, unhurried, making certain she felt its full weight.

Unable to bear it, Adelheid turned her eyes away. He shrugged one shoulder, dispelling the moment's heaviness with easy indifference.

"Well. As this will likely be the last time we meet, let me give you a gift."

A gift. Could it be he intended to tell her how to purify the corruption? The naked desperation in her expression made him break into laughter.

"If it could be purified so easily, why would a doll like you have been necessary at all? Whatever the case, 'this' will be of practical use to you. Whether he would approve is another matter."

She glanced around to receive 'this'—but his hands held nothing.

He did not appear to be preparing anything tangible whatsoever. At her bewildered expression, he smiled quietly.

"I have already given it. Do not doubt. What remains depends entirely on how you make use of it."

"……Just one. Please answer one more thing."

"Ask it."

"Did Valentin truly know everything from the very beginning?"

He watched Adelheid in silence for a long moment, then curved the corner of his mouth.

"It depends on what standard you are applying. But in the case of my sons, it is comparatively clear."

"……"

"The serpent was clever—he knew and planned all of this. The dragon was foolish for your sake—he knew everything, and allowed it to happen regardless."

"……"

"Yes, child. From the very first moment he laid eyes on you, he sensed his own fate. And he wished to save you, even if it meant abandoning himself."

The afterimage she had seen in her dreams rose with sudden, unbearable clarity.

The smile at the instant their eyes first met. Those lips, that breath. The countless nights he had turned back—turning and turning again—to keep from letting her go……

Before she could no longer endure it, she pushed herself up from her seat and fled.

Her knees buckled before she had taken more than a few steps.

Adelheid bent forward at the waist and, still gasping, released something she had been barely containing until now. She could not even tell whether it was laughter or weeping.

'It does not matter what came first, or whose fault was greater. The choice has already been made. And no amount of regret can change a past once it has been decided.'

Ah. What a selfish love this was. Valentin had deceived her until the very moment the consequences of his unilateral choice were nearly upon her.

There was only one reason. Leaving her in ignorance was more efficient than persuading her.

The more unguarded she remained, the more certain his plan would succeed—the plan to make his beloved into a whole and complete being.

Once, she had believed Valentin understood her completely.

He had grown increasingly like a human. He had thought like one, acted like one. But that was a result woven through from beginning to end with deception.

All of it had been lies, solely to keep her at ease.

'Just wish me luck this once.'

She had never felt so deeply, so viscerally, the truth of what he was.

When all the countless lies Valentin had spoken to reassure her—all those promises—rose in brilliant procession through her memory……

'Hmm? Adelheid.'

Adelheid sank down where she stood, still gasping.

Even with this vicious deception, this betrayal—she missed him. Missed him until it ached. Cherished him. Pitied him.

"Your Grace."

She swept the tears from her cheek with the back of her hand and turned around.

She had assumed it would be Donovan, but it was a soldier she had never seen before. He snapped a crisp, respectful salute in her direction.

"I am here to report. The missing Ansgar knights have been found. A dispatch rider has arrived from the scouting party with an urgent request for support. And……"

The soldier drew a deep breath and continued.

"It appears His Grace the Grand Duke of Ansgar may have been found among them as well. The damage to the body is severe, and positive identification has not been confirmed, so he is being escorted here immediately. We apologize, but it seems a personal identification will be required……"

The missing Ansgar knights had returned.

Together with the body of the lord they had served.

"Truly, I cannot……remember at all. Not even a little……"

The returned men wore identical expressions of hollow vacancy as they testified, one after another, that their memories of the past ten days were fragmentary at best.

In truth, they could not even bring themselves to believe they had been missing for ten full days.

"At the end—I believe His Grace the Grand Duke stood before us and blocked our path……But—has ten days truly passed since that day?"

There were only two things they remembered.

The fact that they had been attacked by monsters. And the memory of having been seized by an overwhelming conviction—absolute, unarguable—that they had to return with the Grand Duke, by whatever means necessary.

The Grand Duke's body was conveyed immediately to the priests and laid within a coffin.

And that coffin reached Adelheid in the dead of night, when all the preparations for the funeral rites had been completed.

"Please confirm the identification."

The moment the priest carefully lifted the coffin lid, a foul stench spread in every direction.

Several people standing nearby grabbed their noses and stepped hastily back. Adelheid looked upon the body laid within, her face drained of all color.

"……"

Wounds turned violet. Flesh beginning to fester and rot. Seething insects……

According to the witnesses, only three or four days had passed since the death—yet the decomposition had already progressed to a severe degree.

Even half the face had been rendered barely recognizable.

Nothing like those past moments when he had seemed pale, and still, and liable to draw breath at any instant.

"Is this the body of your husband?"

"……Yes."

Adelheid answered, letting her eyelids fall with a trembling, fragile restraint.

It was strange—contrary to her fear that she could not look upon this with a sound mind, not even tears came.

Even if it was nothing more than a shell, it had been Valentin's body.

Only a deep and scouring guilt weighed upon her for the man who had been her husband.

'Looking back, Valentin and I were a relationship woven through from first to last with falsehood.'

'Even that original promise—that someday he would restore the Grand Duke's soul completely……'

"Ahem, hmm. Then we will proceed with the arrangements without delay."

When Adelheid would not release her hold on the coffin for a considerable time, the priest cleared his throat pointedly.

She gave a nod and stepped aside so he could close the lid.

"Yes."

The Grand Duke's coffin was taken at once to the improvised cremation grounds.

It was common practice—without exception, regardless of station—to cremate the bodies of those slain by monsters.

To do otherwise was to court the birth of something far more terrible from those remains.

"O almighty Morig. This pure soul now returns to your embrace; as when you first sent him down into the world, so grant him your mercy and compassion……"

The priests, dressed in white, chanted the funeral rites as they poured sacred oil liberally over the pyre and the coffin—generously, without restraint.

In the North, where even a single drop of oil was precious. In the very heart of a battleground. This was the fullest honor they could render.

At someone's command, the knights drew their swords and spears. The clink and clang of steel on steel rang up into the darkened sky.

"May Ansgar's glory reach Triskell!"

"May you find rest in the infinite ring of life!"

At last, all the rites came to their end.

The high priest tilted his torch and set the pyre alight. Fwoosh. A blue flame surged up in an instant—ferocious, insatiable—and swallowed the coffin whole.

"……"

Adelheid knelt at the foot of the pyre, her hands clasped before her.

The winter wind sent her long veil streaming out behind her. She felt the cold air brush across her cheek and slowly closed her eyes.

As though, somewhere, the sound of Valentin's voice might come to her once more.

"Y-Your Grace."

At someone's sharp, startled cry, Adelheid opened her eyes. The world around her had grown bright.

As if the long winter night had ended and morning had begun. Through the dark night sky, a single shaft of light was descending directly upon her head.

Every soul present recognized the sign in an instant. The coming of a saint.

The savior that Morig sent whenever humanity stood at the edge of annihilation. Like Ingrid, who had erected the great wall in ages long past……

"……A saint."

Someone breathed the words in a trembling voice and fell to their knees.

That was how it began. Like a wave spreading outward from a single point, the people standing around her began to kneel—one by one, then two by two, then all together.