DDP 28

“Open the gates at once!”

The guard standing on the wall shouted toward the gatekeeper behind the doors.

These weren’t mere travelers. They were high-ranking priests from the Holy Empire of Carta—where papal authority outweighed imperial power itself. The inspection was only a formality. The gatekeepers hurried to pull the levers, and the massive gates creaked open.

One by one, carriages began to roll forward again. White carriages of the Holy Empire entered the royal city in a line, flanked by soldiers of the Kingdom of Orhen on horseback, serving as their escorts. The priests from Carta were received with utmost courtesy and guided toward the royal palace.

Since they came from a nation higher than a mere kingdom, their audience with the king proceeded swiftly and without delay. The imperial delegation followed the palace attendants into the audience chamber.

“Your Majesty, the priests of Osmo from Carta have arrived!”

“Let them in!”

At the minister’s call from outside, the king granted permission. Cloaked figures entered—Rastaban and his followers—treading softly over the plush carpet until they stood before the throne.

“I am Monsignor Sion Raven, from the Holy Empire of Carta,” Rastaban introduced himself on behalf of the priests.

The king greeted the delegation warmly, smiling graciously.

“Welcome, Monsignor! I trust the weather was not too warm for your journey here?”

“It was pleasant, Your Majesty. Even the horses seemed to enjoy the gentle sunlight.”

Rastaban smiled serenely. The king let out a hearty laugh.

“I hear your visit this time is to look after our Orhen believers.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. We plan to visit several churches and learn more about Orhen’s art and culture.”

“Art, you say?”

“Indeed. Lately, our empire has been undergoing a great artistic revival. Orhen is famed for its beauty and abundance of talented artists, is it not?”

“Haha! I had no idea the Empire of Carta held our little kingdom in such esteem.”

Rastaban smiled faintly.

“After all, is not religion itself the field most closely intertwined with art?”

The audience chamber echoed with the king’s good-natured laughter.

After exchanging a few more courteous pleasantries, both sides withdrew to attend to their own affairs. The delegation was led to their luxurious accommodations.

As befitting his title of Monsignor, Rastaban was given a slightly more lavish guest chamber than the others. He instructed his fellow priests to unpack and rest for the day, and that they would begin their visitations tomorrow.

Even in the way he moved, Rastaban carried himself with a godlike grace. He walked lightly through the room—as if gliding over water—before collapsing onto the bed.

“Haah…”

He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. The crystal orbs of the chandelier shimmered under the light.

“I hope this land yields something meaningful…”

He stretched out his arms and legs in the shape of a cross, motionless. As he lay there, his mind wandered to a certain demon he missed dearly.

“I wonder if she knows I came here looking for her…”

A soft, breathy laugh escaped him.

Though they had come under the pretense of a diplomatic religious tour, the delegation’s true purpose was something else entirely.

To find those with powers—and to recover the portraits.

When Rastaban first gathered his disciples and built his temple, he made a vow.

To find and reclaim the strange energetic beings—neither living nor dead—that roamed freely through the world he had created.

Beings that entered human bodies, interfered with the world, and slipped out again.

To do that, he needed to find humans who possessed those “abilities”—and bring them under his control.

When those gifted ones died, their power would leave their bodies. And then, he could claim those powers for himself.

He would no longer have to watch them meddle in his world.

…Because I lost Kesis, only three abilities remain secured in the temple.

Rastaban recalled the twenty-four colors of light he had once seen.

One now resided in the young composer Helena Solaire.

Another in Kilbus Vicente Elgado, a nobleman fond of sculpture.

And one more…

“…was what I used for that.”

Rastaban’s lips curved in satisfaction as he thought of what lay in Carta’s great temple.

A figure modeled after a demon he knew too well.

But unlike that demon, this one could not speak.

And unlike her, it was pure white—its skin hard and cold, lifeless and dull, its eyes empty and unseeing.

“…Poor Belita.”

Where have you gone to escape me…? His heart ached, and he slowly closed his eyes.

When he ceased to see anything, her image rose vividly in the darkness.

The day he first saw her—just as she was then.

Rastaban remembered the demon perched on a rooftop, gazing down at a home below, smiling softly.

‘What could make you so happy?’

He had stood in the shade of a nearby tree, watching her.

He had wandered into a small village on the outskirts—an unimportant place even demons rarely lingered.

Yet there she was, watching a human, smiling with genuine warmth.

That was unlike any demon Rastaban had ever known.

He had purified countless demonic races in his lifetime, but never once had he seen one who lived with humans as Belita did.

Her black hair shimmered like silk in the wind; her eyes were as deep as a forest.

And she lived in that house—as though she’d built a family there.

The laughter, the warmth, the mundane sounds of daily life, the vibrant colors of a shared world…

‘…Why?’

Rastaban had wondered.

Why was that demon different? Why did she choose such a strange way to live?

She was a demon—so why did she wish to live like a human?

Rastaban, who knew nothing of human emotion, could not understand why she clung to such a life. Yet, he could see the reason they lived together.

It was a form of love—the kind he’d only ever heard his followers speak of.

A love unlike the divine affection he held for all creation.

A love that belonged solely to humans.

‘Why… do you love like a human? You are not one of them.’

And so Rastaban began to secretly observe Belita.

‘Why do you wish to live as they do?’

Day after day, in secret, while hiding from his own followers who sought their vanished god.

He later learned that the “Belita” they had been ordered to purify was, indeed, that very demon.

The recollection faded.

But even that meager memory was precious to Rastaban. He spoke softly into the empty room.

“…Belita, tell me.”

The old, unanswered words escaped his lips.

“I…”

A faint sadness filled his pale, water-colored eyes.

“I… want to see you.”

Just speaking her name made his mouth go dry. He smiled faintly.

“You who left a blemish upon me… you who taught me what it means to fall…”

The sorrow in his eyes deepened until a translucent film of tears covered them.

“If, even after a thousand years, I still wish to see you—”

He blinked.

“…then what do they call such a feeling?”

With that blink, the tears finally broke and spilled down his cheeks like glass beads.

“Tell me,” he whispered. “Please, tell me what it’s called…”

The drops ran down, glistening on his skin.

Rastaban murmured drunkenly, “I do not know the name of this feeling, Belita…”

All I know is your name.

Even a god did not know the name of love.

A faint tune hummed through the air.

Belita walked along a shaded forest path, looking around her.

It was a short trail—perfect for a stroll. Beyond the trees, a few humble cottages appeared here and there.

Behind her, the sea lay below the hill; beside her, dense trees divided Silvester’s house from the others nearby.

If I go past those houses and deeper in, there should be a market…

Belita hummed softly as she wandered through the greenery. Recently, such solitary walks near the house had become her habit.

The reason was simple.

She was waiting—waiting for the carriage that would bring the contact arranged through Roman, all without Silvester’s knowledge.

If she stayed home and missed the timing to exchange signals, it could all fall apart. Better to wait here and meet them first.

Even with all his money, that man’s business with the painter must take time…

She walked a bit further until she found an old, mossy fence at the edge of the path and sat upon it.

Brushing the moss absently, she glanced back toward the house.

Through the brush, she could faintly see the weathered outer wall. She imagined Silvester inside, sun-drying his paints and tools.

“…”

Her mind wandered to how Silvester had managed to summon her.

She’d gone over it countless times, but it could be summarized in just two words:

Dedication. Kiss.

She thought of that kiss again.

A meaningless kiss—or so it had seemed.

And yet, that meaningless kiss was the key, the very force that had drawn her out of the painting and broken the seal.

Then… perhaps there’s another kind of power—something I can’t sense, unlike divine or magical energy.

Her thoughts followed the same path as before.

He hadn’t freed her by painting alone. That much was clear.

It was only after the kiss that she had emerged from the seal. So the kiss itself must have contained some power.

But Silvester said the kiss meant nothing.

If that were true, then there was a power within him—one he himself did not know of.

It made sense. From all she had seen, Silvester was an ordinary man; he couldn’t have broken a divine seal by chance.

Belita thought about it.

Rastaban had imprisoned her using Kesis’s portrait.

Silvester, another painter, had released her through his own portrait and a kiss.

Rastaban needed Kesis and the portrait for the sealing.

Silvester’s painting and kiss were needed for the release.

…Then, the reason Rastaban used Kesis in the first place must be because both he and Silvester possess a mysterious power I do not yet understand.

Belita absentmindedly scraped the moss off the fence with her fingernail.

Kesis’s portrait sealed me. Silvester’s portrait freed me.

“Then…”

There was only one answer.

Rastaban had made Kesis perform the sealing ritual because of that power—
a power shared by both painters.

Something hidden in the act of creating art itself.

Like Rastaban’s divine power, which one could not understand until experiencing it firsthand.

“A power… that resides in a painter’s brush,” she murmured.

Belita lifted her hand. Moss clung beneath her nails.

Silvester, who are you really? Where did you come from?

She plucked a leaf from a nearby shrub and used it to clean her nails before standing up slowly.

I need to know you.

The hem of the light skirt Silvester had bought for her fluttered near her ankles.

With the breeze stirring the green forest behind her, Belita began to walk again—

—determined this time not to leave Silvester shrouded in mystery, as she had with Kesis.

“…”

Her beautiful eyes turned toward Silvester’s house atop the hill.

“The wind… feels nice.”

Behind that house, towering cumulus clouds bloomed over the horizon like a white tree stretching toward the heavens.