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Chapter 16
“I was confident you’d never find us here……”
“Me too……”
At my shout, Ren (15, male) and Sonya (16, female) walked out with faces full of regret.
“Still, you held out for a long time, Sonya! I got caught first.”
“That’s because you hid right next to the Saintess, Silvia. I hid in the vegetable garden shed and still got found! Ah— I thought I could last longer than Ren, what a shame!”
“Kyle still can’t beat me.”
“You’re all bragging even though you got caught by the Saintess. The amazing one here is the Saintess.”
The children gathered in small clusters to my left, chattering away.
I sat down on a bench and bent forward at the waist.
“Thank you for your hard work.”
“Hard work? This was like a light stroll.”
When I smiled and spoke casually, Kadian’s eyes sparkled as he admired my bravado.
Heh. A stroll, my foot.
‘This is exhausting. I want to just collapse somewhere.’
Playing hide-and-seek with the kids meant pushing my senses to the limit.
My skull throbbed, a splitting headache pounding through it. I felt like I was going to throw up. Ugh.
“Saintess, are you okay?”
“Yeah. Totally fine.”
Silvia (13, female) came up and asked in a worried voice.
She was the kid who had earlier asked me the heart-stopping question, “Why did you come here?”
When I couldn’t think of a proper answer and said, “I came to see you all,”
“The Emperor granted our wish!”
she exclaimed, and with her guard suddenly gone, she surrounded me with the others, chirping like baby chicks.
“Saintess, do you really have more powerful divine power than His Majesty the Emperor?”
“They say we were chosen because our divine power is strong too!”
“I can make my sword flash with light, Silvia can move water, and Ren and Sonya can heal injured animals!”
“Do you have an ability too, Saintess?”
The children’s eyes sparkled brightly.
I couldn’t disappoint those eyes—nor could I admit that I had no divine power.
“W-well, of course. I have at least one ability like that.”
“Wow.”
“Then show us!”
“H-huh?”
“Your ability, Saintess! The strongest divine power in Zendal!”
These little chicks were pure—and terrifying.
That innocent admiration, like meeting a hero they’d only seen through the media in real life.
Even His Majesty wouldn’t be able to confess here that it was all an act and I was just an actress.
“If you want to see my ability that badly, I’ll show you.”
I told them to hide anywhere they liked within the temple barrier.
I lied, saying my divine power was so strong that I could sense theirs.
And then, as everyone knows, I ran like crazy, focusing my hearing and vision to their limits.
Straining not to miss even a single breath or strand of hair from the hiding children.
‘Did I find them all? I can’t do this anymore.’
I turned my head toward the children.
One, two……
“…Nine?”
“Saintess.”
Why were there only nine?
Weren’t there nine kids playing hide-and-seek?
As I tried to turn away from the ominous reality, Silvia spoke.
“Noel is still left.”
“…Seriously?”
“Ah, this is too much. Way too much.”
There was a bench near an annex, far from where the kids had been.
I collapsed onto it as if I’d found an oasis in the desert.
I’d left Kadian behind under the pretense of watching the children, so there was no need to keep up appearances.
My whole body was swallowed by the headache. Finding Noel was impossible.
“Let’s rest just a little.”
I closed my eyes.
It didn’t really get better… it just stayed exhausting.
“Noeel— where did you gooo…”
Noel was the youngest, a ten-year-old boy. A bit shy, with neat features and eyes like a deer’s.
With my decade-plus fangirl experience, I could say with certainty that if he grew up a bit more, he’d definitely be visual-center material for a major idol group.
“Is Noel’s divine power specialized in stealth…?”
When searching for the kids, I’d covered the main building and the three annexes with my audiovisual radar, so the only place left was this annex.
“But right now, I’m just an ordinary person suffering from a severe headache…”
They said class would start soon, so if I just waited, wouldn’t Noel come out on his own?
Even heroes lose sometimes—maybe the kids would understand.
“……”
Those sparkling eyes floated around in my head.
…Ugh. I should at least try what I can.
I slowly lifted my eyelids.
After keeping them closed for a few minutes, my vision cleared a bit.
Then I saw movement at the top of the annex.
Smaller than an adult, wearing the cape the kids had been wearing.
“Found you. The last one.”
“….”
And this situation was completely outside my expectations…!
“H-hey, Noel. Calm down and come over here, okay?”
“……”
Noel was standing precariously on a marble railing.
Like a child about to fall and plunge down at any moment.
‘What in the world is going on?’
Cold sweat broke out.
Why did this have to happen?
Wasn’t this supposed to be a peaceful game of hide-and-seek where only I suffered…?
At least Noel was looking my way.
“When did you climb up here? The others were looking for you, saying class is about to start. Are you getting some air? Wouldn’t it be cooler over here in the shade than there?”
“……”
“Oh, right. And I think I got lost—could you come with me and show me the way, Noel?”
“……”
“Should I give you this? This is something I have to treasure more than my life today! I’m not supposed to untie it, but it’s the only thing I can give you right now.”
I hurriedly untied the ribbon around my wrist.
Hoping my rambling nonsense would distract Noel’s attention, I slowly closed the distance.
“Don’t come any closer.”
“Okay.”
That was fast. I did as he said.
I stopped walking, careful not to provoke him.
Now what should I say to persuade him?
“Uh, um. Noel. Are you… going to jump…?”
“……”
Idiot.
Of all questions to ask, why that one?
But Noel’s green eyes, meeting mine, were trembling.
“…I shouldn’t be alive.”
“…Huh?”
That was like saying, “I’m retiring today,” at a debut stage.
Not something you’d expect to hear from a ten-year-old.
But the one closest to the open air was Noel, so I couldn’t say something thoughtless like, “You’re too young to die.”
“R-right. Noel. You probably have your reasons. I don’t know your whole life. But, you see… why?”
Why. I truly wanted to know.
Even in a situation like this, it felt wrong to think this, but—
That face.
With looks that promised such a brilliant future, what could he possibly be worried about?
With that lottery-winning beauty that would put him in the top 0.1% of happiness just by looking in the mirror, why…!
‘What a waste!’
But there was no way I could say that out loud.
Instead, I poured my wish into my furrowed brow.
Don’t die.
Don’t even think about dying.
“I….”
Noel looked like he might burst into tears at any moment.
“I grew up eating my parents.”
“What?”
“My mother died giving birth to me, and my father drowned at sea. He moved up his schedule to celebrate my birthday and got caught in a storm.”
“Noel.”
I called his name, wanting to stop him, but Noel kept speaking as if he were pouring out every emotion he’d bottled up inside.
“If I hadn’t said I wanted to see him on my birthday… If I hadn’t been born at all… That’s why I shouldn’t be alive! I’m alive at the cost of my parents’ lives!”
Noel’s cry was desperate. My face twisted.
“Who said that to you?”
That wasn’t something a child would come up with on their own.
It sounded like words from an adult’s mind, repeated verbatim by a child.
“Life’s cost, and all that—who told you that?”
“No one.”
Noel shook his head.
“Everyone’s kind. To my face. Even Grandfather…”
He spoke gloomily.
The way he lowered his gaze looked so fragile that my heart dropped.
“To your face?”
“…At the mansion, they say it where I can’t hear. That my parents died because of me. They’re probably saying it today too. The day I was born is the day my parents died…”
So the memories he’d picked up in the mansion where he was born and raised had driven him to this point?
Even though years had passed since he came to the Nisephorel Temple.
Were those memories really that horrific, enough to strangle his life like this?
…Or maybe he remembered things even worse than what people said.
“Noel’s specialty? He’s good at everything. His memory is incredible—he even says he remembers things from when he was in his mother’s womb.”
As my headache gradually subsided, Ren’s words echoed in my ears.
But knowing a few details didn’t give me the right to offer shallow empathy and comfort—I didn’t know his pain.
“…Alright. I agree.”
The moment I finished speaking, Noel’s gaze snapped to me.
I strode toward him and continued.
“My parents’ deaths—I absolutely don’t think it’s your fault. But if you believe that, there’s nothing I can do. I won’t stop you.”
I walked right up to the waist-high railing. We faced each other.
For a moment, Noel’s eyes wavered, then hardened with resolve.
As Noel tried to turn his body away, I said calmly,
“If the god Seikan wants you to die.”
I was a devoted follower of His Majesty, but the people of Zendal were fanatically devoted to Seikan.
It went without saying that the temple’s children believed blindly in the god Seikan.
If this promising little boy needed a reason to die, then all I had to do was give him an even greater reason to live.
I climbed onto the railing, about three hand-spans wide, and grabbed Noel’s shoulders.
“Let’s ask Seikan.”
“…Ask Seikan?”
“Yeah. If we jump from here, one hundred times out of one hundred, we die. But if we live? Then the god Seikan wants you to live. And if that’s the case, you have to live happily from now on—no more talk about killing your parents or anything like that.”
“…Alright.”
I could hear Noel muttering under his breath,
The god probably won’t let me live anyway,
but I pretended not to hear and went on.
“And there’s a condition.”
“A condition?”
“To ask Seikan, I—the Saintess—have to go with you.”
“…What?”
“Let’s jump together.”
“N-no! Saintess, you’ll die!”
Noel struggled desperately, trying to push me away.
Geez, you’re noisy. I’d said everything I needed to say—now I just had to jump.
I wrapped both arms around Noel’s head and waist and threw myself into the empty air.
