“The Apostle is passing through! Make way!”
“Do not obstruct the path of the Apostle!”
How did such thunderous voices come from bodies so old?
It was simply lamentable that such vigor was being used for something like this.
“It is a glorious day, the day the Goddess manifested and the Saint was born! Let this day be made a national holiday—!”
“Um… Priest Herald?”
“Yes, Apostle. Give your command.”
“Could you shut… could we go quietly?”
Herald answered with perfect discipline, bowing at the waist with perfect discipline.
“Please withdraw that command, Apostle!”
At that, all ten high priests following him lowered their heads in unison.
“Please withdraw it!”
“Please withdraw iiiit!”
Hio clutched his throbbing head and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Everyone in the Holy Kingdom must know and remember this glorious moment!”
“It is a miraculous day, when Ripue revealed herself to us in person! Please allow us the joy of sharing it, Apostle!”
“Apostle!”
“Apostleee!”
“Haa…”
Fine.
From their standpoint, how long-awaited a moment must this be?
It was a miraculous day when Ripue had truly appeared in the sanctuary that had only ever held symbolic meaning.
It was deeply humiliating, but in the end, Hio nodded.
“Fine. But let’s not say things like ‘make way’ or whatever.”
That was the most humiliating part.
Make way for what?
Far from blocking him, people were already splitting to either side and opening a wide path for him to pass.
Even though the streets were packed with people, they opened the way in orderly fashion at the thunderous cries—a sight that truly befitted the subjects of the Holy Kingdom.
“That cannot be, Apostle!”
“Apostleee!”
Yet these delicate sunfish bowed their heads again and wailed, saying even that could not be allowed.
“It is an expression of the belief that nothing must exist to obstruct the Apostle of the Goddess, as well as a noble custom…”
“On such a glorious day, we seek to eliminate even the slightest possibility of an unforeseen…”
“Haa… fuck.”
“Pardon?”
“…Nothing. Then let’s just go.”
“Yes! Apostle! The Apostle is passing through! Maaaaake! Waaaaay!”
“Maaaaake waaaaay!”
“Open! The rooooad! Cough!”
A broad avenue.
A short road that led from the main temple to the royal castle, nothing more.
They passed along it, surrounded by countless people.
「Stories about the ‘Apostle of the Goddess?’ begin to spread.」
And so, they finally reached the royal castle.
Regarda and Freyja greeted Hio.
“We will return to Arilleia.”
With none other than a farewell.
“Yeah. You two have plenty to do as well. You’ll be busy.”
However, it likely would not be a long farewell.
After all, the portal to Arilleia had been activated.
If they wished, they would be able to come and go easily.
『The next time we meet, I’ll have changed a lot! Uncle Hio!』
With Freyja’s spirited farewell as the last words, the two left without delay.
A newly born dragon and the dragon knight who guarded her.
Those two beings would surely become a great power and return to Hio once more.
Right after the two departed, the one who came to see Hio was Irina.
A saintess was the holiest and most noble, so not just anyone could meet her, nor should they, but this time the circumstances were different.
“Mage! No… Saint? Apostle?”
Seeing Irina barge in and then seriously ponder what to call him, Hio let out another deep sigh.
“Call me what you always did. I’m neither a saint nor an apostle.”
“Huh? Really? But starting with High Priest Herald, everyone’s in an uproar.”
“Just let it go in one ear and out the other. I’m not an apostle or anything.”
He had heard Ripue herself call him hope and a pioneer, but that did not make him an apostle or a saint.
“The last one the Goddess Ripue chose was you, Irina.”
It was not something he had been told for certain. But that was what he thought.
The abnormal divine power Irina carried.
The immense power that could do the work of dozens of high priests on her own.
Could that not also be part of the hope Ripue had planted?
Could it not have been one piece of the puzzle she had planned?
That was what he thought.
“Ehehe…”
To think she had been chosen by the Goddess.
Irina, who had never imagined she would hear such praise from Hio, smiled bashfully.
Then, suddenly.
“But… the last one?”
She sensed the slight dissonance contained in Hio’s words.
The last one chosen.
Was that not a strange way to put it?
Did it not sound as though he were declaring there would be no more choices by the Goddess?
At that, Hio fell into a moment of hesitation.
Was it right to tell her of Ripue’s final fate, when she must have fallen into a long sleep?
Was it right to pass that on to this girl, whom she had chosen herself?
His hesitation over that was, quite literally, only for an instant.
The conclusion he reached was clear.
“No, I misspoke.”
The Goddess of Hope still had to exist.
“Forget it.”
Because he himself was not yet ready to become hope.
* * *
The day passed in a blur.
Even though it had been only a single day, so many things had happened that his head spun.
After sending off Regarda and Freyja, then finishing his conversation with Irina, the sun was already beginning to sink.
At last, it meant he could have a little time alone.
Inside the now-quiet room.
He quietly looked down through the window at the city, busy preparing for night as the sunset fell.
People sweating to rise again, though everything had collapsed and been broken.
A sight now fairly familiar to him. A world that had become familiar.
Would it be all right to feel some sense of reward, so long as he did not grow arrogant?
Had he not continued striving in order to protect such things?
Then from now on as well—
“Hio!”
A woman burst in noisily, shattering the quiet sentiment settling over him.
“Sorry! You were looking for me, right?”
Deep black hair, a pure and delicate appearance, and long ears.
The woman who entered the room was Airaits.
The moment Hio saw her, a flicker of bewilderment passed over his face.
“Hm? Airaits? Where were you?”
“What’s with that reaction? Don’t tell me you forgot about me?”
“…Me? No, not at all.”
Had it not been a hectic day?
To be honest, he had briefly forgotten about Airaits as well and had been about to sink into thought alongside the peaceful scenery.
But it seemed quietly losing himself in contemplation was not in the cards.
“Mm. Of course Hio wouldn’t do that. Anyway, on my way here, I found a really strange place…”
“A strange place?”
“It was a collapsed building. Dark and narrow, with people walking all around outside. But inside, it was just the two of us…”
“Underground?”
“…Mm. And I could feel divine power too. Isn’t that the place you’re looking for, Hio?”
A dark space beneath a collapsed building.
And she had even felt divine power?
Hio immediately sprang up from his seat.
Quietly losing himself in contemplation? As if. It had never suited him anyway.
“Well done, Airaits.”
This time, it was real. The true house of the divine mage had definitely appeared.
“Really? I did well?”
“Yeah. You really did, so hurry and take me there.”
“Then you can’t do without me now, right?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
When he nodded roughly, Airaits beamed and took Hio’s hand, leading him along.
“Let’s go!”
They left the royal castle and headed toward the streets of the capital.
Airaits’s steps were light, as if they were going on a date.
The sun had nearly set, and the countless people coming and going along the street glanced at Hio and Airaits.
Airaits had covered her dazzling appearance with a hood, but Hio’s clothing itself was already splendid.
“Isn’t that the Saint over there?”
“I think so? The Saint is the only one who’d walk around dressed like that…”
“Oh, come on. Would the Saint walk around so openly?”
“True, right?”
Most merely glanced at him uncertainly and did not approach.
Of course, that was also because Hio was walking quickly.
“Hm? Saint? You got a new nickname in that short time?”
“…It’s not like that, so just ignore it.”
“Hmm. A saint who commands undead… Well, I like it! Anyway, it’s this way.”
The place they arrived at under Airaits’s guidance was simply a building that had caved in completely.
Compared to the other buildings, it was a place where the collapse was especially severe.
Perhaps, on the day of the battle, it had unluckily taken a direct hit from Hio’s lightning or a bundle of aura.
Whatever the case, from Hio’s standpoint, it was fortunate.
“…This is it. Divine power is leaking out.”
He could clearly feel faint divinity from below.
Moreover, perhaps because it had been pushed back in priority during the restoration work, the building’s debris had not even been cleared away, making it even more fortunate.
Airaits, who had been carefully watching Hio’s reaction, clasped her hands together and rejoiced with him.
“This is the place, right? See, I told you I had a feeling. We really are a match made in heaven.”
He did not know how the conversation had flowed that way, but it was true that Airaits had done something significant.
If this place truly was the divine mage’s house, that was.
“Let’s go down.”
After roughly clearing away the collapsed pile of stones, the entrance to a staircase leading underground was revealed more clearly.
It was probably an entrance that would not have seemed particularly strange even if someone else had seen it.
After all, basement stairs were not exactly rare.
But what if one cleared away the building’s remains and descended directly underground through the narrow staircase amid dust and dirt?
Even then, others likely would not feel any particular sense of wrongness.
It had been designed that way from the beginning.
However, Hio curled the corners of his mouth upward and became certain.
“Found it.”
The clear traces of mana.
The passage through which mana had once flowed, along with the faintly streaming divine power.
“A mage’s house.”
He had found a new mage’s house that had been hidden away for long ages.
Still, since this was only the first underground floor, there was nothing noticeably special.
“It really does look similar to Imenia’s underground space.”
Those were Airaits’s words as she looked around.
Airaits, too, had once followed Hio underground in Imenia, so she was recalling that time.
Of course, back then, the first underground floor had also been the end, and she had been inside the body of the charmed assistant professor Hopen, surrounded by Claire’s group and beaten up.
“…Those vicious little brats.”
While Airaits wrapped her arms around herself as she recalled the indiscriminate beating from that time, Hio found traces of magic leading to the entrance of the underground staircase.
It had been this easy to find, yet he had forced himself to search for it in the sanctuary—of course he had not found it.
Following the flow of mana, he infused mana in front of the hidden magic circle.
As the mana moved perfectly along the traces, bright light leaked from the gray wall where nothing had been, taking the exact shape of the magic circle.
Rumble— The floor shook and split open.
The entrance to the second underground floor had opened.
“This is… magic?”
Airaits watched the light of the magic circle leaking from the wall with greater interest than the fact that the underground had opened.
Since Hio had said he would go down, she had naturally assumed it would happen.
But she had not expected the light of such geometric patterns to suddenly appear.
She felt as though she understood, at least a little, why Hio Pavlenko went around calling himself a mage.
“Let’s go down.”
The second underground floor they descended to was not much different either.
Unlike the completely empty first underground floor, there were several desks, and on top of them remained research materials and traces, but…
“There’s no preservation magic.”
They were all old things that crumbled away.
Had he not learned from Purnel that the lack of preservation magic meant it was not particularly important?
And on the second underground floor, the divine power was certainly a little stronger than above.
Enough that Airaits’s expression, when he turned to look, was faintly furrowed.
“This won’t do. Airaits, you go back and wait.”
And so he had no choice but to say that.
It was not as though divine power was being poured directly onto Airaits, but he could not know what abnormalities might occur if she were exposed to it continuously for a long time.
But Airaits smiled brightly, as if she had never frowned at all, and shook her head.
“No? I’m perfectly fine.”
“Fine, my ass. I don’t know what might be on the floor below either. I’ll call you later if it turns out to be safe, so go back for now.”
“No. I don’t want to.”
Airaits clung tightly to Hio’s arm, as if she absolutely would not be separated from him.
“I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
She had always thought she was alone.
And she had never particularly found that uncomfortable.
But only after dying did she learn how deeply some truths could cut into the bone……
The truth that, in fact, she had not been alone.
That there had always been someone by her side who loved her more than she loved herself.
How bitterly she regretted realizing that only after death.
In the end, unable to leave, she remained inside the lantern and endlessly looked back on the days gone by.
The starting point of her soul. From the very bottom of her memories, as she slowly looked back on herself, how lonely she had been.
After she was left alone at last, she wrapped her mind in thoughts like I knew this would happen and I really don’t care at all, but deep inside, how desperately she had longed for the warmth that had suddenly left her.
The warmth of Hio she had felt for those few days before her death was something that made her remember those past days.
So she could no longer return to that time.
She could not go back to those days when, afraid of her wounded heart, she looked away and hated herself.
Now that she knew there had been someone who loved her more than anyone else in the world, she could never deceive herself again.
Because she knew such terrible loneliness, she no longer wanted to be left alone in a cold room.
Ailights, eyes squeezed shut in fear of being abandoned, clung to Hio’s arm.
It was not like her at all, and it was a sight he had never seen before, but it was not something he could fail to understand.
He knew Ailights’s past—how she had been so fragile that she had no choice but to wrap herself in a hard shell.
Hio let out a small sigh inwardly and, in the end, nodded.
“All right. But if the divine power is stronger than expected, we go back up immediately.”
“Okay…… Then I can go with you, right?”
He poured mana once more into the magic circle leading down to the third basement level.
The faint divinity they had been able to sense from aboveground.
It was likely being emitted by something down below.
“……Yeah. Let’s go.”
With a deep rumble, the basement floor opened.
The entrance was revealed.
The divine power had grown distinctly stronger.
“Are you okay?”
“……Yeah. I’m still fine.”
They descended the narrow stairs together, and when they finally set foot completely on the third basement level—
Both Hio and Ailights froze in place, mouths slightly open.
That was how incredible the space on the third basement level was.
“Ailights.”
“……Yeah?”
“Do me one favor.”
“What is it?”
“Can you go to Herald right now and deliver a message?”
The space of the third basement level had opened out enormously.
This was—
“Tell him to build a house above this place as quickly as possible. And to restrict access here in the meantime.”
“……Okay.”
It was reason enough for them to use this place as their base for the time being.
* * *
Upon hearing Hio’s message, Herald moved at once.
Of course, that did not mean he personally went and built the house; it meant he made Hio’s request his top priority.
“It is the Apostle’s command! Build the second sanctuary!”
“Oooooh!”
They swiftly cleared away the collapsed building and raised a new structure in its place.
Since the existing building had been extremely old and used as a warehouse, the work proceeded smoothly.
“Above all, make it pure white and tall! On the highest floor, carve a statue of the goddess Rifue, and on the floor below that, engrave the Apostle’s face!”
Herald’s ambitious plan was blocked by Hio.
Many words were exchanged, but to roughly summarize Hio’s demands: please stop being so over-the-top and just build it normally.
In the end, Herald had no choice but to revise his plan while nearly in tears, and it did not take very long for an exceedingly ordinary-looking two-story house to be completed.
A new mage’s house had been born.
At the entrance of that completed house.
Ailights peeked out through the first-floor door, her face full of delight, holding a small wooden plaque in her hand.
“Hehehe.”
She hung it on the outer door where everyone passing by could see it, grinning from ear to ear.
The words written on the plaque were rather refreshing.
〔Ailights♥Hio Newlywed Home♥〕
Of course, less than a day later, Hio discovered it.
“Ah, nooo!”
And it was mercilessly smashed to pieces before her very eyes.