108.
I cleared my throat and moved closer to the bed.
“How are you feeling? Are you all right?”
The woman silently looked around the room. I added,
“This is an inn nearby. We called a physician, too.”
“A physician? Ah, no, I’m truly fine. There’s no need to call one.”
The woman hurriedly waved her hands. If I didn’t say I would send the physician back, she looked ready to get up and walk out at once.
I had no choice but to nod.
“Then all right.”
Just as I was about to rise, Prien gently placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Stay here. I’ll go down and tell Jaka to send the physician away when he comes.”
“Ah, would you?”
After Prien left and the door closed, the woman, who had meanwhile pushed herself up to sit, carefully began to speak.
“Um, there is one thing I’d like to say... I think I unintentionally overheard your conversation.”
The woman stared at me and the duke in turn.
And without giving me any chance to respond, she immediately added,
“I’m Bella.”
“……”
The moment I heard that name, I realized the source of the strange sense of familiarity I had been feeling from her.
The woman matched the person Margaret had told me about perfectly, from her appearance to her name.
The very lover who had shared her heart with the last heir of the Paraton family.
I simply hadn’t recognized her right away because her complexion was so poor.
Even after seeing my strange reaction to her name, the woman showed no sign of surprise and asked,
“Then are you here to obtain the Heart of Merinis?”
The room fell silent.
Judging that there was no particular reason to deny it, I also asked curtly,
“Do you have it?”
The woman shook her head.
“But I know where it is.”
“Since you brought that up first, does that mean you’re willing to tell us?”
Even as I asked, I had some idea.
As soon as she guessed who we were, she had put the ‘Heart of Merinis’ into words without the slightest hesitation.
Naturally, that meant she also had something she wanted to gain from us, even if she had to use it as leverage.
“Of course, if you hear out one request of mine first.”
As expected, the woman attached a condition.
“May I hear what it is first? I can’t promise something beyond my ability.”
“Investigate someone’s identity for me.”
Someone.
In truth, there was a person who came to mind immediately at those words.
Bella continued speaking.
“I couldn’t reveal it to the villagers. He might be hiding it because of some circumstances.”
“……”
“But you are different. I know your weakness. So I can speak of mine as well.”
“And what is your weakness?”
Bella lifted her head and met my eyes.
“I’m going to die soon.”
“……”
“My grandmother also died of this illness. Probably... I’ll end up the same before long.”
“What does that have to do with investigating someone?”
Bella’s dark eyes, cutting through her pale complexion, shone for a moment as if hope had fallen over them.
“Before I die, I want to see him again. Just once.”
As if entranced, I asked,
“Who is he?”
“You already know him. That man, Karl Paraton.”
I held my tongue. But I could not help asking.
“Wasn’t he said to have disappeared long ago? And that’s why the Heart of Merinis remained in your hands.”
“But he came back. No, perhaps I only want to believe he came back. You may think all of this is my delusion. But that is why I must confirm it all the more.”
Bella gripped my sleeve so tightly her hand turned white.
“Investigate the man named Gary.”
It was a name I already knew, having heard it from Margaret.
Gary Yus.
“Are you asking us to investigate whether that man really is Karl Paraton?”
“Yes.”
“Even though his face is different, his voice is different, and above all, his build and age are different as well?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see anything in him at all?”
“I didn’t see anything.”
Perhaps about to burst into tears, Bella pressed her lips shut and silently wiped her cheek.
At last, lifting eyes in which tears had begun to spread, Bella smiled steadfastly.
“But if that is precisely why he seems even more like him, would you believe me?”
* * *
After Bella left, we all gathered in one room.
Jaka, who had arrived late and heard the whole story, seemed displeased with the current situation and was sitting on the windowsill with his arms crossed.
I hadn’t thought from the beginning that he would actively step forward to help obtain the ingredients for breaking the contract.
Sitting on the sofa, I pondered for a while before murmuring,
“I think that man might really be him.”
“Do you have a reason for thinking so?”
I accepted the teacup Prien offered and answered.
“Of course, it could simply be Bella’s misunderstanding. But for that to be the case, the circumstances seem far too coincidental.”
“……”
“And more than anything, I’ve seen it before. A human being who spoke and moved by borrowing another person’s body.”
“You mean the heretics.”
Surely that couldn’t be it, but in the worst-case scenario, it seemed we had to keep in mind the possibility that the heretics were involved.
“Yes. Do you happen to suspect anything as well, Lord Ijanar?”
“If there are indeed traces related to that group, it would not be strange even if they had turned a human mind into mush.”
Prien closed his mouth as if hesitating for a moment, then added,
“Because their ultimate goal is to create a body befitting divinity.”
“A body befitting divinity?”
“Long ago, there was a holy relic handed down from the Holy Kingdom. It has vanished now, but the current accepted theory is that the heretics originally arose from those who tried to use that relic for their own private greed and vanity.”
“What sort of power dwelled in that holy relic?”
“Those who guarded the holy relic were called ‘saints,’ but when the last saint passed away over twenty years ago, the holy relic disappeared as well. You have probably heard of it—the term ‘clairvoyance’ originated from the saint who used this relic.”
“Clairvoyance?”
“Figuratively, it refers to eyes that can see things extremely far away. But it is said that, in a smaller sense, it grants insight into objects, and beyond that, even insight into the ‘past’ and ‘future.’”
“So that is why it is called an object of God.”
It could know even the past and future? Then could that already be in the hands of the heretics now?
At that moment, Jaka, who had been silent, opened his mouth.
“I don’t see what that has to do with this matter.”
“The heretics have been carrying out research and experiments all this time in order to create a body capable of containing that holy relic. However, I can only hope this matter has nothing to do with the heretics.”
Once suspicion began to take hold, one doubt led to another without end.
A man who had disappeared just as a war connected to the heretics happened to break out had returned to his hometown once the war was over.
“Right. In any case, what matters to us is whether that man is Karl Paraton or not.”
If that man’s identity truly was Karl Paraton, then the reason he had stepped forward to become Bella’s guardian was obvious.
“If he is that man, then he still likes Bella, doesn’t he?”
“It may simply be because he feels indebted to her.”
At Prien’s answer, Isitan refuted in a low voice.
“It is not something one would do out of a mere sense of indebtedness.”
“Why are you so certain? Anyone listening would think you were speaking from personal experience.”
“Then should I assume you’re saying that because you’re experiencing it yourself right now?”
Feeling my fixed stare on them, the two suddenly fell silent.
Then, after a moment, they resumed their conversation.
“……In any case, the possibility of indebtedness can be taken into consideration.”
“I was only making a guess as well.”
Jaka quietly came to sit beside me and tilted his head toward my ear.
“Honey, did you lay down the law while I was gone?”
“Don’t call me honey….”
Covering my ear with my hand, I answered out of habit—then suddenly, a good idea occurred to me.
“Wait. Whether it’s jealousy, competitiveness, or whatever else, wouldn’t we know the answer if we provoked it first?”
“Provoked it how?”
“By using Bella, of course.”
“No, I have no interest in other women.”
Quick-witted as ever, Jaka somehow caught on and refused at once.
Prien and Isitan’s gazes landed squarely on me.
Their eyes seemed to say, Surely not.
“I’m not planning to force the three of you to do something like that, you know?”
I shrugged.
“If anything, I’d do it myself.”
Just as the gazes gathered on me were about to loosen, they tensed sharply again. I quickly waved my hands.
“No, I don’t mean I’m going to try seducing that man—Karl, or Gary, or whatever his name is.”
The doubtful gazes withdrew from me very, very slowly.
“Of course, I absolutely didn’t mean that…….”
I said, keeping the corners of my mouth in check before a crooked smile could slip out.
“But I do plan to do something similar.”