71.
He had known.
The more desperately he longed for something, the more impossible it became to grasp.
That no matter how much he wished, all he would find in the end was despair.
‘Izanar! Where in the world did you go? Your family, they…….’
‘By the time we found them, the house was engulfed in flames. The bodies are over there…….’
The day he had wandered in despair after failing the knight’s examination, returning home only after several days, had been like that.
‘Your younger sister? Absurd. She was offered as a sacrifice long ago!’
‘Did you think she was still alive? Fool.’
The result of chasing the traces of his younger sister—the only one whose body he had never found—for years had been the same.
Heretics.
‘To become a sacrifice is the glorious path to salvation!’
As he plunged his sword into the heart of the one who had pushed him into the abyss of despair, Izanar surrendered to that revelation-like realization.
The creature’s breath scattered.
And in that moment, something inside him seemed to crumble.
All that remained for him was death; nothing but death.
Izanar found every breath he inhaled and exhaled repulsive.
‘Why am I alive?’
What he desired was no longer in this world.
Then, a voice rang out.
‘The heretics are stealing children!’
When he came to his senses, Izanar was crouched in the middle of a pool of blood.
Twilight was slowly fading beyond the ridge.
His entire body was drenched.
Wounds straddling his chest and abdomen continued to spill blood.
All around him were the dead.
The blood of those he hated and his own had mingled together until he could no longer tell whose it was.
He looked down at his own hands.
Filthy.
They were hands stained with filthy blood.
Then, beyond his blurred vision, he saw someone approaching him.
The priest in black robes told him:
‘By offering the purest souls as sacrifices, there is but one thing they seek to obtain.’
‘…….’
‘When the sacrificed souls are refined, something is very rarely obtained. They call it the crystal.’
‘…….’
‘They intend to fulfill their long-cherished desire using that crystal. Do you know how many lives are being sacrificed for their human experiments and their offerings of flesh?’
Izanar raised his head.
Blood trickling down his lashes dyed his vision red.
‘Aier, my younger sister…….’
‘I mean that she may still remain in their hands.’
‘…….’
Izanar gripped his sword once more.
He became a Holy Knight.
And simultaneously, a Heretic Inquisitor.
Even though no hope or faith remained that he could ever obtain what he wished for.
Even though he knew that, in truth, this was nothing more than a meaningless struggle.
He did so anyway.
It was the debt he, the sole survivor, had to repay until his final breath.
From the very beginning, there had been no path for him to escape from despair.
And so time passed.
‘The heretic forces are involved in the war.’
Izanar scoured the battlefield and uncovered the hidden strongholds of the heretics.
Isitan Gladinear, who happened to be the Empire’s Commander-in-Chief, was cooperative with him.
Thus he succeeded in killing a number of ‘High Priests’ who could be called the core of the heresy.
Finally, he obtained two crystals.
Two small, reddish seeds with a faint purple glow.
But there was no way to know which one was Aier.
Perhaps she had not existed in them from the very beginning.
But he could not stop until he had gathered every crystal in existence.
Or unless his own life perished first.
Every morning when he opened his eyes, he hoped that day would be the one.
Only, that he would die upon the blood of the heretics.
It was not a matter of resolve.
It was the one and only future he could greet.
And then,
the war ended.
The next clue pointed to the capital.
And there…….
he saw a woman.
‘It must have been unpleasant enough, being touched without warning.’
Izanar remembered the fury that had welled up each time someone touched him.
Repulsive and nauseating, an inexplicable discomfort.
But why?
Izanar gazed quietly at the woman.
The fingertips that had brushed her and instantly recoiled had tingled as if struck by lightning.
A groan escaped him at the pleasant pain.
He did not hate it.
Rather, he wanted to touch.
If he could, endlessly.
Uncontrollable emotions surged.
In truth, he had no desire to control them.
He repeatedly brought the moment just now to mind.
When he had unknowingly embraced that staggering person.
He recalled everything about the unfamiliar body that had collided fiercely against him.
The body odor that had invaded his nostrils, the faint floral scent, the short gasp, the soft and burning warmth felt through the thin fabric…….
And above all, the flexible body of smooth curves that had slipped through his grasp.
Destructive imagery surged.
A chilling pleasure climbing up from his toes as if it had been waiting, and a strong, aching pull at his heart.
Ah, a place where despair could find no crevice to slip through…….
His very soul was shaken to its core.
An inexplicable tenderness surging toward another.
He wanted to press his lips lingeringly against the corners of her eyes.
He did not want to let go of their clasped hands.
He wished those brilliant eyes would watch over him forever.
But.
He was someone who could not do such things.
When he lowered his gaze, vivid red blood had pooled at his feet.
It was where he would die.
He quietly stared at the flushed cheeks of the woman who had not awakened for several days already.
Faint, fluttering breaths dispersed into the silent air and vanished without a trace.
Izanar closed his eyes and bowed his upper body deeply.
He strained his ears.
Between breaths, whenever a slow silence settled, his heart seemed to burn with anxiety.
It was unbearable to endure those moments when her slowly rising and falling chest might cease even for an instant.
Why will she not open her eyes?
Everyone he had loved had left him.
Was it because he was the one wishing?
That he, of all people, was desperately wishing for this woman.
It was not a light wound, but neither was it a fatal one.
Even he could see that.
Then why?
His heart constricted.
He no longer wanted to despair.
Wake up.
Please open your eyes and look at me again.
He must not pray.
I must not plead.
And yet I kept finding myself wishing.
I could not possibly cut away this desperate longing.
Reason numbed, tormented by every emotion, his hand reached out.
He brushed her fever-heated forehead.
The fierce heat, as if it would burn him, clung to his cold fingers.
But his fingers cooled again in no time.
May I dare to wish that you remain unharmed?
Following the turmoil in his heart, divine power surged forth with a scream.
He drew out his divine power as though scraping his insides clean.
Naturally, an immense sense of exhaustion followed in its wake.
Even so, he did not stop.
Then something astonishing happened.
Like a bursting dam, divine power flowed across without end.
His suppressed worry, his anguish, his fear, his pain and ecstasy, his affection…….
Poured out.
Freely, freely, like a river reaching the vast sea.
‘Sir Izanar?’
How much time had passed?
Before he knew it, the woman had opened her eyes and was looking at him.
With a bewildered expression even in her daze.
He opened his mouth.
‘Baron. Are you all right?’
The woman did not know what she had done for him.
She did not have the slightest idea what his wet face meant.
So, for now, it was all right.
Even if he cherished her a little more.
Even if, just a little longer, he…… you…….
‘……Do you not like me?’
No.
That was not it.
Izanar realized it in an instant.
He had wanted her to know.
He had wanted her to guess.
Even though, if she did, there would be nothing more he could do.
His heart burned with a desire so horribly contradictory.
And then.
The woman smiled as if it were nothing.
‘I promise. I will never keep you in my heart.’
Ah, with words so heartless.
‘So you may love me without worry.’
She was someone who could be kind.
Izanar lowered his head.
I see. The person before me does not love me.
Could there be anything more fortunate?
His heart twisted.
It hurt as though his chest were being wrung dry.
In that moment, Izanar clearly perceived the true shape of his own feelings.
The truth was,
I wish you would love me.
* * *
‘I woke early at dawn. I think I wanted to see you, Baron.’
‘Of course I like you, Baron.’
‘I do not know why, but my heart trembled.’
‘Surely you are not going to refuse responsibility?’
‘Did you not clearly tell me…… to love you as much as I wished?’
Thus, leaning on that heartless kindness, he found room to breathe and indulged himself as much as he liked.
Though he knew full well he was only making things difficult for her, he turned away from it.
He simply liked the hand clasped in his.
When he first invited her to the temple, he had intended to reveal part of his identity.
Because unless he disclosed that he was an inquisitor, he would not be able to properly tell the Baron that the temple, too, was not a safe place for her.
That he had fallen victim to a love potion was, literally, an unprecedented incident.
To the extent that no one in the temple must ever know.
But the only thing he realized was that the woman had even less interest in him than he had thought.
The woman who would receive him kindly if he came to her, but who had never once sought him out first.
She did not love him.
For someone they do not love, how much effort is it normal for a human being to make?
“When you consider its essence, Baron.”
“…….”
“Those who love you cannot simply be seen as having been toyed with by something dreadful.”
“…….”
“Perhaps, in truth, they gained the courage they had long wished for.”
He himself was the proof.
He had come to desire what he had not dared even consider.
Could the feeling of sincerely loving someone truly be nothing but harmful to the person who felt it?
Simply because it was not real?
To him, who had endlessly weighed and questioned, eaten away by fear and despair, doing nothing but retreating, it had instead been courage.
It had been a midsummer night’s dream.
“So you need not be so kind to me, Baron.”
It was because you were too kind.
That was why…… I acted spoiled.
“I am sorry, Baron.”
Through grief and despair, over a hill covered in heaps of corpses,
he did not know how warm sunlight shining down could be a misfortune.
To love someone,
was, in itself, a miracle.