It was harder for Teresa to part her lips than to lift a boulder bigger than her body. It felt like a heavy rock had flown into her heart and lodged there. No, had a dagger flown in and stabbed itself in? She even had the illusion that blood was pouring out. She was afraid to lower her gaze. Teresa kept her eyes fixed on the Pope and opened her mouth.
"How?"
Noah threw away any smile shown before, kept a blank expression, and spoke.
"Is that what matters?"
Was she even allowed to be here?
"Only I heard it. Knight Overdier doesn't even know."
Noah lifted the teacup. Steam rose in thin curls, spreading over Noah's face.
"Is it true? Were you a cultist?"
She'd heard that lately, cults had been causing a lot of trouble inside Legion.
That the ones who said they had completely turned over a new leaf, swore they had escaped it, would one day suddenly have their eyes roll back and rush at people—that it happened often.
That there had been multiple operations recently to wipe out the remnants of those cults, too.
"With a single spell, the madness flares up and they can't even recognize their own child."
Teresa had heard Knight Overdier say that to Audin. She might be the same. The suspicion was valid.
"I need an answer."
The Pope didn't raise his's voice even a little, didn't change posture, and even kept drinking tea, yet the words were packed with pressure. Teresa felt her hands and feet stiffen.
'What do I answer?'
No? Can she do that? It's true she had belonged to a cult.
It wasn't like she had only stayed there briefly. She went through all kinds of things there and fought for them. The past doesn't change. Teresa's pupils loosened. Her eyes looked not at the present, but at the past.
Memories she wanted to forget clawed into her head, dug, and gouged. Like the track a blade heated red in fire had torn through. Her skull felt hot.
'There are two guards at the door.'
The Pope left the guards outside and met her alone. If she reached out a hand to the Pope like this, the Pope wouldn't even be able to put up anything worthy of being called resistance.
Reflexively, she searched for a way to get out of here and save her own life. Tactical response engraved into instinct thanks to the harsh training she'd endured in the order. Take the Pope hostage, or kill the Pope and stir chaos. There were two methods. However, she chose neither.
"That's right. You were a cultist."
The Pope spoke. Teresa lowered her head. Veins bulged on the back of her hand. Strength went into her body. With her head lowered, Teresa's mouth opened.
"I…"
Noah quietly waited for her to continue.
"I'm not someone who should be here."
Noah didn't force anything on her. In the midst of being so busy there wasn't even time to blink, Noah simply hadn't forgotten why he came here.
"Why?"
The pope asked back.
"What?"
Teresa lifted her head again.
"Why shouldn't you be here?"
Noah asked again. Teresa's eyelids trembled.
Wasn't the Pope going to drag out her past, the sins she'd committed before, and interrogate her over them?
"Answer."
The Pope straightened up rigidly. With both hands gathered on his knees, Noah looked at Teresa. Without meaning to, pressure must have been leaking out, yet Noah's posture didn't waver at all.
"I don't even know my parents."
"Then you're like me."
The Pope is an orphan, too. Long ago, the horrific blade called war tore through the continent, so there were countless orphans in this world.
"I was a cultist."
"Yes, I heard."
Is that a big deal?
It was as if the Pope were saying that. Teresa's head tilted.
"So you aren't condemning me."
Only then did the Pope smile faintly.
"Me, condemning you? Of course not."
Keeping the smile, the Pope continued.
"I'm the Pope, but I can't use holiness even a little."
Her muscles were still tightened by tension, but the reflexive tactical response vanished.
"Now, when asked who you are, what will you answer?"
At the Pope's question, Teresa didn't hesitate.
"I'm Teresa of the Border Guard, Teresa of the Mad Order of Knights."
A disciple of Audin the bear beastman, and a knight under Enkrid. This was the root that had sunk into her heart.
"One who would love others. Love yourself first. A person who is harsh to themself cannot be generous to others."
Words interpreting part of scripture. The Pope recited a few more lines. Listening, Teresa loosened up. She relaxed the tightened muscles and listened closely.
Naturally, her mouth opened, too. She confessed every sin she had committed in the past.
There had been coercion and oppression, but the hand that did it was her own. She spoke of her own pain as well.
If there was any comfort, she hadn't killed the powerless and pitiable. She tried to save them. Even so, the sin of looking away remained.
Noah listened to her story. It was repentance, confession, and seeking forgiveness.
It was a confession. The first time she had ever done it since being born.
While talking, Teresa let a few tears fall, but Noah acted as if they weren't there.
Teresa didn't wipe the tears away either. The long story ended. It was a story that held the life of a mixed-blood giant.
"The Lord watches over you."
After Noah spoke and a brief moment passed, Teresa asked.
"Weren't you reluctant to meet me alone?"
"Why would I be reluctant?"
"I'm a mixed-blood giant, and I was a cultist."
There may be giants with outstanding intelligence, but there are no giants with outstanding patience. It was a famous saying. Patience was the element farthest from giants.
Inside the Border Guard, there weren't many who feared her, but outside, the wary eyes on her were everyday life.
On the southern front she had smoothed it over by singing hymns, but after everything ended, she felt a subtle distance.
"And you are a sister who serves the War God, and a knight under Knight Enkrid."
Noah said it. Enkrid is a close friend. Mixed into it was the meaning: if that person believes, then Noah believes as well. There was no soot in Noah's heart. He only looked straight and spoke.
'The Pope.'
One who tries to see everything rightly.
Among the stories she'd picked up while going here and there, there were many that said all sorts of problems happened because of the Pope's stubbornness.
'Doesn't give up on people.'
Wraps them in benevolence. Noah's heart is full of generosity.
'Cannot use holiness even a little, but breathes light into everyone's hearts.'
Suddenly, she thought of the captain who would be at the Border Guard. There were many similar points with the Pope. Both put their convictions first and embrace everyone around them.
She also remembered the time she entrusted herself to Enkrid.
"Bear responsibility yourself."
It was something Enkrid had said. The last line of a conversation that began with her saying she would fight and fight to prove herself.
After that, she went through so many things and arrived at the present, but from some point on, Teresa fell into self-loathing. Noah had pinpointed that part.
"Knight Audin worries about you a lot."
Those words had created the current situation. Teresa nodded. It was her first time confessing, but after pouring everything out, it was comforting.
'I hated myself.'
For being mixed-blood, for having giant blood flowing in her, for being unable to control the instinct for slaughter, for having belonged to a cult.
She hated everything. She tried to forget, but failed, so she hated it. The past remains forever. She couldn't chop it off cleanly with a sword. So she had to accept it and hold it.
"Love yourself. If you want to love others."
As Noah said it again, the dagger that had been stuck in Teresa's heart was pulled out. In place of the dagger, she brought a fireplace burning in midwinter inside herself.
The moment she set her mind like that, change occurred inside her body.
To be exact, it was the giant instinct she had forced down until now. She had been afraid that if she awakened that instinct she might lose reason.
'That won't happen.'
For one who believes in the self has no delusion.
"Good eyes. Now, can you love others?"
"Yes."
Teresa answered. She expressed gratitude to the Pope. Noah only smiled faintly. It wasn't something done in hopes of anything. Audin had spoken of Teresa's pain and wandering, and Noah had only offered a few words and listened to her story.
Teresa steeled her heart and looked at a bright future.
'When I get back, I can beat the piss out of Pel, Lawford and that stench.'
She meant it. She had thought hymns and giant instinct were opposites, but they weren't. She had realized they were both inside her.
***
'Sister will do well.'
Thinking that, Audin stepped forward. Now wasn't the time to worry about others, but even so, Audin didn't forcibly snatch away the thought that rose up.
Stairs leading underground. It was a long way down, and there wasn't a single torch hung on the walls, so only pitch-black darkness greeted Audin.
The only light was the torch in his hand. Relying on it, Audin set a foot on the stairs.
The fire in Audin's hand didn't light up the whole area, so the ground underfoot was dim, but even without seeing, Audin could feel the flow of air, so walking wasn't difficult.
"Do you really have to go there?"
Just before coming, Knight Overdier had shown worry. The place Audin was headed was one that only a few people knew, if you excluded the Pope and Audin.
Its name was the Abyssal Oratory.
In other words, the Sunless Oratory.
Though the master of that oratory called the place a prison.
It was a place reached by going down through an underground passage hidden in the central cathedral of the holy city Legion.
The stairs curving down felt like a signpost pointing toward hell.
'Was it this long before, too?'
Audin learned a tempering method as a martial priest and, with overflowing talent, honed skills and tempering methods.
There were many who taught Audin, including his adoptive father, the Ragged Saint, yet Audin still felt lacking, and then met a new teacher here.
'Come to meet me.'
It was a place Audin went down to, drawn by words that kept prodding at holiness again and again.
The best way to keep a secret is to reduce the number of people who know it. Legion did that as well.
If they set guards, it would be like announcing they were hiding something here, so there was no one guarding the Abyssal Oratory. The underground passage was hidden cleverly, and the secret was maintained.
That was the best way to hide this place. And because of that, when Audin found this place and went down as well, there was no one to stop him or watch.
'Come to meet me.'
The same words were heard. To be exact, they rang inside Audin's heart.
It was when Audin had just awakened to holiness and was drunk on learning how to use it.
Audin was full of confidence that no temptation would make Audin fall. If a demon had coiled down there, Audin was fully prepared to face it.
'It doesn't feel like a demon.'
Audin acted on instinct. There was no malice in the call. Audin's heart hadn't wavered from being drunk on desire, either.
'If something happens.'
Audin went down that path after preparing for this and that.
The trick the master of the oratory used was to vibrate the ground through holiness and deliver will only to the exact desired target. Audin realized that.
'Who is it?'
Audin had never seen someone with such a trick. Curiosity rose. The will to win, too.
Like that, Audin was drawn by the call and found the underground cathedral.
'Who could it be?'
A demon hidden in Legion's underground cathedral? Something with an evil spirit attached? A prank by a god trying to draw Audin in and test him?
The path down was dark and quiet. Going down the stone stairs, a door twice as large as Audin's body waited.
The moment he put a hand on it, a burning pain climbed up the palm and dug through Audin's head. Putting strength into it and opening the door, the master of the oratory greeted Audin.
-Come at last.
No emotion could be read. No intent could be read. What it delivered was only colorless will.
-It's been a long time since I've seen talent like this.
It had a body made of light, but it wasn't dazzling, and it was a figure with chains hung from arms and legs, bound to a single sword.
No eyes, no nose. It was made of light, yet it was something barely clumped into a human shape.
With no mouth, there was no tongue either. It delivered words by vibrating the air.
It was an incredible trick.
"What are you?"
Audin asked.
-I am Legion's last guardian knight.
There were two parts to the answer.
-And also a fool drunk on holiness.
Sleeping in the Abyssal Oratory was an addict of light. One who was drunk on holiness and in the end took a part of god into his body. Also one who, deep underground, barely survived by clinging to god's mercy.
The wish was to die, and it waited for the person who would kill it.
***
The memories of the past blurred like something brushed past, and faded. This was the second meeting.
-You came again.
The holiness addict said to Audin.
"Yes."
-You don't look ready to keep the promise.
This was its territory. A sanctuary it had made, a space where its power was projected. Just from Audin stepping inside, it grasped his level. The holy knight who was no different from a disciple still didn't have the power to kill it.
"The promise will have to wait. I came because I need my armor."
Audin said.
The mass made of light lifted its bowed head though it had no eyes. Still that special light had no glare. A vibration rose from the center of the light and delivered will.
-In the end, you intend to walk the same path as me.
The light spoke.
"No. That isn't it."
Audin answered.
If just anyone came down, they would be crushed by the pressure and die. That was why, in this space where visitors had been so rare, conversation went back and forth.