22

“Uwaaaaah!!!”

Noel was sucked into the vortex of warped space-time created by magic.

After being swept round and round in the space-time vortex and feeling dizzy for a while, he felt a heavy impact against his back with a thud! It seemed Noel had been thrown out somewhere.

“Where is this…?”

When he looked around, it was terribly dim and damp. It seemed Noel had been hurled into a cave.

Once he had calmed down a little, he felt mist-like spray clinging to his back and neck.

When he looked behind him, he could see the white cascade of a waterfall. The spray seemed to be coming from there.

Apparently, he had come behind a waterfall somewhere.

(Why?? Where is this??)

On the opposite side of the waterfall, he could see a small light.

It seemed to lead to an exit somewhere.

Noel walked through the small cave while bending his body low.

When he reached the exit, a deep green otherworld spread out before him.

The thickly overgrown trees were covered in moss, and the air was moist and sweet with water.

Small, pure lights were floating here and there. They were the lights at the beginning of life, before becoming life. When many lights gathered, they became life; they were the source of life. Noel did not know why, but he understood that.

When he stepped firmly down, the deep earth was soft, embracing the weight of his body, and his feet slowly sank into the soil.

Without thinking, he took a deep breath.

(A forest of spirits.)

A loud rustling sound came from overhead.

When he looked up, a large bird with the face of a beautiful person was leisurely flapping its wings there.

The instant Noel saw that face, he shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Mother!!!!!”

He remembered that face. It was the woman in the painting carefully displayed in his father’s room.

Aida, the peerless great saintess who had the same dark blue eyes as Noel, and beautiful, wavy silver hair.

Noel’s mother, whose life Noel had taken by being born.

The bird did not even glance at Noel, and making the tree branch bend greatly, it flew away.

“Wait, wait for me!!”

Noel chased after the bird with the human face at full speed.

The bird flew leisurely through the dark forest.

The branches and leaves of the trees stretched out their arms to block Noel’s path, leaving countless cuts on his beautiful face.

Hah, hah, hah.

His breathing grew ragged, and his legs began to tangle.

Noel could not think of anything at all. He was simply chasing after the bird in a frenzy.

The place the bird was heading toward grew darker and darker. Before he knew it, Noel was running alone through pitch-black darkness.

(Where on earth have I come?)

How long had he been running? Dragging his body, which was exhausted to its limit, Noel slowly walked through the deep forest.

In the depths of the black forest that seemed as if it would continue forever, a bluish-white light like moonlight suddenly entered Noel’s sight.

Noel immediately hid his body behind the trees.

It seemed someone was there.

Noel quietly looked from behind the tree.

(What is this…?)

Under the bluish-white light was Noel’s father in his youth. It was Marquis Saratoga.

He was a man with vivid golden hair and a bright smile overflowing with brimming youth and confidence. He was the very image of a noble young lord, cloudless like the kingdom’s foremost sun, expected to have a glorious future.

It surprised Noel that the current Marquis Saratoga, who had deep wrinkles carved into his face and cursed the world with a pale expression, had once had such a youth.

(Is it illusion magic? Damn it.)

Noel tried to set up an anti-magic formation, but no magic activated at all.

While he was doing that, the images woven from the illusion slowly changed.

The young, radiant Marquis Saratoga from earlier was looking up at the Temple’s watchtower.

The marquis stood there entranced, gazing at a beautiful woman standing on the tower.

The woman’s face was exactly the face of the bird Noel had chased in the forest.

From the top of the tower, the woman emitted powerful holy power and bestowed blessings on the Temple worshippers.

There was no mistake. She was the great saintess.

The man was likely burning with love for the woman. With a pained, heartrending, and exhilarated expression, he continued to stare blankly at the woman without even blinking.

The great saintess did not spare even a glance for that pitiable man.

The man was in a position of power.

By every possible method, he rushed about trying to make this great saintess his own.

The bestowal of the holy great saintess was extremely difficult, even with the man’s power and wealth.

Driven by his passion, the man moved the politics of the reluctant Temple authorities, negotiated with the bewildered king, and piled up an astronomical amount of money. He also used dirty methods. He even resorted to threats.

Even though he desired her to that extent, the great saintess still did not spare even a glance for that pitiable man.

The efforts into which the man had staked all his power and passion eventually bore fruit, and the Temple decided to bestow the great saintess upon Marquis Saratoga.

Even so, the woman still showed no interest at all in this man who had become her husband.

The great saintess had already been God’s bride.

She was a true great saintess who held no interest in any man in this world.

Even when she was forcibly bestowed upon him, the holy great saintess never loved a companion of the human world other than God, never loved her husband.

Before long, the great saintess conceived, gave birth to one beautiful baby, and on an unseasonably stormy night, departed from this world just like that.

People rumored that God had come to take back His bride.

Both the Temple that had bestowed God’s bride upon a human, and the marquis who had desired God’s bride as a human woman, knew very well the sin they had committed.

The baby left behind had dark blue eyes like the great saintess, and possessed magical power that surpassed the great saintess’s holy power.

When the baby’s dark blue eyes stared at him, the marquis feared the depth of his own sin in coveting God’s bride, and his anger and grief toward the woman who had never loved him no matter what he possessed overflowed, causing him to mistreat the baby.

The Temple was the same. It never blessed the baby born from God’s bride.

The image changed.

The man, now older than in the first image, had visited the graveyard where the great saintess slept.

In his arms, he was clutching a large bouquet of beautiful white roses.

When the man walked up to the white, beautiful gravestone, he clung to it all at once and sobbed loudly, utterly beside himself.

“Why… did you not love me…? Even now, I love you so madly…”

Then this time, as if he had gone insane, he struck the gravestone with the bouquet of white roses.

“Why!!! Why!! Why!!”

In the darkness, the sound of white roses striking the gravestone could be heard, whack, whack. Each time the sound rang out, white rose petals scattered in all directions. Then the marquis clung to the gravestone and began crying loudly again.

On the white gravestone, these words were written.

“My beloved wife, Aida. Sleeps here.”