Pilgrimage

Aureatia. At night, long after the sun had sunk below the clouds.

At this hour, the Order's chapel doors were locked, but it was also a time when regular believers normally didn't visit.

However, Kuze the Passing Disaster knew that there was someone who would offer prayers every day. When the bell sounded to let the faithful know the day was over, he would appear without fail.

"Hey, there. Haven't met before, have we?"

He was an ogre. A hero candidate by the name of Uhak the Silent.

Viewing him in prayer from behind, his back alone, wrapped in white vestments, was wider than the great shield Kuze wielded.

"See, my name's Kuze the Passing Disaster… Mind if I sit here?" Uhak raised his head and stared hard into Kuze's eyes.

There was no reply. Thus, Kuze used the nonverbal reactions to carefully gauge Uhak's intentions. Just as he always did when speaking with Nastique.

"…Sorry. I'll try as much as I can not to disturb you, okay?"

The massacre at Alimo Row. According to the memoirs of the older woman and Order priest, Cunodey the Ring Seat, Uhak was an ogre who was born without receiving the blessing of inborn Word Arts. The investigative report produced by Hiroto the Paradox reached the same conclusion.

It wasn't that he hadn't composed his own words inside his mind, like with infants and babies.

Nor had he lost the ability to speak, or his hearing, from a permanent disability.

Despite having been proven that he didn't have any problem with either of these senses, the Word Arts for conversing, that even visitors were capable of utilizing, weren't present in Uhak the Silent—and Uhak the Silent alone.

One of the reasons for Kuze's visit to the chapel was to investigate Uhak the Silent, his presence the largest wild card for Hiroto's camp.

"It's my fault that I wasn't able to save Mother Cunodey." However, Kuze had a far bigger reason than that to be there.

Cunodey the Ring Seat was dead. She was Uhak the Silent's and his sponsor, Sixteenth General Nofelt's, teacher and mentor—and Kuze's own as well.

That day the massacre occurred in Alimo Row. Kuze, visiting Alimo Row on his rounds, saw a burning red light in the direction of the church. He ran over, spurred by fear and impatience, but by the time he arrived, it was already too late.

The one who had slaughtered a majority of the rioting villagers was Uhak, now sitting beside him. But on that day, Kuze had killed many himself. Even if it meant killing and cutting his way through, he tried to reach Cunodey's side as fast as possible.

"…Bweh-heh-heh. Even now I still think about it sometimes, you know? Like, if my horse had been just a bit faster, or if I hadn't made any stops along the way… Stuff like that. You know, the day before that? I was with the Order in another town…and flying paper airplanes with the kids there. Ridiculous, right?"

He knew that Word Arts wouldn't reach Uhak the Silent. This was Kuze's one-sided confession.

It wasn't to earn the forgiveness from someone else, but a necessary act to try confirming with his own words where exactly the source of the sin lay.

"Hey. Uhak the Silent."

…As well as a crime that there was no longer any way to verify. "When you killed people, was it painful?"

Uhak the Silent was an ogre.

Nevertheless, Kuze wanted him to adhere to the teachings of the Wordmaker. As Cunodey's final disciple, different from Kuze and his deplorable state. "Belka the Rending Quake…and everyone else in Alimo Row, they had all

been alive. They had hearts, minds, and Word Arts. Even if, for example, the Demon King had broken their minds beyond saving… Honestly, no one should've died, and I shouldn't have made her kill anybody…"

That day, he had tried saving Cunodey, even if it meant killing the villagers. If he ended up surrounded by a group with murder on their mind, then Nastique would kill them. No matter how much Kuze tried to protect them, as long as everyone who he faced was an enemy, countless lives would always slip through his fingers.

It was a nightmarish crime. "I wish it had been just me."

Silence was Uhak's only reply. "…Sorry I didn't make it in time."

His mumble came out like a groan.

"Uhak. Listen… Truth is, even you could've gotten through it all without killing anyone. If you had adhered to the teachings, your heart would've been able to be saved. I should've been the only one to go through it. Just me…"

At the end of Cunodey's memoirs, she repented for accidently inviting so much death and chronicled the despair she felt at her inability to believe in the Wordmaker's teachings anymore.

Even if she was going to meet the same fate, he should have at least been able to give her a peaceful death.

Or perhaps to Cunodey, that had been the proper end for her.

To die after awakening to the truth that the hearts of beasts and the hearts of people were equally valuable.

"Thing is, Nastique… She can't get close to you. That power to nullify Word Arts has got to be the real deal."

They were the only two in the chapel.

The figure of the white angel, who was always supposed to be at Kuze's side, was nowhere to be seen, even by Kuze himself.

An unusual power to erase any and all supernatural phenomena. Kuze didn't know if such a thing truly existed, but that power was, in truth, driving away the invincible power of death that kept Kuze protected.

If there is actually a time when an angel, who's been alive since the creation, is supposed to die.

If Uhak the Silent simply had the will—would it be possible for him to erase the very existence of Nastique herself?

Nastique's presence, eternally lost. It was an absolutely terrifying thing for Kuze to imagine. However, if such an ending did exist for her, it also seemed, in some seasons, a type of salvation for him.

Nullifying Word Arts, huh.

Now, with this abnormality right before his eyes, Kuze was able to understand something very clearly.

Uhak must not be allowed to appear in the Sixways Exhibition.

The biggest priority for Hiroto's camp was being able to monopolize the information on Uhak the Silent ahead of time. To Hiroto's camp, Uhak wasn't a hero candidate they were meant to vanquish, but a trump card they needed to incorporate into their numbers immediately.

As such, Uhak's details were currently thoroughly kept hidden by Zigita Zogi's secret agent cells in various areas. On top of things, Uhak's sponsor,

Twenty-Sixth General Nofelt, appeared to be covering up the incident in Alimo Row and would likely try to keep the true identity of his hero candidate hidden until the day of the match.

…Because simply revealing the truth behind Uhak was likely to change absolutely everything.

The fact that an ogre belonged to the Order. The fact that ogre had massacred a frontier town. As well as the fact that this ogre appeared in Aureatia as a hero candidate—and his existence itself negated the absoluteness of Word Arts, the very building blocks of their world.

What…? Just what are you thinking? What're you doing? Tell me, Nofelt.

Twenty-Sixth General Nofelt the Somber Wind. His relationship with Kuze stemmed from their shared childhood in an Order almshouse. Unlike the other children, he immediately started being promoted up the ranks in Aureatia, until reaching the top as the Twenty-Sixth General.

He was a companion who, unlike Kuze, had been able to go out into the light-touched world.

Everything will come to nothing. All the world will be unable to keep believing in the Wordmaker—and in the very world that the Wordmaker created for us all… It won't just be the Order that'll be finished, but the very world itself; I'm telling you… Shouldn't you understand that?

Nofelt was another man who had been too late.

Nofelt's unit had arrived in Alimo Row the day after Cunodey's death.

If even Nofelt, having won brilliant success for himself, if even the one among them who stood to become the happiest among them all, had given up hope in the entire world…

…Where are we supposed to find salvation?

If that wasn't a curse, but the cruel truth that filled the hero-less world… Then even Uhak the priest may not have been able to dispel that despair.

Leisha was supposed to have been able to help this almshouse.

As she took bites of the crude wheat porridge, she couldn't stop the thought from crossing her mind.

The talk of her adoption by a wealthy frontier farmer had dissipated. She was terribly disappointed when she heard and wanted to cry, but she still remained with the Order, and when she considered she'd be able to see her beloved Kuze,

that helped soothe her wounded heart ever so slightly. "Hey, if I did actually get adopted…"

The meals had gotten a bit shabbier, but the building didn't change at all. It was just as filled with cracks as it had been before, the wallpaper design still outdated, still the same almshouse building that Leisha had long known and loved.

Even then, even if it didn't appear like anything was changing, they would not be able to keep things going as they had for long.

"I would've been able to give you all a bit more luxury, wouldn't I have? If they were getting a beautiful woman like me, why then, in return, I'm sure they would've donated a hefty sum for the honor. That's why, everyone, um…"

"…It's fine. This isn't your fault, Leisha."

Father Naijy, sitting across the dinner table from her, gave a fatigued smile.

He was a young priest in training who still couldn't read all the scripture. But he had always cared for the children's well-being, handling all the difficult things Leisha didn't really understand like money and their relationship with the assembly, so she thought he must have truly been very tired.

"Master Jivlart…the man who had long been lending money to this church, has died. It's my fault I wasn't able to create some means beyond his contributions to keep this church running."

"I've heard about this Master Jivlart person always providing for us, but…I never met him."

"That's right. For all of you, you're probably more familiar with that Tu girl who's been coming by lately to play with you all… But he had been here many times, starting way back. Apparently Master Jivlart didn't really want to show himself to children… He would immediately leave whenever you all came."

"Why?"

"He said he didn't want small children to think of him as a bad guy. Ha-ha… Strange, isn't it? I don't believe there'd be any child who would speak ill of him, myself."

"…I see."

A strange man.

However, Leisha felt a bit like she understood where he was coming from.

When Kuze the Passing Disaster would come visit, Leisha always strove to be as perfect as possible. If he saw her looking unsightly, her hair dirty, or her behavior violent, his heart's inclination to take Leisha for his wife might disappear.

Leisha had always been giving it her all. Since she was a beautiful girl who handled all of that.

"Maybe he was someone who other people couldn't look at charitably." "..."

"Sinister-looking features, somewhat violent mannerisms, always acting childish—"

Had the family that was supposed to adopt Leisha heard some terrible rumors about her?

That her math grades were low, or that she got violent with the boys, or perhaps…it was the fault of some crucial lack of elegance that Leisha herself wasn't even aware of.

The poor upbringing that she had no way of subverting had eternally closed the door on the light she believed would lead her out from the shadows. The idea absolutely terrified her.

"…Even among people like that, there are good people like Master Jivlart, too, though. A person's outward appearance doesn't tell you everything, right?"

"You're a mature girl, Leisha."

"That's right. I am mature. After all, I have to be taken as a wife first. I've completely giving up on being adopted by any family. I'm going to stay with Father Kuze."

Father Naijy was awfully languid and listless. She could tell that, as he worried about the future of their orphanage, he was trying hard to bear with the death of their benefactor, Jivlart.

"When that time comes, I'll call everyone to the wedding…all the kids here

—and you too, Father Naijy." "Ha-ha… Thank you." Naijy feebly chuckled.

After another big month or so, Leisha and the others were being taken in by another one of the Order's almshouses. There were some children who would be going to the opposite end of vast Aureatia. Others still would be going even farther, out to different cities entirely.

"So try to cheer up a bit, okay?"

"…You're right. I have to give it my all from here on out."

Three days later, Father Naijy passed away.

A carriage that happened by discovered his body floating in the nearby lake. She also heard that, in a note he left behind in shakily disarrayed letters, he

wrote out an apology to Leisha and the others.

She wished he had lived, even if he couldn't care for her and the others anymore.

It was two days before Father Kuze was set to fight in the Sixways Exhibition.