I didn't want to run into Iris, so even after arriving at the Academy, I started walking in a roundabout way, circling the main building.
One of the reasons was that I wanted to avoid places that reminded me of Giselle as much as possible.
I walked slowly, dawdling beneath the arched ceiling of the practice building's corridor.
Beyond the railing in the distance, I could hear the sound of wooden swords clashing from the training grounds.
It reminded me of the days when I trained until my hands blistered.
Being able to focus on something is a good thing.
Even though the results weren't that great, the reason I was so diligent back then must have been because I had a purpose.
As always, I wore my sword at my waist.
Though now I couldn't even swing it properly—it had become nothing more than decoration.
I had no desire to go to the training grounds and work up a sweat.
*'Who would even treat someone like you as an Oppa?'*
*'Disappear. Someone who can't do anything...'*
It was obvious that the most detestable face would be strutting around there.
I wandered around looking for somewhere else until the sound of wooden swords faded away.
As I walked, I entered a small lecture building connected to the main hall.
It was a quiet place where only the sound of chalk scraping against blackboards and teachers' voices could be heard.
When life was better than now, I wasn't an honor student, but I wasn't called a poor student either.
For a time, I even received fairly good grades in theory.
But after returning to school following the war's end, nothing would enter my head, so I gave up on everything.
The classes here had few students.
They were all unpopular elective courses without exception.
Peeking through the gaps in open doors, I entered the classroom that seemed to have the fewest auditors.
Only two people sat in the nearly empty classroom.
Even one of them was nodding off, unable to fight sleep.
I gave a perfunctory bow toward the teacher standing at the podium and sat in the very back seat.
The teacher was a nun. A young nun who looked to be around my age at most.
Her height—if she stood on tiptoes, she might reach my chest.
There was only one student in the front row scribbling notes as a listener.
Yet as if that alone was enough, she moved busily as though giving a grand speech in a packed auditorium.
However, her voice was gentle and pleasant to hear, not matching her busy movements.
*'Divinity Studies, huh. No wonder it's unpopular.'*
Religion had lost its former prestige in the Empire.
Rapidly developing magic had taken away the reason for the masses to rely on religion.
It was similar to how technology replaced religion's position in the modern world.
Except the speed was incomparably faster than in the modern era.
Faith demands devotion. Both material and spiritual devotion.
The discipline of faith is a battle with oneself, and clergy are constantly tested in their patience.
With absolutely no immediate reward, one must completely devote oneself to the afterlife—whose very existence is questionable—and to an intangible god to use 'Blessings.'
Setting aside the efficacy of Blessings, current Divinity Studies is difficult to approach even out of curiosity.
In contrast, magic is convenient and flashy.
Anyone with a Magic Circuit can use it, and it's useful in daily life too.
Shooting fire from your palm, closing your eyes and muttering to make lightning strike from a cloudless sky—who wouldn't be thrilled?
I can't use it myself, but I like magic. I've enjoyed many of its benefits too.
Thanks to magic, I can now drink beer colder than ice in a frozen glass.
Thanks to the Academy, any noble's child can receive kind instruction from one to ten through a systematic curriculum. The barrier to entry is low.
Even if you don't major in Magic Studies, related books are everywhere.
Last time, I saw two kids about eight years old playing by floating a ball in the air with wind and tossing it back and forth.
Even that nun came alone from a small religious state on the continent's outskirts to the Empire for missionary work, without any fellow clergy.
Rumor has it they gave her a leftover teaching position either for diplomatic reasons or because they couldn't turn her away.
The nun, who's devoted to reciting scripture, probably doesn't know this even in her dreams.
Perhaps the ambiguous efficacy of Blessings itself was also a reason religion lost out.
Healing Blessings?
A potion made by opening a book, following the formula, and roughly mixing ingredients bought at the market in a flask heals more conveniently than a mediocre clergyman sucking on wounds all day.
If that process seems troublesome, you can simply purchase finished products at any general store.
Oh, unlike potions, Blessings supposedly help with fatigue recovery too. Like a massage, maybe.
Anyway, neither magic nor Blessings can restore permanent physical loss.
Meaning there's no way anywhere to get back my eye and arm.
Exorcism Blessings?
If ghosts existed, I'd like to become one too.
I'd haunt those Magnolia family bastards every night and drive them all to suicide.
Even in this fantasy world, there are no ghosts.
I've watched an exorcism held in an open lot, but it was nothing more than a show-show-show to attract believers.
In short, religion has been abandoned in the Empire.
I almost feel sympathy for it. Though unlike me, the nun looks quite lively.
I unfastened the sword I was wearing and placed it on the empty seat next to me.
I buried my face in the desk and closed my eyes.
Listening to the nun's voice as she threw herself into teaching, I gradually fell asleep.
.
.
.
Judging by how I had nightmares from just a brief nap, I definitely didn't have enough alcohol.
My eyelids wouldn't open as if I were experiencing sleep paralysis. My entire body had stiffened like stone.
My lost arm and eye burned hot as if on fire.
The nightmares came in all varieties.
The hanged dog. All the contempt I heard from the family. The ring Giselle discarded.
Ah, and of course, plenty about the war too.
Comrades sprawled on the ground like sacks. The goddamn roar of that goddamn artillery.
Corpses turned into meat chunks by magic. Blood spattering before my eyes with each slash through flesh.
But today's visitor was the neck of an enemy soldier I'd beheaded.
Fragments of nightmares I'd buried and sealed under dirt sometimes visit without warning.
I shouldn't have done something I don't usually do. I should have just stayed holed up at home.
Soon that neck—the enemy soldier's neck with its rough cross-section from having to strike repeatedly because it didn't cut cleanly—
Would open its mouth, blood-stained teeth grinding with a cracking sound, and recite a prayer in a small voice.
I wanted to cover my ears, but I didn't have enough hands. I couldn't move them in the first place.
In the landscape I saw with my eyes closed, I wished I could close my eyes once more.
The neck's mouth slowly opened, shaped like a massive cavity as if to swallow me.
I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to see it. I was afraid. I was scared.
Giselle, Iris. I didn't care who—please just let me escape from here.
"Ah..."
But no matter how long I waited, no prayer was recited.
Instead, a thin voice like a bird singing.
Only pleasant-toned humming without lyrics could be heard.
The darkness gradually brightened as if being painted over.
Like dawn when the sun rises, gradually.
.
.
.
When waking from nightmares, I usually end up screaming.
Because of the sensation of falling that I always feel when opening my eyes.
So cases like now—waking up with a drowsy face, refreshed as if I'd slept well—are extremely rare.
"Ah, you're awake."
The source of the song was the nun who'd been leaning her arms on the windowsill in front of me.
The setting sun broke into small pieces passing through the window, so I couldn't see her face well.
I identified her by her ebony-like nun's habit and the necklace glinting with reflected light.
"Sleepyhead."
That voice, lovely as a song, must be referring to me.
When I lowered my head slightly, eyes that remained vividly blue even while receiving sunlight gazed at me.
While peeling hair stuck to my cheek, I looked around the classroom once.
The two auditors who'd remained were nowhere to be seen.
Judging by the colors filling the classroom, I must have slept a good three or four hours.
"Is it that boring? My class."
As she said that and her body left the windowsill, her brown hair swayed slightly from the breeze that entered the classroom.
"I can't sleep normally."
At my excuse, the nun giggled softly.
She reached out and removed a strand of hair still stuck to my face, then blew it away out the window with a puff.
"You were sleeping just fine though. Soundly, even drooling."
"...I lack faith."
"What an impious person."
Even while calling me that, the smile the nun wore didn't fade.
Even when her gaze touched my empty sleeve, she just couldn't take her eyes away, as if fascinated.
Placing her hand on her chin and pretending to ponder, she looked back and forth between my eye and arm.
Unable to bear that gaze, I spat out harsh words.
"Are you pitying me for being a cripple?"
"Yes."
Without realizing it, I'd responded with a barbed tone.
It's not like I harbor such great resentment toward clergy...
...?
Did I mishear? She seemed to answer quite readily.
"What did you just..."
"You asked if I was pitying you for being a cripple, so I affirmed it!"
"Uh-huh. I see. Could you bring me my sword over there?"
No, wait. I couldn't make the Academy's one and only precious nun take unnecessary steps.
I was reaching out to grasp the sword hilt myself, wondering where I should strike to make it hurt her less.
A white sleeve passed by my face without hesitation, and slender fingers caressed the scar near my eye.
"Because pitying the weak is natural."
The nun's expression as she said that, stroking along the vertical scar, was infinitely kind and warm.
I'd received treatment as weak to the point of exhaustion.
I'd received plenty of pity—charity grudgingly given because we were family.
But that warmth approaching me without any falsehood, as if it were a natural duty—that was a kind I'd never experienced before.
"It must have hurt terribly."
I detest people treating my pain as an interesting spectacle.
I abhor people who pretend to know everything when they don't and close the distance.
I hate the murmuring voices from all directions with each step I take.
"Hm? Come to think of it, why are you holding your sword?"
"...I get anxious if I'm not holding it. It's my cherished sword."
Yet why couldn't I swat away that hand that wouldn't leave my face?
Maybe with alcohol, but I shouldn't have been starved for affection.
I wished it wouldn't leave for a long time.
"What's your name?"
"...You don't know me?"
"Are you famous?"
What? Was I showing off? Someone told me I was an Imperial spectacle.
"I'm on the outskirts at school... I'm not sensitive to rumors."
The nun answering that way stuck out her tongue slightly in a playful manner.
Looking only at such behavior and voice, she was unmistakably a girl my age.
"We found something in common. I'm ostracized too."
"...I'm not being ostracized—I'm the one ostracizing others?"
"That's what outcasts usually say."
At my answer, the nun burst into laughter. I hadn't said it to be funny though.
The nun, who stopped laughing, still didn't remove her hand and said while looking into my eyes:
"I'm Mace. I teach Divinity Studies at the Academy.
It's a boring class, but will you come take naps sometimes?"
"...I'm Ain. Just Ain."
After we exchanged names, Mace smiled so broadly her eyes closed.
It was a smile resembling the sun on a day far brighter and clearer than the sunset outside.