Chapter 205 - Damn Reincarnation

Sun Plaza

The sun was setting.

Anise lifted her half-full beer glass and looked out the window. Though the pub lay deep in an alley, a faint wash of sunset still found its way inside.

“Well, then.”

She had drunk her fill.

Considering the centuries she had spent unable to drink after her death, no amount could ever be enough. Still, for the moment, she had drunk so much that she had no desire for another glass.

She had even received a gift. ... There could hardly be any lingering regrets just now. If Kristina’s body had not been special, and if Anise had no mission left to fulfill, she was certain that this day alone would have been enough to let her pass on in peace.

“I’ll be heading back inside now.”

“Yeah.”

Eugene surveyed the area around Anise with a look of dismay. Empty beer glasses littered the floor, and there was even a large liquor jar beside her.

For an ordinary... no, for any human being, drinking that much beer in so little time would have been physically impossible. But it was perfectly possible for Anise, who cast divine magic on herself for the sole purpose of drinking more.

“See you next time.”

Get back safely.

He nearly said it without thinking. Wasn’t it ridiculous to tell her to get back safely when her body would stay right here and only the consciousness inside it would change? For a moment, Anise’s body went still. The lashes of her closed eyes began to tremble.

“... Urrgh...”

Kristina clamped a hand over her mouth and groaned miserably. She was not particularly fond of alcohol. If she had to drink, she preferred dry wine. Beer so cold it made her head ring? She had never once thought it tasted good.

And she had drunk an inhuman amount of it... Anise had destroyed most of the beer with divine magic, but Kristina was still tormented by a throbbing headache and the smell of alcohol with every breath.

“Are you okay?”

Eugene approached as he asked. Kristina hastily sprang from her seat and backed away. Still tipsy, she tangled her feet a little as she retreated. She swayed, but Eugene reached out in time, catching her arm and supporting her waist.

“You don’t look okay.”

“N-no, no, you mustn’t.”

Kristina covered her flushed face with both hands.

“Mustn’t what?”

“I... smell of alcohol. It can’t be a pleasant smell...”

“Good grief.”

He had spent well over a decade wandering around with companions who were crazy about booze. He was hardly going to find the smell offensive now.

That was what Eugene thought, but he did not say it aloud and embarrass Kristina further. Instead, he drew a formula in his mind and cast a spell.

“... Oh...”

Kristina felt the magic envelop her. Her throbbing headache and the smell of alcohol clinging to her body vanished without a trace.

[“Tsk.”]

Anise clicked her tongue inside Kristina’s head. She, too, could remove the headache and smell of alcohol, not to mention the intoxication. She had deliberately chosen not to. She had carefully left just enough alcohol in her system to keep her fairly clearheaded while making her emotions a little more intense... and her body a little unsteady.

Why else would she have done it? She had planned to enjoy all sorts of fun thanks to that exquisitely balanced tipsiness... Anise was genuinely annoyed that Eugene had learned magic.

[“Learning magic is so unlike him... He could have just stuck to using his body, like in his last life.”]

Pretending not to hear Anise’s muttering, Kristina hurriedly straightened up. She smoothed her disheveled hair with her fingers and cleared her throat.

“... I apologize for that disgraceful display. U-unlike Lady Anise, I’m not very accustomed to drinking, so...”

“She isn’t just accustomed to it. She’s a monster.”

Grumbling, Eugene pointed at the closed door.

“What do you want to do? Stay here a while longer, or go out?”

“I’ll... go out. Yes. I’ve eaten too much, so I’d like to walk a little.”

She had not planned it that way. Kristina had intended to give the entire day to Anise in the first place. It was Anise who had set the limit at sunset.

Most festivals were more dazzling and enjoyable at night than during the day.

Anise’s birthday festival was no exception. The parades had been going on since daytime, but the nighttime parade was especially splendid. Performers danced and marched in elaborate costumes and ornaments, followed by musicians singing hymns with lyrics rewritten to be lively.

Kristina could not get out of the alley where the pub stood. The nighttime parade happened to be passing along the main road ahead. The festival had already drawn a large crowd, and now the street was so tightly packed that, without exaggeration, there was nowhere to set a foot.

“... We should take another way around.”

“Why bother?”

“...”

“I want to watch that. Don’t you?”

There was probably no deeper meaning behind those words.

But Kristina could not give a casual answer to that casual question. So carelessly tossed out, it had sent ripples through the depths of her heart.

“Have you seen it before?”

After a pause too brief to call a silence, Eugene asked again without waiting for an answer. That question, too, shook Kristina’s heart.

She had seen it.

There had also been times... when she wanted to see it.

Any young child would have felt that way.

The convent where she had spent her childhood had housed a great many orphans. So many growing children to feed meant a great deal of food to store. As a result, the convent had plenty of rats and assorted insects.

Left alone, those pests would multiply beyond control, so regular extermination was necessary. About once a month, the clergy gathered the children in the playground with cloths covering their noses and mouths. Then they fumigated the buildings, carrying canisters that billowed pale smoke.

Stay where you are. The children were told that, but they did not listen. What had made it so exciting and fun...? It was hard to recall that feeling now. But as a little girl, before her adoption, Kristina had chased the smoke streaming from the canisters with the other children.

That was her only memory of following a parade. There were many children out on the main road now. Knowing nothing of the ugly truths behind Yuras’s religion, they laughed as children did and chased after the parade.

Kristina had never experienced a festival. Even when she lived at the convent, she had never been allowed outside. Looking back, it had all been a means of monitoring and controlling a carefully crafted candidate for sainthood, an imitation incarnation. To Kristina, a festival had been a day when the communal meal included meat pie or a large piece of meat, and a parade had meant chasing the smoke from a fumigation canister.

Things had not improved after she became Sergio’s adopted daughter. If anything, she had been even more miserable. The meals were incomparably better than those at the convent, but no matter how delicious the food, she could not think of those days as festivals.

Neither Sergio’s mansion nor Trechia Cathedral had any smoke for Kristina and other children to chase with laughter.

Her childhood had been crushed and torn apart by despair and hatred, then covered with pretense.

Only after that childhood ended was she finally allowed to attend festivals, but by then Kristina was no longer a little girl. As a “candidate for sainthood,” she stood at the head of the Trechia festival. To her, however, that festival was a scaffold on which the person called “I” was executed, and a platform for promoting the candidate for sainthood.

“... Yes.”

“And you don’t want to watch?”

“... I don’t know.”

She lied.

It was not that she did not know. She did not want to watch. What if it brought back those memories of misery and hatred hidden beneath pretense? Kristina had already received more than enough salvation, but she feared that the girl from her unalterable, unforgettable past might stir her despair.

“Does watching some parade really need this much agonizing?”

Eugene muttered as he scratched his head vigorously. Without answering, Kristina gazed at the people filling the street. Abruptly, he reached out and caught the wrist of the girl standing motionless beside him.

“Oh...”

“Kristina Rogeris.”

Eugene did not know what Kristina was thinking. But he knew that most of her life had been unhappy. She was probably standing here in silence, hesitating because she had superimposed those unhappy childhood memories on the dazzling, joyous festival ahead.

“I saved you.”

Holding her wrist, Eugene strode forward and pulled her along. Kristina could neither speak nor resist. Bewildered, she simply let him lead her.

“I’m not going to tell you to repay me for saving you. I decided to save you on my own. That was my choice. So you can make whatever choice you want, too.”

“... Choose what?”

“Whether to come with me or not.”

Honestly, she found that absurd. Was there any choice to make? Kristina knew exactly what she wanted. She had no intention of staying in Yuras. Even if Eugene said he did not want her, even if he told her to get lost, she would follow him. To repay him for saving her? No. Kristina knew very well that Eugene would despise that reason.

She simply wanted to go with him. Eugene was the Hero, and in truth he was Hamel the Stupid from three hundred years ago. None of that mattered very much to Kristina now.

Eugene had saved Kristina Rogeris, not the saint.

And so Kristina simply wanted to go with Eugene Lionheart, not the Hero or Hamel.

“... I will come with you.”

“Then don’t get scared and hesitate over watching something so trivial.”

The street was crowded.

But people shifted aside little by little in the direction Eugene walked, opening a path. They were not even aware of why they moved. Their stumbling steps backward, the faint trembling of their bodies—all of it was an instinctive response they could not help.

Eugene made his way through them, pulling Kristina along.

“Because to the person you’ll become, this will be an insignificant sight.”

“...”

“You’re here, right now. I don’t know what you’re thinking, what’s on your mind, or what you remembered. I don’t want to know, and I’m not going to pry.”

Eugene stopped. Releasing Kristina’s hand, he pointed ahead. Glittering, dazzling, joyous, noisy—the festival parade Kristina had imagined as a little girl was marching right before her eyes.

“So just watch.”

Kristina stood still and looked ahead. She had not only ever imagined it. Since becoming a candidate for sainthood, she had seen it many times. She had often stood at the head of the parade herself. But this felt completely different.

The suffering, hatred, and anger she had felt before; her scorn for those who praised and envied the candidate for sainthood without knowing a thing; her self-loathing at the abnormality of both herself and that role—she felt none of it now. Eugene had been right.

Those memories, those emotions, even the scene before her all seemed insignificant. Kristina felt a great disconnect between her feelings now and the sight before her. The lively songs. The elaborate costumes and decorations. The children’s laughter. The spectators’ exclamations. All of it felt a little distant.

And Eugene, standing right in front of her, felt far too close.

“See? It’s nothing special.”

Eugene turned his head and smiled. She should have been completely sober by now... Yet her face was burning strangely hot.

Kristina opened and closed her mouth, then abruptly bowed her head. She stepped backward as though trying to escape, but Eugene would not let her flee.

“Isn’t it?”

“I-it’s different. This... really is different. It’s just...”

At that moment, Kristina faced a terrible dilemma. She wanted to turn her back and run away. Not because that insignificant spectacle had stirred emotions she did not want to remember, but simply because she was too embarrassed to look at Eugene’s face.

Yet there was no way, absolutely no way, she could explain those feelings to him. She would rather hand everything over to Anise and hide beyond her consciousness, but that mischievous Sister was listening to everything without offering a single word of advice.

What if she ran? Unless Kristina explained herself properly, Eugene was certain to misunderstand. She hated the thought of that misunderstanding more than anything. He had said all those things and brought her all the way here. If she fled now, wouldn’t he feel that it had all been for nothing? Kristina feared that he might be disappointed in her.

‘... There’s no way he would, but...’

“What’s wrong with you?”

Eugene asked. It was time to make some sort of decision. Kristina took a deep breath, then strode forward, reversing her retreat.

“L-let’s follow it.”

“What?”

“The... p-parade. Isn’t it fun to follow behind one?”

Speaking hurriedly, Kristina pushed her way into the procession. Eugene watched her, then chuckled and walked beside her.

Let the night be a proper night.

Kristina wished for that with all her heart. Merciful Light, please do not illuminate this night. But her prayer was futile. The nights of the capital, Euresia, were always softly lit, and at this moment the magnificent parade made everything around her far too bright.

Kristina was embarrassed, feeling as though the bright light illuminated her face much too clearly. She did not want Eugene to see her blush. Nor did she want the crowd to see a face so closely resembling Anise’s.

Right now... there were far too many people around. Was it her imagination? Their gazes seemed to lick across her face.

‘Oh.’

Kristina realized it belatedly. She was wearing a robe, with its hood thrown back behind her. Hastily, she pulled the hood down low to hide her face.

“What are you doing?”

“... I’m afraid someone will recognize me.”

“There you go again.”

“... Please understand. There were many people in the plaza earlier, too, but unlike then, we’re part of the procession now. If someone recognizes me here, I might ruin the parade.”

Eugene glanced at Kristina through narrowed eyes. He still did not like it, but he did not force her hood off as he had earlier.

As they walked together, Kristina could hear her heartbeat clearly even over the lively music. She walked with the procession as if nothing were wrong, but her face still burned.

‘... O Light, please...’

Even with her hood pulled down, the surroundings were so bright that she felt her face was visible. So Kristina prayed again.

Had her earnest prayer been heard?

Every light illuminating the parade went out at once. So did the lights lining the street. In an instant, the street became as dark as night ought to be. The sudden darkness brought the parade to a halt. Those following it looked around and murmured.

BOOM!

The darkness lifted. Fireworks launched from a nearby tall clock tower embroidered the sky. The display that would crown the festival had begun. The crowd’s murmurs turned to cheers. Everyone raised their heads to watch the lights blossom and flutter in the sky.

Kristina could not. She pulled her hood low with both hands and kept her head bowed.

“Kristina Rogeris.”

Eugene called her name. Her shoulders flinched at his voice.

His hands slowly approached and covered hers.

“I’m the only one looking at you right now.”

Rough hands, thick with calluses.

Those hands drew back Kristina’s hood.

“... Ah...”

Fireworks burst high in the sky and drifted down. Kristina looked up at Eugene gazing down at her, and at the fireworks cascading behind him.

“So don’t hide yourself.”

Kristina knew very well that he meant “Kristina Rogeris,” not the saint.

“If you’ve decided to come with me, shouldn’t you be looking at the same things I am?”

Without dwelling on being a saint.

Without hiding herself from the gazes and murmurs around her.

No.

They simply felt insignificant and far away. It was just like before. Everything around her was insignificant and distant, while Eugene alone felt close. Was this feeling admiration, or worship? Or was it... Kristina did not think deeply about it.

She simply, simply found it beautiful. The fireworks embroidering the sky and raining down, and Eugene beneath them. Eugene, who had reached out to her amid the saint’s fate and its curse-like shackles. Eugene Lionheart, not the Hero, who had saved Kristina Rogeris, not the saint.

A miracle so close she could touch it if she reached out.

So beautiful and lovely that it dazzled her.

“... Yes.”

Swallowing a trembling breath, she closed her eyes. It was so dazzling that she felt she might go blind if she kept looking. To Kristina, all of this was a miracle.

And so Kristina smiled. Without opening her eyes, without fashioning any pretense into a mask to wear, she felt the miracle so close to her, so bright and beautiful.

“Yes, Sir Eugene.”

She smiled.