/
The skies had turned dark when Flamm arrived at the church in the Central District.
Enveloped in the shadow of the building, Flamm observed the situation.
The atmosphere of the church is terribly unusual.
Even if they still have knights posted at the gates, their expressions too looked grim.
On site, the nuns were talking with each other with worries on their face around the entrance of the main building.
However, Sarah couldn’t be seen among them.
Was there an incident, Flamm wondered.
As she brooded over if she should directly ask them about it, a 20-year-old or so nun clad in white robe similar to Sarah’s passed in front of her.
“Hey Sister, can I ask you something?”
Flamm instantly called out to her.
The woman stopped, and with a swing of her pale pink-colored hair, she turned to say “What might it be?” with a smile.
Flamm beckoned the nun to come over to a place where the knights can’t see and asked the nun frankly;
“Do you know of a girl called Sarah?”
“Y-You know her!?”
As she did, the nun suddenly asked her the question back, grasping on Flamm’s shoulders.
Seeing the nun’s desperate expression, Flamm immediately knew that something had definitely happened to Sarah.
“Ah…I’m sorry. An unexpected incident happened, so we are a bit disordered…”
The woman was grasping onto a bag of groceries.
Perhaps she was asked to go and buy some things in the middle of the riot.
“As I thought, something happened to her, doesn’t it?”
“…Before that…can I ask you how you are related to Sarah?”
“My name is Flamm. Sarah is—”
Even before Flamm could finish her explanation, the nun interrupted her and started speaking.
“Aah, it’s you! The kind person that Sarah said made her delicious foods!”
Seems like Flamm is well known already.
It’s truly just like Sarah to talk about food.
“I haven’t introduced myself, have I. My name is Tina. I have been living in the church with Sarah since we were small.”
Flamm remembered something Sarah had told her.
Sarah used to tell her a lot about the “family” she had in the church, and Tina was one of those people.
“Then I think it would be fine for me to talk about this with you. An announcement came down from the Church earlier today…they said that they have excommunicated Sarah.”
“Excommunicated!? Why so suddenly!?”
“It seems that…the reason is that she had been involved with demonic worship. I heard that the moment she was discovered, she was immediately dragged to the Court of the Church.”
The Court of the Church is an institution separate from the court established by the Kingdom. It was made specifically to punish the members of the church that broke their internal rules.
It’s an institution that was said to punish the rulebreakers by imprisonment, torture, or even execution.
Obviously, it is a violation of the laws of the Kingdom, yet the Kingdom had no interest of intervening with the tyranny of the church, and instead, they even gave the church the authority to make decisions to maintain the public safety of one entire district.
In the end, it means in the present kingdom, anyone being taken to the church’s courthouse would be treated as a criminal.
“Of course none of us believe that she was involved in demonic worship, I can guarantee that. We lived together with her after all.”
She was under a false sentence.
Flamm grits her teeth strongly from her irritation.
Sarah was supposed to be a talented, precious asset of the church.
Then perhaps Ink and whatever exists in the church in the West District was something they are desperate to hide that they are willing to throw the girl away.
“Hey, Flamm-san…where did she go? What did she do? Why is she being treated like this!?” Tina asked, her voice shivering.
As if she’s trying to push back the emotions that are pushing her to cry.
Yet Flamm herself came to the church to ask that question.
“I…only heard that she said she’s heading to the orphanage in the West District because she had something to investigate there. She is acquainted with the knights there, so she said she could ask them.”
“The knights she knows…it’s got to be Ed and Johnny. As I thought, they aren’t unrelated after all.”
“Did something happen to those knights too?”
“Just today they were suddenly transferred away to a remote village. They don’t demote Royal Capital Knights unless there’s a major problem…but we didn’t hear anything about it, and they already left the capital by the time we thought of asking them directly. They were very friendly with us when they were posted here in the Central District, so normally they should have called out to us if they were transferring away.” Tina explained, feeling uneasy as she wrapped her arms around her body.
Frustrated, Flamm fiddled with her shirt.
Clearly, they are attempting to hide something using their powers to bypass the laws.
However, why did they excommunicate Sarah but transferred the knights away?
There should be a meaning in that discrepancy.
Was it because Sarah was a nun and the men were knights? No, excommunication was supposed to be the heaviest punishment within the Church of Origin.
If the church wanted to drive them out, they could have declared the knights excommunicated and bring them into court as well.
Naturally, Flamm could only think that there’s a reason that they had to transfer them out instead of bringing them into court.
“Also one more thing. I heard that there are witnesses that says that they saw a blond-haired girl in nun habits.”
“Wait…wasn’t that the place where we found the corpses?”
Tina silently nodded.
Afterwards, despite knowing that she wouldn’t be able to gain an answer, as if taking a gamble on her last hope, Tina asked;
“Was Sarah’s excommunication and the case of the corpses…connected?”
Flamm herself doesn’t believe in it.
Yet the timing, the situation, and the conjectures made from the church’s past conditions, Flamm could only come up with one answer.
“I think it’s got something to do with the church.”
Tina’s red eyes widened.
Along with her surprise, somewhere deep down in her heart, she thought; I called it.
“I had thought that those demoted knights might have been dead. That’s why I think their transfer is an attempt to conceal their deaths.”
“Then what about Sarah?”
“They haven’t found her body yet. Maybe she’s still on the run, so perhaps just in case she appeared again, they declared her excommunicated.”
“What is it that the pope wanted to hide so much that they are willing to go that far…?”
“That’s…”
If she told her, there will be no coming back.
Thus, Flamm bit her lip and shook her head.
“…I’m sorry, I can’t involve you in this. If I do, what they did to Sarah might happen to you too.”
“I don’t mind! We…we might not have been related by blood, but she’s one of our family member!”
“But If she’s on the run even now, then I also think that it’s one of her wish to not let any of you involved.”
“…even so…even so! How much do you think we all loved that girl…!”
Tina’s words showed hints of her vexation.
But Tina wasn’t the only one that was frustrated.
Sarah would’ve relied on them if only they had a the strength to solve this problem.
But she didn’t.
The two realized their own powerlessness.
“What should I do? If we just beat up the pope would she come back?”
“It wouldn’t be that simple.”
“Right…people like us can’t simply make enemies of the pope—”
“No, not that. I didn’t mean it like that. The church itself is…”
“The church is…what? It’s fine to just tell me already, right? I’ve steeled myself. Even I…even I have noticed that the popes are hiding something.”
She might have a deeper suspicion towards the church than an outsider.
At the very least, she’s not the popes that Flamm couldn’t easily trust.
This is a common understanding between the upright nuns and priests.
In front of the woman’s determination, Flamm gave in and told her everything she knows.
“…Whatever caused the “incident” this time…it’s possible that they couldn’t control it.”
“Incident?”
“The results of human experiments.”
“Human experiment…!? T-Then…Sarah is involved in it?”
“Perhaps. Not with the experiment, but she got to know something that has got something to do with its product, and they’re trying to erase her to conceal it.”
Perhaps she was erased already.
Tina held her head as she staggered.
That’s how far the truth shocked her.
Yet even if Flamm is someone Sarah knew well, Flamm herself feels that the woman couldn’t trust her whom she had just met.
“Sarah probably left the church this morning to go to the church in the West District.”
“You said that she had something to do in the orphanage, right? Nothing is happening there. I’ve been there before, and I can see the children living well.”
“Yeah, so it’s likely that the research is not conducted at the orphanage. Maybe they used the children to conduct their research somewhere else.”
That was what Flamm had taken assumed from her conversation with Ink earlier.
Though considering that Sarah was taken out in the West District, the institution should not be that far from that area.
“But then after or when she talked with the two knights, she was attacked by the eyes¹ that created those grotesque corpses.”
“Eyes?”
“That’s what the witnesses reported. The victims were attacked by a lot of eyeballs, and their bodies swelled until they turned into what they look like now.”
“What…what do you mean? Eyes? Only eyes attacked them?”
“Perhaps…”
“Those disgusting creatures are in the capital…? And that’s the result of the human experiment?”
Tina swallowed her saliva.
She hadn’t seen what they look like, but she shuddered thinking that such monster is currently hidden somewhere in the capital.
“But why were they attacked at all? Ed and Johnny are ordinary knights. They shouldn’t have known anything about the research.”
“I don’t know about that, but the fact is those knights had sacrificed themselves to allow Sarah to run away. Then she ran away to a place with no people around.”
Flamm thought of herself in Sarah’s shoes.
She was attacked by ominous eyeballs as she was conversing with her friends.
Her friends died to cover for her.
She managed to run away, but she continued to be pursued.
She continued to run as she kept being attacked by the eyeballs.
However, at that point, the girl must have noticed something.
The grotesque appearance and the timing must have led her to believe that this is the result of the research that the church wanted to hide.
“After that, she separated herself from the district wall. She assumed that because the church wanted to hide these things from public sight, those eyeballs wouldn’t come out in front of a crowd of people, much less attack them.
“But…those people ended up getting involved². That’s why you said that they couldn’t control it.”
“Yeah. Perhaps the church is being impatient. Otherwise they wouldn’t have made such unreasonable actions of transferring the knights or excommunicating Sarah and instead make some sly excuses like they usually do.”
The two fell into silence.
They couldn’t confirm Sarah’s safety.
They did not know the true nature of those eyes, they could not stop the church’s tyranny, and nothing had progressed.
“But…there’s still hope. Sarah is still okay, right?”
“Possibly.”
“That information alone is enough. I’ll talk to some people I can trust and we’ll find her.”
“Don’t get yourself too deeply involved. We can’t be sure who or when they’ll go after next.”
“That’s even better. I can get to Sarah quicker if they’re after me.”
Flamm could not laugh at that joke.
She was there to witness corpses who had lost its shape as a human. It was impossible for her to laugh at it.
“Thank you for telling me a lot.”
“No…Likewise, thank you very much. I’ll contact you again if I can confirm Sarah-chan’s safety.”
“Please. I will also contact you if we find her.”
Tina and Flamm exchanged addresses, and before long, they waved at each other as they parted ways.
She had managed to obtain more information than she expected, but…
The girl looked up to the violet sky and heaved a massive sigh.
“Sarah-chan…I hope you’re fine…”
Just imagining the innocent little girl swelling with multiple limbs growing out of her and turning into that unsightly figure made her nauseous.
She had to find Sarah as soon as possible and destroy the institution Ink was in…but it is still unclear if the “eyes” will stop at that point.
For now, she had no choice but to move forward.
As Flamm was returning to the West District from the Central District, her eyes met with a large man’s in front of her.
…it was Dain.
“Yo.”
He pasted a disgusting grin on his face as he called out to Flamm.
About 20 men followed after Dain in a line, as if he’s is commanding an army.
Perhaps because they were just back from a worship in the church, or perhaps because their face is as expressionless as a doll, Flamm couldn’t figure out what they’re thinking, which only made them even more ominous.
Flamm was about to ignore them and pass through, but then,
“Hol’ up. You’re lost thinkin’ about that lil’ brat gone, right?”
Flamm unconsciously stopped after hearing those words.
The men behind Dain turned to look at Flamm with a blank expression.
Flamm felt a chill running down her spine.
“They might be takin’ that disgusting bandage girl next time.”
“Dain, you bastard!”
In response to that clear provocation, Flamm raised her voice and closed in on him to grab his collar.
However, the man fearlessly smiled and replied;
“You sure you wanna do that? We’re the church’s believers, ya’ know? We’re Origin-sama’s³ devout, obedient dogs ya’ know? Hyahahaha!”
“And so you chose to throw away the last shred of your almost nonexistent pride?”
“Hahahah! A small dog like you glaring at me ain’t scary! The church ain’t half bad. Being able to catch an asylum behind such overwhelming power brings my mind at ease. Some things left a lot to be desired though”, said Dain, shaking free from Flamm’s grip before taking two steps back.
“My client…no, my current boss told me to keep my hands off of Flamm Apricot. Well if they went that far to say that, we can only accept. Low risk high return, you know.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Heheh, you’ll see. Oi, you lots! Let’s go!”
With his orders, the men moved completely in order.
Their movement seems as if they are lifeless machines.
Now she understood the reason why Iira hated the current Dain.
He said something about “low risk, high return”, but there’s no way that it is possible.
Because the profit he gains right now is massive, he could not notice that he would lose a lot of things.
It’s likely that Dain’s faction is nearing its end.
Perhaps, he has a new vision of a revolution of his governance.
Yet if that was the case, that governance is not one to be led by the charismatic Dain Phineas.
Flamm clenched her fists and collected her strength into her arms.
Dain kept walking further away.
It’s likely that although they could not harass Flamm directly, they’ll go for the people around her.
That includes, as he declared, Milkit.
Would it not be preferable to take care of him now before he could make a move?
With her seething anger, Flamm was about to pull out her Soul Eater, but…she felt something glaring at her, and so she turned her face to the right.
—A single eyeball is looking at her.
It was only one, but its gaze is fixated at her.
“kh…”
Flamm held her breath.
Why?
She hadn’t obtained any information regarding the church, nor had she inflicted any harm, so why does it appear in front of her?
“This…could it be…”
Without a doubt, it is one of the eyeballs that created those corpses.
Flamm’s hostility towards Dain was replaced by a paralyzing dread.
She pulled out her sword and headed for that “eye”.
As she did, the thing rolled away, turned a corner and completely disappeared.
Flamm chased after it in a hurry, but she already couldn’t see it anymore.
“What the hell was that…”
It only showed itself instead of chasing after her.
Feeling hazy from its incomprehensible actions, once again, Flamm headed for home.
Seeing Flamm’s expression, Milkit who had been waiting for her smiled and said “Welcome back” without asking anything.
Food is better eaten joyfully and cheerfully, which is why Flamm chose not to disclose what happened to Sarah just yet to allow Milkit, Eterna and Ink to dine as they usually do.
Yet everyone in the room have sensed something.
Perhaps not about how Sarah is missing, but they noticed that Flamm might have some bad news.
After they finished their food and cleaned up, Flamm informed everyone that Sarah had not returned to the church.
The one who was hurt the most was Ink.
Sarah got caught up in an incident because of her.
The rest tried to comfort her as much as possible, yet her pain could not easily be healed.
After a while, the girl went up to the second floor and shut herself in the guest room across Flamm’s room.
Eterna said that she had work to be done, so she too returned to her own room, leaving only Flamm and Milkit in the living room.
For several times already, Milkit had tried to say something to cheer up Flamm who looked down, yet even after she opened her mouth…she couldn’t express her thoughts properly.
For the first time, the girl had thought that she wanted to do something for someone else.
It was a principle the girl never followed.
However, despite Milkit’s laments for her disappointing self, for Flamm, the fact that Milkit tried to do something was way more than enough of a support..
“Thanks.”
“…Eh?”
“I feel like I’ve been saved by you a lot of times, Milkit.”
“N-No, I’m…I couldn’t do anything…”
“No, you’ve done enough. I feel stronger just with you being here. So—”
Flamm stood up from her seat before leaning forward and held Milkit by her hands.
“You don’t need to say anything special, so you don’t have to feel down. I can do my best just by seeing you smile.”
“Even so…I want to give you the same amount of support as you have given me, master.”
“Hehe, you really know how to make me happy. Well, if that’s what you think, I won’t stop you, but please remember that your master here wants you to smile as much as possible.”
Flamm lets go of her hands as she said that, but Milkit responded with a lonely yelp.
It was unclear if she realized it or not, but just as Flamm was about to leave the room, she lightly hugged the girl from her back and caressed her head.
“Master…”, whispered Milkit, left alone. She put her hand on her bandaged cheek, gripping the bandage firmly.
From the gaps between her bandages, her cheeks could be seen, dyed in deep red.
Knock, knock, the door to Eterna’s room rang, to which the owner responded with “Go ahead”.
“So you really came,” she said as if already expecting Flamm to enter the room from the beginning.
“How’d you guess?”
“Your face is like an open book that reads you have something to say when we had our dinner”
Flamm touched her own face all over, confused if she really did make a face like that.
Though of course, there’s no way for her to understand.
“Use the chairs as you like.”
Flamm took a chair left in the darkness near the wall and put it down by the desk, next to Eterna.
The latter stopped her hands and faced Flamm.
The desk was littered with dried herbs and some mysterious sculptures scattered about.
“What were you doing?”
“I’m making something to make you the user feel better. Not that it would cure illnesses or heal injuries though.”
“Aren’t those some problematic drugs then…”
While it’s true that if the drugs doesn’t cure illnesses or heal injuries the church won’t bat an eye to it, another party is going to set their eyes on them for it.
“I’m just mixing it into a herbal tea.”
“Ah, that…wait, aren’t those too much for you to drink by yourself?”
“I’m thinking of selling them. I can’t keep living off of you after all.”
I see, Flamm said, hitting her hands together.
It seems like Eterna felt bad for living there for free.
Though Flamm held herself back from saying that it’s a bit unexpected for there is a risk of her turning angry.
“Then what are those sculptures for?”
“These are…”
That was not the issue Flamm had at hand, but Flamm was too curious to let it slide.
They seem like wooden sculptures made in the image of a person’s upper body. Eterna took one of them and handed it over to Flamm.
“Hmm…Doesn’t it look like me?”
“It’s a sculpture of you that Milkit made.”
“So it is me. Milkit did this? We did say that she’s got dextrous hands, but…”
“When she was a slave…well she still is…anyways, since long ago, she tends to fidget around by shaving or carving rocks or woods. This is what it led to.”
“And why are these in your room?”
“She said it would be embarrassing if you found these, but she couldn’t bring herself to throw it away. I don’t need them, so you can have them.”
Flamm also felt troubled to be given a sculpture of her own figure, so she respectfully refused and put the sculpture back on Eterna’s table.
Eterna frowned, obviously troubled as well.
“Milkit has been trying to do a lot of things when you weren’t here so she could be useful to you.”
“And one of them is sculpting?”
“Yeah. It amazes me how much she loves you.”
“I wouldn’t say she loves me but…I think she likes me.”
“Are you actually bragging?”
“I’m not!”
Flamm loudly objected as she leaned forward.
Perhaps relieved seeing Flamm regaining her spirits, Eterna showed a faint smile.
Flamm sat back down and her expression stiffens once more.
“Alright, let me start again. Let’s move on to the main topic.”
Now that Eterna is not fooling around, she concentrated on the issue.
“Eterna-san, can you teach me magic?”
Flamm had realized her own lack of abilities.
Sarah wouldn’t rely on her, and she couldn’t save Sarah, so she hated herself for it.
Yet because of her “Inverse” attribute, her status wouldn’t grow.
No matter how much she tried, it was impossible for her to grow stronger like everyone else.
However, there is something else she could do.
She could polish the skills that aren’t written in her status, namely the Cavalier Arts or the arts and knowledge of magic.
In her free time, she would train to refine her Prana and practice to grasp the mana flowing in her body.
However, she was unable to sublimate those mana in the form of spells.
“My attribute is water, so there’s not much I can teach to someone with a rare attribute like you. Besides, I’m not that good at teaching things to people anyways…I feel like I’ve told you this before though.”
“You can just tell me about the simple how-to’s.”
“Hmmm…You can use Prana, right? Using those are supposedly more difficult, so I don’t understand why you can use them but not mana.”
“I can grasp the feeling of mana within me, but I can’t release them in the form of spells.”
“Alright then, try to collect your mana to your palm.”
“Okay.”
Flamm narrowed her eyes. As she did, she seized the mana welling up in her body, formed it into a shape and collected them on the palm she held in front of Eterna.
As Eterna said earlier, doing this is a lot easier than refining Prana.
“The amount, quality and condition isn’t bad, but…”
Eterna murmured as she touched Flamm’s hand.
“I see…so it has this characteristic.”
Afterwards she seemed to comprehend it with a nod.
“Did you find anything?”
To Flamm’s nervous question, Eterna suddenly stood up and pointed at the chair she was sitting on.
“Touch this chair with the mana on your hand.”
“Okay…?”
As instructed, she touched Eterna’s chair.
There was a subtle warmth left from Eterna’s body temperature.
“Next is the problem of the image. Imagine clearly how the “inverse” attribute would invert and put that into effect to a material.”
“Uh…um…should I imagine it and send my mana into the chair?”
“Yeah, exactly like that.”
As per Eterna’s instruction, Flamm started imagining.
Invert—vertically, horizontally…inside, and out.
Perhaps because it’s her first time, she was not quite able to grasp the feelings, but the process that consumes the most is perhaps inverting it inside out.
It takes a lot of energy to break a chair after all.
Because she’s using it for the first time, she chose to invert it vertically, with a very simple movement.
And then, the name of the spell naturally appeared on her head.
“Reversal!4”
To her exclaim, the chair rotated, in place and stopped as its seat faced down.
It was “inverted” just as she imagined it, so while stunned, Flamm whispered;
“…I did it.”
The influence of her spell was minor, but it doesn’t change the fact that she managed to cast it.
She managed to do, with her own hands, something that she thought she could never do in her whole life.
“I can…I can cast a spell…that easily…”
“How much mana did you use? Did you feel like something had been drained from your body?”
“N-no, nothing like that!”
It seems like she has the margin to repeat the process several hundred…no, several thousand times.
“Then there are no problems. Your attribute has an excellent mana efficiency as long as you can maintain it. I think it depends on what and how you choose to invert though.”
It seems that Flamm’s guess had been correct.
For example, if she tried to turn the chair inside out to destroy it, she would definitely feel a sudden exhaustion.
Also, breaking Eterna’s personal belongings would definitely ruin her mood as well.
“But why can I suddenly cast spells?”
“It’s simple,” Eterna took Flamm’s hand and massaged it as she speaks, “The applicability of your mana is very limited. You can’t cast it if you don’t touch your target, so unlike other attributes, you can’t use it for long-range attacks.”
Thinking back to her training, all Flamm had tried to cast were spells to attack enemies far away.
After all, her main weapon is a great sword, so she wanted a way to attack enemies that are far away.
However, her attribute is more suited for close-quarter combat.
“I wanted a way to fight without getting hurt though…”
Flamm is a girl too after all, Eterna thought.
She had gotten used to getting hurt, but it’s still unpleasant to get hurt.
“Your choice is just to give up, because that’s how it is. The rest depends on how you use it. For example, if the target is connected to another object, the mana consumed would increase, but you could still entirely invert them.”
“So…if I cast it on this floorboard…”
The girl crouched down and touched the wooden boards affixed to the floor.
Eterna nodded and said,
“You can flip that entire plank.”
In other words, if she could use it on a long plank, it’s not impossible to use the spell to make a long-range attack.
Though it would be difficult to say if she could really use it in actual combat.
“Can you use it on the ground?”
“It depends on your control and imagination. You couldn’t possibly invert the earth’s surface, but if you designate the appropriate extent and depth and affix that to your image, then it is possible.”
Flamm doesn’t think that she could think that far.
However, despite its limitation of being able to cast it on an object she touched, it’s already a major difference for her to be able to cast spells.
“That said, even though you can use magic now, don’t push yourself too hard. If it’s something I could do, then I’ll lend you a hand.”
“That’s true, but I still need more power to protect those that are important for me.”
After all, her enemies are either monsters who defied common sense or an absolute trash of a human being.
“You’re pushing yourself too far, Flamm, just like you did during our journey.”
“There’s not much that I can do, so I have to do my best doing what I could.”
“That self-sacrificing way of fighting is okay if you’re alone, but try not to do that if you have friends. Milkit is always sad when you get hurt, you know.”
“…I understand that.”
Flamm wanted Milkit to smile from the bottom of her heart.
She would get hurt to protect that smile of hers, and when that happens, the girl would grieve.
Flamm would contradict her own objective, yet she still had to fight on, for the small beauty to stay with her.
After all, Flamm is neither strong nor skillful.