Leon made his way to the depths of the underground crypt and settled himself there. After confirming he was truly alone, he leaned his head against the Apostle’s sarcophagus. When he closed his eyes, exhaustion crashed over him like a tidal wave. Usually, after a battle, his pupils would dilate, and his head would feel leaden from the lingering excitement of combat. Today was different, though, as a single haunting question circled relentlessly through his mind.
Why? Why did you leave me?
The question that he hadn’t had time to contemplate while frantically searching for her and engaging in desperate combat now tormented him with cruel persistence. After dwelling on it repeatedly, Leon let out a bitter, self-mocking laugh. There were far more than just a handful of sins from his past clinging to him like shackles.
He’d dragged Veronica from her homeland despite her protests, and treated her kindly only to manipulate her emotions. He’d sold her to the church, made her a spectacle for the imperial family, and trampled on her already scarred heart. He’d hurt her when she was most vulnerable, withheld the truth, repeatedly acted selfishly and despicably, then had the audacity to apologize…
Ah, no wonder she grew sick of me.
In truth, what she did to him had similar aspects—enough that it could be seen as retribution. She’d treated him kindly without loving him and lied about staying by his side. She’d left without telling him the truth, leaving him alone in the darkness.
In the bone-gnawing solitude, the abyss constricted his throat like a noose. Leon clutched his head in his hands and drew ragged breaths that shuddered through his shoulders.
From the mists of distant memory, his mother’s deceptively gentle voice slithered into his weakened defenses. “The human heart, you see, is unlike God’s—it changes in an instant. So if you love someone, you have to try your hardest not to be abandoned by them. Anxiety is the only sure thing in a human heart.”
Humming hymns of praise, she’d then caused searing pain to the corner of his eye. When he cried, his mother would cry too. She would embrace him tightly as if her heart was breaking and whisper that she loved him through her tears. Then he would parrot those confessions back to her. He would repeat them with manic desperation, over and over until his voice grew hoarse.
His profound distrust of humans must have originated from his mother. On the day she abandoned the son she’d claimed to love so much, Leon knew she hadn’t been wrong. Human hearts changed. Only God was eternally constant.
Leon suddenly realized he was stabbing the corner of his right eye with a dagger. He lowered his trembling hand and opened his eyes. Despite the alarming amount of blood, it seemed the blade hadn’t penetrated deeply enough to damage his vision.
I thought I’d lost this habit.
He stared vacantly at the dagger clutched in his right hand, then traced the empty palm of his left with bloodied fingertips. Something flickered at the edge of his memory. He plunged the blade downward again, as if pursuing that elusive thought, and blood erupted across his face as the smooth corner of his eye twisted grotesquely. He pulled out the dagger again. Just as he was about to plunge it back in, he heard someone nearby draw in a sharp breath.
Leon turned his expressionless face to meet young Joachim, whose features were etched with undisguised horror. The dried ham that he had clearly intended to deliver to Leon rolled across the floor. The boy, meeting Leon’s blood-flecked gaze, stumbled backward before awkwardly bowing his head in terrified respect.
This has become troublesome.
Indeed, the horrified squire fetched Philip with remarkable haste. As soon as he saw Leon, Philip muttered with a tired face, “I hope this is some protest against continuing your duties as a knight. Please don’t tell me this is mere self-harm.”
“Self-harm?” Leon frowned and asked back.
His unsettling gaze drifted down to his hand, where blood flowed freely. He didn’t consider it self-harm. It was simply that the memory of the wounds Veronica would get when she clenched her fists had suddenly flashed through his mind. That habit of hers had developed after she’d been left in the Black Corridor.
Since Veronica was his deity, this too was akin to the flagellation a monk performs on his own back to strengthen his faith.
“Is this because you feel betrayed? Because you’re angry that she left with another knight? If this self-destruction stems from that woman, such foolish behavior must immediately—”
Philip suddenly closed his mouth. It wasn’t merely Leon’s unsettling silence that had halted him—Philip was normally a man who could lecture endlessly without encouragement—but he couldn’t ignore the cold steel against his throat as his gaze dropped to the legendary blade Leon had leveled at him. The lion engraved on its tip proved it was Apocalypse.
“Where did you say she was going?” Leon asked quietly.
His voice was hollow, devoid of any human emotion. Despite Leon’s sudden demand, Philip maintained his composure.
“I cannot say with certainty. I presumed the wilderness was the only possible destination after leaving Karta.”
“Cut the nonsense. You’re telling me you sent a church knight to accompany someone going to the wilderness?”
Those with holy power could not endure long in that land. This meant Veronica had been sent elsewhere. Noticing the flaw in the logic, Philip clicked his tongue and unfolded his arms.
“If it’s any consolation, she probably didn’t leave because she wanted to. How many people in this world can gladly make such a sacrifice?”
“What?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t understand. She left to find It.”
A bone-chilling silence descended upon the crypt. Leon froze as if transformed into stone. His pupils dilated, wide and unblinking in his bloodless face.
Human hearts changed, it was true—but she was his deity.
“Why are you wearing that expression? Aren’t you happy to have received proof of her love? If I had to guess, you were the person she most wanted to save.”
“Silence,” Leon spat.
His breathing became labored, as if every molecule of oxygen had been violently extracted from his lungs. His insides churned with nauseating violence.
Veronica had left to confront It.
Yes, he thought bitterly, such selfless courage is the essence of her nature.
Ironically, it seemed a hope had existed deep in his heart that she would return. If that happened, he thought, he would cling to her and beg to be with her. If her anger couldn’t be appeased, he would plead for her to kill him with her own hands.
But his meaningless resolution had burst before it could even take shape. Veronica would never return. She had left him to sacrifice herself. If she had fled to live alone, he might have found a way to accept it, however painful it may be.
Thinking about the state of mind she must have had when leaving, he felt as if his sanity was being gnawed away at the edges.
The woman who had told him not to shoulder her sins had embraced the sins of the entire world and sunk beneath their weight. Though she smiled outwardly, she must have been crying inside. He hadn’t recognized her festering wound, which was right before his eyes. He hadn’t noticed. Leon’s face contorted with pain as his heart felt crushed.
Strangely, even now, when he thought of her, the first image that came to mind was her face streaming with tears. He saw her black hair fluttering in the wind on a snow-covered field, her pale, slender neck, and her bright red eyes looking up at him. When he pictured her clothes clinging to her body, revealing her figure, an intense desire would well up inside him. But he could never identify the origin of that desire, and soon he would forget he had felt anything at all.
The razor-sharp tip of Apocalypse gradually lowered toward the floor. Leon stared vacantly at his hand. Philip interpreted the sword’s quivering as evidence of holy power draining from Leon’s depleted body, but Leon knew the truth: it wasn’t his hand moving of its own volition—it was the divine blade itself guiding him.
Leon released his white-knuckled grip on the vibrating sword and placed it upon the floor. Apocalypse scraped across the stone with an unearthly sound before coming to rest, pointing fixedly in one direction. The tip of the sword was pointing at an ordinary underground stone wall.
While Philip looked on in confusion, Leon stood up and traced the wall with his blood-covered hand, then suddenly stopped at one spot. In that moment, the wall receded, revealing a pitch-black passageway.