The blinding light dazzled him. Through his squinting he made out Nichika’s reassuring smile.
“If you have the power to destroy the world, then you have the power to save it, too,” she asserted, confidence ringing from her every word. “I want to prove that to the world. No, I will prove it. So please, come with me!”
The rest of what she said reverberated through Oswald, shaking him to his core. It was an absurd pipe dream she spoke of. A man who has become loathed by the world, saving it? Ridiculous nonsense. He shook his head and looked to the group of people behind him to set the girl and her wild fantasies straight.
“……”
He was struck speechless by the reactions he found there. Grindieda was sighing like she had long since given up on trying to dissuade the girl, and her granddaughter was blushing wildly beside her. Wolfie was—sound asleep, but even that obnoxious birdbrain Ini was grinning away so much it completely threw Oswald off.
“…What’s going on here?” Oswald seethed.
Shrugging, Ini walked over, his golden wings sparkling under the sunlight. “Even I am not immune to the sobbing pleas of my sweet empress.” He plucked a feather from his glimmering wings and inserted it into the chest pocket of Oswald’s black coat. “I ordain you as a member of this mission. Do your job well.”
“…Huh?”
Abandoning Oswald to his unanswered questions, Ini enthusiastically announced his plans to the group. “With that said and done, I must spread the word far and wide about the holy party traveling with beautiful, glowing golden feathers in their clothes! Your reputation will bounce back if we spread rumors of a holy maiden who has taken up the mantle of Spirit Priestess traveling with her manservant to save the world! Yes sirree, that sounds like a plan to me! Why, I’ll name your party the ‘Arcanshiel DE Spirit Search Corps ☆!’”
“Increasing their public image is a fine idea, but you would be wise to pick another name,” Grindieda coolly pointed out. She then turned to her apprentice with the same stern mask. “There you have it.”
“There I have what?!”
“I was resolutely against it until the bitter end, but her determination was unshakeable. She laid down the law by threatening not to undertake this journey if you were not with her.”
Her negotiation tactics exposed by the headmaster, Nichika’s cheeks burned redder than her mantle and she dipped her head. “I didn’t go that far… Okay, maybe I did.”
“I was wondering what great disaster had brought the girl flying into my room in the dead of night.”
“Don’t say anymore!”
A rare curve turning up her lips, Headmaster Grindieda turned her clever rose-brown eyes on her wayward apprentice. “Your bad reputation might improve slightly if you assist the Spirit Priestess during her travels,” she advised in a gentle voice lacking her usual harshness. “I have decided to cast my bets on that possibility.”
In a world where no one ever said what they meant and everything had a treacherous double meaning, his master’s unfiltered honesty shook Oswald to the core. Is she saying she’s willing to trust me once more? Me, the man who rewarded her good grace and instruction with betrayal?
Her trust was both freeing and heavily binding. There was nothing left to stop him—except for himself. He couldn’t take that defining step forward.
If he was going to be really honest with himself, he was scared. To this day, he lived in the shadows avoiding the light as best he could. He believed that was a part of the job, and it suited his personality just fine. But officially joining the Spirit Priestess would force him into the limelight.
It’s not that he didn’t want to. But he had committed far too many crimes to thoughtlessly jump at the dream dangling before him. Restore his reputation? Wasn’t it too late for redemption?
Nauseating sweat trickled down the back of his neck. How many of the people here would survive if this ever reached THAT man’s ears? Oswald opened his mouth to make excuses, but the girl beat him to it.
“I won’t regret it.” Confidence burning in her eyes, she gave him a reassuring nod. Her dainty hands wrapped around his and she pulled him away from the abyss of unnecessary, depressing thoughts.
“Let’s do this together, Oswald!”
✦ ✦ ✦
THOSE remaining at Elminage watched the Spirit Priestess party descend the hill into town while waving back at them. Once they were out of sight, they could finally openly talk about them. Headmaster Grindieda folded her arms at her chest and spoke in exasperation about her apprentice.
“Good heavens, I am utterly disappointed in my apprentice’s cowardice.”
“Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaah! My sweet Nichika!” Ini wailed at a deafening volume and sunk to his knees. “We are to be apart for a short duration once more! YOU ARE ALWAAAYSSSSSS in my THOUGHTSSSSSS!”
Watching him aroused Melissa’s curiosity. “Lord Ini, Lord Ini! Are you really okay with what just happened? Those two are definitely going to get chummier as things go on, you know?”
Her word choice made it sound like she was worried, but her tone gave away her hope for things to develop further between her friend and her eccentric master. Yet the man embodying all things gold cut down her hopes without a second thought.
“Nah, that won’t ever happen.”
“Why not?”
Grindieda shot a warning look at her granddaughter who puffed out her cheeks like a pouting child. But, secretly worried about her apprentice and his misconduct, she repeated the question.
“Why not, Ini?”
“The reason lies with the deep darkness within her. Though she doesn’t realize it herself,” Ini chortled as he rose to his feet and elegantly swept his hair aside. “Besides, priestesses must be pure at all times. That man isn’t a match for her.”
Melissa looked completely unconvinced, but then she suddenly took off running in the direction of the school. “We can’t be wasting time talking here! I have to go around telling everyone about the savior priestess traveling with a witch carrying a golden feather!”
“Ooh, good thinking. We should support them the best we can since we can’t go with them.”
“The Witch’s Council shouldn’t be able to get their hands on Oswald as easily now that he’s become a member of the Savior Priestess’s party.”
Thunderstruck by her grandmother’s nonchalant comment, Melissa skidded to a halt before the castle gates.
“Oh my spirits!” she shouted, glancing over her shoulder at the hill.
“What now? You are being improperly loud,” her grandmother sharply scolded.
Excitement getting the better of her, Melissa talked at lightning speed, spitting in the process. “I just remembered! Didn’t you call that man in all black Oswald? That’s right! It’s him!”
The déjà vu she’d been experiencing since she first saw him in the pub finally had an answer. Refreshed, she drew on the answer from her memories.
“I saw his face hung up in the trophy room alongside the other students who have gone down in Elminage history as top student for their year! I memorized his face because he was otherworldly in the good looks department!”
She failed to put the two together because there was such a huge disparity between the gently smiling butler and the young boy who turned his ice-cold eyes toward the camera, but they were too similar for it to be anyone else.
“But in all the years he attended Elminage, only the year of his graduation did someone else unseat him from his top student spot.” Melissa tilted her head at that oddity. “Did something happen that year, Grandmother?”
Whether she liked it or not, memories of that time flooded Grindieda’s mind. Expression stiff, she quietly replied, “…It’s true Oswald surpassed every record in the Witch’s Department since his enrollment, securing excellent marks every step of the way. You can safely call him a prodigy.”
“Then why?”
“He made a grave mistake during his graduation exam.”
The incident led to him dropping out of school right before graduation. After that, he hid within the Forest of Fathomless Deception and had become a heretical Rogue Witch.
For how smart he was, he should have never been so arrogant. No, perhaps his arrogance stemmed from his genius. Had she spoiled him for those exact same reasons? The incident had happened years ago, and still she couldn’t forget the eye-watering stench of rot that hit her when she opened the door to his laboratory. Nor did a day pass where she didn’t hear the first cries of that ghastly lump of meat squirming in the iron pot.
“That child stained his hands with the greatest taboo we are to never even speak of.”
“You don’t mean…”
Every young future witch to enroll in Elminage had three fundamental rules pounded into them from day one:
1. Every deal, once made, must be fulfilled no matter how trivial.
2. One must never forget to respect the spirits.
3. Never try to bring back the dead.
“Oswald attempted to revive the dead.”