After parting ways with Celestia, I spent the night in the dim caverns of the Northeastern Branch.
Morning came. Sharing a room with Joanne was, of course, treated as the most natural thing in the world. While her sleeping face lay within arm’s reach, I stretched with a long, heavy exhale.
Out of habit, my fingers drifted up toward the inner corner of my eye to rub the sleep away, then my gaze snagged on my left hand’s ring finger.
The bone there was warped, fused in a crooked bump halfway between the second and third knuckles.
Joanne’s finger.
Every morning, in that hazy border between sleep and waking, seeing it always left me with the same complicated feeling.
So, none of that crazy shit was a dream.
I brushed aside the fringe of her bangs with a soft sweep of my hand, then began to change clothes. This girl seemed to genuinely not care about any human being who wasn’t me.
She’d said, with a straight face, that she wanted my help realizing her ideal, small world. The things that had come out of her mouth were nothing short of insane.
Joanne’s probably planning to use a holy relic to make that wish come true. There’s no other way to fix my short lifespan…
Holy relics referred to two things: the relics left behind by the first seven heroes in history to be born with magic—the Seven of Dawn—and the primordial holy relic known as the Mirror of Heaven’s Heart.
In practice, when people mentioned them, they almost always meant the latter.
Long ago, when the Seven of Dawn awakened to their magic, each of them said the same thing: in their dreams, they’d seen the Mirror of Heaven’s Heart, and when they looked into that mirror, they beheld the form of God.
Because of that legend, the Mirror of Heaven’s Heart had been revered ever since as the greatest of all divine artifacts, continuously drawing the faith of the masses.
Over time, the words “holy relic,” which originally referred to magic tools in general, became almost synonymous with that one artifact.
The Mirror of Heaven’s Heart is said to be an amplifier of desire, a divine tool that magnifies and realizes the wishes of those who touch it. In the canonical route, Aros launches a holy relic war to seize it for his grand design… but the Orthodoxy wipes out every attempt and wins in perfect fashion.
Joanne’s ideal world was almost certainly something she intended to force into existence using that very artifact.
The problem was that the holy relic was kept under maximum security in the Temple of the Phoenix in the holy capital Sasfect, the largest city of the Holy Kingdom of Gerlaid.
It wasn’t the kind of thing you just walked in and stole.
I had no idea how Joanne intended to pull off a clean, total victory after throwing those provocative declarations in my face.
If I couldn’t understand the path she’d mapped out in her head, I couldn’t even begin to come up with a plan to sabotage it.
I watched her as she slept, her breathing slow and steady.
Until the day everything would finally, irrevocably collapse, we’d probably keep probing each other’s depths like this.
The Aros Temple Cult’s grand design only comes together once they seize the holy relic. Your plan is to use the cult as a smokescreen up to that point, and then steal the final, juiciest piece for yourself.
The reason she hadn’t told me the full shape of her plan was obvious: she’d already seen right through what I was thinking.
She was only letting it slide because she still hoped I’d eventually fall in line. But the day we went our separate ways was a certainty waiting in the future.
Her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm.
Even through the oversized sleepwear, my eyes were drawn to the generous curve of her breasts, and that was when I noticed it.
Her breathing was just a bit too quick.
“You’re awake,” I said.
“You got me.” Joanne stuck her tongue out, a shy little flicker of pink, then opened her arms wide in a clear hold me pose.
She looped her arms around the back of my neck and pulled herself upright.
Her warm, soft body fit neatly into my arms, and she let out a low, rumbling purr in her throat as she buried her face against my chest.
The comfort of it and the way she showed me absolutely no caution at all left me feeling like my fangs had been pulled. There was something even more unfathomable about her now.
Even as the sun rose outside, its light never reached the caverns, and the underground air barely changed temperature at all.
I could already feel my internal clock starting to go haywire.
Officially, the reason I’d come to the Northeastern Branch was for joint training, but there was more on the schedule than that. After nearly two weeks of drills, we were scheduled to attack the town of Jade, seizing and occupying its developed coal mines.
The heretics had momentum on their side lately.
If no one came up with the next move, the Kenneth Orthodoxy was only going to get pushed further and further into a corner.
Lost in thought over how I might strike a blow against the cult, I headed toward the rear exit of the cave after being summoned by Whip.
She was already waiting there. I gave her a light greeting, and the fake blonde sister got straight to the point.
“Stella-chan, come on out!”
I’d assumed this would be a private talk between the two of us, so when I saw a twin-tailed silhouette walking toward us through the blizzard, my heart sank into despair.
The pale, gothic lolita, Stella, stopped right in front of me.
White breath puffed from my nose and mouth and from Whip’s as well. But not from Stella. Not even a wisp. It only served to emphasize how inhuman she really was.
“It’s been a while since we’ve talked like this,” she said. “Did you enjoy last night’s meal?”
“Yes. It was very good,” I replied stiffly.
“Good.”
Since Joanne was nowhere nearby, there was no one here to shield me.
This was a terrifying encounter. I felt naked and unprotected.
The air had to be close to freezing, and yet sweat ran down my back like a waterfall.
Whip watched our awkward little exchange and let out a metallic-sounding giggle, like something scraping together.
“Stella-chan, what d’you think? He feels different from before, doesn’t he?”
“It’s hard to put into words,” Stella murmured. “But something feels wrong…”
She rose onto her toes and leaned in, sniffing around my chest.
Her sense of smell was far beyond that of a human.
I’d been afraid she’d detect how my insides had warped after fusing with Joanne, so I’d made sure to switch our organs back before coming to the Northeastern Branch.
But whether it was the lingering scent or just changes I couldn’t completely hide, Stella still picked up on the disturbance.
“An impurity,” she said after a pause. “It feels like everything has changed for the worst possible outcome…”
“What… exactly do you mean by that?” I asked.
“Joanne Sagamix is melted into your body… and in Joanne’s case, it’s even more serious… Stella feels a formless, nameless dread from her.”
Her sky-blue eyes speared straight through me.
This woman just nailed everything.
With the crushing force of a vise, Stella shoved me back and forced me to sit on a nearby rock.
She didn’t stop there.
Holding down the hem of her skirt with one hand, she swung a leg over and settled herself on my lap. Then, she leaned in and drew a deep breath right at my neck.