Chapter 129
Chapter 129
Encouragement
As one lived, one was bound to witness all kinds of bizarre and grotesque sights, but even so, there were still a few scenes that made one think, I will absolutely never see something like this again for the rest of my life.
The sight of a massive, larva-like lump writhing inside a person’s abdomen was certainly one of those scenes that gave rise to such conviction.
As if all the internal organs had completely necrotized.
It was like a corpse that had already been dead for a long, long time.
Even Aiden, who had seen all sorts of horrific things until now, involuntarily swallowed at the gruesome sight.
“……What is this?”
“Well, it doesn’t look pleasant. But you can think of it as a life-support device. It’s a converter.”
“A converter?”
“It converts all other energies into holy power so they can be emitted.”
After saying that, the Pontiff lowered the clothes he had lifted up back into place.
He had always been someone who smiled often, but the smile Aiden saw now felt slightly different from the usual sharpness that accompanied it.
As if.
It was the smile of someone with not much time left, speaking about the state of his own condition.
One that had passed through resignation and acceptance alike.
“Have you ever seen a transcendent die?”
“I have.”
“Not dying in battle. I mean dying of natural causes.”
“…….”
As the Pontiff said, I had never seen that.
Come to think of it…….
Although transcendent beings who could wield supernatural abilities handled power beyond that of ordinary humans, there were often cases where they were actually far more vulnerable to the body’s natural aging.
It was only natural. Even if one could wield the authority of a god, the one who had to endure the backlash was still a human body in the end.
A body that continued to contain power beyond its means would inevitably undergo some form of ‘change.’
As Meyer had said before, in cases like mine, that change could occur in a positive direction.
But naturally, there could just as easily be cases where it worked in the opposite direction.
Like what the Pontiff was showing now, where the inside of the body rotted away entirely.
Which was why I couldn’t understand it even more.
“……Your Holiness.”
“What.”
“What exactly about that is a life-support device?”
The very act of squeezing out what little life force remained in such a body and emitting it as holy power was the problem.
Even if his body had necrotized, the total amount of holy power this man could wield was enough to overcome the limits of such a body.
If he truly wished, he could probably live out his natural lifespan even with that kind of body.
“Isn’t this just you trying to die early?”
But right now, this was.
Instead of tending to his body with that holy power, this was a grotesque method of squeezing even more out of a body that was already dying to reinforce that holy power.
My saying this was, in the end, a question of why he was doing such a thing.
“The Pontiff is the symbol of the Holy Crown Kingdom.”
The answer returned, resolute.
“I am the first roof that protects this country and its final breakwater. If I am weak, that means others will grow anxious.”
“…….”
“Even if I have to bite my tongue and die on the spot, I cannot show weakness. Do you understand?”
……Come to think of it.
-From the position of one who bears responsibility for a nation, I cannot bow my head carelessly to others.
-If I ever use honorifics toward someone, then unless they are more important and weighty than the entire Holy Crown Kingdom, there is no one. Do you understand?
Hadn’t he said something like that before?
I knew he took his position quite seriously.
But I hadn’t realized he had been thinking this far ahead.
Even now, this man.
Because he bore responsibility for this country, he was burning away his very life force to perform the role of the perfect Pontiff.
“…….”
I was aware that there were people who found it strange.
Even though the Pontiff himself appeared so robust, there must have been those who questioned why the succession ceremony was being carried out. If his condition was this severe, it would only be natural for such suspicions to arise.
……This too.
Was slightly different from how the original story progressed.
Originally, the Pontiff had been perfectly healthy, and the unnecessary succession ceremony had been conducted to weed out the malignant elements that had infiltrated the Holy Crown Kingdom.
But like this, it was no different from losing the greatest ally.
The biggest variable in the future progression had fallen away.
“…….”
What I couldn’t understand was that in the original story, the Pontiff had boasted monstrous divine power to the extent that he would never have suffered an injury like this in the first place.
How on earth had he sustained such a wound? And why had he hidden it until now?
At the very least, as for the latter, I was able to discover the clue almost immediately.
Lying down and resting his arms behind his head, the Pontiff let out a long sigh before slowly speaking.
“Don’t tell Katya.”
“…….”
“Absolutely not.”
My eyes flew open as if I had just been struck on the back of the head.
Asking me not to say anything because she might worry.
Wasn’t this the first ‘human’ consideration I had seen from this man?
And at this point, I had no choice but to ask.
“……You.”
I questioned him in a low voice.
“What exactly is your relationship with Katya?”
Katya had once succinctly described her relationship with the Pontiff as nothing more than a failed mother–daughter relationship.
Was it a sentence that carried the nuance of having tried to forcibly stitch together a relationship that should never have existed in the first place?
The fragment I had just seen.
Brought with it a strange certainty that the one who had first struggled to build such a relationship was the man standing before me.
“She was originally my spare body.”
“Pardon?”
“……It’s a filthy story.”
His reaction alone made that clear.
The Pontiff smiled bitterly and rubbed his face.
“Even so, I’m quite a decent holy power wielder by historical standards, aren’t I? Right?”
“No one would deny that.”
“But with my body in this state, and it looking like I’d soon be wasting away and dying, the idea came up. An experiment to create a new ‘body’ and tear out only my personality to place into it. Katya was made by copying my genetic traits exactly like that—my ‘spare body.’”
“…….”
“Well, genetically speaking, she’s completely identical to me, so she’s my biological daughter, isn’t she? At least nominally?”
While I stood there utterly speechless, the Pontiff grinned and cracked his joints with a series of sharp pops.
“That’s why she gets looked down on by the others. To the conservative clergy, she’s an abomination created through heretical technology. The royal family must’ve been heavily influenced by that perception too. To begin with, she was a child who would’ve ceased to exist if I had truly switched over into that body.”
“…….”
“Still, as you can see, the Holy Crown Kingdom isn’t filled entirely with lunatics, so we didn’t go through with it in the end. Have a drink.”
“……That may be so, but.”
I continued in a dizzy voice.
“Even being treated like that…… you’re fine with it?”
“With what?”
“For the sake of maintaining the nation…… aren’t you being treated completely like a tool?”
Wasn’t it an atrocious act, binding even his life and dignity entirely to the position of Pontiff?
Yet the Pontiff, the one being subjected to such treatment, merely grinned.
“Everyone dies eventually, you brat. What matters is how you live until you die.”
“…….”
“If they treat me as the supreme leader, then I should show responsibility befitting that. Or do I look like someone without a sense of responsibility to you?”
Tyrant. Arrogant despot.
A calculating cold-blooded man who saw everyone as tools.
Those who didn’t know him would probably think that way, judging by his usual methods.
But after seeing this side of him, I couldn’t simply summarize him with those words.
No.
That wasn’t it.
The Pontiff simply used everyone equally as tools to maintain the nation.
He merely regarded himself as the most useful tool of all.
It was a fact proven immediately by what happened next.
“……What’s that noise?”
Hearing the murmur of voices from outside the tent, the Pontiff frowned and pushed himself up.
Despite suffering from a blazing fever, it was obvious that the principle of stepping forward first whenever there was a problem was ingrained in him.
Which was why.
“Stay still.”
I tightly wrapped my arms around the Pontiff’s waist just as he tried to force himself upright, and he froze on the spot.
……For a brief moment, the thought crossed my mind that perhaps it was because he had never been in such close physical contact with someone of the opposite sex, but I decided not to voice that observation aloud.
“I’ll handle it and come back.”
“……What?”
“I’m telling you to rest. At the very least, you can trust me, can’t you? Both as a person and in terms of ability.”
“No, even so—”
“If you have fulfilled your responsibilities as a ruler, then receiving the respect and courtesy befitting that role is also your duty.”
“…….”
“Please rest, Your Holiness Abigail. I’ll take care of things myself.”
As I brushed my hair back and said that,
“For your sake as well.”
At those words, the Pontiff’s breath hitched audibly.
I could see his eyes waver.
-System Message
▶ The affection level of target ‘Abigail III’ has increased.
▶ Bond level has advanced from Stage 3 to Stage 4.
▶ Skill Copy count has increased by 1!
“…….”
Well, I hadn’t expected the reaction to be quite this dramatic.
To be honest, even I had to admit that saying something like that could easily be taken the wrong way.
A gap.
……That had been part of what I was aiming for.
Seeing the Pontiff staring wide-eyed in a daze, I hooked my foot behind the back of her knee and swept her down.
With a choked sound, she collapsed onto the bed, and I immediately moved like a grappler securing a submission, smoothly pinning her body beneath mine.
It had been a flawlessly executed joint-lock technique…….
“Y-you brat, I, I can’t breathe!”
“You’re going to rest, right?”
“N-no, even so, if something’s happening outside, I should be the one to go—”
“I won’t let you go until you say you’ll rest.”
“Y-you little……!”
Under normal circumstances, she would have pushed me off without effort, but right now she was in a condition no different from a critically ill patient. All she could do was struggle helplessly beneath me.
And just then.
“Aiden! This is bad! Outside……!”
Someone violently threw open the entrance to the tent.
It was Noel, her face filled with urgency. Her gaze quickly shifted between me and the Pontiff, who were practically rolling around like wrestlers on the floor.
“…….”
“…….”
An unbearably awkward silence spread through the tent.
As I saw the temperature in Noel’s eyes plummet, a chill ran down my spine.
“……This isn’t what it looks like.”
“…….”
“…………It really isn’t.”
“……………….”
“………………………………Seriously, it’s not.”
To be honest, even I had no idea what exactly I was insisting wasn’t the case, but somehow, it felt like I had to say something.