The Ominous Being

And as if to prove that instinct had not been wrong, the Archbishop—his face set hard as stone—began to stride toward Presepe. Wound tight with tension, she clutched at the left side of her chest out of habit, her breath coming short and shallow.

The place he took her was a room set apart within the church. Saying he would go and speak with the guards and the priests, he left Presepe alone and stepped out.

"..."

Perched awkwardly on a chair, she glanced around with a cowed look. Was this where the Archbishop waited before conducting services? For a room inside a church it was remarkably lavish and spacious, so that seemed the likeliest answer.

"Lady Presepe."

When he returned from his conversations, his face was still rigidly set. In a way, that was only natural. This had not happened in the dead of night, but in broad daylight.

Even so, Presepe felt the injustice of it keenly.

"There are a few things I wish to ask you directly."

"I'll answer whatever you ask, but I have nothing to do with this."

The words tumbled out of her.

"Today is the first time I've even set foot in the church, and I have no reason to do something like—"

"Yes. I imagine not."

The Archbishop cut her off.

"But you are the first witness, Lady Presepe. I do not know what happened, or how. You are the only person I can ask."

"..."

"Did you happen to see anything that troubled you?"

Of course she had. In this moment, only one thing rose to mind.

That man.

Presepe let out a sigh, just as the Archbishop had, and slowly parted her lips.

"I'll tell you in order. First, I left the tower about ten minutes ago. That's about how long the walk takes. The maid Ella came with me."

"And then?"

"Once we reached the church, I asked Ella to wait out front. I told her I wanted to pray alone. I went straight inside, and..."

"..."

"I ran into a strange man."

"A strange man? What do you mean by that?"

"I don't know who he was either. I only thought he might belong to the knight order. His clothes weren't a priest's."

"And so you saw that man smash the statue?"

Presepe shook her head.

"We only collided. I fell, he helped me up, and then he left the church at once. That's all."

The Archbishop was silent for a moment. He seemed content to keep that silence, but before long his face twisted and his lips moved again.

"But that cannot be, can it?"

"What?"

"I questioned the guards as well, and not one of them saw anyone suspicious. What's more, when I asked the last priest to have been in the church what time he left, it was immediately before you arrived."

"..."

"And yet, if your account is true, all of this occurred in that brief gap—in five minutes at the very most. Is that what you are telling me?"

A glance at the fragments scattered across the floor was enough to guess how large the statue had once been. To be honest, the Archbishop was right. It was not glass. It was marble, and there was no conceivable way to smash a thing like that to pieces in so little time. Come to think of it, he hadn't been holding anything... And he had done it with his bare hands? Impossible, for a human being.

But Presepe had no intention of getting any further tangled in this exhausting mess. She hadn't done a thing, and the unfairness of it rankled. They said when it rains, it pours—why did this have to break on the very day she came to the church?

"Your Grace, isn't that something you ought to take up with the guards, not with me?"

She turned the question back on him.

"In any case, I truly know nothing. All I saw was that suspicious man, and a statue that was already in pieces. What more can I tell you?"

"I take your meaning, but I must ask your forbearance all the same. The matter is what it is."

"..."

"Describe the man. In as much detail as you can."

"It was a face I'd never seen. He wore plain black clothes. Blond hair, blue eyes."

Unfortunately, blond hair and blue eyes were hardly rare. It was not a description likely to help anyone. Presepe thought as much, and yet, for reasons she could not name, the Archbishop's face had gone harder still.

"Blond hair... blue eyes?"

"...Your Grace?"

"No. It is nothing."

"..."

"First I shall have to look into everyone who entered and left the Imperial Palace matching that description."

He looked deeply unsettled. She could understand the feeling, but she was in no position to worry over him. She herself had gained nothing, and had only been dragged into a pointless affair.

She could not leave it at that.

"That statue..."

She hesitated, then parted her lips again in a very careful voice.

"What kind of statue was it?"

It must have been an important one. Statues raised in religious buildings were rarely without meaning, and this one had stood squarely in the center of that vast hall. That alone said enough.

"...Now that I think of it, you may not know. You did say this was your first visit."

Judging that this much was safe to tell, the Archbishop looked at her and began.

"Atelloia has a myth handed down through the generations. You know of it, I trust? Even commoners learn it first, once they attend school."

"...No."

Presepe shook her head.

"The only proper education I received was when I was very young. I don't remember those days well."

After her mother's infidelity came to light—the moment it was revealed that Presepe was not of the Emperor's blood—she had been cast out. Her mother had been executed. She might, of course, have received some schooling even after that. But it had not been important to the game's progression, and it had never appeared in the tutorial. Inventing a plausible excuse was the best she could do.

The Archbishop cleared his throat, then went on.

"A very long time ago, an ominous being lived in the west of Atelloia. Long before any of us drew breath upon this land."

...An ominous being?

"It brought plague. It poured out curses as easily as breath, and it killed people like insects. Ominous beyond measure in itself. And so the empire that existed before Atelloia, and the empire that existed long before even that, strove to destroy it. Thousands of heroes and warriors, tens of thousands of knights, attempted its subjugation without end."

"..."

"Then a brave soul appeared, bearing the will of God. But the being was so powerful that it could not be destroyed. And so, they say, the best that could be done was to put it to sleep."

Presepe said nothing. She only looked at him.

"Though it happened before Atelloia itself came to be, all agreed that the ominous being must be remembered and never forgotten. It did not die, nor did it vanish. It might return at any time."

...Did this garbage of a game really have a world this big?

"The reason Atelloia pours more of its strength into the knight order than other empires do is the same. The Subjugation Festival held every year falls along that very line."

The Subjugation Festival was an event Presepe knew well. A fixed point in the game, one you had to pass no matter which route you were on. Where other empires held hunting festivals, Atelloia held a subjugation. The meaning was much the same. The only difference was that they hunted monsters instead of beasts.

"The statue was bound up in that history as well. It depicted a nameless brave soul standing against that being, and prevailing."

"What was it? What could it have been, to warrant all of that..."

"Who can say. Opinions on the matter are many. Neither its name nor its true nature is known. There is, however, a name by which it is called."

"..."

"The Demon King."

Ah. So that was it. All at once, the fragment on which those words had been carved flashed through her mind.

"In any case... I sent that maid, Ella, to His Majesty, so word should come shortly."

She's in for something worse than the Ice Prison.

Nothing like this had ever happened before, so she could not guess what Dietrich would do. That he would not leave her alone, however, was certain. Who knows. That madman might even decide I was trying to slip out of the Imperial Palace with the intruder.

Presepe was sighing to herself when the Archbishop spoke again.

"Ah. There she is."

She looked up. Ella's face wore an expression that was somehow difficult to read.

"What did His Majesty say? I was certain he would come at once..."

There was no chance the Archbishop was ignorant of Dietrich's obsessive fixation on Presepe. But the words that left Ella's mouth were something neither of them had anticipated.

"Um... they say His Majesty is unwell."

What?

At the utterly unexpected news, Presepe's eyes went round.

"What are you saying? Unwell!"

"They say he has been complaining of a headache since dawn. So now, after taking his medicine, he has gone to sleep..."

Dietrich had never once been ill. Not in all this time. There was only one thing it could be.

That Bugged Choice.