I Pretended To Have Amnesia and the Hero’s Party Becomes Obsessed

23 – 3. Where the Gaze Dwells is Where the Heart Rests (5)[Revised]

It began with a heavy sound.

It was less than half a day since leaving the Papal State.

There was a strange noise flowing through the wall of the carriage.

The sound of something soft crushing something fragile.

The sound of something thick piercing through.

The sound of the wind blowing.

They were all faint sounds, but they did not escape the boy’s sensitive ears.

The boy, who was reading a book to the girl inside the carriage, stops talking.

“Why, did it suddenly stop…”

The boy places a finger on his lips. The girl was curious, but seeing the seriousness on the boy’s face, she closed her mouth.

And, after a moment.

Creak-

The carriage suddenly stops.

Then, a knight’s voice can be heard from outside.

“Miss Clara, the soon-to-be saint, I think you should come out for a moment.”

A voice that is rigid and stern.

“…”

The boy still had his finger on his lips. The girl furrowed her brow but maintained her silence.

“Miss Clara, the soon-to-be saint?”

“Why?”

The boy suddenly spoke up. His voice was filled with contempt.

“I have no obligation to answer you, shijong.”

“Well, I do. Why?”

The girl interjected as if she had sensed something. She narrowed her eyes mischievously at the astonished boy before continuing to speak.

“Why do I have to go out when it’s not necessary?”

“…There were multiple injuries when the lead carriage overturned. Clara needs your help.”

“I don’t want to.”

The girl crossed her arms.

“There are already several priests here. Why should I go out? Can’t the existing priests handle it?”

After the girl finished speaking, she felt a sense of unease.

Certainly, the priests who followed her were not few in number. It meant that they could easily take care of the injured without her presence.

Moreover, if the lead carriage had overturned, why wasn’t there any commotion?

A chilling sensation brushed against the back of the girl’s neck.

“Step aside.”

A threatening voice could be heard beyond the door.

Before the boy could hurry and close the door, it swung open.

A giant knight.

In his hand was a sword already tinged with twilight.

The boy yelled with his face contorted.

“What on earth is this…!”

Crash!

With a brutal sound, the boy’s body was sent flying. He slumped against the carriage wall.

“Rem!”

The girl rushed to the unconscious boy and held him in her arms. Then, she glared at the knight with determined eyes.

“You! What the hell are you doing? Do you even know who you just touched…?”

“Come.”

The knight spoke as he rested his sword on his shoulder.

“Before I grab you by the hair and drag you away.”

At the rude remark, the girl couldn’t even muster her anger for a moment.

And then, for a moment, the girl’s crimson eyes blazed fiercely.

The girl glared at the knight, reaching out towards him.

“I’ll make sure you never walk again.”

And silently, she uttered a passage, casting a spell.

“…Huh?”

At least, that’s what he thought.

The girl’s bewildered eyes looked at her pale hand, which seemed to have produced nothing. Clearly, she had recited a passage in her mind, but her pale hand, instead of shining, only grew paler.

“I guess you really can’t understand words.”

“Yaaah-!!”

The knight’s gauntlet seized the girl’s white hair. Screaming, she was dragged out of the carriage.

“Let go! Are you going to let go?! I’ll kill you! I’m going to kill you!!”

Despite the girl cursing with malice, it seemed to fall on deaf ears to the knight.

Reluctantly, the knight dragged the girl out of the carriage and threw her onto the ground.

The girl’s pristine white clothes became soiled with dust.

She immediately raised her head, glaring at the knight.

“I remember your armor! If I just return to the Holy See…”

However, what had dirtied the girl’s clothes was not just dust.

The girl’s gaze suddenly turned towards the red color staining her clothes. It shifted towards the source of that red.

“____!!”

It was a sight she had once seen in the stained glass of the Cathedral of the Holy Lance.

An adult sitting on the corpses of demons, depicted in gruesome detail.

Below the waist of a demon with missing lower limbs, intestines dangled, and the mashed-up demon’s head displayed a bizarre mix of blood, flesh, and brain with a strange hue. One demon had a spear entering through its forehead, emerging below the chin.

A sight that had once haunted the girl’s dreams.

There, it was just that the demons had transformed into humans.

Something hung at the edge of the girl’s neck.

“Uweeek-!”

“Have you come to your senses?”

A stern voice, the girl, who had been vomiting tears and bile, raised her head.

“…Commander of the Knights?”

His beard was soaked in blood, but it was unmistakable. The man who had been assigned as the girl’s escort on this journey.

In his hand, there was a blood-stained sword, and behind him stood knights clad in bloodied armor.

The knight who had grabbed the girl by her hair and dragged her out also stood behind the commander.

The girl’s face contorted as she grasped the situation.

“W-what on earth is this! How dare you to me…!”

“Why did you do this?”

The commander’s face, as if suppressing something, was coldly rigid. He continued, “To my son, why did you do this?”

The confusion on the girl’s face lasted only a moment. She questioned with a mix of fear and bewilderment.

“What in the world are you talking about…”

“A month ago, why did you break my son’s wrist!”

The commander, seemingly reaching the limits of his patience, shouted. Shaking his beard, he struck the girl with a staff.

“You broke his wrist and, claiming it was a lesson, tied him up in the courtyard! Why did you do such a thing!”

The girl felt her hands trembling. She couldn’t fathom what the commander was talking about.

“Was throwing a stone at your son such a grave sin that it warranted death!”

In that moment, realization struck the girl’s mind like lightning.

However, simultaneously, even greater confusion ensued.

Certainly, a month ago, it was true that the girl had asked Ivan to find and punish the culprit.

But breaking a wrist and tying someone in the courtyard?

“I, I must be mistaken about something. I’ve never done such a thing! I…!”

“Are you making excuses now? Haven’t you refused all my numerous visit requests until now!”

Visit requests? She had never received such a thing.

In the first place, it was Ivan’s responsibility to handle such matters.

The girl felt her thoughts becoming more tangled in her mind.

Unbeknownst to her, tears were flowing from her eyes.

“D-don’t misunderstand. I-I have no, the commander is saying something *sniff* I don’t understand…! Oh, why are you *sniff* shouting so loudly…!”

A typical frightened girl’s appearance.

For a moment, anger flickered in the commander’s eyes at that sight.

However, it was truly only for a moment.

“Don’t deceive us. Moreover, it’s already spilled water.”

The knight who had grabbed the girl by her hair, brushing off the blood on his sword, spoke.

The Grand Paladin lowered his gaze at those words and soon nodded.

“Yes, it’s spilled milk.”

Since the moment he killed the priests, neither he nor the paladins who had joined him could return to the sanctuary.

Approaching the weeping girl, the Grand Paladin spoke, “My child eventually succumbed to the aftermath of that day.”

“Don’t come any closer…!!”

The girl recoiled, reaching out once more towards the Grand Paladin.

But the light that had always stayed by her side no longer aided her.

She extended her hand, crying out as if in an incessant plea. “Why, why, why! This can’t be happening! Why!”

“However, it seems I still have a chance.”

As the girl desperately stepped back, her back finally touched the tree.

Her body froze, only her frightened eyes moved, locking onto the Grand Paladin’s sword.

“They promised. If I bring the maiden’s life, they will resurrect my son.”

At that moment, the girl’s eyes turned to the Paladin who had grabbed her by the hair. He had shed his armor and was now adorned in his original attire: a black robe and bone ornaments denoting renunciation.

The girl’s eyes widened as if about to burst. “Joining hands with the heretics…? Just how far…”

“Silence!”

The Grand Paladin’s voice raised in anger.

“It was a mistake from the start to accept a child of the clergy as a maiden!! We were deceived by you!! We were led astray, compelled to walk the wrong path!!”

It was a fallacy.

The girl wasn’t the maiden they had claimed her to be. Furthermore, she had only just seen the Grand Paladin today.

The decision to ally with the heretics wasn’t inevitable; it was solely his choice. It wasn’t the girl who deceived him; it was the blind sorrow of losing a child.

However, prolonged autocracy distorts one’s view of the world too easily.

The Grand Paladin raised his sword.

“So, even now, I’m merely trying to rectify the wrong.”

The crimson blade cut through the twilight.

Unknowingly, the girl hunched, tightly shutting her eyes. Trembling with the impending agony, she sought solace in faith for the first time.

But faith did not come to her aid.

“This damned…!!”

Because she still had one person left.

The girl’s red eyes fixate on the boy hanging on the shoulder of the knight commander.

“___!!”

“This orphan brat…!!”

The boy, making beast-like sounds, wraps his arm around the knight commander’s neck, opening his mouth and bringing it close to the commander’s ear.

“Aaargh!!”

A piercing scream erupts from the knight commander’s mouth.

The boy, having spat out the torn ear, looks at the girl.

“Run, you fool!!”

It was like a magical moment.

A page from a fairy tale she had longed for since she could remember.

A prince in splendid clothes saving a damsel in distress, a cliché and cheesy story.

The fundamental reason she stubbornly clung to the title of ‘damsel’ instead of the designated title of ‘princess.’

Although the prince didn’t wear splendid clothes and lacked even wrists.

Still, the girl’s heart begins to beat.

“Separate this brat!!”

However, as with all fairy tales, the moment when the magic is broken inevitably arrives.

A holy knight, who had been absent-minded due to the sudden situation, rushes over and grabs the boy.

The boy resists desperately, but when he receives a blow to the stomach, his strength fades away.

And so, the boy sinks to the ground.

The holy knight binds the arms and legs of the struggling boy.

The knight commander confidently turns the tip of the sword elsewhere.

And then, with a sharp sound.

Piercing and breaking.

Blood splatters.

The boy’s body crumbles.

The girl lets out a gasp.

“Rem…?”

And, a piteous sigh.

The sound of crumbling gold.

The cultist who had been observing the spectacle turned his gaze towards the strange sound and looked inside his item.

The small incense burner that had been suppressing the girl’s divinity.

And on top of it, there was suddenly a large piece of gold.

“Why is there gold here…”

And then, in the next moment.

The girl’s hateful eyes turned towards the knights.

Crackle,

With a bright light, everything turned into a handful of blood.

“Rem!”

The girl rushed to the boy lying on the ground. And after confirming his condition, she lost her words.

The boy’s blood, which was already overflowing and pooling on the ground.

Blood gushed out from the wound in his chest.

A fatal injury,

The girl’s eyes and hands trembled.

“I-I-it’s alright, Rem…! Y-y-you’ll be fine. I’ll fix it. I can, I can fix it…!”

It was as if she was saying it more to herself than to the boy. The girl extended her hand towards the boy while reciting the verse inwardly.

However, the light betrayed her once again.

“…!”

Blood gushed out from the girl’s mouth like vomit. Blood flowed even from her bloodshot eyes.

A single word brushed through the girl’s mind, amidst the horrific pain.

Depletion of divinity.

The power of god may be infinite, but ultimately, the humans who receive it are finite.

And the girl, who was chosen by god, was no exception.

“No, it can’t be…! D-don’t… don’t laugh! No! It can’t happen!!”

The girl cried out, reaching out her hand towards the boy again.

“…!”

As she silently recited the verse, tears of blood flowed down once more. The blood pounded against her throat.

However, biting her lower lip, the girl forced herself to continue reciting the verse silently. Ignoring the agonizing pain that felt like her insides were twisting, she looked at her pale hands.

“…Run… I told you to run…”

The boy’s wrist was in her hand in that moment.

“…!

The girl desperately held onto the boy’s wrist.

“Rem…! Th-there’s no need to w-worry… I’ll be…!”

Her words were cut off by the boy’s drooping head.

The boy’s other hand barely pointed to the other side.

“There might still… be… something left…”

The boy’s gradually closing eyes looked towards the girl.

“Run… a-away… quickly…”

And then, the boy’s eyes closed completely.

Even the hand that reached out to the other side became limp.

The eerie word of death hung over the boy’s body.

In that moment, the girl thought back to the first time she met the boy.

At first, it was merely curiosity.

His eyes were peculiar, and he had no wrists.

She thought he would make a good toy.

She believed it would be fun to play with him for a few weeks and then discard him.

But a few weeks turned into months, and months quickly turned into a year.

The boy took root in the girl’s heart with his uneven face. Whenever she tried to think, he would stubbornly emerge, filling her mind.

From some point on, the girl’s life became unable to continue without the boy.

And now, the boy is trying to disappear.

“No! No! I don’t want him to!!”

The girl clenched her fists and slammed her head into the floor.

And perhaps for the first time in her life, she desperately searched for a solution.

She gathered everything she had heard, learned, and seen until now. She accumulated even the smallest memories and searched for a way.

A way to save the boy she loves.

And finally, the girl finds him.

Snap!

“Get up! Rem, you fool!!”

Snap! Snap! Snap!

The girl sheds tears and repeatedly slaps the boy’s cheek. In response, the boy barely opens his eyes.

However, his eyes are incredibly clouded. It is doubtful if his voice can even reach.

“Listen and repeat!”

Therefore, the girl presses her forehead against the boy’s forehead. Looking into his clouded eyes with her moist ones, she says,

“Le-dina Diu’ pasa.”

Just silently reading it allows one to wield the power of God, a heavenly scripture.

The origin of the divine law.

However, God does not grant power to the girl.

Instead, He only punishes her with a bloody wound.

“Repeat after me! If you can’t hear, at least look at my mouth and repeat!!”

But the girl swallows the bloody wound and forcibly widens the boy’s resisting eyes. Suppressing the pain, she shouts the scripture as if casting a curse.

“Le-dian Diu’ pasa!! Le-dian Diu’ pasa!! Le-dian Diu’ pasa…! Le-dian Diu’ pasa…”

At first, her voice was like a scream, but gradually, her trembling voice subsides. Unbeknownst to her, her two hands gather in front of her chest.

It was the girl’s first desperate prayer to God.

Please, God.

May my prayer reach the boy.

And may the boy’s prayer reach the heavens.

“Le… dian…”

And then, light begins to seep into the girl’s eyes.

The girl opens her eyes and sees the boy emitting light from his entire body.

“Diu’ pasa…”

The blood that was flowing out retreats into the boy’s body, and the damaged organs regain their original form, filling the pierced chest with new flesh.

Finally, when the light dissipates, the boy is sound asleep, completely restored and peaceful.

The girl feels tears welling up in her throat.

However, instead of bursting into tears, the girl kneels on the floor. She gathers her hands and closes her eyes.

Le-dian, Diu’ pasa.

Thank you, God.

The girl sheds tears and repeats that scripture tens, hundreds of times.