Ch.280Episode 12 – The Strongest Mage in History

Though I’m a soldier by profession, I don’t wear my combat uniform as often as one might expect.

Perhaps that’s only natural. I was an intelligence officer—more precisely, a military intelligence agent assigned to an intelligence unit.

When I was stationed at the Intelligence Command, we were transitioning from frog pattern to digital camouflage, so I received a digital combat uniform, but rarely had the opportunity to wear it.

For commuting, we were required to wear civilian clothes (though that just meant a suit).

Wearing an ID badge recognizable only to staff, I would enter the first floor in my suit, receive a salute from plainclothes personnel carrying gas pistols, and board the elevator.

After pressing the buttons in the prescribed sequence to reach my office floor, I would change into one of two combat uniforms kept in a cabinet tucked away in the corner.

Only then would I finally don my combat uniform.

Of course, when going abroad or even working domestically but in the field, I wouldn’t have time to change into combat gear.

Perhaps that’s why I wore combat uniforms much more frequently when working at the Military Intelligence Agency than during my time at the Intelligence Command.

Though that was only natural since I was stuck in the office every day playing assistant to Clavins.

Anyway, the point is simple.

Whether I liked it or not, I wore civilian clothes more often than military uniforms, and consequently, I was naturally more comfortable in civilian attire than in uniform wherever I went. Especially in a suit.

But,

Somehow,

Today, the suit I’m wearing feels particularly stifling.

I placed my loosened tie on top of my folded shirt and let out a quiet sigh.

“…Are you ready?”

“Ah, yes.”

At the sound of Lucia’s voice, I slowly turned around.

Trying my best to keep her from entering my field of vision. And to avoid making eye contact.

Though that was rather difficult in such a cramped room.

“……”

I sat down on the bed.

And before me,

Lucia, scantily clad in a way that made it impossible to believe she was a saint, or rather, a clergy member,

“Then let’s begin.”

Began to approach slowly.

Episode 12 – The Most Powerful Mage in History

The preparations for treatment were complete.

I was the first to lie on the bed. I neatly arranged my removed clothing and lay down, while Lucia hung her cassock on the coat rack and approached the bed.

It was an extraordinary sight.

Clerical attire is designed with some looseness to ensure the wearer’s mobility. This was true for priests’ cassocks, monks’ tunics, and nuns’ habits.

Something like a dress, I suppose.

Because of this, it was difficult to discern the body shapes of most clergy members, including Lucia and Veronica in their cassocks. The baggy nature of the garments rarely revealed body contours.

That’s why I often found it hard to adjust when seeing Veronica in casual clothes.

Since Veronica was a saint, she was always fully dressed at official events, so even up close, there wasn’t much to be impressed by, and my gaze naturally focused on her face. But when she appeared in form-fitting shirts or pants, it was difficult to know where to look.

The situation with Lucia was similar.

Flawless snow-white skin. Skin as soft as a silky, fluffy comforter.

Her hair, left untied and flowing down, was a brilliant gold that could be believed to be molten gold.

Raising my gaze slightly, I could see blue eyes reminiscent of the ocean.

The moment I saw those eyes, I was reminded of “The Birth of Venus” that I had seen during a brief visit to Florence.

Although the eye color was different, and Lucia’s appearance was distinctly different from Aphrodite in the painting,

Lucia’s figure, shyly covering her chest with her arms, with an embarrassed expression, was no different from Venus in the masterpiece.

“……”

Since Lucia was such a religious person and had never worn casual clothes, I hadn’t realized.

She was far more beautiful than I had thought.

“Why are you looking at me like that…?”

“……”

“I’m, I’m a little embarrassed.”

As Lucia’s voice lingered in my ears, I felt my wandering mind kick down the front door and return.

I hastily averted my gaze from her and fixed it on the ceiling. For good measure, I even turned my head away.

“I’m, I’m sorry. That was rude of me.”

“…There’s no need to think of it as rudeness.”

Lucia’s slightly husky voice reached my ears.

Glancing sideways, I caught sight of Lucia with her head bowed low.

She looked as if she was suppressing her anger, but her reddened earlobes and the way she covered herself with her hands and arms clearly revealed her embarrassment.

“Now it’s my turn to get in. Please make some room…”

“Ah, yes.”

“Thank you.”

As I shifted to make space, Lucia, who had been standing awkwardly, slipped in beside me.

I could sense her urgency in the way she pulled back the blanket, the sound of her feet hitting the floor as she rushed, the way she launched herself onto the mattress, and how quickly she covered herself with the blanket.

In truth, her face, red as a radish, made it unnecessary to observe her movements.

“……”

“……”

After she launched herself onto the bed, silence fell between us.

Despite her bold attitude, Lucia was blushing and pulling the blanket up, clearly at a loss, while I kept my gaze fixed on the ceiling with my lips tightly sealed.

To be honest, this was the most tense moment of my life. Even my business trip to China hadn’t been this nerve-wracking.

In the silent room, only intermittent breathing could be heard.

I didn’t dare try to change my uncomfortable position for fear that our skin might touch if I moved.

Both of us, pressed tightly against the wall and edge of the bed, just stared at the ceiling and floor, barely breathing.

We were like a couple who had rented a motel room under the influence of alcohol but couldn’t make any progress, just lying there silently.

However, we couldn’t postpone what needed to be done any longer.

“…Um.”

After a few minutes of awkward silence.

A thread-like voice emerged from Lucia, who had her back turned to me.

“Uh…”

“…Yes.”

“Should we… start the… treatment…?”

“……”

Feeling the soft touch of the blanket connecting Lucia and me at my fingertips, I opened my mouth after much hesitation.

“…Let’s do that.”

*

Neither the desert-like silence untouched by human footsteps nor the tension one might feel on their first deployment lasted very long.

After all, Lucia and I had already experienced treatment several times. No matter how awkward it was, we knew what needed to be done.

The first thing we did when the treatment began was to find a comfortable position.

Although the situation was somewhat unusual, what Lucia was trying to do was treat a person. Specifically, she was using divine power to prevent the worsening of wounds left by a demon and, if possible, to heal those wounds.

And all medical and therapeutic practices are predicated on the patient’s stability. If the patient’s condition is chaotic, meaningful results cannot be expected.

Therefore, we had to start by finding a comfortable position before the treatment.

“I’m going to adjust my position.”

I wriggled my body to gradually claim more space. Having been hunched up and stuck to the wall like a barnacle, my shoulders and legs were stiff and tense.

Stretching my stiffened body was the second thing I did before the actual treatment began.

I tried to find a comfortable position by gradually taking up more space. Meanwhile, Lucia helped by shifting slightly to the side so I could find the optimal position.

But,

“Oh.”

“……”

As our bodies touched while I was adjusting my position, I sensed something was off. And then I realized.

The beds we had used until now had been spacious. The bed I first woke up on in the cathedral was at least queen-sized, maybe even king-sized.

But the bed we were lying on now was a single. It was so narrow that there was little space left when an adult man lay on it.

With an adult man and an adult woman sharing this cramped bed, it was perhaps only natural that our skin would touch with the slightest movement.

“…Um. What should we do? The space seems a little- no, very insufficient.”

“It, it will be fine.”

In a moment of confusion, I posed a question to Lucia, but the answer was unsatisfactory.

She too apparently hadn’t anticipated the bed would be this narrow. Or perhaps she hadn’t had the chance to consider it.

Regardless, the situation was what it was. Lucia, who had momentarily retreated with half her body hanging off the bed, carefully pulled up the blanket that had almost fallen and slowly climbed back onto the bed.

Very slowly.

At a snail’s pace.

“……”

Lucia’s face was so red it looked like it might burst.

As I was watching her with a tense expression, I could clearly see Lucia moving like a crawling snail.

Her flushed face, her eyes darting in all directions, her flowing hair.

Her lustrous golden hair, pulled down by gravity, covered her upper chest. The plain white undergarments covering her essential parts were unremarkable, but because of the person wearing them, they seemed special in their very existence.

Was it due to tension? Cold sweat dried in the cool air, reflecting the moonlight, causing her entire skin to glisten.

It was a sensual sight that could almost stop one’s heart. As I watched Lucia gradually coming closer, desperately trying to find somewhere else to look, it happened.

“This, this won’t work.”

With a face about to burst, Lucia pulled up the blanket and suddenly sat up.

“…Pardon?”

“Please wait a moment…!”

Lucia, who had practically jumped off the bed, began to dash away. She headed toward the dresser.

In the blink of an eye, she reached it and flung open the drawer with all her might, then began rummaging through it. She threw out all sorts of personal items—books, clothes, socks—anything she could get her hands on.

Her desperate movements made her look more like a burglar than the room’s occupant. Lucia searched through the drawer as if hunting for lice, and when the drawer was empty, she thrust her hand deep inside, feeling around until she let out a small exclamation and pulled out the object she had found.

That object was,

“…Wine?”

None other than wine.

“It’s wine used during Mass. Archbishop Theodosius, the diocesan bishop, blessed it himself.”

“Why do you have that…?”

“There was some left after Mass, so I took a bottle.”

“No, I mean, why did you bring it? Aren’t you a clergy member?”

Can a priest drink this? Given that she kept it deep in her drawer, it probably wasn’t something she should have.

I was so dumbfounded that I had to comment, but it seemed not to reach Lucia. She grabbed the wine bottle and removed the cork without using any tools.

-Pop!

The cheerful sound of the cork opening followed.

With the clear sound, the wine sloshed against the glass walls of the bottle. Lucia put the appetizing, sloshing wine to her lips and gulped it down straight from the bottle.

“…Phew.”

After drinking the wine for quite some time, Lucia wiped her lips with the back of her hand and exhaled. Having consumed half the bottle in an instant, she walked over to the bed and offered me the wine bottle.

She was telling me to drink.

I took the wine bottle she offered and drank the remaining half. It must have been a fairly premium brand of wine if it was used in the cathedral. But I had no time to taste it.

I swallowed the wine so quickly I couldn’t tell if it was going down my nose or mouth. When I finally removed my lips from the now empty bottle, Lucia took it and placed it on the desk.

I could feel the alcohol I had just consumed coursing through my veins.

My pounding heart pushed blood forcefully, delivering oxygen to the body’s organs, and the alcohol mixed in the blood spread throughout my body with each pulse.

“……”

After lying quietly on the bed for a moment, waiting for the intoxication to spread throughout my body.

-Swish.

Lucia, who had been standing still, gently pulled back the blanket and began to climb onto the bed with her back to the moonlight.

“My greeting is a bit late, but I’m glad we made it through another day safely. Fortunately, you don’t seem to have any new injuries.”

I silently watched Lucia as she hesitantly, slowly slipped into the space beside me.

I wanted to say something, but the atmosphere was all wrong. Whether due to intoxication or embarrassment, Lucia’s face was flushed red, and her heart was pounding like a broken engine, thumping loudly.

Was it the alcohol?

The room’s temperature felt particularly hot.

I spread my arms to make space for her to lie down. She thanked me quietly and lay down using my arm as a pillow. I wanted to give her the pillow, but she insisted that I, as the patient, should use it.

Carefully lying down beside me, avoiding my wounds, Lucia prompted me to ask a trivial and meaningless question. The kind of stupid question I wouldn’t normally ask.

“Is it okay for a saint to drink alcohol?”

To this, the saint replied. In quite a solemn voice.

“As someone facing canonization, and since alcohol isn’t good for the body, it would be better to abstain.”

“But…?”

“If no one knows, does it matter?”

Perhaps due to our proximity, I could smell her scent with each slight movement. A fragrance that cut through the alcohol aroma. At the same time, her hair and soft skin, as she lay using my arm as a pillow, tickled my body.

“As you know, what I’m about to do hasn’t been approved by the State Council. Even His Holiness the Pope doesn’t know. And Saint Veronica… my sister, doesn’t know either.”

“……”

“So whatever happens here, in this moment, today.”

I could feel Lucia carefully raising her head. I lowered my gaze, and as she slowly lifted her chin, our eyes met.

A moment that seemed like eternity.

In that moment of complete focus on each other, where not even breathing could be heard, Lucia’s reddish lips began to part.

“A secret.”

“……”

“You’ll keep it, won’t you?”

It was the moment another secret to be taken to the grave was added.