Ch.336Vow of Purity. Bloody Mary (1)

The representative flower meanings of cherry blossoms include beautiful soul, spiritual love, and the beauty of life. They also symbolize unparalleled beauty, the transience and beauty of life, purity, exceptional beauty, refinement, wealth, and prosperity.

With so many positive meanings gathered in one flower, the imperial family designated cherry blossoms as the national flower of the empire and planted them in massive quantities.

These visually pleasing cherry trees were said to have covered the entire continent during the empire’s prosperous era, with enough blossoms remaining to color the coastlines pink.

In those days, cherry blossoms signaled the arrival of spring, and when the petals danced in the wind, people from all walks of life would pack mats and lunch boxes to admire the fluttering cherry blossoms in nature.

And now, Bloody Mary was a place where cherry trees with specially cultivated red leaves were in bloom.

About 1,000 years ago, when the Era of Extinction was merely two centuries old, there lived a married couple.

The husband was a botanist, and the wife was an ecologist.

With much overlap in their fields, the couple not only achieved remarkable academic success but also enjoyed such a harmonious marriage that even into their 40s and 50s, they inspired jealousy from those around them.

However, their happy times passed quickly when the wife contracted a serious illness and was given a terminal diagnosis.

Though the disease was not incurable, the cost of treatment was far beyond what a mere botanist could afford, and despite neighbors pooling their money out of sympathy, it wasn’t enough.

Eventually, the husband had no choice but to face his wife’s gradually approaching death. Watching his beloved’s body slowly waste away, the botanist first held her hand, later carried her on his back, then pushed her wheelchair, and finally showed her photographs of her favorite cherry trees.

On the day his wife drew her final breath, she expressed a wish to see the cherry trees. The husband, like a madman, scoured the mountains searching for cherry trees.

But it was the dead of winter. In this harsh season when even vegetation was covered in frost and turned to snow flowers, finding a spring tree was impossible.

When he returned, his wife had already passed away. The husband placed his frozen hands on her cold heart and wept bitterly.

On the day he buried his wife with his own hands, the husband began modifying cherry trees in her memory.

So they could hold the energy of spring, embrace the heat of summer, inhale the mood of autumn, and withstand the cold of winter.

After years of research, he finally created red cherry blossoms. He planted a small cherry tree containing his wife’s spirit at her grave, around her grave, on mountains, fields, valleys, and ravines.

One tree became a hundred, a hundred became a thousand, and a thousand became ten thousand.

Spring, summer, autumn, winter, day or night—he planted trees.

Even when floods washed away homes or heavy snowfalls buried cities, he continued planting trees.

For 30 years he planted trees, and then he was gone.

Decades passed.

By the time children had grown into adults nursing and clothing their own children who resembled them, red cherry blossoms began to fly from the mountains, fields, valleys, and ravines.

His achievement, forgotten along with his name after death, was quickly unearthed, and people soon climbed the mountain to discover the largest of the original trees.

It was the first red cherry tree planted on his wife’s grave.

People began calling these red-leaved cherry trees “Bloody Mary,” after the wife’s name and the blood-red color. The village where crimson cherry blossoms fell year-round eventually became a landmark symbolizing the continent.

*

“What a truly moving story.”

Viktor nodded and applauded the overwhelming tale of love that transcended even death.

The material itself was so captivating that it had been adapted into countless novels, comics, films, and dramas. In Bloody Mary, there were reportedly thousands of shops specializing in media mixes created from this story.

“When you hear the name ‘Bloody Mary,’ it sounds rather ominous. Seems like they chose the wrong name.”

“Well, they couldn’t exactly call it ‘Corpse Mary,’ could they? Bloody Mary sounds much better to me. And since the husband’s name was already forgotten, as they said, they couldn’t name it after him either.”

“Then how did they discover the wife’s name?”

“Oh, my brother! Obviously it was written on her tombstone!”

“Ah!”

Leaving the dwarf brothers to their banter, Viktor smiled and tossed a cookie into his mouth.

The sweetness of sugar and chocolate spreading in his mouth was exquisite. It wasn’t particularly special—just something quickly baked by the mess cooks, probably incomparable to what professional bakeries would produce.

But to the Walker couple, who had once lost their senses, it was like the finest delicacy in the world. They hadn’t realized how important the ability to feel was until they had lost it.

At first, flavors had weakened, then they could only feel texture but not taste, and finally, even texture became imperceptible.

Despite reaching such a state, they hadn’t felt particularly angry about it. No one in the captain’s quarters criticized the Walkers for snacking. They had all witnessed Viktor’s gradual transformation into something inhuman.

“Are… are you really alright?”

“So far, yes. There’s no guarantee my hypothesis is correct, but there’s also no guarantee it’s wrong. I think this might be the answer. Honestly, it’s impossible to formulate this into an exact theory anyway.”

“I suppose that’s true…”

The first condition of scientific theory was reproducibility.

In other words, when experiments are conducted under the same conditions and in the same way, the results should be similar, if not identical.

But to specifically describe this condition now would require humans who had ascended to godhood, making a scientific explanation virtually impossible.

“I never realized that faith not only affects divine power but also influences personality. I knew that ascending to apostleship made one’s personality seem diluted.”

“An apostle’s diluted personality is more like… being under pressure? The personality is still intact, but it’s weighed down by a much heavier divine nature, making it appear diluted. At least, that’s how I felt.”

“Well… these things really can’t be quantified…”

Simon shook his head, but he didn’t seem displeased.

The soldiers were delighted that their lord had regained his joy, as if it were their own happiness, so naturally Simon, who managed them, couldn’t help but be pleased as well.

Losing one’s human heart ultimately leads only to loss. Just as patients with congenital insensitivity to pain fail to notice minor wounds until they develop into major illnesses, how could one care for humans without human sensibilities?

The foundation of politics is compassion—the basic ability to empathize with people’s suffering. If one cannot maintain this fundamental quality, it would be foolish to expect humans to follow an inhuman ruler.

What would be the point of living if touching Raisha’s soft cheeks stirred no emotion? Without a sense of being alive, humans inevitably become twisted. Even if one is a god, as long as their foundation is human, the loss of emotions is equivalent to death.

“So Hurichel Continent is the last one… I hope it’s as beautiful as the other landmarks. I truly hope so.”

“Well, with so many media mixes created about it, I’d say it’s worth looking forward to.”

Simon showed him a mountain of CDs featuring movies and dramas set in Bloody Mary. Since the story was from 1,000 years ago, if all the media mixes produced until now were combined, they might fill the entire Sky Warden.

“Come to think of it, I’ve never seen cherry blossoms before. I’ve seen other flowers, but Parcifal wasn’t a region where cherry trees grew.”

“So you’re seeing the copy before the original?”

“Is that how it works? Let’s use the term ‘cultivated variety’ instead of ‘copy.’ The couple might get angry.”

“How can they get angry when they’re already dead?”

“There are things only gods know.”

At Viktor’s words, the dwarf brothers’ eyes widened.

In truth, even gods cannot freely communicate with the dead. At most, they can only escort their believers at the end of their lives.

But unaware of this, the dwarf brothers froze momentarily before awkwardly inserting a drama CD they hadn’t seen before into the player.