Ch.356Episode 14 – One Religion, One Faith, Two Saints

Veronica demanded that I hear her confession. To be more precise, she demanded that I receive her confession.

“I need to hear all the sins you’ve committed today, Major.”

I wondered by what authority she thought she could hear a confession from me, who wasn’t even a believer, but to someone who treated even the Pope as a pushover, such distinctions meant nothing. In truth, even if I were to present her with the ritual book for confession, it wouldn’t make much difference.

After all, the current situation was quite different from what the Church would define as a “confession.”

Very different, in fact.

“Now, put your hands together! That’s right. Keep them pressed together just like that.”

“No. If you’re playing the confessor priest, you should go to the next booth, not come in here…”

“Silence!”

Veronica, who had appointed herself as the confessor priest, had long since entered my booth.

Perhaps to prevent me from escaping, she had seated me in a chair and stood with her back to the door.

“Don’t even think about running away. Or about confessing falsely. If I catch you, you’ll regret it later!”

“……”

“Well then, let’s begin.”

I wondered why I had to go through this charade, but I had no other choice. I put my hands together and sat before the saint.

Episode 14 – One Religion, One Faith, Two Saints

The confession began.

It was far from the orthodox confession where a priest and a believer converse through a thin wooden partition.

True to her love for pretense, Veronica conducted the confession with complete theatricality.

“I, Frederick Nostrum, before the Overseer of Heaven and our only Father, without a shred of falsehood…”

“Ah, let’s skip all those formalities! Cut the ceremony and get to the point!”

The sight of a saint completely disregarding the procedures of confession would have been dizzying for any believer to witness.

But since I wasn’t a believer, I followed Veronica’s instructions without a peep.

The saint leaned against the door and crossed her arms askew. Adopting a slanted posture that showed not a trace of clerical dignity, she began her questioning.

“When did you and Lucia become… you know… involved?”

The very first question was already a challenge.

How should I answer this? As I rolled my eyes, trying to avoid answering, Veronica immediately bared her teeth.

“Do you want to die? Who told you to roll your eyes!”

“Ah, I’ll talk. I’ll talk.”

“You should have done that from the start…”

I put my hands together and replied in a calm voice.

“I became involved with Lucia in the North.”

“What?”

“…ma’am.”

“That’s better.”

Veronica nodded with her arms crossed. A satisfied smile was an added bonus.

“The North. So it wasn’t that long ago. When exactly did you get together with Lucia?”

“It was the day I was confined.”

“That, confinement?”

Veronica’s smile cracked.

She had been comfortably leaning against the door, but now she sprang forward.

With her face so close that our noses nearly touched, Veronica seemed to have forgotten the dignity that nobles and clergy were supposed to maintain. With an unusually flustered expression, she raised her voice.

“You became involved on the day you were confined!? I, I didn’t know… when exactly…?”

“It was when she brought me dinner.”

“My goodness…”

Veronica seemed greatly shocked by this truth she hadn’t known. She uncrossed her arms and her pupils shook wildly with confusion.

“Dinner… But, but at that time, you and I were talking.”

“To be precise, our conversation ended when dinner time was almost over. Bringing Lucia dinner happened right after that.”

“T-that…”

Veronica threw her gaze into empty space and began to mutter.

“As soon as our conversation ended, with my sister immediately… No, then when the Major didn’t return, it wasn’t because he had already gone back but because he was in bed with Lucia…?”

The truth can sometimes be cruel. The saint’s body swayed as she faced it.

Feeling dizzy, Veronica covered her forehead with her hand. Even in the midst of this, her muttering showed no signs of stopping.

“Lucia isn’t that kind of girl… It can’t be…?”

“……”

“S-something else! In the North, no, before that, was there nothing else between you two?”

I shook my head without much thought.

I couldn’t tell when Lucia had started to have feelings for me, but the first time she showed her affection was on the day I was confined on Veronica’s orders.

“That day was the first time she showed any interest. If we’re talking about a confession, it actually came much later.”

“C-confession? What are you talking about?”

“After my confinement ended, Lucia confessed to me. She called me to the confessional, just like now, and told me. That she loved me.”

Veronica couldn’t regain her composure in the face of this newly emerged truth.

“…So you’re saying Lucia confessed only after she had that kind of relationship with you?”

“Yes.”

“How can you say that so casually!”

“It’s the truth, what do you want me to do…”

I protested with a sense of injustice. I really felt wronged.

But Veronica was already beside herself. She couldn’t hear any of my excuses.

“No! She had no reason to confess! Even if she did confess, she should have done it before!”

“Ah, what do you want me to do about it!”

The more we expressed our grievances to each other, the more parallel our conversation became.

Veronica shouted that Lucia was not the kind of girl who would do such a thing, and I retorted that I wasn’t lying.

“It’s the truth, I tell you!”

“Y-you’re lying!”

“This is driving me crazy.”

“T-then what happened next? What happened after that?!”

What happened next? Nothing much.

Right after Lucia’s confession, all sorts of incidents occurred in the North. We were both busy with our duties until the day we vanquished the demon, and after the demon was defeated, we were separated due to recovery and post-battle matters.

“Nothing happened. We didn’t even have time to meet.”

“R-right? Nothing happened, correct?”

Veronica seemed quite pleased with this fact.

Having regained her composure, Veronica began to probe into the relationship between Lucia and me. When we met, how often we met, what conversations we had, what happened, and so on.

Most of the questions were easy to answer.

“Just from what I’m hearing, it sounds quite wholesome.”

“I don’t know what you were thinking, but there really was no problem.”

“The problem started when you touched my sister!”

“……”

That was a rebuke difficult to counter.

I lowered my head, and Veronica leaned back against the door, crossing her arms again. Then, narrowing her eyes, she asked in a subtle voice.

“Lucia is already in the past, so there’s nothing we can do about it. But what about the others?”

“What…?”

“Francesca and the Hero. What’s your relationship with those two?”

For a moment, I felt my breath catch. I didn’t expect that question to come up here.

Veronica was eyeing me suspiciously with narrowed eyes.

“While you were putting your hands on my sister, you didn’t touch other women too, did you?”

“…N-no.”

“Of course. I thought so.”

Of course that’s how it should be. Absolutely.

Veronica nodded with a satisfied expression, seemingly pleased with my answer. But it was too early to feel relieved.

She was still standing with her back to the door, and she didn’t seem inclined to let me go. As time passed, Veronica proved that my prediction was correct.

“Hmm…”

Leaning against the door, Veronica began tapping her arm with her crossed hands. She appeared to be deep in thought.

“I understand that you and my sister have feelings for each other. But you must know that there are many obstacles to the world accepting your relationship, right?”

“Yes.”

That was true.

I’m not talking about regulations like the prohibition on intelligence officers dating. It’s a much more fundamental issue.

Lucia and I are public figures, and public figures are always vulnerable to scandal. If rumors of a romance between me and a saint, who was designated as a companion by the Oracle, were to spread, it would clearly cause major problems.

After all, we weren’t the only companions designated by the Oracle. Camilla and Francesca were also companions.

Veronica mentioned exactly that point.

“While relationships between men and women don’t always go as planned, your relationship with my sister could become a source of discord within the organization.”

The logic was simple.

Suppose Lucia got into an argument with Camilla or Francesca. Excluding the two parties involved in the dispute, someone would step in to mediate.

But what if I took Lucia’s side? What would the other person think?

They would probably say I was protecting my woman. The reverse situation is the same. Lucia might resent me for not taking her side. In the worst case, the relationship could completely fall apart.

This was an issue I had worried about when bringing Francesca. After all, the Church and the Magic Tower are adversaries. Conflicts between the two nations could affect Lucia and Francesca at any time.

Of course, Lucia knows this too.

“Lucia is a thoughtful girl, so she probably mentioned this issue first. Nevertheless, she confessed to you.”

Veronica kept nodding with her arms crossed.

“But do things in this world ever go as planned? The relationship between you and my sister will surely become a major stumbling block someday.”

Which means.

“I cannot approve of your relationship. For my sister’s sake, and for yours too.”

The saint said.

“Break up. Right now.”

*

Veronica’s sudden demand that I break up with Lucia was unexpected. But it was also quite predictable.

Veronica was someone who understood the ways of the world better than anyone, and she also knew the nature of intelligence agencies well.

“You don’t plan to end your military career as a major, do you? If this gets out, forget about promotion—they’ll immediately strip you of your position. Can you handle that?”

It was a politically and socially quite reasonable proposal.

However, I couldn’t easily answer.

“……”

“What’s wrong? Don’t you want to break up with my sister, Major?”

“Well, yes. It’s just such a sudden topic.”

When you work in intelligence, ending relationships becomes familiar. After all, your main job is to hire informants and operatives and then end those relationships when the operation is over.

But familiarity doesn’t make it easy. Intelligence officers are human too, and how could severing ties with people ever be easy?

So even after hearing Veronica’s words, I fell into deep thought.

“Are you worried about Lucia?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t worry too much. I’ll explain it to her well. She’ll follow what her big sister says.”

Veronica asserted that with just a word from her, Lucia would move on. She didn’t consider the possibility of Lucia rebelling at all.

That’s how confident she was. Confidence that she could certainly persuade Lucia.

But even she couldn’t persuade me.

As my contemplation deepened, Veronica carefully took the seat beside me. The confessional chair, just right for one person, immediately became cramped when two people sat down.

Just as I was about to get up due to that subtle discomfort, Veronica grabbed my wrist.

“Ahem, ahem. Major?”

“…?”

“Sit down for a moment.”

Veronica seated me beside her. I didn’t know what she was trying to do, but I was led by her hand and slowly sat down on the chair.

“What is it?”

“Just sit down for now. I have something to tell you.”

After seating me in the chair, Veronica abruptly stood up.

As if checking that no one was listening, she peeked out, looking around quickly, then gently closed the door and came back into the confessional.

What is she trying to do?

It was then that I wondered.

“Major.”

Veronica, standing with her back to the confessional, opened her mouth.

“So you’re worried about the future, but you don’t want to break up with Lucia yet, right?”

“Ah, yes. That’s right.”

Objectively speaking, Lucia was a fine person. I don’t mean her social background.

Lucia possessed a character that even clergy admired, and her beauty was considerable as well. In other words, she had all three elements of what people commonly call wisdom, virtue, and physical beauty. While Francesca is also a good person, it would be difficult to compare the two on the same level. They’re both such good people.

With someone like that confessing her love, who could easily move on?

It was then.

“Then what about me?”

“…?”

“I’m asking how you feel about me.”

Before I could ask back, Veronica spoke first.

“You said you don’t want to break up with Lucia, who has already confessed, right?”

I looked up at Veronica. Standing before me was someone who, except for her conduct, was as fitting for the position of saint as Lucia, or perhaps even more so.

I stared blankly at Veronica. What did I just hear?

“Then how do you feel about the older sister instead of the younger one?”

The saint with pitch-black long hair. Snow-white skin contrasting with her black cassock.

With a finger to her lips, she spoke with her back to the confessional door.

“You can’t leave here until you answer.”

Click.

The sound of the lock being pressed broke through the silence.

And then came the subtle voice.

“I told you earlier, didn’t I? That I’m going to fix your mindset today.”

“……”

“What are you doing?”

Veronica’s eyes curved gently.

“My legs hurt.”

*

Honestly, I still can’t recall the process.

But the sensation of a red tongue intertwining stickily and hands brushing over thick clothes remains vivid.

When I grasped the flesh that was almost too much for one hand, her pelvis came like a wave, beating against my thighs. When I pressed down on the flesh that escaped between my fingers, a mellow breath tickled my ear. My hand delved into her front, squeezing her crushed breasts.

When I came to my senses, Veronica was already straddling my thighs.

I embraced her tightly, and she cupped my cheeks with her hands, pulling my face strongly toward hers.

The night before the canonization ceremony.

It was a day at the end of winter.