episode_0026

*

Lucia blinked her eyes quietly.

It seemed she didn’t understand my question.

“Can’t I like Father?”

I shook my head and said,

“No. Of course not.”

“…”

“But, if there’s a reason I can understand, I won’t unconditionally deny your feelings.”

“Uuu…”

Lucia scrunched up her face as if she was about to burst into tears any second.

I patted Lucia’s head and continued,

“I can’t understand why you have feelings for me… That’s it.”

“… Because I like you.”

“Then can you answer me? Why do you like… think you like me?”

Even as I said it, it felt too embarrassing, so I corrected the word in the middle.

Lucia frowned, pursed her lips for a moment, then started tugging on my shoulder sleeve.

I resisted, shaking my head, as if our bodies would touch if I got any closer.

When I didn’t get pulled closer, Lucia pulled my sleeve even more fiercely, as if telling me to get a clue.

Having no choice, I gave in to her touch, and she snuggled into my arms as if nestling in my embrace, and said.

“Originally… I didn’t like you.”

“… Huh?”

“When I saw Father… it reminded me of my mom…”

“I don’t think I have a maternal style.”

“The mom I ate…”

“…”

I closed my mouth.

I had no choice but to close it.

But Lucia continued without paying attention.

“When I saw Father, it reminded me of what I did back then… I remembered Father hitting me to stop me.”

“…”

“So… at first, when Father came to the island… I didn’t like him. I was scared.”

That’s right,

She was possessed by a devil and destroyed her hometown village.

It wasn’t her fault, but those terrible scenes would remain in her memory as her own actions.

To Lucia, I must have been the person who reminded her of those scenes.

Lucia asked me if I remembered her when I first stepped foot on the island.

That meant that Lucia remembered me.

No, she would never have forgotten.

Her faults she committed that day.

Her dying family and neighbors.

Even the figure of the priest who beat her and eventually left her disabled.

In nightmares, perhaps in memories even more nightmarish than nightmares,

She must have recalled them countless times.

“I see.”

“… Hmmm,”

Lucia nestled her head on my chest, exhaling a breath smelling of alcohol, finding a place to rest.

Before I knew it, she was sitting on my lap, which was already on the floor, and was curling up as if nesting in my body.

Lucia continued, snuggled up to me like a baby bird.

“Do you… remember?”

“Remember what?”

“About two weeks after… Father came…”

“Two weeks… Ah,”

“That’s right… When those bad people came.”

I could realize what Lucia was talking about.

Around that time, two weeks after I arrived on the island, a large ship had come to the island.

Not towards the village with the pebble beach where ships could dock, but towards the sea with the sheer cliff.

The ship that had secretly docked under that cliff, where I had talked with Anna last night, certainly hadn’t come to deliver supplies.

It was a pirate ship.

Pirates who had heard somewhere about the island where only young nuns lived had come to kidnap them.

Whether they simply wanted to have fun with the bodies of young women, or whether they were going to sell them off somewhere, I couldn’t know.

At the time, Anna was in the orchard, and the pirates were targeting Sola and Lucia, who were in the monastery building.

Unlike Sola, who quickly escaped from the pirates, Lucia, who had a leg disability, was caught by the pirates, but I was also in the monastery.

As a result, nothing particularly bad happened to Lucia.

All the pirates were drowned.

“At that time… when I was caught by the pirates… Father was as angry as fire…”

“… That’s,”

To be honest, I wasn’t in a good mood back then.

After becoming a priest and spending my whole life wrestling with demons and working so hard, I felt unfairly and frustrated to be demoted to a monastery in a corner of the continent, and my heart was restless.

When the pirates appeared, I felt like they had come at just the right time, as I was already feeling frustrated.

“Just because I was caught… you fought so fiercely with those scary pirates…”

To me, who had spent my whole life fighting demons, mere human pirates couldn’t look scary.

In the first place, they were the type who couldn’t even enter the village and only targeted small islands, so they weren’t very dangerous pirates either.

“You always said that only God can judge sin… but you decisively punished them all…”

I tied them all together and put them on the ship, and after looking around the ship once, I realized there was nothing to take and simply sank it whole.

Theologically, it was an evil act, but at least legally, it wasn’t a sin to kill pirates, so I did it without much guilt.

Honestly, looking back now, it was an embarrassing past.

It was nothing less than proof that my cultivation was insufficient, a violent act.

Killing an evildoer who invaded the monastery was something even the Bishop wouldn’t say anything about, but even so, I relied on my own conscience and repeatedly offered repentance prayers.

Of course, no one, including me, thought that I, who had lived a life of faith punctuated with hatred and anger towards demons, would show mercy or leniency towards evildoers.

Even the cheerful Bishop didn’t expect that from me.

“Sola and Anna were surprised at the sight of Father back then, saying it was the first time they’d seen that side of you.”

“That’s… what happened.”

“But… it wasn’t the first time I’d seen it.”

“… Huh?”

Lucia slowly lifted her head.

Her face suddenly came very close to my eyes.

It was almost the first time I had seen her face this close.

The tip of her nose lightly brushed my lips.

“Lu, Lucia. Too close…”

“Father…”

The red-faced girl’s face filled my eyes, filling my vision with her unbearably cute appearance.

The scent of a woman mixed with the scent of wine lingered sweetly under my nose, as if tickling the inside of my lungs with sweet feathers.

Her beautiful, alcohol-infused breathing flowed into my ears like an irresistible song, messing up my head.

“I’ve seen that fighting face of Father before… that fighting appearance…”

The skin that touched was hot.

The scent of her body that rushed in was hot.

Her breath that brushed against my ears was so hot.

“It was about ten years ago…”

“Ah…”

“That’s right… Father… the way you fought the pirates looked just like when you fought me when I was possessed by a demon…”

Lucia slowly leaned her head on my shoulder.

Her ashen hair rustled against my cheek.

Her skin and hair that slid over my rough skin were like snowflakes.

It was so soft and fragile that it felt like it would melt away at any moment.

Could that be why?

Before I knew it, I was gently hugging Lucia’s shoulder, who was in my arms.

Lucia shuddered all over and continued.

“Hmm… Haa… The way Father fought the pirates for me… the moment I saw that appearance again… I realized it?”

“…”

“That Father fought the pirates, and even hurt the young me, was all for me…”

That’s not wrong.

It would have been nice if I had known a better way, but that was the best I could do with the immature me at the time.

In the first place, the only way to get rid of a low-intelligence Ebony Wolf was to torment it to the point of death and chase it away.

Of course, if it were me now, I could think of other methods that would be less stressful on the human body, but in that situation at the time, the only method I could use was ruthless violence.

Lucia hugged me so tightly that she almost meshed my ribs with her own, not being able to dig into my arms any further.

Her strength felt so weak that it even felt like she was trying to dig into my guilt rather than my chest.

Lucia, without the power of the devil, is so weak.

The eight-year-old her must have been even more so.

“Even though my body is broken.”

“… Lucia.”

“When I was eight years old, and when I was eighteen. Father has always fought for me.”

“Lucia. That’s…”

“Knowing that… having realized that… I can’t help but like you.”

Lucia opened her mouth as if to interrupt me.

Then she slowly lifted her head and looked at my face.

Since when was it?

Before I knew it, she was on top of me, looking down at me.

“Even so, can’t I like you?”

Her eyes and lips trembled.

It was as if something important was lacking, and she desperately wanted that something.

I don’t know what that is.

I didn’t want to know.

If I knew, it seemed like I would definitely give it to her.

After saying everything, Lucia was quietly looking down at me and waiting for my answer.

I closed my eyes tightly and answered.

“That’s, it was just my job… Chasing away demons, protecting you. Both… were just things I had to do.”

“So.”

“… What?”

“Isn’t it enough to like someone who faithfully does their job?”

Saying that, there was nothing to say.

Lucia, too, seemed to have nothing more to say to me now that she had confessed everything.

We looked at each other in silence for a long time.

Fortunately, contact or affection beyond the current level was not occurring.

Was it reason, or faith?

Something unknown was blocking us, and it felt both fortunate and somewhat regrettable at the same time.

No, no.

It can’t be like this.

They may be swept away by pure goodwill and overflowing vigor, but I can’t.

At that moment when I resolved to do so.

Lucia’s lips moved slowly.

I could see the saliva that had formed slightly between her upper and lower lips dangling a spiderweb-thin thread before breaking.

The cute tongue that slightly protruded from that gap twitched slightly, and a seductive voice like well-ripened wine flowed out.

“… Would you like to touch me?”

I couldn’t believe what I had just heard.

It must be because of the alcohol.

That old wine must have gone wrong somewhere, and it must have damaged my eardrums.

“Fa… ther…”

That damn wine must have ruined my eyes too.

Because what I’m seeing now can’t be reality.

Lucia… oh my god,

She started to lift her skirt.

A scent that was so rich that it couldn’t even be compared to what I had smelled so far swelled up and began to fill this small fortress.

Lucia opened her mouth in a trembling voice.

“My stomach… feels empty. The area below my navel feels empty… It’s ticklish… and hot. The area between my legs… is frustrated.”

“Lucia…?”

“Would you… touch me?”

I slowly tried to move back.

However, Lucia followed, sitting on top of me.

Rather, she climbed even higher than I had retreated, and almost ended up sitting on my stomach.

It was just my imagination, or maybe it was the spilled alcohol, but

I could feel my stomach getting damp.

“Come closer… closer.”

“Lucia… this is,”

“Closer.”

“No…”

When I showed signs of resisting, Lucia pressed down on my shoulder.

I could feel a tough strength that I hadn’t felt in her tender touch until just now.

I was startled and looked at Lucia’s face.

Lucia’s eyes had turned red.

“Father… please… touch me.”