episode_0048

I feel weak. I collapse.

Being a priest means using divine powers, being an executor of the religious order.

It means that you believed. It means that you dedicated your whole life.

Now, if all my strength is gone, does that mean I’ve been betrayed?

“… Sister.”

I miss you, sister.

That thought suddenly occurred to me.

In my old memories, there is my seventeen-year-old sister lying in an old hospital bed, trying to smile.

A disease that cannot be cured by any magic. A disease that will kill you before you become an adult. My sister’s disease.

I begged for help. I was told they would fix it. So I left home. I kept it a secret from my family and entered the church. I became the executive’s dog.

It was a dark place. Even within the church, it was treated as dirty work and was avoided. Mena Ruina was the youngest there. Everyone said it was not something a child should do.

Even the grown adults died one by one.

Mena put her small hands together and prayed fervently. With her small hands, she desperately hunted the devil.

If only I could get used to seeing dismembered bodies, if only I could become numb to the deaths of those close to me. If only I could do that.

But no matter how many times I cried out loud and how many times my heart was broken, I didn’t become numb at all. I was just as sad as I was at first.

The adults who brag about how they’ve been through so many sad things that their tear ducts have dried up are all lies. The tears just keep flowing.

Because he is still a person who can feel sad for others, because he is a person who can always feel truly sorry, because he cannot help but be like that. That must be why he was chosen.

-That’s ridiculous. This is… If this is the Goddess’s will, then the likes of the Goddess are now…

-Shh. You should never say things like that.

A warm feeling, a gentle hug from behind.

-Naria, sir… .

-Oh, just call me Naria-sister.

Naria, my senior in the executive department, always gently pats my head. It’s fatal. And I’m about to cry again. It’s so annoying. I’m a crybaby.

-The goddess will surely always be watching over us.

I can’t tell you how much comfort I received from those words. It was a month later that I realized that Naria-san’s words were just speculation.

Naria committed suicide by hanging herself.

The scribbled note read something like, ‘The Goddess had no interest in the likes of us.’ The paper was stained with tears.

I couldn’t quite imagine it. I’ve never seen Naria cry before.

iced coffee.

But even after that, I had no choice but to continue as an executor. My sister, who couldn’t even raise her head, was able to stand up. In a few months, my sister would turn twenty. She would live and become an adult. I couldn’t stop.

***

I hunted down and killed demons, and cried every day until my eyes were swollen. Sometimes, I had to kill people according to the will of the church. That was the reason why the executive branch was in the dark.

In the midst of those painful days that I could never get used to, there was a rumor going around at that time.

The story of a high-ranking demon who, when dying, begged to be saved by taking the form of a girl. The ghost story says that the demon was actually an ordinary girl at first.

A similar phenomenon has been frequently observed among demons with a certain level of power.

Someone said that it was a high-level intelligent entity that was pretending to be a fake in order to gain sympathy. It was a well-known theory. It was certainly a reasonable and reasonable story.

The first time I saw a high-ranking demon crying in the form of a girl, I thought that it looked like her real self for some reason.

If all the devils were just ordinary girls who laughed and cried normally. How sad it would be if that were the case.

Children who continue to suffer. Is there really no way to save them? Didn’t they not even think about saving them in the first place, and were only eager to kill them?

It was like looking in a mirror. I couldn’t help but feel pain. But somehow, I had no choice but to continue doing this, so the days of killing and dying continued.

It was several months later that I became convinced that the demon was originally a girl.

My older sister, who is about to have her coming-of-age ceremony, is now barely able to walk.

-Really… That went well. Oh, it’s a secret that I came, Sister.

-Okay. …Thank you.

-Huh?

-I don’t know for sure… but did you do something for me?

I smiled awkwardly without saying anything. I thought only happy things would happen.

It’s not funny. It seems that the whole family’s life was spent for several years taking care of one sick sister. The family was exhausted. The house was poor and in debt, and the father started beating the mother.

In their own way, they must have done the best they could. Even so, my sister’s condition did not get any better, but now, from their perspective, a miracle suddenly occurred.

The first emotion they felt was neither excitement nor joy, but emptiness. Really, it’s not even funny.

While they pretend to be happy and deceive themselves, they are…

They felt as if all the effort and hard work they had put in, the very reason they lived, had been completely negated.

Only then did I begin to see the house that had become a dump and the huge debt I had. The incomprehensible miracle felt extremely vain and disappointing.

-Mena came.

My older sister, who couldn’t stand it any longer, spoke up. The night before her coming-of-age ceremony, I went to her hospital room secretly and her parents were waiting for me.

Her parents grabbed Mena by the collar and yelled at her with unfocused eyes, asking why she did that. She looked haggard. She was completely out of it.

-If only it weren’t for you…

-Why did you take everything from us? Huh? Mena, huh? Why? Why?

Finally, after seeing Mena get slapped in the face by her mother.

My sister thought that it would be better for her not to get better and for her to die.

And so, he became a demon right before Mena’s eyes.

***

I hear a scream.

In the end, he couldn’t do anything. Then or now.

If I think about it, I’ve always been asking for something in return from God. I’ll do whatever you say, so please heal my sister. I’ll even give my life, so please give me the strength to save the children.

It was fundamentally wrong.

People tend to think of tools as an extension of themselves.

For example, if you ask a woodcutter whether he can cut down a tree, he will naturally answer that he can. No one would be crazy enough to say, ‘I can’t, but if I pick up this axe and swing it, the axe will cut down the tree.’

But in fact, the lumberjack himself cannot cut down a tree with his bare hands without an axe. Cutting down a tree is entirely the work of the axe, but since it is a tool, he thinks of it as an extension of his own arm, and ends up thinking that it is his own work.

But what if someone who doesn’t know how to cut down a tree asks a woodcutter to do it for him? At least the man won’t say that he did it himself.

The difference between using tools and asking for help.

I thought that if I offered something to God, I would naturally receive something in return. I thought to myself that I could do it without thinking about the help I received.

That means that he was trying to use it as if it were his own ability. He was thinking of God as a tool. He was thinking of him as a vending machine that would give you items if you put money in it.

The essence is that you ask for help because you ‘can’t do it’.

“Is it inevitable that I will be abandoned?”

Even though it was a situation where anyone would blame God, Mena was reflecting like that.

This wasn’t a contract, a rule, or anything, it was just a request. I don’t hold any grudges.

I just wondered if God really didn’t care about us.

She killed her sister, who had become a demon, with her own hands, and continued to do this. In any case, she just needed a reason to live, a purpose. She was just like her parents.

In the midst of all this, I discovered a fake identity as a teacher. A fake mission. If I could dedicate my life to that. How long has it been since I thought that, and now even that is completely falling apart?

Standing there blankly.

Just that the goddess’ warm hands could not reach the cold reality. And that he could do nothing. In the end, everything was abandoned.

Become aware.

***

“… !”

“This is….”

“No way, no. That can’t be… .”

The inspector, the general, and Irusia. All three of them felt it with their skin.

Not someone’s strong spirit or something like that, but something bigger.

The transformation of the world. The very structure that makes up this world seems to be changing into something, an unknown form.

At its origin.

***

[That’s a pretty good mindset.]

“You, are…?”

A voice echoing in Mena’s head.

[Winter is an abandoned season.]

Haru, the goddess of spring.

Odd, the goddess of summer.

Goddess of Autumn, Past.

The three goddesses that move the world. However, there is no goddess like the other one of the four seasons, winter. That is common knowledge.

In the first place, the empty space left after the goddesses filled each season, and so the remainder where all life withers and dies in the cold, became winter.

In fact, it is not even a season, it is an abandoned time.

The voice, ringing out from that withered time, cries out.

[That’s why I am in this cold reality.]

My whole body.

[You, abandoned, are sitting there.]

It’s crazy cold.

[I love you so much, just like that.]

This feeling, this feeling, as if I could freeze and shatter at any moment.

“… Is that so. Haha… .”

It’s ridiculous.

The tears that were pouring down my face froze.

Obviously, there is no such thing as a winter goddess.

Now, winter asks:

[Do you like winter?]