Sword Art Online - Volume 13 - Chapter 2.2

Part 2
Eugeo.
Eugeo…
What happened?
Did you have a nightmare…?
 
An orange light ignited within the lamp with a soft sound.
Standing in the hallway, Eugeo had the lower half of his face buried in the pillow his two arms wrapped around and peered into the room through the slightly opened door as though he was hiding away his body.
There were two plain, wooden beds in the room that certainly couldn’t claim to be spacious. The right one was vacant, with a freshly-washed bedspread laid folded there.
And a single, slender silhouette was upon the left bed, looking at Eugeo with her upper body raised. Her face couldn’t be seen too well due to the light from the lamp her right hand carried. From her glossy, pure white sleepwear, a somewhat opened dress with a low-cut neckline, peeked her bare skin that appeared even paler. Her long hair flowing onto the bed seemed as soft as silk.
Those glossy lips, just noticeable beyond the orange light, showed a gentle smile.
 
It’s cold there, isn’t it? Come, come closer, Eugeo.
 
That softly lifted bedspread seemed filled with a viscous, warm darkness, making him all the more conscious of the freezing chill streaming through the hallway. His foot stepped across the doorway before he knew it and Eugeo headed towards the bed with uncertain steps.
The lamp strangely dimmed as he approached, concealing the face of the woman sprawled over the bed with a creeping darkness. But Eugeo’s thoughts were simply filled with the desire to snuggle into that warm darkness and hungrily moved his feet. His steps became gradually wider as his viewpoint became gradually lower, but he didn’t feel it to be strange.
The bed he finally arrived at was absurdly tall and Eugeo threw down the pillow he held onto, stepping onto it in an attempt to climb up.
In that moment, a soft cloth fluttered over him from the top and sunk his vision in darkness. As though urging on his craving, Eugeo crept deeper and deeper into that darkness.
His extended fingers came into contact with warm and supple skin.
Eugeo embraced it in a daze and buried his face into it. The silky skin gently squirmed, as though it was enveloping Eugeo.
Led around by that enthralling sense of satisfaction and a longing several times as potent, Eugeo fervently clung on. Feeling a smooth arm hugging his back and another rubbing his head, Eugeo asked in his small voice.
“Mother…? Is that you, mother?”
The reply instantly came.
 
Yes… I am your mother, Eugeo.
 
“Mother… My mother…”
Sinking ever deeper into the warm and damp darkness, Eugeo murmured.
A doubt floated up like a bubble, from a corner of the bog that was his mostly numbed mind, and popped.
Was my mother… ever this slender and soft? Why do these two hands that should have been working in the fields day after day not have a single scrape on them? And… have my father who should have been sleeping in the bed on the right went somewhere? Where are my brothers who always got in the sleep whenever I tried to get mother to pamper me…?
 
“Is it really… you, mother?”
 
Yes, Eugeo. It’s your one and only mother.
 
“But… where is father? Where are my brothers?”
 
Hehe.
What a strange child.
Everyone
have already been killed by you, haven’t they?
 
Suddenly, his fingers felt clammy.
Eugeo spread open his left and right hands, lifted before his eyes.
Despite the lack of illumination, he could clearly see the deep red blood stickily dripping off his ten fingers.
 
“…Aaaaaaah!”
Eugeo jumped up with that scream.
He was engrossed in scrubbing his two sticky hands against his shirt. Only after wiping them countless times while screaming out, did he notice the moisture on his hands was not blood, but merely sweat.
Was that a dream—even after arriving at that conclusion, he still took some time before he thought to restrain his heart, beating like an alarm bell, and the cold sweat seeping out from himself. The lingering memory of that absurdly terrifying nightmare clung to his back with no sign of fading.
—Mother and father… I hadn’t even thought of them much since I left the village.
Muttering so in his heart, Eugeo closed his two eyes tightly and kept his breathing shallow.
When he was a young boy in Rulid, his mother worked on the fields, tended to the sheep, and even did the housework on top of that, hardly cuddling gently with Eugeo. They had slept in different beds even before he even achieved maturity and Eugeo had no recollections of being unsatisfied over that.
—So why did I see such a dream after all that…
Eugeo strongly shook his head and stopped his trail of thoughts. Dreams were up to the caprice of the moon goddess, Lunaria. This nightmare surely held no significance.
After his breathing had calmed down a little, the doubt over his current location bubbled up. He softly lifted his eyelids while still crouching.
What first entered his vision was a deep crimson carpet with an astonishing amount of density and an intricate pattern weaved into it. The carpet that he couldn’t estimate the value of, if bought at the textile shop in the fifth district of North Centoria, stretched on and on in his vision no matter how he tried to find its end.
He finally saw the far away wall only after he looked straight ahead.
Even if it was a wall, it was made from neither wood nor stone. Golden pillars in the shape of gigantic swords stood at regular intervals with glass panes inserted between them. As such, it could actually be considered as a line of windows rather than a wall, but a room where valuable glass was used this freely couldn’t be found even in the castles of the four emperors, could it?
Numerous clouds, dyed blue by the moonlight, were floating beyond the wall entirely composed of glass. This room was apparently higher than even the clouds.
He saw a bluish-white full moon floating in a corner of the night sky when he brought his sight up higher. An astonishing multitude of stars were silently flickering away around it. The light pouring down from the sky richly filled with stars was far too bright; he took a while before noticing it was the middle of the night. Judging from the height of the moon, it should be a little after twelve. The date had apparently turned while he slept and it was the twenty-fifth of the fifth month now.
Finally, Eugeo looked straight up. The ceiling drew a perfect circle far above and he couldn’t spot any stairs to proceed to the next floor. That could mean that this room was the highest floor of the Central Cathedral.
The wide ceiling vividly depicted a splendid piece of art. Knights glittering with light, monsters being driven away, and a mountain range splitting the earth… it seemed to illustrate the story of creation. Each place even had crystals embedded there, sparkling like the stars.
But for some reason, the presence of what should have definitely been essential for the subject of the painting, Stacia, the goddess of creation, was not in the middle as she should have been. That section had been painted out pure white and what would be like a void ruled over the entire painting.
Eugeo frowned for a short while before turning back. Raising his upper body from his posture of crawling on fours, his back came into contact with something and he looked behind in a fluster.
“……!?”
Eugeo was at a loss for words, with his body still twisted. Right behind him was the side of an astonishingly humongous bed.
The bed, circular in shape like the room, seemed to measure close to ten mel. Four golden posts propped up the canopy, golden as well, and flimsy, violet drapes dangled off that, creasing over each other. A pure white sheet, resembling silk from the east empire, covered the bed and faintly gleamed with the starlight streaming in from the windows.
And—a single silhouette lay down in the middle of the bed. He couldn’t see much more than vague contours, obstructed by the translucent, flimsy cloth hanging from the canopy.
Eugeo swallowed his breath and his body jerked up. He couldn’t believe that he didn’t notice someone else’s presence, despite being so close by for these few minutes. No, before even considering that, he had apparently been sound asleep for hours, leaning against this bed. Just how did it end up this—
Getting to that point in his thoughts, Eugeo finally recalled the final scene remaining in his broken memories.
—That’s right… I was fighting with that hero of that old story… with Knight Commander Bercouli.
—I was stuck to the knight commander by ice due to the Blue Rose Sword’s «memory release art»… then that small man wearing those gaudy jester clothes appeared before our Lives ran out… apparently called Chief Elder Chudelkin, who said those weird things. Then he stamped over the ice roses with his shoes as he came closer… and after that…
It seemed his memories stopped there. That jester might have carried him here, but he didn’t know why. He instinctively felt around his waist, but the Blue Rose Sword had disappeared away somewhere.
Bearing the sense of helplessness that assailed him in that moment, Eugeo focused his eyes towards the silhouette on the bed. Was it an enemy, or an ally… no, this was unmistakably the Central Cathedral, and likely the highest floor at all. Anyone in such a place couldn’t possibly be an ally.
He figured it best to escape the room while muffling his footsteps now, but his desire to know the identity of the sleeping silhouette won out. However, no matter how high he stretched out, he couldn’t see the face hidden behind the flimsy cloth dangling at the center of the bed.
Silencing his breath, he softly placed his right knee onto the bed.
Sinking deeply into the white silk sheet as though it was snow, Eugeo extended his arms in panic. Those hands, too, ended up sinking into the smooth fabric.
The terrifying nightmare from earlier vividly came back to Eugeo as he felt himself swallowed by the bed and his back involuntarily trembled before he quietly lifted his left leg onto the bed as well. Getting onto fours like that, he slowly, slowly headed towards the middle.
Cautiously crawling across the unbelievably massive bed, Eugeo couldn’t help but imagine how much down of the highest grade had been tucked in, under the sheets. It took a whole half year to produce a single, thin futon after slowly gathering the feathers that came off the domestic duck reared in his family’s rear garden back in Rulid Village, day after day.
Stopping his advance in front of the flimsy cloth dangling from the canopy for the moment, Eugeo shifted his attention to his ears. Though extremely faint, he could hear the regular sound of breathing. It seemed the other party still remained asleep.
Timidly, he reached out with his right hand. Sticking his finger under the flimsy cloth, he gently, gently lifted it up.
The moment the bluish-white light reached the middle of the bed, Eugeo opened up his two eyes.
A single female laid there.
Clad in light clothes in a shade of pale violet—the exact same color as the «Stacia Window»—and hemmed with silver thread, she had her pale, slender hands crossed over her body. Her arms and fingers were slim like a doll, but the two mounds propping up the flimsy fabric immediately above them were bountiful and he turned his sight away in panic. Her breasts, peeking out from her unreservedly opened neckline, too, shone white.
At last, Eugeo looked at the female’s sleeping face.
A sensation like his soul being sucked out descended upon him in that moment and everything else left his vision.
How could it be so perfect? He thought it beyond the limits of humans. Integrity Knight Alice, whom he fought on the eightieth floor, had faultless good looks as well, but her beauty still remained within the realm of humans. That was only natural; Alice was human, after all.
However, this existence sleeping a mere mel away was—
Could the greatest carver in the capital even bring forth such artistry after an entire lifetime of effort? Eugeo couldn’t find the words to describe even a sheer fraction of her beauty. Even if he tried to liken her lips to flowers, a flower with curves so lovely couldn’t be found anywhere in the Human World.
Both those eyebrows framing her shut eyelids and her long hair flowing onto the sheets looked as though they had been casted in pure silver. They gave off a cold gleam, reflecting blue from the dimness and white from the moonlight.
Before he knew it, Eugeo had his rationality stolen, like a fly captivated by sweet honey.
Only the desire to touch these hands, this hair, these cheeks filled his emptied head.
When he languidly drew closer on his knees, a fragrance he had never smelled before softly drifted in the air.
The fingers on his stretched out right hand would reach in just a little… reach that smooth skin in a little bit…
 
You mustn’t, Eugeo.
Run!
 
He heard someone shout from somewhere far away.
Small fireworks went off at the core of his mind and swept away some of the thick fog enveloping his consciousness. Eugeo opened his two eyes and instinctively drew back his right hand.
—This voice… where have I heard it before…
As he wondered so in a daze, his ability to think slowly returned to him.
—What… had happened to me…? What was I doing here…?
He lowered his gaze to the woman before his eyes to confirm the situation he was in and what resembled a viscous, deep drowsiness crept in his head once more. Averting his eyes in panic, he strongly shook his head in opposition.
—Think. Think.
—I should know this person. Someone sleeping alone on a lavish bed on the highest floor of the Central Cathedral. In other words, the one who holds the highest authority in the Axiom Church—not to mention the one who rules over everything in the Human World…
In other words, the highest minister, Administrator.
Eugeo repeated the name he finally recalled countless in his mind.
The instigator behind taking Alice away, stealing her memories, and turning her into an integrity knight. The mighttest sacred arts user who even the sage possessing immeasurable power, Cardinal, was no match for. The ultimate enemy of Kirito and Eugeo.
And that Administrator was sleeping before his eyes.
—Can I win… right now…?
He moved his trembling left hand towards his waist without thinking, but the Blue Rose Sword wasn’t there. It was either stolen by the chief elder, Chudelkin, or perhaps still under the ice still covering all of that large bath. Even if the opponent was asleep, without a weapon, he couldn’t…
No.
He still had one. A sword that was small yet mightier than sacred tools in a certain sense.
Eugeo moved his left hand from his waist to his chest and softly pressed down on his shirt’s fabric. The distinct sensation of a hard cross made itself known to his palm. The final trump card bestowed by Cardinal.
If this dagger was stabbed into Administrator’s body, she should be incinerated dead in an instant from the offensive art Cardinal would send in, bypassing space.
“……gh…”
But Eugeo let out a distraught sigh while gripping onto the dagger through the fabric.
This dagger should have been used on Integrity Knight Alice. Of course, not to burn her to death, but to put her to sleep through Cardinal’s arts and to restore her memories, turning her back into the old Alice. If that couldn’t be done, Administrator’s defeat would serve no meaning to Eugeo. It might be possible to turn Alice to her old self without using the dagger if the highest minister was eliminated, but he had no assurance it would.
Seized by the doubt that lacked an answer, Eugeo heard the mysterious voice yet again while biting on his lips, and noticed.
 
Eugeo… run……
 
But before that voice that seemed far too distant could make its way to his consciousness—
The sleeping woman’s silver eyebrows softly shook.
Those white eyelids slowly, slowly rose as Eugeo stared on in blank amazement. His vision was frozen in place, let alone his left hand, still holding onto the dagger. His ability to think, once restored, dispersed yet again and faded to nothing.
The woman closed her faintly opened eyelids for a moment, then gently blinked several times, as though to rouse Eugeo into action. And on the third time, those eyelids finally opened up completely.
“Ah……”
That sigh escaped from Eugeo’s mouth without him realizing it.
The now-exposed eyes were pure silver, a color he had never noticed in any human’s eyes before. Those mirror-like irises were tinted faintly in the brilliance of the seven prismatic colors, wavering as though on a water surface. A divine radiance that could make any rare gem in this world appear dull in comparison.
Before Eugeo’s eyes as he stayed frozen like a statue while still on his knees on the bed, the awoken woman swayed upright with wispy movements. Upon rising as though pulled up by some invisible force with her two arms still left under her breasts, her long, silver hair also softly flittered despite the lack of wind and streamed tidily down her back as a whole.
The woman—or girl, who appeared slightly more youthful with her eyes now open lifted her right hand to her mouth as though paying Eugeo no heed and let out a small yawn.
Her legs that were stretched out straight turned towards the right together. The balance of her slender body lurched and her left hand struck the sheets to support herself.
The girl turned her face to the left at last, looking straight at Eugeo while maintaining that bewitching posture.
Her pure silver eyes, fringed by a rainbow radiance. He could hardly think of them belonging to a human, due to the lack of pupils residing within them. They were unbearably beautiful, but prevented all access deeper into her heart as they reflected all light like a mirror.
Upon gazing at his own dumbfounded expression projected on those two small mirrors, the girl’s glossy, pearl grey lips made a slight movement. Her voice, sweet as honey and pure as crystal, with a hint of enticement, spoke.
 
“What a pitiful child.”
 
It took some time for him to understand what was spoken. However, without becoming aware of the languor in his thoughts, Eugeo replied in a daze.
“Eh…? Pitiful…?”
 
“Yes. How very pitiful.”
 
Throwing the hearts of any who hears it into disarray, it was filled equally with both an unsullied purity and the tone of a femme fatale.
Her glossy, pearl grey lips showed a faint smile as her honeyed voice flowed on.
“You are much like a withered potted flower. No matter how far into the soil you spread your roots, no matter how high you reach your leaves into the wind, you could not come into contact with a single drop of water.”
“…A potted… flower…”
Eugeo frowned and tried to understand the significance behind those mysterious words. His mind was still enveloped in haze, but the girl’s eyes summoned a stinging pain from somewhere within his heart.
“You understand. Exactly how much you thirst, how much you hunger.”
“…For what…?”
 
His mouth moved without his acknowledgement and questioned in a dry, hoarse voice.
The girl stared at Eugeo with her reflective eyes and replied with the smile still on her face.
“Love.”
 
Love… she said?
That’s like… saying that I… don’t know what is love…
 

“Indeed. You are a pitiful child who has never had the experience of being loved.”
 
That couldn’t be true.
My mother… loved me. Whenever I had a nightmare and couldn’t sleep… she would hug me and sing lullabies for me.
 
“Did that love truly belong to you alone? It didn’t, did it? It was actually what was left over after your brothers have taken their share, wasn’t it…?”
 
She’s lying. Mother… loved me, only me…
 
“You wanted her to love only you. But she didn’t. That was why you hated them. Those who took away your mother’s love, like your father. And your brothers.”
 
Lies. I… I don’t hate my father or brothers.
 
“Really now…? After all, haven’t you sliced him up?”
 
……
Who…?
 
“The one who had loved you and only you for the first time; that red-haired girl… You had cut that man who tried to steal her by force and sully her. Because you hated him. Because he had stolen away what had belonged solely to you.”
 
No… that wasn’t why I pointed my sword towards Humbert.
 
“But it was no panacea for your thirst. No one would love you. Everyone had forgotten about you. You have been cast aside, no longer needed.”
 
No… no. I… I haven’t been cast aside or…
That’s right… she’s wrong. I have Alice.
 
The moment he recalled that name, the viscous haze shrouding his consciousness felt as though it had cleared up a little and Eugeo shut his eyes tight. It wouldn’t be good being swept into this flow, he had to get moving now; the sense of danger filling his mind whispered thus.
However, before he could move for real, the beguiling voice slipped into his mind from his two ears once more.
“I wonder if that really is true…? Does that child truly love you and only you…?”
That reverberation hid faint laughter under its compassion.
“You have forgotten. I’ll let you recall them. Your true memories, buried deep within the depths of your heart.”
Eugeo’s vision lurched in that instant.
The luxuriously downy bed faded and he fell into a dark, deep hole without end.
The scent of fresh, green grass pricked his nose all of a sudden.
Verdant light filtered through trees flickered in a corner of his sight while the chirping of small birds overlaid the sound of footsteps over the undergrowth.
Eugeo was walking deep in a forest when he became aware of his situation.
His line of sight was awfully low and his steps were short. His legs stretching out from his shorts made from fiber were those of a child, slender and weak, when he took a look downwards. But the sense of unease immediately vanished, overwhelming irritation and loneliness filling his chest in its place.
For some reason, he hadn’t seen Alice at all since the day started.
Upon finishing his morning work, tending to the cows and weeding the vegetable garden, Eugeo rushed as fast as he could towards the usual gathering spot—underneath an old tree outside the village. However, Alice didn’t come no matter how long he waited. In addition, neither did his other childhood, that black-haired boy.
After waiting for the pair until the sun climbed up to its highest place in the sky, Eugeo tottered to Alice’s home while feeling an indescribable emotion. She must have been found out after playing some prank and got stopped from going out to play. That was what he had thought, but her mother who greeted him there said thusly with her head tilt in confusion.
That’s strange, she went off rather early today. Kiri-bou came for her, so I was sure she would have been with you too, Eu-bou.
Mumbling his thanks and leaving the village chief’s residence, Eugeo felt his unease turn into impatience and searched around the village. However, though the central plaza occupied by the guard chief’s son, Jink, and his henchmen was a given, he couldn’t find Kirito and Alice at any other playing area or hiding place.
Only one other place came to mind. A perfectly round grass patch they had recently found deep in the eastern forest that the other children didn’t approach. It was a secret place for the three of them, called the «fairy ring» by the adults and filled with various flowers and sweet berries.
Eugeo desperately ran towards there, halfway on the verge of tears. His body set into motion by his loneliness, doubts, and one more emotion, one he couldn’t fit a name to.
After running through the winding, small path, and reaching the secret, empty land surrounded by remarkably thick, old trees, a dazzling, golden light swayed in between the tree trunks in his path and Eugeo’s feet jerked to a stop.
That was unmistakably the radiance from Alice’s familiar golden hair. He instinctively silenced his breathing for some reason and pricked up his ears. Fragments of whispers, quietly exchanged, were conveyed to him on the wind.
Why… why?
With nothing but those words set on repeat in his mind, Eugeo walked closer to the vacant land with subdued steps. His heavy melancholy threatening to crush him, he hid himself behind the mossy trunk and peeked into the secret place flooded with light from Solus.
Alice was sitting in the center of the multicolored blooming flowers with her back to him. He couldn’t see her face, but there was no way he could mistake her flowing, straight, golden hair, her deep blue dress, and her white apron.
And by her side was a head covered in prickly black hair. His one and only best friend, Kirito.
His clenched hands were soaked in damp and chilly sweat.
The fickle wind sent Kirito’s voice to Eugeo’s ears as he stood still.
“Hey… let’s go back already. Someone will notice.”
And replying to him was Alice’s voice.
“It’s still alright. Just a little… a little, okay?”
No.
I don’t want to hear anymore.
But Eugeo’s legs refused to budge as though the tree’s roots had entwined around them.
In his sight he couldn’t turn away, Alice’s face softly approached Kirito.
He caught a shred of her quiet whispering.
The pair, snuggling together in the middle of flowers in full bloom, under the bright sunlight; it appeared just like a painting.
No.
Lies. These are all, lies.
Eugeo shouted out in the darkness. But no matter how he tried to deny it, his conviction that this scene was one dragged out from the depths of his own memories gushed up and streamed into his chest like cold water.
 
“You see… don’t you?”
 
Sniff.
The whisper with a tinge with laughter wiped away the forest scene.
Returning to the gigantic bed in the highest minister’s room on the top floor of the Central Cathedral, that golden radiance burnt into Eugeo’s eyes remained even with his eyelids shut. Along with Alice and Kirito’s whispering voices, echoing deep in his ears.
His voice of reason, that said he should have only met Kirito in that forest two years ago, long after Alice had been taken away to the church, failed to quench the dark emotions filling his chest. The girl with silver hair right next to Eugeo turned towards him with an expression filled with compassion as he opened his two eyes and let out ragged breaths.
“Now you understand, don’t you…? Even that child’s love did not belong to you alone. No… was there even any for you in the first place?”
The sweet voice sleekly slid into Eugeo, violently stirring up his thoughts each time. The boundless hunger and desolation clearly rising up within himself. The sensation of cracks rapidly spreading over his heart, flaking off and plunging down.
 
“But I am different, Eugeo.”
 
Her most seductive voice thus far seeped into his ears, like the drifting fragrance from a fruit filled with copious nectar.
 
“I will love you. I will give all of my love to you, and you alone.”
 
In Eugeo’s vision as he opened his half-clouded eyes in a daze, was the girl—Administrator, the highest minister of the Axiom Church, with her glossy silver hair and eyes gleaming away, showing a bewitching smile.
Moving her legs that had sunk into the soft sheets, she straightened her upper body.
Slowly bringing up her hands, she appeared to fiddle around with the ribbon keeping her breasts in place on her light purple silk sleepwear.
Her flexible fingertips gripped the ends of the ribbon made from silver thread and pulled slowly, gently.
With more than half of her wide neckline exposed now, the graceful, white skin quivered as they lured him in.
 
“Now, come, Eugeo.”
 
That whisper seemed both like the voice of his mother he had heard in the midst of that dream, and the voice of Alice that reached his ears in that illusion.
With his impeded consciousness, Eugeo stared at the thin, purple fabric fluttering down like flower petals around her dreadfully slender waist.
She was truly a flower—a large, devilish one that tempted and captured bugs and small birds with its ardent aroma and dripping nectar.
Although a part of Eugeo still felt that way, the allure of that flower, oozing from its pure white heart gingerly lingering amidst its violet petals, was far too intense and Eugeo’s thoughts, smashed into pieces from the earlier illusion, were wholly drawn into the viscid fluid.
You have never been loved before; that was why you could truly feel satisfied with what you have.
Administrator had said so. And Eugeo had gradually begun to acknowledge an aspect of that as fact.
Eugeo himself could frankly say that he loved his parents, brothers, and friends in his childhood. Looking at his mother being pleased at the flower he plucked and watching his father and brothers enthusiastically eating the fish he caught made him happy. He would even gather herbs in the forest and send them to the Jink and his circle, nasty as they were, if he heard that they caught a cold.
 
But what have they done for you? What exactly have they done for you in return for your love?
 
Right… he couldn’t think of any.
Before his eyes, Administrator’s smile readily bent once again and a scene from his past came back to him.
It was the year he turned ten, in the spring… the day he was bestowed his «sacred task» along with a crowd of children by the village chief in the plaza. The sacred task, «Gigas Cedar’s Woodcutter», spoken out by Gasupht, the village chief, as he looked down upon the nervous him from the platform, went contrary to his expectations.
But still, there were cries of envy here and there among some of the children. The woodcutter was an honorable sacred task passed down since the Rulid Village was founded and though it wasn’t a sword, he would still be presented with a real axe. Even Eugeo himself hadn’t felt dissatisfaction over it back then.
Grasping the parchment wrapped with a red ribbon, the proof of his appointment, tightly, Eugeo had ran back to his home on the outskirts of town and announced his sacred task to his family somewhat proudly.
Following a short silence, the first reaction came from the younger one among his brothers. He curtly clicked his tongue and cursed, saying that he thought it would be his last day handling the cleanup for the cows’ shit. The older one told his father that it would throw the planting plans for the year into disarray and his father, too, asked Eugeo when his job would end and whether he could help out in the fields then, in a groan. As though afraid of the men’s sullenness, his mother disappeared into the kitchen without saying a word.
Eugeo felt constantly ashamed in his home for the next eight years. And despite that, Eugeo’s wages as a woodcutter were controlled by his father and before he noticed, the number of goats had multiplied and the farm tools were swapped with new ones. Despite how, Jink, appointed as a guard apprentice, spent all of his wages on himself and ate white bread stuffed full of meat for lunch, and showed off his studded boots and a sword kept in a lustrous sheath. Despite how, Eugeo had to walk on in his worn out shoes and a jute sack filled with nothing more than the left over hard bread on his back before Jink’s presence.
 
“You see? Have any of those you loved done anything for you, even once? On the contrary, they took pleasure in your wretchedness and even sneered at you, haven’t they?”
 
Yes… that was exactly it.
Jink had said this to Eugeo after around two years after that summer of his eleventh year, when Alice was taken away by the integrity knight. There aren’t any women left to care for you any longer, with that girl of the village chief gone now, he said.
Jink’s eyes back then told him that he deserved it. The fact that Eugeo lost the privilege of being the one closest to the cutest girl in the village and a genius at sacred arts, Alice, brought joy to him.
In the end, not a single person in Rulid returned Eugeo’s feelings. Although he had earned the right to gain something equivalent to what he had given, it had been robbed from him without rhyme or reason.
 
“Then, couldn’t you simply return that despair and frustration to them? You wish to, don’t you? It would feel so good… imagine becoming an integrity knight and making a triumphant return to your home village atop a silver flying dragon. Imagine having all who have made a fool out of you crawl on the ground and pressing down on their heads with your shiny boots. With that, you could finally take back everything they have stolen from you thus far. And that’s not all…”
 
The beautiful, silver-haired girl slowly, gently let the two arms supporting her breasts fall, as though drawing him in. Those two mounds bounced like ripened fruits upon losing their support.
The highest minister reached her two arms straight towards Eugeo and whispered with while showing an enthralling smile.
“You can enjoy being loved for the first time as much as you want. A real, numbing sense of satisfaction from head to toe. I am different from those who have taken away from you without giving anything in return. If you could give me your love, you will have just as much in return. I will let you experience incomparable pleasure, beyond what you could possibly imagine now, if only you could grant me your deepest love.”
Even the final trickle of Eugeo’s ability to think was about to be drawn into that devilish flower. But still, a fragment of reason left in the depths of his heart put up a quiet resistance.
 
—What exactly… is love?
—Is it nothing more than something that could be assigned a value… like money…?
 
It’s not, Eugeo-senpai!
His sight turned towards the voice he heard and saw a red-haired girl clad in a grey uniform, desperately reaching out with her hand in the darkness on the other side.
But before Eugeo’s hand could stretch out, the thick, pitch black curtains descended upon the red-haired girl and she vanished, leaving behind only the shade of grief in her eyes.
And this time, a voice from someone else came from the opposite direction.
It’s not, Eugeo. Love is definitely not just something to be repaid.
Turning around, he found a small grassy space parting the darkness and a golden-haired girl wearing a blue dress standing in it. The girl’s blue eyes dazzlingly glittered as though they were the one and only exit to this bottomless swap and Eugeo roused his weary legs in an attempt to crawl towards her.
However, the black curtains fell down with a thud once more and the verdant field was erased. Eugeo was at a loss with the light’s departure and remained crouching where he was. He could hardly bear this searing thirst any longer. Upon recalling the continuous, unjust oppression, exploitation, and thief of what should have belonged to him from his childhood, his anguish and chagrin transformed into concentrated brine, scorching his throat.
At last, Eugeo began to steadily worm himself forth with his head hung down. Towards the flow of nectar emitting a fragrance of cloying sweetness.
Pushing through the smooth silk sheets, his fingertips extended forward and came into contact with refreshingly cool skin. When he brought his face up, the silver-haired girl with looks on par with a goddess showed a transcendental smile as she took Eugeo’s hand.
With his right hand gently pulled forward, he pitched forward without resistance. The unclothed body received Eugeo and enveloped him into a mesmerizing softness.
A voice whispered into his ear with sweet breaths.
“You want it, don’t you, Eugeo? To forget all of your grief, to indulge in all I have to offer? But no, not yet. I have already said this, first, you will have to give me your love. Now, repeat after me. Trust only in me and offer all you have. Well… first, start a sacred art.”
All that Eugeo was aware of now, were the layers of sweet-scented softness wrapping around him.
He faintly heard his own mouth move, spilling out a hoarse voice.
“System… call.”
“Yes… go on… «remove core protection».”
The highest minister’s voice lightly shook, carrying a certain emotion for the first time.
Eugeo chanted the first word of the unfamiliar art in a mumble.
 
“Remove…”
 
Entrusting his body with the command he had been given, his existence felt increasingly light and dim. The hunger and thirst that had tormented Eugeo for a long, long time faded into the sweet nectar. At the same time, a precious emotion that he had always held in the core of his heart crumbled, lost its shape, and vanished.
—Is this really for the best…?
The question he asked himself in his diminishing chest lit a humble flame, but the next word spilled from his mouth before he found the answer.
 
“Core…”
 
—Well, I really don’t want to experience anymore sadness, anymore sorrow.
Love in this world could never be made certain. Even if… even if Alice were to regain her memories, what if she had no eyes for Eugeo? What if Alice ended up filled with fear and loathing for Eugeo, who had offended the Taboo Index by cutting Humbert and turned his sword against many knights in opposition to the Axiom Church…?
If things could end up that way, it might be better to simply stop right here.
Eugeo vaguely understood his journey over these two years would come to a complete halt the moment he chanted the third word. However, he could forget his painful, dismal past by doing so—he could immerse himself in the love granted by this silver-haired girl; that reasoning certainly contributed to his choice as well.
 
“Yes… now, come to me, Eugeo, come into me.”
A whisper, filled with an unparalleled sweetness, flowed into his ear.
 
“Welcome, to my eternal stasis…”
A single drop of tear flowed as Eugeo murmured that final word.