The Girl Raised by the Death God Holds the Sword of Darkness in Her Arms - Volume 5 - Chapter 4.3

III

It was the night before their return home.

“Right, be back in a bit.” Olivia had been invited to dinner by Sofitia. With unease in their eyes, Ashton and Claudia saw her off as she boarded the carriage sent for her and set off for La Chaim Palace alone.

“Your ceremonial uniform suited you very well, but you are just as stunning in a dress.”

These were Sofitia’s first words when she saw Olivia. Olivia looked down at the lilac dress she wore and cocked her head.

“You think so?”

“Oh, yes. It suits you very well.” The dress had been delivered the previous day by a merchant, Sofitia having apparently made arrangements for it especially for the occasion. Olivia had tried to refuse, saying her uniform would do fine, but Claudia had warned her that this would cause Sofitia to lose face. She’d had no choice but to wear it.

Sofitia, meanwhile, wore red. When Olivia commented that her dress was even more sparkly than usual, Sofitia whispered in her ear, “Actually, my ladies-in-waiting select everything I wear. I don’t get a choice in the matter.”

Not that Olivia could claim any better when it came to clothes, but she did think it must be horribly inconvenient being the ruler of a nation if you couldn’t even choose what you wore.

I wonder if she always eats at a big table like this. The table could have comfortably seated twenty people on just one side. Olivia sat down in the chair drawn for her, just as the door to the neighboring room opened and a procession of servants emerged wheeling silver wagons.

“Here we have a herb-roasted agate dove.”

“Here, a chatreised sallow fish.”

“Here...”

The servants laid out plate after plate before Olivia, listing off the name of each dish in turn. Mekian cuisine was more delicate in flavor than that of Fernest. As a rule, Olivia preferred richer food, but she still liked this.

“Please, eat. There’s no need for restraint.”

“Ashton says I left the word ‘restraint’ behind in my mother’s womb.”

Sofitia chuckled. “Then I needn’t have spoken.”

“Pretty much.” With that, Olivia set to work on the plates of food. Sofitia watched her eat, a smile playing around her mouth as though something amused her.

It’s about time to get to business. Sofitia sipped the wine that a servant had poured into her glass. Olivia wielded her knife and fork as if to demonstrate that eating was a war in its own right.

“Angelica tells me that you visited the library yesterday,” Sofitia said.

“Mm-hmm.” Olivia nodded, her cheeks full to bursting like a frog’s.

The Holy City of Elsphere had its fair share of sights to see. Chandelson Avenue, for example, which thronged with shops selling all manner of goods, boasted the liveliest atmosphere in the city. Then there was the statue of Strecia, standing tall enough to touch the sky, or the divine sight of the clouds that seemed to flow over the mountains that awaited those who ventured to the outskirts of the city. Sofitia found it curious that Olivia had disregarded all of these in favor of the library.

“Weh’eah. I wike ‘ookth.”

“I beg your pardon—did you say you ‘like books’?” Keeping her knife and fork in constant motion, Olivia confirmed with a simple nod. Olivia was simply such an exceptional warrior that Sofitia, without making any particular judgment, found this rather surprising. She was to get a second surprise when she asked what sort of books Olivia read. Olivia replied with a wildly varied selection, even including the kinds of tomes a scholar might pick up.

“You are exceedingly fond of books, aren’t you?” she commented. With a mighty gulp, Olivia swallowed her mouthful, then smiled and nodded.

“That was Z. Z gave me heaps and heaps of books.”

“Z...” Sofitia said. “You were living with Z, Olivia?”

“Yep. We lived together deep in the forest.”

Olivia had told her she had never known her parents, so Sofitia had more or less guessed this meant that this “Z” person had raised her. Only, even she hadn’t imagined them living not in a city or a town, but a forest.

She had ordered the owls to investigate Olivia’s background, but they hadn’t managed to turn up a single scrap of information prior to her enlisting in the Royal Army. If she had been living in a forest, then Sofitia could understand why.

“Is that so?”

“Yep. It shouldn’t be too far from around here,” Olivia said. Unable to maintain a show of indifference in the face of this remark, Sofitia almost dropped her glass. If what Olivia said was true, it was more than possible that Olivia—and Z, for that matter—had been living within her own domain.

Without hesitation, Sofitia summoned her butler and had them bring a map.

The map of Mekia and its surrounds was brought at once, and Sofitia opened it up. “Do you know where the forest was?”

Olivia ran her eyes over it, then pointed. “Here,” she said.

Sofitia did a double take. “Just to be clear,” she said, “you’re absolutely sure it was this forest?”

“Yep, I’m sure.”

“I-I see...” To cut to the point, the forest was indeed within the domain of the Holy Land of Mekia. But in a sense, it was also not. The forest Olivia had pointed to was to the southwest of Elsphere, a great sea of trees commonly known as “the Forest of No Return.” True to its name, it was known far and wide that none who set foot under its godforsaken boughs ever made it out. Several years earlier, Sofitia had dispatched several owls to investigate the veracity of the rumors, but in the end, not one of them had returned. And this Forest of No Return was where Olivia claimed to have lived.

She doesn’t seem to be joking. And besides, she has no reason to do so. This has truly been one surprise after another... Sofitia still managed to arrange her face into an expression of calm as she went on. She chose her words with the utmost care to draw more information out of Olivia.

“So you lived in the forest since you were a baby. Is that right?”

“Well, yeah. I was thrown away as a baby, remember?”

“Ah, well, yes. You did mention that.”

“And after that, Z took me in.” Olivia recounted this sensitive episode of her past with her usual lack of concern. Sofitia had to assume it didn’t bother her to have been thrown away. What interested her was how Olivia had survived until Z found her, rather than being gobbled up or mauled by some beast. When she asked as much, Olivia frowned. “I don’t know why—I was a baby, after all.”

Put like that, Sofitia thought with a wry smile, she had to concede Olivia had a point. At the same time, she felt satisfied with the information she had acquired. Sitting up straighter, she looked directly at Olivia.

“Olivia?”

“Yeah?”

“May I expect an answer from you soon regarding my question from the other day?”

Just like that, Olivia’s face went hard. She set down the teacup in her hand silently, then said, “I’ve decided to stay with the Royal Army.”

Upon hearing this, Sofitia temporarily found herself lost for words. She had been quite assured that, though Olivia might hesitate, she would, in the end, accept her proposal.

“May I presume to ask why?” she asked at length. Olivia ran her finger along the rim of her teacup.

“If I left,” she said, “someone would die. Straightaway.” She smiled helplessly. Sofitia saw the kind face of a young man in her mind’s eye.

“Are you perhaps referring to Ashton?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“In other words, it’s because you cannot leave him that you are staying with the Royal Army?”

Olivia nodded.

Although Sofitia had not disclosed this to any of her subjects, her schemes had in fact extended beyond Olivia—she also wanted Ashton in the Winged Crusaders too. She had heard of his reputation as a genius tactician who had been a thorn in the side of the empire. However, her sources also informed her that he was unflinchingly loyal. Upon seeing how wary he was of her, Sofitia had quickly decided he would be unreceptive to her advances.

“Then you are content to forget about Z?”

“I am not!” Olivia cried, slamming her hands down on the table and leaping to her feet. Her eyes were wide. “I absolutely want to find Z!”

“Well, then...”

Olivia sat down again, then said haltingly, “At first, you know, I couldn’t have cared less about humans. I wasn’t interested.”

Sofitia was a little disconcerted to hear Olivia speak as though she weren’t a human herself, but she listened without interrupting.

“But then Ashton fell down the cliff, and I told Claudia to calm down, but then I thought, what if Ashton died? And it was like something warm and soft went out inside me and I felt all cold. I think if it had been Claudia who fell off the cliff, I’d have felt the same way. You know, when Z suddenly disappeared, it hurt like someone was squeezing my heart. So long as I’m alive, I believe I’ll be able to see Z again. But Ashton’s different. Without me, Ashton could die, just like that. And then I’d never be able to see him again. So...yeah.”

As though it had been waiting for Olivia to finish, the bell that heralded nightfall tolled. Its sound marked the end of the dinner Sofitia had planned.

It sounds as though she will not be easily persuaded, she thought. All right. What will she do if she loses her precious friends, I wonder?

The faces of Ashton and Claudia flashed through her mind. But no sooner had she had this thought than she found Olivia staring intensely at her. The girl’s rosy lips opened.

“A friend would never think that sort of thing,” she said.

“What?”

“And we only just became friends. I don’t want to have to kill you.”

Up close, the ebony of Olivia’s eyes looked deeper than ever. Under their gaze, a strange sensation came over Sofitia, as though something beyond her ability to fathom was drawing her in. She realized that cold sweat was trickling down her spine.

Surely not... she thought. I can’t be scared, can I?

It was Sofitia’s first encounter with the emotion, and it left her shaken. In a clear voice, she said, “I do apologize, but I’m not sure what it is you mean.”

“You really don’t know?”

“I do not.”

“Hmm...” Olivia paused, then said, “Oh, well. I do want us to stay friends, so I’ll take your word for it this time. Now, it’s about time I went home.” With a glance up at the ceiling, Olivia stood.

“I’ll have a carriage—” Sofitia began, about to call for the butler, but Olivia cut her off with a wave of her hand.

“Don’t worry, it’s not far. I’ll walk. I don’t need a send-off.” And with that, she swept lightly out of the dining hall. Sofitia, who had half stood up, sat back down again, then let out a small sigh. She stared at the wavering light of the candle before her.

Immediately after this, a man clad all in black dropped lightly down from the ceiling.

“Hello, Jozer,” Sofitia said. “What did you make of her?”

“She appeared to me just as much—if not more so—a monster as the rumors said. I erased all trace of my aura, yet she not only noticed me, she happily pretended to ignore me. It was as though she were telling me she could kill me whenever she felt like it. It would be a grave mistake to make an enemy of her.”

“If the assassin they call the ‘Evangelist of Death’ says so, it must be true.”

“That is all in the past, My Seraph. Today, I am your loyal servant. But for now, I humbly beg that you will not take any hasty action. Excuse me.” With that, Jozer returned to his position in the rafters.

Sofitia downed what remained of her wine in a single gulp. She really threatened me—the seraph! I find myself liking her more and more. A temporary retreat is in order for now, but I will need her power to unify Duvedirica. I am certainly not about to give up.

Pushing the great doors open, she stepped out onto the balcony and spread her arms wide. A brilliant smile spread across her face as she bathed in the silver light of the moon.