“Am I even dreaming right now?”
She jumped up and down, hoping to escape the dream but to no avail.
Eithne touched the desk, the bed, the phone. Their surface felt real. Her bare feet touched the cold wooden floor, they were sore and shivering with the chilliness.
The moldy smell from the toilet opposite her bedroom reached her nose. The bedroom was small and cramped, with the heater constantly running on yet it could never erase the frigid air of the room. There was a lazy and tired atmosphere that accumulated for months under the ceiling. Once it draped over the girl’s shoulder again, her mind dipped into drowsiness.
“It’s really my old room…”
The room that the sunlight could never touch was even colder than the outside of the house. The desk lamp was bright and silent. The heater was loud but it only shouted meaningless sounds.
Occasionally, she heard cars running past the road in front of the house.
“It’s my old body…”
Eithne looked at her hands, which were much smaller than the original priestess’s hands and had neither callus nor scar. There was a lack of strength in her muscles, and she could see her long black hair flowing down on both of her shoulders.
She quickly went in front of the mirror to check.
It was that same old face!
The appearance of a young adult who seemed over-exhausted, with a pair of drooping eyes and visible dark circles around them. An expression of a person who almost forgot how to demonstrate an emotion using their face’s muscles, which was naturally solemn and a bit unapproachable.
Bang!
Eithne slammed the mirror.
Her original face was quite similar to the priestess Eithne Noceur, where both of them rarely exposed the feelings on their faces. However, …
“Failure!”
A hateful grunt escaped her throat.
Like a crazed animal meeting its lifetime’s enemy, her hands hit the mirror constantly regardless of the pain. The reflection of herself cracked and cracked. Eventually, it broke apart.
CLANG!
-
The priestess opened her eyes wide in shock.
“‼!”
She had gone back to the guest room in the royal palace. The bed was surprisingly cozy, and the furniture was expensive and intricate. There was a cold cup of tea on the bedside drawer where the first light of dawn landed, indicating a night had passed during her sleep.
Realizing herself having just escaped an anomalous dream, Eithne buried her face in the palms of her hands.
“Urgh…”
That same face and those eyes still contained the unmotivated and indifferent attitude toward everything. The cowardice, the sorrow, the inferiority complex… All of its characteristics made her want to deny the existence of that appearance.
Eithne unsteadily stood up and walked to the body mirror of the room.
In the plane surface of the reflective glass, a tall woman with shoulder-length blonde hair was scrutinizing her own face.
“Ha!” – She scoffed. “I was still myself.”
She thought she had already gotten rid of her previous identity and lived exactly like Eithne Noceur.
But no,
“That monster was still here.”
Her golden eyes were definitely different from the black eyes that she used to have, but they gave the same gaze. A gaze of a failure that could not control her own destiny.
Suddenly, Eithne realized that she had been repeating the same mistake of her previous life- living cowardly.
Demir Noceur had become a source of fear for her, for which he had murdered the original priestess of Chaos in the comic and inflicted an unforgettable pain on her soul with his divine power when he stopped Eithne in the battle with Hesata.
Moreover, because of her timid personality, Eithne always compromised. She wanted to have a moderate connection with the villain, Raphael Ascian, so that he would not go against her as an enemy. She almost planned to beg Raphael for his help to hide from Demir’s eyes and ears.
‘I used to think that I had nothing to lose, so I didn’t care if Raphael used me as long as he helped. How laughable.’
Raphael never did charity work, and he would rip her off if there was a chance.
Eithne covered her face with one hand, but her golden eyes were still glaring at the mirror through the gaps of the fingers. It seemed that desperation had blinded her with foolishness. Her past pathetic way of thinking almost dug herself a grave, were it not for the nightmare that reminded Eithne how shitty her previous life’s choice was.
“Huuu…”
Eithne took a deep breath and exhaled. In the mirror, she saw that ‘failure’ self was still lurking behind the face of a priestess. Eithne instantly threw a punch to it.
Clang! The mirror crashed and its frame fell to the ground. Bang!
The priestess opened the large closet and placed the mirror inside. The royal palace was not similar to hotels, so they would not ask for compensation for damaged property when the guests checked out. Nonetheless, she had better hide the broken mirror or else the maids would look at her with an odd gaze.
“That’s done. You’re dead now.”
As if talking to the previous identity of herself, Eithne Noceur dusted off her hands.
The priestess walked to the balcony, recollecting what she had done and achieved since the day she possessed the body of Eithne Noceur. There must be a reason that she was brought into this world by the Gods. She possessed a strong power of darkness, so there must be an associating responsibility that she somehow changed the fate.
Eithne had saved Rigel, purely for a reason that she felt a sense of guardian duty toward a child, without expecting the protagonist would return something big. If Noori, who might be a useless Holy Maiden of the Peace temple in the future, was in danger, Eithne would do the same.
‘I might have quite a big heart.’ – She thought.
From the balcony, the priestess gazed at the furthest point at the boundary of sky and earth.
A thin tint of orange brushed across the purplish sky. Fluffy clouds were dyed in red and blue, floating around the emerging red sun. The fresh winds glided closely to the walls and blew up, sweeping away a part of heaviness on Eithne's shoulder. Short and tall buildings in the palace were seemingly glowing in the youngest sandy light of the day, and together, they had formed the shape of a glorious crown on this land for centuries.
Dawn was always Eithne’s favorite time of the day, although she had never deliberately woken up early to appreciate its beauty. At the same time, sleeping in was her hobby.
Eithne remembered the odd ability that she could see things through separate frames like seeing a comic’s panels. She wondered if it could be triggered again. All the time that she had that strange vision, Raphael was always nearby.
The method to trigger it was still ambiguous. Eithne just closed her eyes and shifted all her focus to the sensation of the eyes, imagining her irises were splitting like multiplying cells…
After a short time, a total of nine rectangular screens unfolded in front of her. Eithne felt like she was sitting before a monitor of many security cameras at different angles. The ‘cameras’ were placed randomly, most of screens were displaying unfamiliar places that Eithne was not even sure where they were. Regardless, there were still three screens being useful.
‘Speaking of the devil, here he comes.’
One of a kind, there was only one eccentric person who was way too confident with his hiding skill, that he wore a distinctive white robe when he spied on someone else. In the fifth screen, Raphael Ascian was found sitting leisurely on a branch of a shady tree, watching the newly appointed building for the Quenaz’s diplomats.
Eithne stepped on the balcony’s handrail and jumped off.
Her figure quickly vanished into the bushes’ shadow.
“She didn’t use the staircase again. That girl just hopped off from the balcony.”
From the lower window, Hesata sighed, looking at the priestess’s back. His hand held a magical communication device that was similar to a Rubik's cube. The person that he was contacting was none other than Demir Noceur.
“Now please excuse me, I need to go to the restroom. I’ve been watching her all night and she slept like a dead pig. I believe I deserve to sleep like that too.” – Hesata spoke in the cube. “I can’t tail her, she would know right away.”
The man on the other side of the communication tool was silent for a while. Then, he said shortly.
“You may be dismissed.”
“Thanks.”
Hesata threw the communication tool aside and put his face down onto the pillow. He had been assigned the task of keeping an eye on the action of Eithne Noceur for a whole night, but it was not just simply watching, he had to tense up his mind to find any smallest fluctuation of mana and spend a lot of holy power to sense any intervention of other Gods’ disciples to the priestess of War temple.
‘Fuck!’ – Hesata cursed in his dream.
The High Priest had suspected Eithne and so did him, since the day she began to use some kind of dark-related power yet its origin was unconfirmed. Thus, they began to secretly observe her.
Just half an hour ago, Hesata found something odd.
It was not the first odd thing that he found at the priestess, but it gave him a deep sense of unease this time.
“I’m probably overthinking… Maybe it was just my hallucination?” – Hesata murmured, fiddling a corner of his pillow.
He had been observing the status of mana around Eithne Noceur.
A normal person was always connected to nature, and they would exert impacts on the surrounding mana. A powerful magic user would create strong ripples on the mana environment around them, while the people without magic ability would weakly push around the mana in the air. Even dirt and rocks had mana flowing between them, though it was hard to detect.
There was almost no place in this world that had no mana. Mana moved constantly and was impossible to stop. It was the base of magic. Therefore, Hesata was studying Eithne’s influence on mana to see if something was off.
Most of the time, it was normal.
However, five seconds before Eithne woke up, the field of mana was suddenly dead silent.
It was so silent as if time froze.
The mana was unable detected during that moment. Hesata had been so familiar with the constantly moving mana that he was shocked that a vacuum appeared out of nowhere.
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Suddenly, a small crack was heard from an unknown source. After an eyeblink, the mana showed themselves again.
The phenomenon only happened shortly in the priestess’s room, the outside remained the same.
Hesata recalled the time when he fought Eithne in her darkfield. His magic cast from mana felt slow so he decided to fully use the holy power to fight her. Hesata thought it was because of himself who lacked the practice, but it might be a different case.
The mana, an irreplaceable force of nature, was either lost or slowed down around that priestess.
‘This is crazy!’ - Hesata grabbed his hair.
He was reluctant to report this to Demir Noceur, because even he could not believe it was true.
‘Mana is supposed to be the essence of life, the thing that flowed along time. Things were created from mana. Mages use mana to materialize their magic. Without it, humans could not exist in the nature of this world. How the fuck is she still there if the mana disappeared?’
Hesata was totally bamboozled. The knowledge that he had accumulated for years seemed to contradict what he saw.
"I’ll have to prepare a detailed report.” – The man spoke weakly. “What kind of sorcery is she harboring right now?”
-
Eithne stood below the crown of a large tree near the building of Quenaz’s diplomat, looking up at the highest branch.
The ‘cameras’ eyesight was still operating in her mind. Eithne thought walking around with multiple vision would be arduous at first, but then she realized that she just needed to focus on the screen that had forward view and ignore the rest. In that way, she would not have to suffer a headache absorbing too much information.
In the fifth screen, Eithne could see Raphael was a bit drowsy, regardless, he kept on watching the Quenaz servants’ movement.
Flakes of light were sprinkled on his cheek and hair through the gaps of leaves. His eyes seemingly wanted to close so bad, but Raphael blinked hard several times to stay awake. One of his legs was swinging freely, while the other leg folded up closely to his body with his hand resting on top of its knee. That man was leaning on the tree trunk amid viridescent leaves. Were it not for a wind gently moving his hair, Raphael would completely look like a hologram.
It was six o’ clock in the morning. Only servants woke up this hour, the nobles were usually still sleeping.
That guy finally noticed a priestess looking at him, he stretched and yawned.
“You really have a talent for discovering my hideout.” – The Saint lightly lifted the corners of his mouth. “Come on up, there's an empty seat here.”
He patted on the thick tree branch that he was sitting on.
Eithne glanced at the line of bright red fire ants crawling up on the tree trunk.
‘Is it really safe to sit there?’ - She furrowed her eyebrows.
Seeing the priestess was hesitant, Raphael tilted his head.
“Come on, I won’t bite.”
‘Not you, the ants!’ – Eithne thought, then said. “… I’m coming.”
The priestess jumped on a tree branch and lightly launched herself up. In one breath, she already sat next to Raphael. The thick branch slightly shook as her hands grabbed it.
“Welcome to my observation deck.” – Raphael smiled.
His eyes cheerfully curled up as if they knew how to smile as well.
Eithne glanced at his left shoulder. The white robe had concealed most of the injury, still she could see the maroon mark of blood on the exposed bandage's edge.
“You left me quite a big pain here.”
Raphael touched his left shoulder. His tone did not sound serious at all, although his collar bone was broken.
“Same here.”
Eithne raised one of her legs where her calf had lost a chunk of flesh.
“Last time I was in a hurry so I carelessly made a mess. If it’s fine with you, may I request a rematch at another time?”
Raphael leaned forward and raised his hand toward her for a handshake. The priestess stared at his hand for a while.
“That depends.”
“I thought the priests of War temple never run from a battle?”
Eithne rolled her eyes.
“I’ve a lot of things to do besides getting hurt for no reason.”
“Is that so…”
Raphael was about to put his hand down, but the priestess suddenly held his hand.
“Regardless, it’s an honor to get to know you better, Saint Raphael Ascian.”
The Saint raised his eyebrows in surprise. This was unexpected. He had anticipated her to turn a bit hostile toward him since they had just fought quite brutally. However, that woman twisted a smile on her lips. Her golden eyes were looking at him, but somehow Raphael felt like she was not focusing on him.
He was actually right. Eithne was looking at other ‘cameras’ screens at the same time. She could not help but smile at some familiar figures that she saw…
After a handshake, they sat back and conversed normally.
“I’m glad that you don’t bear a grudge against me.” – Raphael said. “But I must mention that I’d like you to stay away from our business.”
“I don’t intend to cause you any more harm. Rather, I want to give you a hand.”
“Hm? How?”
The priestess turned her head to the left to face the building of Quenaz diplomats. She did not open her mouth, but her voice suddenly came from the tree trunk next to Raphael’s ears.
“My superior is watching both of us, so don’t be too surprised.”
Raphael quickly stiffened his body. The expression on his face remained happy, but his eyes had turned cold.
Eithne glanced at him. ‘How professional.’ – She thought.
When Eithne sneaked out from her room’s balcony, she had seen Hesata looking at her in the eighth ‘camera’ screen. It was not really surprising that she then saw Demir Noceur start to look out from the window of his room as well. The High Priest’s eyes were gleaming with bright purple light, indicating that he was using the divine Chaos power.
Eithne knew what Demir’s ability was. It was a secret kept by him and his loyal comrades, but Eithne had read the comic beforehand. In a chapter where the heroine Noori Gynren became famous as a new Holy Maiden of the Peace temple, Demir Noceur had used his power to spy on Noori. The divine Chaos power granted Demir an ability of far observation and attacking the target’s mind regardless of their defense.
Eithne had tasted the pain that Demir inflicted on her mind despite her dark power’s protection during the battle of Hesata, so she must be extremely careful. Demir Noceur was spying on her, however, Eithne was also looking back at him through the second ‘camera’ screen.
The voice in the tree trunk continued.
“I’m coming.”
Small ripples strangely appeared on the tree trunk, and a small creature stepped out, standing on Raphael’s left shoulder. The creature, which looked like a tooth fairy in horror movies, was a forest spirit that followed Eithne from the Isny village’s woods.
The hand resting on his knee clenched into a fist, but Raphael calmly looked aside as if he inadvertently discovered a small bug on his robe.
Eithne actually did not want the creature to step on Raphael’s injury, but Demir was looking from the right so there was no other choice.
‘Oh well.’ – She thought.
The High Priest’s target was Eithne.
Demir’s ability sounded overpowering, still it had disadvantageous aspects. First, his range of vision was limited based on the target’s position. Demir could not see further than the standing point of his previously chosen target. Second, his point of view. He could only spectate the situation in the relative direction to his position, which meant if he was looking from the right and the target covered an object on their left side, Demir could not see that object unless he was looking from a much higher building. Raphael was sitting perpendicularly to the direction of Demir’s gaze, so he could not see the spirit hiding on Raphael’s left shoulder.
Lastly, he would not have known that Eithne knew his secret. Thus, a small act pretending the priestess and the Saint were having a friendly conversation was sufficient. Demir might suspect, but there would be no evidence.
Thankfully, Demir could see far, but not hear. Nonetheless, that former war General had too much experience guessing words through his enemy’s mouth movement, so Eithne had to ask someone else to transfer her words.
The spirit then whispered into Raphael’s ears.
“--- I can’t go back until Lumovas’s ships fall into sea monster’s mouth. ---”
It was the same voice of the Quenaz diplomat’s leader.
Raphael did not express any emotion on his face, but his eyes entirely focused on the spirit. After relaying the message, the spirit withdrew into the tree trunk again.
“Any guarantee?” – Raphael asked.
Eithne made a hand gesture similar to the finger gun pointing upward. Faint gray holy power wrapped her fingers.
“Promise the truth in the name of War God.” – She murmured.
It was a formal vow that could only be made by priests where they risked the name of God to guarantee the sincerity of the vow. In this case, Eithne only vowed that the voice recorded by the spirit truly belonged to the Quenaz’s diplomat.
“I think the Queen’s faction might need this. However, my information does not guarantee the final result.” – She declared. “Also, this is my personal support, not from the High Priest of War temple.”
Raphael smiled brightly again, but it felt much more sincere this time.
“Your support is a great help for us. Meeting you today is the right choice. By chance, what’s the cost for this information?”
“Since you hide so well, prepare me a safe hideout too.”
“I’ll welcome you at the Peace temple anytime.”
The Saint did not ask for her reason, instead, he held the pendant of Peace temple’s emblem in hand and muttered.
“As promised.”
White light gleamed on his hand. Raphael also made a promise with the name of Peace God to Eithne.
“Alright, I’ll go now.” – The priestess nodded to say goodbye to the Saint, but before she went, Eithne told Raphael. “You should move too.”
“Why? I want to enjoy the scenery more.”
Raphael saw Eithne looking behind him, so he also turned around to look.
Fire ants were already crawling on his back.
“Ack!”
-
Next day, the Queen announced the proposal of Quenaz was postponed, or rather, indirectly rejected.
Eithne heard that the Quenaz Empire offered Lumovas half authority control over the commercial sea route from the southern tip of the North continent – where Lumovas dominated- to the northern tip of the West continent – where Quenaz dominated. In particular, Quenaz arrogantly wanted to get rid of the influence of other smaller kingdoms and bring Lumovas as the sole business partner in the North continent.
‘Sounds crazy to me.’ – She thought. ‘It seems benefiting Lumovas and worsened the bad relationship between Lumovas and other kingdoms. But now I know they are aiming at Lumovas.’
The offer enraged some of the other small kingdoms of the North continent, since they also shared the same sea route to trade goods with Quenaz. If the two large empires collaborated to monopolize the travel route, they would have to suffer. However, those kingdoms were almost colonized by Lumovas in the continental war ten years ago, so they did not dare to spill their guts.
Anyway, Eithne did not care much about this anymore. She had done her mission transferring the ill intention of Quenaz to Raphael, who was on the Queen’s side, and earned herself an emergency shelter at the Peace temple. The priestess currently focused on packing her stuff to return to the temple. There was another banquet being held as the reparation to the guests for the commotions happened during the Queen’s birthday, but Eithne would rather go home sooner to take a nap.
“Bye! See you again!” – Rigel waved goodbye to the priest of War.
“Bye bye!”
Hesata waved back energetically, while Eithne lightly nodded. She turned away to follow Demir Noceur to the transportation gate without looking back once. It would be unfortunate if she accidentally met the gaze of the Saint of Peace again, then she would have to explain and talk more.
-
The next two weeks were quite peaceful in the temple of War.
Eithne just skipped all the early morning prayer time and woke up at noon every day. Then she would actively practice in the gymnasium when most people went to sleep.
“Your routine is so fucked up.”
Hesata, a classical morning bird that attended every morning prayer time and general practice session, yawned and sighed deeply at the sight of energetic Eithne.
“Why are you going to bed so early? It’s only ten o’clock!” – She said.
“Urgh! It’s already ten, for God’s sake.” – Hesata frowned. “That’s it. I’m going to sleep.”
He was about to close his bedroom's door, but it was stopped by Eithne.
“Wait! Don’t sleep now!”
“What’s more?” - Hesata squinted. “Don’t tell me you’re lonely without me.”
Eithne rolled her eyes.
“Well… actually yes. Anyway, do you have the key to the library? They close the library after midnight. Yesterday, I was locked up inside when they closed it.”
Since she stayed up so late, Eithne usually came to the library to look for relevant information about the unknown God that helped her save Rigel, as well as any record that might throw new light on the source of her dark power.
However, the librarian also had the habit of sleeping early, so they had closed the library when Eithne did not notice and locked her up last night until the next morning. There were strong defense magic matrices installed on the walls of the library to protect the documents, but it was soundproof so nobody heard her shout. Eithne was uncertain whether she could break one of them to get out, but it would be better if she did not break any more property of the temple. Thus, she decided to camp in the library.
Hesata gave Eithne a bronze key, then he went on talking.
"Here's the key. Don't build a nest out of books like yesterday. It really shocked the librarian to the point that she almost fainted."
"I won't." - She nodded.
"Bring the blanket with you if it's cold. Don't use fragile documents as your blanket. If the documents are ruined, then the High Priest will see you."
"...I know. Yesterday was too cold so I can't help..."
"It's good that you know."
"Okay, goodnight."
Eithne was about to leave, but the red-haired priest said one more thing.
"Bring the food with you if you're hungry. Just don't... chew the book."
"I told you it wasn't me! It was Heinley!"
The priestess grabbed her hair. This guy deliberately drove her nuts!
Some of the books had teeth marks on their covers so everybody suspected her, who was locked up in the library last night. Indeed, she built an igloo out of books to avoid the cold, but it was the library's cat Heinley chewing the books!
She camped in the library last night so she had witnessed all the crimes of Heinley. Not just chewing the book, that cat also peed on the librarian's seat.
Hesata closed the door quickly before the mad Eithne kicked him, but he had not given up yet. The priest spoke through the door's keyhole.
"Go to the toilet before you enter the library. Urinating in public is illegal!"
"..."