—————————————————————–
Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
—————————————————————–
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Although she wasn’t born as a saint, Adriana was the one who had grown up in this church and the Moon Tower since a very young age.
She had grown up with the help of Verod and had gradually grown under the care of the paladins and priests.
Perhaps due to that, the world Adriana knew was limited.
The information obtained from books someone read to her, and the information she read through holy power was very few, so there weren’t many opportunities to encounter things she hadn’t learned.
Not having sight meant learning everything through other senses.
Hearing, smell, touch.
Adriana’s body trembled at the sensation suddenly felt on her palm.
It was a sensation that was firmer and… as if something had been compressed, compared to the sensations she could normally feel.
Along with the regular pulse she felt, a good scent was also transmitted through her nose.
It was a faint scent for perfume, but it was such a good scent that she wanted to keep feeling it.
For a moment, as if bewitched, Adriana, who blankly reached out her hand, slightly moved her lips.
She remembered Robert catching her when she tripped over something.
Then, was this sensation she had placed under her Robert’s body?
Only then did a faint reason flow into her mind.
Realizing that what she had thought was only a good sensation was actually Robert, and that it belonged to a proper man, a chilling sensation began to flow down her spine.
“…Oh my.”
As she tried to remove her hand for a moment, her body staggered and she placed her hand back down.
Her cheeks began to feel hot from the heat rising from below.
Grasping her dizzy mind, she momentarily lost the words to say and only moved her lips several times.
She had never felt such emotions even when she was with the paladins.
In a way, it could be said that it was just a difference in perspective.
She had thought of the paladins as grateful people rather than men, but she had thought of Robert as a real man.
Was it because she felt embarrassed just by the sensation felt on her palm?
But Adriana couldn’t think that deeply.
It was just that the sensation felt on her fingertips was so intense that she momentarily lost the composure she had always maintained.
Her fingers, which had fidgeted several times, crumpled Robert’s clothes.
Even though she could have just gotten up, Adriana’s cheeks turned red for not being able to think of that.
“I’m, I’m sorry. I- I mean. Please wait a moment.”
“You can get up slowly. It’s alright.”
Robert had a rough idea of why Adriana was reacting like that to something.
Since this situation wasn’t very ordinary, it wasn’t unreasonable for her to be greatly surprised by the suddenness of it.
Her reddened face was proof of that.
Not only did she not see the paladins as men, but it was probably the first time she had touched a member of the opposite sex’s body in this way.
Robert was just as embarrassed, but he calmly tried to separate from Adriana.
Robert, carefully reached out his hand so as not to startle her and gently grabbed Adriana’s arm like that.
Their overlapping bodies slowly returned to their original positions, entangled like that.
Since the room where the Saint used to stay wasn’t very spacious, it could be said to be a somewhat awkward situation.
Realizing that her balance was slowly returning, Adriana quickly erased the heat from her cheeks.
What kind of unsightly behavior was this?
In this situation, as a saint, she should have handled it a bit more calmly.
“Thank you. I was too surprised.”
“I’m glad you didn’t scream. The priests might have misunderstood me otherwise.”
“I’ve never screamed. And it’s… true that it was a situation that could be misunderstood.”
Adriana answered while lightly cupping her cheek.
After taking a deep breath while stroking her chest for a moment, she quietly looked in Robert’s direction with a face where the heat had now disappeared.
The sound of her heart pounding seemed to be unusually loud.
Afraid that this sound might be heard, she moved her lips while recalling Robert falling earlier.
“You didn’t get hurt, did you? It seemed like you fell while catching me.”
“I’m fine. Let’s get up now.”
Suddenly feeling warmth on her hand, she realized that sensation was Robert’s.
As she always felt, his hand was much larger than hers.
If she grasped it with one hand, her hand would completely disappear, enough to be fully contained within that wide palm.
Were all men’s hands like this?
In the past, it wouldn’t have been like this.
But after meeting Robert, such thoughts inadvertently bloomed.
Perhaps, she thought it was since seeing his past.
What she saw in that vivid afterimage was the relationship between Robert and Miragen.
They were both her friends, but she couldn’t erase the uncomfortable feeling.
When Miragen smiled, Robert held Miragen’s hand. And again, he kissed Miragen and whispered love.
It was a romantic story that might appear in the fairy tales Cardinal Verod read to her, but her heart felt suffocating just facing it.
Miragen looked very happy.
Whenever she was with Robert, she showed a smile she had never seen before, and Robert smiled like that too.
Perhaps it was a misunderstanding.
She had never seen or felt Robert’s face, had she?
But if Robert had Miragen’s memories, they must have been his own memories.
The man seen in the monochrome world was smiling at Miragen.
Sometimes promising love, sometimes shedding tears, and sometimes smiling softly.
Adriana couldn’t see Robert’s expression in reality.
Since she couldn’t see in the first place, she just listened to his voice and grasped his emotions.
But wasn’t he smiling in the memories she faced?
Whenever she saw that, her heart became complicated.
Like a tangled and twisted skein.
The only thing she could directly face was his inner self.
But even that, when she looked at his inner self with the power given by God, there was only emptiness, so that was all Adriana could guess.
“Do you have something on your mind?”
As she sat on the bed, Robert checked Adriana’s ankle and asked like that.
The Saint’s holy power couldn’t heal herself.
Since it was a blessing given directly by God, it could only be used on others, not on herself.
Even if it could be said to be a power of a different level from the paladins and priests who could handle it on themselves, in the end, it was a power that couldn’t heal her own wounds.
Perhaps she had slightly sprained her ankle when she fell, as a stinging pain was transmitted when she moved her ankle.
But such pain was familiar to Adriana.
Since she fell so often, she could endure this much, couldn’t she?
But the reason Robert’s gaze was directed at Adriana was different.
Although her embarrassment was only for a moment, the shadowed expression on her face was concerning.
There weren’t many things he could guess at the moment about what she was thinking that suddenly changed the atmosphere.
To that question, Adriana, who had taken a deep breath for a moment, smiled brightly again and opened her mouth.
“I don’t have anything on my mind. I just suddenly remembered something.”
“If it’s something urgent, I’ll take you there.”
“No, it’s not something I have to go to right now. Since I can move now, shall we move again?”
If she stayed in this room, her thoughts would become complicated.
When she opened her mouth with that in mind, Robert grabbed Adriana’s hand again.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The interior of the church was wide, but the time it took to explain it passed very quickly.
As if she had blinked and opened her eyes, Adriana let out a hollow laugh at the fact that it had suddenly become dawn.
All she had done was explain the places she visited every day while walking around together. And yet, to think time had passed like this.
Robert had returned to his room, so Adriana, who was left alone, had to head to the Moon Tower.
But she didn’t go.
The path she was taking now was a place she could move sufficiently without anyone’s help.
There was a place where only the Saint could enter.
A place where no one could even approach unless chosen by God.
As she stepped on the hairline crack drawn on the floor, holy power began to drain from her body.
If it weren’t for her, one would have to use the power of relics to enter.
Since the power possessed by relics and her own power were completely identical, this power shrouded in secrecy was Adriana’s origin.
The holy power she had gained in exchange for losing her sight was the only key to access this place, so Adriana moved her steps like that and headed to the basement of the church.
A chilly coldness pierced her body.
If Robert had been here at this time, wouldn’t he have covered her with his cloak?
Although it was consideration she had only felt a few times, that emptiness seemed to feel unreasonably large.
When a chilly wind blew, she could see the faint light scattering in her closed eyes.
She wasn’t afraid.
She had already often come here when she wanted to think, hadn’t she?
Leaning against the wall like that, taking one step, and then feeling the holy power entering her body again, Adriana stopped her steps.
“Was it here?”
As she reached out her hand forward, a large rosary hanging on the wall was touched.
This was also a type of relic.
It was a relic that only the Saint could use.
The reason she came here today.
To put it simply about that reason, it was about a man she had recently met.
“…Robert.”
It hadn’t even been half a year since they met.
They met at the imperial palace, they met on the streets.
After that, exchanging a few calls was all.
When they met at the Moon Tower, it might have been their longest meeting.
She thought he was a bit unusual from the beginning.
Because when she accidentally glimpsed into his heart, she faced an emptiness that was so empty that she couldn’t feel any emotion.
She became interested.
When they met again, his attitude towards her was still the same.
With a gentle tone, just by listening to his voice, she even thought he could be considered the warmest person she had met.
But his heart was still empty.
No matter how many times she saw it, it was the same.
As if he was about to die at any moment, as if he would disappear before her eyes, she felt anxious.
So she left a promise to meet him next time, but didn’t he say he almost died in the North?
Adriana, who laughed softly, let out a heavy sigh.
When she first heard that story, she couldn’t help but be very surprised.
The person she had been in contact with until a few days ago was dying, and her heart even became impatient as she heard the Grand Duchess quietly scolding her.
– …Whether you come in person or not. Send a clergyman to the North. Someone who can save even a dying person, right now.
What was contained in the Grand Duchess’s calm voice was anger.
Rather, it was more terrifying than openly expressing anger, but Adriana seemed to vaguely understand that feeling.
If someone she felt anxious about even when they were together got hurt like that, she would have acted like the Grand Duchess.
But she couldn’t come forward.
It was because of the name of the Saint.
If she suddenly disappeared from the Moon Tower, it could cause confusion, so she slowly knelt on the floor, recalling the face of Cardinal Verod, who earnestly dissuaded her.
A cold sensation touched her knees.
Hard and rough, clasping her hands and grasping the rosary around her neck like that, she raised her head towards the wall.
A feeling of regret arose.
If she hadn’t been a saint, she could have gone to the North.
If she had healed him, she could have watched over him without an anxious heart forever.
What those emotions created was a subtle something towards the man named Robert.
That emotion bloomed as she looked back on Robert’s memories.
As she watched Miragen smile at Robert, as she watched Robert die miserably at the hands of his sister.
As she looked at Robert standing alone in the empty snowy field of the North, holding a masterless sword, an emotion arose.
Whoosh-
The rosary hanging on the wall and Adrian’s holy power resonated, and a pure white light gushed out from her clasped hands.
She didn’t know the name of this emotion that had arisen in her.
She had come here to find out what it was.
To dig into the memories of the fragments Robert had shown her, even though she could only see fragmentary scenes.
“If I see that… wouldn’t I be able to understand your heart a little?”
Emotions were blooming again in Robert’s inner self.
Instead of the emptiness that was always vacant, there was definitely an emotion that peeked out its head and revealed itself.
Adriana, who recalled the memory of him making excuses for it, smiled softly.
– I had one. But not anymore, probably never again… I won’t have one.
Sadness, loneliness, desolation.
She tried to understand a little of his inner self where only negative emotions bloomed because it was cold and dark.
What could I see in your memories?
In the basement of the church, Adriana slowly surrendered herself to the blooming holy power.
It was to face the memories Robert Taylor possessed.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
