Chapter 23

Chapter 23. Coincidence and Inevitability (2)

While I was still blinking, Yulia kept her eyes fixed on the back of my right hand and continued speaking.

“This was not the first time you tried to create a ‘symbol,’ was it? Even yesterday, when you were fighting the Ozen Serpent, you were trying to create a symbol on the back of your right hand in order to control your Holy Power, weren’t you?”

What in the world was this woman talking about?

That was the first I had heard of me trying to make a symbol back then.

“You could not have known the principle....... I think you were probably trying to make it there instinctively, on the back of your right hand. You really do have considerable talent when it comes to handling Holy Power.”

I do not know how to handle Holy Power, damn it.

What exactly did she see that made her think that?

...Huh? 

Wait a second, the back of my right hand?

Only then did I understand what she meant.

Did she mean that she had already noticed from the time I fought the Ozen Serpent that Holy Power had been condensing on the back of my right hand?

And that was why she thought I had instinctively created a symbol?

A chill ran down my spine.

What absurd perceptiveness......

“The fact that you tried to create a ‘symbol’ instinctively the moment you awakened Holy Power....... You are much more humble than you look. If it had not been me, it would have been hard for anyone to notice.”

Smiling softly, Yulia soon placed a hand on her waist with a displeased look.

“Still, I am a little disappointed. Even if you were only repaying a favor, it was too much to try to hide the truth from the person who was trying to teach you.”

“......”

It seemed... I had underestimated the current Yulia too much.

I never imagined she would see through the Holy Power condensed inside my body at a glance. Goddamn it.

...All right, calm down first.

For now, it seemed she still thought what was engraved on the back of my right hand was a symbol.

In that case, it would be better to play along for the moment.

“...You are right. I did not expect you to figure that out so quickly.”

“I can sense Holy Power more easily than other people can. How should I put it....... It is just in my nature, I suppose?”

You damned prodigy.

I hurriedly worked out a suitable excuse.

“I am sorry for lying. It was the first time I had made one, so I was not sure whether I had done it properly. I was thinking I would show you after I practiced a little more.”

“Hehe, you do have a surprisingly timid side. Still, would you show me once?”

“No, I think I would rather show you later......”

“I thought it would be good for you to learn how to conceal a symbol as well.”

“......?”

That caught my attention at once.

“There is a Holy Magic like that too?”

“Ah, it is closer to a technique than a spell. If you had made the symbol properly, I was planning to teach you how to hide it too. Depending on the situation, you may need to conceal the light emitted by the symbol.”

Now that changed things.

A symbol looked similar to a Sacred Mark.

That much was obvious, given that even I had briefly mistaken it for a Sacred Mark.

If there was one difference between a symbol and a Sacred Mark... it was probably that, unlike symbols, which could appear in various patterns, the form of a Sacred Mark was fixed as a cross.

If my guess was correct, then there was a high possibility that the Sacred Mark engraved on the back of Yulia’s right hand was also being concealed with the exact same technique.

A technique for hiding a Sacred Mark was something I absolutely needed to learn in my current situation.

Besides, she wanted to check the symbol that badly, yet I stubbornly refused to show it?

Haa....... That would only make me look even more suspicious.

It could not be helped. 

I had no choice but to gamble here.

It was not as if I had no hard-line options left.

“...Here.”

After weighing the gains and losses in my mind, I pulled off the leather glove on my right hand.

And I held out the back of my right hand to her, where the Sacred Mark was engraved.

“That is astonishing. I did not think you had really made a symbol.......”

Yulia covered her mouth with one hand in surprise, but only for a moment.

“...Huh?”

Her eyes widened, and she leaned in so close that it looked as though she might bury her face into the back of my hand.

“Th-the symbol’s pattern... it is a cross?”

“It is? What is wrong with that?”

“N-no, it is just that symbol patterns are all supposed to be different....... Huh?”

Seeing her panic and even wave both hands about put me a little at ease.

No matter how gifted Yulia was, even she could not be certain that what was engraved on the back of my hand was a Sacred Mark.

Well... that was only if I looked at it optimistically.

I could not completely rule out the possibility that all of her reactions were an act.

“...May I ask you one thing?”

The wavering mood around Yulia sank into something heavy.

At a glance, it was obvious she was not about to say anything light.

“Go ahead.”

“All right. Then let me ask you this as a member of the Holy Order.”

I answered lightly, but my nerves were strung taut.

It was my own form of insurance. 

If Yulia realized this was a Sacred Mark... then, much as I would hate to do it, I would have no choice but to place a curse on her.

There were curses capable of erasing a person’s memory, after all.

Given how close we were, I should be able to catch her off guard and wipe about a minute of memory.

The fact that the person I would have to curse was Yulia bothered me in more ways than one, but still.

Hummmm......

Quietly gathering the mana in my heart, I waited for her to continue.

“Brother Damon, do you perhaps have any intention of joining the Holy Order?”

“...What?”

At that utterly unexpected question, my mouth fell open in a daze.

***

That night, in the women’s dormitory of Saengterminum Academy.

The dormitories at Saengterminum basically provided one room per person, but at the moment, Yulia and Viole were sitting across from each other in Viole’s room and talking.

That was because Yulia had gone to find Viole in a hurry after parting ways with Damon at the training hall.

“Ahaha....... Sister? You really have started talking nonsense, have you not?”

“Would I lie about something like this?”

“...You are serious?”

Yulia told Viole everything that had happened with Damon.

“As for creating a ‘symbol’ right away... I think that could happen. You also created one immediately after hearing about symbols for the first time, Yulia.”

It was common enough for someone who refined Holy Power exceptionally well to also have talent in Holy Magic.

But.

“For the pattern of his symbol to be exactly the same cross shape as a Sacred Mark? Can that even happen?”

“I was shocked too when I saw it.”

The pattern of a manifested symbol differed from one user of Holy Power to another.

There were that many varieties of symbol patterns, so even if, among all those possibilities, a symbol appeared with a similar pattern, people would usually dismiss it as a coincidence and think little of it.

But for a symbol to manifest in the same cross shape as a Sacred Mark?

Even if one tried to dismiss it as coincidence, it was the sort of thing that kept nagging at the mind.

“You did not pass a Sacred Mark on to him, did you?”

“As if that could happen.”

When Yulia held out the back of her right hand toward Viole, the Sacred Mark engraved there gave off a faint golden glow.

Fwaaa......

The pattern carved there was a cross.

It was unmistakably the Sacred Mark inherited from the Holy Empire.

“If he did not inherit one, then I guess it can only be a coincidence......”

“I suppose so......”

The two women reached a conclusion.

The symbol that had manifested in Damon had simply, by pure coincidence, taken the exact same form as a Sacred Mark.

Though it was the sort of unpleasant coincidence that left a bitter taste behind.

“Wait a second. If he is at the level where he can create a symbol right away, does that not mean it would be fine to at least offer him a chance to join the Holy Order?”

“I already did.”

Yulia smiled bitterly.

“But he refused immediately.”

Viole looked at Yulia suspiciously.

“You did not say anything strange to Damon, did you?”

“I did not say anything odd. The moment he heard the offer, he rejected it in less than a second.”

“I cannot tell whether he has convictions or just too much pride.”

To belong to the Holy Order meant, in other words, to become someone acknowledged within the Holy Empire.

“I really do not know what he plans to do from here on.”

“Hm?”

“I looked into it, and apparently a rumor has already spread everywhere that Damon defended Black Magic at the restaurant. They say both students and teachers are all talking about it.”

“It has already spread that far?”

“Yes. At the very least, things would have been a little better if he had agreed to go through the process of joining the Holy Order.”

No matter that he was not from the Holy Empire, he must have seen how students in the Holy Magic Department treated those affiliated with the Holy Order, so there was no way he had failed to realize how much weight the Holy Order carried......

Resting her chin on one hand, Yulia frowned.

“I thought I might try to get closer to him since I owed him one from the Artificial Rift....... Why is his personality so twisted?”

To the Holy Empire, Black Magic was a Forbidden Magic that deserved to be shunned.

And yet he had gone and openly spoken in favor of Black Magic, something that any user of Holy Power ought to reject as a matter of course.

Whether he liked it or not, his life at the academy was no longer going to be peaceful.

“Where in the world did he live, and what was he doing before he came here?”

“I would like to know that myself.”

The two women leaned back in their chairs at the same time and let out heavy sighs.

***

“Ugh....... To hell with joining the Holy Order.”

Recalling Yulia’s proposal, I shuddered.

I was a Black Mage, and she wanted me to join the Holy Order?

What, did she want me to get exposed for using Black Magic and dragged off to be tortured? 

I would be declining that honor from my side.

She must think I was just that talented at handling Holy Power, but... knowing that the reason was all thanks to the Sacred Mark made it deeply uncomfortable to be mistaken for some sort of natural genius.

‘Still, it is a relief that she is not suspecting it is a Sacred Mark.’

Judging by the fact that she abruptly proposed I join the Holy Order, she clearly did not think that what was engraved on the back of my hand was a Sacred Mark.

Then again, in normal terms, it would be far harder to believe that someone had two Sacred Marks.

In any case, I had learned from Yulia how to control my rampaging Holy Power, so things had turned out fairly well in their own way.

And I had learned one more useful technique too.

Wooooong!

When I raised a faint trace of Holy Power on the back of my right hand, golden light leaked from the Sacred Mark.

“Let us see......”

After checking the back of my right hand, Yulia had taught me the technique for hiding a symbol.

The method was surprisingly simple.

You infused mana into the pattern where the symbol had been formed.

Flash.

The blue light of mana and the golden light of Holy Power tangled together on the back of my right hand.

‘A symbol stabilizes when it comes into contact with mana. When you are not using Holy Power, you can suppress the light of the symbol like this.’

Recalling what Yulia had said in the training hall, I began to pour mana into the pattern of the Sacred Mark.

The more mana I engraved along the pattern, the more the golden light rising from my hand gradually subsided.

And once I had fully worked the mana into it, the Sacred Mark that had been engraved on the back of my hand disappeared cleanly before I knew it.

“Oh......”

Just as I had thought, the technique for concealing a Sacred Mark and concealing a symbol was the same.

“Good grief... if only the technique itself had at least been difficult.”

Lowering my head, I ran a hand roughly through my hair.

To think the method for hiding a Sacred Mark had been this simple.

Well, I had not known how to handle a Sacred Mark properly in the first place, so there had not been much I could do.

With this technique, so long as I did not actively use Holy Power, Holy Power would no longer leak from the back of my hand and give me away.

Thanks to Yulia, I had learned something valuable.

Swaaaaa......

A wind blew in from somewhere, setting the surrounding branches swaying.

A dim sky, trees, and grass growing over the ground.

This was inside the Artificial Rift, the Grassland Field that I had entered together with Viole yesterday.

Since it was so late at night, the sunlight was gone, and only the large full moon and the starlight illuminated the inside of the rift.

‘It was around here......’

Eliminating the goblins that appeared as I went, I moved toward the place I wanted.

The closer I came, the more the stench of rot tickled the tip of my nose.

“Found it.”

Before long, the corpse of the Ozen Serpent I had killed appeared before my eyes.