『Child, you are a pagan, aren’t you?』
Perched lightly on a bare tree branch on the street where the Greze party were staying, Remiel, watching the faint candlelight emanating from the inn window, chuckled, recalling Cassia’s face as she cautiously asked that question.
He wondered if he had given too many hints, but then, thinking of Zester, who wouldn’t understand even if he was spoon-fed the information, he thought Cassia’s perceptiveness was at the level of genius.
“I’m surprised you managed to get out without a scratch. I thought Baron Greze would keep you locked up for days with all his suspicion.”
“That almost happened.”
From the darkness, where it seemed no one was present, a suspicious silhouette revealed itself. Remiel replied without a hint of surprise, his voice laced with amusement.
Remiel, perched high on the tree branch, and the figure clad in a worn-out hood sitting beside him; to anyone looking, they were a suspicious pair.
“Huhu…So, what are you thinking?”
The figure lifted their hood slightly, meeting Remiel’s eyes as they asked.
It was an old woman with a face full of deep wrinkles. A face that some would recognize.
The last remaining successor of the sorcerers and the vassal of Count Bertol Axios, Eunice.
Remiel chuckled as he faced his loyal, longtime vassal, and once again, his thoughts drifting to Cassia.
When Cassia asked if he was a pagan, he had feigned innocence and played the part of a naive boy to the very end. However, he knew that a woman as sharp as her must have realized that he was closely involved in this matter.
Now then, why did he go out of his way to make his existence and the current situation in the Capital known to her and her husband, Zester?
“Who knows? What am I thinking indeed. Perhaps I don’t even know myself.”
“You wouldn’t be planning on working that woman to the bone in this life too, after she already died suffering a lifetime of hardship, yes?”
“You wouldn’t be thinking of using that woman again? She suffered all her life already.”
“I might be? But there is no talent quite like her. Besides, the reason ‘God’ allowed me to turn back time is, in a way, because of her…”
The ‘True’ God, whom humans called upon and followed, the Creator of countless worlds, had granted Remiel a power He had never permitted in any other world.
『Grant his wish.』
It was a wish God had never granted, even when tens or hundreds of Remiel’s beloved creations died and disappeared. Yet, God, who had never responded to Remiel’s desperate pleas, willingly answered the call of a pure soul.
The will to bring just one woman back to life to live again.
Remiel could not understand God.
Affection? Regret? A wish from a soul covered in common human emotions, making an even more common request.
『I beg you, bring my wife back to life.』
He wasn’t the only one. Countless creations across countless worlds felt that emotion most commonly; it was an unremarkable desire.
So why, of all things, did God grant Remiel the authority and desire for him to fulfill that wish?
『You turned away when dozens, hundreds of my children were dying! And now this? What is the reason?”』
『My child.』
Right, that’s what God has said then.
『I do not make wrong choices.』
“…He said He doesn’t make wrong choices.”
“What?”
“Mm, well, I still can’t understand those words.”
Remiel had resented that soul. The creation that made God willingly grant such a wish.
It was out of spite and grumpiness. That he attached conditions to the wish God allowed. That his determination to pay any price made him decide to accept his soul as the price.
“I suppose I must try to understand.”
However, the moment he saw Cassia, Remiel felt he might vaguely understand God’s will.
Remiel, who could never intervene in the world of creations, could do nothing but cry out, ‘Please save my children.’ But she, a creation herself, could do it.
Perhaps God saw in her the possibility of preventing the deaths of his countless sons and daughters—deaths Remiel had been forced to watch with tears of blood.
Remiel carefully thought that perhaps, by granting that trivial wish, God intended to fulfill His own desire.
Because God is an existence who foresees everything and makes no wrong choices.
“Lord Remiel, there is no need for you to try and save all of your children. Did you not say we would create a new world anyway? Even if they die here, it is not truly death.”
Eunice, who had been staring intently at the deep-in-thought Remiel, spoke up. Her voice was uncharacteristically anxious.
“Do not have lingering attachments to this place. This is a world already devoured by Satan. Move only with your eyes on Paradise. Am I not doing the same? Following Lord Remiel’s will to create Paradise, I am gathering the souls who will ascend there.”
“Paradise…indeed. But I only intended to make that because I could no longer do anything about this world tainted by evil. If this world itself were to become a paradise, wouldn’t that be enough?”
“Do not cling to this doomed world. Satan already devours it. Look only to Paradise. I gather souls for that, as you commanded.”
“Paradise… yes. But I sought it only because I could no longer save this world. If this world itself became Paradise, would that not be enough?”
“Lord Remiel!”
Eunice shouted, her face filled with anger.
“You startled me. Why are you so agitated, Eunice?”
Eunice, biting her lip and trembling, soon lowered her head.
“I apologize.”
“No, no. I understand your feelings. Why wouldn’t I understand you, who desires Paradise as much as I do? My resolve to create a paradise where only the pure souls of my children can enter remains unchanged. I vaguely understand what God is thinking, but… well, I don’t believe a woman who is merely a creation can achieve what even I could not.”
Remiel smiled bitterly and patted Eunice’s shoulder.
“I am simply watching. If a paradise cannot be created in this world, our plan to leave for a new Paradise will remain unchanged.”
Through the window where the faint light spilled out, it felt as though he could see Cassia’s face. Remiel let out a short laugh and murmured quietly.
“So don’t worry, Eunice.”
* * *
Back in her room, Cassia got herself busy, ignoring Zester, who was pestering her to go to sleep.
The first thing she did was send a letter to her father, Count Ruberno.
To save the citizens of the capital who had died helplessly during the unprecedented cold wave, the heating supplies currently remaining in the capital were woefully insufficient. Nor could they rely on the nearby north for help, as the cold wave would affect the north as well.
The reasons why people had died helplessly during the horrible cold wave were twofold:
Firstly, the imperial family had been lukewarm in providing relief to all the citizens of the capital. Secondly, there wasn’t enough time to bring in heating supplies from distant places to prepare for the cold.
The cold wave, which arrived in about two weeks, didn’t stay long, yet it claimed hundreds of lives. Even if the Imperial side had acted as quickly as possible to combat the sudden cold wave, there would still have been deaths from freezing.
However, Cassia knew about the tragedy that would occur in two weeks, and the two weeks she had now were enough time to prepare for that tragedy.
Cassia carefully calculated the necessary items and quantities of firewood, clothing, and heating equipment for the citizens of the capital and wrote a letter requesting that they be delivered to the capital as quickly as possible. By the time the letter arrived and the supplies prepared in the south reached the capital, the cold wave would have arrived.
Unlike the cold North, the warm South had relatively less developed heating facilities and tools, but it was still enough to prevent a repeat of the tragedy where people had died helplessly without any preparation.
‘That takes care of the cold wave preparations.’
Collecting the heating supplies currently within the capital was a task for Colli Crab, with whom she had signed the wig distribution contract. The heating supplies he bought up at a bargain now would be sold back at a very high price to the rich nobles and greedy merchants who would rush in panic at the sudden cold snap.
By securing a powerful and trustworthy massive merchant guild to distribute the wigs in the capital, she would also prevent the foreseen tragedy. Cassia tried to soothe her slightly uneasy heart, hoping that things would go as easily as she thought.
‘Actually, I never even thought about saving those who froze to death.’
Just because she went back ten years and knew the future didn’t mean Cassia had become a saint. Naturally, when she opened her eyes again, she didn’t immediately recall the disasters she had experienced in her past life and vow to stop them.
She only realized the seriousness of the territory war after meeting Count Bertol Axios, and the worst cold wave tragedy only came to mind after she set foot in the capital.
Although the conclusion she made was to move in a direction that reduced sacrifices for both events, it wasn’t as if she had intended it all from the beginning. Even the plan to save the freezing victims likely wouldn’t have crossed her mind if she hadn’t come up with the shallow scheme to grow the ‘Crab Merchant Guild’.
‘Where did the “me” who planned to do nothing but play and eat go?’
It hadn’t even been long since she returned from enjoying a leisurely time wandering around the capital, and she felt a little sorry for herself sitting at her desk, lost in troublesome thoughts.
It had been such an enjoyable day of doing nothing and relaxing.
Swallowing her regret, Cassia picked up her pen again. There was a new problem she needed to consider.
‘Pagans…’
Before her return in time , she had only heard of them from afar. The group of pagan believers in the capital. The conflict between the state religion, the Orobas faith, and the pagan Remiel faith.
And the mysterious disappearance cases that were never widely known outside the capital.
Recalling the young boy, Remiel, whose eyes seemed to hold a desperate longing for some reason, Cassia swallowed a groan. That child was definitely a pagan. Even his name, which she later learned, seemed to make no attempt to hide his pagan beliefs.
However, there was a certain sincerity in Remiel’s words and eyes that made it difficult to simply dismiss it as a pagan’s scheme, and the actions of the imperial family and the Papal State, who seemed to be trying to cover up the disappearances that were increasing day by day, were highly suspicious.
‘Something is really off about this, isn’t it?’
What if the Remiel faith, which she had assumed was expelled for spreading false ideologies and doctrines, actually had a reason?
What if the second prince, who was burned at the stake after being discovered as a pagan, wasn’t simply a fanatic worshipping crazy ideas?
This was a matter that needed careful consideration and investigation. This was something even her past self, before the time reversal, had never known.
Suddenly, Cassia, who was scribbling various things on a piece of paper, frowned as she felt a headache spreading through her head. It wasn’t surprising, considering how much she had overexerted herself.
“Keuk!”
“Oh my God, that startled me!”
At that moment, Cassia flinched in surprise at the sound of someone gasping for breath next to her.
Turning around, she saw Zester asleep in an uncomfortable position, having dragged an old chair next to her desk. His neck, which was bent at a sharp angle, looked painful.
Even though she had urged him to sleep first multiple times, he had stubbornly stuck by her side, asking how he could sleep alone while his wife was working, only to eventually fall asleep.
Pressing her throbbing temples, Cassia pulled her chair closer and lightly tapped Zester’s thigh.
“Honey, go sleep in the bed. I’m going to sleep soon too.”
“Hng, Sia, where are you going….”
His sleep-talking, mumbling with his arms crossed and his frowning face dipped low, was a sight to behold. Cassia let out a small laugh and shook Zester’s arm.
“Honey, wake u….”
Drip.
Suddenly, she felt a strange sensation flowing over her lip, and something dropped onto Cassia’s thigh.
Blood.
Starting with a single drop, what pattered down onto her thigh was unmistakably blood. Reflexively, she touched her lips, and thick blood stained her fingers.
‘Oh my god.’
Cassia was not only surprised but also terrified.
Because it had been exactly like this on the day she called the doctor from the capital who gave her the terminal diagnosis. She had endured the fatigue and frequent headaches, but on the day she suddenly had a nosebleed, she finally called the doctor.
『You have three months at the most.』
The doctor’s cold words that she had heard immediately after the diagnosis, suddenly echoed vividly in her mind.
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