“Mom! Mommy! Look at this! It’s the picture Tia drew for her homework!”
“Um, uh. Yeah…”
Thanks to Tia’s voice, I finally came to my senses.
I almost spent the whole day in a daze.
I gave Tia’s head a gentle pat while quickly glancing at the picture she was excitedly showing off.
By the way, her drawing skills were terrible.
Seems like she took after her father in that regard.
“But Mom, what’s that in your hand?”
“Oh, this…”
Tia tilted her head, pointing at my clenched fist.
Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t opened my fist since I got home.
I slowly opened my fist.
A small metallic key revealed itself.
It was a strange key adorned with a bizarre ornament that somehow felt familiar.
Seeing the key brought back today’s events in vivid detail.
Alexander had handed me the key while casually rummaging through a box, covered in bl**d.
It was the key I had begged to have as a reward for passing my assignment.
Receiving this key, I rushed out of the church and hurriedly returned to the villa.
There had never been a time when Alexander was this frightening.
“This is a present from the priest.”
“A present? What about Tia’s?”
“Tia doesn’t have one. Do you want this one, Tia?”
“No! It’s mom’s, so mom should keep it.”
Tia responded with a slightly sulky expression.
I matched Tia’s eye level to comfort her and planted a loving kiss on her cheek.
“Good job, little kiss. You drew a really pretty picture.”
“Muhihi…!”
Only then did Tia seem to feel better, wrapping her arms around me and showering me with kisses.
I hugged Tia tightly and, looking over her shoulder, examined the key in my hand.
I distinctly remembered feeling an inexplicable attraction to this key on the first day of tutoring.
But now, looking at it again, I felt nothing more than that strange sense of familiarity.
It was quite odd.
– You still don’t realize the value of this key.
At that moment, a chilling voice flowed into my ears, making me jump and tremble involuntarily.
“Mom?”
“Oh, no. I’m fine. I just got a bit of a chill.”
“Are you getting a cold?”
“It seems so.”
“I’ll keep you warm! Muuuuhhhhh…!”
I had forgotten to mention Alexander.
No matter how much you hone and refine divine power, the voice of the evil spirit wouldn’t disappear.
I was so out of sorts that I couldn’t express it.
At that time, my mind was completely filled with the thought of fleeing from that monster who was expressionless and drenched in bl**d.
– Go to the basement. To the basement. Run to the basement right now. Hurry.
Once again, it whispered in my ear.
“Mom, your body is really cold.”
“Uh-huh. It is a bit chilly…”
My body, holding Tia close, was trembling slightly.
I was going crazy.
I really wanted to stop suffering like this.
Yet, for some reason, the feeling that if I went to the basement, I could erase this voice from my head didn’t leave me.
My nerves were directed toward the basement in the back garden of the villa.
…
“Ugh. It doesn’t seem to come off.”
A groan escaped Alexander’s lips as he lay facedown on the floor.
bl**d smeared among the wooden planks was causing trouble.
Alexander kept trying to wipe it with a rag, but to no avail.
Sweating profusely, he decided to ask a nun for help later.
Looking around, I found the room had become completely spotless.
Just moments ago, it had been stained with bl**d in numerous places, resembling a m*rder scene.
Alexander tossed the now red rag into the laundry basket.
“Priest, a letter has arrived for Father Alexander.”
“Thank you.”
Just then, the door thudded as the nun thrust a document envelope at him.
Alexander smiled kindly, took the envelope, and immediately slammed the door shut.
The envelope bore the seal of the Papal Office.
He quickly broke the seal and opened it to check the contents.
– No results found in the divine power wavelength archive search.
The results of the request submitted to the Papal Office archive arrived.
According to the report, there were no clergy members matching Julia’s divine power.
At least it meant that Julia had never been affiliated with the church as a clergy member.
If Julia were indeed a saint, there would have been a result here…
“Hmm.”
Alexander mulled over this while stroking his chin.
It had become troublesome.
Just a while ago, he had witnessed Julia’s immense divine power right in front of him.
It didn’t make sense unless she were indeed a saint.
Evidence of the saint and an alibi that she was not had arrived almost simultaneously.
“It’s absurd.”
Julia’s miracles were astonishingly intricate.
Alexander had intentionally explained to Julia that “only desperation influences the performance of miracles.”
But the reality was different.
Skill also played a significant role.
It was nearly impossible for a desperate novice, whose precious person had been hurt, to execute a healing miracle superior to that of a veteran healer assigned to an unrelated patient.
Yet Julia had just now, for the first time ever, performed a miracle that surpassed those of veteran healers.
Even right after scattering a huge amount of divine power into the air for the sake of rolling a single d*e.
Could it have been that she was that desperate?
Had she wanted to save me so much that she overlooked the difference in experience?
‘That can’t be true.’
Alexander shook his head immediately, dismissing that possibility.
Julia didn’t have any affection for me.
If anything, her resentment surely outweighed any possible affection.
Still, the sudden closeness lately could be attributed to extreme stress and loneliness.
Her tendency to be on guard against completely new people but quickly dropping her defenses after engaging in even a bit of conversation suggested she was the type of woman who had been betrayed several times and isolated herself, unable to endure loneliness.
While she could wish for people to not d*e in front of her, the chances of her genuinely worrying about my life were slim.
“Ugh…”
Strong suspicions and evidence pointed in opposite directions.
I would like to deny the evidence since it could easily be intercepted and manipulated in the middle.
“I don’t know…”
I thought that seeing Julia perform a miracle would lead to a conclusion.
I believed I could gain certainty.
Yet, instead, I found myself falling deeper into a labyrinth.
Ultimately, unable to shake off the unease, Alexander clenched his fist, resolved.
He needed to head straight to the Papal Office and access the archives as soon as possible.
By bringing the datasheets himself and conducting the search, there would be no room for doubt regarding manipulation or anything else.
That day, he decided to settle everything and cleared his mind of the chaotic thoughts filling it.
“Oh. That key…”
Alexander’s gaze was drawn to the old box on the desk.
It was a box piled high with various knick-knacks.
What had he explained to Julia about that?
“An utterly meaningless collection. Yes, that’s what I said.”
An utterly meaningless collection.
That wasn’t entirely false.
Though it lacked the explanation that these items once belonged to the deceased.
Alexander had stolen and kept one of the belongings that the assassination target had when they died.
There was no particularly noble taste or criteria in his selection.
Anything that fit into one hand was good enough.
Thus began the collection that eventually filled that large box.
“Of all the odds, I took that key.”
What Julia suddenly expressed envy for was a metallic key that had no distinguishing features outside of its simple design.
However, considering the original owner of that key, it sent shivers down his spine.
This key belonged to Ivan Makarov, a politician who owned a small mansion.
When that old man in the back room was assassinated, the mansion was auctioned off after losing its owner, and it had since passed to Dragania and been expanded into the villa where Julia now lived, which felt rather significant.
That wasn’t all.
On the night Alexander returned after assassinating Makarov, he had run into a woman while mistakenly getting bl**d on his clothes during his escape.
It was Julia.
On the day he encountered Julia, Alexander had secretly hidden that key in his bosom.
Though it had been between the folds of his clothing, Julia and that key were no longer mere strangers to one another.
“What a ridiculous coincidence.”
Of all the countless junk, he had chosen the one item deeply connected to her.
Alexander couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh.
Perhaps it could be more than coincidence.
“Maybe it’s the key to a treasure chest.”
A key that a dying old man had treasured close to his heart.
Perhaps it was the key to a room deep inside the mansion where he hid his wealth.
It was uncertain whether what came out of there would help or harm Julia.
