As Professor Antorelli coughed up blood and rushed out of the office,
Sofia Sub-Priest stared blankly at the main door he had just exited. The reason Sofia was frozen and unable to take action was akin to a bottleneck, as her mind couldn’t keep up with the overwhelming situation.
“Head Priest…?”
“Hah… What a mess this is…”
Hearing a perplexed voice from behind her, Sofia slowly turned her head. Professor Underwood was holding his forehead and shaking his head in dismay.
“Why did he suddenly start coughing up blood…? Sofia Sub-Priest, has Professor Antorelli shown any symptoms like this before?”
“……”
“Sub-Priest? Sofia Sub-Priest?”
Professor Underwood approached her. Sofia felt her ears ringing.
Her vision narrowed and then expanded again. It felt as though she could see the entire office from an omniscient perspective; it was oddly fascinating.
The once sweetly bitter smell of coffee that filled the office was long gone, replaced by the thick metallic scent of blood spilled from Professor Antorelli. Only now did Sofia realize she could smell it.
“Sofia Sub-Priest!”
“Ah, um… yes?”
As she felt a firm hand on her shoulder, a profound smell of blood penetrated her senses, and the sensations that had been blocked began to return.
The sight of a blood-splattered desk came into view, she could hear Professor Underwood calling her name, and she tasted a bitter sensation on her tongue…
What she noticed next was that her hands were trembling. With a confused expression, Sofia tightly grasped her own hands.
Her hands were cold. When she brought one to her cheek, she felt a hot flush. Sofia realized that her head was spinning.
“Sofia Sub-Priest. Get a hold of yourself.”
“…Professor.”
“Yes. I’m right here. So…”
“Professor Underwood…”
With her voice trembling, Professor Underwood looked down at her in surprise.
“Why did the Head Priest suddenly cough up blood…?”
The trembling voice was compounded by the glistening tears pooling in Sofia’s eyes.
The tears gathered at the corners of her eyes distorted and sparkled painfully, catching Professor Underwood’s attention.
“I… I don’t know… The Head Priest has been a bit unwell, but he’s never coughed up blood like this…”
“…Sofia Sub-Priest.”
“I—I also… sniff! I’m not sure…”
“Sub-Priest!”
Professor Underwood shouted sharply. The volume was much greater than his usual demeanor, and Sofia widened her eyes in shock.
To her unexpected surprise, Professor Underwood exhaled a deep sigh.
“Hah… Sub-Priest. I’ll handle things here, so go after Professor Antorelli.”
At Underwood’s feet, blood and bits of flesh that Professor Antorelli had expelled were already soaking the floor. Sofia’s eyes shook violently at the sight.
“B—but…”
“Sofia Sub-Priest. Leave this to me and go.”
A serious emotion resided in Professor Underwood’s gaze.
His eyes, which usually held a hint of mischief, now betrayed a sense of determination that compelled Sofia to nod in resignation.
“Then… please take care of it…!”
“Go on. It’s too worrying to leave Professor Antorelli alone.”
“Yes…!”
Sofia hurried toward the door through which Professor Antorelli had rushed out.
Just before she exited the office, she glanced back at Professor Underwood one last time, meeting his concerned gaze as he readied his magic wand.
“Thank you, Professor Underwood…!”
“Just go.”
With that said, Sofia ran, leaving behind all her worries and regrets, following the trail of blood.
Perhaps due to Professor Antorelli’s hasty departure, blood dripped onto the corridor floor like a grim trail. Following it, Sofia felt her heart grow heavy once more.
‘If he had been feeling this unwell…’
If he had been in such serious pain, he should have told her in advance. Instead of suffering alone, he could have confided in her.
Then, even in such a bewildering situation, they could have responded more calmly.
Thinking back on it, it seemed that his behavior had been different than usual for a while now. Unlike his norm, he had taken a defensive attitude, the frequency of his coughs had noticeably increased, and he sometimes locked himself in the professor’s office’s pantry, leaving the water running for a long time…
– I was… simply afraid.
Suddenly, their past conversations resurfaced in her mind.
– …What were you afraid of?
– The fear of the unfamiliar… the fear of everything that I’m experiencing for the first time…
Fear of the unfamiliar, of all those first experiences.
At that time, she had thought that Professor Antorelli was simply expressing the emotional scars he had earned during the Great War.
But now, thinking back, it was different.
What could a robust adult man, nearing thirty and a veteran of the Great War, experience for the first time?
A heartbreaking betrayal? The death of a cherished friend? Or…
‘Death…’
Not the statistical death of being shot or struck by shrapnel in a battlefield where bullets fly in every direction, but the certain and slow approach of death from an unknown illness, its time uncertain.
For instance, the experience of accepting one’s fate, knowing that a sudden illness would eat away at their body, realizing they were close to the end. Isn’t that something no one could truly prepare for?
Professor Antorelli had mentioned he needed to check the progress of his shoulder regularly and went out every weekend for treatments.
It must be true that he went to the hospital. But did he only go for treatment of his shoulder?
Many other memories flitted to the surface.
– Head Priest? Are you okay?
– …Sofia Sub-Priest, are you okay?
During the rainy season when he had isolated himself in the staff dormitory for two weeks without holding any classes.
In response to a simple inquiry about his well-being, Professor Antorelli had avoided a direct answer, turning the question back to her.
Moreover, just recently at the Occult Research Club’s summer break activities, a comment he made while conversing all night with the dwarf Loreak.
– Sofia Sub-Priest.
– Yes?
– Thank you. Always.
Gratitude. Always.
At that moment, she had thought he was expressing thanks for her concern about overexertion, but looking back now, his words seemed deeply significant.
‘No, no… That can’t be true…!’
Sofia shook her head vigorously, trying to dispel the increasingly chaotic and ominous thoughts that kept surfacing.
“Hah…! Hah…!”
How long had she been running through the hall, gasping? Up ahead, she caught sight of the entrance to the restroom with the trail of blood leading to it. Sofia hurried toward it.
“Cough! Cough!”
She heard Professor Antorelli’s cough from within. Unable to enter the men’s restroom, she was forced to lean against the wall next to it.
To an outsider, it must have seemed bizarre, but fortunately, very few people were around during the break.
“Cough…! Hah…”
Sofia felt a feeble relief at the sound of Professor Antorelli coughing in the restroom rather than being silent.
If she hadn’t heard his cough, she might have assumed he had collapsed and would have rushed into the men’s restroom without hesitation.
“Head Priest…”
Sofia clutched the rosary around her neck tightly. Normally, gripping the rosary would soothe her heart, but today, she couldn’t calm down.
With her eyes tightly closed, she began to pray.
“Lord, grant me strength… Remove the anxiety and worry from my heart, and if I am to face trials that I must navigate, grant me the joy and courage to do so…”
As Sofia recited her prayer in an effort to quell her anxious heart…
“…not alive…”
She stopped praying, straining to catch the faintly heard voice of Professor Antorelli.
It seemed he had left the water running robustly at the sink, drowning out his voice. Sofia focused all her attention inward toward the restroom.
“Oh, no…”
No, what could it be that wasn’t?
Sofia’s anxious imaginings took root within her, branching out and embedding themselves in her heart.
“I am not dead…”
And then, with his next words…
Sofia felt her strength fade, and she staggered.
– Thud.
“Ah, ah…”
A foolish sound escaped Sofia’s lips as she stared blankly at the restroom entrance.
In the end, though she could not see Professor Antorelli inside,
“I don’t want to die…!”
The terrible words he shouted, though sporadic, were unmistakably conveyed to her as a connected meaning.
At this point, Sofia could no longer deny the ominous imaginings she had entertained during her frantic run here.
‘The Head Priest…’
She didn’t know the name of his illness, but he had fallen gravely ill, endangering his life, and because of it, he might be teetering on the edge of death.
Lucio Antorelli, the first-year theology professor at Caldera Imperial Academy and the Head Priest of the Seminary Chapel.
“The Head Priest…”
That he was slowly sinking.
Like a ship going down, slipping beneath the deep, cold surface.
Like heavy soil and sand settling in a swift river, Professor Antorelli was also being filtered from the current of life.
And that he… Lucio Antorelli…
“Hah…!”
Since that first day of the semester when he met Sofia Sub-Priest at the academy chapel, half a year had passed until now.
He had sent countless signals.
And now, Sofia realized…
“Why, why…”
There was no escaping the truth.
Sofia tightly shut her eyes. Even as her sight blurred from the hot tears, all she could think about was releasing those tears properly.
The reason her vision was clouded by tears was so she wouldn’t be able to see Professor Antorelli’s face clearly.
No matter how sad she felt, she didn’t want to be seen crying in front of Professor Antorelli… but this was the best she could do at the moment.
‘From now on, I will not let go…’
She would watch over him until the end.
Though she may have missed the signals until now, she would pretend to be bold and strive to capture his image for as long as possible.
Resolutely, Sofia straightened her posture. She rubbed her eyes with her sleeve.
Once she wiped away some of the tears, the timing turned out to be just right as the sound of water stopped flowing. Professor Antorelli seemed to be about to come out.
– Thud. Thud.
Then finally, Professor Antorelli revealed himself. Tears suddenly welled uncontrollably in Sofia’s eyes.
“Head Priest.”
“…Sofia Sub-Priest?”
Sofia stepped closer to him, and tears surged anew.
“I heard everything…”
“…What?”
Looking at Sofia, Professor Antorelli appeared, for some reason, to be startled.
Sofia felt a deeper sadness, thinking he was trying to act as though nothing were wrong. Ultimately, she tightly embraced Professor Antorelli and burst into tears.
“Uwah… Head Priest…!”
“…?”
Professor Antorelli maintained a look of surprise, as though he were caught off guard.
At least, that was how it appeared to her.
“Uaaaah—!”
She became even more sorrowful and cried out uncontrollably.
Holding the stiffened body of Professor Antorelli tightly.
