“Father. Father. Father!”
“Ah.”
Suddenly, my eyes opened.
Alexander looked around and met the glare of the sulking nun, tilting his head slightly in confusion.
Had I originally been in a church?
I felt something was off.
“You’ve been zoning out since earlier. Did you not sleep well last night?”
“Yes. My head hurts a bit.”
“Did you know, Father? The rumors are already spreading. They say you defied the Papal Office in the Council?”
“That’s not true…”
What a tiresome sound.
Alexander sighed again, pressing his throbbing head.
He had indeed done something foolish.
Originally, the emergency meeting was supposed to last three days.
But upon hearing his name frequently mentioned during the meeting, Alexander walked out of the Papal Office and returned to his place.
He was familiar with taking on cumbersome work and being scolded for failing to execute it properly.
But why couldn’t I endure it and acted rudely?
He couldn’t understand himself.
It felt as if he were listening to someone else’s story.
“So what happened? Did you receive orders to return to the Papal Office?”
“No. My activity fees increased.”
“Yes…?”
The effects of what could be called insubordination were astounding.
Taking control of an unstable hero while searching for the Holy Maiden without any evidence, and openly expressing his grievances as a temporary teacher of St. Sophia, he expected severe punishment.
Instead, the Papal Office, flustered by the situation, raised Alexander’s activity expenses.
And it seemed they had whispered something to the bishop as well, as the attitude of the priests in charge of the church, who had looked down on Alexander until now, had changed drastically.
He felt a sense of emptiness over why he had endured for so long when the circumstances had improved so much.
“That’s really great. You always work without a moment’s rest, and when you finally have a rare break, you have no money and just hobble down the street.”
“Is that so…?”
So I looked that pitiful.
Alexander smiled slightly and stood up to look out the window.
It was a sunny morning.
He was puzzled that it hadn’t been dusk just a moment ago, but he decided not to dwell on it.
It had become common for him to experience such discontinuities in memory lately.
‘Everything is better now. Everything is really good but…’
An inexplicable feeling of anxiety crept in.
It felt like he was forgetting something.
But he couldn’t explain the basis for it.
He just felt a sense of heaviness in his chest for no reason.
“Oh. Speaking of which, Julia came by on Sunday.”
“Julia? Don’t bring that name up in front of me. I don’t want to hear it.”
“…?”
The moment Julia’s name was mentioned, Alexander frowned.
Julia.
It was a disgusting name.
He didn’t want to hear the name of that selfish, annoying, and arrogant woman.
“Oh? It seems you had a fight with Julia?”
“It wasn’t just a fight. I’ve severed ties with her. I won’t see her again.”
He would no longer be entangled with Julia.
He felt resentful of his past self for having gotten close to her.
“Ha.”
Meanwhile, a dragon watching the whole scene from afar said,
“Success.”
“Sigh…”
Julia let out a sigh of relief.
Alexander’s memories had been restructured.
Perfectly, without any awareness of the blank spaces in his memory.
From now on, Alexander would not doubt Julia as the Holy Maiden.
All doubt had been erased from his mind.
In the beginning, Julia had become an unprecedented villain in Alexander’s mind, so they were unlikely to meet again.
The miracle had been successful.
“What if it had failed? I was really worried. I’m so glad it worked out.”
It wasn’t merely worry.
Since the restructuring of memories couldn’t be verified visually, he was left with no choice but to take a gamble.
Casting the unconscious Alexander into his room, he checked whether the properly manipulated memories had taken root.
If it had failed, that would have been the end.
Julia, Tia, the duke, and the leopard would all be hunted down by the world.
But the miracle succeeded.
Flawlessly perfect.
It was almost eerily perfect.
“Now that the tension’s lifted, I’m getting hungry. I’ll go out and grab a bite.”
“Huh? We should eat together. Why?”
“I’m feeling queasy and don’t want greasy food.”
“I’ll make you a salad.”
As Leo was about to leave the room, he was stopped by a delicate hand.
Julia was stubbornly following him.
Leo swallowed hard and forcibly shook that hand off.
“Actually, I’ve got plans with someone else.”
“Plans? With who?”
“Someone.”
“Seeing you leave in women’s clothing, I guess the person who knows you’re a girl is… Sailor. Am I right?”
“…”
A short silence fell.
“Mommy!”
“Oh, Tia. It’s almost time to go to school. Did you wash up?”
“Mmm. I’m hungry…”
“Okay. I’ll make you breakfast soon, so wash your hair first.”
“You caught me not having washed…”
In the midst of Tia barging in, Julia had to let go of Leo.
Taking advantage of the gap, Leo hurriedly put on his coat and dashed out of the mansion.
He had escaped in such a hurry that he was only wearing pajamas beneath a long coat.
Leo tightened his coat to ensure his pajamas weren’t visible and shuffled away.
Before long, someone caught up to him.
“I heard. Julia performed a miracle.”
“Yeah. This time it’s the real deal…”
It was Sailor.
Julia’s deduction had been accurate.
“I’ve always felt that Ariel’s divine power was immense. It felt like an inexhaustible well. Even with a small container, it never seemed to run dry…. But this time, it’s like a dam has burst, and the divine power is flooding out without showing any signs of depletion.”
He had never given much thought to the magnitude of Julia’s divine power.
Infinite divine power was surely something remarkable.
After all, it was the driving force that allowed Julia to save and heal countless people until she collapsed from exhaustion.
But he thought that was about it.
No matter how close divine power was to infinity, there were limits to how much one person could run around.
However, this time, the miracle Julia had displayed was different.
It was not merely a healing miracle but an unprecedented achievement of altering someone else’s memories.
It was close to reality manipulation, an utterly nonsensical feat.
Even after using that, Julia’s divine power remained intact.
Only then did he begin to sense the amount of Julia’s divine power.
And as he started to understand, he soon felt a growing fear.
“When Ariel was resurrected, I naturally assumed she must have made a contract with an evil god to draw on its power. But thinking about it again, that seemed strange. If Ariel had said both good and evil gods were equally disgusting, there’s no way she would ally with an evil god.”
“So then, that power isn’t from the evil god…”
“Right. It was the Holy Maiden’s power.”
That incomprehensible power that had overwhelmed the dragon.
It was the power that Ariel had poured out from her own divine energy.
The divine energy that escaped due to her unfamiliarity with her body had spread out in the form of evil energy.
If that was the extent of her inexperienced usage, then what if Ariel had deftly overpowered her adversaries and become fully accustomed to her body, handling her immense divine power perfectly?
At that point, Ariel would have been unstoppable.
A being stronger than the dragon slayers of old would have been born.
Thinking of that sent a chill down his spine.
‘I think I understand what the seed of destruction means.’
The seed of destruction that the oracle spoke of.
It certainly referred to Tia.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Tia would bring about the end of the world.
What if Tia were born, and the awakened Julia was the very end itself?
“Are you saying Julia is in danger? Is that what you want to convey?”
“That’s right. It’s dangerous.”
Leo squeezed his eyes shut in fright.
If Julia learned to handle that endless divine power entirely and could use miracles to alter reality, then if she awakened to that ability, she would become nearly omnipotent.
People would no longer dare to look directly at Julia.
They would gaze up at her in awe and fear.
And people reject the incomprehensible.
Julia would face countless enemies, including the Church, and a great war would break out to eradicate her.
No matter who won, the outcome wouldn’t matter much.
A result that could only be called the end of the world would undoubtedly come.
“So that’s why you came to find me. To have me develop a means to seal the immortal Holy Maiden if necessary…”
“Huh? What do you mean by that?”
Leo’s expression turned discontent.
Sailor could do nothing but be bewildered.
If not that, what other reason could there be for seeking him out?
“You said Julia is in danger.”
“You just said that.”
“So, that means Julia is in peril.”
“Ah…”
What Leo had said and what Sailor understood were completely different.
Sailor let out a sigh as he finally realized the subtle difference.
“I will stand by Julia’s side no matter what. World peace? Justice? Forget it. It doesn’t mean anything if Julia is unhappy. I will only work for Julia’s return. I’ll bring her back before she awakens and comes into conflict with the world. We need to hurry, Sailor.”
“…”
Leo had changed a lot.
He had become willing to sacrifice the world for one woman.
He no longer seemed like a hero.
“Yes. Let’s hurry,”
But oddly enough, Sailor found that aspect of Leo even more appealing.
With a faint smile, Sailor followed closely beside Leo.
Time was short, and there was much to do.
