43. The Truth Revealed (3)
“Did the negotiation go well?”
“… Judah.”
The coldly hugged Elijah called me with a cold voice.
‘… No way.’
The expression looking up while being hugged is also stiff.
An expressionless face that looks angry.
I strained my body.
Within, her red lips moved.
“Have you been with a girl?”
“… Yes?”
“I think it smells like a woman.”
She sniffed my chest and neck area.
It’s like a sniffing cat.
‘I wondered if I found out, but I guess I didn’t….’
But it’s not much different.
Because there was a person related to that fact.
‘But what does it smell like…. I don’t know.’
I hurriedly shook my head.
I feel guilty for lying, but I can’t help it now.
“How could that be?”
“Hmm….”
After twisting her lips crookedly, she ended up being held in my arms.
“Okay. Hug me.”
I obediently hugged her shoulders.
Elijah then rubbed his head against me for a while.
The way he does that with a haughty expression is like a cat burying his own scent.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if I got real ears and a tail like this.’
After a while, the answer came back.
“Negotiations broke down. The emperor asked for a sun statue.”
A statue of the sun held up.
This is the item I found during the last exam.
If you use it, you can make any wish come true.
The condition is to use it together with the ‘Falled Star Fragment’ sealed in the underground catacombs.
‘I certainly remember using it, but I can’t remember what I wished for.’
“I refused, and even the emperor said he couldn’t accept it.”
“What are you going to do with the sun statue?”
“Okay. I don’t know that At least it’s certain that you can’t believe it.”
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Come to think of it, even before being possessed, I stole the imperial information and found out the location of the sun statue.
In other words, the emperor was aiming for the sun statue in the past.
‘… What is the emperor going to do with it?’
Because I took it away, the Emperor’s purpose is unknown.
“We will go to war again.”
“Are you worried?”
“I know she is strong, but she has to be.”
Elijah smiled brightly as if he was in a good mood.
“It’s okay. This war will end soon.”
It was a head-on fight against the Empire, but Elijah wasn’t nervous at all.
I am not conceited.
She is strong enough to do so.
That made me even more suspicious.
The emperor must have realized the power of Elijah while watching the civil war in the Bebel family.
Nevertheless, Elijah was hostile.
Is she confident?
‘Emperor isn’t easy going either, but he probably won’t be able to handle Elijah.’
Or are you expecting me to do something for you?
‘That’s why…. It’s such an outrageous wish.’
“Judas.”
“Yes. Miss.”
“… ….”
I called and didn’t say anything.
I glanced down at her.
For some reason, her face is red.
Looking at me with trembling eyes, he glanced away and asked.
“… Didn’t you want to see me?”
“… ….”
“I wanted to see you.”
It’s only a few hours.
Because of the private meeting with the emperor, the time I was away for a while.
I usually stay away for a similar amount of time when training.
However, it is also true that voluntarily yielding and being dragged along for work are different.
Elijah looked at me expectantly.
‘It’s against the law to be cute like this without warning….’
I hugged her and hugged her.
“Of course I missed it.”
“hehehe….”
It’s true that I missed her too, even though it’s only for a few hours.
To the extent that I think it’s the right thing to do.
It’s not just today.
Even when I’m away from training, I’m full of thoughts of wanting to go see Elijah after it’s over.
‘… Today was a little less because of the surprising news.’
Anyway, is it really the right decision to keep hiding that fact from Elijah?
I’d rather tell you first….
“Judas.”
Elijah said cautiously.
“The other day, I asked where you were before going to your parents’ house.”
“Yes. I remember.”
“I’m going to answer that, but there’s a place I want you to go with me.”
Her attitude was quite serious.
I don’t know what to say, but I nodded her head.
“You can go anywhere.”
*
The place she took me was a town called Gethsemane.
This is the terminal station of the train we passed through during the last exam.
At that time, I almost remembered coming to this place.
‘Something still…. It’s a bit strange. I’m not sure.’
I didn’t take the train like that day.
I arrived at once with Elijah’s teleport.
I walked from Gethsemane.
Elijah said, pulling me by the hand.
“Before I went to my parents’ house, I lived in hiding with her mother.”
“Hiding?”
“Yes. Narcissus tried to get me. Was it to kill, or to educate and subjugate? I thought it was the former, but when I arrived at my hometown, it was the latter.”
“… ….”
“Anyway, before that, I was always with her mom. We lived in the woods near a small village.”
“Isn’t it dangerous if it’s a forest? There will be wild animals.”
“It was relatively peaceful around there. The only wild animals were hares and squirrels. Besides, people from nearby villages often came to help. I was born in that village too.”
“It was a friendly town.”
“… ….”
At my answer, Elijah shut her mouth.
It’s a rather awkward silence.
Did something happen with that village?
“… Huh. It was a very friendly place. I’m always hiding behind my mother, so I don’t remember very well.”
Little little Elijah hiding behind her mother….
‘… It’s so cute.’
I don’t know why, but when I was very young, I was shy and that could be the case.
Anyway, being cute is important.
It’s to the point of regret not being able to see it in person.
“I was doing well there. Probably, other than now, it was the only time I was human.”
We arrived at a garden before we knew it.
Elijah continued to lead me.
She says as she climbs the gentle hill.
“But nothing was forever. One day, it was a rainy night. Her mom said she had somewhere to go. She’ll be back soon, so be nice to her. Then, after a while, someone knocks on the door. She went out thinking it was her mother, but she wasn’t. He was a knight of the Bebel family.”
“… ….”
“Narsisi found me. My mom didn’t come back that day, and I was taken to my family home…. At that time, it rained a lot.”
As for Elijah, on a rainy day, she holds me more deeply.
She was like that for 5 years.
I sleep every day these days, but a few weeks ago it wasn’t every day.
We often slept together, sometimes separately.
But I never missed a rainy day.
Crawled into my futon every day.
“Balak wasn’t there at the time, and it wasn’t until long after he was brought to the family that Narcissus killed my mother through the Assassin’s Guild…. Until then, I believed that her mother would come to visit someday?”
A voice asking innocently, as if asking if it sounded like an idiot.
I couldn’t bear to say anything.
“This area is where my mother died. And in this garden….”
If you climb a gentle hill, you will come to the middle of a low hill.
There was a tomb there.
It was hard to see because it was covered by the accumulated grass and leaves, but it was certain that it was a tombstone.
“In this garden, my mother is sleeping.”
“… ….”
The weak side of Elijah that I was aware of five years ago.
My mother was always at the center of it.
Because every time I slept, I muttered, “Mom, Mom.”
Now Elijah is about to reveal to me the most precious and weakest part of herself.
She must mean that she trusts and relies on me.
‘… Is it right for her to keep hiding it?’
That I am actually Elijah’s assassin.
I keep worrying about you.
I know I don’t have to say it.
Objectively true.
However, human relationships do not always work objectively and rationally.
If that were the case, we wouldn’t have held hands like this.
‘Since nothing happened, I’d rather just say it plainly….’
Elijah took her hand and strode toward her tombstone.
She said as she cleared the blades of grass from her tombstone.
“This is my mother. Judah.”
The dry leaves fall, revealing the name written on the tombstone.
‘… Uh?’
I know that name.
My body froze in place.
‘No way, what Yuridike was trying to tell you earlier….’
It overlaps with the document I saw in the Assassin’s Guild.
‘First Quest Target…. Maria….’
[Maria. Sleep here in peace.]
‘And the mission, success handling….’
Elijah stroked her tombstone affectionately.
“It’s been a while. Mom.”
“… ….”
Elijah said something to the tombstone.
How have you been?
How was she herself?
She killed Balak, and Narcissus died.
What happened to the Bevel family and other stories like that?
It all sounds distant and faint.
My heart beats like crazy.
Cold sweat runs down her body.
The turbulent head is completely confused.
Only a few clues pricked my nerves.
The Empire and the Moonsin Church.
Assassin. Training.
Elijah. And Maria.
“And the man brought here….”
Elijah looked up at me.
I looked down at her as she stood still.
It’s scary to watch.
More than scary, just awful.
This situation itself.
But Elijah seems to have interpreted my tension as a different sign.
Says with a shy smile.
“Judas. Do you remember you asked me once? What do you think of you?”
I answered while suppressing my trembling breathing.
“… I remember. Yes.”
“I answered mine too.”
She smiles mischievously.
I laughed at him too.
I don’t know. Did you laugh properly?
“And you wondered a few days ago too, right? If not the metaphor of a pet, you are what I am.”
“… Yes. It was.”
This was when Elijah suddenly fed me food.
Of course I remember.
Elijah seemed about to give her answer now.
Slightly approaching me.
I hold her by the neck and make eye contact with her.
I held her waist with her trembling hands.
Red lips.
Move slowly.
Of course, at this point.
“You are my world, my universe, the only color left to me now, and my only weakness that I acknowledged.”
“… ….”
“From now on, please remain as my weakness.”
A moment of silence.
A gloomy afternoon.
The middle of the mountain is a bit dark.
The red eyes shining under me are like the only sun here.
It shines brightly when it is filled with thrilling emotions.
I don’t know what her eyes look like when I look at her like that.
She seemed to be saying something, but she buried her face in my chest.
Perhaps she changed her words, but with a slight stutter, she said in a trembling voice.
“I like you very much. Judah.”
I summarized the clear facts that linger in my head in sentences.
I am an assassin raised to kill Elijah.
As part of his training, he was brought up in the Assassin’s Guild.
On the first mission, Elijah’s mother, Mary, was killed.
And then Elijah came to like me.
Very, very much.
A more horrifying fact.
Me too, that’s the point.
“… ….”
I couldn’t bear to answer her confession straight away.
What should I say?
In a short moment, numerous answers came to my mind and then subsided.
As the answer was delayed, Elijah hugged me tighter.
She was waiting for my answer.
“… ….”
A garden in Gethsemane.
In front of Mary’s tomb, I checked Elijah’s heart.
I also confirmed the truth about her that she didn’t want to know, and I answered her.
“I….”
