Chapter 5

“······Don’t play with her anymore.”

“That person, no. She’s not my daughter. And this is also for your sake.”

*

005

The Bird in the Cage (Part 2)

*

When I slightly opened my eyes, I felt the white light shining through my eyelids and thought for a moment.

‘Is this heaven?’

Have I died and come to the afterlife?

But soon, the white light turned into sacred flames and began to burn my senses. Feeling as if I had stared directly at the midday sun, I screamed and opened my eyes.

A shadow blocked the light. In the center of the shadow, a pair of small blue eyes were glowing.

“Are you awake, Louis?”

Anne, bending over, was looking down at me. As expected, the gaps between the silver bars were wide enough for a person to pass through, and she had pushed her slender upper body into the prison.

She had voluntarily left the protection of the sacred barrier. If I reached out, I might finally achieve my goal this time. Whether it was grabbing her collar or harming her, anything.

But the more I looked at her face, the more I felt a clear certainty that ‘I can’t do it.’ No matter how much I hated and despised her. Absolutely not.

My outstretched hand dropped without grabbing anything. Misunderstanding the meaning of my action, Anne grabbed my falling hand and gently pulled me up.

After fainting twice and experiencing extreme pain twice, my body no longer had the strength to push her away.

“I understand it’s confusing. But, can you calm down a bit? You’ll soon understand everything.”

“······Where am I?”

Once the energy to be angry disappeared, my mind strangely calmed down. As if I were not myself, my thoughts became cold and rational to an unfamiliar degree.

Simply getting angry and shouting won’t change this situation. It’s impossible to persuade a blind fanatic with logic, so it’s best to grasp the current situation now.

Even if Anne had become a fanatic in my absence, her affection for me was still there······. It even seemed to have deepened as much as the longing for the time we were apart.

“Finally, I can introduce you. This is the Reformatory.”

“Reformatory.”

I repeated the word she casually uttered. I had never even heard of it in rumors.

Just the name alone made me feel uncomfortable and uneasy.

“Yes. It’s a place to bring back children who have gone astray to His embrace.”

It wasn’t hard to understand the meaning of the metaphor. But.

“I understand. But, why am I······here?”

Anne’s expression, slightly turned away, was shadowed, but it was clear to me. Confusion.

Why are you making that face?

“I’m not a heretic.”

“······.”

“Let me out of here. I haven’t done anything wrong. I can prove it! I don’t know what misunderstanding there was······!”

“Louis.”

Her voice, still soft and gentle, made my mouth close as if under a spell.

“Yefrinse, our hometown. In spring, the scent of roses covered the whole village, and in summer, the tributary of the Nern River flowed right in front of our house to cool us down······.”

Even with my eyes closed, the scenery is vivid. The red petals, yellow roofs, and blue river of the village.

The place where Anne and I grew up and promised to spend our lives together.

“······That place has already been ‘purified.'”

Thud. The calm yet cruel words shattered the scenery in my mind.

My past, present, and future were all there. It would be a lie if I said I hadn’t occasionally fantasized about it. If Anne hadn’t left for the city, if I had stayed in the village and held the ceremony······.

Life in a small countryside wouldn’t have been as luxurious or dazzling as in the city. We would have prepared for the journey together, walked the monotonous and peaceful paths, and continued the unchanging daily life.

Some might point fingers and call it shabby, some might wish for a worthless life, but that life was all I wanted.

“······Why?”

“Heretical acts, worship of evil gods, human sacrifice.”

With a clear voice, she listed the charges, each one enough to destroy three generations.

It was ridiculous. It was nonsense, slander. Those simple villagers?

“That’s impossible······.”

“Of course, I think there’s a separate mastermind. Looking at the state of the people, they were probably forced to participate rather than willingly······.”

Her face showed genuine pity and sorrow, and seeing that, my teeth clenched.

“Liar······.”

“Louis. I understand it’s a shocking story······.”

“Don’t lie-!”

At my loud shout, Anne’s disgusting mouth closed.

Heretics? Sacrificed humans? That’s impossible. No matter how often I left the village, I couldn’t have missed something that big!

Was it anger, or fear? My body trembled with emotions I couldn’t understand. Before I knew it, Anne had pulled her body out of the bars.

Unable to grab the bars, I slammed the floor and shouted at Anne.

“Who, who did it? Uncle Gil? Susan? Adam? There’s no one in our village who would do such a horrible thing!”

“We- no, I.”

Just then, a scene flashed through my mind.

It was Anne, who had been chasing my fiancée with an eerie obsession. Even in this situation, she acted kindly, but the only time she had been violent towards me.

“I suspect your fiancée is the mastermind behind all this.”

The absurd story that the simple villagers had suddenly become terrifying evil god worshippers who offered human sacrifices. In this situation, there were only two possibilities I could think of.

Either I was crazy, or Anne was crazy.

“So······so?”

“Huh?”

If the trembling earlier was anger, this time it was closer to fear. I was afraid of Anne. The absurd possibility I thought of might actually be true.

“Because I······broke the promise?”

Let’s get married when we grow up.

Who knew the weight of the promise we made to each other would be this heavy.

Anne’s mouth closed. Was it because I hit a nerve, or was she lost in thought? The expression on her face was unfamiliar, and this time, I couldn’t read Anne’s thoughts.

I was clearly angry at first, but my voice gradually faded, and before I knew it, I was stammering excuses.

“I had no choice.”

“······.”

“In the countryside, hands are precious, and all my peers were already married. The pressure from those around me grew stronger every day, and I couldn’t be sure you would come back······.”

Childhood friends were like the scent of early spring roses, sweet but slightly sour.

Memories of childhood are beautiful and nostalgic, but they fade because you know you can’t go back. For me, the time with you was the most shining moment, but I couldn’t think you felt the same.

City life, especially the life of a high-ranking person, would be incomparably more splendid than the quiet and boring daily life in the countryside. Childhood bonds could be forgotten easily.

Anne’s mouth opened after a long time had passed.

“Is that what you thought?”

“······.”

“That I did all this······to take you away in some way?”

I knew it was nonsense. I’m not some绝世 beauty or born with a special bloodline.

But if Anne’s feelings for me hadn’t changed, the only plausible reason was this. Even if it was an engagement, the weight of it never lessened. The union of two souls sworn before God.

Not just an ordinary noble, but a figure of the Religious Order who values Ailim’s authority even more, would never disrupt such a sacred ceremony······. Unless it was heresy, an act so heinous that even the strongest measures were justified.

Even though Anne acted calmly, I could see her eyes spinning. A habit when she was flustered.

“What, such nonsense······.”

“Then.”

My chest felt like it was burning. The act of uttering that lie itself was utterly hateful.

“If our village was truly a den of heretics, why did you spare me?”

If, by any chance, Anne’s words were all true.

Shouldn’t I, too, be judged as a heretic? Why was I spared, and why am I having a normal conversation with Anne in this place?

“That’s. To find out your fiancée’s location······.”

“To find her and harm her like the other villagers?”

“She is the leader of the heretics······.”

Anne’s voice lacked confidence as she said this.

Lies, all lies.

“I may not know much about the Religious Order, but I know that’s not the duty of an Inquisition Judge.”

If that were true, I would have woken up in a dark, damp dungeon, not this white, clean space.

Even if it’s a prison, I wouldn’t be greeted by this devilishly beautiful girl but by a torturer no different from a devil.

It’s easy to mistake because of the bloody rumors, but interrogating heretics is not the job of an Inquisition Judge. They are the foremost spear and hammer of the Religious Order. Crushing and destroying the towering fortresses of evil is Anne’s duty.

No matter how dirty or clean, crawling down to the dungeons to extract information from heretics is-

Not the job of Inquisition Judge Anne. It might be Anne’s job, though.

What stands before me is a fanatic blinded by faith, or a girl blinded by love, ready to mercilessly crush everything in her way.

Anne was silent.