Chapter 25

“Hehehe. Louis, it’s good to see your face…”

“Are you okay, Anne? Your body feels hot. Why are you in so much pain?”

“Mmm, just a cold.”

*

025

The One Who Turned Away (Part 1)

*

Reading a book in this kind of space is a pain. The light is too bright, hurting my eyes, and the book is so difficult that with my shallow knowledge, I have to rack my brain just to decipher it.

Especially if it’s a notoriously difficult and obscure Scripture manuscript. It’s no wonder my head throbs after reading it.

But now, as soon as I closed the book, I shot up from my seat. The headache was still there, but unlike yesterday, I wasn’t swaying or staggering.

“Are you okay?”

“Ouch… Louis, it hurts.”

“Ah, sorry.”

Anne, with her steel-like body, let out a faint moan at the slightest touch. For some reason, even in this space, her wounds didn’t seem to be healing.

Anne, perhaps prepared for this, rummaged through the nursing tools for something I hadn’t used before. From the corner, a small ointment jar was pulled out.

“Don’t worry. I have this.”

I could tell at a glance what it was. Probably some ointment good for burns or something.

When Anne opened the jar, the pungent, bitter smell of medicinal herbs wafted out. As I stared, Anne blushed slightly and spoke awkwardly.

“Louis. Can you turn your head for a moment?”

“Ah.”

The candle wax must have dripped into her clothes. I quickly turned my head.

Is it a way of trust to stay together in this barred space without going to another room? In this space without any cover, the soft sound of clothes being removed reached my ears.

Of course, she wasn’t completely naked, but… whatever. It’s not like I was going to peek.

I walked to the corner with my head stiffly fixed in place. Just in case, I’ll stay like this until it’s over.

But soon, a voice called out to me.

“Louis?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Sorry… can you help me a little?”

I cautiously turned my head, wary of any mishaps. Thankfully, Anne was properly dressed.

Then what was that sound of clothes being removed earlier? Trying not to dwell on it, I approached Anne.

“Why?”

“My back… I can’t reach it.”

Trying to keep a straight face so Anne wouldn’t feel embarrassed, I took the ointment and went behind her. Anne hesitated for a moment before lifting her clothes.

Her white skin was revealed, and I flinched slightly, but those kinds of thoughts quickly disappeared.

“What’s this…?”

“Huh?”

Burns reddened her skin along the candle wax stains. And more than that, countless scars spread across her body like spiderwebs.

It was as if shattered pieces of porcelain had been forcibly glued back together.

“What are you talking about?”

Anne didn’t seem to realize what had shocked me. I clenched my teeth and first spread the ointment on her discolored skin with my fingers.

Every time our skin touched, I felt her slight tremors. The ointment stung a bit, but the burn marks were visibly calming down.

And the faint scars that were slowly forming on her fingerprints…

These aren’t trivial wounds. If they were, there wouldn’t be scars. This is…

Deep, vicious wounds that even the Religious Order’s potent medicine, which accompanies pain but has unbelievable efficacy, couldn’t completely erase.

Dozens, hundreds, countless lines of them.

“Louis?”

As if entranced, my hand traced her back and reached her neck. As if to strangle her, my rough hand, large enough to grip her slender neck, wrapped around her.

Anne just stood there, puzzled. She knew I couldn’t harm her, and even if I had the strength, she trusted I wouldn’t.

Like someone with an obsessive disorder, I carefully and persistently traced Anne’s neck.

“That tickles… what are you doing?”

There were scars on her neck too.

No, they weren’t just scars. They were more like cut lines. As if her neck had been severed and reattached.

Some scars were even horizontal, starting from the crown of her head, down her neck, back, buttocks, and probably further.

One was a scar from decapitation, another from dismemberment. Severing, piercing, disassembling, rupturing, burning, suffocating. Like a seasoned torturer, I could read the memories of pain etched into her body.

Clearly, these were wounds far more severe and ancient than any torture I had endured.

“Scars.”

“Ah.”

But Anne still dismissed it casually, as if it were nothing.

“I’m an Inquisition Judge.”

As if that explained everything. Or like everything else, it was just ‘unavoidable.’

“Louis, you still don’t know much about heretics or the darkness, do you? It must have sounded like nonsense to you.”

I had already applied the ointment. Anne lightly adjusted her clothes and turned to look at me.

Her calm face, as always, seemed almost enlightened.

“Mmm. I’ll show you next time.”

“Show me?”

“I told you. The process of purging the darkness involves meeting other heretics.”

Normally, I would have been angry, insisting I wasn’t tainted by darkness, but now I didn’t even think of that. Maybe because I had seen something so shocking.

Inquisitors are notorious for their bloody reputation, but there’s also a strong prejudice that they just label ordinary, powerless people as heretics and kill them.

But really? If that were the case, how do you explain the countless scars on Anne’s body? Faint enough to miss if you didn’t look closely, but still impossible to erase.

I don’t know how I can distinguish this, but it was glaring. The cuts and piercings weren’t from human weapons.

Not from swords or spears, but from being bitten by beasts or pierced by giant insect stingers.

“Ah. But don’t be scared. Here, heretics can’t use their powers.”

“…”

Anne seemed to mistake my stiff expression for fear. We thought we understood each other’s hearts, but sometimes our thoughts didn’t align like before.

Unlike when we were children growing up together, we had now become adults in different places.

Belatedly, I felt like I had glimpsed a bit of the bloody path Anne had walked as an Inquisition Judge.

“Even if those seeds of evil reach out to you, they’ll eventually have to be cut off. Unless you want to lose your wrist.”

This was a side of Anne I hadn’t known—no, a side that didn’t exist before.

She expressed her hostility without hesitation in a low voice. Her straightforwardness carried a thick scent of blood and a deep, bitter hatred for heretics.

It was like the hatred for a sworn enemy combined with the disgust for a cockroach. An emotion so intense it was hard to believe it came from the innocent child I knew.

But if she hates heretics so much…

“Then, why me?”

“Huh?”

Anne’s madness, which I had always found repulsive, now felt terrifying in a different way. How could she still maintain such a gentle, affectionate demeanor?

“Why am I different?”

Because I don’t have the fangs of a beast or the sting of an insect? I didn’t think you’d discriminate for such a reason.

If I had to guess…

“What are you talking about? You’re Louis.”

An immeasurable love, so vast it made me feel insignificant, already taken by someone else.

“I could never harm Louis.”

It was fundamentally rooted in the same realm as faith.

But worshiping a perfect, noble being in a distant, unreachable space is different from revering an imperfect, humble being right beside you. The purity and weight are entirely different.

Wouldn’t being closer make the love deeper? Not at all. The closer you are, the more flaws you see, and the easier it is to clash and fight.

Ideals are unattainable, which is why they’re ideals. Reality can’t be perfect, which is why it’s reality.

Thus, while ideal faith in an ideal being can exist, ideal love for a real being cannot.

“Whether you’re human or not. Even if you’re truly a heretic…”

Humans inevitably feel fear in the face of the incomprehensible.

“As long as you’re still you.”