Chapter 1
The Child of the Monastery (1)
June 15, Imperial Year 231.
It was the day a baby wrapped in a sack was discovered outside the monastery gates.
—His parents are no longer of this world, so a surname would be meaningless. If you cannot take him in, leave him to live or die. You may throw him away wherever you please.
The name written on the sack was Kaspar.
With jet-black hair and green eyes, the child possessed an air of mystery.
That afternoon, after a brief discussion, the monks decided to take him in.
Their decision was partly based on the calculation that he would eventually make an excellent laborer in this remote corner of the empire, where outsiders appeared perhaps once a month at most.
As the years passed, Kaspar gradually grew. The other children at the monastery called him by various names instead of his own.
—Cursed bastard.
—The illegitimate child of a demon and a whore.
They were nicknames indistinguishable from insults.
But had Kaspar done anything to deserve them?
Was he truly cruel at heart, with two horns and a tail?
No.
Objectively speaking, he was a calm boy with attractive features.
Yet whenever he appeared nearby, the boys hurled stones at him, while the girls screamed and fled into their rooms.
Kaspar was an outcast. Adults and children alike avoided him, and hardly anyone ever approached him.
If one were to ask why, Kaspar had a third nickname.
That nickname contained the reason they despised him so much.
—The one cursed by hellfire.
Kaspar had suffered from a raging fever ever since shortly after he was discovered at the monastery.
Even the physician’s treatments proved useless, so everyone assumed the pitiful child would soon be embraced by the Radiance.
But he survived.
He endured the fever for years.
The looks that had once regarded him as admirable and resilient gradually became tinged with fear.
After all, an ordinary person could not have survived such a fever for even half a year, let alone lived as Kaspar did.
—That isn’t an ordinary fever.
—Most people would die before six months had passed.
—But he’s still perfectly fine. What is he?
—It’s a curse. He must be cursed!
Their fear gave rise to cruelty.
Surrounded by gazes filled with contempt and terror, Kaspar continued living his fever-ravaged life, helping with the monastery’s farm work day after day.
In this sweltering, desolate world, he seemed to possess some mission he had yet to accomplish.
Even if he himself remained unaware of it.
And then that day arrived.
“Hot.”
“…”
Kaspar pressed himself more firmly against the wall.
The chill seeping from the underground stone cooled his burning body.
But only briefly.
The fever soon drove away the stone wall’s chill and consumed his body once more.
It’s so hot I could die.
He doubted he would ever grow accustomed to this fever.
“Mm…”
Hoping to enjoy even a little more of the fleeting cold, he moved to press himself against a fresh section of the wall. Just then, footsteps sounded in the corridor.
Rustle. Rustle. Rustle.
The storeroom door opened with a creak, and a young nun entered.
Lifting her lamp, the nun spotted him and smiled.
“You were awake, Kaspar. Good.”
It was Rachel, the black-haired nun.
A relative newcomer to the monastery, she was responsible for looking after its orphans.
She had apparently come from another region. Perhaps that was why she was one of the few people here who treated him kindly.
“We’ll be receiving some distinguished guests tonight, so don’t fall asleep. Stay awake. They wish to see the children here.”
Rachel spoke as she set down a tray containing bread and soup.
By “distinguished guests,” she meant knights or merchants who paid the monastery to purchase its orphans.
Kaspar shook his head.
“They won’t choose me anyway, Sister Rachel. They want healthy servants.”
“The person coming tonight is different. They wish to see every child. Perhaps they might even know someone who can cure you, Kaspar.”
Kaspar did not respond to the obvious lie.
Even if the guest knew such a physician, there was no reason for them to go through the trouble of buying him.
Perhaps mistaking his listless gaze for fatigue from the day’s grueling farm work, Rachel pulled something gleaming from her robes.
It was the key to the monastery roof.
“If you’re truly sleepy, you can go upstairs and get some fresh air.”
“Is it all right to give that to me? The monks told us not to go onto the roof because we might fall.”
“It’s fine—as long as no one else catches you.”
Sister Rachel smiled and spoke in a whisper.
It was wonderful news. The corners of Kaspar’s mouth rose ever so slightly at the thought of cool wind instead of rough stone walls.
“Hehe. Judging by your reaction, I’m glad I brought it. Wait here for now. I’ll come and get you when our guests arrive. And once you’ve finished eating, wash the dishes thoroughly before returning them.”
Bang!
The door slammed shut with a resounding crash.
Whoooosh—
A cold night wind swept across the roof.
Anyone else would have drawn their clothes tightly around themselves and huddled against the cold, but Kaspar undid his buttons instead, wandering around the roof as he savored the wind to his heart’s content.
“It’s cool.”
The refreshing breeze enveloping his body was incomparable to the damp, oppressive chill of the underground storeroom.
Silently thanking Rachel, Kaspar looked around.
Below the railing, he could see the lights of the mountain village.
Resting his chin on the railing without any particular thought, he saw a boy burst through the door of one house and run away, pursued by his club-wielding father.
Outside another house, a child squatted with several others his age, passing around a stolen bottle of liquor and taking sips from it.
They giggled together, apparently finding the situation immensely amusing.
Kaspar regarded the things he had never possessed with an impassive gaze.
That did not mean he was coldhearted.
He was simply awkward at expressing his emotions, which made him appear taciturn.
—Worldly bonds such as family, friends, and lovers are all transient and meaningless.
—Only by devoting your entirety to the Constellation can you lead a life of worth.
As the doctrine taught, rather than focus on such transient, meaningless things, Kaspar lifted his head and looked toward the sky.
A pale full moon filled his vision.
It seemed unusually large and bright tonight.
Kaspar thought the monastery’s guests had chosen an excellent night to visit.
“Hmm?”
Something unusual caught his eye as he surveyed the village.
A group of people had appeared at its entrance.
There were perhaps a dozen of them in total. He could also see a carriage and several carts.
“They came early.”
The distinguished guests Rachel had mentioned had arrived.
Moonlight illuminated the entire mountain, making the area quite bright. Yet apparently finding even that insufficient, one of them stepped to the front.
Then—
Flash!
A glowing sphere appeared above the man’s hand.
Kaspar’s mouth fell open.
“Magic?”
It was unmistakably magic—the supernatural art said to be wielded only by mages.
The distinguished guests were mages? Are mages even allowed inside a monastery?
A monastery was a place dedicated to the worship of God. It was diametrically opposed to mages, who sought to investigate the essence of all things and unravel their mysteries.
But more importantly—
Kaspar had clearly seen it.
Just before the man created the sphere of light, a strange symbol had appeared above his hand and vanished.
It was a symbol Kaspar had never seen before.
Like a footprint left in snow, the symbol had just been imprinted vividly upon his mind.
Kaspar raised his hand, seized by a strange impulse he could not explain.
Using the star-filled night sky as his canvas, he began tracing the symbol branded into his mind.
Slowly.
Meticulously.
He did not know why.
He simply felt an inexplicable desire urging him to do so.
And when he finally completed the symbol from his memory—
Flash!
A brilliant sphere of light appeared before him.
Its glow was far more intense than that of the sphere created by the man at the village entrance.
It shone so brightly that Kaspar was momentarily blinded.
“Urgh!”
A long while later, Kaspar could be seen curled up in pain.
Yet what escaped his lips was not an agonized groan.
It was a smile.
Kaspar covered his sightless eyes with one hand and grinned.
A faint sense of joy seeped through the blinding pain.
And fulfillment.
He did not understand why those emotions had suddenly arisen.
They simply surged up from within him until he could no longer keep himself from smiling.
His life had contained nothing worth enjoying.
His world had always been gray.
But now, a vast crack had formed in the boy’s world.
Through that fissure, a wave of dazzling colors called magic began to wash over the gray entirety of creation.
The magical light Kaspar had created soon vanished.
Once his sight returned, he lay flat against the roof so no one else would spot him and continued producing spheres of light.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
The monastery roof lit up again and again.
Magic… So this is magic.
He stared dreamily at the spheres of light scattered across the roof, then felt his own body.
Perhaps it was his imagination, but the heat within him seemed to have subsided slightly.
That was when it happened.
“Aaaah!”
Kaspar flinched at the faint scream carried upon the wind and looked around.
When he leaned over the railing, he realized where it had come from.
“Aaargh!”
“Someone, save— Ack!”
“O Radiance!”
The sword-wielding “distinguished guests” had scattered throughout the village and were attacking its homes.
Most of the villagers, who had been preparing for a peaceful night, collapsed while gasping helplessly as blades were suddenly driven into their bodies.
A few who realized what was happening emerged with farming tools. They guarded the backs of those attempting to flee and fought back fiercely.
But before long, their bodies too were pierced through.
A massacre unfolded.
Kaspar stared down at it all, dumbfounded.
What is this?
Weren’t they supposed to be distinguished guests?
Why are they killing everyone?
Amid his confusion, Kaspar noticed the symbol of a black goat’s head engraved upon the carriage roof.
He had seen that symbol before.
Probably during a lesson on doctrine.
—There are those in this world who reject the Constellation’s light. Seduced by wicked voices, their humanity has been corrupted. Lost in false enlightenment, they are consumed by the desire to offer the world to thirsting gods.
Kaspar recalled seeing an identical illustration in a book the abbot had shown them while warning them to remain vigilant.
“Cultists.”
While Kaspar struggled to process the revelation, the cultists quickly finished dealing with the village.
After loading the fallen villagers onto their carts, they began heading toward the monastery.
“I have to warn everyone.”
Kaspar was just about to turn and alert the monks when—
Click.
The sound of the door opening came from behind him.
Whoooosh—
He turned and saw Sister Rachel standing at the roof’s entrance.
Kaspar brightened and started running toward her, but soon sensed something strange and stopped.
How could he describe it?
She looked like Rachel, but her presence felt nothing like it usually did.
An ominous instinct warned him that he must not approach her.
Standing beneath the moonlight, Rachel gave him a gentle smile.
“What’s wrong, Kaspar? Your face is so pale. Did you see something frightening?”
The cold mountain wind swept past them.
Kaspar pushed aside his ominous premonition and gathered the courage to tell her what he had witnessed.
But just as he was about to speak, he shut his mouth.
The wind had blown through Rachel’s voluminous hair, lifting it aside.
On the pale nape briefly revealed beneath it, the tattoo of a black goat’s head gleamed darkly in the moonlight.
“I came to get you, just as I promised.”
Creeeak… Boom.
From below the railing came the sound of the monastery’s massive entrance opening.
They had entered.
“Come along.”
Rachel held out her hand.
“Our distinguished guests have arrived, Kaspar.”
Her beautiful smile gleamed bewitchingly beneath the moonlight.