I Healed the Cold Dark Goddess’s Loneliness, and Now She Won’t Let Me Go! - Chapter 10

“I suppose I’ve made her angry.”

“You did… wait, Lord Sulug, that was your fault, wasn’t it?”

“Without a doubt.”

Since it felt like he was trying to drag me into being an accomplice, I asserted my innocence, and Lord Sulug admitted it with a laugh. He has a surprisingly playful side, just like in the original game, I thought—but his expression… how should I put it? He looked genuinely happy.

“You seem happy, for some reason?”

“! Perhaps I am… no, I definitely am. I’m happy because I’ve never seen Reine get angry in quite that way before.”

“…”

By “that way,” he probably meant the way she reacted once I became the topic of conversation. Their exchange before that seemed like business as usual.

Actually… more importantly. Regardless of Lady Reine, Lord Sulug seems incredibly friendly toward her. In the original game, the world five thousand years in the future, he spoke of her as an existence that had to be erased for the sake of the world.

“Um, Lord Sulug, what exactly is Lady Reine to you?”

“…!”

Lord Sulug’s eyes went wide. Then, his gaze softened into something incredibly tender.

“You really are… No, you’re right. Reine and I are indispensable to one another. If our powers are not in equilibrium, there is a risk of a rampage.”

“Wait, really!?”

“…That is the ‘official’ explanation regarding our positions. As for me personally, I feel a sense of debt toward her. That is why I do not look kindly on the current situation, where she suffers within her own suspicion and fear.”

“I see…”

The “rampage if one is missing” thing was news to me. As for the second half of his answer, he skillfully blurred the important parts like the “debt,” but I understood enough to know he truly worries about her. Perhaps seeing through my internal skepticism, Lord Sulug concluded.

“At any rate, I have high expectations for you. As her Shrine Maiden, please support Reine. Because I know, deep down, that I am not the one who can save her.”

“Wait, um!”

I cut off Lord Sulug as he tried to wrap up with that lonely look on his face. Sure, those two seem incompatible and there’s clearly a rift between them, so I get why he’d want to entrust her to me. But if that’s the case…

“Give me a hint!”

“A… hint?”

“About Lady Reine!”

He could at least cooperate that much, couldn’t he? Specifically, I wanted an answer to the question Lady Reine would never tell me: why does she give protection to humans when she doesn’t need to? I held onto the hope that Lord Sulug would know.

“Why does Lady Reine—”

“Hold on a moment.”

“Eh…”

I thought he was going to say he couldn’t answer, but instead, Lord Sulug raised his hand and enveloped us in light. When the glow faded, a hemispherical membrane like a film had expanded around us.

“Is this…?”

“I thought this might be a conversation you wouldn’t want Reine to overhear.”

“T-thanks for the consideration…”

True, if she caught me asking behind her back, she’d be furious. That was a close call—and as expected of Lord Sulug.

“Now, what is it? I will answer anything within my knowledge, and I swear to speak nothing but the truth.”

“Right. Well… you and Lady Reine don’t actually need faith to power you, and you won’t disappear if humans stop existing, right?”

“…Correct. Our existence and power are established independently of humanity.”

“Then there’s no real benefit to giving humans your protection, is there? I mean, I get it for you, Lord Sulug. But Lady Reine… she distrusts humans, and she’s so afraid of betrayal. Why does she still give them her grace anyway…?”

“——You strike closer to the heart of the matter than I imagined.”

Lord Sulug looked marveled by my words. As I thought, this really is the key to understanding Lady Reine.

“In light of your keen insight, allow me to apologize first. Earlier, I tried to brush you off by withholding the most important facts.”

“The stuff about the ‘rampage’ and the ‘debt’?”

“Exactly.”

If he’s apologizing for it now, does that mean he’s going to tell me? Having made up his mind, Lord Sulug let out a sharp breath.

“Reine and I were originally one.”

“What…!?”

…I didn’t know that. I’d never heard of that setting before.

“Back when we were one, our existence was closer to mine; we sought to guide humanity as we always had. But we failed. One day, the people turned against us, seeking to claim our power for their own.”

“…!”

“It was something I never could have dreamed of. To be betrayed by those I loved was more than I could bear. It was unforgivable. In my rage, I moved to punish the people but I held back. However, the anger and disappointment did not vanish. Sensing my ego would shatter under the weight of those suppressed emotions, I severed them from myself, along with a portion of my power.”

“And that… was Lady Reine?”

It was a shocking story. Maybe it existed as hidden lore, but it was never depicted in the game. When Lady Reine told him earlier that he’d “be betrayed again,” she was referring to the time they were still one.

“Since then, we have divided our power and the world equally to this day but you understand now, don’t you? The reason I can forgive and be close to humans isn’t because I am mature or inherently ‘good.’ It is simply because I pushed all the negative emotions I should have faced onto Reine.”

“…Is that the ‘debt’?”

Lord Sulug nodded silently.

“Therefore, I cannot truly protest Reine’s methods or her way of being. At the same time, I cannot turn a blind eye to her people being forced into sacrifice and so I would visit her, hoping somehow to talk it through.”

He had faced failure after failure, and then I suddenly appeared. It’s no wonder he has such high hopes for me.

“I understand about the two of you now. But you still haven’t answered my question.”

At this point, I didn’t care about the “rampage” stuff. It was probably just a talk about how the balance of power shouldn’t break. That didn’t really affect how I’d support Lady Reine.

“…Why Reine continues to grant her protection to the people, right?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a simple story. Because we were once one, I know.”

Lord Sulug looked me straight in the eye. Recognizing that I wasn’t asking out of mere curiosity anymore, he gave me the answer.

“No matter how much she is scorched by rage, no matter how much she is imprisoned by suspicion, or how much she loathes humanity, she still wants to be needed by someone. Because that is the core of our being.”

“——”

It may have only been for a brief moment, but in my mind’s eye, a myriad of Lady Reine’s expressions flickered and faded.