In a World without God

Chapter 30

Before he met Ygraine, Bosha had never loved anyone. He had never expressed his love to anyone. Buying his men drinks was the extent of his affection for others.

So it wasn't easy for him to realize. What state he was in and what he wanted to do?

From a certain moment, whenever he closed his eyes, he could picture Ygraine. What her eyes looked like, what her nose looked like, how her lips moved when she spoke or laughed, how her hair blew in the wind, and what direction it went.

No matter how much he thought about it, he realized that the image he had drawn wasn't the real Ygraine, and he wanted to find out what that difference was so badly, that it felt more urgent than anything else in the world. He wanted to jump out of his seat and find her right now.

But when he saw her, his head would bow as if he had a knife to his throat, his steps would be heavy as if he had shackles on his ankles, and his speech would slur as if he had a tumor in his mouth. Bosha always wondered...

"Why did I point my sword at her?

Bosha couldn't understand his past self; the regret, the guilt. It seemed to make him feel strange. So Bosha said to Ygraine, "I will never point my sword at you again. I swear it. I will be your sword and your shield.

And Ygrainne smiled and replied, "I need neither sword nor shield."

Upon hearing those words, Bosha felt as if a sword had been thrust into his heart and a shield had hit his head.

He could not be Ygraine's sword or shield. As he thought about it, he felt like he was a rolling stone or twig. A huge lump formed in his chest as if a coiled snake t had settled there. To release the lump, Bosha ran through Cyros and was struck dead by the witch's clone. He died with pride. For once, he thought, he had become the sword of Ygraine.

However, it was a death filled with self-satisfaction.

Edulis now felt as if he had been swallowed by the belly of the beast. The more Laotou talked, the more his stomach seemed to fill with gastric juices.

I should have been there. In Sijia, in Ascidia, in Mastaba, where Ygraine had met her end, alone, in the blackness of the unknown!

I shouldn't have made her lonely...

"Edulis! Edulis!" Aruru bounced on Edulis's shoulder. "Edulis, how dare you doze off in front of the great Laotou!"

With that, Aruru nipped at Edulis's ear, but Edulis didn't flinch. Edulis stared at the thing that Laotou held, the heart of Ygraine.

It was like an apple made of silver. A white bud sprouted from the top.

"Edulis!"

"Laotou. If I gather the scattered pieces of Lutea, will that heart beat again?"

As Edulis spoke, Laotou nodded. Edulis remembered the white ball of magick inside him. He had lost it in his fight with Tibea. The fragment of Lutea that Edulis had been born with had been scattered into thin air after saving the people.

Could it be that he didn't have enough of it to bring Lutea back to life? Edulis asked, and Laotou answered.

"Not at all. You just need a certain amount of shards. Then, just like firewood, Lutea's presence will grow and grow, and she will regain her original form. But...."

Edulis wanted to run out of the forest to find Lutea's fragment right then and there, and his legs were tingling from the effort of suppressing it.

"There are two problems," Laotao said.

"Problems?"

"The first is that Granadilla knows about it, and she's been looking for pieces of Lady Lutea, breaking them or contaminating them."