Dark clouds obscured the bright moon. Dorias Angus infused holy power into the greatsword on his back, casting a guiding light forward.
He supported Emilia as they walked along the stone path back to the church, his white robe fluttering in the night wind.
Emilia, her face deathly pale, leaned almost her entire body against the saint. Dorias Angus listened to her breathing, which was so faint it seemed the nun might stop breathing at any moment.
After a day that had yielded almost no results, Dorias Angus had only just returned to the princess’s side when he was shocked by news of her assassination attempt during the investigation.
Not long after, Gro’s mercenaries hurriedly reported that some of their members had gone missing, possibly related to heretics. At this moment, Dorias Angus was utterly exhausted.
So when the nun from Renn Town coincidentally appeared and offered to help, he hadn’t thought too deeply about Emilia.
From Gro’s unusual attitude and Ileil’s vigilant gaze, it was clear they seemed to suspect something about Emilia.
Thinking about it carefully… it really was strange for a nun from Renn Town to appear in the middle of the night and proactively offer assistance. Even many of Dorias Angus’s colleagues in the church weren’t as zealous as Emilia.
“I’m truly sorry… Mr. Dorias Angus.” Emilia spoke up, her voice weak yet carrying a trace of a smile. Her words interrupted the saint’s thoughts.
“I’m having some trouble keeping up with your pace. Could I trouble you to walk a little slower?”
Only then did Dorias Angus realize how hurried his steps had become. When he was deep in thought, he often became unaware of his surroundings. The saint slowed his pace, his gaze unconsciously drifting to Emilia’s profile.
“Sorry, Miss Emilia,” he said shortly, his voice lower than usual. “Too many major things have happened recently. I can’t help thinking about all the matters that still need to be handled.”
“You’ve worked hard, Mr. Dorias Angus. I understand how tiring it must be with so many duties on your shoulders. However… I believe it’s better to speak plainly about certain things.”
“What do you mean, Miss Emilia?”
Dorias Angus’s gray-blue eyes narrowed slightly, his gaze turning sharp.
“You’re thinking about what Mr. Gro said earlier, aren’t you, Mr. Dorias Angus… Both you and Mr. Gro seem to believe that I am not an ordinary nun.”
Emilia’s blue eyes glittered in the shadows. She shook her head gently.
“I understand your suspicions. After all, as a nun, I possess too much knowledge regarding magic. It’s only natural that it would cause concern.”
“You certainly don’t seem like an ordinary nun,” Dorias Angus said bluntly, his gray-blue eyes fixed on the path ahead.
“I have served in the Church for over forty years, yet I have never seen any nun who can control magic as skillfully as you, Miss Emilia. Even high-ranking saints would pale in comparison to the magical power you displayed earlier.”
Emilia’s steps paused briefly before returning to normal. “Are you interrogating me, Mr. Dorias Angus?” Her voice remained gentle, yet it carried a faint edge.
Dorias Angus did not answer immediately. His thoughts returned to Gro’s meaningful look and Ileil’s hand gripping her shortsword—the silver-haired girl’s wariness toward the nun had been written all over her face.
“I will not judge someone who has selflessly dedicated herself to Renn Town without reason, Miss Emilia,” he said after a moment of silence, deliberately keeping his voice calm.
“I am simply curious—why would someone with your talents choose to remain in a small place like Renn Town?”
After the saint’s words fell, Emilia lifted her head and looked at the face of the man supporting her. Under the holy light radiating from the greatsword behind him, her face seemed split into fragments of light and shadow.
“The answer is simple: because Renn Town needs me,” she replied straightforwardly.
“Likewise—haven’t you, a saint like Mr. Dorias Angus, also given up a high position in the Holy See? Instead of competing for the position of Pope, you chose to remain quietly by the princess’s side, correct?”
“Is that so…?” A look of surprise appeared on Dorias Angus’s face. He hadn’t expected Emilia to know so much about him.
“Please don’t be surprised,” the nun said with a soft laugh. “I saw you once when I was still a young girl. But Mr. Dorias Angus—you don’t remember me at all.”
“We’ve met… When?”
Dorias Angus stared at Emilia’s face, trying to find any trace of her in his memories. However, he had met far too many people over the years, and for a moment he couldn’t recall anything related to Emilia.
“It was about twenty-five years ago, on the border of Aressto. When you and Lord Sertant came to our village to eliminate the invaders from the Northern Border, I was hiding under the old oak tree at the village entrance.”
Dorias Angus’s steps came to an abrupt halt—he never expected to hear the name ‘Sertant’ come from a nun’s mouth.
In a daze, he seemed to see the figure of that young man charging forward on horseback and hear his hearty laughter echoing in his ears once more.
“I was only ten years old at the time,” Emilia continued calmly. “You and Mr. Sertant saved our entire village. I walked up and asked the name of that apprentice saint. Mr. Sertant pulled you, who rarely smiled, forward and told us your names. He said that the Dawn would protect us.”
Dorias Angus’s breathing grew heavy. Faced with Emilia’s unexpected words, he was momentarily speechless.
This was exactly the kind of thing Sertant would do—that ever-passionate young man whose eyes always burned with idealistic fire.
“From that day on, I decided I wanted to become someone like him.” The nun gently stroked the silver holy emblem hanging on her chest. Her tone suddenly turned sorrowful.
“Although before I even officially took my position… I learned that Mr. Sertant had already…”
Emilia’s voice choked. Dorias Angus felt a dull pain spread through his chest.
In the final moments of that campaign—the damned war had taken his closest friend. Dorias Angus never even learned how the invincible Sertant had died on the battlefield. In the end, he only saw his cold corpse.
“Does what I said help you remember me?” Emilia looked directly into Dorias Angus’s eyes. “You two were close friends who went through thick and thin together, weren’t you?”
A flood of weakening memories came rushing back without stop—
Sertant’s hearty laughter, the mornings they sparred with swords on the training grounds, that fool’s hasty farewell the last time they parted, and how Dorias Angus had irritably brushed away the hand that had rested on his shoulder… Dorias Angus’s entire body began to tremble uncontrollably.
“I’m sorry… I still don’t have any impression of you, Miss Emilia.”
Dorias Angus took a deep breath and replied, trying his best to remain calm.
“You still don’t remember me?” Emilia said softly, the corners of her mouth lifting into a bitter smile. “Then what about twenty years ago? At the Holy City of Aressto, during the ceremony when Mr. Sertant was officially appointed as a saint. You stood beside him. The Pope bestowed honors upon both of you at the same time.”
That distant afternoon became clear in Dorias Angus’s memory—sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows onto the floor of the sanctuary, Sertant’s blue-green hair almost translucent in the light. They knelt side by side before the Pope, receiving blessings and holy emblems…
“I remember now, Miss Emilia… You were wearing a white apprentice nun’s robe,” Dorias Angus murmured, his gray-blue eyes gradually focusing. “You stood in the last row of the choir. After the ceremony, you handed Sertant a bouquet of flowers.”
A serene smile bloomed on Emilia’s lips. That smile caused Dorias Angus’s heart to tremble—it was too similar, exactly like Sertant’s sincere, unguarded smile.
“You finally remember,” Emilia said. “Even back then, I knew that you and he were both people who harbored justice in their hearts and truly fought for the Dawn.”
“You flatter me, Miss Emilia.”
Listening to Emilia reminisce about the past, Dorias Angus felt an indescribable weariness. He had sealed those memories away for nearly twenty years, all so he could carry his friend’s last wishes and continue forward while holding onto his original convictions.
Dorias Angus did not want to sink into the grief of the past. Sertant’s often-spoken words frequently echoed in his ears—
‘People must always look forward.’
At the time, Dorias Angus had thought of it as that carefree fool’s excuse. But after Sertant’s death, those words took on a different meaning for him…
The cold night wind brushed through his golden hair streaked with white, carrying the distant cry of a night owl.
“Mr. Dorias Angus…” Emilia’s voice pulled him back to reality. She suddenly asked,
“Over all these years… have you ever regretted walking this path?”
Dorias Angus turned to look at Emilia and found the nun staring at him, her blue eyes deep and unfathomable.
“Regret?” he repeated hoarsely. “Why would you ask that?”
Emilia’s gaze drifted into the distance. “The power struggles within the Church, the endless eradication of heretics on the borders, and those… unavoidable compromises.” Her voice became exceptionally clear at this moment, completely unlike her earlier frail state.
“Sometimes I wonder, if Mr. Sertant were still alive today—what kind of person would he have become?”
A sharp pain pierced Dorias Angus’s chest. He thought of how he had navigated the open and hidden conflicts within the Holy See over the years, the undercurrents that often implicated him…
How he had tolerated small evils for the sake of greater good…
How he had accepted painful sacrifices for the bigger picture…
Would that young man who always saw things in black and white—Sertant—be able to understand all of this?
Dorias Angus did not know the answer.
But there was one thing he was certain of—
“What is there to regret, Miss Emilia?” Dorias Angus said slowly, his voice as firm as steel.
“I have never once regretted my choices.”