Damn Reincarnation

istina practiced while looking in the mirror when she was young.

The ideal smile of the Saintess.

However, Eugene couldn’t respond in kind with a smile.

“…You are one nasty woman,” said Eugene.

The little girl was still smiling.

Plop!

When the girl took a step, the light surrounding the Fount wove around her body.
Her appearance changed, or rather, she matured.
The result was an appearance that Eugene was quite familiar with.

“Ah…” Kristina was speechless.
The mature appearance of Anise made her feel as if she were looking in a mirror.
As she continued gawking at Anise, Kristina’s face quickly turned pale.
They looked similar, too similar… and there was no way it was a simple coincidence.
Kristina felt her legs give out, and she covered her mouth, feeling nauseous.
Unwanted imaginations forced their way into her mind and disturbed her thoughts.

“…Please don’t,” said Anise.
She approached Kristina while spreading her eight wings, then continued.
“Please don’t hate yourself.”

Anise lowered herself and peered into Kristina’s eyes.
Although Kristina didn’t think she could cry anymore after pouring out so much before, her eyes were once again filled with tears.
The thoughts that pervaded her mind were truly terrible and disgusting.

“You are not weak,” whispered Anise while taking Kristina into her embrace.
Kristina could not find words to say and instead sobbed once again.
The eight wings slowly descended and wrapped around Kristina’s body.
Then, Anise closed her eyes, putting her forehead against Kristina’s.

“Ah…” Kristina’s ocean-blue eyes quivered.
She attempted to understand the clear images she saw, but it was simply impossible to accept.
Her eyes dimmed as she felt her consciousness drifting away.

Anise slowly parted her forehead from Kristina’s, then closed the girl’s eyes.
After carefully laying Kristina down in the Fount, she straightened herself.

“Hamel,” she called out with the same smile.
“I didn’t think such an expression would suit you, but it looks quite decent on you, perhaps because you have a different face than before.”

Eugene raised his hands and touched his face.
He could feel creases and grooves, as well as his cheeks twitching.
He had a warped expression.

Eugene forced a smile and shook his head.
“What did you do?” he asked.

“I made her understand,” she answered while looking down at Kristina.
“This… poor child is the same as me,” she continued.

“What is it?” asked Eugene before giving a long sigh.
Then he looked alternatingly at Anise and Kristina before continuing.
“I… saw the source of this damned Fount.
You must have led me there.”

“Actually, I didn’t want to show you,” said Anise, her smile faltering slightly.
“Hamel, you must know, since you’ve seen it, but… that… is not something ordinary people can easily understand.”

“…But we’ve seen countless terrible things since the past,” responded Eugene.

Such had been the world three hundred years back.
Black wizards ran rampant after selling their souls to demons, conducting all kinds of terrible experiments that completely threw any idea of morals right out the window.
There had been several laboratories belonging to black wizards near Helmuth, and most of them were conducting human experiments performed on captured slaves.

Eugene had seen many such places in his past life.
Naturally, he had wiped them out so thoroughly that they would never be seen again in this world.
It was only a matter of course, and Anise had done the same.
She had liberated the slaves and healed their wounds.
She had burned the black wizards with divine magic and smashed their heads with her mace.

But there were always those who could not be saved, those who had been taken too far into experiments.
Black wizards were always preoccupied with creating magical creatures or weapons to be used in war, and such experiments robbed humans of their human selves.
Some subjects were made into chimeras by combining them with monsters, demons, and other creatures.
Some were used as sacrifices to enhance the power of the black wizards.
Some were used to create and test new magic.

Anise always took it upon herself to embellish their passing.
She wrapped with light those who were broken and dying, as well as those no longer human, and euthanized them.
Each time, she recited the same prayer with a somber expression: I pray that you see heaven after leaving this world of suffering.

“…The source of the Fount,” said Eugene with a long sigh, “was much more terrible than even the workshops of the black wizards.
It wasn’t something… that the priests of the God of Light should have been doing.”

The filter connected to the pipes contained countless relics.
But although they were pompously called ‘holy relics,’ they were simply bones of the past Saintesses.
The water of the Fount was filtered through the remains and forcibly imbued with divine power, then traveled through the central pipe into the actual Fount.

“It was a necessity,” answered Anise in a somber voice.
“That is how the being called Saintess is created, after all.
Just like this child, and every candidate before her, and… even me.
It was the same with the many Saintesses before me.”

“But you and Kristina seemed special,” commented Eugene.
He recalled the vision he saw at the source of the Fount.
There were countless girls, girls with… indistinguishable faces.
Their presence had been faint in his vision, but he had seen Anise and Kristina with clarity.

The same was true even now.
Anise definitely existed within this miracle.
She stood in front of his eyes as if she had descended from the World Tree, and her eight wings truly were spread wide.

“Yes.” Anise nodded.
“This child and I are special.
We were born with aptitude, harmony, and completeness that could be considered overwhelmingly superior to any of the previous candidates.”

Aptitude, harmony, and completeness.
Eugene did not want to accept such words.

“You are kind, Hamel,” said Anise with a faint smile while gazing at him.
“And I know that you are not stupid.
I’m sure you already have a vague idea of what the two of us really are.
Nevertheless, you are staying silent because you want to be considerate, not wanting to offend me in case you guessed wrong.”

“I just don’t want to get smacked,” replied Eugene while avoiding her gaze.
“To be honest….
I don’t really want to know, either.
I don’t want to confirm anything.
Whatever the Saintess truly is, it doesn’t matter to me.
You are simply Anise, and she is simply Kristina.
What else is important?”

“…Hamel,” called out Anise while approaching Eugene.
“You don’t have to turn a blind eye.
I know you understand both of us without having to hear the whole truth, but I don’t want that kind of sympathy from you.
I want you to be yourself, to understand me for what I am.
I’m sure that the child thinks the same way.”

Sympathy? Eugene smiled bitterly.
It was an undeniable remark.

“…What are you?” So he asked.
Just as Anise wanted, he asked directly.
“You and Kristina.
No, the Saintess… what is it exactly? Why were there such things taking place in this Fount?”

Anise stood in front of Eugene with a faint smile.
She explained, “A long time ago, the God of Light first descended on this land.
He created the Holy Sword Altair out of his own blood and flesh and illuminated the world.
Then he created a religion and founded Yuras.”

It was the founding myth of Yuras, the story of the Holy Emperor responsible for the empire’s creation.

Anise continued, “The ancient Incarnation reigned in Yuras for a long time and worked as a beacon in the chaotic era.
With him at the forefront, faith was passed on to the world, and various gods were born and disappeared….
The Holy Emperor ruled for a long time and protected Yuras and her subjects, but he did not live forever.
Since he had descended to the world as an incarnation, he had to return to the sky one day.” Anise looked into Eugene’s trembling eyes.
“Once the Holy Emperor was gone, many members of the church felt fear.
They feared that the world would once again sink into darkness in the light’s absence.
They hoped the light would send forth another incarnation, but such a thing never came true.”

They had desired light.

“They desired a new object of worship.
Although light is always present… it was too abstract to serve.
They needed a more definite, tangible object of worship.
They needed an Incarnation of Light.”

“…..”

“Ancient Yuras needed many objects and symbols of worship, not just the Pope.
Symbols to feed fanaticism.
The stigma on the bodies of the Pope and the Cardinals portrays how the light was taking care of the world.
It shows that the light is directly choosing its surrogates.
So many members have come to worship the Pope and the Cardinals like gods.”

“…And the Saintess?”

“A symbol of worship, just like the Pope and the Cardinals,” said Anise with a twisted smile.
She continued, “The first Saintess was an artificial imitation of the Incarnation of Light created using the remains of the Holy Emperor.”

“…..”

“A sacred weapon capable of bringing down miracles, created by embedding the remains of the Holy Emperor in the body of a young girl, an idol made for worship.”

And thus, the ancient fanatics had come to make a new Light in their own image.

It can be hard to make great work when its stolen from bit.ly/3iBfjkV.