“You’re welcome. Welcome.”
With a gentle smile, Seianes courteously greeted Cairens.
He wore a bland smile while hiding the thorny heart within.
“Don’t just stand there, come inside. We have a lot to talk about.”
Saying that, Seianes guided him to the reception room inside the temple. Throughout the walk following Seianes’s guidance, Cairens said nothing. He simply felt awkward here.
The sight of Abrisius, who had shown cold reactions to him the entire time, then ran into Seianes’s arms like a child.
And unlike the cold appearance he had seen in childhood, Seianes’s gentle attitude toward Abrisius was unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
Even the cold demeanor he had shown toward him was nowhere to be found, and he was being treated courteously.
Hypocrite.
Perhaps that’s how it felt.
Because he was needed now, he was showing this attitude toward him—with such sharpened edges, Cairens followed Seianes.
The reception room Seianes mentioned was the very last room in the temple.
Originally it was a room for priests to use, but in Seianes’s temple, which had no such thing as priests, it was also the most idle place.
“Sit down.”
Just by waving his hand, Seianes quickly cleaned up the cluttered room.
A small chair had appeared in the room at some point. Seianes pointed to that chair and gestured for Cairens to sit.
“Thank you……”
When Cairens carefully sat on the chair, Seianes leaned his body against the old sofa in front of him.
“Whew……”
Among the old leather blankets—whether offered by humans or who knows how long they’d been there—he let out a sigh. And he spoke gently to Abrisius, who was trying to sit on the bare floor below where he sat.
“Abrisius, won’t you go out and pick some strawberries? We need something to serve our guest.”
“……Strawberries in midsummer?”
“There are wild strawberries.”
Strawberries in midsummer—Abrisius tilted his head. It seemed like he was just looking for an excuse to send him away, which bothered him for no reason.
‘I’m anxious……’
Still, unable to refuse Seianes’s request, Abrisius got up.
Until the last moment of leaving, he kept his eyes on Cairens and Seianes. He felt uneasy about putting the two in one space together.
‘Still, what could happen on the first day?’
He tried to calm his anxious heart and left.
He looked back until the very last moment of leaving. He watched until he could no longer see Seianes smiling and waving at him.
Finally, when Abrisius had completely disappeared from the spot…….
As if he had never smiled, Seianes’s expression turned cold.
With a face that had turned incomparably sharp from moments ago, he withdrew his hand. When that gaze turned back to Cairens, a chilling thrill flowed down Cairens’s body.
‘Those eyes from back then.’
Childhood. He was looking at him with the exact same gaze as when he had seen him for the first and last time.
“……There are many things my child shouldn’t hear, so I had him leave for a moment.”
“Things he shouldn’t hear?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
What were the things Abrisius shouldn’t know? Cairens’s eyes narrowed with puzzlement, but Seianes lightly brushed off that question.
“First, welcome again. Cairens. You’ve come well. To my temple—now you’ve drawn one step closer as a true hero.”
“……A true hero?”
Those words struck Cairens’s nerves.
“I’ve been living as a hero all this time. I’ve helped people. I shared food with the hungry, saved merchants who were about to be attacked by bandits, got rid of the horned horse that was rampaging in the city, put angry giants to sleep, and helped people suffering from a collapsed dam and built a dam together with them…… Are you saying even with all this, I’m not a true hero?”
“Hmm……”
Cairens confidently explained the good deeds and episodes he had done until now.
All these actions were the reason he received gratitude and love from many people, and the reason he became a hero.
But as if mocking all these actions, Seianes was bringing up a true hero.
Did the true hero he was talking about mean helping the gods? If not, did it mean there was still something more remarkable than saving people until now?
Either way, it was equally unpleasant.
“Yes. You did your best. We know of your good deeds. But the current you seems a bit arrogant. If you think you became a true hero just because you helped humans and received their support, you’re greatly mistaken.”
“Becoming a true hero isn’t just about solving the tasks given by the gods either.”
“……”
As if his mood was slightly twisted, Seianes irritably tapped the sofa with his fingers.
But that was only for a moment.
“Hahaha, that’s true too.”
Soon a smile spread across his lips and he began to laugh loudly.
After laughing for a while, he looked at Cairens with a face less sharp than before.
“If that’s what you think, it can’t be helped. But Father didn’t bring you into existence to become a hero for humans.”
Seianes was relentless.
There was no malice, but those words sharply gouged Cairens’s heart.
It was as if he was saying that your existence was for the needs of the gods.
“Cairens, I don’t know if you know this, but you were born to eliminate Ircadeon, that bastard.”
There was no hesitation in Seianes as he explained the reason Cairens was born. He was simply calm, cold, and matter-of-fact, as if it were natural.
“The Underground, the Underworld. Darkness. That land where Ircadeon was originally coexisted with us on the Surface. But Father, and we, didn’t want that.”
Recalling the past, Seianes briefly gathered his memories.
Long ago, the underground things he had seen during the time of coexisting with Ircadeon were still vivid in his eyes.
Actually, Seianes didn’t dislike them that much. Whether underground monsters or people, they were the same in that they stepped on the earth he governed.
“So we drove out Ircadeon, and he harbored resentment. And he sharpened the blade of revenge, waiting for an opportunity to drive us from this land.”
Seianes still couldn’t forget the expression on Ircadeon’s face that he had seen just before falling to the Underground.
The miserable end of a king who had once stood shoulder to shoulder with his father. Even while falling helplessly to the Underground, he kept pouring curses toward Henelion until the very end.
“Father was always on edge, afraid he might reappear. And when he received a prophecy that Ircadeon would be resurrected someday, he searched for a way to defeat him.”
Seianes’s gaze reached Cairens, who had been silently listening to his story.
“The key to defeating Ircadeon and the only variable. That’s you, Cairens.”
