[Raha]
I’ve never properly seen light.
It was just like that. I know it’s been that way since I was born. Even a little sun would make my skin turn red and peel, and if it was worse, blisters would form and fester. During the day when the sun was up, it was hard to even open my eyes. Everything seemed excessively bright. More than bright—it was hot. It felt like being burned alive.
I was useless.
Fluid would seep from my cracked skin, and it would often rot and decay like that. If I didn’t see the sun, I’d get better, but then I couldn’t work. So I was abandoned at a small temple, just wasting food.
The priests at the temple didn’t want to accept me either. Because I was hideous. But they couldn’t kill me, so they had no choice but to take me in.
But it’s funny. Temple life was actually better. Since I didn’t need to go out, my skin didn’t blister and rot. During the day I read scriptures and prayed in the temple, and when outside work was needed, I did it at night when believers or guests didn’t come and go.
At some point, everyone started calling me pretty. I became a priest right away. Though I’d never actually done anything properly. My promotion was much faster than kids who worked better and were smarter than me.
Aside from not being able to go out because I couldn’t receive light, life was fairly livable. Better than burning to death in sunlight. It seemed like they’d forgotten about my childhood. They just seemed to think I had a weak body and had difficulty seeing the sun.
Actually, might I be a demon? A person burning to death alive in sunlight—it’s strange, isn’t it? But no one said that to me. Because I’m pretty. Because I’m beautiful.
At some point, I stopped working. I just sat in the best seat in the chapel, smiled brightly, and sang hymns. Really, there was nothing else to do besides that. I played around every day without working. People were pleased with just that anyway.
I don’t know why. When I was almost of age, I ended up going to the cathedral in the capital. I think I was just happy then. They said it was a better place, so I just believed those words.
Ah, I wish I’d known before going. Then I could have at least pretended to be humble and stayed. I could have lived a little longer, more comfortably.
On the first day, I received a feast. I wore luxurious vestments beyond my station. And that night, both my legs were cut off. I don’t even know when or how they were cut. I didn’t even know if it hurt.
And that great His Holiness the Pope came down himself. He said the Empire had fallen a week ago. Right now it’s just Hadika, but that might try to destroy this world. So a sacrifice was needed.
Isn’t that absurd? What could make that huge Empire fall in one day?
There was talk that a war had started. I did hear that in an unprecedented great famine, a big place like Hadika had already plundered two kingdoms and made them vassal states. At an unprecedentedly fast speed, people gossiped that the famine was actually an excuse and they just wanted war.
I thought so too. Though I was in the countryside, it wasn’t a place where rumors didn’t reach.
A record famine? All lies. Then the countryside I lived in should have fallen first. Where I lived wasn’t that seriously affected, though it was a bit lacking. Even if it wasn’t abundant, we could live. Honestly, it had been good harvests until then—it’s hard to see this as particularly a great famine, isn’t it?
Anyway, that great Hadika fell. Not just fell—it was destroyed. Because of the anger of the oak tree, the master of the White Snake Mountain Range that protected Hadika, the source of all roots.
Isn’t that the god the Druids believed in? I don’t really know the name. I only knew it as an existence the Druids borrowed power from. Well, I’m a priest. I don’t need to know such things.
Actually, everyone had been aiming for it. They said if you obtained that oak tree, you could control all land and plants as you wished. Since a great famine had struck, they all talked in unison that it must have weakened. So the strongest Hadika tried to monopolize it.
And it was destroyed just like that. It killed only humans like a ghost. It didn’t even take one night. Before the morning sun rose, all humans died on the spot. Isn’t that absurd?
Thinking about it now, it was too much information to tell an ordinary priest, especially one to be used as a sacrifice.
Right. I was that sacrifice. That ancient thing really likes pretty things. So I, the prettiest, had to go. I absolutely must not run away. Even if I ran away, coming back would be terrible, so I must absolutely not come. The reason they told me was also to say they’d kill me if I came. Does a sacrifice pollute things if it runs away?
I desperately clung and begged to be saved, but it was useless. I ate something forcibly and fell asleep.
When I woke up again, some ritual was in full swing. I only remember being in a vast place together with incomprehensible gold and silver treasures. I screamed while crying and wailing, but fell asleep again.
When I woke up next, I saw something huge. There are no words to express what it was.
A dizzyingly tall head, where eyes and ears should be, white horns like tree branches sprouted. It was beautiful enough to make one lose their senses, but there was nothing so terrible in the world. Just looking at it took my breath away. Everything became muffled as if I’d fallen into deep water.
It merely looked at me. It did nothing. Yet I felt a rawness that shattered me to my soul.
The next time I woke up, a person and a bear were chattering together. Goodness, a talking bear. And what about the human calmly chatting? No, this isn’t human. It’s something mimicking human form.
If you ask why I felt that way, I can’t explain. I just knew instinctively. After the bear left, it spoke to me.
‘Hey, when are you going to wake up? Why won’t you wake up?’
How did it know? Was it just testing? I desperately played dead, but it was persistent. Later it started poking my cheeks, urging me.
‘Wake up. Eat. Humans die if they don’t eat, right? Aren’t you hungry?’
Then it said if I kept not waking up, it would eat me. In the end, I had no choice but to wake up. No, it wasn’t a conscious action. I woke up because I was scared. I had no awareness of how I got up.
It said it doesn’t eat humans. That humans taste bad. It’s foolish talk, but I felt relieved at those words and cried. I’m glad humans taste bad. It was troubled but still pushed food at me.
***
It took care of me with utmost sincerity, unlike its grumbling. At first it left me to tree monsters called Dryads, but when I was scared, it ended up doing it itself.
I wasn’t really scared of those tree monsters. Maybe at first, but they were quite kind to me. Though I couldn’t understand what they said. Still, I just thought I should make a better impression on it rather than the tree monsters if possible.
No, this seems like a rather weak excuse. I can’t explain it, but I wanted to get closer to it. I don’t know why, but its embrace felt so cozy.
And it shared something called energy with me at any given time, like holding hands.
At first, I just knew my body was getting better. It wasn’t just getting better. Its energy gave me a rawness I’d never experienced in my life. It said it was very little, but that seems to be by its own standards.
Things I couldn’t see become visible, things I couldn’t feel become felt. This amazement is joy, a miracle. I don’t know how else to express it anymore.
It said ‘Levia Rishian.’ Ah, it was something far more tremendous than I thought.
An existence that appears in old books and stories almost “without fail,” you could say. The source of all grasses and trees, all things that take root. They said it bestows blessings with one gesture, curses with one sigh, and causes calamities with just a glance.
So because it’s something like this, it could erase even that tremendous Empire in one night.
But it didn’t allow me the name ‘Leri.’ It said that belonged to someone called Miros. It said that Miros was human. That they received a Star and were the most beautiful human in the world. When I asked where they were, it would vaguely deflect or close its mouth.
For something like that, whenever it spoke, it talked about that human Miros. Naturally, like breathing. When talking about Miros, even its eyes changed. When I became able to resonate with it—Levia-nim—even at a weak level, I felt it more vividly.
Perhaps that’s love. The feeling of your heart swelling just from thinking about it is truly amazing. Even though knowing that target isn’t me is terrible.
That said, it didn’t mistreat me. Its emotions were strange. While it liked looking at me, it felt discomfort somewhere. Not knowing what it was itself, it showed irritable words and actions. If it really hated me, it could have thrown me away or killed me, but it didn’t do that either.
Amusingly, it cherished me quite a bit. Even if I just coughed, it would fuss and check on me.
‘Really. How did humans survive being this weak.’
Since I kept struggling, it tore off its own fragment and even made legs for me.
It wasn’t simply a matter of being happy that my severed legs grew back. The world literally changed completely. It said there would be very little effect, but that’s also by its standards.
As it said, aren’t I a lowly creature? For a mere human, it was like a miracle.
Was everything in the world this beautiful? Was it this beautiful? Was it seeing me this beautifully? It was an emotion where my heart felt like it would burst from overflowing. I felt like I could die suffocating in it and that would be fine.
I couldn’t contain the overflowing love.
It was unavoidable. My heart felt like it would burst. Every day everything feels new and joyful—it seems impossible but it’s true. It must have lived feeling this like breathing. When even I, who received that very small fragment, this weak piece, feel like this.
No, maybe I just feel this way because I’m an ordinary human. Literally, it would have been natural for it. Since this kind of world was natural, for a human like me who’d never had it at all, it can only be a tremendous shock.
“Levia-nim, I love you.”
“Mm. This kid reacts more sensitively than I thought. I can’t take the power back either.”
It just smiles awkwardly. Yet it didn’t seem to dislike it. The connected heart stirs. Ah, it finds my words admirable. I’m happy but also disappointed. It’s not taking it sincerely.
“Once you get used to it, it’ll be fine. You’re mistaking the emotion you feel instinctively as love because I’m the source.”
“Is there any reason I wouldn’t love Levia-nim?”
“You can be grateful but… it’s not a big deal, right?”
It laughed as if absurd and waved its hands.
“Giving you power? That’s so little I don’t even remember giving it. Morning dew would be more than that. Legs? A fragment recovers in the time it takes to drink a glass of water. Since I used an especially small piece for you, things that just fall off while walking would be more than that.”
“I’m pretty because Levia-nim exists.”
“You were originally pretty. I didn’t do anything. This kid is saying strange things.”
To it, it’s nothing. A very minor thing, trivial enough not to need remembering. Yet it finds it admirable just that I know. That’s praiseworthy and pleasing.
Ah, I wish I were more special. I wish it would only cherish me.
Enough that it won’t think of that damned Miros, I wish it would only think of me. So I can’t press more. Though it’s a very faint fragment, I know how it drove out that damn human Miros.
I don’t know the detailed circumstances, but it truly adored that Miros. So it drove them out. To avoid making them into something like itself.
Cruel, but fortunate for me. I won’t be abandoned. Even if I become ‘something’ like it.
“Let’s go to the lake with me. I made something really delicious today.”
“Are you going to keep making that kind of thing even though I keep saying I don’t eat? Don’t. You’ll hurt your hands.”
“But you’ll eat it, right? Because pretty me made it.”
It pretends to be helpless and lets me pull it along.
“And because I’m pretty sparkling in the sunlight.”
I no longer burn in sunlight.
I doubted myself. That I must be a demon, that’s why I burn when I see the sun. That my skin would burn hideously and melt and die. But it led me into the light. I now know how warm and brilliant sunlight is.
“You… you know too well that you’re pretty.”
“Do you dislike it?”
Ah, again. It didn’t answer easily. It thinks of that damn Miros again. It frowned and spat out irritably.
“No, what’s wrong with calling something pretty pretty.”
I’m glad I’m much prettier than that human Miros.
If this is heaven, I became an angel because of it. I will live in heaven. Together with my god.
