With a calm expression, Mother Elea crouched down and slowly reached out her hand to Setina.
Setina opened her eyes in an underground cathedral.
"How are you feeling? Serah."
"Mother Elea...? Um...I...?"
Like her awakening, Setina, whose memory was vague, held Mother Elea's hand and pondered her thoughts with a dumbfounded expression.
(At the cathedral...challenging the ceremony...and then...? I can't remember from there...)
Setina's anxiety is growing because she can't remember the process or result of an important ritual.
"That's fine. Serah."
"picture?"
"The ritual of making a will that has been passed down in Almeria for generations. No one knows where it came from and what it did.
"i don't remember?"
"Yes. When I was your father, I stood on this earth as a priest, but just like you, I disappeared with the light of the ether and came back in a blink of an eye. As if nothing had happened."
“But Mother Elea.
“A process that is too different from the teaching—are you trying to say that?”
"……yes"
"Right. As bishops, we don't understand why the Ritsushi no Gi uses the phrase 'summoning sacred beasts to make a contract.' thing.
Those who consider the rite of will as an expedient, those who consider themselves invited to Festia-sama's world. However, there is still no one who has constructed a realistic logic there."
"..."
"Don't you think it's funny?"
"picture?"
"Sera. The world is wider than you think, and the world you live in is still full of unknowns. Originally, the meaning of things is usually not something you can see. and The World You See.
Sometimes there are reasons that you can't see unless you go off the road that has been leveled and walk on the animal trail. Don't forget that
"Mother Elea... that's..."
Seeing Mother Elea's expression calmly staring at her, Setina stopped asking.
The words intended by Mother Elea are not compulsory. She is not Princess Setina, but her student Serah's wish for me.
"And your last words as a teacher."
Mother Elea approached Setina and gently hugged her.
"Sera, congratulations on your graduation."
"Ah..."
Setina also embraced Mother Elea, and she felt her warmth.
It has been two years since she, Setina, visited this Vilano monastery.
Vilano Monastery is a monastery that teaches many people under the Festian faith.
It is a monastery of the Festian religion that offered a helping hand to people of different origins, even though it was noble, such as protecting many unidentified refugees from the Akataka Incident 14 years ago.
Naturally, apart from the priests and the bishop of Mother Elea, who were teaching her, the status of Setina, the princess of Almeria, was hidden, but with the exception of one person, who knew that Setina was a member of the royal family.
──Vilano Monastery, in the president's office──
“Sera.
"Thank you, Mother Elea."
"How fast. Two years went by so quickly for this old woman. The day you came to this monastery seems like only yesterday."
"Mother Elea..."
“Well, at first I was really wondering what happened… Huh?”
"... how have you been?"
Saying that, Mother Elea approached the door of the president's office and put her hand on the doorknob.
"It's nothing. Well, in a different sense, Sera wasn't the only one who got her hands burned."
As Mother Elea spoke, she took off the handle of the doorknob──
"──What!? Gyafun!"
From the other side of the door, a girl with pale green twintails lost her balance and fell down.
“Miri!?”
"Ah... ahahahaha..."
Setina was surprised when a girl about the same age as Sera suddenly appeared at the door.
The girl called Milly was laughing as if she was cheating.
"Huh... I'm not impressed with eavesdropping, Miriaria. Above all, it's rude."
"I'm sorry, Mother Elea."
(Achaa...why did you find out)
"I didn't go as far as the cathedral in the Forbidden Zone. The motive was her friend's concern. I'll forgive Sera for her graduation today."
“Ahahahaha… Thank you Mother Elea.”
"Sera, it seems that the escorts to pick her up will arrive during the day. Until then, please say hello to the people in the hospital with Miriaria."
"Yes, Mother Elea."
"Sera! Let's go! Let's talk about various things!"
"Ah, please don't listen to the story about the Risshi no Gi and the forbidden area, it's confidential."
"I understand!"
Sera left the president's office to be pulled by Miriaria.
(I'm worried about Sera being too easy on her hands, but I don't think she's too naughty like Miriaria. Well, I guess that's why those two became good friends.)
From the window glass of the president's office on the 2nd floor, Mother Elea smiled at her as she watched the students walking along the connecting corridor outside.
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