Chapter 154: Blossoms, Bouquets, and a Storm of Flowers (6)
A rite ant to send the dead safely to the Underworld.
All such rites were collectively called funerals. In so places, corpses were sealed in coffins and buried. In others, they were set adrift upon the water. Elsewhere still, bodies were burned and their ashes enshrined in urns. The procedures differed by nation and by region, yet the essential elent was the sa.
‘Mourning.’
True mourning was required.
Through the grief of the living, the dead reached the Underworld.
Monika knew this well.
- Brr, I am freezing to death…….
- I told you, Trisha. I told you to throw away that tailcoat-looking coat ages ago. Just look at these old hems. Tug a little harder and it will tear.
- lisha, could you please shut up for once? What am I supposed to do when there is no money at ho to buy a new coat? I had no choice but to inherit my brother’s clothes.
- And what about the wages you offer up every month?
- Gambling debts, obviously.
- That is so sad…….
- This is not the ti to be sad, Sasha! You are supposed to be angry.
- lisha is right, Sasha! Go shout at your family and call them bastards.
- I, I cannot say sothing like that…….
While the cleaners of the sa age walked ahead, chattering, Monika inhaled softly, savoring the scent of the bouquet she held against her chest.
The fragrance of the roundly arranged roses was sweet. A bouquet of carefully selected premium flowers, bought from a florist in the Capital. She was walking along the street with it cradled in her arms.
- By the way, Monika.
- Can I ask you sothing?
- How much did that bouquet cost?
- Shut up, lisha.
Monika ca to a stop.
Trisha, lisha, and Sasha turned to look at her.
Beyond the cleaners of the sa age, a majestic outer wall ca into view. A tall wall adorned in immaculate white. It was the barrier forming the main gate of Naflansee Grand Cathedral. Past that point would be Fleur’s grave.
“What are you curious about?”
It feels ridiculous to visit only now.
I could have co any ti before.
Thinking that, Monika opened her mouth.
- You definitely disliked Miss Saint-Pierre…….
- Were we mistaken? And the dress you are wearing looks incredibly expensive…….
- If I had to put it into words, it feels like sothing only a noblewoman like Miss Saint-Pierre would wear…….
Trisha, lisha, and Sasha were right.
She had hated Fleur, the price of the dress was absurd, and it was clothing far beyond what a girl of Monika’s status could afford. Where should she even begin explaining? While Monika chewed on her words—
- If you do not want to say it, then do not.
- It is not . I am curious, sure, but you can tell us later.
- Uh, yeah. I am honestly a little curious too…….
The cleaners whispered among themselves.
- Soone our age died. Before even reaching adulthood. Killed by a murderer, right? That is what the newspaper said.
- I hate nobles, but I do feel a little sorry for Miss Saint-Pierre. I can at least feel that much sympathy. Just that, nothing more.
- So will it be all right? We do not know anything about Miss Saint-Pierre. People like us…….
Do we even have the right to visit her grave?
The cleaners asked, and at that mont—
“Of course…….”
Monika let out a hollow laugh and spoke,
“──Of course you do, everyone!”
SCREECH.
The sound of a magic-stone vehicle braking sharply.
Monika turned around. A magic-stone vehicle adorned with ornate patterns was parked there, and Ernst was leaning his head out from the driver’s seat.
It seed he had pushed himself to drive in a hurry. Demian, seated in the passenger seat, looked pale, while Roberta lay sprawled at the edge of the back seat, blinking slowly.
“Pleased to et you, lovely ladies. My na is Ernst. Ernst of the Tresckow family.”
“……Demian Fernando von Farenheit. My stomach feels awful.”
“Hi, sisters! I am Roberta Sinclair, and Demian looks like he is about to throw up…….”
“──Ugh!”
“Demian, no! Swallow it back!”
“……I knew this would happen.”
Monika smiled faintly.
Perhaps the noise is not such a bad thing.
Thinking that, she moved forward. Visiting soone’s grave did not have to be done in silence. So mourning could be shaped not by resentnt, but by laughter.
Holding a hazy smile, Monika thought. Yes, that is right.
‘The scraps of paper I kept pasting onto the wall all this ti…….’
They must have been impossibly fragile gravestones.
Paper slips filled with the nas of dead people from her hotown. They were gravestones beyond reproach. She had repeated the nas of the dead again and again, striving not to forget them. Alone, unmoving, driven by resentnt. That had been the best mourning Monika could offer.
‘That cannot be the only right way.’
Behind her, the scene was noisy.
Ernst scolded Demian after he vomited. Trisha and lisha compared Demian’s looks to Ernst’s. Roberta began explaining to Sasha how to tease other people.
Amid the countless voices tangled together—
‘In the Underworld…….’
Monika took a step forward.
Scanning the gravestones that ford the cathedral’s forecourt.
‘You must be watching all of this.’
Then she stopped.
Standing before a single gravestone.
‘Like this…….’
Fleur de Saint-Pierre.
The na carved into the stone stood out.
Fleur of the Saint-Pierre family. It was a na ill-suited to describe Fleur. In life, Fleur would have wanted to follow her mother’s surna.
Then again. Very few people even knew that fact. Letting out a sigh, Monika thought. It did not really matter. After all—
‘……buried beneath all these blossoms.’
Countless flower buds.
Multicolored petals wrapped around the gravestone.
Then who was it? Who had co here to leave flowers? Facing Fleur’s gravestone, Monika wondered. If she tried to count the flowers, she would have to stay up all night.
Most were wilted, yet to varying degrees. It seed soone ca day after day to place new flowers. There was only one person this hopelessly inefficient.
‘Professor Abel.’
It could only be you.
Brushing away the wilted petals, Monika smiled.
With her prosthetic hand resting against the gravestone, she turned around.
“Fleur…….”
Trisha, lisha, and Sasha.
Demian, Ernst, and Roberta.
After looking over everyone’s faces, Monika whispered,
“……We are here.”
She watched the petals gliding through the air, carried by the wind.
***
At the sa ti, Lateranzo Orphanage in the western reaches of the Empire.
Petals that had soared high now poured down like rain.
CRUNCH. Abel drove the shovel blade into the ground at his feet. After wiping his brow, he stared into the air. Multicolored leaves. Petals scattered by the winter wind surged like spray.
“My, Abel.”
A voice reached Abel’s ear.
It was the voice of an old man. Elijah Kingsley, the headmaster of Lateranzo Orphanage. The man who had overseen the orphanage where Abel spent his childhood was approaching.
“You are still crying.”
“I am not crying.”
Abel turned around.
He supported Elijah as the old man walked with the aid of a cane. At tis, Elijah’s eyes opened, unfocused. He had lost his sight.
“Do not try to deceive .”
Elijah let out a dry chuckle.
“I can see it clearly. I lost my sight, but gained the ability to see what lies within. You are always weeping.”
“Let us say that you are right.”
Abel brushed his hair back.
He sat down beside Elijah, who had co to a stop, and stared straight ahead. It was dusk already. Gazing at the wide-open scenery, Abel thought. The glow of sunset dyed the land.
“Tell .”
Suddenly, Elijah spoke.
“Why did you co here?”
“Because there was sothing I had to do.”
“Yes. You must have needed to build graves.”
Abel remained silent.
The shovel handles driven into the ground nearby looked like gravestones.
And the wooden posts erected beyond them—were they not closer to saplings than to grave markers? Even if one dug beneath them, there would be no bodies. And yet, they were graves.
Beside each wooden post lay flower buds, while countless leaves simply fluttered in the wind.
“How many gravestones did you set up today?”
“Eighty-two.”
He had counted them using the docunts secured from Portsmouth.
The number of sacrifices used in human offerings. Children and adults combined, eighty-two. Abel had erected gravestones for all of them.
“Eighty-two. That is quite a number.”
“One is still missing.”
Abel stood up.
CRUNCH. Pulling the shovel free, he stepped forward.
It was not ti to rest yet. One more gravestone had to be set. Abel shoveled away the soil and picked up a wooden post. Just as he was about to drive it deep into the ground—
“And whose grave is that?”
“A monster’s.”
Elijah asked, and Abel answered.
A monster. Mourning a monster was no common thing.
Thinking that, Elijah nodded. There was no need to ask further. Abel’s heart was laid bare before him. Abel was mourning it as though it were a Knight, not a monster. Not with his eyes, but with his heart, Elijah perceived this.
And so, he changed the subject.
“Abel.”
THUD.
At the mont Abel drove the wooden post into the ground—
“It seems a guest has arrived.”
Elijah turned around.
No footsteps could be heard. Yet he sensed the presence by other ans.
“Soone rather like you…….”
Abel raised his head.
A woman cloaked in a black robe.
She was approaching him.
“……as though she, too, has been crying all this ti.”
“I am not crying.”
The woman replied to Elijah’s remark.
Abel shrugged. Through the gap in the woman’s robe, pale pink eyes flickered.
Iris René von Orléans. A Saintess of “The Mother God’s Left Hand” ca to a stop beside Abel. Beyond him, she gazed at the eighty-third gravestone. And beyond those eighty-three gravestones, she swept her eyes over the countless markers standing like a forest.
“……There are many.”
Iris stated simply.
With a cigarette between her lips, she felt it anew.
An absurd number. Enough that placing flowers at each grave would turn the place into a flower field.
“I was planning to seek you out anyway.”
Abel spoke in an indifferent tone.
He passed Iris and headed toward one corner of the grounds. Countless flower buds were piled there, all premium selections purchased from florists in the Capital.
“What brings you here?”
“What other business would it be?”
Iris shrugged.
Exhaling cigarette smoke, she continued.
“The information on the Parousia Denomination obtained through Osmond Epanoui. We have finished deciphering it. The code gave us quite a headache.”
Abel nodded once.
He took a flower bud and placed it beside the final gravestone.
Then he bent one knee and paid his respects.
“You will be busy for a while.”
You will have to head to their base.
As Iris whispered—
“That is welco news.”
Abel murmured quietly.
“At last, we can bring this to a close.”
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