She nervously moved her eyes from side to side, then took a step back.

“Saint! It really is you, Saint!”

It wasn’t just joy, but a voice close to ecstasy.

The one who cried out was a girl even smaller than Snow. Snow couldn’t fail to recognize her. She was the very girl whom Snow had cured of blindness at Oblivion and made into an apprentice priest. Behind her, approaching through the snow, stood several other priests. The girl shouted to the priests behind her, “I’ve found the Saint!”

Snow couldn’t understand how the girl could see her. The people inside Oblivion had not been able to detect Snow. That was because she had wished it so. She didn’t want to harm people, nor did she want to appear before them.

Yet contradictorily, the fact that the apprentice priest girl recognized her meant that Snow herself had wanted it to happen.

Snow looked at the girl in confusion. When Snow had asked the girl her name, she had answered that she had none. But now it was different.

“Estel.”

Snow called the girl’s name. The girl Estel smiled so brightly it seemed she could melt all the surrounding cold.

“How did you know my name? High Priest Verdus gave it to me specially.”

She was so lovely and bright that it was hard to believe she was the same child who had weakly said “I don’t have a name,” lying on a dirty bed with unfocused eyes. Estel quickly remembered that this was not the time for such questions, and spoke seriously.

“Holy Maiden. I’m so glad you’re safe. Let’s go back to the temple right away.”

The priests following far behind Estel soon discovered the Saint as well. They too could see Snow. Snow was confused.

‘Didn’t I not want to return to the temple? Wasn’t I afraid of them knowing my truth, of hurting them?’

The priests who were older than Estel responded more calmly. Realizing that the Saint was wearing only thin indoor clothes, one tried to take off his coat to cover her. The moment the warmth of someone else’s coat touched her skin, Snow suddenly came to her senses.

She pushed the priest away.

“I’m not going back. I can’t go back.”

Estel and the other two priests opened their eyes wide. The Saint was crying. In fact, Snow had been crying almost constantly since the calamity began.

“Holy Maiden.”

A male priest called out to the Saint, trying to say something. But he couldn’t continue. The moment he said “Holy Maiden,” Snow had already disappeared.

Not even footprints remained where Snow had trudged away from Oblivion.

♣ ♣ ♣

Santarium was a building constructed for the Saint. All the priests of the temple, including Ceres, served the “Saint” sent directly by the Goddess. If Snow hadn’t been the Saint, she wouldn’t have met Elios in the first place.

So nothing belonged to Snow. She truly was not the Saint.

She thought she couldn’t remain at the temple pretending to be the Saint while bringing calamity. She was a sinner before the world. If she stayed, the temple might also be endangered. That’s why Snow left the temple.

But in truth, shamelessly, she desperately wanted to return to the temple.

That place was Snow’s home.

No, that place was not Snow’s residence but the Saint’s residence.

She missed Arianne, Ceres, the High Priests, and many other priests she had become acquainted with.

They would be searching for the “Saint,” not for her.

After resolving not to return to the temple, she actually wanted to.

Above all, there were people she desperately wanted to see.

Snow knelt on the ground. Against the desolate ground where no one could hear, she whispered in a hoarse voice, as if speaking to the earth:

“I miss you…”

Like breath dispersing in the wind, Snow’s voice faded, mixing with the strong gust.

♣ ♣ ♣

Elios, who had been lying meaninglessly waiting for his condition to improve, was startled.

He jumped up and looked around. Indeed, there was no one.

Did he mishear?

No, he hadn’t misheard. He definitely heard it. Snow’s voice.

As if she were speaking right next to his ear, saying “I miss you.” He had heard it very clearly. Though it was hard to believe, it was definitely Snow’s voice.

He had already experienced more than enough unbelievable things. He felt that what he heard was truly Snow’s voice. He was convinced that she had really sent him this message from somewhere. There was no evidence at all. It would have been more plausible that it was Elios’s delusion, but he was strangely confident.

He had rested for quite a long time in Ceres’s room. Though still stiff, his body felt considerably lighter. He had been patient until now because of Ceres’s words not to trouble the temple. Many people had gone out to search for Snow. He had convinced himself that whether he joined the search in the snow or not wouldn’t make much difference, and so he had stayed put in bed.

But if Snow had called him directly, the situation was completely different. From the beginning, he had prioritized Snow in his actions. That’s why he had come all the way to the Grand Temple.

If it appeared that the Prince had secretly left alone without officially informing the Grand Temple, then even if Elios went missing in the snow, the temple’s responsibility wouldn’t be too great. Elios had thought that far.

Even though he was considering the possibility of his own disappearance, it felt detached, as if it were someone else’s affair. He just wanted to find Snow quickly. He felt bewitched.

The thick winter clothes Elios had worn when coming to the temple were all neatly arranged in plain sight. Elios hastily put them on.

Just as he was fastening the last button of his coat, there was a click as the doorknob turned. Ceres Martadia rushed into the room. She faced Elios, who was fully dressed in winter clothes.

He was more surprised by Ceres’s breathless entrance than by the fact that he had been caught trying to go outside.

However, Elios quickly realized why Ceres was so startled. A thought occurred to him. There was only one possible explanation. He tentatively said to Ceres:

“Did you hear it too, Ceres?”

He didn’t specify what he had heard. Nevertheless, Ceres clearly understood what Elios meant. This was evident because the next moment, she nodded with a serious expression while looking at Elios.

Ceres went further and voiced what she had heard.

“She said, ‘I miss you’…”

Ceres Martadia said. It was the same as what Elios had heard.

“It definitely sounded like the Holy Maiden’s voice…”

This confirmed that what he and Ceres had heard was not an auditory hallucination.

Elios, draping a thick cloak over his coat, informed Ceres:

“I must go out to find the Holy Maiden. Please pretend you didn’t see me. I jumped into the blizzard despite being warned that it was dangerous and that I shouldn’t go out.”

Without answering, Ceres looked once at the window where the sound of wind could be heard strongly, and once at Elios. Elios spoke again:

“But you needn’t worry too much. My condition has improved considerably now. I will definitely return with the Holy Maiden. I’m confident I can do that.”

To Ceres, Elios still seemed young. And pure as well. He was more faithful to his emotions than calculating interests, and sometimes he could be short-sighted in his actions.

Ceres, like Elios, felt a deep urge to go out and find Snow herself the moment she heard Snow’s voice. But until now, she had never taken direct action. She had appointed representatives, written letters, and invoked the Goddess’s will.

Though she worried about the Saint more than anyone, even now she was just issuing orders while staying cooped up in the Grand Temple. That’s because she was Ceres.

Ceres watched as Elios left the room without waiting for her answer. His figure disappeared from her sight.

Ceres, for the first time since becoming Ceres, acted impulsively. She flung the door open after Elios and shouted:

“Your Highness!”

Elios, who had been hurriedly moving away in the distance, turned around. Fearing he might disappear, Ceres quickly called out:

“Please take me with you.”

“What?” Elios asked as he approached her.

“Ceres. But you—”

“I must go. I must see the Holy Maiden in person. I feel that way. If not, the Holy Maiden will not return.”

Snow’s voice had provoked an inexplicable impulse and conviction in those who heard it. It made it impossible to endure without acting. Elios was confident that if he went out now, he would find Snow, and Ceres was convinced that if she didn’t go herself, the Saint would not return.

As someone who had also heard that voice, Elios could well imagine how Ceres Martadia felt. It was a feeling without rhyme or reason. A feeling that made one want to follow it even at the cost of abandoning one’s position, duty, and responsibility.

So in the end, Elios had no choice but to give an affirmative answer.

And so, moments later, two figures slipped out of the corridor and headed toward the stables on the outskirts of the Grand Temple.

♣ ♣ ♣

Elios and Martadia planned to ride horses separately to search for Snow. In fact, it was hardly worth calling a plan. They had no plan. The thought that they must first leave the temple completely filled their minds.