He cast a wary glance at Hailla, silently wondering who she was. Caught off guard and unsure how to respond, she hesitated, then half-hid behind Miar, believing that if she hid her head, the rest of her would be invisible.

“It’s fine. She’s my guest. Just speak.”

“It failed.”

“I see…”

Miar nodded, looking bored as if she had expected as much. Then she leaned in and whispered cheerfully to Hailla, urging her to go inside. The people who had emerged from the room quickly disappeared.

As Hailla passed them, she caught a strange scent. She turned her head to look back, but Miar took her hand and pulled her forward.

“Who were they?”

“Oh, just priests. A lower rank than mine.”

Even among priests, there was a hierarchy. It wasn’t strictly determined by seniority, but Miar didn’t bother to explain that. She assumed it was a nuance that a commoner wouldn’t understand anyway.

The two of them entered Riduca. Inside, it was completely empty except for a single, glowing pillar of light in the centre. Hailla stared at it, entranced. The light surged upwards from the floor, stretching all the way to the ceiling of the temple and making the space feel even more ethereal.

“Go ahead. Take a closer look.”

She moved awkwardly, like an uninvited guest. As she approached hesitantly, the light pillar began to ripple. The shadow at her feet grew and shrank with the shifting light.

As she drew closer, a white sword became distinctly visible within the light. She stared at it in a daze, then frowned, sensing an unease she could not explain. Gathering her courage, she stepped forward. Leaning in closer, she inhaled deeply.

“Is something wrong?”

The sudden presence at her side startled Hailla and made her jump. Miar tilted her head, puzzled. This tension didn’t feel like the usual reverence people felt in the divine domain; it felt more like fear. Hailla was acting like someone who had sensed danger.

“…”

“Please, feel free to speak. It’s okay.”

“Blood…”

“Blood?”

“I can smell blood.”

Hailla had spent years nursing Rethe and had become very sensitive to the scent. She could detect even the faintest trace of it lingering in the air. She remembered seeing red dots on the hem of one of the priests’ robes outside just moments ago. She hadn’t wanted to believe it, but now, as she drew closer to the relic, the truth became undeniable.

That’s when Miar — and this entire place — suddenly terrified her.

“What happened here…?”

Her voice was low and weighted with meaning. Miar looked into her golden eyes for a moment, then slowly ran a hand through her hair. Her long, slender fingers glided through the rich, crimson strands.

“This is what people call good intuition, isn’t it?”

Hailla gulped at the sudden change of mood. She felt that if she made the slightest noise, she would start hiccupping.

Are they going to kill me? A live sacrifice to the gods? She had once heard rumours that poor girls were taken to the temple and offered as sacrifices. But why her? Her mind raced through all the possibilities until, overcome with fear, she bit her lip.

“I—I’m… I’m not a virgin.”

A question mark floated above Miar’s head. She just stared, too curious to stop listening as Hailla nervously continued.

“I mean, I’ve already slept with Lian. A lot. So I’m not really qualified to be a sacrifice. I’m not pure. Someone like me isn’t worthy of being offered to a god…”

“……”

“And I’m not even a good person! I’ve done bad things. I stole twice when I was little. I’m full of sin.”

Her desperate attempts to prove her own unworthiness gradually faded into a timid mumble. The fear of dying here had overwhelmed her. Tears welled up as she looked up at Mary, trembling.

The woman wore a strange expression.

“You think I brought you here to kill you?”

“Didn’t you?”

“Ha…”

Miar let out a breathless laugh and crossed her arms.

“What on earth are the commoners saying about us?”

She shook her head, smiling with a mixture of disbelief and amusement.

“The temple doesn’t sacrifice humans to the gods.”

“Then why is there blood? Isn’t it human blood?”

“It is human blood.”

“…….”

“Don’t make that face. We didn’t kill anyone.”

Miar jerked her chin towards the pillar of light behind Hailla. The white pillar was still shimmering, now with a bluish hue. The white sword inside it rotated slowly, almost seductively.

“Someone used the sword.”

“That’s right.”

“But who…?”

Not just anyone was permitted to use the sword within the temple. Only priests or nobles who had made generous donations to the temple were granted permission. As Hailla sifted through her memories, she recalled something she had discussed with Rethe a few days earlier.

“Count Feldon?”

The man who had declared that he would wield the sacred sword after being rejected by Lady Riahe. Hailla watched Miar cautiously, her eyes wide with worry.

“Yes, that foolish man. He ended up dead.”

Miar looked utterly bored, as if the outcome had been so predictable that it wasn’t worth discussing. Hailla, on the other hand, was shocked. However, Miar’s indifferent nod made it clear that this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.

“But the Count said he truly loved Lady Riahe. He wanted to prove it by finding the relic.”

“Yes, he did.”

“Then why did he die?”

“…”

“I don’t understand why he failed. He volunteered! So why—?”

“How naïve.”

Miar’s lovely brow furrowed as she stepped towards the pillar, brushing past Hailla.

“Come here.”

She extended her delicate, immaculate hand, untouched by hardship. Mesmerised by its elegance, Hailla hesitantly placed her hand on top of it. Miar pulled her in with a swift motion, bringing her right up to the glowing pillar. Up close, the pillar was enormous. Even more shocking, though, was what lay beneath it: a gaping hole from which light poured upwards.

“You’re special, Miss Hailla, so let me tell you a little secret.”

“…”

“No need for a reward. It’s just between us, right?”

Her tone was casual yet direct. Hailla felt uneasy, but her curiosity about why the Count had failed overpowered her unease.

The sacred sword was said to cut away false emotions, leaving only truth. Everyone knew the legend: if you approached it with deceit in your heart, it would kill you. But who would risk their life to prove a lie? Could the sword not work the way people believed?

Lost in thought, Hailla was instructed by Miar to look closely at the space beneath the pillar. When she did so, she gasped.

“Could it be…?”

“Shh! You must be careful. Once something falls in, there’s no way out.”

She wasn’t denying it. Hailla took two steps back from the cunning priestess and inhaled sharply. Suddenly, the air felt much colder.

“Is this your first time seeing it? My apologies. I see it every day, so I may have been a little careless.”

“All of that in there is really…”

‘Corpses?’

Hailla couldn’t bring herself to say the last word aloud, instead covering her mouth. It felt forbidden to say it. But Miar simply nodded, looking eerily calm.

“Yes, all of them. Thanks to the temple’s purifying effect, though, they’ll have disappeared by tomorrow. Anything tossed into that pillar will disappear completely within a day. You could call it a hidden disposal site.”

‘So, do those bodies pile up like that every day?’

Hailla felt bile rise in her throat and gagged. Alarmed, Miar rushed to her side and gently patted her on the back. Her kindness made the nausea even worse.

“Oh my, you must’ve been really shocked.”

“Ugh… Urgh…”

Fortunately, the vomit disappeared from the floor just as quickly as Lian’s blood had before.

“I’m sorry. I really didn’t expect this. Usually, everyone else who learns this secret is just fascinated. I didn’t think someone would react like this…”

She truly hadn’t expected it. The nobles she had met so far had always reacted with awe when they saw the sword and the rotting corpses beneath it, which had vanished within a day. They had always praised the god’s power.

They had even clicked their tongues in mock sympathy at the ignorance of those who had ended up beneath the pillar. But none had ever reacted with such disgust. It was a typical noble mindset, instilled from birth: viewing others as little more than slabs of meat.

In the end, Miar personally supported the trembling Hailla and led her outside. It was only when they reached the garden, where the fresh scent of grass filled the air, that Hailla’s nausea began to subside. After a few deep breaths, she finally managed to speak.

“I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?”

“Why are there so many corpses here? I don’t understand—how could there be that many bodies in the temple? It’s not like just anyone is allowed to use the sword!”

In truth, attempts to wield the sacred relic were incredibly rare — perhaps once every five years, if that. The wealthy nobles who had access to it saw no reason to risk their lives, nor did the priests. The commoners might have been desperate enough to try, but they lacked the wealth to get anywhere near it. This is precisely why Count Feldon’s declaration caused such a commotion.

Miar let out a tight sigh, her expression tightening briefly with frustration. She looked like someone trying to explain something that was either too complex or too cruel for an innocent girl to understand.

“So commoners really believe that, huh?”

“Believe what?”

“That we’d just let something as valuable as a sacred relic sit around unused?”

The sacred relic was a holy sword — a divine object. It was shocking for a priest to speak of it so bluntly and almost irreverently.