Saint's Prison - Chapter 15

The Last Fragment

Do you believe in God—

No, I do not believe.

But… I do wish He existed.

—After all, if there is no God, then whom else should I resent?

＊＊＊

Looking at Amal’s face as she fell asleep from crying, I was overcome with a sense of helplessness. What exactly was I looking at when I saw Amal?

“…Kill you, I could never do something like that.”

I lacked the resolve.

The resolve to live here.

The resolve to protect Amal and live with her.

That lack of resolve was because I was a foreigner. An outsider.

That’s the excuse I made.

That’s what I tried to convince myself.

Yet, I was only afraid to step into this world.

My cowardice hurt a single girl and drove her to this point.

If I had no intention of living in this world, I should have left. As Benedict, the abbot, said, I should not have gotten involved.

Still, the reason I continued to stay here—was because of Amal.

Just as I saved her from loneliness, Amal saved me as well.

The time had come to make a decision.

The time to fill that single, last fragment—

＊＊＊

After watching over Amal for a while, I quietly returned to my own room.

I closed the door and slumped down. Resting my hands on my forehead, I let out a deep sigh. Feeling the coldness of the stone floor against my backside, I reflected on Amal’s words.

Always alone, huh?

Even though there are many others here besides me. Still, Amal said that. She said this place was like a prison.

“Smiling at me, calling me beautiful, when everyone else feared and despised me.”

Feared and despised by everyone…?

What could that mean?

Why Amal?

I don’t understand. There’s too much I don’t understand, and I don’t know what to do.

I wanted to scream and run around.

I felt an unbearable irritation with my own incompetence.

Trying to calm myself, I stood up from the door and collapsed onto the bed, closing my eyes.

For now, I just wanted to cool my head.

After some time, I sat up on the bed and decided to pull on the threads of memory once more.

As I traced my memories, ruminating… I realized a fact.

Though I was supposed to have lived with the priests in the monastery for a year, I never saw Amal interacting with them. In fact, I hadn’t even seen her conversing with them.

And—

—Had I ever heard Amal’s name from the lips of another monk?

The insults directed at Amal by Salus weren’t from misogyny or contempt for women, were they?

“Barbaric. Ignorant. That is your sin. Do you not know fear, you fool? One must be thus.”

It was because I didn’t know something—something that caused Amal to be feared and despised. The irritation directed at me for trying to stay close to her, for her barbarity, her ignorance, her foolishness.

Was it not that they didn’t throw me out, but that Amal stayed by my side to protect me and kept a watchful eye, preventing them from acting against me, from driving me out?

Benedict, the abbot, who warned me not to get too close to Amal.

Those eyes, as if there was a fearsome monster lurking in the monastery. Was Benedict afraid of Amal?

When I sneaked out of the monastery and brought back a crying Amal, the cold gaze Francesco directed at her.

Was her room at the far end of the monastery not to protect her as a woman but to isolate her?

Everything was connected, with Amal as the starting point.

Amal’s figure flashed through my mind.

“…So warm,” she said, holding my hand like a treasure.

She hated being left behind to an abnormal degree and took any chance to be with me.

When I left the monastery, she became terribly upset, crying.

She smiled, receiving a small blue flower, saying it was her first gift.

All these images of her surfaced one after another.

I clenched my fist tightly.

Here, how Amal was treated.

Why it had to be so.

I should know.

No, I must know.

No matter what answers lie there, I will stay by Amal’s side.

—That alone is the one certain thing I can say.