The Holy Emperor folded her hands together and slowly bent her knees.
Leaning her body forward, she let herself fall prone onto that supremely soft cloud-silk cotton mattress.
Her burning cheeks—like a startled ostrich—she buried deep into that pure-white, fluffy pillow. A head of white hair slid down over her snow-white shoulders.
Even in such a comfortable environment, the Holy Emperor's smooth, delicate shoulders still kept trembling faintly without cease. "Please begin... Kami-sama."
Her voice, muffled in the pillow, drifted out.
Haimer sat at the edge of the bed.
He moved his gaze away from the Holy Emperor's faintly trembling shoulders.
His fingers lifted lightly, and a specially made silver needle slid deftly into his palm.
The tip of the needle pierced the pad of his index finger.
A faint trace of stinging pain came through.
A single drop of dark-red Divine Blood seeped out from his fingertip, gathering into a round bead of blood that hung from the tip.
Haimer's wrist moved slightly.
That drop of Divine Blood fell straight down. "Plip." The Divine Blood landed, unerringly, upon the dead center of the Holy Emperor's jade-smooth back.
"Mmmmm—!" A dazzling red light burst forth abruptly the moment the Divine Blood touched her skin!
Intricate black sacred letters crawled across the Holy Emperor's fair skin. Those letters arranged and recombined at an extreme speed, faintly carrying an indescribable sense of heaviness.
Without overthinking it, Haimer flipped his palm over and pressed it directly down. His palm exerted a slight force. As the divine light flowed and shifted—
—with his other hand free, he took up a blank sheet of parchment that had long been prepared on the nearby nightstand, and pressed it precisely against the very center of the light on the Holy Emperor's back. He waited several seconds.
Only when those crawling sacred letters had completely stabilized, and the light, too, began to gradually recede. "Riiip." Haimer pinched one corner of the parchment and peeled it off.
That red light, too, gradually sank away into the Holy Emperor's body.
Haimer turned the parchment over.
His gaze fell naturally upon the paper. And then—in that instant, Haimer's gaze visibly froze for a brief moment.
[Name]: Holy Emperor
[Level]: Lv.1
Strength → I11 Endurance → I15 Dexterity → I12
Agility → I14 Magic → SSS1500
This set of stats was, quite simply, extraordinarily lopsided. Apart from Magic, those four core abilities above—the ones used to measure an adventurer's basic combat strength—were all a uniform string of I's. And the values barely reached double digits; not one of them had even broken past 20.
Still, given that extreme skill of the Holy Emperor's—『Compassion for the Suffering World』.
Her nature fiercely resisted killing, which caused the growth rate of these four basic abilities to plummet dramatically, making them exceedingly hard to raise.
With this skill as a shackle, the appearance of such dismal stats was entirely within Haimer's expectations. But! Haimer's gaze was nailed fast to that last row—the column for Magic.
There lay a figure capable of making any god or adventurer who understood the common sense of the Lower World feel their scalp prickle—of even crashing their brain on the spot.
SSS.
1500.
Haimer sat at the edge of the bed, his fingers pinching the edge of the parchment.
In the millennia-long historical records of the entire Lower World—
from the ancient heroes who slew monsters upon the wastelands,
to later, when the gods descended and founded the labyrinth city of Orario.
Even in that era so famed for producing geniuses—whether the most noble elf royalty among the magic races, or the Sprites, lauded as favored by the gods and born as living aggregates of magic itself!
Their Magic values, even when honed to the very limit of their own level, hovered at most around 900, in the S tier.
Once in a great while, there would be one or two prodigies who shattered their racial limits, broke past the 999 barrier, and reached the SS tier. Such beings were already legends—written about in grand detail in the history of the Lower World, enshrined like ancestors by all the great Familias.
And now? One thousand five hundred!
This was no longer a question of legend or not. This was a number absurd to the very utmost!
At the Lv.1 stage, it was impossible to pile Magic up to such a suffocating degree!
Haimer stared at the parchment, saying nothing for a long while.
The air in the master bedroom seemed to grow somewhat heavy because of Haimer's silence.
Onigawara Rin and Tendou Kisara, standing not far from the bed, along with the few little ones who had only just finished getting dressed.
Though they could not see the specific figures on the paper,
they knew Haimer all too well. For something to make this ancient god—who would not so much as change his expression even if Mount Tai collapsed before him—fall into such silence,
there was no need to guess: something major had surely happened.
The women exchanged glances with one another. They could not help but hold their breath, not daring to make even the faintest sound.
In this almost stagnant atmosphere. "Rin, Kirukiru." Haimer at last lifted his gaze from the parchment.
He flipped the parchment over backhanded and laid it face-down on his thigh, turned his head, and abruptly spoke. "Take everyone outside for now." Haimer issued the order to clear the room.
"And close the door behind you." Hearing this, everyone was taken aback. They looked at one another, at a loss.
In the past, whenever he updated their Grace, Haimer had never been secretive in front of anyone; everyone's stats were open and transparent. What was the matter today?
Amou Kirukiru leaned against the wall, her brow arching slightly.
She glanced at Haimer, then at the Holy Emperor lying prone on the bed, her body drawn taut as a wire. She didn't ask a single question more.
She simply straightened up, snatched up the black coat draped over a nearby chair, and led the way toward the door.
"We'll wait for you outside." Onigawara Rin was very tactful as well, calling along Hanasaka Warabi and Nomura Satori, plus those two ten-year-old little girls who were still craning their necks to peek.
They filed out one after another. "Click."
As the last person stepped out of the room, that heavy solid-wood door was gently closed.
The sound of the latch clicking into place echoed through the room.
In the spacious master bedroom, in an instant there remained only the two of them—Haimer and the Holy Emperor, still lying prone on the bed.
The air sank into an unnerving silence.
Sensing the change around her, and the footsteps of her companions departing one after another, the Holy Emperor, her face in the pillow, felt the string in her heart instantly pulled taut to its breaking point.
She thought her own stats were simply too dreadful—so dreadful that even Kami-sama was unwilling to read them aloud in front of everyone.
That immense self-reproach, born of being unable to contribute combat strength, drowned her like a rising tide.
"Kami-sama..." The Holy Emperor lifted her head slightly.
That exquisitely beautiful face was now filled with unease.
Her aquamarine eyes, which usually radiated grace and composure, now welled up with an obvious film of misty tears.
"Are my stats... too low?"
The Holy Emperor's voice was very faint, like a wisp of smoke that might be scattered by the wind at any moment.
"After all... I really can only keep dragging everyone down in this household..."
The Holy Emperor bit down hard on her lower lip, her fingers gripping tightly at the cloud-silk cotton sheets.
Watching her look as though she were about to burst into tears, Haimer let out a soft sigh.
He casually set the parchment, lying face-down on his thigh, onto the nightstand beside him. He reached out a hand.
Following the smooth strands of the Holy Emperor's hair, he gently stroked down to the back of her head. Once, and again. His movements were as gentle as could be.
"If this is what you call dragging us down,"
"then every last mage in the whole of Orario could probably just snap their staves in two and line up to go feed themselves to the Goblins down in the Dungeon."
Haimer's voice rang out in the quiet room. "?" Hearing this, the Holy Emperor froze.
Her aquamarine eyes were full of bewilderment; she even forgot to let the tears swirling in them fall.
She stared blankly at Haimer, her mind unable to make sense of it for the moment.
Haimer's fingers slid down along her hair, gliding past her fair, slender neck.
At last, his fingers came to rest lightly at the dead center of her back—the spot where the Grace engraving had just sunk away. "Magic, SSS." "One thousand five hundred."
Haimer stared into the Holy Emperor's eyes and enunciated the number with perfect clarity. One thousand five hundred.
The Holy Emperor's breath caught in an instant.
Even though she had not been in this world long and did not yet thoroughly understand its systems, she was still startled all the same.
"Astonishing stats, aren't they?"
Haimer leaned down, bringing himself a little closer to the Holy Emperor's turned face.
His black eyes looked straight into the Holy Emperor's aquamarine eyes, which were slowly widening.
"No one in the Lower World can reach this height."
"But." "I don't feel particularly pleased about it."
Haimer's tone took a sharp turn. "『Boundless Virtue Bears All Things』."
"This skill's description—do I need to repeat it for you?"
Haimer's voice grew steadily more solemn.
"To be able to bear and embrace the suffering of others; to convert all the pressure, pain, and sorrow one endures—and even one's very perception of the suffering of the world—into a wellspring for the generation of Magic."
Haimer stared into the Holy Emperor's eyes, leaving her no room to escape.
"In the span of just a few short days,"
"your Magic value has soared from zero, all the way up to an utterly absurd one thousand five hundred."
"Magic cannot arise out of nothing."
"Tell me." "These past few days, in the Dungeon."
"On the surface." "And even when facing those Xenos—driven out by the entire world, able only to hide in the dark corners of the Dungeon—"
"just how much..." Haimer paused, his tone weighing heavier.
"just how much pain that belonged to other people have you forcibly stuffed into your own mind?!"
As Haimer's words fell, the master bedroom went so quiet in an instant that a dropped needle could be heard.
The Holy Emperor's body stiffened abruptly.
In the end, she still couldn't escape Kami-sama's eyes after all?
In the Holy Emperor's aquamarine eyes, the mist that had stilled out of surprise swiftly gathered once more.
Tears slid straight down from the corners of her eyes, dripping onto the pure-white sheets and spreading into a ring of dampness.
Just like a child who had done something wrong and been suddenly found out by an elder.
The Holy Emperor flusteredly looked away and buried that peerlessly beautiful face once again into her folded arms.
"Kami-sama... this is the only thing I'm able to do."
The Holy Emperor, her face buried in her arms, spoke with an obvious sob in her voice—it sounded heartbreaking.
"In the Dungeon, I saw Lady Kirukiru standing at the very front, her whole body covered in the blood of monsters."
"I saw Lady Rin gripping her blade, slashing for her life amid the horde of monsters—more than once a monster's sharp claws grazed past the side of her face."
"Everyone, at such a young age, faced so many ferocious, terrifying monsters in order to protect me."
The more the Holy Emperor spoke, the more violently her shoulders heaved.
"But other than hiding behind the protective circle they built with their own bodies, there was nothing at all I could do..." "This is the only thing I can do..."
"If only I can take all the harm everyone suffers, all the pain they feel in battle, and transfer it onto myself through magic."
"To lighten their burden, even by the tiniest bit—that would be enough."
"If… if I can't even bear this much suffering…"
The Holy Emperor bit down hard on her lip.
"I'd worry… about whether I even have any right left to remain in this Familia..."
"And what right I have to accept everyone treating me so kindly."
Having heard all this, Haimer, seated at the edge of the bed, looked at the Holy Emperor's tear-streaked face, and an inexplicable, complicated emotion stirred within him.
A devotion to others that bordered on self-destruction.
Where Tendou Kisara, for the sake of revenge, would cast aside everything and force herself into a merciless blade,
the Holy Emperor had gone utterly to the opposite extreme.
To prove her own worth, to protect these companions, she had chosen the most foolish method of all—to embrace every last bit of suffering that came from outside.
Loading all the pain and hurt into the vessel of her own mind.
Such an extreme state of mind—even Haimer, with all his vast experience, could not foresee, under the cruel environment of the Lower World,
just what kind of fruit this obsession would bear in the years to come.
Whether she would be reborn through fire, becoming a true beacon of hope to light up all the abysses;
or whether, one day, the dam of her mind would be unable to withstand the crushing weight of this immense suffering, and be utterly broken and shattered, reducing her to nothing but a walking-corpse of a madwoman.
At this thought, Haimer let out a helpless little sigh.
The hand resting on the edge of the bed lifted lightly once more. He gently stroked the Holy Emperor's head. "Lift your head."
Haimer's voice returned to that gentleness carrying a soothing power.
The Holy Emperor's long eyelashes trembled fiercely.
Obediently, she lifted that tear-soaked face slightly to face Haimer.
Haimer reached out his fingers and, with great gentleness, wiped away, bit by bit, the teardrops clinging to the corners of her eyes.
The skin his fingertips touched was faintly warm. "In a place like the Dungeon, which devours people without spitting out the bones,"
"excessive self-sacrifice usually gets you killed the fastest."
"The moment you fall, those you've protected behind you will immediately be buried along with you."
Haimer looked at the Holy Emperor, slowing his pace of speech.
Seeing the panic welling up again in the depths of the Holy Emperor's eyes, Haimer withdrew the hand that had been wiping her tears.
"But." "Since I was the one who brought you into this world,"
"then it is my responsibility to catch and hold up everything about you."
Haimer gazed into the Holy Emperor's aquamarine eyes, which had refocused. "Though a god's Divine Power is sealed away in the Lower World,"
"a god's eyes are still able to see clearly the color of a mortal's soul."
Haimer pointed to his own eyes. "Those who are stained with too much blood, grown habitual in slaughter—"
"the color of their souls is a nauseating dark red."
"Those who have been wholly devoured by desire, greed, and power—"
"their souls are a murky, foul gray-black." Haimer leaned forward slightly, drawing a little closer to the Holy Emperor. "But Lady Holy Emperor, you are different."
"The color of your soul." "Is remarkably pure." "So pure that I can even catch a pleasant scent from it."
"So stop constantly doubting your own worth, Holy Emperor."
"When you're thinking of taking care of others," "first, you must learn to take good care of yourself."
"I don't want to one day see you perish young in some cold, gloomy place,"
"or become a broken husk because of a mental collapse."
"You are my Familia."
Haimer gave a light pinch to the Holy Emperor's fair, tender cheek. "A child I chose with my own hands."
"In this household, every child has their own irreplaceable place."
"Kirukiru handles the charge, Rin handles the defense, and you are in charge of providing, from behind them, the kind of magic support that no one else can replace."
"I will forever deeply love every single one of you."
"So don't be in such a rush."
Haimer straightened up. "Everyone needs time to grow. Each and every one of you will, on some day in the future, shine with a light all your own."
At those words of Haimer's—"I deeply love every single one of you"—
the Holy Emperor's eyes reddened again, but this time it was not from grievance.
The blush on her cheeks, in an instant, spread like a sunset-flushed sky all the way to her dainty earlobes.
Feeling the lingering warmth Haimer had left on her cheek, her nerves—which had been strung taut all along under the heavy weight on her mind—
in this moment, felt as though they were being cradled by a pair of warm, strong hands.
"I understand... Kami-sama."
The Holy Emperor turned her cheek slightly to the side and gently closed her eyes. Just like a kitten that had found a safe harbor from the storm,
quite of her own accord, she nuzzled lightly against Haimer's palm, which still rested at the edge of the bed. "Let us hope so."
"Be careful not to catch a chill—lie back down now." Seeing this, Haimer,
though he knew well in his heart that, given the Holy Emperor's nature, this deeply rooted notion of self-sacrifice was not something he could fully straighten out with a sentence or two of his own.
If she met danger in the Dungeon later on, she would, in all likelihood, still rush forward without hesitation to take the blade for someone.
But for now, it would be enough if he could simply settle this heart-sickness of hers, this anxiousness for quick results.
His thoughts reaching this point, Haimer gently picked up the parchment from the nightstand. "Now that things have come to this,"
"let me complete this final step for you."
The Holy Emperor understood the meaning behind Haimer's words and nodded vigorously.
Very obediently, she lay back down on the soft mattress and shut her eyes tightly.
She relaxed every muscle in her body.
Haimer's palm once again pressed down onto the Holy Emperor's back. His palm exerted force. In the master bedroom, divine light flared up abruptly!
This light carried an air of sublimation, casting intricate plays of light and shadow upon the four walls of the room.
—[Level]: Lv.1 → Lv.2.
Accompanied by an enormous surge of Magic, a brand-new engraving belonging to Lv.2 took perfect shape upon the Holy Emperor's back.
Amid the flickering red light, three brand-new development ability options surfaced clearly.
『Mage』: Increases magic power, expands its area of effect, and improves the efficiency of mental-energy usage.
『Abnormal Resistance』: Nullifies abnormal effects such as poison.
『Healing』: Increases the efficacy of recovery-type magic and items.
Haimer's gaze lingered for a moment among these three options.
Though both 『Healing』 and 『Abnormal Resistance』 were quite practical and could strengthen the Holy Emperor—but, if one took her growth into account—
"As I thought—『Mage』 is still the most fitting."
With such an enormous base of Magic, if it weren't paired with 『Mage』—which could maximize its utilization and expand its area of effect—it would simply be a criminal waste of a heaven-sent gift.
Haimer hardly dared to imagine. Once she had the boost of 『Mage』,
just to what sky-blotting, sun-obscuring extent the area of effect of the Holy Emperor's magic could expand in the days to come.
____
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