My Childhood Friend Became an Inquisitor

“Is her condition very bad? Can I… not even visit her?”
“I’m sorry, but the young miss needs to rest now. Next time…”
“Cough, cough. Mom… Let Louis in…”
“…Sigh, I guess it can’t be helped.”
*

My condition was much worse than when I first opened the Bible.
My body was heavy, my head was throbbing, and my feverish gaze kept blurring and shaking even before opening the book. Is this how a child who hates studying feels?

It must be much worse than that. With the light sound of a candle being lit behind me, the already painful light pierced me even more.

The dripping candle wax would accumulate in the dish for now, but if Anne tilted the candlestick even slightly, it would pour directly onto my body.

“But I know Louis’s condition isn’t good, so um. Today…”

Is she not going to do it?

“Today, let’s read slowly, just a little. Consistency is more important than quantity.”

…Of course not.

Despite my reluctance, my body, not forgetting the pain, moved slowly as if being chased. I didn’t want to experience the pain of being doused with candle wax again.

Even if the body’s wounds heal, it takes much longer to forget the memories engraved in the mind.

However, reading the Bible was just as much of an ordeal, only in a different direction. The Bible provided here wasn’t even simplified for commoners to read easily, but was the original text.

Above all, what tormented me was not the content of the book but the situation itself. Not content with being forcibly brought and imprisoned, now I had to do this meaningless task under the threat of pain.

After pulling up a chair and sitting down, my body wouldn’t move, like a stupid beast that only takes steps when whipped. As the wait grew longer, from behind me.

Drip.

The sound of something falling.

My body, anticipating pain from yesterday’s trauma, convulsed as if having a seizure. But contrary to expectations, even as time passed, no searing pain overwhelmed me.

Drip. Drip. The sound of something tilting and flowing down continued to be heard, but the absence of pain was more strange than joyful. I should be glad, but for some reason, I couldn’t be.

When I tried to turn my head, Anne, who was pressing down on me like a living rack, firmly fixed my head. For some reason, her gestures were more urgent than usual.

“Now. Shouldn’t you focus on the Bible?”

Her tone was calm as always, but there were things I could sense because I was me.

I couldn’t define it exactly, but there was a slightly different air than usual. I pretended to quietly open the Bible and read, then stopped again at some point.

As if following a natural course, something flowed down with a drip, drip sound as the candlestick tilted again. However, the candle wax stopped without falling on me, hitting something else.

Pretending to focus on the Bible again, I suddenly turned my head at a moment Anne didn’t expect.

“……”

“…Hic.”

And the scene Anne had tried so hard to show me was captured in my eyes.

The tilted candlestick, Anne pressed close and weighing me down. But the candlestick was held far away at the end of her bizarrely bent arm, pouring candle wax towards Anne instead of me.

It must be painful. Anne hurriedly tried to hide the candlestick, but with the sudden movement, more candle wax splattered towards her as the dish shook.

“Ugh.”

Despite exerting superhuman endurance, a short groan escaped as she couldn’t bear the pain. Seeing this, I felt bewilderment before anger.

“No, what are you…”

“I told you.”

With that cute scream from earlier and traces of her old self showing slightly, Anne grumbled.

“That I wouldn’t push too hard today.”

“Then you could just not light the candle.”

“That’s not possible.”

While saying this, Anne frowned and peeled off the candle wax stuck to her neck. Having composed herself, there was no longer even a slight tremor in those fingers.

But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. The fallen candle wax didn’t disappear but hardened and piled up with a plop.

“Because it’s the ‘rule’.”

“Rule?”

“Yes. The sacred candle is not only a ritual tool but also an instrument of punishment.”

It seemed so. No, I don’t mean I guessed the candle’s use, but that Anne was following some kind of rule.

Compared to that Inquisitor’s torture, Anne’s way of inflicting pain on me was excessively inefficient and conventional. The seemingly useless formality to outsiders is one of the evil customs of religion.

But how could I have thought that Anne, who used to climb fences with me, would be this inflexible?

“So we can’t not light the candle. We can’t not spill it either. If appropriate punishment isn’t given for sin, it goes against God’s word.”

“…And it’s okay to block it with your body?”

“Yes. Precisely, only blocking it with the body is possible. Nothing else is allowed.”

The huge wall of logic one encounters when talking to fanatics. Knowing it was meaningless, I still threw a stone at it.

“Why?”

“Because even if they’re a sinner, such a relationship should be respected.”

Dripping candle wax. Not just a simple object, but wax dripping from a candle burning sacred fire. A relationship where one receives it with bare skin without any other tools.

In a sense, the rule touched on the most fundamental part of Ailim’s doctrine, the reward of good and punishment of evil. Reward for good, punishment for evil. The logic was simple but absolute.

The rule that accepted such doctrine to an excessive degree was even more rigid.

“But… it hurts.”

Even though only Anne and I were here, she was following the rules so stubbornly. Who would know if she cut corners a bit? How could it be a sin to simply reduce meaningless pain?

If she could show some flexibility like that ‘Teacher’…

“It does hurt.”

Of course, I couldn’t expect such a thing from Anne.

Still stained with terrible affection, yet maintaining a madness-tinged coolness on the other hand. To the girl who had steeled her heart even more, saying it was all for my sake.

“But Louis was hurting too.”

“……”

“Even if it’s unavoidable, I don’t want to justify it with such words.”

A light touch stroking the back of my neck with the arm not holding the candlestick. Fingers gently caressing the area where the candle wax had touched yesterday, coolly tangling.

“Because I hurt Louis, I should hurt just as much.”

“You could just, not do it at all.”

All this madness. I swallowed the rest of my words.

Anne wouldn’t listen anyway.

“That’s not possible. I told you.”

I could guess what Anne would say next.

“That it can’t be helped?”

“Yes. As expected, Louis knows me well.”

Well. I’m not sure. If I still know you well now. How could I have guessed that you would become a madwoman pouring candle wax on yourself because you don’t want to hurt me?

“I won’t always do this for you either. So, Louis.”

And judging by the current situation, it was Anne who knew me better after all. The words I had spat out, the screams I had shouted, the sarcasm I had hurled.

They must have reached you, right?

“If you want to take revenge on me, today.”

Despite hearing all those words, Anne was still Anne. You were still devoted and fanatical. But that didn’t mean you had completely lost your reason and gone mad either.

Still loving me, being sad, feeling sorry, but just not stopping despite all that.

“Do as you please.”

Leaving those final words, Anne tilted the candlestick again.

Drip. Drip. The clumped bits start falling one drop at a time again. There was no trembling in her body as she received it, but I recognized that this was not because you couldn’t feel the pain, but because you possessed superhuman self-control.

“Stop it.”

“……”

“You could just pour it on me instead.”

As if the brief conversation had ended there, Anne didn’t even answer. Still without moving.

Drip. Drip. Drip. The candle wax falls. Finding it hard to bear watching this, I started reading the Bible again. Even though my head was still throbbing and my chest was churning.

Compared to the sound stopping behind me, that much was nothing.

“But even if cunning Rowe was offered as a sacrifice, the sleeping god did not awaken again.”

Although my condition was worse than yesterday due to the lingering effects of my illness, my reading speed was actually faster.

It can’t be helped. Because every time I hesitated even slightly, something like tears fell again from behind me.

“As the first king became the first executed criminal, it was fitting that the second king should become the second executed criminal.”

“One died becoming king, and one lived becoming king.”

“The first thing the crowned prisoner taught was the longing for freedom, and the second thing he taught was the secret to breaking shackles.”

Nevertheless, inevitably, every time I turned a page, every time a headache struck my head, every time my tongue got tangled, every time the recitation stopped, there was a sound.

It sounded just like our tears falling.

As Anne said, this was almost the only opportunity for me to cause you pain, but I was even more zealous than when I was in pain myself.

It wasn’t particularly strange. We had always been like this.