That Distant, Distant Day

Kingdom Calendar, year 1501.

Amid the Leverant Kingdom's public mood, brimming with the triumph of war, their state funeral was carried out on a grand scale.

"A salute to the heroic dead who gave their lives for the nation!!"

They—the officers and soldiers who had fallen in the recent war.

Among them was Yoal Yaotl's father. He had been an excellent mage, and had served as a field officer in the Kingdom's Magic Army.

Yoal Yaotl—eleven years old at the time.

As he attended the funeral, he watched those around him with a certain coldness.

No matter how much they were exalted, his dead father would not come back. The sight of his mother collapsing in tears at the news of his father's death was still seared into the back of his eyelids.

Now, at least, his mother carried herself with composure.

But even to the child Yoal, it was obvious that his mother was forcing herself.

"It's alright to cry," his mother said from beside him.

Yoal bit his lip, his expression sour—indeed, you could almost take him for a boy holding back tears.

"No."

Yoal shook his head, and just then his ear caught what seemed to be quiet sobbing.

He casually turned his gaze toward it.

There stood a girl he recognized.

"—Alma."

At Yoal's call, she softly lifted her face.

Flowing platinum hair. A girl whose pure white skin was wrapped in a long-sleeved, full-length black one-piece dress.

Almaeira Serenarie—eleven years old at the time.

Her father was a military chaplain, and their families had, so to speak, a close association.

It must have been years ago now that they first met.

It wasn't as though, in that time, they had never pledged their futures to one another—but the two consciously kept that childhood memory sealed away.

Yoal signaled his mother with a glance and received her consent.

As he made his way over to Almaeira, she rubbed roughly at her eyes with the back of her hand.

Taking the moment their mothers exchanged greetings as their cue, the two began to talk, neither one taking the lead.

"So even you cry sometimes, Alma."

"… Yoal, you… you don't cry, do you…?"

"I heard plenty of times that he might die… I just got it over with beforehand."

His father might never come back. There had been nights when that anxiety crushed him, nights he spent drowning in tears.

It would sound trite to put it another way, but he had, in his own way, been prepared for it.

Alma wiped at her eyes again and spoke as if somewhat calmer.

"I… can't… Because there are so many people here who are grieving."

"So many?"

"… Yes."

For a moment, Yoal found it strange.

This funeral, held outdoors. The vast majority of the attendees were surely military personnel. Reading grief in them was no easy task.

But that was not it. When he followed Almaeira's line of sight, he immediately understood what her words meant.

"… Yoal, can't you see them?"

"No… I can."

Her eyes were fixed on the minority among them.

People who had attended as if blending in among the military personnel—likely the families of the war dead.

And they were by no means the only ones. Even if those present were only a tiny fraction of the whole, the bereaved left behind across the country were far from few.

Almaeira was seeing that, and feeling it.

Unlike Yoal, who had looked only at the surface and grown fed up.

"… When one person dies, everyone in the family left behind ends up grieving… When a father dies, the mother grieves. That's surely… no different in any household."

"… When one man dies, one more woman is left to weep, huh."

'That's just what war is'—if you said that, it would end there, but.

For Almaeira, surely that very thing was unforgivable.

"… Yoal."

"Yeah."

"… You said you were going to become a military mage, didn't you…?"

"That's how it'll turn out, I think."

Yoal nodded.

By this time, the boy had already shown glimpses of his talent as a mage. If he honed himself at the Royal Magic Association, he would surely become an excellent mage—that was his father's assessment.

And if one meant to make a living as a mage, joining the military was the standard path.

The reason mage education flourished in the Leverant Kingdom was, in large part, because mages who could serve as ready combat power were in demand.

"And you, Alma, you were going to follow the same path as your father, right?"

"… Yes. Though I doubt I'll be serving with the army…"

She would enter the church, follow the teachings of God, and carry out her duties in His service.

Honestly, Yoal didn't quite get it. Neither what she would do, nor what she was aiming for.

As if sensing his feelings, Almaeira suddenly spoke up.

"… I think this country will be… in for a hard time… for a while."

"Is that so?"

At the time, the kingdom was in an uproar over the victory. Almaeira's worry didn't quite click for Yoal.

But the still-young girl spoke with a kind of conviction.

"The effects of the war aren't limited to those who died… People who lost limbs to their wounds… People who lost their spouses, like your mother. And those who were conscripted for the war will simply be cast out into the towns as they are… Even though, hard as it is to say, there are some who owe their very livelihoods to the war."

"… I see. No, you're right, that's true."

At the time, more than half of the kingdom's army was made up of conscripted citizens. Almaeira's concern was entirely reasonable.

Postwar compensation was for the state to consider. That was what Yoal had believed—but who exactly had decided that the state would help them?

"… There will surely be a great many people in need of a saving hand… And that is a number no single person could ever hope to keep up with… But if I can borrow the power of an organization like the church… I should be able to reach far more of them."

I see, Yoal thought, convinced.

Even now, the church often gave alms to the unemployed and the homeless, and arranged work for them. Besides handling the arrangements for weddings, funerals, and the like, it also served as a kind of poorhouse.

"… That's amazing. You, Alma."

"Y-you think so…?"

"Yeah. I think you put a lot more thought into things than someone like me."

Yoal had no real reason for aiming to become a mage.

Because he'd been acknowledged. Because he'd been praised. Because he was reasonably suited to rough work.

That was truly the extent of it.

Compared to that, what about Almaeira?

She seemed to genuinely be concerned for the country—no, for the people in hardship.

She had always been clever, but now Yoal could hardly believe she was a girl his own age.

"I-I just…"

"Just?"

"… It's nothing."

"Come on, what is it?"

Yoal pressed. Almaeira pursed her lips tightly and clutched the hem of her skirt.

"… Yoal, please don't die."

"Where's this coming from all of a sudden?"

"You're going to become a military… mage, aren't you?"

"That's true, but…"

"… So please, don't die. Make not dying your first priority… More than for the country's sake or anything, please, cherish your own life… Even if you're wounded, so long as you make it back…"

"… So long as I make it back?"

Yoal tilted his head, puzzled.

As if steeling her resolve, Almaeira stared fixedly at Yoal and said:

"… I will heal you. Your arms, your legs, all of it… Even if your head gets blown clean off, I won't let you get away."

"… Don't say such frightening things."

Yoal flinched all at once. That was how much menace Almaeira carried in that moment.

Her father was said to be a masterful practitioner of the Divine Arts—a wielder of a fragment of God's miracles—but surely not to the point of reviving lost flesh.

"… I'm serious, you know?"

"That's a separate matter from whether you actually can."

"I can. I will absolutely become able to."

"Then try it. If you pull it off, I'll do one thing you ask, anything at all."

"Wha—… Y-you said it, didn't you? Just now, you said 'anything.'"

"Yeah, I said it, but—"

And then, at that moment.

The two were chided by their respective mothers and reluctantly fell silent.

A casual exchange of words on a special day.

Or perhaps this was the decisive fork in the road for the two of them.

   

To state the conclusion first: Almaeira's words that day were, beyond any doubt, in earnest.

Several years later, Almaeira would come to claim for herself the name of the Maiden of Salvation—the "Saintess"—and travel freely to every corner of the kingdom.

Yoal, meanwhile, graduated from the Royal Magic Association's junior course as its salutatorian.

He was safely assigned to the military, but the chance to fulfill his promise with Almaeira never once came.

—Kingdom Calendar, year 1530.

Not until, at the end of a strange twist of fate, the two of them met once more.