Don't Be Holy! - Chapter 35
Though the story was flawless and the flower basket had been bought in plain view of the guards, Eir couldn’t shake this feeling. Thanks to her divine calling, these intuitions often proved correct, so that day she returned home without placing the flower basket at the grave.
When she told Granny about it, though Granny had initially dismissed it as ‘That paranoia of yours again.’ her face had grown cold by the end of the story.
‘Did you do it yet?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Where is that flower basket?’
‘In the entryway…….’
The moment those words left her mouth, Granny hurried to grab the flower basket. At that instant, the basket transformed into glass and shattered with a loud bang. If not for the spell Granny had placed on the house beforehand, sharp fragments would have embedded themselves in her face and neck.
Eir came out startled by the loud noise, but when she saw the glass-like shards suspended in mid-air by some unknown force, she collapsed in shock.
Granny irritably swept away the fragments that had flown right up to her face and said.
‘It’s a witch.’
As she cast a spell, the suspended fragments and powder reversed through time, returning to their original place on the table before settling lifelessly on the floor.
While Granny chanted the spell, the house seemed to come alive as various patterns emerged in golden light. Eir found herself staring blankly at the patterns that had appeared on the walls and ceiling.
Granny clicked her tongue and said:
‘They’ve been trying to make contact more and more lately, and now they’re even resorting to such shallow tricks.’
What seemed like a harmless flower basket had nearly turned into an exploding weapon, yet to Granny this was apparently a ‘shallow trick.’ Eir muttered with a pale face.
‘How did they know I would bring the basket home instead of to the grave?’
‘That probably wasn’t their original intention. They likely planned to kill you and steal your body the moment you placed the basket at the grave.’
So she had nearly died? How could Granny say such chilling things so casually?
But Granny continued speaking, regardless of whether Eir was frightened of her or not.
She began questioning Eir thoroughly about how long ago she’d parted from the witch and what the witch looked like. Eir answered automatically, then belatedly caught herself and asked.
‘Why are you asking all this? Are you planning to go kill her?’
Granny neither denied it nor told her to wait, she simply left. She returned several days later only to make the spine-chilling statement that if they found anything under the ground when burying her casket after she died, they must never dig it up.
It suddenly occurred to Eir that perhaps all those warnings about corrupted graves being dangerous were because of that.
“This won’t do.”
When Eir suddenly stopped walking, Sarah turned around questioningly.
They had just managed to smooth over the awkward situation inside and were heading to the shelter when Eir suddenly acted this way. Sarah worried internally, ‘Is she going to bring up that topic again?’
But Eir said something entirely different.
“Go ahead, Sarah. I left something behind.”
“I’ll wait. How long would it take?”
“It’s not at home, I left something in the mountains.”
“What?”
Sarah blinked her innocent eyes at Eir, unable to comprehend.
As if to say, what are you talking about?
“There are monsters in the mountains right now.”
She said it as if stating the obvious.
“I know. But it’s something I can’t afford to lose.”
“What thing? What is it?”
Are you sure it’s a thing? Not a person?
Though she didn’t say it aloud, Sarah’s eyes seemed certain that Eir was acting this way because of Rubel Shinote. Eir realized Sarah was looking at her like a pathetic woman throwing her life away for a man.
But Eir still had to go.
She had to protect Granny’s grave to prevent something dangerous from happening.
‘Just grant me one request. I ask nothing else. Just keep the grave from becoming corrupted. If it becomes corrupted, something terrible will happen. Something beyond your imagination.’
Damn old woman.
If she had explained exactly what that terrible thing was, Eir wouldn’t have to rush there anxiously every time.
Even while muttering these resentful words, Eir dutifully sent Sarah away, put on her cloak, and began climbing the mountain. As she gathered scattered Pahma powder and weapons that people had dropped along the way, she occasionally spotted areas of devastation that looked like Rubel had passed through.
“Impressive.”
There was no mistaking it for anyone else’s work. Five or six monster corpses lay fallen in each spot.
Eir wrapped her hands in divine energy, clenched her fists, and turned toward the path leading to Granny’s grave.
