MTO C29

Chapter 29

“Let’s see…”

The book Michel had chosen was a compilation of the lives and deeds of many saints. The opening chapter spoke of Saint Pablo: where he was born, how old he was when he first heard God’s voice, the first miracle he performed. The records were remarkably detailed.

Michel’s thumb idly flipped the pages until his hand froze on one passage. It described how Saint Pablo had founded the very first orphanage on the continent.

He had another title: “The Godfather of Orphans.” One famous story told of how, upon hearing that a vagrant child had been beaten to death after being mistaken for a thief, Saint Pablo sought out the corpse, kissed it, and wept openly. He taught that angels sometimes came disguised as children, and so one must always be kind to them.

The first orphanage, founded in northern Wailstone, was built next to a church to care for war orphans. At its founding there had only been five children. By the time of Pablo’s death, over a thousand lived there.

The following chapters listed notable orphans who grew to adulthood. Among them was his most famous pupil—Saint Cedric…

The section offered little to help Michel draft a prayer, but it caught his full attention nonetheless. Of course it did—it reminded him of the children of Valois Orphanage.

The author detailed at length how Pablo’s orphans had lived their adult lives: some naturally became priests, carrying on his doctrine, while others found renown as artists, or settled quietly into families of their own. Michel found himself wondering how his own little charges might grow.

Surely, Heart would become a knight in the end—just as in the original story—his talent with the sword too great to ignore. Oliver and Alice, smart and studious, might become scholars. As for the others…

The library was warm from the hearth, the quiet broken only by the rustle of pages. Golden sunlight spilled lazily through the windows. Michel’s hand slowed on the book, until it stopped altogether.

At some point he drifted to sleep.

He dreamed: he was sitting on the corner stones of the Eglence training yard, watching knights spar. The duel before him was Kaidan against Heart.

Heart had grown into a striking young man, yet Kaidan looked unchanged from Michel’s memory. Seen side by side, they could have been better called brothers than adoptive father and son. Though not blood‑related, they even looked alike in certain angles.

In the fight, Kaidan overwhelmed him. Heart flinched, parried, struggled to block—never once able to attack. Michel prayed silently, desperate—

Heart, don’t lose! Come on, fight!

He could bear it no longer and shouted aloud. At once Kaidan’s falcon‑like, amused gaze snapped toward him, sharp as a predator. Dropping Heart, Kaidan strode straight for Michel instead.

“You still haven’t finished the prayer? Utterly useless creature.”

His sword, silver and merciless, rose skyward and then drove down—

“I’m almost done!”

CRASH!

The clatter of a chair startled him awake. He blinked. No training yard. Only the quiet library all around.

The book before him lay damp with a smear of drool. Michel quickly wiped it off with his sleeve before anyone noticed.

This won’t do. I need to walk it off.

Otherwise, that dream might become a reality. He yawned wide and wandered away from the desk.

The library was two stories. Michel climbed to the second floor. Here the shelves were fewer, but the walls were decorated with display ceramics and paintings, fine works of art.

He had never been very cultured, so he browsed absently. But then one picture caught him short.

Michel stopped dead before a grand family portrait.

“Kaidan?”

No—not exactly.

The painting showed a man, a woman, and a child. Nobly dressed, standing before opulent scenery. Yet all of them wore curiously stiff and lifeless expressions.

The first thing that captured his eye was the man on the left. Sword on hip, back straight, gaze forward.

Michel knew one other man so well‑favored in looks—Kaidan. For an instant he thought it actually was the Duke trapped in paint. But closer inspection showed differences. Unlike Kaidan’s close‑cropped hair, the man in the portrait wore his long hair tied into a tail draped over one shoulder. His frame was more slender, his aspect sharper.

The man rested a hand on an ornate chair, in which sat a beautiful woman: hair piled elegantly high, baring a slender neck. Yet the muted paints lent her melancholy air, as if her cheer had been bled from brush.

Last his gaze fell upon the figure between them—a small boy, perhaps five years old, dressed primly, shoulders stiff, lips pursed. Tension showed through the canvas, making Michel’s smile tug free. Like a child enduring his first photograph at a studio.

Looking only at the man and woman, one might guess them strangers. Yet with the child placed between, their relationship was clear. Their features burned into him an undeniable resemblance.

A family portrait.

Just then, a door Michel had not noticed at the far end of the hall clicked open. An elderly gentleman entered, leaning on a cane.

Unsure whether to greet or flee, Michel faltered awkwardly—until the old man spotted him too. He smiled gently.

“A guest arrived before me, it seems.”

“Good day. I’m Michel… head of the Valois Orphanage.”

Michel hesitated how to explain himself, introducing as headmaster instead of “saint.” To call himself that still felt strange.

“A Saint, then.”

But the old man already knew. Light kindled briefly beneath his wrinkled lids as he stepped closer, cane tapping softly.

“I am Alban Eglence. These days just an old pensioner, but once I oversaw this castle’s finances. An honor to meet you, Saint.”

“Ah, yes—pleased to meet you as well, Brother Alban. But if you are Eglence…?”

“A distant relative of the present Duke.”

Alban spared him the trouble of asking. Michel studied him—no resemblance to Kaidan, yet his clothing bespoke high status.

“Brother Alban—do you know who the subjects in this painting are?”

At once Alban produced spectacles, fixing them on his nose, and peer closely.

“The late Duke and Duchess of Eglence. And the young master Kaidan.”

As expected!

Michel grinned at the boy Kaidan. The child’s broad eyes and sulky lips practically screamed mischief. No doubt a handful even in youth. But cute enough to forgive.

“The late Duke was an exceptional man. A noble worthy of title.”

Michel glanced at Alban, who was gazing too—but not at the child. His eyes lingered on the man, Kaidan’s father.

“Wherever he went, he was the center of all. People revered him. Even your orphanage of Valois, was it not showered in his patronage?”

A difficult question for Michel, who only recently possessed this body. He nodded vaguely, remembering: the account books had listed Eglence most often. Likely the late Duke had donated heavily indeed—though all squandered by the corrupt headmaster.

“To think that from an orphanage he aided should rise a Saint! Had he lived, he would be overjoyed, and grant you rich gifts outright. Alas, it pains me still that God spared a sinner like myself but took such a man so young. I know there is divine meaning. Yet… I cannot help but grieve.”

Though his words addressed Michel, Alban really muttered to himself, steeped in sorrow. Michel thus realized—the previous Duke was already long dead.

The townsfolk had called Kaidan the “new lord.”

Yes—it must be that Kaidan, seeming so young, inherited only recently, on his father’s passing.

“My apologies. I ramble.”

Alban smiled faintly, dabbing his moist eyes. Michel waved off the apology.

“Not at all. May I ask… what of Brother Kaidan’s mother?”

“The Duchess passed young. It was a plague that year.”

Michel sighed low. He was glad he’d asked—now he wouldn’t foolishly blunder later. He glanced up at her painted face again. Pale and spectral, as though half already in the grave.

“She passed while the Duke was still a child?”

“As I recall, yes. The loss struck him hard. He fell silent for a long time thereafter.”

Alban stated it calmly, but Michel felt a pang in his chest. He understood all too well the grief. He too had lost his mother young.

For Kaidan, it was death that separated him. For Jeong‑oh, it had been life.