IYWHM Chapter 79

Kisa was flustered by her unexpected visitor.

When Lily came to tell her that a monk wanted to see her, Kisa thought it might be Brother Vishius on an errand from the abbot.

But Lily shook her head and said it was an elderly monk whom she had never seen before.

Though puzzled, Kisa couldn’t leave her guest waiting outside, so she showed him into the small reception room attached to her quarters.

To her surprise, the monk she’d never met before introduced himself as Brother Makkio.

The very man who was Seyard’s mentor and who had refused Kisa’s request for a meeting just yesterday.

“Ah, I see. Please, have a seat.”

After a moment of confusion, Kisa recovered and offered the elderly monk a comfortable chair.

“Thank you.”

“Would you like some tea?” Lily asked, looking at Kisa.

But before Kisa could ask Brother Makkio if he had any preferences, he spoke up.

“I’d like some lemonade from the general store next to the mill, if that’s all right. Would you mind fetching some for me?”

Lily’s eyes widened momentarily at this specific request, but being an exemplary servant, she didn’t question it.

“Yes, I’ll bring it right away.”

After Lily left, only Kisa and Brother Makkio remained in the room.

Kisa took a moment to study the wrinkled face of the man.

‘So this is Brother Makkio.’

He looked quite different from what she had imagined after hearing about him from the two monks yesterday.

Rather than looking strict and intimidating, he simply appeared to be a somewhat stubborn old man.

In any case, now that he had introduced himself, it was Kisa’s turn to do the same.

“Hello, I’m Kisa Vansfelt. I recently became engaged to Duke Hillan.”

Brother Makkio bowed his head slightly at her words.

“I see. So you are Seyard’s…”

The other monks she had met yesterday had all referred to him as Brother Hillan or the Duke, but Brother Makkio was different.

Perhaps having been his mentor created a closer emotional connection.

Encouraged, Kisa asked the question on her mind.

“You declined my request yesterday. May I ask what changed your mind overnight?”

“I apologize for the inconvenience. I needed some time to think. And I wanted to speak with you privately, if possible.”

Kisa realized that there was more to the monk’s difficult request to Lily than met the eye.

His goal wasn’t the lemonade but to send Lily away.

The general store he mentioned was probably quite far from the hotel.

Her curiosity about why Brother Makkio had sought her out deepened.

“If I may ask, do you have something important to tell me?”

The monk remained silent for a while in response to Kisa’s question.

It was a heavy silence, weighted with the years he had lived.

After a moment, he moved his rough lips.

“I have a favor to ask of you. But before I tell you what it is, I would like to confess one of my past wrongdoings.”

And so began his confession of sin.

“When I first met Seyard Hillan, he was just a small boy. Though he pretended otherwise, he was a poor child wounded by being abandoned by his family and the world.”

An image of his childhood, which Kisa had never seen, naturally formed in her mind.

“I thought I needed to guide the boy onto the right path. That’s where the problem arose. I believed that faith would be the thing to guide Seyard. So even when others told me to leave him be, I forced religion upon him. At the time, I was consumed by self-righteous sense of mission. I believed that although there might be some resistance, it would be for Seyard’s own good.”

He continued in a calm voice.

“Naturally, Seyard became more rebellious as time went on, and because I didn’t want to admit that my beliefs were wrong, I committed an unforgivable sin.”

Brother Makkio suddenly stopped speaking and searched within his robes.

What he placed on the table was an old leather notebook.

“This is Seyard’s diary.”

Kisa’s gaze fixed on the worn notebook.

“I thought there must be some small issue with my teaching that was causing Seyard to go astray. I believed that if I could just identify what it was, I could bring him back to the right path.”

“…So you stole a peek at his diary?”

The old monk nodded weakly.

“To be more precise, I didn’t just peek at it, but confronted Seyard with the contents. Of course, he flew into a rage and condemned me. After that, he completely ignored me. When the abbot realized our discord was not trivial, he assigned Seyard’s education to another monk.”

And then, he said, something remarkable happened.

“Seyard’s transgressions decreased noticeably. Compared to before, he began to follow the monastery’s rules well and even started getting along with the other young monks his age. People said that Seyard, who didn’t fit with my teaching methods, had finally found a suitable mentor. But…”

Kisa found herself asking, “But?”

“To me, it seemed different. Seyard had decided to hide his true self. He had remarkable talent for acting and social maneuvering.”

Brother Makkio’s hand pointed at the table.

“When he was still an immature boy, he at least vented his inner feelings in notebooks like this, but as he grew up, even that seemed unnecessary. Not long after, many in the monastery considered Seyard to be honest and interesting, if not always proper in his conduct.”

“…”

“By the time I realized my mistake, my relationship with Seyard was already completely severed. I tried to talk to him in my own way, but he firmly refused. I thought about returning this notebook, but in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Even when people from the duke’s family came to collect Seyard’s personal belongings, I couldn’t bear to hand it over.”

After pausing briefly, he spoke with difficulty.

“Because this was also evidence of my sin.”

****

“Oh my?”

Returning to Kisa’s room, Lily tilted her head in confusion when she saw Kisa sitting alone in the reception room.

“Miss, where is Brother Makkio?”

On her tray were a glass of lemonade and a cup of tea.

“…He finished his business and left.”

“What? I went all the way to get this lemonade!”

“I think he remembered an urgent matter. He asked me to tell you he was sorry.”

“Well, it can’t be helped. But Miss, why did he suddenly come today?”

“Hm?”

“I mean, he refused your request yesterday, didn’t he?”

“Well, I’m not sure either. Perhaps he changed his mind overnight. After thinking it over, he probably wanted to meet his disciple’s fiancée and hear about his disciple after all.”

“I see. Did you have a good conversation?”

“Yes, we did.”

Kisa recalled the face of the old monk who only revealed his request just before they parted.

[Please, return this notebook to Seyard. I believe I can entrust it to you, the one he has chosen.]

When Kisa asked if he had any other message, he silently shook his head.

As if he felt he had no right to leave one.

Kisa stared at the handbag beside her.

Inside that bag was the evidence of sin left by Brother Makkio.

“…”

As Kisa glared at her handbag with complicated emotions that were difficult to express, Lily, who had approached without her noticing, spoke up.

“So are you postponing your outing?”

“What?”

“You were planning to explore Bonzmos today. I was wondering if you’re changing your schedule.”

Oh dear, she had completely forgotten due to Brother Makkio’s sudden appearance.

Kisa had intended to say she would change her plans.

She wanted more time to think about Seyard’s past that Brother Makkio had revealed and the notebook now in her handbag.

But for some reason, the moment she saw Lily’s clear eyes, she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“Miss?”

Brother Makkio had gone to the trouble of sending Lily out of the room with the lemonade errand.

Lily was Seyard’s person.

“No, we’ll go as planned.”

The words flowed from Kisa’s mouth before she realized it.

“There’s no point in staying here now that our visitor has left. Let’s go out and look around town.”

“Yes, I’ll get ready right away!”

Lily responded with a bright face.

After touring various parts of Bonzmos, Kisa returned to the hotel even before sunset.

This was because Bonzmos was such a small and ordinary town that there wasn’t much to see.

Still, thanks to Seyard’s donations, the town was vibrant, and there were quite a few people who appeared to be outsiders.

However, Kisa, with her splendid appearance, attracted attention wherever she went.

After an early dinner, she sent Lily away, saying she would go to bed early.

Then she took out the old notebook from the handbag she had been carrying all day.

Swallowing hard, Kisa contemplated the question that had dominated her thoughts all day.

Should she check the contents of this notebook?

Considering the reason she had come all this way, she certainly should.

But remembering the old monk who had confessed that stealing a look at this was his sin made her hesitate.

Common sense dictated that reading someone else’s diary without permission was clearly wrong.

‘Let me think about it some more.’

In the end, Kisa put the notebook down on the table without choosing either option.

Or rather, she tried to put it down.

But her hands trembled so much that she dropped it on the floor.

Thud!

The impact caused the notebook to fall open.

Kisa, as if entranced, read the words revealed on the white page:

-[Since coming here, there hasn’t been a single day when I haven’t thought about death.]