Chapter 218

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 218
Chapter Title: The Land Where Sinners Dwell
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Raphael took Ariadne to a place outside the walls of San Carlo, upstream on the Tiberi River.

It was a beautiful riverside in late autumn, with thick clouds overhead and cypress trees covering the rolling hills.

“Ariadne, thanks to you, I’m able to come outside the city walls like this.”

He said, feeling the refreshing river breeze.

“It was unthinkable when the Gallico Kingdom’s army was running rampant.”

Ariadne smiled faintly and looked down at her right hand.

If the Gallico army’s defeat was thanks to Ariadne, and if the freedom she and Raphael now enjoyed was truly based on her good deeds, would all of that be factored in when calculating her sins and merits?

*Where does my merit end, and where does my sin begin?*

But the halo of light hidden beneath her thick glove remained silent. It was a cruel hope.

“Here. I’ll make sure you’re not cold.”

After spreading a mat on a sandbar by the river and seating Ariadne on it, Raphael gathered dry branches and skillfully started a bonfire.

The weather was cooperative; the river breeze wasn’t too strong, and the slightly chilly air added to the atmosphere.

Raphael draped a blanket over Ariadne as she warmed herself by the blazing bonfire and smiled brightly.

“It’s burning better than I expected.”

“It’s warm.”

“Oh, dear. You’re not supposed to be warm just from this. I brought something else in case you got cold.”

He opened a wicker basket and took out two sandwiches and a long-necked bottle.

“Ta-da.”

“What’s that?”

“Food for the soul.”

What Raphael pulled from the wicker basket was port wine, made by aging sparkling wine once more.

“Amidst the supply chain chaos in San Carlo, the only place left to find this is in the Valdesal family’s cellar.”

He filled two pewter cups with the port wine and handed one to Ariadne. Ariadne laughed in disbelief.

“Wait, aren’t you preparing for your ordination? Are you allowed to drink this?”

Of course, her father, Cardinal de Mare, kept a stash of grappa in his study and drank it, but that was due to his position being more that of a politician than a clergyman. Ordinary priests and acolytes observed a strict prohibition on alcohol.

Raphael wasn't even an acolyte yet. This was a time when he should be most solemnly abstaining from alcohol.

But Raphael just smiled and drained the pewter cup in one go.

“It’s cold, isn’t it? It can’t be helped.”

He shrugged and placed his cup on the mat.

Ariadne covered her mouth, surprised by his hearty downing of the drink, which didn’t seem to match his appearance.

“A sin. You’ve sinned. And you, who wants to become an apostle of God.”

It was half-teasing, half-accusatory. Raphael paid her no mind and refilled his cup.

“Humans are meant to live while sinning.”

He murmured, bringing the second cup to his lips.

“That’s what makes us human.”

He gazed into the distance at the river flowing majestically by.

“The only ones who have not sinned are newborn infants who have ‘not yet’ had the chance to sin.”

His voice was confident, as if reciting from a catechism. He added.

“Perfection is not a virtue humans can possess.”

Ariadne replied to that. Her voice was hollow, drained of energy.

“Then why are we taught to live without sinning?”

It is so difficult and sad to run toward an unattainable goal.

“What’s the point of striving for a goal that’s impossible to reach anyway?”

Her eyes wavered with anxiety.

“Isn’t it torture to have to chase an unattainable ideal.”

Raphael answered with an almost infuriating cheerfulness.

“That is why the Holy Scripture teaches, is it not? That because humans are born with original sin, they must swim through a sea of suffering to attain enlightenment.”

Ariadne did not give up and asked persistently.

“If everyone is bound to fail, is there any difference between one who has sinned greatly and one who has sinned less?”

At this question, Raphael drained his second cup and wiped his lips with his sleeve.

His crimson lips, wet with the red wine, shone with an even greater allure.

“I think I might be a little drunk. Since I’m drunk, I’ll tell you.”

He brought his lips to Ariadne’s ear and whispered.

Though they were on a deserted, remote riverbank, it seemed to be a story he dared not speak aloud.

“When I was young, I intensely disliked my older brother.”

Ariadne’s eyes widened.

“I thought you were very close.”

Raphael de Valdesal was a man who had given up everything for his brother and left for Padua all alone.

There were not many younger sons who were so devoted to the firstborn.

“That came later. When I was a child, I hated my brother. He had no talent, yet he held onto everything just because he was born a little earlier.”

The position of heir, the title to be inherited, the domain, the fortune. All of it belonged to his deceased older brother, Feliciano.

Yet Raphael was better than his brother in learning ability, judgment, and athletics.

“After it was discovered that I was sickly as a child, my delusion reached its peak.”

Raphael, who was superior in every talent compared to his brother, also came to monopolize their parents’ attention because of his poor health.

“Back then, I thought I had the whole world. But still, the position of heir wasn’t mine. I couldn’t accept it.”

So, Raphael acted out.

At first, it was simple mischief, but it gradually became too much for a child’s prank and eventually crossed the line.

“I felt it was unfair that only I was sick, that only I couldn’t be the heir. I couldn’t be the only one to suffer. My brother had to suffer too.”

The seven-year-old Raphael once made his perfectly healthy brother stand in the scorching sun for five hours, telling him to feel his skin burn too. He would also tattle to his parents about absurd things, claiming his brother made him sicker.

Raphael’s brother, Feliciano, would endure his sick younger brother’s malicious acts with a hollow laugh.

That only irritated the sensitive and irritable Raphael even more.

- “It’s because you’re not sick! You don’t know because you’re not sick!”

Raphael screamed at his brother, who had told him, ‘Stop crying and let’s go inside,’ after seeing Raphael’s eyes swell up bright red and stream with tears from the direct sunlight that pierced through the windowpane as they played.

Feliciano asked his brother with a hurt expression.

- “What can I do to make you feel better?”

- “You should feel the same pain!”

Raphael picked up the longest, thickest needle from the sewing basket.

It had been left behind by their nanny, who had been watching them play and had stepped away for a moment.

- “Wh-what?”

Feliciano took a step back, but that was all.

Feliciano could have physically overpowered his smaller, weaker brother, but he didn’t. Emboldened, Raphael took the opportunity to lunge at his brother with the needle.

- “Aargh!”

What followed was chaos. Feliciano’s eye was bleeding.

Seeing what he had done, a terrified young Raphael burst into tears. Everyone in the house came running, and the Marchioness Valdesal berated her two young sons, demanding to know what had happened.

Feliciano answered steadfastly.

- “It happened while we were playing, Mother. We were just fooling around and got hurt.”

Feliciano never told his parents that Raphael had intentionally stabbed him.

But the needle incident didn’t end as a mere mishap.

Feliciano’s right eye began to swell up bright red, and he suffered from a high fever.

- “...Brother, why didn’t you tell Mother the truth?”

One day, after a white film had formed over Feliciano’s right eye and it became clear he would never see normally with it again, Raphael cautiously approached his brother and asked.

- “It wouldn’t have changed anything. It would only have made our parents sad.”

- “...Don’t you hate me?”

- “…”

- “Why don’t your own feelings matter to you?”

Feliciano turned his upper body to look at his younger brother with his good left eye. It was a clear eye.

- “I don’t get angry very easily. I prefer it when the people around me are happy. If I told them what you did, it would just make Mom and Dad sad.”

Raphael was thrown into confusion. If it had been him, he surely would have exaggerated the incident—or even made one up—and told his parents, driven by revenge, hatred, and the thought of stealing their affection.

Unable to find an answer on his own, Raphael sought another teacher.

- “Father. You said nobles have to be outstanding.”

- “Mm. That’s right.”

Marquis Valdesal, then in his early thirties, answered gently as he seated his small, sickly younger son in front of him on the saddle, positioning him to shield him from the sunlight.

- “It’s because we have to set an example, right?”

- “Correct.”

- “...Then why is my brother the heir when I’m good at studying and sports and always set an example for others?”

Marquis Valdesal lowered his voice and spoke to his young son. His tone had become a little stricter.

- “Raphael. Setting an example isn’t something you can do just by being good on your own. A head of the house must govern the family. That is a virtue.”

Young Raphael didn’t fully understand what his father meant.

But in that moment, he felt deeply ashamed of himself.

As time passed, Raphael slowly came to realize.

Perhaps being able to read Latin well, do addition and subtraction quickly, and ride a horse skillfully were all just secondary things.

Maybe the true virtues a truly great person must possess were something different.

At that time, young Raphael could only weep quietly while held by his father on his horse.

Marquis Valdesal silently stroked the back of his younger son’s head.

“After that, I submitted to my brother. He was always ahead of me… He deserved it. You could even call it a kind of loyalty.”

Raphael’s voice grew a little hoarse.

“...But no matter how devoted I was, his eye never healed.”

The river flowed on majestically. It was like the unstoppable flow of events.

“On the day he completely lost sight in his right eye, I cried and apologized. I think it was during my adolescence. My kind-hearted brother forgave me. I don’t know how that was possible. But his sight never returned.”

No matter how well he treated his brother, no matter how considerate he was, no matter how much he yielded to him, the fact that his brother had lost the sight in his right eye did not change.

It was a sin he had committed, an indelible, fixed past.

“And the evidence of my sin continues to leave its mark.”

Feliciano died in his early twenties from a high fever of unknown cause.

To this day, Raphael blamed himself, wondering if the remnants of the fever from that eye infection had lingered in his brother’s body.

“But would it have been right to think, ‘Well, I’ve already done it, so I’m a lost cause,’ and continue to resent my brother, console myself by saying I had no choice because of him, and live my life acting maliciously toward others?”

After that, Raphael resolved to never again hurt others just because he was swept up in his own emotions.

Even if it meant keeping a great distance from others.

“Since that incident, I vowed not to be irritable with those around me. Of course, I probably haven’t been able to keep that promise perfectly.”

He was often sick, and he couldn’t control the irritability that came with poor health through sheer willpower.

“But I have never once raised my voice since. I take pride in that about myself. However.”

His brother doesn’t come back to life.

“I still feel sorry toward my brother. I’m just living, dwelling on this guilt. Am I not, in fact, a fratricide?”

The most famous person to have killed a sibling is the farmer Cain from the Holy Scripture.

Unable to overcome his jealousy, he killed his younger brother, was banished from his community, received a mark, and was forced to wander the wilderness.

“After paying for one’s sins, does one become pure?”

“...No, one does not.”

The farmer Cain must live for generations, forever bearing his mark. Fresh tears welled up in Ariadne’s eyes.

“Even after paying the price, one is forever a sinner…”

Clear tears streamed from her eyes. The number of innocent Gallican people she had killed was still increasing at this very moment.

She could feel a stinging sensation in real time whenever a red dot appeared on her left hand—no, her left arm now. It was the mark of her sin.

Raphael spoke gently to Ariadne.

“But Ari. Did God kill the sinful Cain right away?”

“...No.”

“The farmer Cain eventually built a city in the wilderness where people could live.”

It was a city built by a sinner, but his descendants and its citizens prospered.

People who would have otherwise died in the wilderness would have found safety and peace within that city.

“Humans sin. Living with sin is the essence of the creature called human. We can never be clean.”

To Ariadne, these were words of despair. Humans can never be clean.

She had always lived thinking she was morally superior. Her points of comparison were Isabella, Cesare, and Lucrezia.

This sense of moral superiority was the force that drove her. As a victim, she lived believing she could condemn her aggressors.

But now, of all those alive and standing on this earth, the greatest sinner was Ariadne herself.

She was worse than any murderer, worse than any tyrant.

Because she was slaughtering the people of the Gallico Kingdom, who were not fated to die, by the tens of thousands.

“I constantly ruminate on my sins and resolve never to repeat them. It is enough to become a better person than I was yesterday.”

A cry burst from Ariadne. It was more than a sob; it was a full-blown wail.

Raphael murmured quietly.

“When I want to condemn others, I always remember my own sin. Am I truly clean? Can I confidently cast a stone at that person? In most cases, the answer is no.”

His voice was like a song.

“It makes me more forgiving. I am by no means a forgiving person by nature, but I believe it’s the foundation that allows me to become a better person.”

But Ariadne’s crying did not stop. Raphael looked at her trembling back.

As they sat for a long time, the river breeze grew quite sharp.

Her trembling back was probably not due to the cold. But even if it wouldn’t help much, he wanted to do something more for her.

He took off his own overcoat and draped it over Ariadne’s shoulders.

“And this is by no means something a man who wants to be a clergyman should say, but.”

He tried to secure the coat so it wouldn’t slip off, but it ended up looking as if he were hugging her from behind.

“Sometimes, when it’s too much to bear, it’s okay to rest.”

Raphael said tenderly. This was not something an aspiring clergyman would say.

“So what if you’re a sinner? It’s because we sin that we’re human, because we’re imperfect that we’re human, and because we’re human that we’re alive.”

His last words were whispered so low and softly that it was uncertain if Ariadne had heard them.

“...And because you’re alive, you’re beautiful.”