The third day dawned.
It meant three full days had passed since the people of the coastal village had taken refuge inside the circle drawn by a single man.
As morning arrived, they stirred and slowly awoke from their slumber. The strain of being confined within the circle for three days was etched plainly on their faces, a profound exhaustion that settled deep in their bones. They rubbed the sleep from their eyes and greeted one another with the usual weary pleasantries—asking if they’d slept well, if the awkward sleeping positions hadn’t left their mouths crooked. They passed the time with idle chatter, mended their simple tools, and ate from the small stashes of snacks they had managed to bring with them.
Then, it struck them.
They realized that this morning was not like the morning before, or the one before that. They realized they had all been awakened by the brilliant, piercing glare of the sun.
When they looked up, they saw that the sun had driven back the ashen clouds and reclaimed its throne in the heavens.
When they looked around, they saw that the world had ceased to be a blurred, indistinct monolith and was once again separating into its distinct and vibrant colors.
And when they looked at each other…
They were all alive.
The storm was over.
Everyone stared at the scene, utterly dumbfounded. They reached out to stroke the grass, which had reclaimed its verdant hue, and drank in the scent of the air, now cleansed of its briny, threatening odor. Only then did it truly sink in.
“Oh, oh…?”
“…Ah!”
They had survived.
Everyone reacted in their own way.
Some wept, thinking of the villages they had lost and the loyal dogs they had left behind. Some gathered the meager food and tools they had managed to save, breathing sighs of profound relief. One person, after quieting a crying child, followed the trail of footprints left by the animals, stepping onto the earth outside the circle and savoring the simple, solid sensation beneath their feet. Another sighed, worrying over lost property and the daunting task of rebuilding a life from nothing.
And yet, every single one of them was thankful to be alive.
Thankful for the blessing of life itself.
They were not fools. Nor were they so shameless as to be ignorant of grace. And so, from the moment they understood they had survived, their gazes began to converge on a single point. The people, who had scattered for a moment to revel in their newfound life, now began to gather again, moving toward a man lying at the center of the circle.
They looked down at him.
They looked down at the man who had slept, oblivious to the world, for three entire days. They spoke in hushed tones and tried to arrange their tumultuous thoughts. Carefully, one by one, they knelt down, pressing an ear to his chest or placing gentle fingers on his wrist.
A pulse was beating.
He, too, was alive.
Of all who had been within the circle, not a single soul had been lost.
Slowly, they lifted his body, raising him above their heads. They carried him with the utmost care, so as not to wake him.
Ever so gently.
***
The carriage, which had been tearing along at a frantic pace, screeched to a halt, the entire frame groaning as if it might shatter. The driver grunted, vexed by the sudden stop, but his passenger was already scrambling out and breaking into a run. There was no time for a perfunctory word of thanks for the ride.
He sprinted breathlessly into the ruined village. A few people who recognized him approached and waved, and the man rushed toward them, grabbing their hands without preamble.
“Hi-hi-him…?”
“Raleigh, what is it? Please, calm yourself.”
“This is no time for calm! Is He… Is He here?”
The man’s—Walter Raleigh’s—eyes were bloodshot.
In the days just before the storm hit, he had saved hundreds by gathering the surrounding tribes and leading them to the safe zone. The people had been grateful, showering him with gifts of all kinds. But their endless thanks and presents meant little to him, not after the shocking news he had received.
—“That… that large, blue-painted wagon overturned, and then flames just shot up. By the time I heard the news and rushed over… there was nothing left but a pile of ash and deep ruts in the ground.”
—“I saw what happened before that! Before the wagon caught fire, He crawled out from under it!”
—“And then He ran. He was covered in wounds, but astonishingly, it looked as if they were healing right away…”
A large, blue-painted wagon. Covered in wounds that healed themselves.
It was a story about Him.
The moment Raleigh heard it, he understood what must have happened, and the thought had robbed him of sleep for days. As soon as the storm broke, Raleigh had chartered a carriage and raced south. At the end of the crudely paved road, he had found them: the violent scrapes of wheel ruts gouged into the earth and the black scorch marks. The remnants of something having been burned were everywhere, but there was no other wreckage to be seen. Raleigh could picture the scene as if it were happening before his eyes.
It had all melted away.
The Porter, and all His other sacred tools.
They must have returned to Croatoan Island, he thought. It was the only explanation that made sense.
Which meant that He was now defenseless, with nothing.
He might not even have proper clothes. A chill ran down Raleigh’s spine, and he had pushed onward, racing for days.
“I-I’ll ask again. ‘He,’ the Great Chieftain of us all, the one who is more than a man… is He here? Please, answer me!”
And so he had come to this place, his heart pounding with a desperate urgency.
The village was a wreck. Worse, given the semi-nomadic nature of its people, few stayed in one place for long, so there was no way of knowing how many had survived. It was impossible to know if He had even succeeded in saving this village, let alone if He was still here.
In response to his frantic questions, the villagers, though bewildered, simply pointed toward a large, hastily reconstructed hut. It must be the chieftain’s home, Raleigh surmised.
“Th-thank you!”
With no time to ask for details, he offered a clipped word of thanks and took off running again. As he ran, he quickly straightened his hair and clothes, composing himself with the decorum required to meet Him.
He carefully pushed aside the cloth covering the entrance…
“…Ah, Walter?”
A man came into view.
He was sitting quietly, a blanket draped over his legs, watching a sliver of sunlight that pierced the dim interior of the hut. With the same serene, gentle smile as always, He turned to face Raleigh as if He had been expecting him. He showed no trace of surprise or alarm. Raleigh quietly knelt before Him, lowering his head in a gesture of profound respect.
The clothes He usually wore were folded neatly beside Him, replaced by the loose, comfortable garments of an invalid. Though finding dry firewood must have been nearly impossible in the drenched landscape, a neat stack of it lay by His side, and a fire was burning cleanly, tended to with recent care. A pair of young native men seemed to be attending to Him, watching over Him with gentle solicitude. The way the people here treated Him spoke volumes.
“…You succeeded, then.”
Nemo saved the people of this place.
He simply smiled, letting the expression serve as his answer.
“Walter, I am glad to see you survived the storm. Are the others well?”
“I have not yet been able to confirm, my lord.”
“I see.”
He took a small sip of a warm porridge-like substance the natives had given him, then looked at Raleigh’s face and tilted his head slightly.
“Hmm… Does this mean you came here as soon as the storm ended? Why did you not join the others?”
“…”
“Walter? You look troubled. What is it?”
“…”
“Are you hurt? Oh, my apologies. I should not have left you alone. Can you show me your wounds…?”
“I am not injured. I was in the safe zone you designated, Sir Nemo. My body is perfectly fine.”
Raleigh shook his head and held up a hand. Then, with a strangely bitter expression, he asked, “I know this must sound absurd… and I know it is nonsensical for a man merely sculpted from clay to worry about a spiritual being, but… are you all right?”
“Pardon?”
“It’s just… I was reminded of the day you first saved me.”
The memory was still vivid in Raleigh’s mind. He could still picture the scene as if it were yesterday: assassins lunging forward, and He extending an arm to save him, taking the full brunt of a hundred falling blades upon His own body. The people had knelt before Him then, and He, clad in blood-soaked and shredded clothes, had simply walked on to save yet another life. Every single moment of that sacred scene was seared into his memory. It was something he could never forget.
But Raleigh remembered more than just the sanctity of that moment. The others had been too far away to see. The men who had stabbed Him had been too consumed by their frenzy to notice.
But he had seen.
He had seen how His fingertips had trembled with every stab. He had seen how His brow had furrowed in pain before smoothing out again.
“When I think about it, it makes sense. Even an angel… if it wears the flesh of a man, surely it must feel pain?”
Yes. He felt pain.
When He was stabbed by blades, when He threw Himself into a raging pyre, He had felt it all.
Because He was an angel in a human body.
“Is a human’s pain perhaps lessened for an angel?”
He smiled quietly. Then, motioning for the natives who had been nursing him to step outside, He finally spoke.
“…If you were to remove the suffering from the Passion our Savior endured as He carried the cross, what meaning would be left? Many things of great value are obtained only by passing through pain.”
His answer, in short, was ‘no.’
He felt pain in its entirety.
The agony of flesh tearing, bones breaking, muscles twisting, and organs being ravaged—He felt it all.
The torment of limbs burning, the world spinning into a dizzying vortex, the numbness creeping into his fingers and toes, the strength draining from his entire body—He felt it all.
“And yet… you still went?”
That entire distance, with nothing but your own body?
This time, He only smiled. Raleigh’s voice grew louder, more insistent.
“How could you do it, while enduring all that agony? What… what does it leave you with?”
“Who would expect to gain something from a good deed?”
“But humans do.”
Yes. That is what humans do.
The desire for the wealth and fame that will come, the lust for power—these are what drive a man. That is why a man would wish for his good deeds to be known far and wide; it is why a man would expect his name to be exalted for his benevolence.
That is what it is to be human.
No one would endure pain beyond a certain limit to act in such a way.
“…Is it not agonizing? Why… why do you go to such lengths?”
The scene played out in Raleigh’s mind: the Porter breaking apart, His body writhing in agony, forcing His exhausted body, sleepless for nights on end, to run yet again. It was something no man—no, not even an angel—could be expected to bear. No one should have to endure such a thing. Especially not the great being before him.
Especially not Him, the one who had changed his life and taught him so much.
He has already suffered enough. Why must he endure even greater agony?
“Is it because of your duties as an angel? If you are compelled to follow your nature because, as an angel, you were created to serve humanity, then how terrible, how full of suffering the life of an angel must be…”
“Walter.”
And then.
When Raleigh looked up, He was smiling. But unlike His usual smile, this one was filled with a playful mischief.
“What a foolish question. The duties of an angel, my nature… It is not about such things. Why do you struggle so with a question that any person could answer?”
“…Pardon?”
“If that was a joke, it was an amusing one. I hardly think a man who runs his own trading company and counts a brilliant mathematician like Harriot as a friend would fail to solve such simple arithmetic.”
“Did I say I suffer?”
He held up a single finger before Raleigh.
“That is correct. I, one person, suffer for a ‘short time.’”
“…”
“And…”
He then spread all ten of his fingers.
“With the pain of merely one, hundreds of lives can be saved. That is a tremendous profit.”
“…”
“A return of hundreds, no, thousands of times over. When one makes such a great profit, shouldn’t one be joyful? Raleigh, you are a merchant. Surely you can imagine how happy I must be.”
“I… I…”
Raleigh could not bring himself to answer.
At that, He laughed.
“In this world, there is a man who will search all day for a single lost sheep and rejoice when he finds it. In that light, what is so remarkable about struggling a little to save several hundred people?”
One. And several hundred.
Simple arithmetic.
“…”
That simple arithmetic left Raleigh speechless.
“This is not the nature of an angel. This is done because it can be done. This is… just the way things ought to be.”
Again.
That simple, self-evident truth blinded Raleigh with its light.