Seven days of constant healing, and only her resilient will had given her the chance to return to the world of the living.
Looking at that fully grown face, she felt momentarily lost in the passage of time. When she had first chosen Ophiel to serve as her Sixth Attendant hundreds of years ago, the girl had still been a child, innocent and timid. Yet when asked about her aspirations, she had shown conviction and faith far beyond her years.
And in the blink of an eye, hundreds of years had passed.
She had long since grown up, no longer needing her elder sisters to look after her, and had become a holy maiden capable of standing on her own.
She cared about the people.
She valued affection.
She understood compassion, too.
Yet those virtues had ultimately become fatal weaknesses that nearly cost her life.
At that moment, Ophiel finally lost control of herself. She threw herself before the goddess she revered and sobbed uncontrollably.
While treating her, Shinsen Saya had already learned of the burdens weighing on her heart. Ophiel had always felt she had not done enough. So many people had died during the Great Demon invasion twenty years ago. Over the following decade and more, she had lost her finest student and watched Clockwork City's former prodigy descend into depravity.
And to keep Clockwork City from destruction-
She had even turned down the bright future her elder sisters had enjoyed, willingly remaining in this frontier city.
But the harder she tried to do things right, the harder it became to satisfy every demand.
Because throughout Clockwork City, there was no one else capable of shouldering that burden. Even though she had done everything in her power to preserve the city's outward peace, she still could not stop