Chapter – 03
“It was truly unexpected that divine revelations were bestowed twice.”
She wore a smile, but the corners of her lips were very slightly stiff. It seems it’s quite difficult for her to tell lies. Well, the person who received it knows best that it wasn’t a divine revelation, but a “divine power show” put on by the priests.
“It’s not unexpected. Because there was only one divine revelation.”
When I personally corrected her, Kalliana’s smile faltered for a moment. However, she quickly lifted her head straight again and spoke to me in an arrogant tone.
“I have been praying in the temple for a long time since I was very young, and I have served Caritas more faithfully than anyone else.”
“Ah, really?”
If I added my previous life to this one, I’ve practically dedicated my whole life to it. I meant that it’s embarrassing to even compare myself to that fake fledgling.
“I have a mission to fulfill in this temple. God has bestowed that mission upon me.”
“Ah, really?”
So, what are you telling me to give up? I have a mission too, you fledgling. A mission to chop off the heads of bastards like you and the upper-crust snakes you’re colluding with to set this temple straight. As I kept answering with the same words, Kalliana’s smile distorted completely. Gritting her teeth, she snapped at me.
“I look forward to it, Candidate Ciela. Because I, too, have no intention of easily giving up my position.”
“Good. God will judge for Himself who is closer to His will. There’s no need for two Saintesses, is there?”
You don’t need two suns under one sky. As soon as the brief conversation between the Saintess candidates ended, Kalliana turned around and strode away first.
The temple did not send me back to the orphanage; they assigned me a room in the temple right away. It was spacious compared to the orphanage room where ten of us slept together, but compared to my room in my previous life, it was the size of my old bathroom.
Hmm, still, I’m a Saintess candidate who received a divine revelation, so the treatment isn’t exactly great.
I wondered what kind of room they had put the “manipulated Saintess” in. Returning to the temple like this, I remembered the slush funds I had hidden all over the temple back when I was the 3rd Saintess. I had left them for future generations, but I never thought I’d end up using them for myself.
Had they already been raided, or were they still there, undiscovered? To check on the funds and get a rough idea of where I was in the temple, I threw a shawl over my shoulders and carefully grabbed and turned the doorknob. The door, which I had opened as quietly as possible, wouldn’t budge for a moment, and just as it was about to give way to my strength, it suddenly swung wide open.
Blocking the door, someone was standing right in front of me.
A man standing under the pale moonlight. A black cloak draped over the uniform of the Holy Knights.
And—
The moment I confirmed his face, I reflexively gasped. A thrill, as if someone had grabbed me by the nape of the neck, swept down my spine. Why, of all people……
“Where are you sneaking off to in the middle of the night, Saintess candidate?”
A face that wasn’t unfamiliar asked me with a strange smile. Ironically, the moment I saw that smile, my startled heart calmed down. The person I remembered could not smile with such a hateful smile. He was a transparent person whose emotions were always plainly visible on his face. And I used to love that about him.
Why do you have to have a face exactly like my ex-boyfriend’s, you jerk, making my heart drop?
“Instead of asking me why I came out, shouldn’t you introduce yourself first, since you’re loitering in front of a lady’s room, Sir Knight?”
When I asked sarcastically, the man tapped his left shoulder lightly twice with his clenched right fist, then bowed his head to show a knight’s courtesy. Still wearing that hateful smile, he opened his mouth naturally.
“Ah, my introduction was late. I am Arden Hwellin, belonging to the Holy Knights, assigned to be Candidate Ciela’s escort.”
Hello.
I gasped again at the remnant of the past thrust before me. My former lover’s surname was also Hwellin. He was originally a commoner, but after defeating the Demon King as a hero chosen by God, he was granted noble status by the imperial palace as a reward for bringing peace to the empire. I remembered that he lived as a bachelor his whole life, and his nephew inherited the title, so to think a collateral descendant could look so similar.
Looking closely at him right in front of me, I could definitely see points that differed from that face in my memory. The deep blue eyes, the slightly more delicate facial lines. Thanks to that, my “dislike index,” which had hit rock bottom, rose just a tiny bit. Naturally. How many people in the world would have good feelings toward their former lover? Aside from the unexpected tragedy of sudden bereavement and the tragedy of having to break up even though you love each other, there is no such thing as a beautiful parting in this world.
Especially since we broke up after a massive, ugly fight, and even after we broke up, we fought incessantly until the day my ex-boyfriend, who had a shorter lifespan than I, died. The bards who used to sing of the love story between the Saintess and the Hero eventually changed their lyrics to the “colleague story” of the Saintess and the Hero because they were intimidated by us.
A softly smiling face was suddenly thrust in front of me. My experience was too deep to be startled by just that much.
“Since I’ve finished my self-introduction, it’s my turn to hear your answer, Candidate Ciela.”
Escaping from my reminiscence at his light tone of voice, urging for an answer, I met the eyes of Sir Arden, my mentor, who made me recall unpleasant memories of my ex-boyfriend from our first meeting. Because the only thing I liked about him was those blue eyes that looked nothing like my ex’s.
“When would I have ever come to such a secluded part of the temple? Until now, I could only go where outsiders were permitted, so I was just curious about the scenery inside the temple.”
I smoothly blurted out the excuse I had prepared in advance. I didn’t know I would be using it before I even left the room. I shrugged my shoulders once and held out my hand toward Sir Arden.
“If you are that suspicious of me, would you like to accompany me on a moonlit walk?”
Sir Arden shook his head briefly and leaned his body slowly, approaching near my ear.
“If I may give you a bit of unsolicited advice…….”
The soft, low-toned voice whispering gently tickled my ear. Even his voice sounds the same, damn it.
“It would be better if you didn’t wander around the temple so defenselessly. Because currently, this temple is crawling with people who consider you an eyesore.”
It was closer to a warning than advice. Still, it felt strange to receive something resembling concern for the first time in a while. In my previous life, or at the orphanage, people had always only worried about the people on the other side of me.
“Have a good night.”
Sir Arden, with a smile in his eyes, clicked my door shut. Judging by the presence felt behind the door, it seemed he was not leaving the front of the door and was guarding this room. …Or perhaps he was monitoring me.
It seemed that finding the slush funds today was a lost cause, so I gave up and lay back down on the bed.
An eyesore…….
Yes, appearing suddenly after being chosen by God, how much of an eyesore must I be to the upper echelons of the religious order?
‘Kids! They say a new Saintess has appeared after receiving a divine revelation!’
‘Ughhhh…… we have to clean the whole temple for the inauguration ceremony…….’
According to my memory, there was a huge commotion 12 years ago when a Saintess appeared, too. I remembered it clearly because I, who was six at the time, was drafted to clean the temple, worked hard for an entire week with my friends from the orphanage, and we all ended up sick in bed together.
They must have continuously sat girls who were relatives of the high-ranking priests in the position of Saintess to make them puppets they could manipulate as they pleased. Seeing that the number of Saintesses had increased from the 3rd to the 30th in 500 years, it was obvious how often they were replaced.
In the midst of that, a real Saintess who had received God’s sign suddenly appeared. And that, too, in the very year a Saintess-designate had already been chosen. Then, why on earth were these people manipulating the position of Saintess, which was originally supposed to be given only by God’s choice, as they pleased?
It’s obvious.
At some point, the Saintesses must have also colluded with the corruption and eventually devolved into puppets for the highest-ranking priests. That’s why Caritas, unable to bear watching that mess, stopped choosing Saintesses. And after watching—”let’s see how far they go”—and since these people had no intention of restraining themselves, He must have reincarnated me and put me into this temple that had turned into this mess.
Oh, Caritas, please grant me permission to whack these bastards on the head just once each with the “Temple Operation White Paper That Our Future Generations MUST Follow – Written by Sierra, 3rd Saintess of the Caritas Church,” which I wrote before I passed away.
For your information, the length of that book, which contains every point I emphasized that future generations must follow, was the size of an encyclopedia volume. I had it beautifully hardbound, and because I was worried the corners might wear out, I even had iron decorations embedded on all four corners.
Of course, it was my freedom whether to whack them with the book cover or with the corner.
