TVPHI| Chapter 1

Episode 1

The damp underground prayer room of the temple.

It was a place that only those with the Pope’s permission could enter. Because of that, some people called it a holy place.

Another name for it was the confession room.

“My first daughter.”

Lefonya was used to everything that happened here.

She was used to seeing Pope Fretes, who was called the holiest and most sacred Pope in history, holding a whip.

She was also used to seeing a priest curled up on the floor, desperately trying to endure the pain.

“Yes, Your Holiness.”

The musty smell of mold stabbed at her nose. She felt sick, but just like she had done for years, she quickly erased even that feeling along with all her other emotions.

She had become so used to this horrible place that sometimes she could not even tell whether she was still a person or just a doll.

Pope Fretes angrily threw the horsewhip into the corner and gave her an order.

“Steal the heirloom of the Krytan Ducal Family and bring it to me.”

His orders were absolute in this place, and Lefonya had no choice.

“You may use any means necessary.”

The Pope muttered casually as he healed the wounds on his own hand caused by swinging the horsewhip.

He did not even spare a glance at the priest he had beaten with it.

“My daughter.”

Whenever he gave her a mission, he always pretended to speak in a loving voice, as if he were God himself.

“If you get caught, make sure you die cleanly right there.”

Even while giving secret orders for his own benefit and doing things that went against God’s will, he still possessed divine power, which people called the power of God.

God really was…

So indifferent.

“Yes, Your Holiness.”

Lefonya slowly lowered her eyes.

After wiping his bloodstained hands with holy water, the Pope glanced at Lefonya’s emotionless face and spoke.

“My daughter. You have become an adult now, so I suppose it is about time you became independent.”

“What?”

“Hmm, yes. If you complete this mission, I will let you become independent.”

Lefonya’s eyes trembled.

“You are all grown up now, so you should be able to live well on your own, right? If you complete this mission properly, I will give you whatever support you need to live independently. You can live however you want.”

At the words, live however you want, the heart that had seemed frozen for years began to beat again.

“Oh my. You don’t look like you believe me.”

“Ah. I was just surprised. …Independent? I never even thought about something like that.”

“Really? …Hmm. Then what would make you believe me? Ah, yes. Would you believe me if I swore in God’s name?”

It was the greatest proof of trust that someone who served God could offer.

A contract made in God’s name was a terrifying oath. The moment it was broken, all of the person’s holy power would disappear.

“Here.”

A bright light flowed from the Pope’s hand.

It was proof that he was swearing in God’s name.

“But in return, you must put your life on the line too.”

The Pope smiled.

“If you fail the mission, die. That should make it fair, don’t you think?”

She could have stopped this.

She could finally stop doing whatever the Pope ordered her to do.

Lefonya lowered her head deeply.

“I will risk my life.”

There was no God in this confession room where not even a single ray of sunlight could reach.

Five years old.

Lefonya’s first memory was of an orphanage.

It was the day an older girl beside her had been sold because of the orphanage director. The girl had cried and cried.

Lefonya thought that if she stayed there, the director might sell her too.

So she escaped to an almshouse that had been established as an imperial relief facility.

But things were no different there.

The almshouse, which was supposed to protect children, was filled with constant violence.

It had been only five years since she was born, yet those days were so horrible that she had already become convinced that maybe it would be better to die.

But little Lefonya had nowhere else to go.

Then came the autumn of the harvest festival, when Lefonya was five years old.

That was when she first met Pope Fretes, who had recently become Pope.

He had visited to inspect the almshouse, and Lefonya clung to him and begged him to save her.

‘Would you do anything for me? If you promise, I will let you live like a proper human being.’

She should have run away at that moment.

She had thought that even if the place she was going to was hell, it would only be going from one hell to another, so it did not matter.

That had been foolish of her.

Pope Fretes took several children, including Lefonya, away from the almshouse.

He prepared a small mansion on the outskirts as their home.

They were given nice clothes, warm baths, and enough food so they would never go hungry.

When Lefonya turned six, she learned many things from the teachers the Pope hired under the name of education.

Noble etiquette, the weak points of the human body, how to use a sword, and other things that were far from normal for a child to learn.

Of course, the process was not easy.

Children who could not keep up with the pace of their training were sent back to the almshouse, and Lefonya desperately followed the training because she did not want to return to hell.

If they cried because they did not want to learn, they were forcibly expelled and either left to die or thrown back into hell.

By this point, the children no longer saw one another as family or companions.

They saw each other as enemies they had to surpass.

Then, when Lefonya turned fifteen, she received her first mission.

‘My first daughter. I kept my promise to you and helped you live like a human being. Now it is time for you to keep your promise. Just leave this letter in the Cardinal’s residence.’

Five years ago.

That was how it all began.

The Pope’s spy.

The Pope’s trained dog.

That was the price Lefonya had paid for getting to live like a human being.

Her brothers and sisters who failed three of the Pope’s missions or ran away because they could not endure it were all found as cold corpses.

There was nowhere in this empire where they could escape the eyes of the Pope, who held as much power as the Emperor.

Even young Lefonya was given all kinds of missions.

She would grab the Pope’s legs and cry that she could not do it, and she was always punished.

The only thing that could be called fortunate was that Lefonya had been an excellent student who never lost first place during her training.

Because of that, she did not die even after three failures.

But Lefonya did not know if she could really call that fortunate.

But in the end, to survive, Lefonya had no choice but to kill all her emotions and become the Pope’s hands and feet.

And now.

Lefonya let out a sigh filled with frustration inside her personal hideout, a small cabin.

“Haa.”

She leaned back in her chair and rested a thick stack of documents on her face.

They contained information about the Krytan Ducal Family.

“Wouldn’t it be faster if I just reincarnated as the Krytan Duke’s daughter and walked out with the heirloom instead of stealing it?”

The Krytan Ducal Family.

They were the family that protected the empire’s safety and peace.

The Duke and both of his sons could use aura, making them unquestionably the strongest family in the empire.

Those who could use aura aged much more slowly than ordinary people and lived for so long that they could hardly even be called human.

Naturally, their reputation was extremely high.

So they had everything.

Money, power, and strength.

The only opening she could find was information about the youngest daughter.

She had been missing since she was less than a year old, and the family was still searching for her.

Twenty years ago, the carriage carrying the Duchess was attacked.

The Duchess’s body had been found, but her youngest daughter had disappeared without a trace.

Perhaps because they still hoped she might be alive, they were apparently still searching for their daughter even after twenty years.

“Tsk. Too many scammers have already approached them claiming to be their daughter. It would be difficult to disguise myself as their young lady.”

She had heard that whenever someone claimed to be their daughter, the Krytan Duke became suspicious first.

It would be better to avoid that method.

“Still, I have to succeed somehow.”

It was not a mission where she had to hurt anyone.

All she had to do was steal one heirloom, and in return, she could live without ever having to see the Pope again.

Of course she had to do it.

She had survived this long.

There was no way she could die right before the end.

Lefonya slapped both of her cheeks with her palms.

Her cheeks immediately became swollen and stung.

“First, let’s find out what the heirloom actually is.”

Only then could she decide whether to carry it away in a sack or hide it in her pocket.

The Krytan Ducal Residence had extremely tight security.

Even if she disguised herself, she could not enter unless her identity was completely legitimate.

Creating a fake identity was easy, but for now, she was not planning to sneak inside.

She only wanted to check where the heirloom was.

“I have something prepared for this.”

Lefonya opened a drawer and took out a small potion bottle that had been lying inside.

It was a shrinking potion.

Once she drank it, her body would become as small as a pinky fingernail.

She had used it during a previous mission to steal something.

She had spent a large amount of money to buy another bottle and secretly hidden it away.

‘I was saving this for an emergency, just in case I ever had to escape, not for a mission.’

But if she successfully completed this mission, she would not need to run away.

She would be free from the Pope and could live however she wanted.

‘I’ll drink the shrinking potion, become tiny, enter the Krytan residence, and check the heirloom first.’

Lefonya opened the cap of the shrinking potion.

While looking over the documents, she drank it all in one go.

Gulp.

The tasteless liquid slid down her throat.

At the same time, she felt a burning pain, as if her entire body were being burned from the inside.

“Haa!”

What?

Why was this happening?

Something was wrong.

She had definitely taken this potion during her previous mission too.

But she had never felt pain like this back then.

It hurt as if someone had thrown her entire body into a pit of fire.

“Urgh!”

Lefonya clutched her chest and collapsed helplessly.

The sound of her heartbeat echoed loudly in her ears.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump!

The world spun wildly, and her vision turned upside down.

She could barely breathe.

She could not even stand properly on her two feet.

Someone.

Someone, please help me.

Lefonya desperately reached out her hand.

She squeezed her eyes shut from the pain and screamed, but just as always, there was no one there to help her.

Then Lefonya fainted.

And when she opened her eyes again…

“…Huh?”

Her eye level was different.

The clothes she was wearing were ridiculously huge.

Not only that, her hands and feet had become tiny.

And on the back of her hand was the exact same wound she had gotten when she was five years old while escaping from the orphanage.

Back then, while secretly climbing over the orphanage fence, the back of her hand had been pierced.

The wound had left a mark shaped like the fence.

The scar had disappeared later without leaving a trace.

But now, that same wound had appeared on the back of her hand again.

“W-What? W-Why is my hand so small? Ahem, ahem! Ah! Aah! My voice! What’s wrong with my voice? Ah! Aaaah!”

This was not the shrinking potion taking effect.

“Huh? Huhhh? W-Why am I so short?! Why am I this tinyyyy?! What’s wrong with my voice and pronunciation?! The mirror! Where’s the mirror?!”

Lefonya had become a little child.

Not just any child.

She had become exactly the way she looked when she was five years old, back when she escaped from the orphanage and ran to the almshouse.