Chapter 14
“Why? Is it annoying?”
Maybe he couldn’t hear me. He asked a question and then I asked a question back, so it’s clear that I was pretending I didn’t hear it. Any person who had basic courtesy would talk to you first and not pretend to be ignorant. Looking at the current state of affairs, it was nothing more than a rebuttal to the fact that the basic manners were not upheld.
What the hell happened between the three of them? Considering the relationship between the three of them that I knew in the first place, I wondered if it would make sense to say something went wrong in the temple of death.
These three were close as if only each other existed in this world, and I was the only one who was left out like a stranger.
How did this relationship break down in the five years that it got to this point? In the first place, it did not make sense that Kylian had destroyed and rejected the temple to which Lewarren and Lilith were loyal to in exchange for the god of death.
I sighed and felt the divine power in my body. What had gone out once yesterday, was piling up again. I felt it and became uneasy. If there is divine power in my body, Phileal will know that I am full of divine power.
But I really don’t know how to use it.
Should I just pretend to try and that it didn’t work?
Phileal looked at me curiously. The priests of the two opposing gods could never get along. To be precise, the god of death and the rest of the gods had a bad relationship, so it felt the same for anything.
“Phileal.”
“What?”
“There’s too many people, I can’t seem to concentrate.”
“You can’t?”
“Yes.”
He tilted his head to the side, resembling a white snake even more. His eyes were also bright red.
“Your Majesty.”
I felt sorry to treat Kylian as an uninvited guest, but judging by his ruthless reaction to Lilith, if he knew that I couldn’t use my divine power, he might stab at me straight away.
“Huu.”
Killian sighed and left. As he went out, the other priests went out like tied up sausages.
“Why don’t you go out?”
“You are a saint of the Goddess of Life. How do you know what you will do with our High Priest of Death?”
“Don’t you think I’m like you?”
“Yes.”
As I thought before, Phileal didn’t seem to hide his true intentions well. He’s not someone who can’t hide it. He just didn’t feel the need to hide, so he didn’t hide it.
“Do it quickly.”
“…….”
I’m in huge trouble now. Let’s try it once. I transferred the divine power gathered in my heart with my palm. Then I tried to release it slowly.
Well. As expected. It’s impossible to work.
“Ahaha. Is it because I’m sleepy? It doesn’t work.”
I felt like I was going to break out in a cold sweat as Phileal was staring at me.
“Try this.”
“Uht…! Where are you touching!”
He grabbed the back of my hand and pressed the hand that was floating in the air just above the high priest’s face. Because of this, I was able to press the palm of my hand against the high priest’s face, and I could feel the divine power coming through the palm of my hand, like he was giving me his strength.
“Huh?”
This was not surprising, as Lewaren had already done it when he gave me his divine power. To my surprise, he mixed my power with his and gave it to the High Priest.
I was the body that contained the divine power, and he moved it like exploiting it and delivered it to the High Priest.
“You have a very covetous body.”
Startled by Phileal that was speaking into my ear, I moved and slammed my head into his nose.
“Keugh!”
“You, because of you!”
“Ugh…. right….”
He stumbled and fell to the floor. Then I crouched down and looked up at him.
“You… Nosebleed!”
“Ah….”
Blood was dripping down his nose. He wiped it away casually and looked at me and said,
“Heal me too.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Yes.”
I was a little creeped out at his big smile, but he took my hand and pulled out my divine power at will.
“Ugh, hey!”
Thanks to that, I was dizzy for a while, but the nosebleeds slowed down.
“Thank you.”
“Ah….”
Phileal stood upright when the nosebleed stopped. The problem was that I was starting to have nosebleeds now too. Fortunately, the priests of the goddess of life had a recovery rate that was beyond the human range. Besides, Lilith, the saint, will continue to regenerate unless she dies. She wouldn’t grow old until she’d reach the end of her lifespan.
“It will stop soon.”
“I’m still dizzy.”
“Thank you.”
I think I’ve heard that the priests of the temple of death have bad sociability and were strange people who only thought about themselves, but Phileal seemed to be strangely sociable.
“Heal the High Priest again.”
“It will be difficult because my nose hurts so much.”
“Heal him. If you do, I’ll answer any questions you ask. For a day.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Lewarren just repeats to me that he doesn’t want to be caught between Kylian and me. If that’s the case, I’ll have to ask through the people around me. Phileal, the second-ranking priest, would have a firm place in the temple.
It might be better to hear from this person’s mouth than to hear from the other.
“If you’re pulling my leg…”
“I swear to the god of death that I won’t lie to you for a day.”
“What’s the price?”
“All the power I’ve been given.”
I was skeptical that he was going to pay such a big price for just a lie, so I stared at him and he smiled like a fool again. I thought it might be a survival strategy. Whenever he smiled like that, my doubts kept disappearing.
“Good.”
I reached out again near the High Priest’s face, and he grabbed the back of my hand and pressed my hand down to the cheek. The power was transmitted slowly again, and then to the High Priest in the direction he was leading.
I seemed to have used more than half of the divine power I had accumulated in my heart, so I was getting dizzy. The nosebleeds I spilled because of this person earlier were not cleaned properly and were only wiped with my shoulder, leaving a mark on the black robe. It was the same with Phileal. I took a closer look at the clear traces left behind, and thought that his condition was serious, so I let go of my hand.
“Can’t you do more?”
“I think I’m going to faint.”
“Then there is no helping it.”
He let go of my hand, and then the power stopped draining out of me. As I slowly stood upright to catch my breath, I felt the divine power slowly build up in my heart again.
It seems like I can’t do anything today other than rest.
“My head is spinning,” I murmured.
“Thank you for healing me.”
It felt like the floor was shaking as I tried to stand.
“Ugh…”
I thought I was having another nosebleed, so I wiped it with the back of my hand, and my vision turned black.
I fell asleep and originally expected to wake up with my own body, but what happened?
It was the room I was assigned to in the Empress’s Palace. Even though it was the saint’s body, it seemed that if half of my power was exploited all at once, so of course I would faint.
“Lewarren?”
“…….”
Lewarren was looking down with a pitying look. I must have been on the bed, but I was so tired that I couldn’t figure out anything.
Ah, damn. I had a pile of questions to ask Phileal. I had no choice but to ask Lewarren again.
“Why do you three hate each other?”
“…….”
“No matter how much I think about it, I don’t understand. I don’t understand why he believed the priests of death, no matter what they said.”
Lewarren was soaking the cloth with water from a nearby water basin. I wondered if the water was rippling, and then I heard the sound of flowing water. Then he folded the white cloth flat and placed it on my forehead.
It was okay because the temperature was neither cold nor hot. Don’t you usually put something cold on when you have a fever?
“You said it before. You’re tired of building personal relationships.”
“Huh.”
“It’s the same.”
“How do you know when I say that? I am not Zisis.”
Then Lewarren closed his mouth straight and let out a sigh, and stood up and continued.
“Did you really think that Kylian could not kill a single bug?”
“…Yes.”
“Even when he was Young Duke Percival’s husband, he was a sword master. Then?”
“It was the same back then. Killian was afraid of spiders. I mean, if I gave a spider as a joke, he freaked out and ran away. He could have cut it with a dagger instead, but no.”
“…….”
I tormented him with spiders until a few days before I died. A few days before the coup, the house was more sensitive, so I played more pranks on purpose.
“Listen well.”
“…….”
“Kylian Cypnos was not the kind of person you think he is. And if he had never been able to catch spiders in the first place, he wouldn’t have been crowned emperor and killed so many ministers and nobles. And no matter what the priests of death say, he has listened to me.”
“…….”
“When he first tried to save you, Lilith and I tried to convince Kylian every day.”
It was obvious I had a fever. Because my vision was blurry and my eyes were hot.
“But nothing worked. He knew he couldn’t save you, so then he tried to die… .”
“What?”
“After barely stopping him, I left him to Lilith until he came to his senses, and then he went crazy and attacked the temple.”
Did he feel insulted enough to commit suicide?[1] Come to think of it, I think I heard it vaguely from their conversation. I just couldn’t do it because I didn’t have the strength to react in a big way now.
“We tried to convince Kylian without fighting back. All the temples in the capital were destroyed, and the number gradually decreased, even the temples on the outskirts were destroyed. I believed that he would soon be alright until he exploited his power.”
“…….”
“But most of the paladins also died, and the priests and bishops were about to be annihilated.”
“…….”
“Anais.”
“…What.”
“Maybe the Kylian you knew didn’t exist in the first place. He may be the person he is now and he desperately needs you.”
His voice was so damp, that it didn’t seem like Lewarren’s talking. My breathing became more and more even, and even though I had no intention of falling asleep, I melted into sleep.
When I fell asleep, I immediately saw Kylian’s bright yellow eyes, confirming that I had really returned to the body I had longed for.
“Anias.”
Really, why did this happen?
—
[1] t/n: i think at this point i had enough of anais’ denseness ugh
e/n: …same lol
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