Chapter 19
“Gasp, it’s a disaster! The Sun Church’s saintess! The saintess—eeek!”
“..Please calm down and explain.”
I had a rough idea of the reason.
But I couldn’t mention the existence of the Gallery, so I pretended not to know and waited for the lord to speak.
“The Sun Church’s saintess has announced a pilgrimage! Gasp, but our city is on her route..!”
The lord seemed unable to breathe properly, as though he had run all the way here.
His words were a complete mess, but I could still roughly understand what he was saying.
“I see.”
Still, I couldn’t help having one question.
“But is there a reason you came to me instead of Priest Margaret?”
The saintess coming and the lord urgently seeking me out were two separate matters.
If he needed someone associated with religion, then considering her experience and the size of her church, Priest Margaret would have been the more suitable choice.
However, the lord’s answer was simple.
“Priest Margaret heard the news first, took some leave, and went into hiding..”
“…”
As he said that, the lord pulled a crumpled piece of paper from inside his coat.
When he unfolded it, familiar handwriting came into view.
-I hear the Sun Church’s saintess is coming.
I’m taking some accumulated leave and going away to rest.
-So handle the clinic and the Sun Church’s saintess in my place, Priest Flawy.
“Oh..”
Experience really was something else.
Margaret had gone into hiding the moment she heard the news, which was impressive in more ways than one.
Of course, the result was that I had to deal with all the shit.
“I understand. But I have no experience with anything like this, so I’m a little flustered. Is there something I need to handle?”
“There is one thing. That’s what I wanted to ask you to do.”
“I’m listening.”
The lord hesitated for a moment.
But it wasn’t something he could avoid saying, so he eventually opened his mouth.
“I think you’ll have to host the Sun Church’s saintess at the Church of Flowers.”
“At our church, rather than your lordship’s mansion or the Earth Church?”
I wasn’t trying to avoid the matter.
I was asking purely because I was curious.
I couldn’t understand why they were asking me to host a saintess in this place, which had only just been completed and had a staff of merely two people.
“With Priest Margaret gone, you’re the only one who can serve as the city’s representative priest.”
I wondered why it had to be me, but when I remembered what Priest Margaret and I had in common, I had no choice but to keep my mouth shut.
It was Heal—or rather, the fact that we were the only two people in the city able to use miracles.
‘..Maybe I should disappear too.’
I seriously considered it for a moment.
But I soon abandoned the thought.
Having received even the church from the lord, refusing his request wouldn’t look good.
Even if it had all been a scheme to settle me in the city.
“I can do that much. But may I ask when the saintess is arriving?”
The pilgrimage route posted on the Gallery wasn’t short.
Since the itinerary passed through several cities, I thought I would have quite a bit of time to prepare.
But the lord’s answer that followed exceeded my expectations.
“In four days..”
“..?”
For a moment, I wondered if I had misheard him.
“Did you say in four days?”
The lord avoided my gaze, but he didn’t deny it.
I could understand why Priest Margaret had fled so early.
“She’s coming sooner than expected. Do you know why?”
“Gasp, I’d like to know that too. Why am I being subjected to such a trial..!”
“Oh dear.”
The lord’s face genuinely looked as though he were about to burst into tears.
I could tell that he wasn’t lying or hiding something, at least.
“Let’s do our best to host her, then. So please don’t cry.”
‘Especially with that face, please.’
Seeing him tearfully pleading with a face that looked as though it could exploit the citizens made me deeply uncomfortable.
“Sniff, please take good care of this.”
Afterward, the lord finally calmed down and left with Charlotte, who had been waiting outside the church.
After seeing the two of them off, I had no choice but to fall into thought.
‘I don’t know why she’s skipping the announced route and coming near here first.’
But someone who should know did.
“Goddess, do you happen to know anything?”
-Umm, I don’t know.
-But if she’s that saintess, then she’s Daddy’s saintess, so I think we can ask him!
The answer came after a little while.
-Hmph, I got scolded..
“…”
To be honest, I hadn’t had particularly high expectations.
-That’s mean!
‘As expected, is the Gallery the only place to look for information right now?’
Ignoring the goddess’s voice, I reopened the Gallery I had closed.
I was hoping that more information related to the saintess might have been posted.
True to the Gallery’s nature, where all kinds of information and nonsense rolled around together, I had no trouble finding the post I wanted.
Title : Why is the Sun Church’s saintess suddenly going on a pilgrimage?
Author : ㅇㅇ(71.71)
Isn’t someone at the level of a saintess unable to move freely even for political reasons?
But she suddenly announced that she was going on a pilgrimage, and apparently she’s already set out. It’s awfully suspicious.
[I know why]
ㄴ[Oh, why?]
ㄴ[To become the prospective bride of me, Ham Pilwon, the 29th-generation descendant of the Ham clan of Gangneung]
ㄴ[You fucking bastard, seriously]
I scrolled past the comment section full of nonsense.
Then one comment caught my attention.
[Think about why the former head mod died]
ㄴ[? Why did the former head mod die? Didn’t he just die?]
ㄴ[You idiot, the former head mod was the deputy master of the Blue Tower]
ㄴ[??? For real;;]
That was news even I was hearing for the first time.
But it wasn’t as though nothing came to mind.
It was the Gallery error that had occurred immediately after the news of the Blue Tower’s deputy master’s execution.
It was far too coincidental to be dismissed as mere chance.
And if I remembered correctly, the stated grounds for the Blue Tower’s deputy master’s execution had been none other than suspicion of demon summoning.
ㄴ[So the former head mod was really executed for researching demon summoning?]
ㄴ[I don’t know about that. He could’ve been unfairly caught while researching dimensional travel so he could go home]
ㄴ[But if he really was researching demon summoning, then not only his execution but also the sudden saintess pilgrimage make sense]
‘Demon summoning, huh.’
Considering the existence of demons I had learned about while studying theology, the Sun Church’s sudden announcement of the saintess’s pilgrimage wasn’t entirely incomprehensible.
Of course, it was still only speculation, so it was difficult to be certain. But I had no more plausible theory.
After getting a rough grasp of the information, I closed the Gallery.
It wasn’t long before I was lying in bed.
‘I’m tired.’
Perhaps it was because quite a lot had happened during the day.
Not long after lying down, my eyes were already closing.
…
……
“Mmm.”
I woke up rubbing my stiff left arm, with the uneasy feeling that I had dreamed of something disturbing.
I had gotten up fairly early, but the workers had arrived and were already working before dawn had even broken, as though their sun had risen earlier than mine.
‘They came surprisingly early.’
It was unexpected, since I had been worried that they wouldn’t come because of what had happened yesterday.
But when I looked more closely, their faces were different from those of the workers I had seen yesterday.
‘New people?’
However, the new workers hadn’t come to replace the existing ones.
That much was obvious, since the cart was loaded with flower seeds and saplings rather than shovels or lumber.
I was standing there watching, bewildered by the sight of goods unrelated to the church’s repairs.
Then a man dressed especially neatly among the workers approached and bowed his head.
“I’m Otto, an administrator of Millers. His lordship sent us as an apology and a token of gratitude.”
It was all a gift from the lord.
‘He does have a conscience.’
Of course, the words that came out of my mouth were quite priestly, unlike my true thoughts.
“Excessive worldly goods are taboo for a priest, but I cannot refuse flowers. Please convey my thanks to his lordship.”
“I certainly will.”
The yard, which had been rather bare for a Church of Flowers, was soon planted with flowers and flowering-tree saplings.
It wasn’t an especially large reward for the work I had agreed to do, but I had acquired things that would have been burdensome to buy with money.
“Wow, are those flowering trees?”
Priest Malja had come outside at some point and was gazing at the flowers and saplings with sparkling eyes.
“They say they’re elderberry saplings.”
“Elderberries?”
“They say pretty flowers bloom in early summer, and once the trees are fully grown, they bear fruit every summer. The berries can be eaten or made into wine.”
In more ways than one, it was a tree that suited the Church of Flowers perfectly.
Besides, I had once considered making alcohol from crops grown at the church, so the elderberry saplings were a rather pleasing gift.
‘Now that I’ve received an advance like this, I can’t exactly do a half-assed job.’
I stroked the leaves of the elderberry sapling, which reached up to my chest.
As I sprinkled Heal over it like water, intending for it to grow well without any pests or diseases, the goddess spoke.
-Good morning! Oh..
The goddess, apparently only just waking up, fell silent in the middle of speaking.
“What is it?”
-You shouldn’t use Heal on trees like that..
“?”
I soon learned why.
It was a subtle difference, but the sapling had definitely grown.
‘..Not bad.’