Chapter 15
The child's body was terribly miserable.
Even the bones were rotting, emitting a nauseating and filthy smell, and the skin was festering and oozing, endlessly flowing with pus and discharge.
It was a terrible stench that made one's nose wrinkle involuntarily, but I didn't even blink.
I've watched a lot of gore movies, you know?
This isn't enough to make a fuss over.
"Aaargh!! Aaaah!! Ah…"
The screams of the girl, initially full of pain, gradually began to subside.
The sound of bones, flesh, skin, and blood vessels being readjusted and twisting at will by my skill filled the room.
Rotten bones regenerated, and collapsed muscles and blood vessels became clean again.
The skin that had been oozing pus and discharge turned white and clean, and the dry, matted hair that looked like it had been torn out from pain or gnawed by rats grew back neatly.
The face with exposed cheekbones was restored, and finally, I finished my modification by adding a good amount of flesh and muscle to the mummy-like body that had been emaciated, probably from not being able to eat or sleep due to pain.
I raised her, now clean again, from her place.
"M-Mom… Dad."
She touched her body here and there with trembling hands.
Perhaps because of the pus and discharge, she wasn't wearing a single thread of clothing.
So everyone in the room could witness her cleanly healed body.
"I... I don't hurt anymore. I..."
"Cecilia!! Oh!! Oh, my daughter! My daughter!!"
The mother ran to her daughter and hugged her.
The daughter hugged her mother back.
The mother started to shed tears, and the daughter started crying too.
But it wasn't over yet.
"It's not over yet."
I pulled Scrooge's wife and Scrooge towards me and held one hand of each.
"W-What are you trying to....... Urk!!"
With a crackling sound of bodies being reassembled, Scrooge and his wife's bodies also started to be modified.
As I thought.
It's exactly as I thought.
You said you had suppressed the contagiousness with drugs earlier, right?
Thanks to that, although the contagious rotting disease hadn't spread, both of them were in a terrible state, having suffered psychologically and physically from trying to pay for their daughter's treatment.
Moreover, Scrooge's wife even had pneumonia, so the condition of her lungs was just a mess.
I eliminated all of that in one go.
Scrooge's skin and hair, which had aged hideously from being beaten down by reality, returned to a clean state. Now he looked like an ordinary middle-aged man.
The same was true for Scrooge's wife.
She no longer coughed.
Instead, her appearance had changed to that of a dignified middle-aged lady with glossy skin and long hair.
After completely healing the couple as well, I quietly stepped back, and at that moment, a thunderous cheer burst out behind me.
"Oh, Lilia of Grace! Oh Goddess!"
"It's the Saint!! Truly, truly the Saint!"
The priests and holy knights of the Lilia Order, witnessing my adult game skill for the first time, fell to the ground, shedding tears.
The High Priest looked like his soul had left his body.
"I believe. Punish me for doubting even for a moment! Ah! O’ Goddess!! O’ Goddess!!"
The police officers were looking at me with awe, their hats removed, and the holy knights of the Sun Order were sobbing, being so sensitive for some reason.
While everyone was sobbing and wailing like that.
"Hmph!! You con artist! Do you think I'll believe you?" Scrooge's sharp voice pierced my ears sharply.
I turned my head and looked at Jonathan Karma.
He was looking at his daughter, wife, and himself with a face full of suspicion.
"Do you think you're the only fake saint I've seen?"
His nagging, sharp voice was enough to instantly turn the scene of emotion into a scene of heresy interrogation.
"This blasphemer!! How dare he to the Saint!!"
"Are you insulting the Goddess of Grace!"
The holy knights of the Lilia Order were about to draw their swords, and the police officers and holy knights of the Sun Order were also openly expressing their disgust.
But Scrooge didn't seem to give a damn.
"Shut up! Do you think I'll be fooled just because you all come rushing in and shouting!? I've been deceived countless times!! I'd be a fool to be deceived again!! A fool!"
Scrooge quickly ran to a corner of the room and brought back an armful of things.
Scrolls. Magic potions. Strange-looking wands I had never seen before. Mirrors with peculiar magic circles drawn on them, and so on.
Various items.
"Just wait until you're exposed as a fake!! You con artist! I'll report you immediately!! You'll die by my hands!!"
Saying that, Scrooge took out a potion and sprinkled it on his daughter, wife, and himself.
And he started waiting with a triumphant expression.
And five minutes passed.
For the first time, cracks appeared in Scrooge's expression.
"There's no reaction. You must be using quite a good scam technique?"
He threw a mocking smile at me and then prepared the next thing.
"This scroll will be different when I tear it!! It's a dispel scroll I bought for a lot of money!!"
The scroll was torn.
But still, the three of them showed no change.
Scrooge's expression wavered even more.
"T-this!! This mirror will completely expose your scam!! If I use this!"
He looked at his daughter and wife's bodies with the mirror that had magic circles drawn on it.
His breathing started to become rougher.
"If I use this... If I use this… your scam will be completely exposed… exposed…"
Scrooge kept trying various things, but still, there was no change.
His daughter still looked clean, and so did his wife.
"A real miracle... There can't be a real saint. Those bastards took all my money... No. There can't really be..."
Scrooge was now crying.
Finally, after waving a strange-looking wand in the air and seeing no reaction, Jonathan Karma collapsed on the floor and started crying like a child.
The holy knights, priests, and police officers who had been angry now bowed their heads with solemn expressions.
I approached the wailing Jonathan.
And quietly hugged him.
He clung to me fiercely.
"Why…! Why did you come only now!! Why…!! Why didn't you come soon... sooner…!!"
"I'm sorry. It's all because of my inadequacy."
There was no more answer.
"Dad!"
"Honey!!"
His wife and daughter rushed in.
The four of us were tangled together, and Jonathan Karma's family cried for a long time, as if trying to shed all the hardships they had endured.
I hugged the three family members tightly.
I could clearly see what hardships they must have gone through just by hearing about it.
After suffering so much, wasn't it okay for them to be happy for a moment?
Only after crying frantically for nearly 30 minutes did Jonathan seem to calm down.
Good.
Now, wouldn't he listen if I asked for a little more time to raise the money?
"Saint. I'll just offer you my factory site! Please take it!! Just take it and use it!"
No, wait a minute.
This isn't right.
I'm in a position where I need to make the Lilia Order spend money!!
I need to make them suffer losses by pouring money into your trash land!
"The Goddess of Grace has granted what I wanted most, so I'll give you what's most precious to me! Just take it! I'll donate it! I'll offer my factory site as an offering!!"
"No, Mr. Jonathan Karma. You can't—"
"It's a miracle!"
"Grace is looking down upon us!!"
My words were cut off by the shouts of the Lilia Order's priests.
Before I could do anything, the contract to donate the factory site and everything in it to the Order already had Jonathan Karma and High Priest Yodel's names on it.
In an instant.
Far from suffering losses, the Lilia Order had made an entire huge factory site in the middle of the capital, even if it was in the slums, their own.
***
Once again, I headed towards the factory site that had just legally become Lilia Order's land, leading numerous followers.
A dirty, filthy land covered in industrial waste and garbage.
Damn it.
I was planning to make the Order spend money, but they got it for free like this.
But it didn’t matter.
There were many, many ways to make them spend money.
"Clear the garbage, demolish the factory, and dig the land."
"Did you say to dig the land?"
"Deeply. Dig as deep as possible. And please build a tall, high-rise temple."
Coming to the capital, I saw that it was a world where reinforced concrete technology existed, as I could easily see 5-6-story buildings.
I was going to build a tall, building-like temple and live extravagantly.
The cost of demolishing the factory. The cost of clearing the garbage. The labor cost of calling in workers to dig the land.
If one added all that up, not only would it take time, but it would also cost a tear-inducing amount of money.
After spending such blood-like money and building the temple, if they saw me living endlessly extravagantly on top of that temple, wouldn't even High Priest Yodel slap my cheek and leave?
"Start immediately…"
"The Saint says to dig the land deeply and build a tall temple!! Let's clear the garbage!! It's the will of the Goddess!"
My ambitious plan started to go awry as High Priest Yodel shouted.
As soon as Yodel shouted, an enormous number of poor people rushed in.
Looking closely, they were all poor people who had been healed by me.
"Let's repay the grace we received from the Saint!"
A huge crowd rushed in to help clear the factory in an instant.
Of course, there was no one who said they would receive payment, even if one looked with a magnifying glass.
"Come on! Let's form a line! We'll take turns going in, clearing, and coming out!! Understand?"
The holy knights of the Sun Order and the police controlled the crowd to prevent accidents.
"Go and buy food! Right now!! We need to provide food for those working!!"
High Priest Yodel and the holy knights and priests of the Lilia Order went to buy food.
Me?
"Saint!! Bestow your grace!! My child is sick!"
"My mother is coughing up blood! Saint!"
Perhaps because I had done it a few times now and become familiar, a long line naturally formed in front of me.
This isn't right.
Damn it.
But it's okay.
The building demolition will cost quite a bit of money.
Look at that huge factory.
It will take at least a few months to demolish all of that.
The Lilia Order's money would be massively spent on waste disposal costs and workers' wages.
It would definitely be like that.
Thinking that while continuing to heal the poor people.
I could feel a fear that felt like my breath would stop gripping my entire body.
The witch!!
The four-armed nuclear bomb of a witch!!
No!! I made her arms two, why are there four again!!
Why is she coming here!!
"Saint!"
The witch spotted me and ran towards me with an extremely happy face.
And before I could do anything, she hugged me tightly.
The witch exuded a woman's scent that was too shocking for a virgin like me.
"I wanted to see you!" the witch shouted, looking at me with an incredibly happy face.
I was frozen and could barely respond properly.
"Why did you come here?"
Yeah!! Why did you come!! I didn't want to see you again!! I don't have a hobby of living with a bomb next to me!!
"The Magic Tower accepted me back. Tomorrow. I'll be announced as the next Tower Master. I wanted to tell you this happy news... So I came. Is there anything I can help with?"
The Magic Tower accepted you?
The next Tower Master?
Weren't you a dark magician???
At that time, the holy knight clearly said there was no witch like you in the Magic Tower??
It doesn't seem like the Sun Order's holy knight lied.
What the hell is going on?
While I couldn't answer because chaos destruction ruin were rampaging in my head, the witch looked at the factory site where cleaning was in full swing.
"We need to hurry and clean up and demolish the factory!! There will be a lot of work to do in the future, so we need to move quickly!!"
Hearing High Priest Yodel shouting at the poor people who were working, the witch smiled at me.
"That factory. Are you planning to demolish it?"
"Yes."
"I'll do it for you!"
The witch disappeared from my sight in an instant, as if she had used teleportation.
I could feel that she was a real witch, unlike me who panted and wheezed from lack of mental energy just by using Time Stop.
After a moment, the witch suddenly appeared in front of me again, as if it were natural.
Holding a large permit in her hand.
"It's a magic use permit and demolition permit! You need permission to use large-scale magic in the capital! Just wait a moment, I'll get rid of that factory for you right away!!"
No.
Wait a minute.
What about my plan to make the Lilia Order spend money on factory demolition?
What about my plan to make them suffer losses by pouring money into cleaning up that garbage?
No, you witch!!
Stop!
But before I could stop her, the witch had already run towards the factory site as if flying.
After showing the permit to the police officers who were controlling the crowd and saying something, the police officers immediately evacuated the people who were cleaning, and as soon as the evacuation was complete.
"Good heavens!"
"My goodness!! How is this possible!!"
The witch drew her wand and waved it, and with that, the entire huge factory was uprooted as a whole and lifted into the air.
No.
It wasn't just the factory.
The industrial waste and garbage that the poor people had worked hard to clean up and gather also floated up together.
And then the lifted factory building and garbage disappeared somewhere with a poof the next moment.
In just one day.
The abandoned factory that had been overflowing with waste and garbage had been transformed into a clean empty lot.
Damn it.
This isn't right!