Chapter 32
Cold sweat soaked my entire body.
My most intimate secret...
It was obvious.
That the miracles I performed weren't actually miracles, but just incredibly vulgar adult game skills.
Moreover, didn't the prophecy just say that the abilities in my hands were ugly and base?
There was nothing else that could be called my most intimate secret.
And that when it was revealed, I'd die at the hands of those who love me?
"Saint! I've recovered thanks to you! Thank you!"
"The Saint is the living incarnation of grace! Thanks to you, I can see tomorrow!"
"Thank you... Thank you. If it weren't for you, really..."
I remembered the people smiling at me.
I remembered the people from the slums and the Lilia Order bowing to me and showing respect.
They were the people who loved me more than anyone else.
I couldn't think of anyone else but them.
And they...
…will kill me.
I couldn't breathe properly.
I felt like my whole body was convulsing with terror.
It seemed like I was hyperventilating. My breathing was incredibly fast.
But the prophecy directed at me wasn't over.
[But even death will not be the end. The one who spreads grace will grasp your soul after death. She will send your soul to a place befitting your actions. There, you will live experiencing things you do not want.]
"Ugh... Ugh!!"
I collapsed on the floor.
Even death was not the end.
The one who spreads grace.
Of course, it must be Lilia.
After I die.
It meant Lilia would grasp my soul. And I'd be sent to a place befitting my actions and experience things I didn't want there?
What place would befit my actions?
Hell.
Hell!!
It must mean I'll suffer eternally in hell!!
Now I understood why the divine punishment from the Goddess hadn't come down even though I had been pretending to be a saint for over half a year.
Lilia wasn't overlooking me because I was doing a good job!!
That was my misconception!
She was planning to punish me.
It was just that her method wasn't striking lightning on my head!
After my secret was revealed.
After being miserably abandoned by everyone and executed by the Grace believers and the poor on charges of impersonating a saint, she planned to extract my soul and throw it into hell!!
It was like the almighty Goddess herself has declared she'd personally deal with me.
What was the point of being recognized by the Emperor?
What was the point of being happy about receiving gifts?
If my soul was thrown into hell, everything was over.
My hyperventilation was getting worse.
[You will suffer alone, but through this, grace will spread its will to the world, and people will realize truly. That the one who spreads grace is alive.]
The will of grace.
What else could it be?
Impersonating a saint led to ruin.
No matter how many people one saved, she wouldn't overlook someone with ugly and base skills and no faith impersonating the Goddess'sapostle!
It meant she'd make an example of me to show this was what would happen to those who impersonate a saint!
And seeing that, people would realize that Goddess Lilia was alive!
Damn...
I can't...
I can't breathe.
My vision turned completely black.
***
"Saint of Healing!!"
When I opened my eyes, High Priest Zerba of the Prophecy Order was looking at me with a bewildered face.
"W-what did Lord Rupiel say? What future did he show you?"
I didn't answer that question.
My clothes were soaked with cold sweat.
Shivering with chills, I asked Zerba, "High Priest. Please call High Priest Yodel of the Lilia Order."
"I-I'll do so immediately!"
Zerba darted out like a bullet and soon brought Grandpa Yodel.
I looked at Yodel.
"Yodel."
"Saint! No! What on earth happened?"
"I want to ask one thing."
I was too scared to tell the truth.
How could I say that my fraud would be exposed, and I'd be brutally murdered, and even after death, I'd be eternally roasted in hell?
"For those who have wronged Goddess Lilia to receive forgiveness. What should they do?"
Let's first ask about how to receive the Goddess's forgiveness.
"Why are you suddenly asking such a question? Saint?"
"Please answer. It's something I must hear."
Yodel looked at me worriedly and then explained, "Naturally, one must not repeat the wrongs they've committed."
It must mean I shouldn't continue impersonating a saint anymore.
"One must distance oneself from wrongdoing."
I needed to run away.
I had been planning my strategy wrong. How long could I wait for the order to go bankrupt and leave me when elixir was gushing out now? Damn. Moreover, if I bankrupt the order, Lilia, who was already pissed off, might get even angrier!
You thick-headed bastard, really!
I should have just run away unconditionally!
"Endless self-denial and."
I should claim even more strongly that I'm not a saint! I should keep saying I wasn’t at every opportunity!
"One must accumulate good deeds and approach the Goddess."
I had already done this so far, so wasn't this enough now? I had already healed plenty of people!
I didn't need to keep acting and playing the saint anymore!
But somehow this felt insufficient.
These were too fundamental principles!
The wrong I had committed wasn’t just an ordinary one!
That Goddess of Grace declared she'd personally grab me and throw me into hell when I die! She wasn’t just ordinarily angry!
Something...
Something is lacking.
I need an additional countermeasure in case I fail to quit being a saint.
"Is there a way for a soul tainted with sin, which the Goddess has declared she will not forgive personally, to avoid going to hell?"
"Saint, what on earth... What kind of prophecy did you hear?" Zerba asked me in confusion.
Would I tell you?
"I cannot answer. Yodel, please tell me. Is there a way for a soul that the Goddess has declared she will punish personally to avoid going to hell?"
"If one escapes from the state of being tainted with sin through a saint's miracle, they can avoid going to hell."
That was a method I couldn't use.
I had never heard of another saint besides me.
It meant there was no real saint besides frauds like me.
So it was impossible to be saved through another saint's miracle if everything else failed.
"Is there another way?"
"It's a loophole, but if a soul is destroyed by being hit with a very powerful curse, while it can't completely prevent going to hell, it can delay the journey to hell."
What does this mean?
"Please explain in detail."
"It's literally as I said. How can a soul that's already shattered to pieces be punished? Of course, it can't go to hell either. In the past, there are records of evil black mages using this method to try to prevent suffering in the afterlife."
These are records just for someone like me now!!
How? How can it be prevented?
"Souls are extremely difficult to destroy, but even if destroyed once, their existence doesn't disappear. It will take time, but if there's a predetermined lifespan left, it will eventually be restored to its original form and disappear after living out the remaining lifespan."
"How does that avoid going to hell?"
"By intentionally destroying one's soul with a powerful curse while lifespan remains, and then artificially controlling the speed at which the soul recovers so that it regenerates after a very long time. They hoped that by doing so, people who remembered their evil deeds would disappear and even the gods would forget their evil deeds. It was a desperate attempt to avoid going to hell, but it ultimately didn't work."
"Why not?"
"Once created, a soul is a being subordinate to its dimension. The moment it's destroyed, it returns to where it was born and slowly regenerates there. Through this, the gods could easily identify whose soul was regenerating. In the end, even the black mages whose souls regenerated after a long time were eventually dragged to hell to suffer."
There it is!!
The perfect countermeasure!
If my soul is destroyed by being hit with a powerful curse, that's it, right?
The black mages may have failed, but I won't fail!
Why, you ask?
My soul doesn't belong to this dimension!
Doesn't this mean that if my soul is destroyed by a curse, it will regenerate in Korea, the dimension it's subordinate to!?
If I escape to another dimension, how can Lilia punish me?
If I'm hit by a curse and my soul is destroyed, I skip going to hell!
I'll be reborn in Korea!
I might be a nobody who graduated from a local university if I go back to Korea, but it's better than going to hell!
It's a thousand times better!
"Thank you, Yodel. I'm tired. Would both of you please leave?"
High Priest Zerba and Grandpa Yodel looked at me worriedly but eventually bowed politely and left me.
Now.
The plan is set.
To escape, I need three things.
First, finding a way to evade the miracle of tracking, because it would be troublesome if they chased after me again after I had ran away.
Second, secretly extracting enough money to live on wherever I escape to.
Third, finding a way to handle the time stop skill, which was the most necessary skill for escape, more efficiently.
Once these three conditions were met, I'd run immediately!
And then I'd change my face with body modification and live completely like a dead mouse.
Of course, this method was very orthodox but had a very high chance of failure.
The support for me from the Lilia Order and the poor exceeded the level of fanatics.
No matter how careful I was, there was a high chance they'd find me somehow.
So, to prepare for the possibility of failure, I should also search for a powerful curse that could act as a cheat key to skip going to hell in one go.
The problem was that such powerful curses weren't commonly found on the streets.
In short, the orthodox method had a low success rate but could be attempted anytime.
The method using the cheat key couldn’t be attempted anytime, but if successful, it was a 100% way to avoid going to hell.
What else can I do?
I'd usually push forward with the orthodox method, and if I happened to discover a powerful curse, I'd immediately try to get hit by that curse to avoid going to hell.
That should be about it.
It was said that even a journey of a thousand miles began with a single step.
First, I should sleep.
Hearing such a brutal prophecy had made my whole body tired.
I laid down on the bed, feeling the heaviness pressing down on my eyelids.
And not long after, I fell asleep.
***
Humans twisted into hideous forms that one might only see in nightmares were screaming.
That hideous form was even contagious.
The twisted humans were howling and hunting living people.
To make them the same as themselves.
Gunshots, magic, and miracles were fired to push back the twisted ones, but they didn't stop.
City walls crumbled, cities fell.
Humanity collapsed.
Undead, whether zombies or ghouls, invaded all human territories and tore apart the corpses of living humans, and those corpses soon became twisted ones just like them, rising from their places and wandering the earth.
And at the center of all this were two women.
A woman who had been horribly mutilated was lying dead on the floor, bleeding, and beside her, another woman with the same face as the fallen woman was wailing.
Wings had sprouted on the back of the wailing woman.
Those wings were stained pitch black, and the dark, evil energy emanating from the wings was the root cause that created all these twisted ones.
"No! No!!"
The woman with black wings wailed.
"I just... I just wanted to be loved!"
But there was no one left to love her.
The woman with wings like a fallen angel sorrowfully cried and cried again.
But around her were only twisted ones.
Someone to love her.
Was nowhere to be seen.
***
I jumped up from my bed, sweating cold.
Again!
It's the same experience again!
It's a prophecy about an unhappy future!
But.......
Now I'm not scared or afraid.
The evil energy emanating from the woman's wings I saw in the dream!
That!
That's a curse, isn't it!
If I die after being hit by that, my soul will be destroyed and I'll skip going to hell!
Isn't that rebirth in Korea?
Got it!!
This is it!
To think the cheat key would come so quickly!
Now I just need to find that woman with black wings who was spreading that curse!
And once my soul is destroyed by being hit by the curse, it's over!
As I was rejoicing with that thought.
"Saint. Are you awake?"
Grandpa Yodel's voice was heard from outside.
I had gone to bed and woken up in the middle due to a nightmare, but why is Grandpa Yodel awake at this dawn hour?
"Yes, I'm awake. What's the matter?"
When I opened the door, the expression of the old man standing outside was unusual.
What is it? Why are you like this?
"His Majesty the Emperor wishes to meet you secretly."