The Burden of a Saintess
Taejin woke not days later, but mere hours later.
“Thankfully a healer arrived right away, so you should be able to leave the hospital soon.”
“Yes...”
Fortunately the knife hadn't struck anything vital, and with Sohee arriving at once to heal him, he recovered quickly enough to be discharged.
He wondered whether he'd have to report straight back to work—but then:
As expected, he thoroughly understood why even a slave ought to serve in a noble household.
Anyway, after being discharged, Taejin was lying in the dormitory craving a cigarette, so he headed out to the smoking area.
“Ah, T-Taejin...”
“Sohee, why are you crying out here?”
She looked even more depressed than usual.
Hmm. She must have been shocked that I got stabbed.
I myself didn't think much of it.
More precisely, Taejin honestly didn't feel the reality of it.
The memory of being stabbed is short, after all.
He'd been stabbed, but whether from the adrenaline flooding his system or because he'd blacked out right away, it felt like nothing more than a fleeting dream.
Honestly, it barely felt real.
Of course—
“I-It's because of me that you got stabbed...”
—Sohee, who blamed herself for the stabbing, was a different story entirely.
Taejin plopped down beside the self-reproaching Sohee and said,
“Why would that be your fault? It's that bastard's fault.”
At his words, Sohee shook her head as if to disagree.
“No. That man came because of me. More precisely, because of the Saintess's power I once had.”
“The Saintess's power?”
“Yes...”
The story she told next was shocking.
The Saintess skill can only be used once.
The problem was that more people than you'd think refused to believe that.
“One day I got a call saying their daughter was sick. Begging me to save their daughter.”
Never mind that her phone number had been leaked—she couldn't do anything.
Of course not. She wasn't a real Saintess.
She was merely one of the Saintess candidates.
In the end she apologized, said she was sorry, and hung up.
The other party had poured out resentment and curses, she said.
“That wasn't the end. Somehow they kept finding out—calls begging for help and curse-filled texts... they just kept coming.”
Taejin couldn't bring himself to say anything in reply.
He couldn't understand her pain.
Of course Sohee wasn't speaking in hopes of being understood.
She simply wanted someone to know, so she kept talking.
“Then one day someone told me: How can you call yourself a Saintess when you can't even heal your own grandchild?”
At those words, Sohee said she got angry for the first time.
“I said, Why the hell do I have to listen to that?! Who asked you people to expect anything from me?!”
The person on the phone fell silent for a moment.
Then said in a trembling voice:
“I-I'm truly sorry. I lost my mind over my only grandchild. I'm really sorry.”
That apology ended the call, she said.
And after that call, she said she no longer had the confidence to face people.
She was slowly being crushed to death under the expectations placed on her.
That was when Seoyoung noona barely managed to save her, she said.
Anyway, that wasn't the important part.
“Even after that, people kept asking me to use the Saintess's power. That man was one of them too.”
The man who stabbed me was similar, she said.
“I heard he has mana sclerosis and wanted to be healed before he died.”
“What? For that you just go to a hospital...”
“A shaman told him that getting it from a healing mage—especially a Saintess—would be best, so he demanded it...”
“Ha.”
Mana sclerosis is a disease where the tiny mana flowing through the body hardens.
It sounds serious when you put it that way, but you just get something like a mana ultrasound at the hospital.
And he didn't even do that—he just listened to some shaman and went straight for this?
“What a complete fucking idiot.”
At Taejin's strong wording, Sohee looked at him with a quite startled face.
Apparently she'd never heard him speak that strongly before, so she was even more surprised.
But some things needed to be said.
They say great power comes with great responsibility, but for her—who no longer had any power at all—it was far too cruel.
So Taejin decided to comfort her.
“Sohee, that's not your fault.”
“Y-Yes? But you still got stabbed...”
“That's the fault of the bastard who stabbed me.”
Taejin actually thought so.
The one who stabbed was that bastard, the one who threatened was that bastard—so why would it be Sohee's fault?
“B-But still...”
“Sohee. There are a lot of complete assholes in this world.”
“Yes? Th-There are a lot of puppies...?”
“No. Not that. I mean there are a lot of guys who aren't even human.”
At Taejin's words she seemed to feel something, unable to nod for a long while, then finally—
“Yeees...”
Seeing her meekly admit it, Taejin chuckled and said,
“You don't have to care about guys like that. From now on, just don't even answer the phone.”
“B-But...”
“Sohee, it's good to grant people's requests, but it's also important to rely on someone yourself.”
Taejin's life hadn't been that long, but he knew this better than anyone.
His only mother. The part-time job that was a shitty company but taught him various things about society and even gave him a gift so their farewell could be beautiful. The few friends he had—
Taejin had leaned heavily on them, and they had leaned on him too.
So he could say this to Sohee with confidence.
“Relying on someone isn't wrong. Suffering alone in silence is what's wrong.”
It's fine to worry alone.
But shouldering everything alone no matter what isn't good.
“More than anything, Sohee, you're someone who fully deserves to rely on others.”
Yeah. In truth she fully deserved to lean on someone.
She'd already saved so many people—now it was time to act a little spoiled.
At Taejin's words she couldn't say anything for a moment, just opening and closing her mouth, then—
“I-Is it... really okay for me to?”
She said it in a trembling voice, tears dripping down.
Taejin nodded as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“I-I thought I wasn't allowed to...”
“There's no one who shouldn't be allowed to act spoiled. When it's hard, you cry, you act spoiled, and then you pull yourself together and get up.”
She burst into tears at his words.
Taejin carefully patted her back in comfort while smoking his cigarette.
You could call it lacking in mood, but it was his own kind of consideration.
I'm going to do what I want, so don't mind me and cry your heart out—that kind of consideration.
Of course whether it would come across as consideration was uncertain.
I wasn't someone who could accept her acting spoiled, but at least I could comfort her.
Thinking that, Taejin exhaled cigarette smoke.
Praying that her tears were at least a little hidden by the smoke.
Well, that was my little achievement that wasn't really an achievement.
At the same time, it was also the opportunity that made me closer to Sohee.
—Footsteps.
Hmm, looks like the flashback went on too long.
And as Taejin walked while recalling the past, he found himself arriving once more at the place where that thug had stabbed him before.
At the same time he shone his light around, searching for anyone who might be trying to break in.
After that incident they'd thoroughly sealed off the little gaps, but that didn't mean everything was blocked.
But even if there were many places to enter, there weren't many places to hide once inside.
This apartment had CCTV installed everywhere to the point you'd think they were paranoid.
But even within that apartment, this spot had unusually few cameras.
So Taejin thoroughly searched the area with his light, and soon—
“Y-Youuuu! A-Agaiiin!! Trying to stop me again!!”
He found the human who'd put a knife in him, hiding there.
Talk about a long-lasting bad connection.
Looking at the agitated man, Taejin spoke calmly.
“Yeah. Nice to meet you again, and let's not meet next time.”
With that, Taejin sprayed the pepper spray he'd prepared in advance into the man's face.
“Gyaaaah?!”
The man was startled by the pepper spray in his eyes, but that wasn't the end.
“Last time I got knifed by you, so I prepared a bit, you know?”
At the same time he pulled the stun gun from his waist and—
—ZZZZT!
“Guhk!”
Zapped the man.
Leaving the man fried crispy by electricity behind, Taejin called the police.
Ah, of course.
“Can't just let him go.”
—Crack.
“GYAAAAAAAH!!”
“Gotta get one in.”
Collecting the price for being stabbed, after all.
You could call it cruel, but in the Gate era this level of retaliation was a wonderful world where even the police just let it slide.