Chapter 59
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 59
Chapter Title: Saint Rie
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I wasn't born into a great merchant house, but into the family of the head of a trading company just one step below that.
We were wealthy, and our family got along well.
I grew up without lacking a single thing.
If there was something I wanted to learn, my father hired excellent teachers, and my mother spared no encouragement.
Being younger than my older brothers and sisters, I wasn't burdened with any special responsibilities, so even if the whole world envied me, they wouldn't have a word to say.
It was one day like that.
Watching my eldest brother practicing the sword looked so cool that I resolved to learn the sword myself.
I asked him and learned the basics of how to hold and swing it.
After practicing by his side for about two days like that.
My eldest brother recognized my talent and told our father, who arranged a master for me.
The retired knight who had been teaching my eldest brother began instructing me.
Learning the sword was more fun than anything I'd studied before.
I could instinctively tell my skills were improving day by day, and it was thrilling to see my eldest brother, who had spotted my talent, along with my father and mother, react with such surprise.
The harder I worked, the more my skills grew, and my family rejoiced at my progress.
In that cycle of positive reinforcement, three months passed.
In a sparring match, I gained the upper hand against my master, who was handicapping himself by sealing one arm.
It was obvious he was going easy on me, but a win was a win, and from that day on, my father spared no support for me.
He gave me all sorts of elixirs and expensive weapons, and even assigned a silver-rank adventurer more skilled than my original retired knight master.
My eldest brother expressed some jealousy but calmly cheered me on, while my mother praised me as a genius.
With everyone showering me with attention like that.
To live up to that attention and expectation, I worked even harder.
My exceptional talent made my skills grow daily, so it didn't feel like a grueling path—it was enjoyable.
Four months after I started learning the sword.
When I managed to win one out of ten spars against the master my father had invited.
I went to the temple with my father.
My brothers and sisters had only received the blessing after becoming adults, but at sixteen, I considered it an honor.
That must have been when it started.
[Would it be fun to start rich from the beginning?]
A woman's clear voice rang out.
I received the baptismal name 'Rie,' and soon I was called 'Rie' more than my real name.
From that day, the voice began to invade my body.
I didn't know how to define the unfamiliar voice that echoed directly in my mind right after receiving my baptismal name.
My will didn't disappear after receiving the baptismal name, but my body no longer moved as I wished.
I could move my body.
In the direction the voice wanted, I could move.
But in directions the voice didn't want, I couldn't move at all.
Since it happened right after receiving the baptismal name.
I had no choice but to suspect the temple first.
But what would the temple gain from turning me into this?
Even as the son of a mid-tier trading company, I was insignificant compared to the great houses.
The great trading houses would bring gold and silver at the temple's word—what reason would they have to use strange tricks on our house?
After a dozen days, I set aside my suspicions of the temple and began moving in the direction the voice commanded, without stopping my thoughts.
The voice showed not a shred of seriousness.
It didn't even try to communicate with me.
No matter how many dozens of times I asked or hundreds of times I shouted, my words just circled in the air and vanished, never reaching the voice's owner.
What on earth was it?
I couldn't figure it out, and the commands it issued while calling it a 'game'—lighthearted in tone but all the more terrifying for it.
About a month passed like that.
I told my father everything and sought an exorcism ritual.
If this was a curse, I believed the temple could resolve it.
But.
That belief shattered to pieces.
Even after the exorcism, the voice kept coming.
No.
It even rejoiced, saying something called divine power had appeared.
As the voice rejoiced, the temple priests rejoiced greatly too.
There was no curse on me, but they went on about how, during the exorcism ritual they insisted on performing anyway, I had absorbed their divine power remarkably well.
Was it coincidence?
Or someone's prank?
My father was overjoyed at the sudden divine power, but I strongly felt something was deeply wrong.
Yet I couldn't do anything about it.
I had no choice but to stay at the temple for a while to learn to handle the sudden divine power.
Another two months passed.
Whether I had talent for divine magic too, I became proficient enough to use it skillfully, and the voice grew even happier.
I hated that.
The way it suddenly appeared, stole control of my body, and commented on every single action I took like it was judging me.
I had a guess about who the voice's owner was.
It appeared the moment I received my baptismal name at the temple, and it wasn't exactly a curse.
Could it be one of those called gods?
Having reached that conclusion, I deliberately gathered information about pilgrimages.
The voice ignored my shouts but watched over me like.
It reacted to my actions.
Soon, the voice started showing interest in pilgrimages.
A pilgrimage meant following the path a saint had walked in the past and tracing their footsteps, but what I aimed for wasn't mere understanding or respect for the saint— it was reaching the end of the pilgrimage path.
Rarely, one might hear a god's voice there, and even more rarely, briefly communicate with a god, so I planned to use that.
If the voice attached to me really was a god, it would surely speak to me then.
As I kept gathering info on pilgrimages and talking about them.
The voice began to show interest too.
Letting out a sigh mixed with irritation and helplessness, I set out on a pilgrimage by my will and against it.
And so hell began.
I'd only planned to reach the destination and talk.
But everything happened according to the voice's will.
Killing people, saving those I didn't want to, trembling in terror in unwanted battles, aiding the stench-filled slums, earning an unwanted title of saint.
Every time I acted according to the voice's will, it pleased the voice.
It kept comparing me to someone.
Rumors leaked that it had clung to someone else before me and now left that person for me.
I resented it.
I knew I shouldn't resent it, but I felt wronged.
Why drag me into suffering when it could torment just that one person?
I was supposed to be happy originally.
Wealthy with outstanding talent.
A harmonious family, no worries even running the trading company.
So, having everything, it was natural for me to be happy.
The more natural my happiness should have been, the greater my grievance, deepening my resentment.
That thick resentment never reached the voice, and instead turned toward whoever had borne it before.
As time passed and I performed unwanted actions, losing more control of my body, that resentment only grew stronger.
The voice called that person.
A pathetic fool.
So I believed they were a pathetic fool.
Every trial heading my way only fueled my hostility toward them.
But after leaving the pilgrimage and following the voice's direction to meet the girl I suspected was its previous host, I felt ashamed of those thoughts.
The girl resented me.
Just like I had resented, exactly the same.
The girl had nothing.
She had a fine weapon, but judging by the aura she exuded.
It was easy to guess something tremendous had happened for her to wield such a thing.
Her appearance was shabby.
Her mood foul.
Her face was beautiful, which made me think she might be all the more unfortunate for it.
The resentment I should have voiced, the girl poured out at me, looking up with eyes that seemed ready to shed tears.
That was pathetic.
Not just the girl, but me too for harboring the same emotions.
So, instead of yelling back, I merely explained my situation.
And we parted.
The resentment I'd harbored lost its direction.
My heart felt empty, yet I had no choice but to obey the voice's commands and head to the capital.
Using the fame I'd built, I quickly stabilized the hell where people burned others alive.
I gathered people.
The voice seemed more excited than ever.
Always harboring the desire not to listen, I still acted as it willed.
When the time came.
I led the subjugation force recruited with the temple against the devil worshipers.
And there.
[Uh...]
[What is this? Affinity with devil worshipers rising... uh, so, like. When creating a new character, you can start as a devil worshiper from the beginning...?]
[That sounds fun?]
The voice that had clung to me detached.
Obeying commands and moving had started to feel natural.
But suddenly the voice vanished, and the control over me disappeared.
It felt so unfamiliar that I couldn't do anything.
One day, two days.
Even on the way back to the capital, the voice didn't return.
Only then did I truly feel the voice had left me, and I set out to find the girl.
"It's the saint!"
This situation.
The door cracked open slightly, and the girl looked up at me anxiously through the gap.
It was clear this was deeply connected to her.
"May I come in?"
I wanted to talk.