I Found a Saint Who Became an Idiot
I Found a Saint Who Became an Idiot
The tip of the sword pierced the grotesque heart.
The vast despair that had tried to swallow the world crumbled, along with a final agonized death rattle.
At my feet, the Demon King's body scattered into ash.
It was over.
But my own breath was also fading.
"Keo-eok..."
Dark red blood gushed out in thick spurts from the wound that had pierced through my abdomen.
The poison of the curse left by the Demon King climbed through my blood vessels, numbing all sensation in my body.
My vision flickered and darkened.
Into that dimming sight, I saw someone crawling toward me in desperation.
Platinum blonde hair.
She was the Saint who had saved the world, and my lover.
"No... please, open your eyes..."
Her face was a mess of tears and blood.
The radiant robes that symbolized the Saint were torn to shreds, little better than rags.
"Don't die... I'll, I'll save you..."
Her sobbing voice, screaming something, lingered in my ears.
I tried to lift my failing hand to wipe her cheek.
But before my fingertips could touch her, she cried out like a wild beast and thrust her blood-soaked hands into my chest.
Puk-!
"...!"
My vision was dyed with pure white light.
A pain like my chest was being ripped open flared up, but paradoxically, my body temperature, which had been growing cold, boiled up like mad.
The brilliant light bursting from her fingertips poured into my gasping heart like crazy.
And so, watching her sobbing as she held me, I lost consciousness.
Beonjjeok.
I opened my eyes.
"...Haah."
Gasping roughly, I lifted my upper body.
I instinctively felt my abdomen.
There was nothing. Neither the fatal wound that had spilled my intestines, nor the Demon King's curse that had burrowed into my flesh.
All I felt was a thin linen shirt soaked with cold sweat.
A cheap wooden ceiling.
The musty smell of mold stung my nose.
Through the window, the familiar bell of the Academy rang out.
The never-ending war against the Demon King's army. On the brink of collapse, humanity sought to fill the gap in their forces even with meat shields, and so even an ordinary orphan like me was given the opportunity for education disguised as conscription.
A certain day in my past, when I was nothing but a nameless cadet, utterly powerless.
It was a regression.
"......."
I did not cheer, nor did I shed tears.
I calmly brushed my hand over one corner of my chest, sorting out the situation with a cool mind.
I didn't know the principle of why I had returned through time.
Perhaps it was a miracle that occurred when the Demon King's heart exploded. Or perhaps, in my final moment as my breath was cut off, her desperate plea to save me had reached.
The reason didn't matter.
I pulled out an old leather bag from under the bed.
Without hesitation, I threw onto the floor the Academy uniform hanging in the closet and the textbooks on the desk.
I only stuffed into the bag a single sharp dagger and the pouch of all the money I had saved.
The goal of this life was clear.
'I won't get entangled.'
The result of walking the hero's path to save the world was her terrible death.
Because I was by her side, she bore everything, and trying to protect my back, she ended up broken for me.
Then the answer is one.
I disappear thoroughly into the shadows of her life.
I make sure she never knows the existence of someone like me. So that she can live safely as an ordinary Saint, under the protection of the church.
That was the only atonement and salvation I could offer.
I grabbed the door handle.
There was no reason to remain any longer at this Academy, in this holy city.
At the outskirts of the holy city, a back alley bordering the slums.
The path leading out of the city always reeked of a nauseating mix of filth and the stench of blood.
I had no destination.
I just planned to slip into some remote countryside village beyond the church's reach and quietly rot away for the rest of my life.
My heart was beating because of her sacrifice, so I couldn't recklessly throw away my life.
Jjak-!
At that moment, a sharp sound of cutting air tore through the silence of the alley.
"This beastly bitch! If you wasted the food, you should crawl around and drag in some customers, shouldn't you!"
A man with a body like a lump of fat was swinging a leather whip.
A stench that stung the nose. Distinctive tattoos. A slave trader.
At his feet, something clad in rags like torn straw mats was curled up, being beaten.
Jjak-! Peok-!
The sound of skin splitting and blood splattering rang unpleasantly.
But it was a common sight. The farther you went to the frontier, the more such trashy everyday scenes were everywhere.
There was no reason to intervene in worldly matters.
I indifferently averted my gaze and moved my steps.
"Kkeu-eung... eu-eu......"
At that moment.
A suppressed groan, like that of a beast, flowed from the mouth of the slave crawling on the ground.
As if by a lie, my footsteps stopped.
"This thing bites people! Open your mouth right now!"
The slave trader kicked the slave's shoulder roughly with his foot.
From the recoil, the slave's curled body flipped over, and the hair covered in filth scattered in the air.
Though it was stained with murky gray grime.
That distinctive, dazzling platinum blonde that seemed to shatter when light struck it.
"......."
My vision froze coldly.
All thought in my head stopped.
I slowly turned my head.
My sight narrowed to an extreme degree, as if only that figure lying face down in the mud at the end of the alley existed in the world.
"Hey. What are you looking at? Annoying."
Hearing my approaching footsteps, the slave trader lowered his whip and sneered.
The sound of him muttering something else between his yellow teeth flowed out, but it didn't reach my brain.
My gaze was fixed solely on the slave's heaving narrow shoulders and the blood-stained platinum blonde hair.
"Hey, you bastard. How dare a commoner not lower his eyes..."
I didn't dodge the slave trader's pointing finger as it reached for me.
I simply grabbed his thick index finger.
And bent it upward.
Udeudeuk.
"Kkyaaaaaaah!"
The finger bent at a grotesque angle, and white bone popped through the skin.
Before the death scream could even echo through the alley, I grabbed him by the collar, pulled him down, and drove my knee into his jawbone.
Peo-eok-!
"Keo-eok, keok!"
Blood and tooth fragments scattered in the air.
His large frame collapsed weakly to the ground.
I mercilessly stomped on his knee joint with my boot heel as he thrashed.
Kwajik.
"Aaah! P-please spare me! Keo-heok, why, why are you doing this...!"
The slave trader grabbed his own leg and screamed, foaming blood.
I looked down at the beast with cold eyes that held not a trace of anger or emotion.
"Tell me."
"Ye-yes? W-what...!"
"That thing. Where did it come from?"
At my chin gesture, the slave trader trembled like an aspen and turned his gaze toward the slave.
"W-well, that! From the Church...! The Holy Imperial Court threw her away! They said she suddenly lost her mind, became an idiot who only self-harmed, a useless orphan girl, so they kicked her out of the Saint candidate position, and I bought her cheap...!"
An idiot. Self-harm. Stripped of Saint candidacy.
Each word struck my eardrums, and it felt as if a corner of my heart was being coldly gouged out.
I had definitely regressed.
But history was off.
No, perhaps this was the truth.
The most filthy and dirty truth of the Church that I hadn't known in the previous life.
How could my lover, who should have been revered as the most noble and brilliant, be discarded into such a gutter as a shell without even intelligence?
Without a word, I untied the heavy leather pouch from my waist.
And with all my strength, I hurled it at the blood-soaked face of the slave trader.
Peo-eok-!
The pouch, full of heavy gold coins, crushed his nose bridge with a dull sound.
"It's, the price."
The voice that squeezed through my lips was as dry as a metallic ring.
Whether it was my entire fortune or not didn't matter.
The slave trader screamed and rolled around, then, seeing the heavy gleam of the spilled gold coins, opened his eyes wide like a hare's.
As if forgetting even the pain of his broken bones, he frantically hugged the pouch to his chest and crawled backward on all fours like a beast.
"M-mi, crazy fool! With this much, I could buy ten people and still have change!"
When he had put some distance between us, the slave trader let out a vile laugh mixed with relief and greed, and shouted.
"She's got a decent face, so go ahead and have some fun with her! Kaak, twae!"
I could have immediately driven my sword into the back of the head of that trash limping out of the alley.
But without even sparing him a glance, I slowly turned around.
"......."
On the filthy muddy ground.
She was curled up.
Perhaps startled by the commotion a moment ago.
She was biting her own skinny forearm like a beast, covered in filth.
Her white skin was gouged, and blood dripped down her lips, but she seemed to feel no pain, continuing to leave bite marks.
Her empty eyes were unfocused.
My lover, once brilliant enough to save the world, had become a thoroughly broken beast.
Seuyuk.
As I approached, she flinched and trembled.
Like an abandoned stray dog waiting for a beating.
She looked up at me with empty eyes filled with bloodshot tears.
A gaze that didn't know me, the perfect gaze of an idiot.
"......."
I had clenched my molars so tightly that a metallic taste of blood lingered in my mouth.
The arrogant, shallow plan to run far away alone and save her crumbled into dust.
I roughly wiped my right hand, stained with the slave trader's blood, on my pants.
Then I approached her, slowly bending one knee.
I had tried not to get entangled in this life.
But, it was too late.