This One's the Real Deal
"So you're telling me some science nerds got curious about what these things were, took them apart, and caused this whole disaster?"
Just last evening every streetlamp had gone dark, and the whole quarter had descended into chaos. When morning came, the tally was four men electrocuted to death and a row of shattered lampposts.
"We're not lecturing anyone about this. From now on, foreign utility poles just get bolted straight to the fortress walls."
They'd put the lights up so the townsfolk could walk around in comfort at night, and now every lowlife in the city was trying to turn a profit off them. Honestly, it felt like she'd picked the worst possible time to come to Europe. That whole religious mess had blown up and turned the continent into a five-minutes-before-closing-time disaster zone.
"The Reformation is all well and good, but why do they have to make it about us?"
City of the devil, spawn of Satan — repent and retreat, they shrieked. And supposedly they were bewitching people with "fake Holy Water."
When the Holy See started screeching that they must come to Rome for verification and stand trial, she'd ignored it outright. She was perfectly content just raking in money here. So why, why, were they crawling all the way to her doorstep?
"I wouldn't know, my lady."
"You wrote the reply, didn't you?"
"I merely suggested, in a brief note, that we compare their vaunted Holy Water with ours?"
Hmm. In short, he'd thrown down a gauntlet. No wait — our faithful outnumber theirs by what, ten to one? So technically we were the ones graciously accepting their challenge? If you gathered every Christian believer in Europe, they still wouldn't amount to a tenth of ours, would they?
She'd been buried in paperwork when, before anyone noticed, the Pope's special envoy had arrived.
"Whoa? He came all the way here like that?"
"Precisely speaking, he's been carrying on like that since he disembarked, all the way to the gate."
Impressive, honestly. A massive crowd had swarmed in, hoisting great crosses like the banners knights once carried in the old wars. And the moment those fellows showed up, every last customer had bolted. So that's why business had been so slow lately.
"Let the Castellan come forth and receive the envoy of the Pope!"
Wow. That voice carried.
"Why do these people show up on someone else's land and act like they own the place?"
"Search me. Shall we go watch?"
"Sure~"
They were demanding the landlord come out. Might as well.
Johann Tetzel of the Dominican Order, summoned by the Pope himself, set foot in the city they had named the City of the Devil.
"Hm. Filthy air, as expected."
It was the same reek of urine, excrement, and horse dung that hung over every corner of Europe.
"F-forgive me, but this is Lisbon."
"Which is precisely how far this stench of evil has spread."
Covering himself in a hurry, he began hustling the people onward. His work here started now.
"Raise your crosses high and offer up your truest prayers! We march upon a city of evil, but we shall not fear, for Christ Himself shall shelter us!"
"Amen~"
And so they set off down the road together.
One hour became two, and their legs began to ache, but the faithful pressed on with grim determination. "Oh! They've come to cleanse the city of evil!" "If we follow, might we be saved too?" "Let's follow them!" And the farther they walked, the more devout Christians swelled their ranks, until the procession numbered in the thousands.
Needless to say, a good many agitators dispatched in advance were mixed in among them.
Good. I'd like a few thousand more, though.
Johann Tetzel was performing hardship deliberately, staging his suffering for all to see — cross and all. Just as the Lord Jesus had once borne His cross along the road to Golgotha.
"Pray, all of you, and be saved!"
"Might we buy indulgences as well?"
"Walk with us and find out, won't you?"
The procession following the river from Lisbon toward Pyeong-an Naru grew longer by the hour. By the time it reached the harbor six hours later, it wrapped entirely around the fortress walls. It seemed everyone in Lisbon and the surrounding countryside had turned out.
"Huh? Well, this is something."
"Eh, just here for the spectacle."
"They say the Castellan is a real beauty. Might as well feast our eyes."
At the inns nearby, guests crowded the window slits to peer out — nobles who had journeyed from every corner of Europe. Servants ferried food up to them as they chuckled and clapped over the fine entertainment that had landed in their laps.
For the man arriving today was an inquisitor of heresy as well. The burning of condemned souls, the roar of the condemner — in medieval Europe, an inquisition was considered a popular diversion.
Is this the place? Coming out to greet me would be too much to ask, apparently. No manners at all.
Johann Tetzel resolved to press harder. That the Pope's own special envoy had arrived and no one crouched in waiting submission — the insolence of it stung.
"Let the Castellan come forth and receive the envoy of the Pope!"
He drew himself up and shouted with all the air in his lungs. Never in his life had he produced so clean and mighty a cry; it startled even him.
Creeeeak.
Then the gates opened, and a girl walked out flanked by two men who were clearly her bodyguards.
"Hm~ Hello? I'm out. Happy?"
"Are you the Castellan of this place?"
"Yep. Name's Haeun. Call me whatever's easy."
"Such irreverence."
Johann Tetzel decided the rumors were true — she was a demon or a witch, without question. No mere mortal could be this beautiful, could she?
"Think whatever you like. Now, what brings you all the way out here, making such a fuss?"
"Repent! Do so, and your sins shall be forgiven!"
He had come to sell indulgences. Venice, the Holy See's golden goose, had been blown to pieces by these people, and a new revenue stream had to be found. With so many witnesses to the naval battle between Portugal and Venice, even the Papacy balked at the thought of open war with them — so this was the fallback plan.
Besides, no nation wanted to fight. What was there to gain from one small port? Invade, and the enemy simply sailed away. Where was the profit in that?
"I've already paid my sins' price in full."
"What nonsense is this!"
It was true, though. Haeun had endured her thousand punishments to the last coin — indeed, God Himself had personally sent her to this earth, had He not?
"That's why I don't need indulgences."
"Would you truly prefer the fires of Purgatory?"
"If I go, I go. Why are you lot fussing like it's your business? I'll manage my own afterlife, thanks."
Johann Tetzel concluded that the heathen was simply impossible to reason with. Normally, people trembled in terror of Purgatory, wept, and begged on their knees.
Hm. What now? A heathen wouldn't know Scripture, surely.
That had been his greatest worry on the journey. A heresy trial had to proceed upon the foundations of Scripture — but this one wasn't even a Christian to begin with. No confession came, no answers. He could force the issue, of course, but there were far too many witnesses present.
Tch. Stepped on my own foot, haven't I.... Is that all I have?
No. If it came to that, exactly one weapon remained.
"Whew...."
He drew a long breath, then bellowed.
"And cease bewitching the faithful with your false Holy Water!"
This was his prepared blow. He prayed devoutly in his monastery too, but never once in his life had he laid eyes on anything genuinely of God. Even those who claimed to have heard voices were, on examination, raving madmen. As an inquisitor he had sifted countless self-proclaimed witnesses, and every last one was a liar — some simply the kind who purchased their "proof" with coin.
"What about Holy Water?"
"Holy Water is water made holy by a priest's blessing! It is solely a testament of faith in Him! It repels the temptations of evil and beseeches God's protection and grace! It is used in blessing, and nothing more!"
Holy Water was a symbol of belief, nothing more — the notion that it could close wounds and revive the dying was beyond belief. Truthfully, no matter how fervently a priest prayed over it, at the end of the day it was just salt water.
"So you're saying it did cure people?"
"It did not!"
"So yours can't do that, then?"
"What did you say!"
The blasphemy of it. Treating Holy Water like some common medicine. And it was impossible, he told himself — how could plain water heal a wound or open a dying patient's eyes?
Which was exactly why he had come prepared.
"Very well! I shall prove your deceit before all! Bring forth the sinners!"
At Johann Tetzel's cry, a commotion stirred at the rear of the column, and thirteen figures emerged.
"Unmask them, all of you!"
As the coverings were drawn from their bodies, the sight beneath was revealed: flesh rotted and sloughing, limbs hanging limp and lifeless.
Leprosy. In the Christian society of that age, it was regarded as the most terrible of afflictions — God's curse, the punishment for sin, the very emblem of moral and spiritual filth.
"Behold! These are those whom God punishes! Can your Holy Water cure their sickness, I ask you!"
His plan was to parade out lepers whom no physician, no Holy Water, no prayer had ever helped — and let the fraud collapse on its own.
"Wait, why did you bring patients all the way out here?"
Haeun was genuinely irritated. They looked like intensive-care cases, and this man had made them walk the whole way.
"Alright, everyone, take one of these each. Drink one, splash the other on your body."
"Yes...."
"Hey, chin up. You can be cured!"
"Thank you."
And paying the uproar no mind whatsoever, Haeun handed out the Holy Water two bottles at a time, telling them to drink one and pour the other over themselves. They had been ill far too long, and their condition was truly dire.
"What is the meaning of this! Approaching unclean lepers!"
Johann Tetzel nearly gagged. The lepers' flesh was visibly sloughing away; the very sight was horrifying.
"He's right! What if the sickness spreads!"
"Everyone, fall back!"
As the crowd in the square edged slowly away—
"Sniff sniff. The water smells lovely. Something like flower water?"
"What does it matter.... Everyone here knows what we have."
They had tried every folk remedy, swallowed every herb, in their desperate bid to be cured. There had been no cure. Shunned by disgusted eyes, living segregated from the world, they were people who had simply waited out their days until death came.
"Still... they say this medicine was given for our sake."
"Even if it's poison, I don't care. Living has already been the painful part."
The lepers hesitated only a moment before drinking the Holy Water and anointing their bodies with it.
"Oh.... my body's burning up."
"Ugh.... it's like I'm on fire."
The lepers began crying out in pain.
Johann Tetzel seized his moment.
"Look there! The witch has bewitched those poor souls and fed them poison at the last! Now the wretched sinners shall die and be cast down into Purgatory!"
"How cruel!"
"Oh, the poor things!"
Every time he shouted, the ringers he had planted in the crowd whipped the mob into a frenzy. It was his most reliable strategy — one that had never once failed him, anywhere, in anything.
"Huh?"
"Wh-what?"
"What is this?"
But then, the impossible happened.
Sssss... patter patter.
Yellowish fluid came streaming from the lepers' skin, and patches of rotted flesh peeled away and fell entirely free.
"Aaaagh! Horrifying!"
"What manner of poison is this!"
The crowd recoiled in terror, backing farther and farther away, afraid the poison might spread and touch them.
But what none of them noticed was that the fragrance of flowers — the very scent that clung to Haeun — had begun to drift, soft and faint, across the square.
And that was not the end of it.
"Ah.... what the—!"
"Ugh.... it tickles a little...."
The ones who had purged their pus and shed their rotted skin began to sprout fresh, pearly-white flesh. The itching was simply new skin growing in — and mercifully, they had started to scratch before catching themselves, for they were all too accustomed to itch and pain alike.
"Oh! I can feel my fingers, my face! My hands are so clean!"
An old man who had lost all sense of touch through long years of illness, whose grotesquely ruined face had made even his own family turn away, was weeping as he stared at his own cleansed hands.
"What—!"
"They're cured! The sickness is gone!"
A true miracle had occurred. Whether it was purification by Holy Water or healing by medicine, the fact remained: all thirteen of the gravest lepers were healed.
"A saint has appeared!"
Some now looked upon Haeun as a living saint.
"Oh.... forgive this sinner who doubted!"
Others fell to their knees in prayer right there.
"That woman — she must be the saint herself!"
"Is it really true? A city of angels?"
"Look at this! There's no stench, it's spotless! Have you ever seen a place like this in your life?"
Only now did people begin to truly look around at the city itself.
"Thank you. Sob, sob."
"Oh, come on, it's nothing. If there are more sick folk out there, bring them along — I'll treat them too."
From this day forward, the place where the miracle of healed lepers had taken place would be known, truly and forever, as the City of the Angel.