Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 126
Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 126
Right.
It was about time this came to light.
What exactly did this ‘Honored Guest Token’ signify, and how great was it that it granted access even to a sanctuary like this?
At the very least, I had to find out before resolving the sanctuary issue.
Honestly, wasn’t it a little strange?
The Lion here hadn’t come as ‘Lion Asteri.’
He was nothing more than a well-off noble young master in magical disguise.
A young master who, oddly enough, didn’t reveal his identity and seemed to have quite a few connections to magic, no less.
And on top of that…
“Peep.”
Lion hadn’t exactly hidden Nature’s presence either.
Hadn’t water spouted from Nature’s mouth just moments ago when Ann and Licht grabbed his arm and scuffled?
To anyone watching, he was a suspicious person.
Yet they had simply let it slide.
That meant it was one of two things.
Either Lion’s true identity had been exposed, or this Honored Guest Token was more important than a trifling matter like his identity.
‘They probably haven’t figured out who I really am.’
It wasn’t entirely impossible, but judging by their reactions, it didn’t seem like they had.
Then the possibilities narrowed to one.
This very token!
“…First, I must apologize for not properly explaining this to you sooner.”
Licht began by offering Lion an apology.
“So it does carry an extraordinary meaning.”
“Yes, it does. Ahem… Have you ever heard of a God’s Messenger?”
A God’s Messenger.
An agent of God who appears on behalf of God when unjust acts occur in the world or when the world heads toward injustice.
“In the temple, we view figures who appear preternaturally in prophetic dreams as having the potential to become a God’s Messenger. Therefore, we bestow the ‘Honored Guest Token’ with the implication that, though you have not yet entered God’s embrace, you may do so soon.”
“And what exactly does becoming this God’s Messenger entail?”
“You would possess authority equal to the Archbishop.”
“…”
So that was the kind of token they’d hung on him.
My chest suddenly felt immensely heavy.
Lion stared at the Honored Guest Token pinned to his chest with a sour look.
This was literally a free-pass token, wasn’t it?
‘Of course people would just let anything I do slide.’
They probably would have understood even if Lion had raised a staff and cast magic right in the middle of the temple.
“You need not feel overly burdened. In truth, it has never actually happened—no one has ever become one. It is simply… Forgive me, this will sound terribly mundane.”
One might have called it publicity.
Because the appearance of a God’s Messenger also signified that God Anyatras was still going strong.
That fact alone became publicity for the temple.
As if ashamed of his own words, Licht ducked his head and scratched his cheek with a finger.
‘That makes sense.’
If such a function existed in <In the World>, it would have been used as a good item or an affection-grinding piece of equipment.
“However, what I said about appearing in my prophetic dream is the truth.”
“…Pardon?”
“You see, when using the Honored Guest Token, there must not be a single lie involved.”
Licht continued speaking as if he hadn’t even heard Lion’s small question.
“If I had told a lie in order to use the Honored Guest Token for personal gain, a lightning bolt would have struck my head. One might call it divine punishment. Ha ha ha.”
He added that Lion need not worry, of course, because he would have borne it alone…
‘I was on your back. This gentleman—no, this priest!’
Even if it was divine lightning, did he think electricity would nicely zap only one person?
Lion, who had been carried on his back, could have easily died too.
“…”
Fine. It was an emergency, and nothing happened, so I decided to let it pass.
“Then what was the content of the prophetic dream?”
“That is…”
At that question, Licht’s expression changed in an instant.
Just like when we had met in the orphanage’s solitary room, his gaze grew hazy, his pupils completely unfocused, and…
“You truly seemed like… a messenger of God.”
“…”
Lion realized he had asked the wrong question.
This priest, while pretending not to, seemed to project onto Lion something akin to a God’s Messenger.
‘Hm.’
That didn’t seem like a good thing, did it?
“I’m sorry, but I’m someone who is rather far removed from religion or a life of faith…”
Far removed?
If anything, he stood at the opposite pole.
The temple had holy knights, but there were no mage-priests, after all.
And even before his possession, Lion had lived a life entirely unconnected to religion.
“Ah, I am certainly not forcing it upon you. The life of a priest is not something resolved through compulsion, after all. It is also a vocation one cannot endure without genuinely desiring it.”
That was why we were joining forces, wasn’t it?
Fortunately, Licht quickly collected himself and answered with a smile.
…In any case, after hearing Licht’s answer, things were more or less settled.
Regardless of the real reason, the bottom line was that to the temple, Lion was ideally suited to be a promotional figure, and Lion had bought enough time by taking advantage of that opening.
Well, that much was fine.
“Regarding your personal affairs, I will handle them with as little fuss as possible once this matter is concluded.”
“Yes. I’ll leave that to you.”
If possible, I wanted this resolved without my family knowing, but since I had ended up entering the sanctuary, I suspected every bit of news must have reached them by now.
Still, because it was the temple, they would realize no problem had occurred…
‘More than anything, I’m worried about Elvia.’
Since she was a witch, she had seemed to dislike this place itself.
Lion thought back to that time at the orphanage for a moment.
No, not the volunteer work at the orphanage, but the day he had been examined by Licht.
“My clothes have gotten very dirty, so I’ll have to throw these away.”
…Hadn’t Elvia muttered that to herself as if it were nothing?
Even though the clothes weren’t dirty at all.
But to Elvia’s eyes, I could only imagine how ‘contaminated’ they must have looked.
‘Well, with her disposition, she can’t help it.’
For Elvia’s sake, before I wrapped things up at the temple and returned, I’d have to stop by a magic shop or Andrie’s clothing store to buy at least one set of clothes and change into them.
Of course, the moment Lion left the temple, the Asteri family soldiers and Rickshel himself were scheduled to come out to meet him, but Lion, who hadn’t the faintest idea of that, remained blissfully unaware.
Meanwhile.
‘Did he really accept it just like that?’
Licht blinked his clear eyes, bewildered that Lion had so cleanly accepted the situation.
‘Is he truly all right with this?’
Frankly, wasn’t it so?
Being a God’s Messenger was something that mattered to priests or believers; they had unilaterally turned him into a promotional ambassador and used him.
It was a label that could potentially stick to him for a long time afterward.
‘That person is the very honored guest the temple put forward,’ they might say.
Yet the esteemed benefactor had trusted that he would resolve things himself and let it slide.
‘Truly, his character is remarkable as well…’
The benefactor insisted he was not, but in Licht’s heart, Lion was already the very image of a God’s Messenger.
So what else could he do?
‘I have no choice but to resolve this as quickly as possible!’
Clenching his clasped hands tightly, Licht steeled his resolve.
“So all I need to do is stay still here?”
The reason Licht had brought him here was most likely due to an intuition born of that prophetic dream.
But in reality, Lion was in a state where he could feel no divine power whatsoever.
‘Actually, if I were going to feel divine power, shouldn’t I have felt it by now?’
It wasn’t as if I hadn’t played a priest among my alternate characters, nor was I in a place lacking in divine power.
And yet, no event like suddenly awakening a talent for the priesthood or hearing the voice of God had occurred.
To Lion, this was a considerable shame.
Because it meant one piece of information about the main character had just vanished.
So, if nothing else came up, I planned to look around the sanctuary and check on a few things here and there.
“Ah! You wish to know what will happen from now on.”
However Licht interpreted Lion’s words, he walked briskly up to the spring and began to explain.
“From now on, I shall unblock the path of the spring water and activate the sanctuary’s earth. If I succeed, the trees that have lost their life force will be revived, and the ecosystem within the sanctuary will stabilize.”
In other words, the unfinished sanctuary would become able to fulfill its function.
“I am a little embarrassed, as this may sound like boasting, but my pure divine power is not insignificant compared to the current Archbishop, so I do not expect to fail. However, because I am unskilled at regulating it… I believe I will only be able to focus on ‘creating.’ Therefore, it would be ideal if you, Benefactor, could handle the work of ‘supplying.’”
So, in short.
“You’re saying I just have to water them?”
“Yes. Exactly!”
Lion slowly swept his gaze across the interior of the sanctuary.
“…”
Because the sanctuary was an artificially created space, he could see where it ended, but it was still so vast that watering it all alone within a day or two seemed impossibly far off.
It was literally a plantation, after all.
“How about calling more people, even now?”
“Hmm… That would be possible if they possessed a similar level of divine power.”
Which meant no.
It was probably the same principle as an ordinary mage not daring to even use mana beside Grandfather.
‘If anything, I, who cannot use divine power, am best suited for this.’
If they sought outside help from people who couldn’t use divine power, the temple’s information would leak.
And wasn’t this a site related to ‘holy water,’
the very financial foundation of the temple?
Which meant… I truly was the only one.
Any ordinary person would have undoubtedly groaned about being put through grueling labor.
‘…This isn’t so bad, actually?’
Having already enjoyed an enormous amount of grind-work, Lion felt this much was nothing.
If anything, being told that some watering would solve the problem—what could be easier than this?
Besides, once enough distance was put between us, Licht wouldn’t be able to tell what Lion was doing either.
‘That’s even better.’
Lion carefully managed his expression as he asked.
“But there are basic tools, right?”
“Yes. And once the spring functions properly, water will flow into the channels, so it will not be difficult for you… I am truly sorry.”
Licht made no effort to hide his apologetic expression.
Even at a glance, the benefactor was a young master who had been raised gently.
Fair skin and clean fingers without a single callus.
There wasn’t even a single common freckle to be seen on his complexion.
And that wasn’t all.
‘He’s even in frail health…’
To make him do such labor, even if it was a critical matter!
Licht’s heart was far from comfortable.
“Understood. I’ll do it.”
But it seemed the benefactor’s mind was already made up.
He was already inspecting the equipment stacked off to one side.
What’s more, he had now completely withdrawn his attention from this side, as if to say not to worry about him.
He was clearly being considerate so that Licht could fully concentrate.
Licht gazed at the spring and closed his eyes.
And then prayed.
‘O God.’
To think that You sent me a message, even in a dream, to save the little lambs, and then even directly dispatched a God’s Messenger in person like this.
Licht opened his closed eyes and reverently knelt.
Before he knew it, an eternal green flame, signifying divine power, flickered in his pupils, and divine power gathered in his two earnestly clasped and faintly trembling hands.
He pressed both flame-shrouded hands to the spring’s structure…
Whoosh!
The flame of divine power surged upward, riding the spring.