Chapter 34
Chapter 34
Saint, You’re So Vulgar! – Chapter 34
Three more days passed.
By then, Versia had withered away completely.
Her lips were cracked and flaky, splitting at the slightest movement, and her eyes were deeply sunken.
Her mind was almost at a standstill.
Everything in her vision had turned colorless.
Even the days swept up in passion and chaos felt like distant memories now. Versia drifted in a vague haze, convinced that as long as he woke up, there was nothing she couldn't do.
Dazed, like a statue, or a corpse, frozen in place.
She had been slumped like that for a long while.
The miracle arrived without warning.
"Saintess?"
Asher opened his eyes.
He called out to Versia in a cracked voice.
Versia couldn't tell if the sight before her was real or a hallucination.
She simply stared blankly at the reality of him awake and looking at her.
Her eyes widened as if they might tear.
Her breath stopped, and for a moment, so did her heart.
Shock, electricity, ecstasy, reliefthey crashed over her like a tidal wave.
But all her broken body could manage was one response.
Tears trickled down her cheek.
The moisture caught the light, bringing a spark back to her pupils.
In that moment when she prayed it wasn't a dream, Asher slowly reached out his arm.
He wiped the tears from her cheek.
"Why."
Asher smiled weakly.
She trembled as she approached and threw herself into his arms.
"Ah Huh, ah."
Versia sobbed in a voice dried up and breaking into staccato bursts.
Her world regained its colors.
* * *
Asher felt as if he'd woken from a long dream.
The moment his eyes opened, his head throbbed with a foggy ache, and his body was so drained that he could barely twitch a finger.
His vision was blurred at first, slowly sharpening in a frustrating process.
His eyes hurt, and his throat was parchedhe desperately wanted water.
Even so, Asher reached for Versia first.
He'd noticed right away that she was crying.
Why was she crying?
And why did she look so gaunt?
It broke his hearthe had to wipe away her tears.
When she collapsed into his arms moments later, he let out a smile.
It was barely more than a breath of wind, but realizing she'd worried about him filled him with gratitude.
His mind was too foggy.
Even as he stroked her back, he couldn't think straight.
He mechanically went through the motions for a while before one realization hit him late.
"Huh?"
Asher's eyes snapped wide.
His gaze shifted from Versia to his own hand.
Forgetting his condition, he tried to bolt upright, only to flop back down with a grunt. Lips flapping, he shouted.
"M-My body! It's back!"
Asher said, eyes sparkling.
But Versia, who might have heard him, collapsed limply and lost consciousness.
She hadn't slept a wink for over ten days straight. With her inner anxieties finally erased, she could at last give in to sleep.
Her steady breathing reached his ears.
Her body rose and fell with each breath, pressing down on his chest.
Asher panicked.
"Saintess?"
He grunted, but his body, which had lain still for so long, wouldn't obey.
Her weight pinning him down felt like a thousand pounds.
Asher craned his neck around.
"I-Is anyone there?"
No one was.
And no one came after that, either.
About five hours passed.
Asher lay wide awake, feeling her weight, her body heat, the press of her against himhis face flushed crimson like a ripe persimmon.
His eyes squeezed shut at the scandalous reality of a man and woman sharing a bed, sleeping together (well, only one of them sleeping).
* * *
Versia woke purely because of Asher's pleading.
He'd been whispering desperately into her ear to please get up.
She blinked at him dazedly, saw the embarrassment coloring his face, and broke into a smile that looked ready to crumble any second.
Asher took one look at her haggard state and realized he'd been unconscious for a long time.
He pieced together a lot more besides.
Those five hours while she slept had given him time to sort his thoughts.
He retraced everything step by step, from the moment he'd collapsed.
'So that's how the prayer worked.'
He suspected the prayer for the curse to strike him first had manifested right then.
For Asher, it was a relief.
After all, how his heart had dropped watching her throw herself in harm's way to protect him.
A hundred times better that it had been him who got hit.
And realizing the body swap had truly been to protect Versia washed away all his past hardships.
'Parent God! Forgive my ignorance of Your great will!'
The resentment he'd harbored vanished.
His faith surged anew.
Anyway, he'd grasped the big picture of cause and effect.
Next, he needed to hear what had happened while he was outbut that took time.
Versia kept putting it off, insisting his health came first.
She trickled lukewarm water to his lips, fetched porridge from somewhere, and fed it to him herself.
"I can do it myself."
"Don't make me mad."
She was forceful.
In the midst of it, he felt a strange disconnect.
Truth be told, Asher's impression of Versia had always been rather soft and rounded.
Every time he'd looked in the mirror wearing that body, he'd made embarrassed faces.
But seeing the real owner wearing it now, he finally understood the public's view of her.
She was cold.
Expressions that came off as languid warmth in his body turned into icy blasts on her face.
Her presence was intimidating, leaving him unable to refuse even feeble protests as she nursed him.
What came to mind was Versia crying.
The sorrow and relief that had shadowed her face especially kept him from resisting her.
How could he brazenly refuse someone who'd worried that much about himsomeone who hadn't even slept out of concern?
Of course, there were awkward moments.
"S-Saintess. Not there Hnng!"
"It's your side. Bear it."
"No, it's not!"
Versia groped all over Asher's body under the pretext of an examination.
He wondered why she was going this far.
It was too embarrassing to let it continue.
He scraped together an excuse.
"I-I trust you're not groping me under the guise of an examination!"
"."
Versia froze, then withdrew her hand.
Asher's eyes wavered.
Why pull away now?
Was groping really her goal?
As suspicion welled up, Versia spoke.
"You're healthy. Thank goodness."
Asher clutched his collar tight.
Her intentions still seemed suspicious, but reassuring her took priority.
"Just eat well, and you'll be right as rain in no time. This body's tough, after all. Plus, you healed me too."
It wasn't empty talknothing hurt at all.
Fill his stomach, and he felt like he could laugh off slicing through a dozen Corrupted Entities.
As he boasted about his health this way and that, Asher suddenly grinned dopily.
Whatever else, the best news was separate.
"Anyway, my body's backsuch a relief! Now I can truly serve you properly, Saintess!"
His face brimmed with confidence, his eyes shone, and a faint blush colored his cheeks.
But it didn't last.
"Isn't it amazing that the Parent God prepared even this? Today, I felt my faith fill up again! Of course, I'm sorry for worrying you but it all worked out, right."
He trailed off.
Her eyes had gone cold at the mention of faith.
Asher gauged her mood.
Looking back, he might have been too thoughtless, chattering away in front of someone who'd cried from worry over him waking up.
His lips pursed, and just then, the chill on her face softened.
"I like seeing you full of energy."
It was a gentle smile.
Was that cold look just his imagination?
An awkward lump stuck in his throat.
Then Versia spoke.
"Still, it's a shame."
"Pardon?"
"I liked waking up to something sturdy."
Versia's gaze drifted to Asher's lower half.
He yanked the blanket up with a yelp.
"Don't look! It's mine for real now!"
"I'll look if I want."
"That's harassment!"
He glared in dismay, but Versia smiled mysteriously.
She looked like a predator pondering how to catch her prey.
A chill ran through him.
He inched toward the bed's edge.
"A-Anyway, just so you know, the harassment ends here! Now that my body's back, I won't play in the palm of your hand anymore! I'm a 1st Class Knight, you know!"
It was a firm vow, a declaration of resolve.
Asher swore to become a strict knight and teach her the proper mindset of a faithful saintess.
The moment he planted his feet on the ground and rose from the bed.
"Starting tomorrow, we'll resume doctrine lessons right away!"
Whoosh!
His soul shook, as if slipping from his body.
His vision went white. Asher screamed and staggered, then refocusedonly to stare blankly ahead.
"Eh?"
His voice was higher-pitched.
His eye level had dropped, and his chest felt heavier.
Familiar yet unfamiliar that sensation.
Above all, why was he right there in front of himself?
Asher's lips twitched upward unnaturally.
His face paled, and his heart plummeted.
He'd hoped it wasn't so, but sadly, it wasn't a dream.
'My body.'
It had swapped again.
Asher muttered in a shrill voice amid the crashing despair.
"Why?"
Why again?
Looking up at Versia with that meaning, his shoulders flinched.
"Saintess?"
Versia's smile as she spread her handshis handswas twisted in a somehow eerie way.