A Shameless Confession
I figured I might as well go all in. It was a desperate gamble. No, more like a self-inflicted disaster. Even I, the one who had actually said the words, couldn't hide my own shock. So how must the Hero have felt, hearing it straight to her face? A so-called cleric shamelessly blurting out his lingering attachment to women—something he himself hadn't even shaken off yet. Sure, it was meant to awaken her consciousness, but still. If this had been the old me, I would never have imagined uttering such vulgar nonsense. It was the kind of slip that shouldn't have come from any functioning part of my brain. Out of all the things I could have said, why did that absurd drivel pop out? Even I had no idea. The only guess I could come up with was that the nun's voluptuous chest, which I'd accidentally gotten an eyeful of before entering this place, had dealt a devastating blow to my judgment.
The flow of holy power has stopped...!?
But right at that moment, the suspicious woman who had been faithfully keeping her mouth shut per my request suddenly let out a gasp of pure astonishment. Only then did I realize—belatedly and with great turmoil—that the holy power seeping layer by layer into the Hero's soul had indeed paused, just as she had said.
My urgent gaze flew to the Hero's hair. The white invasion that had crept up from the tips of her strands and reached her crown had, starting from the exact moment I let those words slip, begun to falter and stall.
“P-Priest… sir…?”
The Hero looked up at me with dry lips that barely moved. And right after that, like a tiny sprout pushing through barren wasteland, a faint ray of conscious light appeared in those vacant pupils that had shown no trace of emotion.
It was working. I had no idea why, but it was crystal clear that my out-of-nowhere confession was helping the Hero regain control of her own mind. So, even as my face burned with shame, I steeled myself and decided to reveal a few more of my hidden flaws.
“Hero. The truth is, before I met you, I used to smoke and all that.”
“Huh…?”
The Hero tilted her head slowly. That puzzled, foolish gesture made her look exactly like a little puppy who couldn’t understand human speech. And honestly, that made sense. After all, I was the one who had always sternly warned my companions away from cigarettes, calling the habit utterly pointless and harmful whenever they showed even the slightest curiosity.
“I tried to quit over and over, but it never worked… The only reason I managed to stop now is because my life got so destitute that I couldn’t even afford them anymore. If I’d always lived comfortably, I’d probably still be puffing away on that poison to this day.”
Explaining my own shameful past in a way that sounded palatable to someone else was pure torture. Especially since the person listening was the very symbol of purity—the living embodiment of an immaculate idol who seemed as if the phrase “pure and virtuous” had taken human form. The pressure crushing my thoughts was beyond words.
“You already know I can’t resist alcohol, right? Well, even that is a huge improvement. No matter how broke I got, no matter if I had to worry about my next meal, I just couldn’t quit drinking for some reason.”
It was a one-sided confession. She offered no nods, no small words of acknowledgment. But from the way those tear-stained, sorrowful eyes stared straight at my pathetic state, I could tell—even if I didn’t want to—that she was listening with rapt attention. I squeezed my eyes shut, steeled my resolve once more, and continued.
“Haha. Pretty pathetic, isn’t it?”
“N-No…!”
I asked the question with a self-mocking laugh, but I hadn’t actually been expecting an answer. I gently stopped the Hero as she tried to protest.
“The reason I started sponsoring the orphanage… there’s nothing noble about it, Hero. I just… I wanted to be special.”
I wanted to be special. I wanted to be admired. I wanted to be respected. I wanted to be revered. I wanted to stand above others. No—I wanted to rule over them. That was the vow I had made for this life. Right around the time I was entering puberty, the memories of my previous life had begun to surface like buoys on the sea. I had taken it as a divine revelation, a command to fulfill that very ambition.
But I had neither the talent, the background, nor the willpower to make it happen. I struggled for a while, but in the end it all amounted to nothing. I had despaired. Or rather, I had pretended to despair. I had made an effort, but I hadn’t given it everything. I had done my best, but I had always left myself an escape route.
Before long, I cleanly gave up on looking upward. It was far more comfortable to walk with my head bowed toward the ground than to stare at an unreachable sky and stumble forward in fear.
“At that time, the one who happened to catch my eye was you, Hero.”
It didn’t matter who it was. I would have reached out even to the greatest villain in the world, and I would have pushed away even the greatest saint before long. All I wanted was to look down on those beneath me with condescending mercy and bask in that cheap sense of superiority. It was no different from those hypocrites who toss food to stray cats but refuse to take any responsibility afterward.
“Do you understand, Hero? This is the kind of person I am.”
Maybe it was because everything around us had gone so quiet. By the time I came back to my senses, I had already carelessly spilled things I had never intended to reveal. The pathetic reasons I had reached out to them. The trivial reasons I had pulled my hand back. Even the ridiculous reasons I had extended that dirty hand toward them once again.
“So you don’t need to feel any guilt.”
Because this was exactly how it was always going to turn out. I didn’t want to see her face. I didn’t want to disappoint her. I didn’t want her to hate me. I really didn’t want to feel, in front of her impossibly high standard, just how insignificant I truly was.
“I’m not some noble person who helps others without any self-interest, nor am I responsible enough to spend my whole life fixing my mistakes.”
I did feel the desire to atone, but I didn’t want to suffer under the weight of that sin forever. It was fine if people called me selfish. I had always planned to quietly set it down one day. I had tried to forget. For someone as weak as me, the weight of two people’s lives was simply too heavy a burden.
“So the one who should be apologizing is me.”
I couldn’t cry. I absolutely could not allow myself the disgrace of shedding tears. No matter what, that would have been far too cowardly. To confess your faults and then try to lessen the punishment with tears? I had to control my expression and my emotions. I had to keep a shameless face that practically begged for her to get angry and slap me across the cheek. I worked hard to maintain it.
“I’m sorry, He—”
Whoosh.
Before I could even finish the sentence, something shot toward my abdomen like an arrow, and my body suddenly tilted.
“Hero…?”
She had thrown her arms around my waist with all her strength, slamming me to the floor. With her face buried against my stomach, she poured out her words in a choked, broken voice.
“You still came back for us…”
It was a statement weighed down with an emotion far heavier than the light pressure I felt on my belly.
“Priest… Even though you’re that kind of man, you still came back to us…”
The Hero still had her face hidden against my shirt, but from that damp voice I could easily tell she was biting back sobs.
“I’m not as wonderful a person as you think I am, Priest. I’m still picky about food, and on nights when I have nightmares I cry pathetically. I often put my own desires first and forget my duty. And sometimes—sometimes I have shameless, lewd thoughts about doing dirty things with you, Priest! I imagine it quite often! No, I mean… I used to imagine it a lot…”
“Hero…!?”
My heart nearly dropped to the floor. But it wasn’t just because of her shocking confession. Every time she spoke in that determined tone, the divine energy that had turned her hair pure white was fading away, melting into the ground like snow in spring.
“On the day of my inauguration, when I said I was prepared to offer this body for the peace and safety of this world… that was a lie. A blatant, scarlet lie.”
“……”
“It was hypocrisy. It was pretense. It was the most detestable, empty formality imaginable.”
“……”
As if shaking off something thick and sticky clinging to her thoughts, she cleared her throat with dignity. But then—
“If the world needs me, I can gladly offer my body. But that isn’t for the sake of the world. This world may be a treasure whose value cannot be fully measured, but it still doesn’t compare to what I truly desire.”
“I don’t need any of it. Status, honor, this entire world—none of it means anything to me. But! I will protect it. I will defend it. Even if it costs my life! I will bring peace to this world no matter what! So… so…”
“Won’t you give yourself to me, Priest…?”
That last sentence, trembling with faint anxiety like a fragile breeze, still carried the full innocence of a young girl.