The Pope Who Returned After Having Three Children
Liam pressed the square button marked 15.
Beep.
A peculiar chime sounded, and the little room carrying him began to rise. The speed was nothing spectacular, but it was just brisk enough not to feel stifling.
And it moved perfectly well without anyone having to strain their body or burn through mana. That was the part he liked best.
Interesting.
Having finished his analysis, Liam smiled faintly. This conveyance called an “elevator” was both novel and convenient.
Applying magic to it could have improved the convenience a little further, but he deliberately did no such thing. He would only get thoroughly scolded for it.
Fifteenth floor.
The elevator soon stopped, and the doors slid open to either side. Liam stepped out, approached his sister-in-law’s front door, and came to a halt.
What he needed to press now was the thing called a “doorbell.” He pushed the round button firmly, and a cheerful ding-dong rang out.
“You’ve arrived.”
The door opened almost at once, and Elluke welcomed Liam in. Alone—no son, no daughters, no sister-in-law.
“What? Where is everyone?”
“Well…”
Elluke did not answer right away, fidgeting instead. It was nothing like her usual crisp, straightforward manner.
Something was up.
Sensing as much, Liam studied his wife’s face and body with care. He did not even need magic; one look was enough to know exactly what she was thinking.
Why is she like this?
Those jewel-bright eyes were avoiding his. Her whole face had gone faintly flushed.
The upright posture she always maintained as Pope had loosened a little.
Unlike her usual habit of keeping both hands neatly folded, she was absently touching her arms and thighs—like someone who could not keep still.
A different fragrant scent rose from her hair and from her body as well: the scents of what they called shampoo and body wash, respectively.
“Um, so… Seoyun took them out for a bit. Th-there’s a place nearby called a comics café that the kids would like, she said…”
And above all, her voice trembled slightly. She even stumbled over her words a little.
Quite apart from the automatic speech correction, it was nothing like her usual effort to speak with dignity at all times.
Ahh.
There were so many clues that Liam caught on at once—exactly what Elluke wanted.
So he decided to play dumb.
“I see.”
Feigning complete ignorance, Liam slipped off his shoes and went straight to the sofa, where he flopped down on his stomach. Then he turned on the TV and began flipping through the channels.
Of course he had no intention of watching anything. Nothing even registered. Even so, he made a show of diligently hunting for something worth watching.
There was a reason he had to do it this way.
“…Liam.”
Before long Elluke approached carefully and blocked his view. Just as expected.
“What is it?”
Almost there.
Even so, he had to act natural right to the end. Otherwise the mood would go cold in an instant.
“…You’re being truly awful.”
Elluke furrowed her brows slightly, then crouched down until she was eye level with Liam where he lay on the sofa.
Liam found himself admiring his wife’s beauty all over again. With the power of superior blessings and steady self-care, she looked almost no different now than she had ten years ago.
Her personality had not changed all that much either. Still, with so much time passed, even small shifts had appeared.
“You figured it all out and you’re still going to pretend you don’t know!”
In her Saintess days, she would have spat out a rough curse at a moment like this. After becoming Pope, she would pretend to give in and simply do whatever Liam wanted.
But now she had learned how to call him out without flinching. It was less that she had grown older and more that this was closer to her original nature.
Of course, either way, Liam’s attitude was not about to change.
“Pretend I don’t know… what, exactly?”
Bewildered. As if he genuinely had no idea what she meant. Liam poured every ounce of his strength into the performance.
In the end, the one whose body and mind were already more heated was always the first to surrender.
“…Fine. I lose.”
Elluke finally exhaled a sigh and gave in.
Then she drew a little closer and went on, her entire face dyed red.
“Last time, at the company café on the first floor of Arise, I said I would do ‘that’ for you, didn’t I? Right now… let’s do it immediately!”
Embarrassed, and yet bold enough to say every last word she meant to say. It was a cute and magnificent sight that only ever appeared in situations like this.
He loved that look so much that Liam always teased her this way. Today, too, drawing it out this long had been well worth it.
“All right, then.”
Liam sat up abruptly and scooped his beloved wife up in both arms. Elluke did not resist; she only turned her head away demurely.
She was too mortified to let him see her face. That look, too, never failed to please him no matter how often he saw it.
“Where to?”
“…The master bedroom. I was told to clean everything up properly afterward.”
His sister-in-law’s consideration ran deep. Liam grinned, grateful to Seoyun.
“Thanks to my sister-in-law, our Rohan might be getting a little sibling, huh?”
“……”
Elluke hung her head and answered in a small voice.
“…Please use contraception properly.”
“Got it.”
It had already failed twice, so he was not sure how much the warning meant—but Liam nodded for now.
Telling me to use contraception means she has no intention of stopping at just once, right?
A request like that, he could grant as many times as she wanted.
“Wait for me. I’ll go wash up too.”
That day, the two of them mingled body and heart for the first time in a long while.
It was a long bout of lovemaking, spanning a total of four rounds.
Wooooom.
I lay on the master bedroom bed, circulating holy power around my lower back. It was to heal the backache.
I’m dying…
Maybe because it had been so long since we last spent a night together. My waist hurt as if it might snap in two.
This had never happened before. Seoyun had been watching the kids, so we had not even gone at it as long as we used to—and still my physical limit arrived far too quickly.
What was the reason? After a moment’s thought I found the answer at once, but I decided to look the other way.
“Does it hurt that much?”
Seoyun, perched on the edge of the bed, playfully kneaded my arm as she asked. I let out a short laugh and nodded.
“It does hurt.”
“How rough did you two get for it to be like this?”
“…I held back more than usual. Because of the noise between floors. I put up a soundproofing spell, but you never know.”
This was why apartments were inconvenient. Once I had saved up enough money, I planned to live in a house with a yard out in the countryside.
That would be better for Liam and me, and better for the kids as well. Seoyun’s place was a little small for our whole family to share.
Having fleshed out the future plans a bit, I gave Seoyun a few pats on the back.
“You don’t need to worry too much. I’ve wrapped it in holy power, so it should heal soon.”
“That’s a relief, then.”
Seoyun gave a small nod and stared blankly for a moment at the pinkish light glittering around my waist. Then she blurted it out.
“Can holy power heal anything?”
“Almost everything is possible. But it isn’t omnipotent, so it can’t make something that’s already gone grow back.”
Holy power was, so to speak, a god’s miracle broken into tiny fragments.
A sacred energy that mended wounds quickly and erased disease.
But it was far too holy a force for any being of the earth to wield, and so the holy power handled by humans was imperfect.
Even my holy power as Pope could not work miracles like regenerating a body part that had vanished entirely.
“Then… you can’t cure hair loss either?”
“No. Unfortunately not. If that had been possible, it would have helped a great many people.”
Of course the Goddess herself could cure it. But what would be the point? A treatment that required a miracle worked by a god in person was as good as useless.
“What a waste. If you could cure hair loss too, you’d make a fortune overnight. Even at ten million won a pop, people would still line up, don’t you think?”
Seoyun’s idle regret drew a smile to my lips unbidden. It was exactly the kind of thing a newly converted believer would say.
“Don’t feel too disappointed. Even if the treatment worked, I would never have run that kind of business.”
“Why? You’re not allowed to make money with holy power?”
“That isn’t it.”
Our Goddess was open-minded enough that she did not particularly care what anyone did with holy power.
She probably would not mind whatever I got up to using it. She might even watch with interest.
There was, however, one thing even a Goddess like that would not tolerate.
“Seoyun, our order completely forbids healing people in exchange for an expensive fee. Get caught, and it’s excommunication.”
Healing done with holy power had to be cheap. That was an iron rule the free-spirited Goddess herself had laid down.
“Why isn’t it allowed?”
“Do you want the noble reason, or do you want to know the real one?”
“Both.”
I had figured as much, and meant to tell her everything. I started with the lofty version.
“The Goddess’s dream is to create a world where everyone is happy. But what happens if you charge a fortune for treatment?”
“Unhappy people show up?”
“Exactly. If the price isn’t low, the poor can’t even get minor illnesses treated and end up wasting away. That’s why it isn’t allowed.”
“……”
Seoyun fell silent for a moment, as if she had a lot to think about, then opened her mouth again.
“So what’s the real reason?”
“She finds the sight of someone trying to get filthy rich off healing unpleasant to look at.”
“…Ah.”
“What I just said was the corrected version. In reality, she put it much more roughly and harshly.”
Our Goddess was not a particularly refined person. The ideals she held were astonishingly high, but her thoughts and actions were not so different from any being on the ground.
“I was just talking without thinking, Goddess. Really…”
Seoyun suddenly began offering a prayer to the Goddess. She seemed worried she might have offended Her.
I did not bother telling her she would be forgiven even without all that. It was funny.
I watched my little sister mutter to herself for a while, then rested a hand on my lower abdomen.
I spread holy power through it and checked for a life force. Nothing registered. Not yet.
…Surely I’m not pregnant again.
Honestly, three was already more than enough. Adding another one on top of that would be a bit of a problem.
This was precisely the moment to borrow a god’s power. I clasped both hands before my chest and offered a prayer of my own, following Seoyun’s lead.
“O gracious Sun, three is enough for me. I trust You know my heart without my saying more.”
Whether She would actually take note, I honestly was not sure. She might be watching and snickering.
Still, I prayed for now. Without faith, no grace descended.
After finishing the brief prayer, I gave Seoyun a little poke. She had just stopped muttering and opened her eyes, turning her gaze to me.
“What?”
“Was watching the kids yesterday hard on you, by any chance?”
“Of course it was hard. Toward the end I genuinely wanted to cry.”
“I’m sorry. It’s been weighing on me the whole time.”
Our family was already deeply in Seoyun’s debt. Simply taking in five people had been a major decision on her part.
Leaving the kids with her on top of that was far too much to ask.
So from now on, whenever Liam and I ended up unable to look after the children the way we had yesterday, we decided we would call a babysitter.
I already had the right person in mind.
It has to be her.
While I was thinking of it, why not hire her right away?
I turned on the computer at once, went onto Tribe, and used the private message function.
havant. Ha In-ha.
I had decided to hire this woman as our babysitter.
NIS agents were trained to handle anything, so she would surely be good at childcare too.
Working for the country as she did, she was not the type to fold easily.
Of course, resistance like that was meaningless in the end. I held asymmetric power, after all.
As expected, Liam was the ultimate bargaining chip.