Chapter 4
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: Cutting Off the Supply
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The sound of the prayer room door closing still echoed in my ears.
"Get lost."
That single word settled on my chest more heavily than the air in the prayer room.
I walked slowly down the corridor. My footsteps felt strangely light. Just moments ago, I'd been backed against the wall, barely able to breathe, but the instant I stepped out the door, it was like my body was floating in midair. None of it felt real.
I touched my neck.
There had definitely been a wound.
But all my fingertips found was smooth skin. The spot where blood had welled up, the stinging sensation—it had all vanished like a lie.
"...As expected."
I muttered under my breath.
She had pushed me away. Clearly pushed me away. With an air of annoyance, irritation, even telling me never to come back. And yet—her hand had moved.
Unconsciously.
It had healed me.
No matter how rough her mouth had gotten, no matter how she lived with liquor on her lips, Elysia was still Elysia.
I could feel the kindness hidden beneath her brusqueness.
"What are you to me?"
Elysia's question still seemed to hang in the air.
I hadn't been able to give her a proper answer.
Because I truly was nothing.
Just a sudden interloper.
I had no right, no authority, nothing to interfere in her life.
"...Yeah. Then I'll make one. An answer to that question."
I stopped in the middle of the corridor.
"Time to change my approach."
The environment.
The source.
"To get her to quit drinking..."
I turned in a new direction.
"First, I have to cut off the supply."
The Papal Office was in the deepest part of the Cathedral.
The decorations were ornate but not excessive, and the carpet on the floor was so thick it swallowed footsteps whole. Anyone entering naturally lowered their voice. Authority, it seemed, worked first through the very air.
Two Guard Knights stood before the door.
"...Halt."
As I approached, one of them held out a hand.
"This isn't a place for just anyone to wander in and out."
"I have business here."
"Your name."
"Ian."
"...Affiliation."
"Exclusive Attendant Apprentice Priest to Saintess Elysia."
Before the words were even out, the other knight let out a scoff.
"Ha."
"You joking right now?"
"What the hell is an apprentice priest doing here?"
A hand grabbed my shoulder. Stronger than I'd expected.
"Go back. Just because you lucked into sticking by the Saintess doesn't mean your station's risen—"
"Enough."
A low, gentle voice flowed from inside the door.
The Guard Knights froze in unison.
The door opened.
A white-haired old man stood there. Pope Gregorio. Far smaller and more real than in the holy paintings.
His gaze fell on me.
I dropped to one knee. I knew the etiquette perfectly.
"Speak."
Gregorio said.
"Why have you come here?"
I lifted my head.
"Please grant me control over the Saintess's allocated funds and supplies."
Silence blanketed the office.
The Guard Knights' faces hardened. A few high-ranking Papal officials glanced my way, their eyes a mix of shock and displeasure.
"...Bold, aren't you."
Gregorio said slowly.
I didn't avert my gaze.
"You know as well as I do, Your Holiness, that I'm the first priest to vow to stay by her side."
His eyebrow twitched ever so slightly.
"Everyone out. You, come in."
They rose slowly, faces full of resentment.
They didn't dare glare at the Pope, so they glared at me instead.
It stung. Like they were boring holes through me.
The moment the door closed, I spoke again.
"They all ran away."
I continued.
"But I won't."
"Why."
"The burden she's carrying alone."
I steadied my breath and said it.
"I don't want her to bear it alone anymore."
Silence.
Gregorio stared at me for a long time. A piercing gaze, appraising.
"...Very well."
He said.
"I'll grant you that authority."
"...Pardon?"
The permission came so easily that I was the one caught off guard.
"Th-this easily—"
Gregorio chuckled. A kindly smile.
"I have a good eye for people."
He lightly pressed the corner of his eye.
"Your eyes hold no schemes. No greed."
He paused briefly.
"...And."
His expression softened just a touch.
"They're the eyes of someone who worries for that child."
I swallowed hard.
"Elysia."
Gregorio continued slowly.
"Was a child I'd been watching even before she became the Saintess."
He gazed toward the window.
"Always so clumsy. She acts fine, but up close, it's obvious right away."
A brief silence.
"She swallows everything with that face that says as long as she's okay, it's fine."
I listened without a word.
"She drinks, she's negligent—rumors like that reach me."
Gregorio shook his head.
"But that's not the core of it."
He looked back at me.
"I think you might be all right by her side."
Gregorio held out his seal.
Heavy, cold metal.
The seal for managing the Saintess's exclusive supplies.
From now on, not a single bottle of liquor she drank or stick of incense she burned could enter without my permission.
I took the seal.
My hand trembled slightly.
"Your Holiness."
"Yes?"
"I swear."
I bowed my head.
"I will protect the Saintess."
Gregorio smiled.
"...Good."
On the way back to the prayer room.
Clutching the seal, I let out a long breath.
"Saintess."
I muttered to myself.
"From now on."
My footsteps quickened.
"We're going into full normalization mode."
He's not coming.
Well, of course.
After the scene I made yesterday.
Elysia leaned back on the sofa, tilting her glass before pausing midway. The wine was already half gone. She'd been drinking faster than she poured. Or rather—not caring enough to pace herself.
"......"
She set the glass down.
She didn't sigh.
Even that felt like too much effort now.
How many priests had left?
She started counting on her fingers, then stopped. She'd given up midway through, so no way she'd remember the number. At first, she had counted. Really, in the beginning.
The first priest cried.
He knelt before the door, sobbing that he knew nothing about it.
The second got angry.
Yelling why he had to endure such treatment.
The third... she could hardly remember. By then, it had all blurred. Same faces, same voices, same reactions. Just the order shuffled a bit.
In the end, they all left the same way.
What they said on the way out was similar too.
"I can't take this anymore."
"This isn't my responsibility."
"The Saintess needs to change."
Change, huh.
She'd already changed.
They probably meant go back to how she was.
Elysia sneered, curling her lip.
As if anything hadn't changed.
She took another sip of wine. It burned down her throat, searing her insides. She liked the sensation. It hurt, but it was real. Proof that her body was still alive.
The prayer room was quiet.
Unnaturally so.
At this hour, there were always footsteps. Hesitant steps holding their breath. Pausing once at the door, a needless cough, hesitating on the knock—then finally knocking. That pattern.
But not today.
"...He's really not coming."
Elysia tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling. The golden decorations of the holy paintings caught her eye. The same unchanging faces. Praying poses. Blessing hands.
She'd seen them dozens—no, hundreds of times.
Every time she died.
Every regression.
When she opened her eyes, it was always here.
The Cathedral.
The Saintess.
The same start.
The first time, she was glad.
She thought there was still something she could do.
The second, impatient.
She had to do better this time.
The third, calculating.
Where she'd gone wrong, what to change.
By the tenth—
She stopped praying.
By the hundredth—
She practiced smiling.
And at some point, she stopped counting.
The end was always the same anyway.
The final scene never changed.
The Cathedral blooming with lilies.
The Saintess robes neatly arranged, free of bloodstains.
A face that never lost its smile to the end.
The most efficient death to complete someone's touching epic.
"...I'm sick of it."
Elysia set down her glass and picked up the herb pouch on the table beside her. She started to put it in her mouth—then stopped.
That priest from earlier.
Ian.
She recalled the hand that snatched the herbs away. At an absurd timing, an absurd action. Different from all the ones who'd always run.
It was annoying.
Truly.
Why now, of all times.
Why with those eyes.
"...Ha."
Elysia set the pouch down. And unconsciously—touched her neck.
The priest's neck.
No, the spot where the wound had been.
Her fingertips met nothing.
Gone.
It hadn't been a conscious act. Definitely. Her hand moved first, mind following after. It always had. Healing activated before she could think when faced with urgent wounds.
A habit.
Etched into her body over hundreds of regressions.
"...Pointless thing to do."
Elysia muttered lowly.
She knew better than anyone that healing him wouldn't make him stay.
And yet.
She glanced at the door.
Still quiet.
"...He's not coming."
This time, it was close to certainty.