You're Fake, Right?
You're Fake, Right?
Erpa's expression turned to one of surprise.
"Why would someone like that... be in such a shabby apartment?"
"I told you, didn't I? He had a run of terrible misfortune."
Oergen let out a sigh and began to tell the story.
"Several terrible events, the kind of things that make you wonder how someone could be so unlucky, all happened at once, on top of each other. He was a distributor who circulated various goods between the Tramata Kingdom and the Arkal Empire, and one day, while transporting elixir, the transport vehicle suddenly exploded."
Erpa's mouth fell open in disbelief.
"It suddenly exploded?"
"According to what later research revealed, when a large amount of elixir is gathered, static electricity is sometimes induced, though rarely. It exploded because of that static electricity. Of course, that was knowledge no one had at the time."
"So what happened?"
"Because of that, the elixir transport trucks lined up caused a chain explosion. In an instant, Jonathan's company suffered enormous losses, and on top of that, they were hit with damage claims from nearby residents who suffered greatly from the elixir explosion."
"That's ridiculous."
"It's an event that actually happened. It became the catalyst for establishing a regulation requiring all elixir transport methods to have mandatory lightning defense magic circles installed."
Erpa was speechless at this absurd misfortune. But Oergen's story wasn't over yet.
"But it didn't end there. The finance minister of the Tramata royal family, who was supposed to pay Jonathan's company, suddenly died of a heart attack. The royal family suspected poisoning, and because of that, a power struggle broke out within the palace over the minister's death. The payment, which was due within a month, was postponed indefinitely."
"......."
"It was later revealed that it wasn't an assassination, but really an acute heart attack due to overwork."
"What kind of......."
"On top of that, there was the incident where his wife, Oliviera, suffered a difficult childbirth and her health deteriorated. Oliviera was a woman for whom the title 'genius' with numbers fell short. She could see the enormous sums of money flowing in and out as if looking at the palm of her hand. Jonathan, who had a complete grasp of all the company's cash flow, suddenly collapsed."
Erpa was at a loss for words.
Unless a curse was involved, a situation couldn't possibly deteriorate to this extent.
Oergen let out a deep sigh.
"In the end, he had no choice but to shut down the company. Still, I heard he had saved up quite a bit of money, so when his wife recovered and the child had grown a bit, he started a new business with that money. It was a toy factory. It was a massive hit. At one point, every child in the capital was playing with toys from Jonathan's company."
"It was that successful?"
"Yes. It was. Do you know what's even more astounding? Their daughter, Cecilia. Maybe it's because she inherited her mother's brains and her father's charisma. I heard that a child of barely 5 years old helped her father and participated in various business decisions."
Oergen burst into laughter, as if reminiscing about those days.
"I even heard she did market research and designed toys from a child's perspective, making them a huge hit. I was told her business sense surpassed her father's. Among all the people I've met, she was a genius comparable to you, Erpa."
"A young child really ran a business with her father?"
"It's not a lie, it's the truth. By the time she was around 12, I heard she managed and supervised the entire factory herself. That was the last news I heard. After that, things went quiet, so I thought they'd closed the business again... but to think their daughter, Cecilia, had Rot Disease. Their luck truly is abysmal."
Having heard the whole story, Erpa could only let out a hollow laugh.
".......I just thought he was a nobody, but to think he was such a remarkable person."
A self-made legend of the distribution industry.
A woman who could see massive cash flow like the palm of her hand.
And even the owner of a genius business sense who had run an entire factory at the age of 12.
Just like the elixir spring in the abandoned factory, the person he had strongly pointed out was a talent so perfect it seemed painted on.
What was this natural flow of events that would get you cursed if you wrote it in a novel?
"It seems a miracle has occurred, Tower Master. I can't interpret it any other way."
At Erpa's words, the curiosity in Magic Tower Master Oergen's eyes intensified.
"Was this something the Healing Saint ordered?"
"Yes. He is the center of all this. As someone who walks the path of magic, I know it's not good to use words like miracle or coincidence, but... it's no exaggeration to say there is no word to express this other than a divine miracle. How can the exact people needed appear right at the exact moment they're needed?"
Oergen looked as if he could restrain himself no longer.
"You said he's in the slums? This person called the Healing Saint."
"Yes."
"I should pay him a visit sometime. I'm curious. About what a real saint looks like."
To think that in his later years, an object of such powerful curiosity would appear.
Oergen said this with a rare, passionate gleam in his eyes.
At those words, Erpa smiled.
"I'll introduce you. You will definitely be surprised when you meet him."
"Yes. Let's arrange a meeting. I am truly curious about what kind of person he is."
It would have been a moment where the Healing Saint screamed, 'Please don't come!' if he had heard this conversation, but whether it was misfortune or fortune.
The Saint was not present here.
***
Another hectic day passed by again today.
The area around the abandoned factory where I had completely settled in felt as if it had become a holy site for the slum dwellers.
They slept on the hot stone floor, which rivaled an ondol, and when they woke in the morning, the priests of the Lilia Order distributed free food at the soup kitchen.
Was that all?
"Put them to work. Give them work and pay them generously. That is the will of Grace."
As I commanded for the Lilia Order bankruptcy project, High Priest Alois paid the slum dwellers a daily wage of 1 Saled, an amount so generous it was bursting, in exchange for their labor.
In return, the slum dwellers cleaned the slums.
Picking up trash, wiping away mud caked with filth and sewage, bringing the sick to me, planting trees on the barren city streets, and so on.
They were mobilized to purify the surrounding area, working and receiving meals and food in exchange.
Still, I was uneasy.
Of all things, elixir, called blue gold, gushed out from the middle of the abandoned factory zone.
I believed without a doubt that our dear Mr. Karma would ruin everything, but I still worried: what if, by some chance, things actually went well?
To force bankruptcy, I needed to throw more money around recklessly.
"Build public restrooms. Disease arises from feces and urine scattered in the streets. No matter how much I heal, if you stay close to filth, you will fall ill again. Also, select people to manage those places and have them clean them daily."
"It shall be done! O Saint!!"
"Build bathhouses. Proper grace dwells in a clean body. Draw water from the aqueducts, build public bathhouses, and distribute them. To wash clean and eat well—that is grace. Pour money in without reserve and build the cleanest, finest bathhouses possible."
"It shall be done! O Saint!!!"
High Priest Yodel was now in a state where he would happily eat shit if I told him to.
Watching him enthusiastically OK whatever I ordered, I felt a little relieved.
It wasn't like pouring water into a bottomless pot.
Even the Lilia Order's money supply would inevitably dry up if they kept spending endlessly like this.
On top of that, Jonathan Karma's business funds also had to come from the Lilia Order.
If we did this well, bankruptcy seemed possible within a few months.
While I was busily treating the sick, feeding them, putting them to sleep, giving them work, building bathhouses, making them clean, constructing restrooms, and throwing money around like that...
No matter how I thought about it, this didn't seem right.
"Money? I don't need it!! The Saint healed my mother! I'll build them as a donation!!"
The public restrooms were built for free. In multiple locations, at that.
"Before my hand was cut off, I was a quite successful stonemason. Money? As a human being, I can't accept it. I'll just do this for you."
Another slum dweller, who had been living like a cripple after losing his hand, turned out to be a famous stonemason once I cleaned him up neatly.
He gathered people in an instant and began building the bathhouse in no time.
Was that all?
"Let us repay the grace we received from the Saint!!!"
"Grace for Grace!!"
People didn't stop even in the evening when the daily wage was no longer given, passionately cleaning the surrounding area, picking up trash, and sweeping and scrubbing the ground.
Not even a week had passed, but the surrounding roads had already transformed into such clean and neat brick paths that I doubted they were the same filthy, mud-covered roads I had seen when I first arrived.
"This is a donation."
"It's from my heart. Please accept it."
"I run a vegetable shop. If vegetables are alright, please take them."
"I run a butcher shop. If older meat is okay, please take it."
"You healed my son's eyes. I will donate every loaf of bread leftover from a day's business. Share them with the poor."
"I was once a cook at a famous restaurant. Give me the ingredients. I will cook and share them with the people."
Donated ingredients kept flowing into the free soup kitchen, strange people continued to appear from somewhere, hurling money as donations, and those among the people I healed who had a talent for cooking took it upon themselves to prepare food and share it with others, repeating endlessly.
"O Saint. We have saved an enormous amount of money. The donations keep coming in so much that Mr. Karma's initial business funds can also be covered!!"
Fuck!!!!!!!
Why are you doing this to me, really!!
Why are you doing this!!!!!
Go bankrupt!
Please just go bankrupt!!
Why the hell is it going well!!!
It seemed my cursed fate was intent on making me meet divine punishment and die.
I needed another method.
Escaping by forcing them to go bankrupt seemed impossible.
How could I make these people leave me?
How could I........
This morning, as I trembled internally while healing the slum dwellers who had flocked to me for treatment from early on,
suddenly the crowd began to part.
Along with them, my thoughts and worries flew away too.
From a distance, a group of people was walking straight toward me, cutting through the crowd.
And at their head, a witch with a sharp smile walked forward, wearing the witch uniform of the Magic Tower and a wide-brimmed witch's hat.
"Healing Saint?"
She walked toward me with clicking steps, her face covered in freckles.
As I blinked, wondering what this situation was now, she giggled and looked back at the people positioned behind her.
"How about it? Am I right? This person. When he heals people, he doesn't use holy power."
The people standing behind her were all dressed in pitch-black clothes.
They were people in pitch-black clothes, pitch-black masks, and pitch-black shoes and pants.
There was only one white thing.
It was the pure white eye-shaped crest engraved on their chests.
The moment I saw that, I felt as if all the blood in my entire body drained out at once.
A crest no citizen of the Empire could fail to recognize.
It was the crest of the Silence Order, which served Le-Neri, the God of Darkness and Secrets.
It wasn't a famous order, nor did it have many followers; rather, it was an order with few adherents because they selected believers meticulously. But there was a reason they had made a name for themselves.
They were the heresy inquisitors in charge of heresy trials in the Pantheon, an organization jointly formed by the 24 officially recognized orders of the Empire.
"Indeed, no manifestation of holy power has been confirmed, Tudel."
A priest of the Silence Order spoke in a low voice. At those words, the witch called Tudel burst into laughter, as if she found it deeply amusing.
With a half-crazed, manic laugh, Tudel looked at me.
"I had a feeling, and sure enough. I've got good instincts. Hey, Healing Saint. Performing miracles without holy power, no matter how you think about it, that's just too absurd, isn't it? So, I've been harboring this reasonable suspicion, you see."
She pushed her boot heel between my legs and smiled chillingly.
"You're a fake falsely claiming to be the Saint of the Goddess Lilia, aren't you?"