It's Ruined
It's Ruined
Erpa felt like she was slowly suffocating.
The anesthetic had left her body barely able to move.
On top of that, her mana wouldn't gather properly.
Magic Power Suppressant.
And it seemed the anesthetic had been mixed to be extremely potent.
If she hadn't kept one secret research project hidden from Tudel—something she had never revealed—her head would have been severed long ago.
The Three Primary Colors Research.
A study on amplifying magical power, allowing spells several times stronger to be cast with only a tiny amount of mana.
Thanks to it, even though the Magic Power Suppressant left her with only a minuscule trace of usable mana, she could still protect her nerves from the anesthetic and wield magic.
The research she had never told Tudel about had essentially saved her life.
"Why?!"
Erpa forced the words out through a mouth that barely functioned thanks to the anesthetic, demanding an answer from Tudel.
Tudel was shouting frantically at the gathered onlookers. She screamed that an Abomination—a Calamity Bearer—had appeared.
Watching her yell for someone to contact the White Order at once—to summon the holy knights and battle priests—Erpa couldn't hold back her tears.
At Erpa's scream-like voice, Tudel ground her teeth and glared at her.
"You were hiding something from me?"
Erpa didn't answer.
She only fired magic at Tudel.
Tudel clenched her jaw and focused on deflecting Erpa's spells and launching counterattacks.
The two of them traded fierce blows for some time.
But in the end, Erpa was the first to reach her limit.
Her body staggered for an instant.
The anesthetic was apparently kicking in hard now.
"Why did you!... Why are you trying to kill me?!"
Stumbling, Erpa spat the question at Tudel once more, biting off each word.
"I told you already. I hate you."
Tudel hated Erpa.
She loathed her level of comprehension, which was on a completely different plane from her own.
She hated the intelligence that solved in mere hours problems she herself agonized over for months.
The monstrous memory too.
Tudel despised and detested all of it.
Envy.
It was no exaggeration to say that envy was what had driven Tudel to this moment.
She had wanted to reach heights that surpassed Erpa.
But the one and only path that could surpass Erpa was being blocked by none other than Erpa herself.
Tudel simply could not endure that.
"Die. You disgusting Abomination. I've already sucked out everything worth taking from you."
Amid the battle, where thunderous explosions and shockwaves erupted one after another,
a quiet conversation passed between just the two of them—the kind only possible between people who could read each other's lips and understand.
Erpa collapsed.
Betrayed by Tudel, whom she had trusted, she looked barely able to keep her wits about her.
And Tudel didn't miss that opening.
"Aagh!"
A long gash opened across one of Erpa's thighs, as if carved by a blade.
No matter how extraordinary Erpa was,
even with the immense spell-amplification power of the Three Primary Colors Research,
it was only natural that she couldn't fight for long with an anesthetic and Magic Power Suppressant of unimaginable potency circulating through her body.
Erpa's judgment was swift.
She used short-range teleportation to put distance between herself and Tudel in an instant.
But Tudel didn't let her get away.
"Where do you think you're going?!"
Tudel immediately pursued, pelting Erpa with attack magic.
Erpa seemed to want to widen the gap further, but Tudel's interference caused her to fail at casting her movement spell.
Blood sprayed, and Erpa's wand clattered to the ground.
Then she dropped to one knee.
"Tudel..."
She spat Tudel's name out like she was chewing it to pieces before the drugs overtook her completely, and she collapsed flat onto the ground.
Panting, Tudel raised her wand toward the fallen Erpa, intending to finish her off then and there—but unfortunately for her, others arrived first.
"Those eyeballs!"
"An Evil God Worshipper!"
"An Abomination in the middle of the city?!"
"Arrest her immediately! Now!"
The battle priests and holy knights of the White Order—renowned for specializing in hunting Evil God Worshippers and Demon Cultists—surrounded Erpa before Tudel could act.
Tudel's earlier shouts demanding someone call the White Order had finally been answered, albeit belatedly.
She had yelled partly because she didn't know when Erpa might collapse, and partly to create an excuse for turning the city center into a chaotic battlefield. The outcome was a response that had come in a slightly unwelcome form—but the situation wasn't bad.
Tudel intended to play the victim to the hilt now.
"When I entered my house to rest, this Abomination attacked me! I had no choice but to use magic... Please deal with her! Please, deal with her quickly!"
Despite Tudel's demands, the White Order's holy knights and priests merely placed the Miracle of Suppression on Erpa's body in silence. They didn't take her life.
"Once we've captured an Abomination, burning at the stake is the final step. Before that, we extract as much information as possible, interrogate her, and then carry out the execution. We'll handle this ourselves."
Tudel ground her teeth slightly at those words but soon stepped back, as if it couldn't be helped.
Still, the outcome was execution by fire in the end.
No matter how much Erpa protested her innocence, screamed, and tried to expose Tudel's crimes, she was an Abomination.
The words of an Evil God Worshipper could never carry credibility.
"Please deal with her."
The situation had derailed slightly because that bitch Erpa had hidden abilities no one knew about—but the conclusion wouldn't change.
In the end, Erpa would be executed and disappear, and everything she left behind would be divided up among Tudel and her faction's people.
A happy, wonderful ending.
Thinking that, Tudel quietly gazed at Erpa's retreating back as the White Order's priests arrested her and dragged her away.
"Look! Look! Her arms and legs and all those eyeballs!"
"A monster! It's a demon!!"
"An Evil God Worshipper! They said she's an Evil God Worshipper! I heard it!!"
People began screaming as they looked at Erpa.
Because such a massive crowd of onlookers had gathered, hiding Erpa's face was impossible.
A lump of filth flew in from somewhere and struck Erpa's face hard.
She still couldn't pull herself together, thanks to the drugs.
But she could clearly tell that the shrieks and shouts coming from all directions were aimed at her.
"Demon!! Monster!!"
"You disgusting bitch! Die!! Die!!"
Torrents of jeers and screams.
Listening to the insults and mockery, Erpa wept.
Her most dreadful nightmare was becoming reality.
Filth and mud flew at her without mercy.
"Do not provoke the Calamity Bearer any further!"
"Do not provoke her!!"
The White Order's priests and holy knights shouted, trying to hold people back—but the crowd, already whipped into a frenzy at the sight of Erpa's grotesque appearance, didn't stop.
"Kill her! Kill her!!"
"Wipe her out!!"
Revulsion.
Wrath.
And even pleasure, mixed in at the thought that a target had appeared—someone they could freely mock and stone.
As the mud and filth kept striking her, Erpa felt as if her very soul was shattering into pieces.
This was the end.
There was no more salvation.
***
"Next person, please."
I was dying.
I was seriously dying.
So many people from the slums had swarmed here that no matter how many I healed, it felt endless.
How could there be this many sick people?
There were so many it made me reasonably suspect they were manufacturing patients and bringing them in.
But if you asked whether it felt meaningless...
That wasn't the case either.
Among the sick people they brought, there were a great many young children.
Malnutrition.
Kids not even three years old whose fingers had been severed while doing labor.
Many people came carrying illnesses they never would've caught if they'd just been fed properly.
Seeing those people get better right in front of my eyes and walk away healthy—it would've been stranger not to feel some sense of fulfillment.
"Healing Saint!!"
"Apostle of Lilia!!"
"Heal us!!"
All of that was fine, but I really wished they'd stop with the Lilia stuff.
No!! Didn't they get it—if I got rumored to be a saint belonging to a specific order, I was fucked?!
Thanks to that trolling by High Priest Alois of the Sun Order, people from the Order of Grace were already on their way up here to find me.
I was fucking terrified!!
Before that, I really hoped the witch would hurry up and find me.
I'd already been playing saint for about three or four days. If she'd heard the rumors by now, wouldn't that be normal?
Why wasn't she coming?! Why!!
There was no illness I couldn't cure—from all kinds of genetic diseases to the common cold—so why wasn't she coming?!
I could fix four arms and a cluster of eyeballs too!
Hurry up and get here!!
"When will the people from the Order of Grace be arriving?"
In between healing people, I casually slipped the question to the Sun Order holy knight who was guarding me.
"The Order of Grace is prominent in the southern regions, so they have no temple near the capital. Because of that, it seems to be taking some time for them to travel up. I suspect they'll arrive within two days at the latest."
Two days.
Would the witch find me before then?
I was fucking terrified!!
Seriously, where the hell was the witch?!
Should I change locations?
Should I actively start searching?
Looking for a witch with four arms and a bunch of extra eyeballs.
If I unleashed the Sun Order's holy knights to search for her on a massive scale...
Would she actually come?
A witch who'd already gone to great lengths to hide her appearance—if she heard I'd sent people out looking for her, her suspicion level would go up, not down.
I was stuck. Couldn't do one thing or the other.
The Order of Grace people were coming up in real time to verify whether I was a genuine saint or not.
I mean, I had never—
never once even uttered the syllable Li from Lilia, so why the hell had I suddenly turned into some guy falsely claiming to be a specific order's saint?!
Didn't I keep things as vague as possible?
I'd never even said the word Grace from Order of Grace, so why!!
Why the hell had things turned out like this, seriously.
This malicious bullshit was fucking unreal.
"Huh? Over there!..."
"They caught an Evil God Worshipper!"
While I was cursing internally—fuck, fuck, fuck—and healing people,
suddenly a commotion began growing louder in the distance.
Through the real-time rumor delivery system, I picked up scattered keywords here and there. Apparently, some Evil God Worshipper who'd been hiding had been caught.
"Her face is a work of art! Fucking disgusting!"
"Four arms and a bunch of eyeballs stuck in like a spider?"
Someone's shout reached my ears, and I immediately rose from my seat.
Four arms and multiple eyeballs?
Wait.
That was exactly who I'd been looking for...
"They said she's a witch!! The White Order is hauling her in—she was fighting with magic!"
That was the witch!! Oh, fuck!
She'd been caught?
How the hell?!
Hadn't she been hiding under tight cover?
How had she ended up caught by the White Order?!...
"Everyone's throwing rocks and mud—it's total chaos! Let's go throw some too!"
No, you goddamn lunatics!! No!!
I shoved people aside frantically and started sprinting toward the scene where they were said to be escorting the witch.
As the sounds of cursing and mockery grew closer in real time, I got to savor the sensation of my ass on fire with sheer terror.
"The Saint! Protect the Saint! Move!!"
The moment I moved, the Sun Order holy knights and police who'd been guarding me came running after me as well.
With all of them strung along behind me, I ran and ran like a madman.
Please don't let her break.
I'd be there soon!!
I'd fix your face and your arms—clean and perfect—so please!!
Please don't break!!
Please, just don't break!!