Chapter 49: Real and Fake Part 3

“Huh? Are you joking?”

“……”

“What kind of bullshit is this……………….”

It had been two days since the Saintess had been taken away to the Church’s headquarters on urgent business.

And then I heard from my master that she had been imprisoned for impersonating the Saintess.

“This is information known only to a select few. She’ll be released before long, but since you were in contact with her, I figured it was best to let you know first.”

Worried after not hearing any news from the Saintess, I returned to the count’s territory…and that’s where my master delivered the shocking news.

“No, I know her well. She’s not an imposter; she’s the real one! You could tell just by her divine power!”

“The higher-ups aren’t fools. They must have found some proof to support their suspicions if they’re acting this boldly. Besides, there are plenty who were already wary of a Saintess from commoner roots.”

“Ugh…”

Having seen her use divine power with my own eyes, I couldn’t easily believe what I was hearing.

And considering how quickly things were unfolding, it clearly wasn’t something that had come together overnight.

Maybe some darker, more powerful force was driving her toward death…

“You going to go?”

“…….”

“There’s nothing in it for you if you do. You’ll be lucky not to be branded a heretic and get cursed out. You still want to go?”

“……I have to.”

The religion in this world is much like that of the Middle Ages.

If you betray the faith or get branded as a heretic, everyone knows exactly what happens next.

To me, the Saintess was just an annoyingly loud woman always chasing after God, but that didn’t mean I ever wanted to see her end up like this.

“Tch. Can’t believe my only disciple’s such a pushover.”

“Now that’s no way to talk to—”

“If you’re going to do it, do it right. I can’t stand those pig bastards in the Church either.”

With that, he turned and walked away.

He could’ve just given me a normal word of support… Seriously, my master is such a tsundere.

After preparing a few things, I immediately headed to the Church’s headquarters, and by the time I arrived, it happened to be the day of her execution.

I concealed my presence and watched everything unfold from a corner of the execution grounds. Just as the axe was about to fall on her neck—

Clang——!!!!!

I blocked the axe with the sword I was holding, stopping her death.

***

“Wh-What the?! Where did you come from……?!”

The large man sitting at the highest seat looked at me in shock.

His bloated, flabby body was as far from purity and virtue as one could get.

His face that was stuffed with greed and lust was one that could never be mistaken for a messenger of God’s word.

“You scoundrel! To barge into a sacred execution ground! Are you claiming to be a heretic as well?!”

Though surprised by my sudden appearance, he didn’t seem to recognize me and likely just assumed I was some intruder interrupting the execution.

Then a man who seemed to be his aide whispered something into his ear, and I could see the color drain from his face in real time.

“Executioner! What are you doing?! Kill the criminal, now!”

Apparently too afraid to keep yelling at an Aura Lord…..someone who had stepped into the realm of the transcendents, he turned his attention to the executioner instead and shouted to hasten the execution.

“Uh… Your Eminence, Cardinal… the thing is……………”

“Hey.”

Shudder!

To get rid of the executioner hesitating between me and the Cardinal, I subtly let out a hint of killing intent.

When I unleashed it toward the large executioner, his face turned deathly pale, and his eyes went glassy with fear.

“Get lost.”

“Eeek!”

In the end, the executioner threw down his axe, wet his pants, and bolted from the scene.

Even though he made a living killing people, it seemed he was just as afraid of his own death as anyone else. He scrambled out of the execution ground in a panic.

“Y-You dare defend a heretic…! Paladins! Seize that man imme—!”

Slash!

“Wha…? Aaaargh!!!”

A man in the crowd who had been pointing fingers and slandering me and the Saintess as heretics had his wrist severed mid-sentence by a flying slash, and he howled in agony.

“Anyone else who opens their mouth gets cut.”

How did I manage to sever the hand of a man that far away?

No one could make sense of what just happened, but the crushing fear that gripped their hearts silenced the crowd completely.

Perhaps not wanting to provoke my wrath by making a scene, no one even dared scream or run away. Seeing the terrified stillness of the crowd, I thought to myself that maybe this was for the better and slowly walked toward the Saintess who stood staring blankly at me.

Srrrk

Clink! Thud!

With a light swing of my sword up and down, the chains binding the Saintess’s wrists and ankles split in two and clattered to the ground.

Freed from the overwhelming pressure in an instant, the Saintess looked at her now-free limbs, then up at me, the one who had saved her.

“………Why.”

“Hmm?”

“Why…… did you come to save me?”

Looking down at the Saintess, her appearance was more horrific than I expected.

Her once-beautiful silver hair was matted with blood and grime.

It looked like she’d been tortured without rest. Dark circles under her eyes, blistered and torn skin all over her body. I could easily imagine the suffering she had endured over those past few days.

“Why did I save you?”

Who knows.

Because I pitied her? Because I felt uneasy seeing someone I knew in that state?

Or maybe… because I’d experienced the same despair of being abandoned by the god I had once trusted with all my heart?

“…Just because.”

I just felt like it.

I didn’t know the exact reason myself.

When I heard she was in danger, the only thought that filled my mind was, “I have to save her.”

The Saintess seemed surprised by my answer. Her eyes, usually half-closed, widened as she blinked repeatedly.

More than that…her chest.

Through the tattered clothes, the mark on her collarbone gave off an unsettling feeling.

It was faint and weak. So much so that you wouldn’t notice it without focusing. But the moment I moved my hand, intending to touch it with the hilt of my sword…

“Step away from that sinner at once!”

Just as I was about to remove the ominous energy clinging to her body, the so-called Cardinal I had seen earlier came storming toward me, flanked by Paladins and a woman.

Surrounded by guards, that woman was likely the new Saintess, appointed in place of Hestia.

She glared at me fiercely from behind, clearly displeased by my sudden appearance, while the Cardinal positioned himself in front of her and stomped toward me with heavy steps.

He was so large that each of his steps made the ground seem like it was trembling beneath him.

“Why?”

“Eek! Even if you are an Aura Lord, such insolence cannot be tolerated!! Are you daring to defy the will of God?!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Wh-What?!”

“I don’t believe in God to begin with. And considering how well I’ve been doing without Him, I doubt that’s going to change anytime soon.”

“What nonsense is this—!”

Ignoring the Cardinal’s shouting, I turned my eyes back to the Saintess—no, to Hestia.

“Hestia.”

“!? H-How do you know my true name?!”

“Do you still want to believe in God?”

A question similar to the one I had asked before we parted ways in the Noctus estate.

But for some reason, Hestia couldn’t answer so easily this time.

“Or… do you want to try believing in me?”

“!!”

To believe in a human, not a god.

To her, who had spent her entire life in obedience to God, such a suggestion was akin to shattering the foundation of her existence.

If, at this point, she chose to continue believing in God, I had every intention of simply respecting her decision.

But if, by any chance, she said she would believe in me… then…

“……”

Hestia’s eyes trembled violently. Most likely, her faith was now clashing with a newfound will to live deep inside her.

“Honestly… I don’t really know what to think. Whether everything I’ve believed in so far has been a lie… whether the life I offered to God was all fake… But as Hestia, not the Saintess, I want to make this choice.”

“I… I’ll try believing in you……………”

“…Alright.”

I drove the sword I was holding straight into Hestia’s chest.

“Hurk!”

“In the end……………”

People around us gasped or shook their heads, seemingly convinced I had killed her after all.

“Ha, haha! So this is how it ends! You wanted to personally end that insolent sinner with your own hands, didn’t you?!”

“What the hell are you talking about, you pig.”

“P-Pig!? How dare you—!”

“You’re all misunderstanding the situation.”

Though shocked at the sight of the sword in her chest, Hestia quickly realized there was no pain….only a strange sense of peace spread through her body.

“Everyone thinks curses are some terrifying force, but in reality, a curse is like a hose.”

Unlike magic, which disappears after manifesting the caster’s imagination into the world, curses feed off lingering malice, anger, and desire. They remain clinging like that.

Curses don’t simply vanish. They linger eternally, constantly craving the suffering of their target.

In other words, the moment the caster places a curse, it becomes a kind of hose. So long as mana keeps being injected, the curse can continue until the target dies.

However, because the curse is invisible and extremely difficult to detect, lifting one is an incredibly complex and high-level task.

But what if such a curse had been strengthened by someone?

What if there were a powerful curse so well-hidden that no one could detect it? Not even a saintess’s power?

“The way to break a curse is surprisingly simple.”

Like I said just now, a curse is like a hose.

And water flowing through a hose always moves in one direction. That is forward.

But then……………….

What would happen if you blasted a surge of pressure strong enough to reverse the flow from the hose’s exit?

What would happen to the caster?

“Noctus Style, Seventh Form.”

“Reverse Flow.”

Fwoosh!

“Kyaaa!! Mmph—! Guhk!”

“L-Lady Saintess?!”

When I released a burst of aura through the mark engraved on Hestia’s chest, the woman standing beside the cardinal suddenly let out a scream and collapsed, coughing up blood.

She was struck down by the symptoms of mana overload. She suffered intense pain and reversed blood flow causing blood to gush from her eyes, mouth, and nose.

By forcibly injecting aura into the hose that was channeling the curse and completely twisting its flow, the fake saintess who had been calmly standing there collapsed in agony.

Which meant…

“So it was you after all.”