Chapter 51
“Let’s start looking carefully from now on. Lena, can you tell me exactly what happened back then? That way, the teachers can find your friends faster.”
Ivin spoke gently, soothing the child with a kind voice.
After sobbing for a long while, Lena slowly opened her tiny mouth.
“The Elder… came to the dormitory.”
At the child’s words, the eyes of everyone gathered on the scene turned toward her.
“The Elder?”
“Yes… Elder Mateo.”
“And then?”
“He rushed in… saying he had somewhere to take… the Arirang children.”
“Somewhere?”
Elder Mateo suddenly appeared at the dormitory?
Hadn’t he been sitting beside Saint Flulla throughout the evening banquet?
Lena’s next words partially satisfied Ivin’s curiosity.
“He said he had to deliver a few gifts to the auditorium….”
“Do you remember roughly when that was?”
“Yes, right after the children performing went out.”
So it was somewhere around the middle of the performance.
And shortly after that, the gate opened.
At this thought, Ivin felt a chill in her chest.
She straightened her body, which had been bent down to talk to Lena, and looked around.
Everyone, including the triplets, was staring at her.
“……I think it would be best for everyone to split up and look for the children.”
“……!”
“Right now.”
“Ned.”
A cold voice fell over Teodor’s head like a drop of water.
The man dared not even raise his head.
“Yes, Saint.”
“Where were you?”
“I was in the basement of another building.”
“Who were you with?”
“…….”
Silence fell between them for a moment.
Teodor, as if he had committed a grave crime, kept his head bowed and could not meet her gaze.
Waiting patiently for his answer, Pavella began pacing around him as if her patience had run out.
Clack, clack.
With every step, the sound of her heels on the stone floor rang sharply.
“I think I smell something, Ned.”
“…….”
Before he knew it, Pavella had moved close enough to press the high, beautiful bridge of her nose near the nape of his neck.
In the next moment, something flashed in her eyes.
Above Teodor’s head, a small plasma-like orb appeared.
It was the <Eye of Truth>, capable of detecting lies.
“I was with the one who helped me.”
At Teodor’s words, a faint laugh escaped the Saint’s lips.
“Helped? Who?”
“I… Ivin Kinzel.”
“Foolish!”
Her voice, full of pure anger, followed.
“Were you possessed by a demon in the meantime, Sir Leitner? Otherwise, how could such words even come out of your mouth?”
She had called him “Ned” affectionately before, speaking informally, then reverted to formal titles, her alternating tone only amplifying the guilt and shame Teodor felt.
“You must tell me everything the demon whispered into your ear, Sir Leitner. Not a single word omitted.”
Pavella’s hand, cold as ice, swept over Teodor’s face as she tilted her head down, then placed her palm over the crown of his head, as if showing mercy.
“Did it urge you to go out in front of everyone like that? To make all eyes on you?”
“No, that’s not what….”
A scoff followed.
Then came a sharp pain that swept through his entire body.
“AAAAAAHH!”
Teodor knew exactly what this was.
Ever since he had entered the Holy Territory through the Stigmata ritual, he had felt this pain during “Purification Sessions” with the Saint.
His already battered mana heart boiled and melted as the intense pain shook his body.
Tap.
Pavella’s long, pale fingertip touched something hard and cold, and a massive structure that had stood like a sandcastle collapsed onto the floor.
If one didn’t hear his faint breathing, one might have thought the vast white armor lying on the ground contained nothing at all—the room was that quiet.
“…….”
Saint Pavella stared silently at the fallen knight beneath her, her eyes vacant and emotionless.
—Is this near-death experience… related to Saint Pavella using divine power?
‘Just a worthless little necromancer brat,’ she thought.
Clack, clack.
The Saint went to the bedside table, filled an empty glass with water, and returned to Teodor.
Then…
Drip, drip.
Kneeling, she carefully poured water into Teodor’s mouth.
The man, who had been lying on the floor with empty, tin-like eyes, moved his lips and slowly drank the water.
“Do you feel a bit better now, Ned?”
By the time the water in the glass was nearly gone, Pavella’s gentle voice fell like snowflakes.
It seemed the cold splash had brought him back to some consciousness, and Teodor slightly moved his head up and down.
“Good boy.”
Her white hand caressed the knight’s face tenderly.
“Look at this. See how the contact with evil spirits corrupted your soul.”
She made it clear that it was all due to Ivin.
“But you are a special knight, Ned. With all my strength and borrowing the power of the Goddess Flulla, I have succeeded in purifying you once again. So now, you must forgive yourself. It’s okay.”
Her tone impressed upon him the vastness of her magnanimity.
In his ink-black vision, Teodor recalled a line he had never been able to confess to her:
—Do you really need a special purpose to heal someone who’s in pain?
Why had he never spoken it aloud? Why?
The Saint had exerted great effort to draw out even the last word hidden within him, but he never spoke it.
If she had pushed any further, he might really have died.
‘Was the purification ritual really completed properly?’
Teodor sipped cold water through his tightened throat, a self-mocking smile on his face.
‘Then why do I still remember her face so vividly?’
Even amid all that pain.
Why did only her face remain clear?
—What should I… what should I do?
The desperate, pleading eyes that had looked at him.
Her lingering image remained in his unconsciousness, as if one had stared at the sun too long and closed their eyes, still imprinted in his mind.
When he had first been in Ivin’s arms, the sensation he felt was warmth.
Warm and soft.
Hardly what one would describe as the embrace of a demon.
So much so that it seemed almost contradictory.
As he sank again into unconsciousness like a flickering candle,
“Saint.”
Someone knocked urgently, calling her from outside in quick succession.
He snapped back to attention, and noticed a long shadow newly cast by the doorway.
He saw the face of the new figure at the door through his blurry focus.
‘Sleepy…?’
It was the assistant priest who served as Elder Mateo’s secretary.
“……It seems they’ve been found.”
“So… what about the aftermath?”
Though his voice was calm, the finely chiseled face showed a subtle crack.
‘Something’s wrong…’
Sensing the tension, the priest struggled to speak.
“The… cleanup was handled, but…”
“But?”
“There was a witness among the orphans…”
“So?”
“We tried our best to bring the child to the Holy Territory, but circumstances didn’t allow it. The Kinzel children were prioritized…”
As the priest’s words dragged on like sticky taffy, Pavella tilted her head slightly.
“And the Elder?”
The priest, instinctively sensing this was the Saint’s last question, tried to answer but stopped when he noticed Teodor’s consciousness returning from the floor.
“…Sir Teodor….”
“Ah….”
Pavella, as if she had completely forgotten the fallen man beside her, looked at Teodor with renewed attention and quickly summoned the guards outside the door.
“Yes, Saint.”
“Move Sir Leitner to his quarters. Attach healing priests immediately.”
“Yes.”
As the guards carried Teodor out, even fading in and out of consciousness, he sensed that something was seriously wrong.
Elder Mateo had disappeared in the middle of the orphanage performance and had not reappeared until the monster gate closed.
—Think of me as your father…
—You are the son I bore in my heart, Ned.
‘What exactly is going on, Elder?’
Feeling an indescribably complex mixture of emotions, Teodor let out a quiet sigh into the empty air.
At some point, the rigid world he knew had begun to crack.
The faith and doctrine he had trusted without doubt, the pure obedience and unwavering loyalty he had cemented like glue, the holy edifice he had built…
Bit by bit.
Very slowly.
It was collapsing.
He was standing on the precarious ice called Ivin Kinzel.
Once that thin line broke completely, what kind of world would he face?
Hell? Or heaven?
He did not know.
The only thing certain was that his heart had wandered too far to return to solid, flat ground.
