Reeve was swinging her shield with her lips tightly pressed together.
“…….”
The anger bubbling inside her didn’t cool down.
Her head kept burning intensely, and her chest felt so tight that she thought she would go insane.
“Priestess who has lost her deity, your anger is nothing but a tantrum.”
In the midst of it all, her opponent, General Koruaegenin, casually stirred up her insides.
“Even if you kill me for the words I hurled at you, nothing will change. Instead, you’ll merely be reminded of the harsh reality that your bond with your goddess has been severed.”
Voice, expression, content, tone.
Everything made Reeve’s frustration boil over. She wanted to smash his head right then and there.
However.
Even while gritting her teeth, she couldn’t retaliate against the General’s words.
It was a condemnation that poked at her scarred heart, leaving her utterly speechless.
‘Why is it only me…?’
The Pope hadn’t severed his bond with their souls even after returning to the original world. Unlike Reeve, who had suffered a deep cut.
While Eluke received prayers, blessings, and advice from the Sun Goddess, accepting it as if it were completely normal.
Honestly, it was unbearably envious.
A grotesque jealousy slithered up her throat, and curses almost spilled out.
Why had they found themselves in such drastically different situations, being the same priestess?
Of course, Eluke’s faith was incredibly pure and vast. That much she had to admit.
But it wasn’t that different for her.
Though she had lost the last confrontation disguised as a duel of faith, it had been a close call; no major difference existed.
So why?
Eluke was unscathed while she had become this miserable. What was she lacking?
“Is this the time to be lost in thoughts?”
At that moment, the General’s axe fell from above her head.
Once again, a simple downward strike she had successfully blocked multiple times.
Reeve, raising her shield in defense as usual, momentarily lost her balance and knelt slightly on one knee. It was a deadly opening.
Seizing the moment, the General’s knee struck her abdomen. An air-sucking hit.
“Gah…”
Unable to withstand the shock, Reeve was sent flying backward, gasping for breath as she rose again. Instinctively, she remembered to shield her head with her shield.
However, Koruaegenin did not follow up with an attack; he approached leisurely.
“Oh, the priestess who has lost her deity. I can see the inferiority complex budding within you toward your companion.”
“…Shut up.”
“How unfortunate. As a follower of the same deity, I genuinely pity you.”
There was so much talking during the battle.
She had previously heard he was a taciturn person, but it turned out he was quite the chatterbox. What a silly twist.
Spitting blood that had gathered at her lips, Reeve snarled, “I’ll smash your head and the Great Demon’s both.”
“How defiant.”
With the axe resting on his shoulder, the General continued walking toward her.
“If it were the usual, I would have split you in half. Yet now, I can’t. I’m not a starving hunter who hunts down a priest who’s lost her deity.”
“…….”
At that moment, Reeve sensed sincerity in the General’s attitude.
This wasn’t a psychological battle built on mockery and deception. He truly felt sorry for her.
How dare he.
A demon, of all beings.
“I told you to shut up.”
“How pitiful, Priestess. You have every right to be sad. You have every right to be furious and hate the world.”
“Shut your mouth!”
“What wrong have you done to endure such hardship? It’s the epitome of injustice.”
Each word was like a knife digging into her scarred heart.
Thanks to that, her mind heated up rapidly.
Her heart, already racing, was engulfed by more heat.
An uncontrollable intensity of anger was rising within her, ready to burst forth.
However.
This emotion directed at that General Demon was not it.
It couldn’t even be called a release of frustration toward Eluke, who maintained her connection unlike herself.
A frustration without direction, without a clearly defined source of blame, spread everywhere, eventually returning to the owner. With an icy and sharp self-hatred.
“This damn woman…”
How did she end up in a situation where even a demon felt sorry for her?
The answer was painfully obvious. She had returned despite the objections of the noble ones.
“Reeve, do you really have to go back?”
“I have a bad feeling…”
“Just stay here.”
Every goddess she had served for twenty years had urged against her return.
For the first time, the ones who had always supported her were expressing opposition.
Then she should have obediently followed their words as usual.
But back then, she didn’t. She wanted to show them the world she originally lived in at least once.
Honestly, she hadn’t planned to live in Korea for long.
She wanted to show them the fascinating cultures, artifacts, and people of another world and return afterward.
A simple filial piety tour. That was all her thoughts on returning amounted to.
Even now, it felt like a foolishly laid-back mindset.
“I’m sorry…”
Buried in self-reproach, Reeve had forgotten she was in the middle of a fight and let her arms drop limply.
It was unavoidable.
“Priestess, I can help you. I can restore your radiance.”
Standing motionless, the General spoke in a commanding voice.
Normally, she would have ignored such a silly temptation.
But right now, Reeve’s mind and reasoning had lost their control.
“…How?”
As if unknowingly asking, the General smiled gently and extended a hand larger than a typical pot lid.
On his palm rested a small grain that faintly glowed with a deep red energy.
It resembled a grain of rice or a bean – a suspicious little piece.
It was obvious. It was a sphere of the Great Demon’s energy and poison fused together.
“Eat it. The Great Demon deceives even the laws of the world. Crossing the dimensional wall to reach the brilliance you yearn for is hardly difficult.”
“…….”
Lies.
There’s no way that could be true.
No matter how much deception was the essence of a Great Demon, he wouldn’t be capable of such a feat.
But why was it that, against her own wishes, Reeve slowly reached her hand toward the grain offered by the Great Demon?
‘What if…’
What if, just maybe.
If what the General said were true, she could reconnect with the esteemed beings once more.
The chances were slim, but it wasn’t entirely zero.
Because of that.
Even knowing the demon was scheming, she couldn’t help but reach out hesitantly toward the small hope emitting dark red energy.
“Go on, take it. Embrace the Great Demon’s grace.”
Just as she was about to grasp the crimson grain.
“…Huh?”
Out of nowhere, an intangible force wrapping around her waist yanked Reeve backward.
Caught off guard by the sudden situation, she fell on her backside.
Even after she fell, the unseen force persisted, dragging her pitiful form across the floor.
“What the hell…?”
In her confusion, as she started to distance herself from the General, Wip leaped onto the back of the Void Monster to fill the void.
Clang!
As the massive axe met the short dagger, the confrontation between the demon and the Dark Elf began.
“Do you think you can defeat me!”
“No. Just buying time.”
Wip replied indifferently, glancing back at Reeve being dragged away, maintaining her trademark sweet smile.
And just like that, her dragged body stopped.
Reeve, lying on the ground, locked eyes with the one who had forcibly moved her.
Even in this situation, the pair of pink eyes looked incredibly calm.
“…….”
Eluke said nothing, merely directing her gaze.
She didn’t criticize the emotional actions blinded by rage, nor did she scorn Reeve’s foolishness for being swayed by the enemy’s trickery.
She simply looked down at Reeve.
Quietly, calmly, and gently like sunshine.
This semblance of a soft rebuke against her darkened self made Reeve squeeze her eyes shut.
This was the first time she felt such a strong loathing toward herself.
*
I took a brief break from streaming Bokma Battle Zone and watched Reeve.
The delicate and cute face of the priestess was marred by various emotions.
Self-hatred, despair, self-reproach, anger.
Most stemmed from her hatred of herself. A mental illness difficult to heal even with Sacred Spells.
In times like this, a remedy other than Sacred Power was necessary.
Words and grace.
“Reeve.”
I sat beside the suffering would-be saint with my eyes closed and quietly began to speak.
Reeve slowly opened her eyes, shedding clear tears like gems.
“Pope…”
“Self-loathing is a monster that grows while gnawing at one’s heart. Don’t remain like this.”
I gently wiped her tears and cautiously lifted her upper body into my embrace.
Then I began to pat her shoulder slowly. Like calming a crying child.
The would-be saint, who flinched at every touch, soon pulled me into a tight hug.
“Please, please help me… I miss the voices of the goddesses who cherished me…”
Her tearful plea broke my heart. I felt my own eyelids grow heavy.
How grievous and painful could it be?
How desperate she must have been to consider accepting the proposal of a demon she so despised.
The turbulent emotions pouring out upon confrontation were palpable.
I quietly stared at the wounded priestess for a moment before I spoke.
There was something important I wanted to say.
“There is a person I know who was once called the ‘Apostate Saint.’ Exactly that, an apostate saint.”
As I warmly stroked Reeve’s back, I recounted the trials that the saint had to endure.
“She barely survived after losing all her companions to the Demon King. Then her bond with the goddess was suddenly severed, interpreted as anger against a cowardly saint who survived alone rather than with her companions by the Pope, leading to her excommunication.”
“…….”
A severance of the connection of souls.
Though Reeve had crossed over to another world, that saint did not have even a reason to understand.
Suddenly abandoned at a moment when she needed warm words more than ever to alleviate her sorrow from losing her companions.
“A normal person would have been unable to overcome the rising despair and would have suffered every day. Then, they would have burned in resentment and anger toward the goddess who severed the bond without offering comfort.”
At the very least, she would have felt that way.
In fact, that would have been the reasonable reaction. No one would have considered her narrow-minded for blaming and cursing the goddess.
However.
That saint was different.
“She, despite being in such a desperate situation, quietly clasped her hands together and prayed. Even after being pointed at by people, becoming a mockery, and becoming a being that should be rejected, she didn’t lose her faith.”
“…How could she do that?”
With her eyes wide open, Reeve asked in a trembling voice.
It wasn’t because she didn’t know. She already did, but asked out of disbelief.
“Why do you ask when you already know?”
I quickly dispelled the priestess’s misgivings.
“Even in the Demon World where the mana clouds always obscure the skies, the sun still rises. It just simply isn’t visible.”
The sun doesn’t vanish even on the darkest night. It always looks down upon us from above.
Thus, there was no reason to forsake faith.
That was the conclusion reached by a certain saint who wandered the world, exiled.
“So you don’t need to beg me.”
There was absolutely no reason for her to do so.
“Just because you don’t feel the noble presence does not mean your heart has to drift away. Your goddess has always been by your side.”
“…….”
After finishing my words, I casually observed Reeve’s complexion and smiled gently.
The face of the priestess, once tinged with darkness, was gradually brightening. Like the dawn sky beginning to reveal light.
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