In the knight’s lodge located on the outskirts of the Church of the Celestial God, there was an infirmary attached.
Given that it was in the Church Region and bore the name of the main branch, the scale and facilities were comparable to a first-class hospital, complete with a garden decorated with flowering trees for the emotional stability of the patients.
Night had already arrived, unfazed by the near full occupancy of the infirmary. A winter night, coupled with the biting cold winter wind. The bare branches brushed against each other, swaying listlessly — it was such a lonely and desolate night.
On this night, in a special room on the top floor of the infirmary, Scarlet lay with her eyes closed. Bandages wrapped tightly around her body, with splints to keep her joints immobile.
The broken bones, courtesy of Yona, were serious injuries. The arm bones shattered into multiple pieces, and the legs and pelvis had been critically fractured. A normal person would have surely died from the agony, but someone like Scarlet managed to cling to life.
Moreover, from how hard she had gritted her teeth in pain, there weren’t many healthy teeth left.
Even though priests gathered to pour their healing powers into her, all they could see was the flickering black serpent pattern; healing was nowhere in sight.
It was only thanks to the divine power of the Celestial God, summoned by the Saint Vigrind, performing a miracle of great healing that Scarlet survived.
Still, her injuries were severe. While the bones had healed, her joints had not, causing them to be immobilized with splints and bandages. From here on, it depended on Scarlet’s own healing abilities. But at least she was fortunate to have her life back.
Scarlet was in a deep, restless sleep. The intense battle brought a fatigue that required her full recovery.
“Sekti.”
Then came a voice.
At the unexpected sound, Scarlet’s eyes flew open. Her body, always in battle-ready mode, reacted sensibly to the slightest approach, even while injured.
She turned her gaze toward the voice.
And the moment she recognized the owner of that voice, Scarlet’s eyes widened.
Johannes Spillvan — his figure stood there.
“Se-Senior!”
“Now you’re calling me senior? After torturing me like you wanted to kill me, you come here all sweet with ‘senior’?”
“Th-that’s not it— no, Senior…!”
Scarlet rushed to pick up her excuses. But seeing the smirk on Johannes’s face made her breath catch in her throat. Her body started trembling uncontrollably. The pain felt like being shredded in her chest. While her injuries were merely in her limbs and body, at that moment, it felt as though Johannes’s words were tearing her heart apart.
The pain felt like my chest was being ripped apart. My injuries were just physical, but right now, what hurt Scarlet even more was Johannes’s words, slicing through her heart like a dagger.
Johannes, with a smirk plastered on his face, chewed on his lips. A sneer, a snicker—it was nothing but a cold, sharp mockery.
“Senior, S-Senior…”
Scarlet struggled to lift her body from the bed, but her limbs were so tightly bound that her efforts looked utterly pitiful.
“Why? Did I say something wrong? Sekti, you told me clearly.”
“‘You’re going to die anyway. In the trial coming soon, you will die without any chance of escape.’—you said that.”
“T-That’s…!”
Johannes’s gaze was icy, and yet Scarlet struggled harder to rise. The binding bandages that held her were screeching as if they were about to snap, and her broken elbow, knees, and hips were gasping in agony.
But she didn’t give up. She was in such a rush that she needed to kneel and bury her head in front of Johannes, begging for forgiveness. But this damned body wouldn’t listen to her—
-Crack!
The binding bandage tore, followed by the bed itself shaking violently and toppling over. Scarlet, who had been writhing on the bed, was flung onto the floor, and the joints that had been healing made ominous cracking sounds once more.
“Are you trying to wiggle your way out of this? I remember it all clearly, you know.”
“N-No, no! Senior, it’s not true, it’s not true!”
Scarlet screamed like she was having a fit. Johannes, looking down at her, showed no change in expression, gazing at her as if she were a bug on the roadside. The cold malice in his eyes cut into Scarlet like an icy dagger.
“T-That’s… I didn’t know! I didn’t know it was you, Senior…! How could I go against you—!”
“…Didn’t know, huh? You’re going to use that as an excuse, Scarlet? You were always like this. Yes, you were always saying, ‘I didn’t know, I didn’t know.’ So, that’s why you healed that heretic, right? Then you hid behind me, saying you didn’t know. And because of that, I ended up receiving the curse.”
“Ah, that was the case. I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t know. So, so you healed that heathen too, right? And then you hid behind me saying you didn’t know. And because of that, I ended up receiving a divine punishment.”
“Se, Senior…!”
Scarlet’s face turned white as a sheet. As she trembled, Johannes slowly approached and examined her face up close.
“So, what do you want me to do? Sekti, if you say you didn’t know, that’s the end for you, but I’ve truly become an apostate now.”
“I, I… I’m, uh, wuh, wuhh… hic, hic…”
She was hyperventilating. As she made eye contact with Johannes, Scarlet gasped so much that she started to cough.
“Yeah, because of saving someone like you, I ended up like this. Yeah, that was how it was. Sekti, but it’s okay. I was rescued, and now I’m far away. Indeed, far more beautiful than someone like you— with Yona.”
“But—! A-apostate…”
“I’m also an apostate, aren’t I?”
Scarlet tried to make excuses through strained breaths, but couldn’t continue. She shook her head violently, closing her eyes to hide the confusion overtaking her.
“That’s enough, Sekti. You’ve been unbearably annoying. Finally, this is the end. My connection with you, that end has finally come. So, I’m relieved.”
“Senior, senior—! No, no, no—!”
Scarlet, shaking her head vigorously, slammed her forehead onto the floor in desperation. The pain felt like her head was cracking, but she didn’t care. She hoped Johannes would take back his words, and kept banging her head on the ground.
Yet, no sound answered her. When she lifted her head again, there was nothing in front of her. The door was not opened, and the window was also shut tight.
It was as if nothing had ever been there; Johannes had disappeared like smoke. But whether it was an illusion or one she created herself, Scarlet was convincing herself that Johannes truly thought that way.
“Senior… Senior…! Where, where did you go…? You were just here, Senior, Senior, Senior!”
At that moment, the door swung open, and several nursing priests rushed in. Startled by the sudden commotion and Scarlet’s rampage, what they saw upon entering was a collapsed bed and Scarlet, wrapped in blood-soaked bandages from fresh wounds. Blood was streaming down her forehead.
As they looked around helplessly for someone Scarlet was frantically searching for, they could only be dumbfounded.
They couldn’t help but be taken aback by Scarlet’s appearance.
“Lady Scarlet, calm down! Lady Scarlet!”
“Oh, no… Senpai, you said you were coming!”
“No one came! No one at all!”
“No, no! That’s not true! Senpai had to have come! There’s no way they’d just leave me like this!”
“Lady Scarlet!”
“Y-yes! Senpai… just got a little distracted… Ah, ah… Aah!”
Scarlet stood frozen. Someone popped into her mind. The woman who had crushed her so thoroughly, that wretched woman. What was her name again? Yona? That filthy traitor. An insignificant adventurer who couldn’t even become a priest, just a pathetic excuse for a healer. That trashy woman who carelessly dragged Senpai down with her. That damned girl. That cheap girl. The dirty whore who used the power of a demon to seduce Senpai—what a vile and sneaky harlot.
“…Yeah, it’s all that woman’s fault. It’s because of her that Senpai is like this. That harlot’s doing. She must have lured Senpai into this mess.”
“S-Scarlet…?”
The nurse-priest and healer-priest hesitantly stepped back, sensing the bizarre energy. The twisted gaze of Scarlet made them instinctively want to run for the hills.
“Yeah… it’s because of that woman, that harlot… that filthy traitor who has done this to Senpai…”
Scarlet began to laugh. It was a hollow laugh, not quite sane, as if her soul had gone wandering somewhere far away, filling the hospital room with its emptiness.
“Lady Scarlet…? Are you alright?”
One of the nurse-priests, despite her hesitation, approached Scarlet.
No matter how you looked at it, she wasn’t normal, but as a nurse priest, she had a duty to check on the patient’s condition.
“I’m fine—there’s no problem at all. No problem… But Senpai, Senpai… it’s a problem that they’re bewitched by that filthy harlot…”
“Eh? Senpai…?”
“This isn’t the time to be dawdling. I should have acted sooner. Senpai… Senpai…”
A crazed smile crept onto Scarlet’s face.
The twisted grin at the corners of her lips sent chills down the spines of those who witnessed it.
“Get my armor. We need to set out immediately.”
“Eh? Lady Scarlet, that’s ridiculous…”
“Now! Bring me my armor right now!”
– Fwoosh!
Golden light filled the hospital room like it was suddenly bright as day.
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