The most troublesome aspect of dealing with a priestess is her ability to freeze time.
While she can’t keep using it continuously, she can use it as often as drawing water from a giant jar.
She firmly believes it to be a kind of divine grace and mercy.
Therefore, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that no human can win against her in close combat. She already possesses the strength to be one of the strongest on the continent, and with her overpowered techniques, it’s even more absurd.
‘I wish I could use the other knights around me.’
Watching her focus completely on me, I realized that she would likely only use her time-freezing technique on me.
That doesn’t mean I could let the other knights have a free hit, though.
‘At least I’m glad she’s in a state of extreme agitation.’
Even going through my memories, I had never seen her this excited before. Conversely, it meant she couldn’t accept my existence, knowing it was a mistake and a defeat from the gods.
“Heretic, the Goddess desires your judgment!”
“Why are they blaming me for their incompetence?”
“Don’t speak carelessly!”
The priestess rushed at me, her hour and minute hands raised high, ready to strike down, but I had already leaped back far away.
‘I must not give her the distance to stop time.’
As the other knights charged toward her, she glared at me while gnashing her teeth. Flowing like a melody, her movements met their advance with grace.
The heavy, restrained knights were easily swept away, rolling on the ground or kneeling in pain, pierced by her hour and minute hands.
“Sir Daniel!”
With Bertia’s earnest voice, a sword flew towards me. Finally, I had the chance to draw the one I had brought from the Academy.
“Elise!”
Elise, who had been analyzing the priestess with her lips tightly sealed, suddenly glanced at me.
I merely gave a simple glance, yet she understood instantly and prepared to charge.
“Why do you mock the gods! You, who are already sinful by merely existing, what more do you desire, coming forth with calamity?”
The priestess, who stepped over the corpses of the knights, shouted in exasperation.
“If you searched my memories, you would know that child is trying to change.”
“How foolish! Are you showing mercy to a calamity? Are you weighing the lives of humanity against it?”
Again, I widened the distance, throwing tables and chairs at her, yet with just a few swings of her hand, they were easily sliced apart.
“You know that if that child dies, the calamity begins!”
“If so, calamity will eventually come! I’d rather bind her and suppress that power!”
“So, you plan to let an innocent child rot on the cold floor of a prison for life? A child who gained powers against her will, you want her to be your experiment?”
In response to my outcry, the priestess raised her hands high, stabbing her hour and minute hands into the ground.
“How do you not understand that this is the way to save this world!”
‘Oh no!’
Is she already using her trump card?
A transparent barrier formed around her hour and minute hands, covering the entire banquet hall.
Those who touched the barrier began to move as if time had slowed down.
I couldn’t evade it.
Just before being engulfed by the barrier, I curled up in mid-air and adopted the best defensive stance I could. The activation time is short, but it slows down all the time around. The Time Freeze Domain.
In this domain, only the priestess of time was the master.
Since the area was based on her hour and minute hands, she advanced toward me unarmed.
“I will kill you.”
BAM!
Her strike landed squarely on my arm. I wanted to say something, but the time it took for my voice to form was agonizingly slow.
The Time Freeze Domain lasts only 10 seconds, yet it felt like 10 minutes. During that brief moment, the priestess unleashed a flurry of blows without even taking a breath.
The transparent area popped like a bubble and disappeared.
Having floated in the air, I finally fell to the ground, and the delayed pain hit my whole body without mercy.
“Ugh!”
The brutal shock almost made me lose consciousness. The Time Freeze Domain was like a secret art for the priestess.
Thinking of it that way was painful, but I had survived and pulled one of the enemy’s cards.
“Persistent, aren’t you!”
BAM!
THUD!
The priestess swung her leg again at my disfigured face. Despite the immense pain, I barely managed to raise my hands to block it.
Slipping across the ground, I finally came to a stop after breaking several tables and chairs.
‘My wrist broke!’
My right wrist snapped from that last blow. If I were in my 28-year-old body, this wouldn’t have hurt, but my current body hadn’t been trained in this regard at all.
‘Well, up until now, I’ve only been hitting, not taking hits.’
The priestess didn’t wait for me, charging at me like an angry bull, ready to ram.
A tremendous pressure swept over me, overwhelming for her size.
“The gods have led me to you! I shall kill you in their name! I will sever the hands and feet of the calamity, tear out your eyes and tongue, sealing you in the prison of sinners for life!”
“……!”
Suddenly standing up, I grasped the sword lying on the ground.
“Yeah, I thought the same at first.”
There’s no denying it.
I had actually been swayed by the notion that Rin would become a calamity and kill everyone in the future, no matter her state now.
“But I realized how arrogant that was.”
“Arrogant? Arrogant? How dare you utter that word! Monster of sin that abandoned humanity! Do you find it enjoyable to nurture a calamity that will annihilate mankind?”
“Don’t speak carelessly, priestess who judges the innocent.”
As the priestess thrust her hands back, the hour and minute hands, lodged in the banquet hall carpet, flew and attached themselves to her.
If I got any closer, the priestess of time would stop my time and slice me apart.
“Rin will definitely overcome this.”
That’s why, I jumped forward as fast as I could. Until now, I had only been running away, leaving openings in my defense.
Starting from my big toe to my heel, calves, and thighs, the accumulated power poured forth.
Even as the priestess struggled to keep her eyes on me, she hastily froze time, but I was already charging toward her, sword aimed at her neck.
My body wouldn’t move.
Even so, the body that had already leaped and the sword grasped in my hand moved forward.
“Gah…!”
However, the priestess was anything but ordinary.
With a swoosh sound, she forcibly twisted her body, barely avoiding a fatal blow to her neck.
Bright red blood trickled down, and while a deep wound formed on her neck, she didn’t die.
“My victory…!”
THWACK!
A long sword reminiscent of golden branches pierced upward, deeply embedding itself in the priestess’s chest.
“Don’t underestimate me.”
With Elise’s voice, the still body began to move again.
“Gah, ughhh!”
“You’ve become blind to me.”
Having perfectly internalized my strength through memory, I couldn’t focus on anyone else. Especially in a moment where I could lose my life.
“I must kill you!”
The hour and minute hands fell, rolling across the ground. Despite coughing up blood, the priestess reached out toward me.
SWISH!
I swung my sword and lopped off her right arm, sending it crashing to the ground with a heavy thud.
“This is what you intended to do to Rin. You wanted to inflict the pain you’re experiencing now on that innocent girl.”
“G-god…!”
With her mouth foaming with blood, the priestess fell. Though I thought of it as her dying words as the Time Priestess, I pulled out Elise’s sword.
“No one can call Rin a sinner now or judge her. But if the time comes when it must happen, I will bear that burden, having experienced it all and remembered it.”
This was not an area where a priestess serving the gods could interfere carelessly.
The priestess’s outstretched hand on the ground slowly fell. Soon, she slumped down, her eyes filled with unjustness.
“Go ahead, ask to be sent back in time.”
I don’t know if that would work.
*
The incident had come to a close.
Prince Oliver was imprisoned in the royal underground dungeon for attempted assassination of the current king, as well as for the murder of Princess Ilina de Frisia.
As a result, the second prince, Alois, who was known for exposing the misdeeds, quickly surged as a candidate for the next throne.
Of course, as the current king regained his health, that time would take quite a while, but since it was never his seat to begin with, Alois expressed relief, saying he would have the opportunity to learn before sitting.
Thanks to Princess Ainis, Tana, who had faced the priestess of time, was safe from harm. Especially since her home, the Mayas family, had provided her with tremendous support, her hospital room was filled with rare fruits and flowers.
It seemed that she had come as a maid instead of her twin sister, Bertia Mayas, but Tana dismissed it, saying, “Don’t think I’ll let this slide.”
With Prince Oliver completely out of the picture, we were preparing to return after just receiving treatment.
“Ugh.”
“Shall I help you?”
Elise approached me, struggling to load cargo with a splint on her right wrist due to the break.
I thought I had nothing to take since I had been here without much, but I ended up receiving a lot of gifts.
“How about using healing magic to get it fixed now?”
“If I do that, my body won’t strengthen properly. I need time for it to heal, otherwise I’ll just break again the next time I take a hit.”
Elise looked at me with a puzzled expression.
As we loaded the carriage, she dusted off her hands, already having packed her own belongings.
“But is it really okay? It will only be a matter of time before it’s known that you’re a princess.”
Though Elise wanted to hide that she was a princess, her strong impression at the banquet would likely result in that information spreading to the Academy.
“I can’t help it. The next two years will be a breeze.”
“Yeah, I won’t be able to act crazy anymore either, not with people watching.”
“……!”
Elise, who had just been smiling pleasantly, suddenly displayed a shocked expression. Then, she hastily pulled out various items from her luggage and showed them to me.
“Uh, what do I do with this? Should I use it here? I like outdoor play too…”
In her hands were a whip, a leash, and… a cat tail?
“Wow, I thought you wouldn’t make me curse. I’m a patient, so I shouldn’t get worked up, you know?”
“I’ll just get excited.”
“What the hell…!”
I nearly cursed out loud, but the coachman glanced over, and I barely held back. I wasn’t crazy enough to curse openly at a princess from the royal family.
At the very least, I avoid doing it in front of people.
“More importantly, what’s that?”
Pointing at the last tail, she mischievously smiled and pulled her hand back, pretending to stick it to her skirt at the exact spot.
“This is how you use it!”
“BERTIAAAAA! Are you not checking the girl’s baggage?!”
*
For a traitor, there can be no rest. Rather than being buried in gentle soil, returning to the embrace of the gods, they become ashes along with the garbage meant to be burned.
This is the common method for the Frisia Kingdom to dispose of the bodies of traitors. Of course, their bones would shatter, but it was treated simply as ash—there’s no respect given to the deceased at all.
Naturally, no one came to mourn their death.
If by chance they caught the attention of the royal family, it might be seen as honoring the death of a sinner.
Thus, once again, there was no one present, and it was thought that only the undertaker would burn the dead and the trash in solitude.
‘Why is the Len family here?’
Heaven Len, the current head of the Len family and Hayun’s uncle, had come here, tears streaming down his face.
“Oh, gods! Why must you take her away!”
Ignoring the undertaker’s gaze, he wept as if he had lost a family member, quite pitifully too. It wouldn’t be strange if he were called a rebel against the royal family for this.
‘I need to report this.’
The undertaker resolved to himself while observing Heaven Len.
Especially since the criminal being cremated this time was the one who assassinated the current king and Princess Ilina, wielded a sword against royalty, and killed elite knights.
He couldn’t overlook the sight of him lamenting the death of such a person; it was also part of his duties.
SCRATCH!
He threw a small burning match toward the corpse.
Thanks to the oil applied to the trash and the body, the flames quickly spread, and they had to keep burning for several days without extinguishing it.
Criminals weren’t even allowed a crematorium, meaning they had to burn unceremoniously and laboriously.
“Hmm?”
At that moment, a rustling sound came from within the flames. Just as the undertaker was poking around, checking for kindling, he felt a soft touch suddenly yank him inside.
“Gah! Gaaahhh! Noooooo!”
Blood-curdling screams echoed. Heaven Len, who was shedding tears, was bewildered, yet contrasting with the fierce flames, the screams began to fade away.
A woman with one missing arm walked out of the flames, her smooth figure resembling freshly fired pottery.
“Oh… Aaaaah!”
Recognizing her identity, Heaven Len immediately knelt down and bowed his head, tightly shutting his eyes as if he wouldn’t dare look at her naked form.
Staring down at her only faithful believer, the priestess forced her mouth to open and said, with a voice like ashes:
“I’m going to the Forest of the Demon Realm.”
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