Astein was trying to walk back to the path of death. Should I run and stop him right now?
“Well, I hope that doesn’t change your mind.”
“Don’t worry. I believe you and will come back.”
“Yes, our next meeting will be at my funeral.”
I forgot about that. The real saint could foresee his or her last day approaching.
The saint told this to the Marquis, because it was a very sensitive matter. I supposed to get and use my divine power before she passed away, but I didn’t get it.
“Don’t say that. You must hold on more.”
Originally, only the temple had to know the day when a saint would pass away. Even the Marquis shouldn’t know about it. However, she told Astein about it.
“Living and dying must be left to God’s will. God probably doesn’t intend to keep me in this world any longer. I’m only a grown-up adult who lacks in many ways.”
The voice of the saint was a little weak. In fact, she had a shorter life span than other saints. She used to say it was her own fault.
“Saint…”
“Aren’t you supposed to go back?”
“Yes, I think I should go. There’s a lot of work to be done.”
“Well. Good luck.”
I felt his steps were getting farther away. As always, it was a neat and constant sound without any clutter. It was always solid when it followed me.
I heard it as a way to calm my mind when I was full of tension and anxiety. I couldn’t miss it. I wanted to go after his step like I used to. He also had to be warned not to become a paladin.
At least if I found out about his family, I could figure out what to do next…
“Saint!”
“Freya. What are you doing in the temple without a message?”
I automatically lowered my head to the face of the saint who blocked my way. It was an instinctive fear. It was because I met someone who had been as hard on me as my father.
Of course, the admonition of a saint was different from my father’s. There was always warm in the harsh words.
“That… I came to pray…”
“Freya, what do a saint should do?”
“…We should communicate clearly with dignity and clarity.”
“Yes. What about the eyes?”
Instead of speaking, I answered by looking straight at the saint. Then, she looked at me with warm and gentle eyes.
“Did you tell the Marquis that you’re coming to the temple?”
“No. I came out in a hurry because I was anxious about the dream I had at dawn.”
“What was your dream?”
I couldn’t answer that easily. How could I say I dreamed of dying because it turned out that I was a fake saint?
“It was a dream about my future. I think it was because I was in a position where I was too anxious.”
“I see. I understand your mind. So did you get an answer from God?”
She looked at me with anxious eyes. The tender and warm eyes filled my heart.
“I’m not sure yet.”
“So Freya, would you like a cup of tea with me?”
༻✿༺
In the reception room, I had to drink tea with meaningless conversation. However, I became nervous as I kept thinking about one person.
“Apologize for my rudeness. But, who did you met a while ago?”
I had to live under my father’s control and never had to be in a social gathering. So there wasn’t much I knew about Astein, perhaps he’s a member of a high-ranking noble family.
“Freya, paladins and saints are the closest, but you know it’s a relationship that needs to be distanced?” she said a little firmly.
There was no way I couldn’t understand the meaning of the remark. I supposed to be a saint who had to look at the God Thea and He would guide me for all my life. In return, I was required to perform miracles on people with the divine power I received.
“So don’t pay attention to him. Don’t you know what will happen if the Marquis finds out?”
If I happened to talk to a guy I didn’t know, I would get locked in the attic for days. Ate curse.
“I know. I just wanted to ask as someone who is deeply touched by the fact that someone’s become a paladin despite family’s opposition.”
And the stories about praise and faith toward God continued again. Unlike when I wanted to become a saint by any means, I wasn’t strangely focused.
“Did you hear when I will leave?”
However, I had no choice but to concentrate on the current story. It’s the day the tragedy begins.
“Yes….”
“Is there any change in divine power?”
I couldn’t answer. Right before the reversion, the divine power that came to me was a miracle and scattered. I didn’t even know if the divine power was mine.
When I didn’t answer, the saint sighed.
“When you were young, you’re obviously born with divine power… That’s why you became a member of the family. But how did it happen?”
The memories of my past life that had been brought back to life just before my death filled my mind again.
I was misunderstood and kicked out of the streets of the slums for strange powers. Someone took me to the Marquis’ orphanage, and because of the divine power I used, I became Marquis’ stepdaughter.
Since then, I was raised in harsh training to become a saint.
Until now, children from Marquis Futor were born to become a saint. But I was an exception. That’s why I was hated and abused more.
“On the day I leave, I will pass on all my divine powers. That will prove you’re the next saint, and you’ll be able to last a long time.”
I was quite respectful and fond of the saint. But I wasn’t a saint after all. So I was only telling the same story. The saint took my hand when I didn’t answer, exactly the left wrist that was wearing the silver bracelet.
I waited quietly because I thought I might be caught and I’d took the bracelet under the cuff.
“So be a real saint. Not a fake, a real saint.”
My heart was hurt to the voice.
“It’s only God’s answer you haven’t heard yet, so you don’t have to be anxious.”
The words of the saint who said things that couldn’t be done had struck my wounds of the past. Even then, I borrowed the divine power from the saint, but it’s still impossible.
“Can you last two more years?” So I asked.
In just two years, the real saint, the illegitimate child of the Marquis Futor, would appear. Then there was nothing left for me than became a fake saint.
“My death isn’t my choice, is it?”
Though it was a fact that I knew, despair came when I heard it myself. I thought I might not be able to change the future.
“Saint, if I come to find a true saint, who has divine power, will I find freedom?”
But I couldn’t just stay the same. I shouldn’t let go of the opportunity that was given to me.
The saint looked at me with a slightly stern face.
“Freya, are you really a saint? Have you already forgotten my words that you should be a real saint?”
“But it’s obvious that I can’t use the divine power, I’m sure there’s someone who can be the real God Thea’s surrogate.”
“If the real saint really exists, wouldn’t it have been known among the people already?”
I was a little disappointed by the way she said it firmly. I was convinced that I had been through the future, but what would happen if I said I wasn’t a saint who had divine power and listened to the word of God?
Well, I didn’t know that at all.
“Freya, I consider you as my real nephew. The most urgent task is to find divine power quickly for the sake of the family and for yourself.”
The friendly speaking lady touched my hand. But as she passed the comfort, my heart became heavier.
When I returned to the carriage, I calmly recalled the future. The reason I and Asteindied, it seemed, no matter how much I thought, was because I became a fake saint.
“Ellaner…”
The real saint, I had to find her. If the real saint appeared, the Marquis still wouldn’t release me easily. I knew the secret that made me a saint.
If the Marquis found the real saint to keep the noble name of him and his family, he would try to kill me. So I had to get her first and put the real saint in front of everyone at the coronation of a saint and then I ran away.
At least, Astein wouldn’t repeat the same future.
While I was thinking about it, the wagon moved towards the Marquis’ mansion. I hurriedly opened on the window and told the horseman.
“I will stop by the slums first.”
Finding Ellaner in the slum was a clue to change to the future. It was the only thing I could do to change the future.
It was a chance to find her traces now.
“The Marquis may be angry.”
“There’s a word of God. My father will understand.”
“I understand.”
The face of the horseman was full of complaints. I sat down and thought about how to stop Astein from becoming a holy knight.
First of all, I had to find out about his identity. Could I go to the temple tomorrow and asked the holy knights?
“Kyaa!”
However, after some time, the carriage suddenly stopped. Even it was tilted.
“My Lady, what should I do? The wheel is missing in the mud. You have to come out for a while until we get the carriage out.”
The sight of the carriage on the outside was terrible. It wasn’t in the sludge, the wheel was warped. It seemed that it was forced to turn and try to avoid a large rock and then fell.
“You asked me to change direction, so I was in a hurry.”
The horseman narrowed his eyes a bit to rebuke me. Despite his impolite attitude, I couldn’t be angry. I could hear people’s sighs because I blocked their carriages and passerby unintentionally. It was exactly an accusation against me.
“Aren’t you a prospective saint from the Mansion of Futor?”
“That’s right. Then you can perform miracles with your divine power and remove the rocks.”
My face was red at the unflattering gaze toward me. To people, divine power was regarded as a function of the ability to do anything. I didn’t have the power to do that.
“Sacred power isn’t used for this little thing. I’ll put the rocks away.”
Then a dignified low voice rang. And the voice was the one I missed.
Astein!
He came out in front of me on a big horse. Like a prince in a fairy tale.
“Please wait.”
Astein didn’t look back at me. He just silently approached the rock. I didn’t know if I knew what I was watching, he was just as sincere as I remembered.
He stood in front of the rock with a large sword he had tied to his horse. Then, with a precise and quick hand, he carved the rock.
In the temple, Astein was the best knight. Maybe no one in the continent could beat him. So I was always able to trust him as my escort.
He lifted the rock that had fallen off and moved it. As I watched his back full of muscles, my heart began to beat. He was still trustworthy.
Only after he finished clearing the rock pieces and confirmed that the other carriages were free to pass, he came to me.
“Thank you.”
“You’re the Lady from the mansion of Marquis Futor, aren’t you?”
There was no warmth in his eyes that looked at me, it’s a clerical and mechanical look.
The first meeting with him was different from that time, the last one kept hurting. The guilt of last night’s dream kept crushing me.
The fact that I shouldn’t be in love pinched me even more.
“I’m Astein.”
He didn’t reveal his last name. Like in the past, he wouldn’t let me know who he was.
“I’m Freya Futor.”
“I know it well.”
Ironically, I didn’t know people in the world, but everyone in the world recognized me. Was it because of being trapped in a cage? I had always been a spectacle, a fool who doesn’t know people or the world.
And then I fell for someone who had been kind to me and drove him to death.
“….Thank you for your help.”
Fortunately, I didn’t get choked.
“The carriage doesn’t seem to be ready to use right now. What do you think?”
“I think I’ll have to wait for the repair to finish.”
It seemed wrong to go to the slums. I was going to drop by while I was sneaking out. The carriage from the Marquis would never send me anywhere else.
“My Lady, I’m sorry, but it won’t be fixed easily.”
At the sound of the horseman, Astein’s forehead was gathered slightly. After a while, he gave me a suggestion carefully.
“Then, would you like to take my horse and return to the Marquis?”
He looked at me as he spoke. He still had a troubled face with his eyebrows raised.
“Yes?”
“I know you’re going to be a saint, but I think you’ll be waiting forever. I’m planning to go there because I have some errands near Marquis Futor’s mansion.”
I had no choice but to hesitate. If the Marquis saw me rode a horse with a stranger, I knew exactly what the Marquis would do.
But when I saw Astein reached out to me with a big, solid hand, the desire that was hiding in me woke up. I wanted to stay close to him.
“Then, I’ll ask you to.”
Was it my illusion that I felt that Astein’s face, which was still businesslike, was briefly glowing?
Astein got on the horse first. Then he reached out a large hand with calluses on it.
“Hold my hand.”
When I held his hand, I felt like I could fly to his arms. In the arms of the person I missed the most.
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