Chapter 42
Incense filled the room.
Before the altar, a man in pure white robes knelt.
His name was Raonel.
A man who had once sworn as a priest to follow only the will of God.
But before death, it was not God who offered him a hand of salvation.
Gawain Cardel, descendant of a hero.
Raonel's young brother was slowly dying from a curse that even divine power could not cure.
Just as all prayers and blessings were about to end in vain... he appeared.
He had completely lifted the curse that everyone had shaken their heads at, saying there was no way to cure it.
From that day on, Gawain became God to Raonel.
"...Am I finally being given a mission?"
His eyes were red with emotion, and his hands, offered as if to God, were trembling.
Footsteps approached from the other side.
Finally, Gawain Cardel, the eldest son of the Cardel family, appeared, wearing a white cloak.
He smiled quietly.
"The time has come for God to test you."
His voice was infinitely gentle and benevolent.
Raonel squeezed his eyes shut.
The moment he had so desperately longed for.
The moment his faith was finally being proven.
"The place you must go is Bellader."
"Bellader... the port city?"
Gawain placed his hand on his shoulder with a kind gesture.
"People are foolish creatures who only regain faith when a miracle occurs. You must open the prelude to that miracle."
"...Are there people I must save?"
Gawain smiled gently and handed him a vial.
The vial, sealed in multiple layers, looked very important at a glance.
"Is this... a cure?"
"No, it's a 'disease'."
"...Excuse me?"
He doubted his ears for a moment.
But Gawain continued with an unchanging expression.
"Spread the epidemic."
Raonel's pupils shook violently.
The vial he held trembled in his hand.
"This is God's trial, Raonel. You are carrying out God's mission."
"B-but... many people will die. Innocent people..."
At those words, Gawain sighed deeply and shook his head as if disappointed.
His smile mimicked benevolence, but there was a subtle mockery mixed in.
"Oh dear, a servant of God still has such short-sighted thoughts."
Gawain continued in a low, persuasive voice.
"Raonel, you will be the 'one who opens the way'. Only through pain and despair do people remember God."
"..."
"When a miracle finally appears in that despair, people will praise God. And the beginning of all those miracles... is you."
Raonel swallowed.
The man who had performed a miracle before his very eyes, one that even the priests could not accomplish, at the moment that could have been his younger brother's last.
From then on, he believed that Gawain was a being who carried out God's mission much closer than the priests.
Surely, the will of God resided in him...
"...To awaken true faith in the foolish...?"
"That's right. You know what the most important value is after all."
As he bit his lip as if wavering, Gawain gently added the final words.
"Go to Bellader. Use your position in the temple where you have been for so long to blend in naturally with them. And quietly pour this liquid into the village well."
Raonel swallowed hard and looked down at the small glass vial in his hand.
Inside, a green liquid was sloshing.
Gawain smiled quietly.
"This is God's trial, Raonel. And don't forget that you are God's tool."
Raonel hugged the vial to his chest and stood up unsteadily.
As his footsteps faded away, silence returned to the room.
It was at that moment.
The smile slowly disappeared from Gawain's face.
Without leaving even a trace of expression, he shone a cold light in the cold silence.
"Come out."
From the darkness where there was no sign of life, a man in black clothes walked out quietly.
He was a secret agent of the Cardel family.
"That priest loses his reason when it comes to anything related to his brother. If he does anything different from the order, use any means to make him carry it out."
Gawain chuckled.
"He needs to clearly understand what price he's paying."
It meant threatening him with his family's lives if things went wrong.
The man knew without Gawain having to explain it any further.
That was his daily life.
"And take care of him before I arrive. Disguise it as an epidemic."
"Yes."
"Report any abnormalities immediately. If things go wrong... we can blame it on the temple."
He quietly stared at the door where Raonel had disappeared, then slowly raised the corners of his lips.
"Once again, it's time to save the foolish people."
His eyes were already on Bellader.
Odelia hid in a baggage cart and endured the rattling wheels all night.
As the day dawned dimly, she arrived at the outskirts of Bellader, quietly got off the cart, and moved her steps to the predetermined path.
Although all official routes were blocked by the lockdown order, an old drainage passage remained that merchants had used and forgotten long ago.
It wasn't on the map, and even the soldiers didn't know about it, but Odelia remembered it.
'To be exact, it's Ludville's memory.'
Odelia held her breath, lowered her waist, and squeezed her body through the cracked floor.
The smell of damp soil, mold, and the stench of rotten water vibrated, but she didn't care.
She headed straight to the ruined heart of Bellader.
The port city was as silent as if it were dead.
The windows were tightly closed in every alley, and the streets were empty.
A few faces peering through the cracks in the doors were filled with fear and resignation.
Corpses were left unattended on the streets, and a faint Demonic Energy wandered through the alleys along with the stench of decay.
It was then.
The sound of someone crying was heard in the distance.
"Ugh, please... I'm alive. I'm alive..."
A boy staggering out of an alley stumbled and fell to the ground.
A bloodied face, skin flushed red with fever.
The Demonic Energy that surrounded him was wrapped around his body like black vines.
Odelia did not hesitate.
She ran fearlessly into the alley where the boy had fallen, knelt down, and examined his condition.
His breath was faint, as if it were about to stop.
When she placed her hand on his forehead, a heat as hot as a burn touched her palm.
"...It's okay. You'll be okay now."
At that moment, something stirred.
The Demonic Energy stirred as if it were a living creature, trying to bite her fingertips.
'Don't you dare.'
Odelia drew up her Purification ability.
The power of Purification that bloomed from her palm slowly began to confine it.
The flow of air stirred roughly, then slowly subsided.
The boy's trembling stopped, and his slightly rough breathing became evenly regulated.
Odelia carefully laid the boy on a bench and headed to the middle of the square filled with Demonic Energy.
A street submerged in despair.
To the center of the chaos where black smoke and Demonic Energy rose, and screams erupted incessantly.
'It's not too late yet.'
The Demonic Energy was growing by feeding on fear, but if dealt with accurately, it could be suppressed immediately.
Because this was...
'An intentionally spread epidemic.'
