Chapter 15
The Retired Saintess Raises House Prices Episode 15
Episode 15
As if annoyed, Lavel kicked Mikhail's abdomen—now on the ground—with moderate force.
Only then did Mikhail writhe like a maggot and cough violently. He couldn't regain his senses easily, rolling on the dirt ground gulping air before passing out again.
Now, the only ones properly standing were Lavel Winters and Shuana.
Shuana alternated her pale, ashen face between the unconscious Mikhail and the long drag marks on the ground left as he was pulled away.
At that moment, a middle-aged woman's laughter faintly echoed from the tip of Lavel's sword.
It was a small sound, like shouting from far away, but someone sensitive or with strong holy power might have heard it.
Lavel hurriedly sheathed his sword, covering the ghost's wail with his own voice.
“Are you really a saintess? How dare you try to catch ghosts when you can't even do anything properly.”
He glanced down at Shuana with mocking reproach.
Fortunately—or unfortunately—she seemed not to have heard a thing.
Shuana still looked like white dough, surveying the surroundings.
Before they knew it, thick fog had filled all directions.
“A ghost with deep grudges. Making fog to obscure vision, no less.”
Lavel waved his arm dismissively, his tone still brimming with annoyance.
He was about to tell Shuana to keep what she'd witnessed a secret.
But Shuana's eyes glazed over, staring into the distance as if drawn by something. She curled up, covering her nose and mouth, and huddled on the ground.
As if the fog were poisonous smoke she had to avoid, even though it couldn't be.
And suddenly, as if her throat had gone dry, she started dry-heaving.
Lavel frowned down at the balled-up Shuana.
“What are you doing? Scared of the fog or something?”
But Shuana seemed not to hear even Lavel's sarcasm.
Between coughs, she muttered in a barely audible whisper.
“M-me too....... I'm right here....... Mom. Dad.”
“Saintess. Hey. Shuana!”
Lavel called her name, but she just kept trembling, curled up.
“Nothing's there—what the hell are you possessed by? So annoying.”
As Lavel reached out to grab her shoulder and pull her up, Shuana suddenly jerked her head up.
Her blue eyes, peering through translucent silver hair like pale purple paint drops mixed in water, trembled in terror at Lavel.
“......Take me too.”
“What?”
“It's hot. Get me out.”
Tears streamed down her white cheek in rivulets.
But Lavel sensed no evil spirit, not even a whiff of ghostly energy. This was a hallucination she'd conjured herself.
Then, Shuana grabbed Lavel's arm on her shoulder with both hands, like clutching a lifeline, before letting it slip away.
In that fleeting moment as her hand slid, it brushed his.
Shuana collapsed face-first onto the ground.
Lavel stared silently at the sprawled saintess before looking down at his right hand, where her fingers had grazed.
‘......For a very brief moment, things went quiet around us.’
To confirm his suspicion, Lavel slowly reached toward the unconscious Shuana.
At that instant, Shuana's eyes snapped open.
Startled by his own reflex, Lavel quickly backpedaled a couple steps.
Unlike her panicked state just before passing out, the recovered Shuana seemed composed.
After glancing around as if assessing the situation, she rubbed her arms and legs vigorously with both hands.
Shuana shook her head briefly, then took deep breaths in and out to steady herself.
“......Ahem, hey. Saintess. You okay?”
“Ah. Yes....... I'm fine.”
Quickly composing herself, Shuana put on the same dumb, innocent expression as the other saintesses and asked Lavel.
As if erasing her freakout over the fog, highlighting only the knight captain's well-being, like someone desperate for it.
“Count Winters. What just happened? The captain suddenly got dragged away like someone grabbed his nape.”
“Worried about him right after waking up? You were the one shaking like crazy until moments ago. Must've been abused as a kid or something.”
Shuana's lips pressed tight for a moment before parting.
“......My parents aren't like that. Abuse? Don't be ridiculous.”
Her response to Lavel's mockery was aggressively defensive, unlike before.
If she had a sword in hand and could beat him, she'd slit his throat right then.
Odd for her to defend her parents so fiercely.
‘She didn't exactly grow up pampered, from what I know.’
Lavel had investigated the suspicious saintess Shuana after the title conferral ceremony.
Baron Frank Hartwin, suspecting his wife's infidelity, never acknowledged her as his daughter or gave her his name, unable to discard her due to public scrutiny.
Raised in an attic without basic education, then sold to the Temple by her parents.
That was all the info on Shuana.
Resentment toward her parents would be more natural.
“You grabbed me and said it was hot, begged to be let out.”
“I don't remember at all. Must've misheard. Did you get possessed by a ghost too, Count?”
Shuana insisted on defending her parents to the end.
What great affection for people who barely raised her. Do you revere parents who dump unwanted kids too?
Lavel frowned at her unusually reticent attitude about her parents.
“......Whatever. Drop it.”
Lavel answered curtly without properly looking at her.
“Your group all got hit by an evil spirit.”
“......An evil spirit? What about Captain Mikhail? Is our captain okay? He won't stay unconscious forever, right?”
She oddly seemed delighted—was it his imagination?
The saintess's voice sounded strangely upbeat.
“Check for yourself.”
The moment Lavel finished speaking, Shuana scrambled on her knees toward Mikhail.
“Captain Severino! Are you okay? Captain Mikhail Severino!”
She slapped his unconscious cheek.
Multiple times in a row.
As if harboring malice, she smacked him hard enough to whip his face side to side, but Severino didn't wake.
To confirm he was out, a couple light taps would've sufficed, but Shuana swung her arm wide, repeatedly walloping his face.
“Wake! Up! Cap! Tain! Mi! Khail! Se! Ve! Ri! No!”
As Lavel approached to stop her excess, Shuana swiftly changed posture.
She pressed her ear to his chest to check his heartbeat, then held a hand to his nose to confirm breathing.
‘Looked like she was just gleefully beating him senseless.’
Still trembling in fear, she glanced around vigilantly.
A normal reaction.
A bit overdone, but Shuana's terrified response was so utterly ordinary that Lavel wanted to die again.
“Guess it was my imagination.”
He'd thought she was a real saintess.
Apparently, Shuana lacked even a fingernail's worth of holy power, unable to sense evil spirits or their energy.
Saintesses who entered the Temple out of desperation, carrying scriptures useful only as kindling and reciting them, were a dime a dozen.
She was just one of them.
He'd harbored vain hopes.
The past few days tracking her, holding onto hope, were judged futile in that instant.
