Chapter 177.
The mouse-like priest clicked his tongue as he saw the children entering the playroom and said, "Are you still living with those dirty things?”
Just a glance told me that he didn’t come here with good intentions, but those words were something that shouldn’t come from a priest’s mouth.
When the mouse-like face spoke, Sister Riemann cried out in a fit of rage, "What did you just say?!"
At Sister Riemann’s cry, the ruffians accompanying the mouse face stepped forward and threatened Sister Riemann. "Shouting out of the blue, you have a poor personality befitting someone who lives in such a shabby place."
The mouse face hid behind the ruffians and poked at Sister Riemann. This was obviously a deliberate provocation.
"Sister Riemann-nim, please take the children and go inside."
When the head nun noticed the provocation and stopped her, Sister Riemann bit her lips and took the children into the playroom.
Once the nun saw that the children had been completely evacuated, she told the mouse face, "Priest Letra, some guests are visiting today, so wouldn’t it be fine if I go there myself later?"
The mouse face gave a nasty laugh when the head nun pointed at us and asked for clarification, "We’re guests as well. Aren’t you being too discriminatory?"
It was ridiculous that a man who called the children dirty things was talking about discrimination.
"Oh, they must be guests who have given you some kind of donation, right? In my parish, we don’t treat people poorly based on money like this, but I guess it isn’t the same for Head Nun-nim."
For this to be said by someone who looked so greedy, he was quite good at twisting words.
"Didn’t I say I’d go to the great temple? So, let’s call it a day."
"Aigoo, you don’t need to travel there with your old body. I’ll just visit again." The mouse face interrupted the head nun.
Then, he nodded to the ruffians standing behind him. "But since you keep rejecting the great temple’s earnest request, please know that my hands are tied.”
The ruffian began to break the chairs and desks, as well as the dolls and toys left by the children in the living room.
"What are you doing?!" Full of justice, Lisbon blocked the ruffians.
No matter how tired he was, he was still a knight candidate on break from knights school, so he easily overpowered the ruffians.
The mouse face frowned when Lisbon beat the ruffians and said, "What are you doing?! How dare you interrupt the just actions of the great temple? How can you still call yourself a believer!"
At the mouse face’s rant, Lisbon showed a rare look of genuine anger and approached him. "Are you saying these actions are just?!"
"Hiik!" Due to Lisbon’s martial aura, which seemed like it was about to attack at any moment, Mouse Face fell on his butt.
This punk even knows how to use martial aura now. Martial aura was as difficult to use as sword aura. From the look on his face, it seemed that he didn’t even realize he was releasing martial aura. Even the paladins outside felt Lisbon’s martial aura and focused their attention on him.
I sighed and pulled Lisbon’s arm. "Calm down."
"Do you think I can calm down right now?” Lisbon asked me angrily.
I pointed at the mouse’s face collar. "I don’t know about the ruffians lying on the floor, but you can’t touch that man. He’s a priest directly associated with the great temple."
Although Lisbon had the backing of the prime minister, his opponent had the great temple. Even though the prime minister’s individual power was overwhelming, there was no organization in this country that could match the scale of the great temple.
As soon as it mistakenly turned into a political battle between the prime minister and the great temple, Lisbon would be caught up in something so annoying that he wouldn’t be able to handle it. It’s a good thing I followed along today. The situation almost became annoying because of Lisbon.
When I stopped Lisbon, the mouse face on the floor started to regain some spirit. "Ah, hahahaha. That’s right. It appears that believer-nim seems to have his head screwed on right!"
Wow, that mouse face was the first person in both of my lives to tell me I had my head screwed on right. That mouse face has good eyes; I’m suddenly starting to like him a little. Still, I didn’t stop Lisbon for that mouse face’s sake, but for this pushover who was so angry that he couldn’t tell the difference between front and back.
Mouse Face shook his finger at Lisbon. "Hnng, getting a little upset just because we broke some old cruddy stuff that those dirty things use. Were you even educated?”
Just like his face, Mouse Face’s mouth was quite dirty as well. You have to avoid poop, not block it with your bare hands. At the very least, it would be more efficient to wear a mask and make a goodwill visit later. It seemed the need to use a new mask arose sooner than I thought.
"What!"
"I said calm down." As I calmed Lisbon from getting upset again, I suddenly received a message via sound transmission magic.
- Hey! Stop the Saintess-nim!
Before I knew it, Hillis had approached the mouse face. With a gentle smile, she swung at Mouse Face’s head with a fist full of divine power. Since the paladin had instructed me, I first wrapped one hand around Hillis’s waist before backing away. Fortunately, Hillis’s fist swept through the air right in front of his nose.
"Let go! I need to punch that mouse face!"
I guess I wasn’t the only one who thought that priest looked like a mouse.
"That fist will kill him." With the amount of divine power Hillis had in her fist, she could destroy a building in a single blow.
"It’s fine! I can save him!"
Surely, with Hillis’s divine power, she could forcefully revive that mouse face right before he died. In the process of having his shattered head regenerated, he would feel terrible pain, but that’s none of my business.
Hmm, should I have just let her hit him?
- Thank you. Thanks to you, we were able to prevent trouble with the great temple.
The paladin outside sent me his thanks. Trouble, you say? I roughly understood what the situation was. In the temple, there were hardliners who wanted to regain their old authority and moderates who wanted to coexist with the imperial family. Among them, the great temple in the capital was home to the hardliners, and Saintess Hillis was the face of the moderates.
Here, it could be a problem if Hillis, the representative of the moderates, made a priest of the great temple half-dead. Of course, considering the class difference between a saintess and a priest, it would not be a big problem, but it was clear that the image of the saintess would be damaged.
"This, such an uneducated woman!" Mouse Face pointed at Hillis and hurled all kinds of curses.
I don’t think I need to worry about that mouse face now. No matter how ignorant I was to these things, if a clergyman, not even an ordinary citizen, were hurling abusive language to the saintess, there would be an inquisition.
For reference, the inquisition was not for heresy but a trial for priests belonging to the temple. You could assume that if you were put on trial, you would die regardless of whether you were guilty or innocent.
This was because the method of confirming your guilt was to tie you up on a mountain of firewood and light it up. Contrary to the witch trials in my past life, the logic was if God forgave him, he would survive, and if he did not forgive him, he would die.
"Certainly, I was too hasty, wasn’t I?" As if she had thought of Mouse Face’s future, Hillis looked at Mouse Face with a look of pity while listening to his swearing.
"Well, you know what the temple always says.”
Hillis and I smiled and spoke at the same time.
"Everything is arranged by God."
"Everything is arranged by God.”
In the first place, this happened because Mouse Face’s personality was trash. It was all self-inflicted. However, that didn’t mean Mouse Face would certainly die. This world had mana, so there have been cases where people survived by holding on with mana until the fire went out. In the past, a famous saint was charged with colluding with heretics and put on a religious trial, but he actually survived and became a pope in his later years.
Well, with that minuscule amount of divine power that Mouse Face had, it would be impossible to outlast the fire even if he died and woke back up. [1]
In fact, it was clear that those dimwit paladins were holding themselves back because if they executed him immediately, he would die painlessly. If there were a religious trial, he would die painfully. It was amazing that he was still alive despite the paladins releasing such a large amount of killing intent to the point where it felt viscous.
"Kaak-! Tweh!" Mouse Face spit on the floor, ignorant of his own future, and woke up the ruffians that had fainted with the tiny amount of divine power he had.
"This is a warning. I hope to get a sufficient answer next time. And no matter how much you like money, don’t accept women like her.”
I don’t know what his eyes were seeing, but even to the end, Mouse Face continued to dig his own grave.
"Oh, it’s cold. It must be drafty because the building is worn out."
It was not a draft but the paladins’ killing intent. Mouse Face went away with the ruffians he had brought along.
- Now let Saintess-nim go.
When I heard an uncomfortable voice, I realized that I was still holding onto Hillis.
"Oh, sorry."
When I let her go and apologized, she smiled and waved her hands. "No, I survived thanks to you. Of course, even if I hit him as I wanted, nothing would likely have happened, but it would have been a hassle."
There was a wicked sense of playfulness in Hillis’s smile. I was certain that those dimwit paladins would somehow always clean up after whatever bad things Hillis did. In the worst case, it was possible to erase his memory even if there were aftereffects.
After Mouse Face left, Sister Riemann brought the children out of the playroom. The children’s faces were full of anxiety. I had thought the children were a little too wary, but I guess things like this must have happened before.
The head nun first apologized to us. "I’m sorry to have let you experience something like this."
Hillis spoke with an earnest expression when the head nun apologized. "Can you tell us what’s going on?”
When Hillis asked for the whole story, the head nun hesitated then asked to move to the head nun’s office.
"Come on, let’s go." Hillis pulled my arm.
"Why would I go?"
I didn’t want to get in on this seemingly annoying thing.
When I clearly indicated that I thought this was a nuisance, Hillis changed her target to Lisbon. "After seeing this injustice, can you just stand by and do nothing, Brother Lisbon-nim?"
While talking to Lisbon, Hillis glanced at me and gave a playful smile. Hillis seemed to be reading my thoughts as much as I was reading hers.
She was trying to make me take action using any method to the point I wondered if this was why I was becoming homophobic. [2] How vicious.
"Of course not!"
The righteous pushover was trying to soak his feet in something beyond his abilities again today.
"Tch, all right. We can go together.” I followed Hillis and Lisbon to the head nun’s office.
1. With his tiny amount of divine power, he would still die from the fire even if he had two lives.
2. This is kind of confusing, but he is saying that others mistake him and Lisbon for having such a close relationship to the point they think Lisbon can be used against him. He thinks that others might think they are gay, and so he is developing homophobia in response. Homophobia is still big in Korea.
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