“I really am a sinner after all.”
Inside the dim wooden hut, only a tiny flicker of candlelight swayed.
That candle flame was on the verge of going out. Compared to the enormous flames in the distance beyond the window, those lights that represented death and despair, it was so frail, so dim, so powerless.
Just like the sloppy, battered Limping Priest sitting collapsed against the wall inside the room.
A tiny flame could not fight a fiercer blaze. Even a moth throwing itself into the fire would be meaningless. And so, aside from burning alone here until the very last moment, it could do nothing.
“Not just a sinner... a useless sinner too.”
The Limping Priest tilted his head back and poured a large mouthful of cheap liquor down his throat. Blood had dyed the corner of his clothes red, but he seemed completely unaware of it. He only showed a self-mocking bitter smile.
“I can’t do anything. I can only watch helplessly as... the sins increase.”
Pain, wailing, despair, rage...
Though the distance between them was very great, the priest could still clearly feel it all. He could even feel each death of an innocent person.
And every single death seemed to carve another cut across his soul, bringing him a piercing, bone-eating agony.
The agony called self-reproach.
This pain could not be escaped. It had followed him for decades. And there was only one way to weaken it temporarily...
The priest reached to the side and found a rusty dagger. He lifted the front of his clothes and aimed it at his body, already covered in scars, at wounds that could no longer be described even with the words “ghastly to behold.”
His heart was exposed, pulsing open and closed.
The priest searched for a long while before finally finding a spot where he could barely bring the blade down.
Then he began to pray.
“Goddess above, please bring down holy punishment for these unforgivable sins of mine.”
With that, the priest suddenly clenched the blade and drove it hard toward his chest—
“Knock, knock.”
Before the blade could fall, and before the pain could be eased, the door of the shabby wooden hut was suddenly knocked on.
The priest’s eyes snapped open.
“Who is it?”
He knew very well what was happening in the West District right now, and he also understood that the entire city had already fallen into chaos.
And yet at a time like this, someone had actually come to a place like the cemetery and knocked on his door...
Could it be her?
No. If it were her, she would not knock.
Then who was—
Amid his confusion, the priest was just about to force his senses outward despite his current physical condition, when...
Bang!
The door, which looked battered but had been specially treated by him in some way, and which by rights should have been impossible for anyone below the Crowned to break open easily, was kicked open just like that.
Black flame flashed and vanished. The door panel collapsed straight down. A pair of leather boots, so expensive they could have bought the entire wooden hut outright, entered the priest’s vision. Then came a voice that sounded somewhat familiar, and furious.
“Stop fucking hiding in here praying! If you keep praying, all the little boys you like are going to die!”
“You’re...”
The Limping Priest froze for a moment. Only then did he recognize him as the young gangster he had briefly dealt with before.
No, that gangster identity was probably just some kind of disguise. Hidden behind that false face should be the true face of that famous—or rather infamous—
But regardless of who he was, why had he suddenly appeared here?
And why did he look... like they knew each other well?
They had clearly only worked together once.
“What little boys?”
The priest instinctively retorted, his expression displeased.
“I already told you, that was just nonsense I made up to trick you.”
“Is that so?”
Muen looked completely unconcerned.
“That doesn’t matter... what matters is that this isn’t the time for you to have the leisure to hide in a dark little room and pray over and over. Hurry up and get yourself together. The little boys need you!”
“Pray... I keep feeling like that word has changed flavor when it comes out of your mouth.” The priest’s cheek twitched. “Also, let me emphasize this again. The thing about little boys—”
“All right, stop talking. If you can take it the wrong way, that means you aren’t pious enough. You should reflect on whether the problem is with you.”
Muen walked into the room, swept his gaze over it quickly, and immediately followed the motion by reaching out to cover the eyes of a certain little brat beside him.
“Wh-what’s wrong?”
The little brat also looked extremely nervous.
“What do you mean by ‘pray’? Is it some kind of evil ritual?”
“This is the kind of thing children are better off not knowing for the time being. Go. Go help the matron settle everyone else. This whole cemetery area has some kind of formation set up by this guy, so it should be temporarily safe.”
Muen turned the little brat who had been following him all this time a hundred and eighty degrees in place.
“Do we... do we really have to stay in the cemetery the whole time?”
Feeling the chill outside, Pero instinctively swallowed.
When he heard Muen say that the so-called safe zone was actually a cemetery, he had also been startled. The only reason everyone had managed to follow him here was entirely because they trusted this “savior.”
“What, scared?” Muen raised a brow. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
“Who! Who’s scared!”
Pero immediately bared his teeth.
“What dragon’s lair or tiger’s den haven’t I, Pero, broken into? I’m a famous figure in this city, more or less. A mere cemetery... who hasn’t danced in a graveyard before? I’ll arrange a party tonight!”
Pero, who had resolved to throw a party tonight, stormed off and rejoined the matron and the others, who had already started arranging everyone’s temporary shelter.
In the entire cemetery, there was only this small wooden hut and a warehouse. The living could not exactly fight the dead over space, so the matron directed everyone to clean out the warehouse. At least they would have somewhere to stay tonight.
And Pero immediately started discussing party plans with his sister to cheer everyone up. There would be an amazing party held in this cemetery tonight. Guess who wouldn’t be getting an invitation?
“Looks like they don’t need anyone worrying about them anymore.”
After only two people were left here, Muen picked up the door panel from the ground and stuffed it back into the frame, returning the small wooden hut to silence.
“Surely you don’t think this means I won’t make you pay for my door,” the priest said expressionlessly. “That door was rather expensive.”
“You think I can’t afford it?” Muen asked back.
“...Did you come here specifically to show off your wealth?”
“If this counts as showing off wealth, then what would you call it if I sold my old man’s estate by the pound like fruit?”
“...”
The priest fell silent.
After all, this had touched on a blind spot in his knowledge. He could not really understand it.
“Speaking of which, whether I can afford to pay is one thing. Whether you make me pay is another.”
Muen walked to the priest’s side and shook the bottle of cheap liquor in his hand. Then... he casually poured it all out.
Just as the priest’s cheek twitched nearly to its limit...
Muen took out another bottle of high-end liquor that looked top-tier at a glance, opened the stopper with one hand, and poured it in for the priest.
Muen handed the glass bottle now filled with good liquor back to the priest, while he himself took a small sip from the original bottle.
“We’ve at least got the kind of friendship that comes from risking our lives together. Asking for compensation over every little thing like this is a bit too chilling, isn’t it?”
“...We do have some friendship, but I don’t think that incident can be called ‘risking our lives together.’”
The priest hesitated for a moment, but still took a small sip. The mellow taste brought by good liquor instantly washed away the bitterness of the cheap stuff, making his brows unconsciously relax quite a bit.
“If you mean that cooperation... she was nothing more than a Church traitor. If not for needing to hide myself, I would have dealt with her back then.”
“So your memory really does still stop at that Great Sister?”
Muen smiled, but he was not angry.
Because this was very normal and very reasonable.
If the priest had suddenly talked about the matter of the two of them riding shovels to flip off the Holy Lord of Salvation, that would have made him feel despair and powerlessness instead...
Because that would mean his actions had completely failed.
“You’re wounded this badly. You’ve already fought her?”
Muen suddenly glanced at the corner of the priest’s clothes, dyed red with blood.
That position was not one where self-harm would leave traces.
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
The priest remained perfectly calm.
“Who did I fight?”
“Who else? Your moonlight from long ago, Miss Olive, of course.”
Muen pulled the corner of his mouth into a mocking grin.
“Otherwise, you’re still a Crowned, one way or another. Why would you be injured badly enough that even your senses have contracted to this extent?”
“You!”
A terrifying aura suddenly erupted from the priest. The house trembled. Massive pressure swept out like a tsunami. It was hard to imagine that this world-destroying presence came from an old, lame priest.
But after showing itself for only a moment, all that aura withdrew back into the priest’s body as if it had never appeared.
The priest poured down another large mouthful of liquor, his voice hoarse.
“How did you know? About me... and about Olive.”
“Of course you told me yourself. Otherwise, who could randomly make up such a bloody melodramatic story?”
Muen shrugged.
“At least with my profound skill in lying through my teeth after facing countless battlefields of romantic carnage, even I couldn’t invent that kind of illogical bullshit.”
“...I have never told you anything like that.”
The priest stared at Muen expressionlessly.
“I may be injured, but I haven’t injured my brain. My memory has not deteriorated to the point of making mistakes.”
“Of course you don’t remember.”
Muen met his eyes calmly.
“Because when you told me about it, it wasn’t in the present, and it wasn’t in the past. It was... in the future.”
“The future?”
The priest froze for a moment, then scoffed.
“That’s even more absurd. Are you telling me a fairy tale?”
“Whether it’s absurd or not, shouldn’t you see it with your own eyes first?”
Muen extended his hand with a half-smile.
“Or have you already grown so old and muddleheaded that you don’t even have the courage to accept something like this?”
“...”
The priest said nothing more.
Of course he was not old and muddleheaded. And even if he was badly wounded, he was not so far gone as to fear this brat who was only Fifth Rank.
So after only a moment of hesitation, he reached out and gripped Muen’s hand.
“Good.”
Muen smiled.
In his mental space, pages rustled and flipped.
The information perfectly recorded there transformed from text into the scenes that had once happened, one image after another surfacing before the priest’s eyes.
“This is...”
The priest was stunned for a long time, because those images, so utterly unfamiliar to him... were also so real.
So real that it seemed as though he had truly experienced them himself.
Very soon, all the images finished playing, and the priest still stood dazed in place.
But he did not show confusion. He only murmured in sudden realization.
“So that’s it. This is what you meant by... truly taking the stage again.”
