Chapter 35: Unavoidable Heartbreak

Corollis and her two companions finally returned to the church. The little nun sweeping the church saw the soaked Corollis and asked anxiously what had happened.

Corollis sent Lane and Floris to rest in one of the church’s guest rooms. The Wound Zealot was handed over to the Gate of Sin beneath the church.

That was the place where sinners and criminals were imprisoned and sealing artifacts were controlled.

Inside the Gate of Sin was a prison for criminals, even for non-human things, along with the sealing artifact that Corollis said could make him talk.

“Ahhh, where is this? Haha, this is the so-called church of the Human God! A god born from the womb of dreams! The Human God who stole the power of dreams, hahaha…”

The Wound Zealot had woken up. Finding himself in a church, he couldn’t hold back his laughter.

Tears swirled in his eyes. Blood drained from his limbs. He grew even more frantic, as if being inside a Holy Faith church had driven him mad.

“Hahaha… hahaha… The god who stole the power of dreams, and its pack of followers, brazenly built a church… hahaha…”

“Dreams are the source of all power! You fools who worship that dream-thieving thief! Miracles! Agony! Only the miracle of agony is the one true path! We…”

Bang!

The Wound Zealot’s howls stopped short. Not because he chose to stop, but because a nun stepping out of the shadows cut off his ravings.

“No need to mind these madmen.”

The nun who cut him off did so with her own fist. She wore a black veil, silver chains coiled around her body, and she was covered in red bloodstains.

Like the little nun, she was a keeper of the sealing artifacts. Her name was Bedaya Lock.

Compared to the holy remains the little nun watched over, the artifact under her care was a bit more dangerous. Just a bit.

“Hahaha… come on, make me hurt, make me suffer, let me drown in death with my beloved!”

Bedaya seized his throat. The rough motion nearly snapped his neck.

“It’s not up to a bunch of madmen who only hurt themselves to judge our faith,” she said coldly.

The Wound Zealot still wanted to laugh. But with his throat squeezed, no sound came out. Only tears spilled from his eyes, falling into the blood on the church floor.

“Layla, clean this up.” Bedaya called to the little nun, then dragged the Wound Zealot deeper into the church.

“Ah! Coming, coming!”

The little nun, Layla, scurried over, grabbed her tools, and wiped up the blood the Wound Zealot had left behind.

“See? You can’t make a sound now, can you? What was all that racket for?”

Bedaya said this as she walked.

Lane watched it all without a word. If his senses were right, the nun who carried off the Wound Zealot was at the fifth rank, and she gave off a dangerous mixture of all kinds of power.

If he fought her, he would probably be taken down in one exchange. She was likely a keeper of sealing artifacts. If there were more keepers like her, the Holy Faith Church of the Silver Moon Kingdom was terrifyingly powerful.

Koen City wasn’t a particularly important city. If a small church like this had several fifth-rank masters, plus all those sealing artifacts, their strength probably surpassed the city’s army.

The Holy Faith churches of the Ten Silver Petition Federation were several times more terrifying. But that was because the Federation only allowed the Church to open churches in certain places. With their people so concentrated there, Lane wasn’t surprised by how strong those churches were.

But that this place had that kind of strength, he found genuinely surprising.

Still, it was a relief that he, as a Hero Candidate, was on good terms with the Church.

Floris had already been taken to the reception room by another nun. After handing over the Wound Zealot, Lane was about to head over there too.

Floris was familiarizing herself with the reception room. Lane was on his way. Corollis was bathing.

She wished there was something like a cleaning spell, but unfortunately, this world didn’t have one. Even if it did, it would be a high-tier spell.

Distinguishing and cleaning stains with fine control, plus drying you off? That didn’t sound like an easy spell to learn.

Of course, as the Saint, Corollis could also use wish magic aimed at dreams or the god. She could say, “I wish that the Final Dream, the sole Human God, would wash away all the filth on my body and purify me.”

But wish magic required offerings. If she used a wish for something so trivial, she was afraid the other side wouldn’t respond next time.

The Final Dream was in a strange state, with little humanity in it. Even if she fooled around a bit, it probably wouldn’t care. But the God had plenty of humanity, and her form was that of a young maiden.

Lily had only met the god three times: the first when she had just become the Saint, the second in a dazed dream, and the third when Corollis ran into a crisis at the Twin Wall.

Other than that, she had never seen the god again. She didn’t dare disturb her or spy on her. As long as the god still existed and would give her some response, that was enough.

After all, this world wasn’t a very lovely place. Even if the god was a maiden, she wasn’t the kind of “friend” you could chat with freely or joke around with. Even as the Saint, she was only someone who could draw upon the power of dreams and the divine.

She couldn’t get too arrogant, or imagine she was the protagonist of this world or something. If she, a transmigrator, really was the protagonist, that would be too painful.

The moment she transmigrated, she suffered the burning pain of silver water. It had only been six short years since then, and she had faced life-or-death crises seven or eight times. Half of those were with Gray, in the Silver Redemption Kingdom.

As for injuries, they were too many to count. She wasn’t exactly immune to pain, but she had built up a certain resistance.

But none of that pain matched the answer she heard from his mouth today: “I don’t know you.”

Corollis drew a hot bath and lay down in the tub. Steam rose. The mist brushed against the girl’s still-warm body, as if it too wanted to warm her cold heart.

Her heart ached again, weighed down by something. Her cold heart was like it was caught in quicksand, slowly sliding deeper.

The threads of pain that leaked out could not be smoothed away by the mist.

“Really… why am I still thinking about him?”

After a long silence, Corollis bowed her head, lost in thought.

At last, the tiny Saint with white hair let out a voice so low and so weak that only she could hear it.

“I’d already decided. As long as I don’t treat him specially, it’ll be fine.”

Pitter-patter. Outside, the rain would not stop.

The girl in the bathtub felt like a piece of her heart was missing.

Longing was unavoidable. And so was… heartbreak.

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