Do Heroes Need Welfare Too? - Chapter 24

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 24

‘As expected, that person is…’

He wore the same pure white priest robes as the other priests, but had several golden stripes. There were even priests following closely behind him.

He was clearly a high-ranking official.

As soon as he spotted Adam, his expression changed completely. The wrinkles around his mouth deepened as he approached Adam with natural steps.

Adam also noticed him and bowed his head.

“Elderly High Priest.”

“Hero. I’ve told you repeatedly that you can speak casually with me.”

“I’m fine with this.”

The sight of them conversing with friendly smiles made Iberis lower her guard.

She had thought there might be some bad blood between them since he seemed to dislike the Temple, but apparently that wasn’t the case.

The other priests also looked excited upon seeing the Hero, though they tried to suppress it. They bowed their heads but couldn’t hide their glances stealing looks at him.

“However, my business is too trivial for the Elderly High Priest to personally attend to. I can only express my gratitude for inviting me to the Temple first.”

“Haha, how could we not know of our connection? Priests and Hero, we are all united by God’s will, are we not?”

He smoothly grouped Adam and themselves as people in the same boat. Adam simply smiled the same way as the Elderly High Priest.

Watching Adam like this, the Elderly High Priest laughed as if he couldn’t help it, then turned toward the priests behind him.

“However, if the Hero feels uncomfortable, I’ll assign other priests to you. Please take whichever one you find suitable.”

“I’m grateful for your consideration.”

Adam bowed his head in greeting once again.

Just as she was feeling relieved that things were going according to his plan, Iberis entered the Elderly High Priest’s field of vision.

When their eyes met, Iberis flinched.

‘…Huh?’

Something feels unsettling?

As if her uneasy feeling wasn’t just her imagination, the Elderly High Priest smiled with his eyes and called to her.

“The Hero’s companion, please come this way.”

“Ah?”

Me? Iberis pointed to herself with her finger and asked with her eyes.

Then the Elderly High Priest slowly nodded, showing his affirmation.

“I am…”

“Right. Since Eve is visiting the Temple for the first time, it would be good for her to look around.”

Adam was smiling, but his tone dragged as if he found it bothersome inside.

“I’ll go handle my business with the other priests.”

And he pointed to the manageable young priests and left.

‘He just dumped the Elderly High Priest on me!’

Throwing a bomb at me because he finds it annoying!

Then the Elderly High Priest chuckled and personally approached her.

He’ll definitely go to the Temple’s Great Library! Abandoning me with the Elderly High Priest!

However, knowing that he had stayed up reading books until dawn today, she had no choice but to let him go.

‘He must have even had nightmares because things aren’t going well, so I can’t act spoiled.’

Thanks to that, she ended up walking through the Garden with the Elderly High Priest, whose intentions she couldn’t fathom.

The Elderly High Priest personally dismissed the following priests and took her along, saying he would guide her through the Temple.

Considering his position, this wasn’t something he should be doing personally, so she guessed he must have some ulterior motive.

‘But the Elderly High Priest has just been smiling slyly since earlier, so I can’t tell what he’s thinking.’

At first, she thought he was just a benevolent Elderly High Priest who treated even the Hero, who had no connections, well, but judging from Adam’s reaction, that didn’t seem to be the case either.

“That place is the Sanctuary. It would be good to visit after the Hero finishes his business.”

“Yes.”

The Elderly High Priest, whom she expected to show his true colors after separating from Adam, kindly explained things to her like a benevolent grandfather.

He leisurely walked through the Garden, taking her to various places along with the Temple’s long history.

It was much later that the Elderly High Priest asked her a question.

Only after explaining all sorts of Temple artifacts and completely draining Iberis’s energy did he speak.

“How is it? Don’t you want to live in the Temple?”

The Elderly High Priest whispered in her ear with a meaningful smile.

‘Huh?’

Iberis, who was making an expression asking why he was saying such things to her when he should be saying them to Adam, quickly realized the reason.

‘Since his attempts to win over Adam keep getting blocked, he’s trying to seduce me.’

Even if she stayed at the Temple, there was no way Adam would follow.

It seemed the Elderly High Priest had grabbed the wrong end of the stick, and grabbed it quite wrong at that.

Iberis smiled and spoke in a small voice as if reciting a secret, just like he had done.

“If the Hero comes, it’s wonderful enough that I’d want to live here too.”

“Then…”

“But if the Hero dislikes it, then I dislike it too.”

Before he could say more, Iberis interrupted first.

It seems he’s thinking of using me, which would have been a good choice, but there was a problem.

She had no intention of forcing Adam to do something he disliked. This was the conclusion she had reached after seeing him guard the Demon King’s Castle alone.

Even if accommodating his convenience delayed her time returning home, she didn’t want to use coercion.

A person’s life had been turned upside down by a single word from her.

She didn’t want to make him feel that way multiple times.

‘I’m on Adam’s side even if I die.’

So anyone he disliked, she disliked too.

“The Hero is someone who can’t directly say he dislikes something. Shouldn’t I do it for him?”

“Haha…”

The Elderly High Priest let out a hollow laugh.

“You seem to know that child better than I do.”

“I wonder.”

The Hero she had known and the Hero she actually saw were different too.

The Hero reflected in the Elderly High Priest’s eyes might also be different.

But they were all Adam.

He was someone who couldn’t be replaced by anyone else.

“Still, the Hero that the Elderly High Priest knows and the Hero I know probably aren’t that different. But as I said earlier, I don’t want to do things the Hero dislikes.”

“Having such a decisive person by Adam’s side puts my mind at ease too.”

Then the Elderly High Priest burst into quiet laughter.

“I’ve always worried about that child. The position of Hero brings infinite glory, but one must risk their life for it.”

As if recalling the past, the wrinkles around the elderly High Priest’s eyes deepened further.

“But I couldn’t stop him. That glory is absolutely necessary for that child.”

Listening quietly to his words, the Elderly High Priest spoke as if he had known Adam from the beginning.

‘That can’t be right?’

Their numbers were so few that Iberis, who had lived in a Small Village, had never once met a priest or stopped by a Temple.

After priests who had committed blasphemy were extensively purged under the Elderly High Priest’s guidance a few years ago, they became even more closed off.

The opportunity to meet such priests, especially the Elderly High Priest, was not given to ordinary commoners.

Adam, who had grown up on an ordinary farm, should have been the same.

‘Or is he laying groundwork to use the Hero?’

For some reason, the Temple and the Royal Court didn’t get along well.

They might be planning to put Adam at the forefront to weaken imperial power and raise the Temple’s status as a sacred empire.

That would make it even more likely that Adam, who found such things bothersome, would avoid him.

‘All the clues have been solved.’

As expected, the culprit was the Elderly High Priest!

‘I’ll protect our Hero.’

Iberis’s eyes narrowed.

She couldn’t let the Elderly High Priest use Adam.

The time spent at the Temple felt useless. Surely the Hero was surrounded by priests with no allies and suffering hardships.

As soon as she had that thought, she immediately wanted to see him.

“Then shall we return to the Hero?”

“Yes. That sounds good.”

Iberis shot daggers at his back with eyes full of suspicion and wariness.

But whether the Elderly High Priest knew it or not, he only let out a gentle chuckle.

* * *

The Elderly High Priest wouldn’t let her go, chuckling benevolently.

She had been cursing the endless expanse of the Temple’s Garden when Adam came looking for her, finally allowing her to escape from the Elderly High Priest.

Her face lit up the moment she saw Adam, and after bowing to the Elderly High Priest in greeting, she ran to Adam and grabbed his arm.

Iberis brought him to a nearby Temple Building where no one was around and spoke.

“Hero, Hero.”

“Yes, Eve.”

“I figured it out.”

Adam tilted his head as if asking what she meant.

When she gestured with her hand, Adam bent down to match her eye level. Iberis whispered softly in his ear.

“The Elderly High Priest is the culprit, right?”

There’s always only one truth!

This was the result of her deduction, as if possessed by a master detective.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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