My Possession Became a Ghost Story - Chapter 232
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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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“…Yes. I witnessed an angel rescuing Lady Evangeline of Rohanson. Since I was bewitched by a demon and saw illusions, you should kill me. But did I really see that illusion alone? Aren’t you all just lying to please the Bishop?”
“…Ahem.”
“So you’re saying we spat out lies while reading the Bishop’s mood?”
The priest who had testified to Bishop Marik that he hadn’t seen any illusions glared at the ungrateful Harut with a sullen expression.
“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying!”
Harut declared without hesitation.
“Priest Harut. When you were an orphan, how much the Bishop cherished you, and this is how you repay his kindness?”
“That’s precisely why I’m doing this. I take pride in having received the Bishop’s teachings better than anyone.”
Bishop Marik had been Harut’s teacher and parent. Harut had lived with his ears plugged and eyes closed, afraid to rebel against Bishop Marik who had raised him.
But… though it was late, even now. He wanted to turn Bishop Marik in the right direction, even now. Even if Harut’s choice meant the Bishop would have to pay for all the sins he had committed until now.
Harut finally spoke with labored breath. His voice trembled violently.
“Right now, rather than Lady Evangeline, it’s the Bishop who seems more, more… like a de, de… mon.”
Only after such words finally came from Harut’s mouth did the commotion cease. It was probably because everyone had been thinking it inwardly but hadn’t been able to voice it aloud.
Finally, the time Bishop Marik had long awaited had come. The thinning rain had completely stopped.
However, even though the rain had stopped, the knights could no longer cut down people.
What stopped the knights wasn’t Bishop Marik or Evangeline, but just one young priest. Harut showed signs of relief.
“A demon…”
Saraka glared at Harut with burning eyes as if she would burn him alive. To Saraka, Harut was nothing but a thorn in her side.
From the first time she saw him until reaching this moment, Harut’s existence had made Saraka miserable at every turn.
The more altruistically Harut acted, the more Saraka’s jealousy grew. How could he move in such a different direction from Saraka? It seemed as if Bishop Marik had great insight to foresee Saraka and Harut’s futures and treat them differently.
However, in the end, it was Saraka who would inherit Bishop Marik’s will. Not Harut.
Saraka coveted everything of Bishop Marik’s, but the Harut that the Bishop had cherished was strangely uncomfortable. Standing before Harut alone made her feel like she was returning to being Saraka, not Bishop Marik.
From now on, she would need to become complete as Bishop Marik, and she couldn’t continue like this. Saraka made a quick decision. It wouldn’t be bad to deal with Harut now while she was at it.
“It seems Priest Harut has been bewitched by a demon. Kill Priest Harut as well.”
It was when Bishop Marik was about to speak.
“Leave the priest alone, you demon!”
Someone threw a stone at Bishop Marik. Saraka staggered briefly after being hit in the head by the flying stone. A nearby knight hurriedly supported Saraka.
“Bi, Bishop!”
“I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt much.”
For something thrown as a stone, it really didn’t hurt at all. No blood came out either. Saraka felt momentarily relieved, thinking it would have been troublesome if a wound had formed.
Saraka thought it had worked out well. Hadn’t she gained justification to continue the bloodshed that had been ended because of Harut?
The atmosphere that had calmed once due to Harut heated up again. Knights who seemed to want to prove their loyalty began threateningly swinging their swords again, their eyes blazing as they searched for whoever had thrown the stone at Saraka in anger. Harut’s miserable state was quite a sight to see.
And once again, a stone flew at Saraka. This time it hit Saraka’s face directly. It might have hit her eye if she’d been unlucky. The knight who had been examining Saraka with a worried expression turned his head and shouted.
“Damn, which bastard was it this time! Do you want to die!”
Saraka inwardly clicked her tongue at the knight’s behavior, raging when he couldn’t even properly block it the first time, let alone the second. If Azazel had been nearby, the body of whoever threw the stone at Saraka would already be crushed.
“Kill me! God will send rain again to save us!”
“I’ll shout it as many times as needed! Bishop Marik is a demon! A demon who killed my family!”
“Lady Rahel! Please let that demon burn to death more painfully than my child, in the most horrible way!”
Oh dear. Their god had lost all power and couldn’t even sprinkle holy water anymore, let alone burn her.
But no sooner had Saraka sneered than shocked gazes turned toward her.
“Bi, Bishop.”
The knight called out to Saraka with a pale, bloodless face, stammering. Saraka belatedly realized the reason.
Due to her unclear vision, the first thing she felt was an acrid scent. Saraka always carried a scent like burning medicine and ash, but the smell of burning was particularly strong around her nose. It was the smell created by smoke coming from Saraka’s veil.
And not even a few seconds after noticing the abnormality, sparks came alive and flared up. At the same time, heat rushed to Saraka’s face. The sparks intensified instantly. Unlike other people who were soaked through, Saraka’s clothes had been under an umbrella until now and didn’t have a drop of moisture.
The flames grew larger, climbing from the veil to the hem of her robe in an instant. Fire crawled all over her body.
In the blazing flames, Saraka’s head became dizzy. She couldn’t maintain her reason at all. Had the sun already set and reached twilight? Her vision was completely red. Her whole body was more than itchy—it stung. The excessive heat felt cold instead. The sound of flickering flames greedily licked at her earlobes.
She couldn’t see anything. At some point, Saraka thought she was in the past.
It seemed as if she was captured again by the Bishop who had thrust Saraka’s face and hands into flickering flames, saying it was absolutely necessary work. It felt like she had returned to those days when she couldn’t even resist, when she was a hideous heretic.
The priests and knights could only stamp their feet at the sudden flames.
“Why is there suddenly fire…?”
“Idiot! Obviously what was thrown just now wasn’t just a regular stone!”
The second thing thrown hadn’t been a simple stone. No, the first one had aimed for the head just the same, so both must have been the same.
Bishop Marik took priority over subduing heretics. With Bishop Marik on fire, they had no mind to pay attention to anything else.
Of all times, the fire had to start after the rain stopped! Even Harut looked at Bishop Marik with a bloodless, shocked face.
If it were still raining, the flames would have been quickly extinguished, but now the sky was just calm.
Though moisture remained on the ground, they couldn’t scoop up rainwater pooled on the ground and pour it on Bishop Marik. Besides, they couldn’t tell Bishop Marik to roll around on the ground where water had pooled.
“Damn it, bring water!”
“We, we used it all up putting out the annex fire a little while ago…”
“Then bring holy water! The fountain, yes, we can draw water from the fountain!”
“Yes, yes!”
Several quick-footed knights hurried to the fountain. Since there was nothing suitable for drawing water near the fountain, it would take even more time to go around the temple to bring something like a bucket.
Still, the Bishop would be fine. Wasn’t he someone who had survived flames in the past?
Meanwhile, Saraka was still trapped in the past.
Bishop Marik thrust Saraka’s face into the flames without a moment’s hesitation as she struggled instinctively in fear. The only light in the gloomy basement where not a ray of sunlight penetrated struck Saraka.
Her vision instantly darkened. Her eyes were cooked along with the rest because she couldn’t even close them properly. The familiar burning scent swirled around her.
Bishop Marik looked at Saraka’s well-cooked face and clicked his tongue, saying he had overdone it, then poured holy water. Saraka was thrust into the flames once more to create scars similar to Bishop Marik’s.
Bishop Marik gave Saraka holy water whenever he misshapen her face. He repeated this several times. Perhaps because the child trembling in terror was a heretic, Bishop Marik showed no sympathy for something that wasn’t human. What was even more frightening was that it wasn’t intentionally to torment Saraka. Bishop Marik actually considered reshaping Saraka’s face multiple times a waste of time.
It would have been better if holy water hadn’t worked on Saraka. Saraka could only wait for Bishop Marik to release her quickly.
When Saraka couldn’t bear the pain of burning and screamed as if retching, the knight gritted his teeth. Those slow-footed ones still hadn’t come.
“Damn it, Bishop!”
He tried to cover Bishop Marik by taking off his clothes as an emergency measure, but the fire clung to the clothing. The knight who stamped on the clothes to extinguish the sparks shouted.
“Bishop, take off your veil!”
When clothes caught fire, removing them was the obvious measure. If the veil had fire clinging to it, naturally the veil should be removed. However, there was no way Saraka would remove her veil in front of people.
Though the veil was hot, Saraka couldn’t bring herself to remove it. When Saraka remained silent, the knight tried to forcibly remove Saraka’s veil and robe.
Even though Saraka had lost her reason, the thought that her face must not be discovered suddenly came first.
Even as her whole body burned, Saraka flailed her hands. She seemed to be dancing while embracing the fire. However, in her confused state, she couldn’t overpower the knight with brute force.
Finally, the veil that had been covering Saraka while burning was removed.
“We’ve brought water!”
“Hurry and pour it!”
Just then, the knights had brought water from the fountain. When the thought reached that this was holy water, Saraka screamed.
“No holy water! Don’t put out the fire!”
Saraka’s face would have burns now. Then she could somehow insist she was Bishop Marik even with a young-looking face. But the moment holy water was sprinkled, her face would be completely healed. Since her lower face and hands had also received fresh burns, they would be healed clean. However, Saraka’s voice didn’t reach them.
“Quickly sprinkle holy water on the Bishop!”
The knights, obsessed with the single thought of suppressing the fire clinging to Bishop Marik, poured the water they had drawn from the fountain.
The flames were instantly extinguished. The fire was controlled, and instead of the vivid colors that had captivated their sight, only a young woman blackened with soot remained.
The knights who had been checking on Bishop Marik’s safety doubted their own eyes.
“Bishop, are you all… right?”
“Bishop… Marik…?”
Saraka covered her face in horror.
“No, don’t look!”
When Saraka’s face was revealed to the world, it seemed as if her reason completely fled.
Contamination that should never be mixed with the pure ‘Bishop Marik’ had been smeared on. Saraka herself had defiled it. She wanted to scrape off the skin of her face with her fingernails instead.
The priests and knights who witnessed Saraka’s bare face couldn’t hide their confusion.
Bishop Marik’s bare face looked quite young. Considering that Marik had become a priest around the same time as Bishop Javanya, it was an age that didn’t match.
There was one more question. Unlike the rumors that Bishop Marik was covered in burn scars, except for his lower face, his face was clean. That was the problem. Hadn’t they just poured holy water to suppress the flames that had clung to Bishop Marik? But why did the scars remain as they were?
“Bishop…? Why are the Bishop’s scars still there?”
That’s because what had burned Saraka wasn’t real flames. Since it was an illusion, it was natural that the scars wouldn’t disappear. People found it suspicious but didn’t even notice that the clothes that had fire clinging to them weren’t burned or even sooty.
The veil that had been out of sight belatedly turned to ash.
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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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