The Cowardly Baby Saint Sees Ghosts - Chapter 72

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

# Chapter 72.
“Who—who made you do this! It was them, wasn’t it! Tell them I was wrong, I was wrong! I swear I’ll never breathe a word about the Heretical Sect!”
Basil thrust both hands forward in supplication.
They trembled like aspen leaves.
“Seria, you—you’re the child I taught you. Aren’t you? You can’t…… you can’t kill me!”
The man who, mere moments ago, had waxed nostalgic about her childhood now begged for nothing but his own life—a transformation so complete it was almost impossible to believe.
“Please, please let me live. I beg you. I was good to you, wasn’t I? Didn’t I…… didn’t I cherish you so much. So……”
In that instant, something inside Seria turned cold as stone.
Above the guilt and sorrow she had felt until now, something far closer to revulsion began to layer on top.
Hidden behind the word “master,” this person too was nothing but a creature scrabbling desperately to preserve his own skin.
“Don’t do this. Please……! Help! Someone help—!”
Basil opened his mouth to scream.
But his cry never reached its end.
Seria’s body was already moving.
It was not her own will.
And yet her fingertips felt everything—terribly, excruciatingly clear.
“Ugh…… ghhh……”
Basil thrashed until the very last moment.
He made animal sounds, his arms flailing wildly, his nails clawing at empty air. There was no dignity, no composure left—only the base instinct to survive, flailing and pathetic.
It was an ugly, graceless death struggle, and nothing more.
And then, at last, it stopped.
Basil crumpled to the floor beneath the bed, his body twisted at an unnatural angle.
His eyes remained wide open until the very end, glazed with terror.
The candle flickered precariously before snuffing out.
Darkness consumed the room entirely.
……
Seria stood motionless, frozen in place.
The sensation still lingered in her fingertips.
That feeling of warmth slowly ebbing away.
She could not accept that the voice which had spoken her name so tenderly only moments before would never reach her ears again.
‘I…… I killed him.’
The reality of it would not sink in.
She felt that if she truly accepted this moment, she would shatter.
Breath.
Her breathing came faster, more ragged.
Her hands shook uncontrollably. Her vision blurred; her legs buckled beneath her.
She collapsed to the floor where she stood.
For all the tasks she had carried out on command, this was the first time she had taken a life with her own hands.
The deaths she had witnessed in the Laboratory, Noah’s death—those were things she had watched, not things she had done.
But this was different.
‘With my own hands. A person. With my own hands.’
Nausea rose in her throat.
Seria clapped a hand over her mouth. Tears burst forth in a torrent.
Basil’s final scream still echoed in her ears.
His voice pleading for mercy, the bestial sounds of his thrashing, and the moment when it all simply…… stopped.
A man who had smiled, moments ago, lost in the memory of her childhood.
But before death, all his tenderness, all his dignity had been stripped away, leaving only a creature begging shamefully for his life.
That chasm—it drove Seria deeper into chaos.
Mingling with the guilt came something unspeakable: revulsion.
That the final image of the man she’d believed was her master should be so pathetic—it broke something in her.
And for not stopping her own hand even as she witnessed that degradation, Seria felt a disgust toward herself that she could not contain.
“……I’m sorry.”
In the darkness, Seria repeated an apology no one would hear, again and again.
Her voice cracked; sobs mangled her words until nothing coherent remained.
A moment later, with trembling hands, she pressed the Obsidian and reported Basil’s death.
[……Well done.]
The tone was one of satisfaction, yet entirely devoid of feeling.
Those words twisted something inside her even further.
Seria shoved the stone deep into the folds of her robe with shaking hands and fled the room.
Her footsteps faltered as she moved down the Corridor. Without the wall to steady her, she would have fallen.
‘I need to go back. Act as though nothing happened.’
But the sensation that had just overcome her lingered across her entire body.
It felt like something that wouldn’t fade no matter how many times she washed her hands or changed her clothes.
Basil’s final gaze kept flickering before her eyes.
Seria barely made it back to her room and locked the door.
Then she collapsed to the floor and wept silently for a long time.
The tears would not stop easily.
After huddling there for a while, Seria suddenly looked down at her own hands.
‘I still have to kill the other one.’
At that thought, darkness crept back into her vision.
* * *
The following dawn, the Temple erupted into chaos.
News that Basil’s corpse had been discovered in the Confessional Chamber spread in an instant.
A priest preparing for dawn prayers had knocked on the door, found no response, and sensing something amiss, opened it—and that was how it had been discovered.
“Murder! There’s been a murder in the Confessional Chamber!”
At that single cry, the quiet Temple erupted into chaos.
Priests and guards rushed toward the Confessional Chamber, and trainees jolting awake ran into the corridors in confusion.
“Who could have done this?”
“For something like this to happen inside the Temple.”
“He was a criminal, yes, but still—a person is dead.”
Murmurs spread instantly, and everyone looked at one another with anxious faces.
The Temple’s chief of security stood before the Confessional Chamber and called out to the crowd.
“Everyone, please stand back! We will be investigating the scene now, so do not approach!”
Low voices echoed among the priests.
“Shouldn’t we inform the High Priest?”
“Someone’s already been sent. He’ll be here shortly.”
Seria stepped out into the chaos, feigning composure.
But her heart was pounding wildly. Her legs felt weak, and she had to grip the doorframe just to keep herself upright.
“Seria!”
The young trainee who had promised to go for an evening walk yesterday spotted her and rushed over.
“I’m scared. Who could have done such a thing?”
The child grabbed Seria’s sleeve with a terrified face.
Seria started to reach down and take the small hand, then suddenly looked at her own.
‘With these hands.’
In that moment, goosebumps crawled across her skin.
Seria forced herself to appear composed and wrapped an arm around the child’s shoulders.
“It’s all right. I’m here with you.”
She had to strain to keep her voice from trembling.
* * *
Not far away, Diane also heard the commotion and rushed out.
Diane’s gaze, which had been fixed on the Confessional Chamber with a hardened expression, suddenly shifted toward Seria.
The moment their eyes met, Seria felt her heart drop.
‘Don’t look at me.’
She couldn’t know what Diane was thinking.
The other woman simply gazed at her with eyes full of concern.
“Seria, are you all right? You don’t look well.”
Diane approached and asked.
At that gentle voice, Seria had to forcibly swallow the tears that welled up in her throat.
“I’m fine. Just… startled.”
It was a lie.
But for now, there was no other way to answer.
Diane simply regarded her for a moment, then silently patted her shoulder.
That warmth was somehow harder to bear today.
‘I’m not the person you think I am.’
Even as she repeated this to herself, Seria couldn’t bring herself to pull away from that hand.
Throughout the Temple, the urgent voices of priests and the footsteps of guards mingled together. The investigation was beginning.
And what awaited at the end of that investigation, Seria could not know.
But one thing was certain.
‘There’s still one more person I have to kill.’
Seria clasped her trembling hands together, trying with all her strength to hold back the part of herself that was crumbling.
‘Why did he send me?’
Why me, of all people?
‘Honestly, I don’t know anymore.’
Basil had raised her almost since childhood, so she’d grown fond of him.
But after she was deemed suitable to become a Saint and transferred to the vast place that Rinok managed, she’d never been treated kindly.
She’d felt like nothing but a part—a cog in some machine for their experiments.
It wasn’t until she came to the Temple that she’d met people who treated her as an equal.
‘How could I betray people like that?’
And yet, since she’d already killed Basil, it felt as though she’d crossed a river from which there was no return.

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