The Cowardly Baby Saint Sees Ghosts - Chapter 76

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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# Chapter 76
To go back to the very morning Basil’s death became known—
Among the crowd gathered before the Confessional Hall, I watched Seria standing with a face completely drained of expression.
She looked shocked and frightened, no different from anyone else there.
At least at that moment, I harbored no suspicion whatsoever.
The doubt took root only hours later.
The priests tidying the crime scene retrieved several pieces of evidence from Basil’s quarters and brought them to me.
The High Priest had granted me, as a Saint, the authority to examine the full circumstances of the case.
One of these items was a water cup that had been placed beside the prison cell door.
And within that cup, traces of some foreign substance, faint but unmistakable.
“What is this?”
I held up the cup to the Investigator and asked.
The Investigator took it, sniffed at the rim, and tilted his head.
“…Well, it smells like some common medicinal herb, I suppose.”
I found myself unconvinced by that answer.
A report had come in that the guards watching the Confessional Hall that night had all fallen into an unnaturally deep sleep, and that detail kept gnawing at me.
“Do the guard knights often leave their posts and sleep on duty like that?”
The Guard Captain shook his head, his expression uneasy.
“…No, Your Holiness. Quite the opposite, in fact. Our order almost never sleeps during watch. The fact that they all fell into such profound sleep at once struck me as strange as well.”
In that instant, something clicked into place in my mind.
‘…Someone put them to sleep.’
Then, a familiar window appeared before my eyes.
[Sudden Mission!]
Investigate the murder case and apprehend the culprit.
Reward: Good Deed Gauge +5
[Current Progress: 74 / 1000]
[Notification]
You have discovered a clue!
Traces of Sleep-Inducing Substance
If someone had mixed something into the water or food the guards consumed, it would have been entirely possible.
From that day on, I began quietly retracing the events of the case.
The first person who came to mind was Seria.
The day after Basil passed away, I summoned Seria to my quarters and shared tea while we talked.
I asked casually, as though making ordinary small talk.
Whether she had been badly shaken.
In that moment, Seria’s fingertips stilled, just barely.
The knuckles gripping the teacup went white, then returned to their normal color in an instant—and I saw it clearly.
Her voice when she answered was calm. Her expression barely wavered.
But in that brief silence, I did not miss the way her pupils trembled ever so slightly.
After our conversation ended and Seria left my quarters, I sat motionless for a long time.
‘…What did I just see?’
I wanted to convince myself otherwise.
It could have been mere discomfort at the mention of someone’s death.
Seria had always been a child who kept her emotions hidden.
But no matter how many times I told myself this, the unease that had settled in the corner of my heart would not fade.
* * *
And from that day forward, every small action Seria took began to weigh on my mind.
The pallor that would creep over her complexion without cause.
Every morning when I saw Seria, dark shadows hung beneath her eyes, as though she had not slept a wink the night before.
When I asked about it, she always gave the same answer.
That she had lost sleep, that she had many things on her mind these days.
Each time I heard this response, I questioned myself.
‘…What am I doing right now?’
I despised myself for pretending to care about Seria while subtly interrogating her.
On the surface, I smiled warmly, offered her tea, asked about her well-being, held her hand—all the while weighing every small reaction she gave me on scales hidden deep inside.
I could no longer tell if this person I had become was truly who I was.
‘…Is this what someone called a Saint should be doing—suspecting people in this way?’
Such recriminations tormented me night after night.
I knew how long it had taken for Seria to open her heart to me.
When that child, who always hung back, began to smile a little more and started speaking to me first, I had felt genuine joy.
To suspect Seria of being a murder suspect felt like a betrayal in itself.
It wasn’t that I was betraying Seria—rather, it felt as though I were the one betraying her.
And yet I tried again to think rationally.
‘……No. I could be wrong.’
Steadying myself that way, I decided to attend the Investigator’s interrogation in secret, to confirm what I needed to know.
The records from the Orphanage where she’d lived before had been lost in a fire, they said.
It was something I’d already known, but for some reason it weighed on me.
And in that same moment, my self-loathing deepened as well.
‘……Do I have any right to say I trust Seria, while digging into every detail like this?’
That night, I sat alone in the Chapel for a long time, lost in thought.
The mere act of suspecting Seria was itself painful to me.
‘……Maybe I’ve gotten it all wrong.’
I tried to comfort myself that way.
But the more I did, the greater the anxiety became—as though scattered pieces were clicking into place one by one.
Word had it that she’d been slipping out secretly night after night. And ever since that day, a shadow had deepened visibly over her.
……What if something was happening that Seria alone couldn’t bear?
The moment that thought struck me, worry rushed in alongside the suspicion.
If Seria truly was entangled in this, I became certain it wasn’t something she’d chosen to do.
At least, not the Seria I knew.
‘……Then, who—what is driving that girl like this?’
To find that answer, I could no longer hold back.
Even as I hated myself for suspecting Seria, I couldn’t let go of that suspicion either—and caught in that contradiction, I tossed and turned through the night.
The next morning, I finally called Liam quietly to me.
Liam had guarded the Temple for so long that his nature was cautious and his tongue discreet.
For this reason, there was no one better to confide in than him.
“Your Holiness, you don’t look well.”
When I called him, Liam came straight to my Quarters and asked me that.
I hesitated for a moment, then steeled myself and spoke.
“……Liam. I’ve begun to think that Basil’s death might not be a simple incident.”
Liam’s expression hardened in an instant.
“What do you mean?”
I explained to him everything I’d discovered.
The fact that the Guard Captain and his men had all been sleeping deeply that night, that their Water Cups had carried the scent of medicinal herbs, and my suspicion that these two things were anything but coincidence.
“You’re saying someone put the guards to sleep before harming the Master?”
“……Yes. And it’s highly likely that whoever did it was someone inside the Temple. An outsider couldn’t have come and gone so quietly.”
Liam fell silent for a long while. Then he asked in a low voice.
“Do you have someone in mind?”
At that question, I couldn’t answer easily.
Saying Seria’s name aloud felt like crossing a line I could never uncross.
My throat tightened. I opened my mouth several times, then closed it again.
‘The moment I speak that name, there’s no going back.’
Each time that thought came, I despised myself.
It wasn’t hesitation born of uncertainty—I knew myself well enough to recognize that I was hesitating precisely because my conviction was already there, and I didn’t want to admit it.
“……It’s Seria.”
I barely managed to speak the name. My voice cracked.
Liam couldn’t hide his shock. But he soon composed himself and asked again carefully.
“Do you have a reason?”
I finally laid bare all the discomfort I’d felt about Seria, piece by piece.
“……I know how cruel it is to suspect someone on such grounds. And yet I can’t shake this thought. Here I am, claiming to trust Seria, but behind her back I’m scrutinizing every subtle shift in her expression……”
I bit my lip and fell silent.
“I hate myself right now.”
Liam said nothing for a moment. Then he spoke in a low, measured voice.
“……Your Holiness. Suspicion and hatred are not the same thing. The very fact that you’re suffering this way is proof that you still care for Seria. However, separate from that feeling, we must verify what needs to be verified.”
Those words brought me some small comfort.
But the heaviness in my heart did not easily lift.
‘That’s right. I just need to confirm it.’
Seeing with my own eyes would surely be far better than continuing to suffer in mere imagination.

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