The Golden-Handed Baby Fixes Everything! - Chapter 20

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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 20
Turning toward the sound of footsteps, I saw a boy in a priest’s robes hurrying toward us.
“So that must be the owner of the tomatoes.”
“Looks like it, yeah.”
Judging by the way he clutched a bag with its strap hanging loose, it seemed the strap had snapped out of nowhere and caused this mess.
“Thank goodness Gongzan-nim picked up the tomatoes for me… Huh?”
I started to answer, but the moment I saw the boy’s face coming closer, the words died in my throat.
Skin so pale it bordered on sickly, and features arranged with delicate precision.
Hair that looked spun from gold thread, and eyes of a golden hue that seemed ready to blaze brilliantly in the sunlight.
The boy was a strikingly handsome young lad.
But my shock was not merely because of his good looks.
‘That face is definitely…’
The boy’s face was far too familiar.
Familiar beyond any doubt.
Yes, how could I ever forget it?
That child is—
“Go. Run away.”
My luck.
My salvation.
The man who had opened the door of the cell where I was imprisoned.
The owner of those tomatoes was the very person who had helped me before my regression.
While I stood there staring at the boy in a daze, he came running up to me and bowed deeply.
“I’m sorry. My bag broke, and the tomatoes spilled everywhere.”
Even then, my lips remained pressed shut, and I could not bring myself to speak.
* * *
Conti narrowed his eyes and glanced back and forth between the two children inside the carriage.
‘What on earth is this strange current between them?’
I hadn’t expected anything like this, I’ll admit.
“You there, little priest. I’ll give you a ride to the Temple.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Not necessary, my foot. You look like you’ve got too much baggage to carry on foot.”
“…”
“When someone offers you a ride, just take it. Only idiots insist on doing things the hard way and end up suffering for it.”
“Then I’ll gratefully accept. Thank you.”
Yes, up until the moment I helped that young priest into my carriage, I hadn’t anticipated this kind of atmosphere at all.
I never expected little Marshmallow to take such an interest in the young priest.
“Hey, Itchi, how old are you?”
“Hey, Itchi, what’s your name?”
“Itchi, can you… um, you know, can you make fire come out of your hands or something?”
The little one had so many questions for someone she had only just met that her mouth never stopped moving.
Her plump white cheeks wobbled incessantly, and her lavender eyes kept sparkling without losing their light.
In contrast.
“I’m seven years old.”
“My name is Kalix.”
“I can’t produce fire.”
The boy answered each question dutifully, yet his eyes were utterly hollow.
It was enough to make one wonder how a child’s face could be so devoid of expression.
Marshmallow was like that, too.
And so was this young priest.
‘Life must be rough for kids these days.’
Conti, sprawled carelessly in his seat, rested his chin on the windowsill.
In the distance, the Temple, the young priest’s destination, came into view.
* * *
“What’s this? You’re early for once.”
It was the moment Kalix stepped into the Temple.
A priest who had been loitering idly near the entrance walked up to him and spoke.
“You always drag yourself in like a sluggish grub, and you only show up when the sun’s about to set.”
“…”
Receiving no reply from Kalix, the priest scrunched up his brow.
“Honestly, how insolent. This is exactly why kids born with mana are such a nuisance. Is it because they carry the blood of some lowly mage? Tch.”
“…….”
“Hand that over!”
Thud.
The priest yanked the bag out of Kalix’s arms with rough hands.
“If you’ve dropped so much as a single thing, I won’t let it go, you hear me?”
With a sharp warning, the priest spun on his heel and turned away.
Kalix stood rooted to the spot, staring at the priest’s back as it receded.
Or rather, at the bag he was carrying.
The bag looked perfectly fine, as if the strap had never snapped at all.
“I’ll fix your bag! Melloni can fix it, yes she can!”
The owner of the carriage they had hitched a ride on.
That was thanks to the daughter of Duke Panteibe.
The small young lady had used her power to mend the broken bag.
‘That’s strange.’
I don’t know much about the nobility, but I do know the Panteibe Ducal Family wields the Power of Darkness.
So why does the Panteibe young lady possess the power to repair objects?
Could it be.
‘…Is that girl a mutant like me?’
No, that can’t be.
Even if that girl were a mutant too, she wouldn’t be like me.
‘I’m… a filthy mutant.’
Kalix had originally been an orphan wandering the streets.
For some reason, he had no memories of his childhood.
The only thing he remembered was that his name was ‘Kalix’, and that was all.
From the very first moment he could remember, he had been roaming the streets.
Then, one day.
“You’ve got holy power in you. Come with me.”
Some priest took Kalix away.
He had recognized the faint holy power within Kalix.
But not long after Kalix became an Apprentice Priest, a shocking truth came to light.
“Wait. This one… I think he has mana?”
“What? He has mana?”
“How can someone have both holy power and mana?”
“He’s a complete mutant, isn’t he?!”
Not only holy power but mana as well had been discovered in Kalix.
Unlike the faint holy power, his mana only grew stronger with each passing day.
For Kalix, this was tantamount to a curse.
In the Empire, ‘Power’ and ‘Holy Power’ are regarded as special and magnificent forces, whereas ‘mana’ is—.
“To think you carry such filthy power. No wonder you’ve always been so unlucky.”
Because it was treated as ominous and foul.
‘The petty, despicable power of traitors.’
It was treated this way now, but there was a time long ago when mana and mages were revered.
Back when the dragon that founded the Empire was still alive.
After all, mana had originally been a power the dragon bestowed upon humans.
Humans who received the dragon’s power became mages, and they were set apart and envied by the people.
But the greed of the mages ruined everything.
At some point, mages who craved even greater power began to covet the dragon’s power itself.
In the process, the holy woman who had been the dragon’s beloved was killed, and the enraged dragon withdrew the mana it had given to humans.
Many mages lost their mana and became ordinary people.
Some mages retained their mana, but compared to before, it was only a feeble power.
Afterward, the dragon, having lost its beloved, chose to sleep eternally.
It bequeathed ‘Power’ to the three houses that had devoted themselves to it, and to the child of its friend, the emperor, it gave the glory of carrying on the ‘Dragon’s Bloodline’ by feeding him its own blood.
So, when you think about it, ‘Power’ and the ‘Dragon’s Bloodline’ were also blessings rooted in mana.
Yet the Empire thoroughly separated the mages’ ‘mana’ from the blessings the dragon had left behind.
It was because the Empire could not bring together the great dragon’s blessing and the power of its loathsome traitors.
Vile traitors who repaid grace with betrayal.
In the Empire, mana, excluding blessings, became a single piece of evidence proving one’s descent from traitors.
‘In a way, that’s true enough.
After all, from the Temple’s standpoint, I’m no different from a traitor.
“I took him in for his holy power, never imagining he’d be harboring such filthy power. Now we can’t very well throw him out.”
It wasn’t fitting for the “Merciful Temple” to drive anyone out, and the problem was that Kalix possessed Holy Power alongside his Mana.
Expel an Apprentice Priest with noble Holy Power?
Nothing like that had ever happened in history.
That very day, Kalix’s quarters were moved to the temple storehouse.
“I don’t want to see your face, so go rot in there.”
“If you have any shame, at least clean the temple. We took in your filthy power, so you’d better be good for something.”
The harassment from the priests began.

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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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