The Life of a Wise Cult Leader - Chapter 139

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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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Chapter 139

 

“The Ascetic is coming today.”

 

“To our orphanage?”

 

“Why?”

 

“I don’t know either! But anyway, if some Ascetic or whatever comes, won’t they give us a little more?”

 

“I’m hungry!”

 

The children chattered among themselves. They had the innocence typical of children, but they weren’t particularly bright. They had started their lives as orphans in times when even grown adults starved to death and died in wars.

 

“Still, after becoming a Saint… we got more food and clothes too! Hehe.”

 

“That’s just giving a little more than what they originally gave! I wish they’d give us more. Why is being a Saint so stingy!”

 

“If Mrs. Cool hears that, you’ll be sleeping in the stable tonight.”

 

“Sleeping in that stable that hasn’t had horses for ages would actually be comfortable!”

 

“Why does Mrs. Cool hate the Saint?”

 

“Orphanages aren’t profitable, so they survive on sponsorship from nobles. And support from the Central Church. The Empire provides funding too, but that would probably be enough to give us all socks at best?”

 

“Widget is smart!”

 

“I’m the oldest among us. Since I’m the big brother, big brother is smart.”

 

“Ahem… Anyway, so if we badmouth the Saint and get marked by the Central Church, our orphanage loses one source of funding.”

 

Children have a way of understanding adults’ complaints and chattering about them as if they were their own thoughts. It’s a survival method for children trying to act like adults.

 

“But even though they call him a Saint, he hasn’t directly done anything for us!”

 

The older kids at the orphanage grumbled like that.

 

Other adults praise him as ‘the Empire’s most noble Saint and God who descended to this world to relieve the suffering of all people,’ but the extremely poor, steeped in pessimism, feel even that praise is just bourgeois pretension.

 

The anti-Saint faction, having grasped this point, threw themselves into media manipulation while the Saint was busy with various affairs. They mobilized not only newspaper pages but even children’s lips.

 

For the extremely poor, the Saint’s welfare was slow and distant, while the anti-Saint faction’s immediate financial support came realistically close.

 

Rather than welfare policies that didn’t help immediately and dreamed of the future, the anti-Saint faction that gave money to put food on the table today was better.

 

That was mainly what Mrs. Cool and the adults who occasionally visited the orphanage would say when they got tipsy drinking cheap rum in the director’s office.

 

The Saint is too high up to know about people down here. He only talks about being on the side of the weak and those full of suffering, but that’s all the Central Church’s scheming.

 

Those who praise the Saint now are all out of their minds and brainwashed! You can’t trust the Saint. Even going around for ceasefire negotiations in these times doesn’t help national security, so he’s probably a spy from Senta!

 

Acting like they sided with the anti-Saint faction was all for that reason.

 

Then, not wanting to admit they sold their beliefs for money, they’d act as if they were originally anti-Saint faction. Widget, who was a little smarter than others, thought that far.

 

“The adults said the Saint is trash.”

 

“Right! They said our orphanage living like this is all because of the Saint!”

 

“Hey! Give me back my doll!”

 

“Try and take it~”

 

The children’s topics quickly changed. Rather than difficult and heavy talk, they did side jobs to get more of the meals Mrs. Cool distributed or carved wooden blocks for fun.

 

What emerged from the children’s knife tips was, ironically, the Saint’s symbol.

 

Sculptures carved with the Saint’s symbol were among the best-selling items among nobles.

 

They said that at the marketplace, wealthy nobles paid quite well for these wooden carvings.

 

It had meaning in that it helped the orphanage children’s small earnings a little. The noble lords valued such things. Anyway, since it made money for Widget, he didn’t really care.

 

Saint’s symbols touched by the hands of children who bloomed from the suffering of being orphans! That was quite a popular product with storytelling.

 

A round circle, with a trident inside and a diamond at the tip.

 

When the Ascetic first set foot in the world, he emerged from the cave holding a candlestick to illuminate people’s path ahead and carefully observe their suffering, and carried a sword to punish those who caused pain – this was the origin of that symbol.

 

Widget, who was somewhat of a senior at the orphanage and had a bigger head than others, could carve that sculpture more precisely than the other children.

 

Widget was thinking of somehow making a big score since a Saint was visiting the orphanage. If he sold it as a symbol blessed by that Saint, he could get 10 times the usual price.

 

Rather than just selling it at the market as usual, it might be better to go directly to the Noble Houses to sell it.

 

“A precious guest is coming today. Go wash by the stream and put on your cleanest clothes. Clean everything so there’s not a speck of dust!”

 

“The chair leg is broken.”

 

“Whether it’s broken, fallen off, or tattered! Fix all of that too! There shouldn’t be anything to find fault with!”

 

Widget thought Mrs. Cool was acting so sharply because she would obviously be severely scolded if the Saint discovered the true state of this orphanage.

 

The children received slightly better meals than usual, took out the best clothes they had saved to wear only when meeting potential adopters, and helped each other with their grooming.

 

“Widget! You got a stain on your sleeve.”

 

“Thanks, Linton.”

 

Widget licked his sleeve to remove the stain. And since he belonged to the older brother line at the orphanage, he helped fix the appearance of the little snot-nosed kids below him.

 

The children, who had been criticizing the Saint just moments before, were now excited at the thought of seeing him. After all, he was a Saint with quite a reputation. They even said he now had a higher position than the Emperor!

 

Though many people cursed the Emperor as a puppet, the children couldn’t quite grasp that concept yet.

 

“Won’t he give us candy?”

 

“Something that expensive? No matter how much of a Saint he is, there’s no way he’d do that.”

 

“I want to try eating candy at least once in my life.”

 

“Me too!”

 

“Hmph, idiots. Rather than candy that disappears quickly after eating, I’d rather get money! Candy isn’t even that amazing~ When I tried it before, well. It was just so-so? Noble Houses can eat all of that whenever they want. They can even order their attendants to go buy it.”

 

The grumbling child was one who had failed to be adopted by a Noble House.

 

A Noble House had taken him because he looked reasonably decent, but then the head of that Noble House suddenly died. So the adoption fell through.

 

However, just from that brief stay at the Noble House, the child liked to show off to the other orphanage children.

 

Widget found it disgusting to watch, so he gave the child a punch and reestablished the hierarchy. The child rolled on the floor clutching his head, but the other children paid no attention.

 

“When is the Saint coming?”

 

“I want to see the Saint!”

 

“I caught a cold! The Saint will cure it, right? Right? Isn’t that right, Miss Cool? Cool!”

 

Children under 5 years old liked Mrs. Cool. Either way, they were orphans without parents.

 

The little brats who still hadn’t experienced much of the world, wanting even a handful of Mrs. Cool’s dry love, clung to Mrs. Cool’s skirt and whined.

 

“You should say Mrs. Cool, where did you learn such speech habits! Hey, Widget. Are the preparations all finished?”

 

“Yees.”

 

“Hey, don’t drag out your words.”

 

“I even polished all the shoes.”

 

Mrs. Cool inspected the children once and went outside to look around and see if the orphanage looked acceptable. While doing so, she muttered to herself, ‘Why bother coming to look. If you’re going to give money, just give the money!’

 

It seemed Mrs. Cool wasn’t particularly excited about the Saint’s visit.

 

She seemed to think the Saint’s miracles were all lies and the result of those trying to get scraps from the Saint working hard to flatter him.

 

Widget now remembered that one of the brothers who had been adopted had received confession from him.

 

The eyes of the child who returned then really looked like a brainwashed person, just as Mrs. Cool had said. Widget was slightly frightened.

 

‘Actually… could the Saint be a demon wearing human skin?’

 

After all, a brother who had been imitating adults and criticizing both the Saint and nobles suddenly liked the Saint right after returning from confession.

 

He had even gotten into a huge fight with Mrs. Cool because of this! To only remember this now.

 

‘I absolutely won’t meet the Saint.’

 

Though he’d miss the pocket money, he could just sell lies instead. Anyway, it wasn’t a lie that they were coming to our orphanage…

 

I won’t meet any Saint.

 

No matter how Widget was the eldest among the orphanage children, he was still just a 10-year-old.

 

Remembering his friend’s appearance and getting scared in advance, Widget gritted his teeth. If they tried to make him meet the Saint, he’d just throw Clara, who had wanted to meet the Saint so badly, into their arms instead.

 

Soon it was time for the Saint to arrive. Mrs. Cool looked more nervous than she had in the 7 years he’d known her.

 

Well-dressed people who appeared to be from the Central Church entered the orphanage one by one, scanning to see if there were any threats.

 

However, in the run-down orphanage that was always struggling financially, there wasn’t a damn thing that could attack the Saint – it was hard to even find a single knife.

 

All there was in the shabby orphanage were children standing in a row like disciplined soldiers on a training ground. And there was only the hook-nosed Mrs. Cool with an awkward smile unnaturally guiding the soldiers.

 

“N-now then. Children. Give flowers to the Central Church people who are always working hard.”

 

But since these were flowers picked from the wild mountains this season, they looked terrible. The Central Church officials awkwardly smiled as they received the broken-stemmed flowers that had lost all their leaves and barely had stamens left, tucking them into their front pockets. As they tucked them in, the stems seemed to break and plant juice soaked into their white clothes. Oh dear.

 

At that moment, a subtle sense of pressure was felt. Mrs. Cool and the Central Church officials hadn’t noticed yet and were exchanging greetings, but the children could sense it.

 

The children’s characteristic sensitive and fragile senses were being crushed. The children standing in a line began trembling violently.

 

Uh oh…

 

3-year-old Clara was already sitting collapsed on the floor. Mrs. Cool saw this and, startled, quickly lifted Clara into her arms.

 

Mrs. Cool panicked seeing all the children standing together having fits.

 

“Oh my, why, why are they acting like this.”

 

Creak.

 

The shabby wooden door of the small orphanage opened. The poorly maintained door screamed as it let a tall man into the orphanage.

 

The man who bent down to cross the threshold had his face covered with a strange veil.

 

As if the night sky itself had been transplanted there, beneath a veil that captured a clear night sky, hair too long for a man’s flowed down.

 

The pure white and splendid robes of the Imperial Central Church, and the strangely shining symbol of the Saint that I had always carved…

 

“Oh my, everyone seems quite tense.”

 

The Ascetic had come.

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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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