The Life of a Wise Cult Leader - Chapter 151

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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 151

 

When Cardil asked with a lukewarm tone, Celestia turned red all the way to the tips of her ears.

 

“Can’t I wear a dress when I go?”

 

“You don’t even wear skirts often because they’re uncomfortable. Moreover, something with this many frills and gems, well, you wouldn’t even wear it to a banquet hall…”

 

“Quiet!”

 

Celestia instantly pulled out her staff and struck it on the floor with a thud, magically sealing Cardil’s mouth. Cardil, whose lips were stuck together, mumbled a few times before giving up and rolling his tired eyes.

 

“Ahem… I made a spectacle of myself! Haha.”

 

“Since we’re going to the Demon Realm and the battlefield, it would be better to wear clothes that are easy to move in, as Brother Cardil said.”

 

“Yes…”

 

I wondered what wind had suddenly blown through her to make her wear a dress.

 

Celestia trudged back into her room wearing her voluminous dress. And 10 minutes later, she returned dressed in her usual attire.

 

“Well then, shall we depart?”

 

*

 

We boarded a carriage heading to the front lines. During the journey, I asked the system various questions, watched Cardil sleep, and occasionally glanced at Celestia who was researching and practicing magic in her spare time.

 

And whenever I remembered, I marveled at moving my ether-made arm, and used voice transmission and vision sharing to check where our kids were and what they were doing.

 

As a bonus, I also played around asking the system various things.

 

The conversations were generally like this.

 

When I tried to calm my somewhat troubled feelings and asked, ‘Sernuan. Are you in there?’ the Cel AI system that didn’t understand what I was getting at would respond with something like ‘Sernuan Lumiere’ is the Ascetic’s former nickname and the name of this body’s owner. Sernuan does not exist here! And I repeated that conversation over and over.

 

Most conversations consisted of me scolding it not to call me Player or Ascetic or Sernuan, but to call me Brother, and getting annoyed at the AI that couldn’t understand. Then occasionally when the real Sernuan would speak through broken text, I’d feel really good.

 

[The Goooooood of Darrrrrrkness saysssss to stoppppp contactinggggg,]

 

The God of Darkness says to stop contacting?

 

[Sendinggggg messagesssss consumesssss cosssssst.]

 

Sending messages consumes cost? What kind of cost?

 

I didn’t understand it well, but I got that it wasn’t good when I talked to him.

 

Feeling somewhat bad, I randomly poked sleeping Cardil’s cheek.

 

He was sleeping so deeply that this didn’t wake him up. Cardil’s cheek, who was probably only in his twenties at most, was pitifully gaunt without any softness. He had plenty of dark circles too.

 

Well, considering he performs duties as a professor-level doctor plus chemical research, it made sense he’d be like this. How terrible. Suddenly Cardil seemed incredibly impressive.

 

“Is it alright being with Brother Cardil at the Magic Tower?”

 

Celestia, who had been looking at paper for magic research, raised her head.

 

“It’s good. Cardil is a good student. He sometimes speaks annoyingly, but he has a sense of mission and responsibility, and follows lessons well. Most interestingly, he has no attributes.”

 

“Non-attribute must not be common.”

 

“Hmm. To put it simply, it’s like albinism. It’s not completely absent, but it’s not very common either… Moreover, albinos are weak, right? Non-attribute is weak like that too.”

 

“Isn’t Brother Cardil strong?”

 

Celestia smiled.

 

“It’s just enough ability to protect his own body. Just as albinos are special and valuable as slaves, non-attribute people have vastly different ability levels because they lack attributes. Fortunately, Cardil was someone who could use divine power… that is, healing magic, and knew how to cast basic barriers, so he was able to grow to that extent. He’s still quite lacking though!”

 

She clapped her hands once, put away the quill pen, and closed the ink cap. The papers also returned to their proper places in neat stacks.

 

“Is that kind of thing magic?”

 

“It’s not magic, but it’s a skill any mage can do. Like how you can’t really call paperwork actual work.”

 

I thought I had found a suitable teacher for this arm.

 

“I can do something similar too, but I can’t make it as precise as Celestia does.”

 

“So that’s why you kept floating buttons in the air earlier?”

 

“Yes. If it’s alright, could you briefly show me how to operate it?”

 

“Sure!”

 

For four whole days, I learned from Celestia how to operate the arm made of ether.

 

Thanks to that, with that arm I was able to learn how to write Sernuan’s name very crookedly, fold paper tulips, paper boats, and paper airplanes, pick up light objects from about 20 meters away, and pick up objects within 5kg that were right in front of me.

 

“We’ve arrived.”

 

“Thank you. Now everyone, we’ve arrived at the Wall of Wailing. Miss Celestia, please handle the monsters, and Brother Cardil, please establish a temporary relief center and manage the patients.”

 

Cardil, who had rested for a few days, looked like he had some energy back. The two got off the carriage and diligently carried out my instructions.

 

‘Hasn’t the supply carriage that Antonio sent arrived yet? When I saw it earlier, it was almost here.’

 

I caught a familiar presence behind me. I turned around. Yelena with her hair tied up high was looking at me with a grin.

 

“Yelena, it’s been a while.”

 

“Not that much time has passed~ So, what should I do?”

 

“Please work together with Miss Celestia.”

 

“Got it.”

 

Yelena swung her halberd once to shift its center of gravity and then left briskly. Celestia, who has an impulsive personality but follows me well, and Yelena, who is stable but lacks something decisive, would complement each other well.

 

‘Erendor and Kalebrin are on their way, and Tuba is… I don’t know, but he’ll manage to come somehow. He has a teleporter after all.’

 

This time, when I talk with the Demon King about the ceasefire agreement with the Demon Realm, I want to ask about the widow… I mean, Teacher, to avoid becoming a possessed body and hopefully resolve Alderion’s matter.

 

‘I don’t know who else to give this pendant to, so I guess I’ll just dump it on the Demon King.’

 

Since the Demon King is the owner of the Demon Realm, wouldn’t he find the pendant’s owner for me? Since I don’t have any artifacts or information about the people there, there shouldn’t be any problems with handing it over.

 

Teacher only told me to bring it to the Demon Realm, not to hand it over, so it’s up to me how I handle it, but this pendant feels unsettling. If I give it to the Demon King, some clue might emerge.

 

I got off the carriage and slowly walked toward the front lines where the soldiers would be.

 

As I walked, spreading ether throughout the magically contaminated ground, the land that had been dead black and purple began to regain its original color as if finding new life.

 

The grass that had become sticky and pressed to the ground lifted its head when my ether touched it, showing off its green color as if boasting of life’s freshness.

 

When I poured ether into a tree that was rotting black with its bark falling off, the brown tree straightened its bent shoulders and back, stretched out its arms, and sprouted new buds.

 

At my feet, many small lives had died. I picked up a small bird that had fallen to the ground and was barely breathing, lifted it with my hand and threw it into the air, and it spread its two wings and flew away as if it had never been dying on the ground.

 

There were several hundred soldiers staring at me blankly, and several hundred gazes watching me from beyond those front lines.

 

Combined, it was just under five thousand people. It was a small number to be at the very front lines. Or maybe I’ve watched too much Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

 

‘I wonder if the food Antonio brought will be enough to feed them all?’

 

*

 

Western Front Lines, Wall of Wailing.

 

This place is not fit for human habitation. Though it wasn’t a place people were sent to live in the first place, but to die.

 

With every breath, the smell of rotten mold and fishy blood sticks deep in the lungs. The sky is always covered with purple magic, making it hard to tell whether the sun has risen or set.

 

I rolled a piece of dried, twisted hardtack in my mouth and spat on the ground.

 

“Tch, tastes like chewing sand.”

 

“Eat sparingly. We don’t know when the next supplies will come.”

 

A comrade cleaning his spear nearby replied in a weak voice.

 

It had already been a week since they’d had a proper meal, so it was understandable.

 

The central command spoke of creating a true empire through conquest wars in all directions, making heroes of the young men to send to the battlefield and claiming it was glorious to go to war, but what actually reached the front lines was only rotting potatoes and moldy bread.

 

If this was hero treatment, then even the leader of wolves would receive better care. Those wolves that try to tear our flesh apart every night.

 

That’s when it happened. The rear fortress became noisy.

 

“A, a Saint is coming here…”

 

“Saint? What would a Saint be doing in a place like this? Are you sick?”

 

“No, look over there!”

 

Someone who hadn’t been able to wash his face for weeks due to water shortage and looked filthy pointed beyond the horizon.

 

“What nonsense are you talking about, this is-”

 

Thinking I’d humor him, I turned my head and saw a mass of light shimmering and rolling toward us like waves. And as if a storm was coming in reverse, rain of light was rising up to the sky.

 

“Have I finally died? Because if not, something like that… something like that…”

 

A man in white robes was walking slowly toward them. With each step he took, the rotted and corrupted earth miraculously regained its original color.

 

Whoooosh-

 

From the ground that had reeked of death, a clear and fresh scent of grass arose.

 

Withered old trees instantly filled with sap and sprouted leaves, and small birds that had fallen dead from toxic fumes flew back up to the sky with just one touch of his hand.

 

This was not simple magic. It was divine power that touched God’s domain, turning death back into life.

 

“Th, this is impossible…”

 

“Is that… something a human can do?”

 

The soldiers stared blankly at the scene, not even noticing they had dropped their spears.

 

The man in white robes wearing a veil that seemed torn from the night sky slowly approached the Imperial Army’s front lines.

 

Someone from the nearby outpost muttered.

 

“A, a Saint… It’s really a Saint…”

 

Then the ground rumbled. As if an earthquake had struck, the soldiers who had been mesmerized by the Saint quickly readied their weapons.

 

And the source of that earthquake was none other than several large carriages.

 

There were over dozens of carriages that merchant guilds would use. It looked like there were easily a hundred of them!

 

“Wh, what is this.”

 

“The squad leader says those are all supplies! The Saint organized his own relief corps…”

 

“Supplies?”

 

Several strong men got down from the carriages and recruited soldiers to help distribute the supplies.

 

Very high-quality supplies were distributed among the soldiers.

 

“The Saint will personally treat patients! Anyone who’s even slightly sick, come over here!”

 

Everyone moved in perfect coordination. They distributed supplies and built new outposts. Those who had gone on external patrol missions and hunting wild animals due to hunger returned.

 

“This is, this is impossible. Something like this…”

 

Just standing before the Saint healed all ailments.

 

Even that guy Oliver, whose spine was shattered and who was supposed to be sent to the rear with next week’s supplies, was walking on his own two feet!

 

The soldier was so overwhelmed by this miracle that he wanted to burst into tears. The Saint standing among the people was our god. If we don’t revere someone like that, who would we revere?

 

By the time the sun set on the front lines, there were no patients and no one who hadn’t eaten.

 

The attacking monsters had all been dealt with by external contractors, they said. Even in the nearby villages!

 

In the year and a half since falling into this battlefield, there had never been such a miraculous day. This day should be commemorated even more than the Dawn Festival.

 

“But why aren’t they unloading half the supplies?”

 

“They told us not to unload them here? They said there are other places to deliver them.”

 

They speculated that it might be because the Saint was making rounds to other front lines.

 

That’s when it happened. The Saint gathered all the soldiers with intact limbs. Since everyone’s limbs became intact once the Saint looked after them anyway, hundreds of soldiers assembled in the clearing of the great battlefield.

 

“Hello, everyone. I am the Ascetic.”

 

Whether through magical processing, the Saint’s voice was gentle yet rang out clearly to every corner of the wide clearing.

 

“The remaining half of the food will be taken beyond the barrier, to the Demon Race.”

 

The soldiers’ faces hardened instantly. Giving food to the enemy. The soldiers gathered in the plaza looked at each other and stirred restlessly.

 

The reason the words “what kind of bullshit is this” couldn’t burst out was because the miracles the Saint had shown for half a day were suppressing their rebellious feelings.

 

What calmed that agitation was the Saint’s calm and confident voice.

 

“What have we gained from holding swords to each other’s throats these past years? Only corpses pile up, and only hatred remains. That’s why I intend to try a different method now.”

 

“This food, before being generosity to help the enemy, will be the most certain foundation stone to open the firmly closed doors of the Demon Realm and draw out an agreement for ceasefire. By placing bread instead of weapons in their hands, I will create justification so that we today, and furthermore my future self, my children, my children’s children! will no longer need to shed blood.”

 

The Saint turned his gaze toward the Demon Realm and concluded his words resolutely.

 

“Because blood can never wash away blood. Because pain cannot overcome pain. Today, I go to end this damned war.”

 

The Saint shouted.

 

“Who will be the first to join me in this great negotiation!”

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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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