The Magical Holy Woman Seraphina - Chapter 23

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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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Magical Saint Seraphina
Episode 23
Everyone in my family was overweight.
Grandmother, Grandfather, Mom, Dad, even my brother—we all loved to eat.
In the evenings, we’d gather around the table together, and sharing delicious food was the most important part of our family’s routine.
Mom had generous hands; whenever she cooked, she’d make mountains of food to share with the neighbors. Dad was good at making snacks. My brother only liked meat and wasn’t fond of sweets, so whenever Dad baked a cake or made milk pudding, Grandmother and I ate most of it.
“As long as you eat well and stay healthy, that’s all that matters.” That was my parents’ favorite saying. And truly, our whole family was healthy.
Back then, I was the most popular child in the Village. I always smelled sweet and carried snacks with me everywhere.
I’d been interested in Acting from a young age, so whenever a Traveling Theater Troupe came through the neighborhood, I’d go watch them. After the performance, I’d drape a Blanket from home over myself to mimic a dress and recite the lines.
When I recited my lines perfectly, my family would clap and praise me.
My friends and neighbors loved watching me perform too—whenever we put on a play at a festival, they’d always ask me to take the lead role.
Even by my own measure, I had talent.
So at fourteen, I left the Village alone and entered a Drama School in the City.
And the moment I arrived, I knew I was different from the other children.
On my first day at school, the students who saw me suddenly fell silent.
They stared at me as I walked in, then quickly huddled together whispering and laughing.
No one spoke to me, and a perfect circle of empty space formed around me.
Soon someone said something to me directly.
‘You came here thinking you could act, with a body like that?’
‘Hey, you’re really going to have to be amazingly talented.’
‘Is your family rich? How do you expect to be an actor if you can’t even manage basic body maintenance?’
‘No professional awareness at all.’
That was the first evaluation I received from people who didn’t love me.
Throughout my time at that school, I was someone the other students felt free to ignore.
No matter what performance I gave in class or what role I wanted to try, the other students and even the teachers would look at me with ‘You?’ written all over their faces, belittling me in subtle ways.
When I ate the snacks Mom and Dad sent from home,
‘Does bread even fit in your mouth? Must be nice to feel so satisfied.’
‘Your body’s like that and you’re still eating snacks? You don’t have any real passion, do you?’
Of course, the mockery continued even when I didn’t eat.
People seemed to think that fat women lacked sensitivity.
They thought delicacy was the exclusive domain of thin women, that if you were fat, you must be dull. But the truth was, I had just as much refinement and sensitivity as anyone else.
By that point, I’d come to believe that being fat was my fault, proof that I couldn’t take care of myself.
I tried to lose weight, but it never worked.
I’d starve until my vision blurred, then I’d gulp down food desperately, and the cycle would repeat.
‘Impressive. You’re still fat.’
I heard words like that over and over.
On the day of the Graduation Performance, many people came.
One by one, students took the stage and presented what they’d prepared.
It was a day we’d been preparing for a whole year.
I’d memorized every line, practiced until even the speed of my blinks and the angle of my fingers were perfect.
I was truly confident.
Even if I didn’t have the appearance people wanted, once they saw my performance, everyone would have to acknowledge me.
Finally, it was my turn, and I stepped out before the audience.
Hundreds of people sitting in front of me had all turned to show me their profiles.
They were looking at another friend waiting near the exit below the stage—the prettiest girl in our year.
The spotlight fell on me, I spoke my first line, I knelt on stage and shed tears and cried out, but no one was watching me.
Not a single person, not once, looked my way.
I’d thought seeing my performance once would change things. But I was never given that chance in the first place.
For fifteen minutes, I performed alone before people who had their backs to me.
The Theater was silent.
There were no laughs, no cheers. Because no one was watching my performance.
When my heart shattered and I stumbled midway, no one reacted.
Just as I caught my breath before my final line, someone spoke into the quiet Theater.
‘Is she still going?’
At those words, the audience burst into laughter.
With a flushed face, I finished my final lines as if nothing was wrong and stepped off the stage.
Next came the beautiful girl everyone had been waiting for.
The Theater instantly filled with cheers and applause, as if nothing had happened before.
Within that wave of cheers that easily drowned out any other sound, four classmates dragged me to a vacant lot behind the Theater.
They said our school had been embarrassed because of me, and if I loved food so much, I should try eating my fill—they laid out a Cake that had been brought as a gift and told me to eat it all.
They made me eat with my bare hands until I threw up, and then they photographed it. One of them had a camera.
When the performance ended, my parents came to pick me up.
I didn’t even finish the final graduation procedures—just ran home.
While I rested back in my hometown, the weight fell off rapidly.
I simply couldn’t bring myself to eat anything.
A few years later, convinced I couldn’t go on like that, I looked in a mirror for the first time and barely recognized myself—I’d become someone entirely different.
I came up to the Capital, changed my name, and made my debut.
I joined the first Theater Troupe that caught my eye and performed the same Graduation Performance I’d been memorizing.
“What remarkable talent!”
Everyone who saw me act said exactly that.
It was the same performance as before.
If anything, it was weaker.
After years away, I stumbled over my lines several times, and I completely forgot the final line.
“After that, it’s a story everyone knows. The unknown actress Rosena, who appeared like a comet one day.”
No one knew my past, and rumors swirled that I was of Foreign Origin.
Skitter had been digging into my background from the moment I debuted, trying to uncover anything—past relationships, unofficial patrons, anything he could use against me.
“Then those classmates of mine told Skitter that I’d attended the Drama School with them.”
I heard they eagerly recounted how they’d tormented me.
How overweight I’d been, how pathetic I looked running laps every morning, drenched in sweat, determined to lose weight, how pitifully I’d stuffed cake into my mouth through tears.
“And on the way back from giving their testimony, their carriage overturned. They all died—every last one of them who bullied me.”
Isn’t that funny?
“If they hadn’t come to torment me one last time, they wouldn’t have died at all.”
“…But the Film remains.”
“That’s right. The Film remains. In the hands of Skitter, reporter for the Imperial Daily News.”
It’s all there.
Me on stage, while the audience looks away.
Me eating Cake with my bare hands—a grotesque sight.
“They say I deceived the public. That I was overweight but pretended to have always been beautiful. That it’s fraud. But I never said any such thing. I simply didn’t speak of the bullying I endured. I didn’t want to remember those things.”
Was I supposed to tell everyone?
Does everyone go around telling people about their awful school memories? If you don’t speak of them, does that make you a liar?
“Some say my mere existence harms them—that my presence plants ideas in children and girls who dream of acting, ideas that you have to be beautiful.”
‘Since this harmful creature pretended to be naturally gifted, I absolutely must expose the truth,’ they said—that’s what the friend was told before passing me the Film.
But is that really my fault?
When I was overweight, no one looked at me.
Only after I lost weight did anyone pay attention to me, notice my talent.
Was I supposed to give that up?
If my desperation for attention is a sin, then those who only show interest in me when I’m thin and beautiful—are they blameless?
“In my life, I have never bullied anyone, never caused anyone hardship. My only crime was not being beautiful.”
Is that such a grave sin?
Is it the public’s right to know about it?
These horrible memories I don’t want to dredge up?
“I regret pursuing my dreams now.”
I should have lived quietly.
Done nothing, never pursued what I wanted.
If I’d lived the way people expected the overweight version of me to live—unremarkably, without ambition—my past would never have been exposed to everyone.
“Now that you’ve heard my whole story, it’s your turn to answer.”
Am I really so terrible?

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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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