The Saint’s Manual for Redemption - 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
“A miracle……”
The Archbishop echoed the word I’d spoken, his tone dripping with mockery.
“Do tell us what miracle Siella, our candidate, has deigned to bestow.”
His voice was gentle, almost affectionate—but I hadn’t missed the malice running thick beneath it, the barely concealed eagerness to drag me before the Heresy Tribunal the moment he had cause. Not for a second.
“I journeyed to Delheim, a village in the territory of Earl Noidel, and granted the suffering villagers peace.”
The moment I lowered my lashes and delivered the report, an uproar erupted from the College of Cardinals.
“The villagers have been slaughtered by plague, and you dare speak of miracles? How is this anything but mockery of the Church?”
“Forgive me, but when did I ever claim the villagers were dead? I merely healed them.”
I covered my mouth, feigning concern, and watched as the Cardinals descended like wolves who’d caught the scent of blood.
“Healed them? Can you stake your reputation on such words, Siella, our candidate?”
“Yes, tell us—how exactly did you cure the plague that ravaged Delheim?”
Understanding at once that I’d walked into their trap, I smiled at the Cardinals who pressed their demands upon me, unable to hide their glee.
“It wasn’t a plague that afflicted Delheim, as it turned out.”
The clamor against me ceased abruptly. The Cathedral fell silent in an instant, my voice alone ringing out clear and sharp.
“Those poor lambs suffered from Magical Essence contamination. I merely purified them, freeing them from the agony of Monster Transformation.”
The Cardinals’ expressions hardened as they grasped my meaning.
Delheim had contained only healing relics. Purifying Magical Essence with relics alone was impossible—which meant my success in purifying the contamination could mean only one thing: I possessed Purification Holy Power.
“So when I spoke of granting peace, why did you assume I’d massacred the villagers? I’ve heard it said that people project their own thoughts onto others. Did you perhaps attempt to wipe out the entire village because you couldn’t resolve Delheim’s ‘plague’?”
As I recalled the Holy Stones ringed around the village perimeter, a smile played at the corner of my mouth.
These wretches had actually tried to level an entire village, and now they dared wag their tongues.
“Oh, how grieved Cardinal Norman would be if he learned this truth—he tried so hard until the very end……”
I wiped at my eyes in mock tears, speaking as though for their benefit. The moment Norman’s name was mentioned, the Cardinals visibly flinched.
Only the Archbishop, unmoved and watching me with eyes like a serpent’s, finally opened his mouth.
“Siella, our candidate—if the villagers of Delheim were to transform into monsters again, could you bear responsibility for the weight of that word you spoke: miracle?”
I raised my eyebrow at the Archbishop’s stern, reproachful tone. To anyone watching, it was clear he spoke to me as one addresses an inferior.
It was remarkable that my eyes betrayed no tremor, no hint of alarm—even when my prey walked willingly into the snare I’d laid.
“The word ‘miracle’ is not to be spoken carelessly. Even if you did purify the Magical Essence of those contaminated villagers using Purification Holy Power, it is merely a routine relief effort undertaken by the Church.”
His gaslighting was masterful indeed—the work of someone well-practiced. I could only imagine how many rivals he’d disposed of with that honeyed tongue.
There weren’t many who possessed Purification Holy Power in the first place, yet here he stood calling it a common relief effort. If such power were truly commonplace, why dispatch a Cardinal to Delheim in the first place?
“Ah, so you knew the contamination would return even after purification? Then you must have also known it wasn’t merely a plague?”
Still smiling steadily, I struck at his weak point. Though it seemed clear now that he no longer intended to conceal the truth.
“Then why did you frame the candidate task for me as relieving a plague-stricken village according to God’s will? The tasks are hardly the same, are they?”
Arden, standing behind me, gently patted my shoulder as if to urge calm.
“Do you lack confidence?”
His tone had shifted, carrying what seemed like mockery—he must have sensed his victory near. I lifted my head with perfect composure.
“Very well. I’ll stake my life on it. If the villagers transform into monsters again after today, put me on the pyre without trial.”
Arden grabbed my arm urgently, as if to stop me.
But I didn’t understand his concern. He’d been there beside me, hadn’t he? He knew perfectly well that everything had been resolved completely.
He knew the probability of my burning was zero.
The Archbishop studied me, trying to gauge my intent. I met his gaze without flinching.
Barely eighty under his belt, and he dared match wills with me? The end times, truly. Five centuries ago, this would have been cause for ceremony.
“Besides, I’ve no intention of dressing up such minor relief work as a miracle.”
When one had no allies, leaving irrefutable evidence was paramount.
That’s why I’d taken the trouble to create a Holy Water Pond in Delheim with such performative flourish.
No matter how much they might insist it was God’s will, I needed everyone to understand that it was I who had received that divine will and created the pond.
The villagers could be bought with gold, but the Holy Water Pond I’d created could never be filled in, no matter how hard they tried—not unless both Caritas and I permitted it.
“They say seeing once is better than hearing a hundred times. Since words alone won’t seem to convince you, allow me to demonstrate the miracle I brought to you here, right now.”
The underground spring flowing beneath my feet was impossibly clear to my senses.
How interesting that a water vein had formed here. Five hundred years was ample time for an underground spring to develop beneath soil where water had pooled in stillness.
Caritas, I beg you to look the other way if someday I visit water torture upon these wretched descendants in this very place.
The moment I entered the Cathedral, I’d laid Wilson Junior at my feet beforehand. The Cardinals, so fixated on my face, only now caught sight of the blade resting beside me, their expressions shifting to shock.
“How dare you bring a weapon into this sacred Cathedral, where even Holy Knights cannot draw their swords!”
The moment one of the Cardinals seized upon this transgression, he raised his Mace infused with Holy Power and brought it down upon the Cathedral floor with all his strength.
Crash!
The floor of the Cathedral split with a sound that shook heaven and earth.
“To desecrate the sacred Cathedral! Now your true colors emerge! Seize that wicked heretic at once—”
They did love that word, “dare.”
Boom-crash!
Before the Archbishop could finish his outcry, the floor collapsed entirely. In the same instant, groundwater pooled beneath the Cathedral rushed swiftly to fill the gaping chasm.
Water brimming with Holy Power caught the light from the stained glass and sparkled with translucent brilliance.
“This cannot be…… The Holy Water…… The Holy Water Pond…….”
I lifted my chin proudly toward those muttering in a daze.
“This is precisely the Miracle I have bestowed upon the village of Delheim.”
This is the sort of thing that deserves to be called a Miracle. Wouldn’t you agree?
***
“What is the meaning of this! You said we could dispose of the Saint candidate and obliterate that troublesome village without lifting a finger, and yet here we stand empty-handed!”
After sending Siella and Caritas away, the College of Cardinals convened an emergency meeting in the Cathedral, which had become the Holy Water Pond.
It was shocking enough that she had returned unharmed from where they’d sent her to die, but to possess Purification Holy Power as well—
What they had done was no different than releasing a fish back into water.
“It is not impossible that Holy Water was buried beneath the Cathedral from the start, and that place became the Holy Water Pond.”
One would think their hopes had burned out by now, yet they continued spinning their desperate calculations. Their self-deception was truly limitless.
“If the pond that appeared in Delheim is merely an ordinary one, it will not stop the recurring Magical Essence contamination.”
The Archbishop spoke as though to reassure the Cardinals and calm their nerves.
“We have sent someone. Let us wait a little longer. In a few days’ time, we shall have that orphan girl standing upon the Pyre.”

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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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