The Saint’s Manual for Redemption - Chapter 26

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 26
Intense heat pressed against my face.
I gazed upward at the sky, traced the sign of the cross, and spoke softly.
“Though the beginning be humble, the end shall surely be glorious.”
Calianna, standing beside me, turned at the sound of my whispered resolve.
“That’s the opening verse of the Prayer Incantation of the Caritas Church.”
“It’s my favorite passage.”
That’s why I chose it as the opening of the Prayer Incantation. I wrote the whole thing myself, since there wasn’t one to begin with.
The Caritas Church used to lack so much in those days, but now these wretched descendants of mine have grown fat and spoiled on everything I’ve given them, everything I’ve fed them with my own hands — and now they’re squandering money on contraptions like this! So bloated, absolutely bloated!
“Even if you’d lost faith in the Caritas Church and turned to heresy, I could understand that. But how is it you’re still searching for God even now, in this very moment?”
Calianna paused, her smile turning bitter, before she added quietly.
“It’s not too late even now. Just say the word that you’re giving up. I’ll take full responsibility and get you out of here. If the Imperial Territory isn’t safe, then somewhere overseas.”
Well, she lacks the courage to openly declare me a false Saint before everyone, true enough — but her heart is genuinely kind.
I’ll spare her life as a reward. Goodness, I’ve grown far too merciful. In my past life, I would’ve strung her up in the Temple Plaza on charges of conspiracy in fraud.
“Prayer sometimes opens the gateway to miracles.”
At my cryptic reply, Calianna blinked.
“Since prayer has opened the gateway to miracles…”
I stepped forward. Each stride carried absolute certainty. My spine straightened, my chin lifted, my gaze fixed ahead.
Then I laughed and ended with a question that was also a conviction.
“Isn’t it time for the miracle to descend?”
The blue flames drew impossibly close. I stood before them, hands clasped in reverence, and recited a verse from the Prayer Incantation.
“Fear not. Nothing before you shall stand against you. Therefore do I declare in faith: this path is yours.”
As the final word fell, the Holy Domain invoked by Sacred Divine Power activated, and the plaza ground shimmered gold.
The Holy Domain, which bound a space of my designation to myself for a limited time through Holy Power, now enveloped the entire plaza.
The Holy Domain was wholly my domain.
Now every inch of this ground lay beneath my rule. Everything that happened on this earth now unfolded through my will.
Without hesitation, I stepped toward the flames.
In that instant—
The massive wall of fire wavered as if struck, then shrieked as though it had received a contradictory command.
And the color of the flames shifted from blue to radiant, gleaming gold.
Before my body could even touch the fire, the flames parted, as if they had been waiting for this moment. The Holy Flame itself yielded a passage.
I stepped into the fire with a single stride.
The Holy Flame burning on either side was not hot at all.
The fire brushed against my robe but did not catch. From my feet to my waist, my shoulders, and up to the crown of my head, the Holy Flame rose and formed the shape of a Holy Crown.
Whether shocked or panicked by my unexpected success, Calianna began to step toward the flames.
Doesn’t it strike you that the flame’s color changed and parted before me — that this already differs from the situation you were told about?
I flicked my finger lightly, unwilling to watch her burn to death.
The instant Calianna’s foot touched the edge of the flames, the Holy Flame erupted skyward.
***
The blue flames had been stained gold. What did this signify?
Something beyond human control had taken command of the plaza — no longer pretending otherwise.
Arden finally tore his eyes from the golden Holy Flame and turned his gaze toward the device.
He wanted to see the face of the one whose plans had broken apart before this flame that refused to obey — to see it now.
The face of the foul creature who had manipulated the lever with glee, trying to cast Siela into the abyss.
The Priest’s hands trembled as he yanked the lever like a madman. His face had gone pale, his eyes bloodshot. Before flames that would not obey, he was already losing his mind.
‘So.’
Arden’s eyes narrowed.
Now that the plan orchestrated by the Church Council’s upper echelon lay in complete ruins, whoever operated the device would find it difficult to escape responsibility.
He might well become the target of the Church Council’s wrath. If you’re going to destroy someone else’s fate, you had better be prepared to stake your own on the same altar.
The face seemed familiar. This man was the Archbishop’s most trusted aide.
So it was the Archbishop — standing there with that hardened expression — who made the truth evident. This was neither human error nor some deliberate tampering.
The Priest suddenly released the lever and hoisted the hammer he’d hidden nearby.
‘I should destroy the device, yes?’
‘No. The opposite. Protect the device so it’s not destroyed.’
It took Arden no time at all to reach that conclusion. He acted at once.
Just before the hammer could fall on the device, Arden threw himself forward, his shoulder crashing hard into the Priest’s ribs.
With a dull impact, both men tumbled across the ground, and the hammer flew through the air, striking the stone floor and bouncing away.
“We have a suspicious person here!”
Arden pinned the Priest roughly to the ground and shouted. His voice cut clearly through the plaza’s noise — the fervent prayers of excited worshippers calling upon their god.
Moments later, Holy Knights from their patrol came running reflexively.
The first to rush over was Knight Johan.
Having fallen from being the Saint’s personal guard to the escort of a false Saint Candidate, facing the very real prospect of losing his position as the next commander of the Holy Knight Order, he ran forward with barely concealed venom etched across his face.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Knight Johan’s gaze swept across the Priest writhing on the ground pinned by Arden, the Device beside him, and the Hammer that had fallen to the floor. He grasped the situation at once.
Arden spoke, his grip twisting the Priest’s arm behind his back.
“It appears he was attempting to sabotage something with this.”
The moment Knight Johan spotted the Device that Arden indicated with a tilt of his chin, his eyes turned positively glacial. He stared at the Priest who had been manipulating the Device, his gaze burning with lethal intent.
“I will keep watch over this Device. As for this man, Knight Johan—see that he is secured.”
Knight Johan’s jaw clenched tight.
Only now did Arden understand why Siela had insisted the Device remain undamaged. He had never considered that the one controlling it might try to destroy it.
‘How far ahead did she see? Is this the judgment of someone barely come of age?’
Arden’s gaze drifted unconsciously to the center of the Plaza.
There stood the silver-haired woman, perfectly upright within the golden Holy Flame that had cleaved open around her.
Were those chosen by God truly something else entirely?
He kept watch over the Device with iron resolve, allowing not a creature near it, just as he had been asked—and let out a hollow laugh.
***
Heat beyond any comparison to the blue fire from before.
Flames surged upward, blocking Calianna’s path. Embers scattered, singeing the ends of her hair.
The smell of burning hair curled through the air, and Calianna shrieked, stumbling backward.
Whispers transformed into certainty.
“By the heavens—that Candidate is not being rejected by the Holy Flame.”
“It seems Caritas has chosen the one in the fur coat.”
Saint Candidate Calianna’s face contorted hideously.
“You said I just had to walk!”
Saint Candidate Calianna backpedaled as the flames closed in, hungering and inexorable, until finally she turned and fled.
Unable to endure any longer before the true Holy Flame.
The faces of the Church Council’s upper echelon were absolutely worth seeing. The Archbishop’s knuckles had gone white around his Staff, the strain plainly visible.
Every calculation he had prepared had crumbled. No wonder he looked that way.
I stood at the heart of the Holy Flame, my Holy Domain beneath my feet, turning my back to the inferno. I faced the Archbishop directly, my voice steady and clear.
“This is God’s choice.”
As my words fell, the true flames of judgment answered—surging skyward with tremendous force, as if bearing witness to my proclamation.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————