The Saint’s Manual for Redemption - Chapter 28

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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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Episode 28
I doubted my own ears for a moment.
Someone lived in my suite? It wasn’t designated a sanctum and managed with strict oversight?
“You gave permission for someone to use this place—a site of such historical significance—without even attempting to preserve it? It’s unbelievable….”
As I covered my mouth in shock and muttered in disbelief, Arden asked with a wry expression.
“Was that what surprised you?”
Come to think of it, if this place had been designated a sanctum by the Main Temple, there was no way they would have surrendered it so willingly to me as I am now. For that matter, there weren’t many people who even knew that I was the reincarnation of the Third Saint.
“Then what exactly should I be surprised about?”
“Most people focus on the fact that anyone who stays in this room dies within a month. Not that other saints continued to live here after the Third Saint.”
I ransacked my memories to see if I’d perhaps placed some curse on my room in my past life that killed anyone who entered it, but I found no such recollection.
Besides, I hadn’t even known how to curse anyone back then.
Arden shook his head slowly.
“I forgot you’re a follower of the Third Saint.”
“The Third Saint.”
I corrected his form of address.
Was I his friend? He’d even dated one of my distant ancestors at some point—what was I getting at anyway? Either way, we were both Havellin.
Arden’s expression became complicated as he continued.
“That’s why we personally call it the curse of the Third Saint.”
I could tolerate suspecting myself of being a curse-caster, but I couldn’t abide others suspecting me of it. I raised an eyebrow and asked.
“Is there a designated room that saints are supposed to use?”
“Normally, a saint is granted the authority to choose whichever room she desires. It’s her own choice. You’re the only exception.”
It was unfortunate, but who asked anyone to covet someone else’s room? If it was the Third Saint’s chamber, it would surely be historically significant—wouldn’t it be?
A place worthy of being designated a sanctum, and yet they spread rumors that it was cursed?
‘Wait—could this be the source of that urban legend?’
During my time as the Third Saint, Caritas bestowed upon me a blessing so that my Holy Power would recharge after a single night’s rest in my room—all to work me relentlessly.
Back then, I spent nearly every day purifying land corrupted by demonic miasma several times over, cleansing hundreds of corrupted people, striking down hundreds of demons with Holy Power, and consecrating hundreds of weapons for not just the Holy Knight Order but mercenary companies seeking to hunt monsters as well—all of which meant that vast reserve of Holy Power depleted within a week.
It was a chaotic era, marked by simultaneous contamination of lands as a sign of the Demon King’s revival. The war with the Demon Realm was so extensive it could rightly be called an age of turmoil.
At any rate, I was always too busy replenishing my Holy Power to rest, so I frequently came close to death before reaching a natural lifespan.
Apparently, Caritas grew anxious that finding another proxy as capable at this work wouldn’t be easy.
One night I dreamed my room filled with water. I frantically broke through the walls to drain it, only for it to keep filling up—I thought it was a nightmare, but when I woke, my room had transformed into a Holy Power Charging Station.
What happens when you pour a lake’s worth of water into a balloon? It bursts, naturally.
If she were a saint properly chosen by Caritas and possessed Holy Power to begin with, that blessing might have been manageable, but puppet saints with no Holy Power to speak of could never have withstood it bare-handed.
Which meant…the sect’s intention in giving me that room, where so many saints had perished, was transparent.
“They gave me this room hoping I’d die within a month.”
At last grasping the truth, I nodded.
Of course, I was grateful. It was as though I’d reclaimed my own room—the one that even recharged my Holy Power.
It was the only thing those descendants did that I actually appreciated.
Unlike the day before I stood in the plaza for the Flame of Selection trial, I noticed there was no particular worry on Arden’s face, so I ventured a question.
“You’re not worried about me this time?”
“I’m gradually learning that worrying is pointless.”
Arden gave a small laugh and added.
“And now that you’re the Saint, you don’t need to speak so formally to me.”
The enthronement ceremony hadn’t happened yet, so it wasn’t officially confirmed, but I had reason to be confident.
Once the Archbishop himself had acknowledged it before so many witnesses, it would look odd for the Main Temple—which must obey Caritas’s will—to now refuse to recognize me as a saint.
Moreover, if a saint who’d shown such a miracle were to meet an untimely death in the temple before her enthronement?
No matter that the Caritas Church was currently the state religion, the people weren’t entirely ignorant of the sect’s corruption and abuses—they would naturally suspect the sect.
Suspicion easily led to apostasy, the very antithesis of faith.
So the enthronement would definitely take place.
“Understood. I’ll drop the formality from now on.”
In my past life too, I used casual speech more often than formal, so there was no discomfort in it.
The image of a compassionate saint who spoke deferentially to everyone did nothing but make people—and the institution they belonged to—underestimate us.
People dismissed with contempt those who seemed merciful and endlessly generous; they swept the entire organization into that contempt as well.
So whenever possible, I spoke casually to everyone except those of venerable age who still held to what little of my Confucian sensibilities remained intact.
Though even among the elderly, the nobles were an exception. There weren’t many who’d aged gracefully here. So whenever I encountered a nobleman who had, my Confucian scruples would prick a little.
The moment I dropped my formality as though I’d been waiting for permission, Arden fixed me with that stare again. He had no expression, but his pupils trembled faintly.
Since he did this often enough when standing before me, I’d grown accustomed to overlooking his peculiarities.
“So I can introduce myself as Ciel Nomendis now?”
It felt like recovering not just my room but my surname as well. The only difference from my past life was an extra consonant added to my name.
“It’s only natural for a saint to bear the sect’s name.”
I picked a green grape from the table and placed it in my mouth. As I rolled it across my tongue, I tasted the tartness of fruit not yet fully ripe.
Living on overripe, cloyingly sweet green grapes feels like a past life. Though I suppose it literally was one.
The quality of fruit delivered to my chambers told me everything about my standing within the Temple.
The finest produce always went to the highest ranks first—that was the rule. But sending me anything less than premium meant nobody here truly believed I was a Saint.
I swallowed the green grapes and turned to Arden with a more pressing question.
“Was the apparatus in the Square kept safe?”
“Just as you predicted, the priest operating the device noticed it wouldn’t respond once the Flame of Selection opened for you. He tried to destroy the apparatus entirely.”
“Remarkable how predictable they are.”
I listened to Arden recount that day’s events and clicked my tongue. I’d been far too busy with the Sacred Proclamation in the Square to manage the device myself.
But I had good reason to expect the device operator would destroy it if things didn’t go according to the Church leadership’s plan.
The apparatus was evidence, after all.
Evidence that I truly was chosen by God as a Saint—and evidence that the Temple had been lying all this time.
By destroying it, whoever orchestrated this could report to their superiors with a straight face: the device malfunctioned, that’s why things turned out this way. Not my betrayal, just mechanical failure.
Simultaneously, they’d erase any trace of the Temple’s attempt at manipulation.
“But those heavy-bottomed Cardinals came in person to inspect the device and confirmed it was in perfect working order. So they can’t even claim mechanical failure as an excuse.”
The priest who operated the device has since been demoted and reassigned from the Main Temple to a branch temple quite far from the Temple District.
“Considering the Archbishop kept him as a trusted aide all these years, he might have escaped with just a demotion. But Cardinal Rothberg’s influence was considerable enough to push for the transfer as well. After all, it rather disrupted his nephew Rothberg’s life plans.”
Arden chuckled softly. He clearly had little affection for Johann Rothberg.
My first question answered, I moved on to what I’d been wondering about second.
“What happened to the other Saint candidates?”

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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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