The Saint’s Manual for Redemption - Chapter 31

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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 31
“I would like to offer a prayer of gratitude to Caritas before the Saint Inauguration Ceremony, for guiding me with all their strength through so many trials to reach this position.”
The Archbishop’s voice trembled with emotion as he responded to my request.
“Your piety is evident—surely this is why Caritas chose you as a Saint.”
“Is it not the duty of the clergy to live with reverence for the divine and a grateful heart always?”
My words were meant as a barb, but the Archbishop didn’t so much as blink. He had no conscience left to prick. No wonder the Religious Order looked like this with such a man sitting as Archbishop.
“Then… I shall offer you the Prayer Room. As one raised in the Orphanage attached to the Main Temple, you’ll know there are several such rooms. If you tell me which you prefer, I shall place it at your exclusive use.”
I noticed the Archbishop had been deliberately—almost gleefully—emphasizing that I came from the Main Temple’s attached Orphanage.
And as I’d anticipated, he now magnanimously offered me the choice of Prayer Room, as though granting a favor.
From the moment I’d begun walking here, I’d been assigned to cleaning the Main Temple, and I knew every Prayer Room in it intimately.
The Temple charged the common faithful for access to its Prayer Rooms.
If I answered “any will do,” they would certainly assign me the cheapest room—the one ordinary worshippers used with the smallest donations.
What came next was predictable. They would spin the narrative that the Saint had wanted this particular room, forcing the faithful to use more expensive alternatives out of necessity.
Then I would become the selfish, wicked Saint who robbed the poor of their prayer space while playing at asceticism.
These people would murder if it served to break my authority and damage my reputation.
“I don’t need anything grand—a small Prayer Room would suffice. Though I’d prefer one that only the Temple’s highest-ranking members may enter.”
As I stated my precise conditions, the Archbishop’s corners of his mouth twitched beneath his mask of benevolence. So my suspicion about his spin had been correct.
“And if possible, one where the Divine Statue of Caritas is kept. After all, gratitude is best expressed face to face, is it not?”
There was only one Prayer Room that met all these conditions.
The one I had constructed in my previous life and used most frequently.
I’d expected them to promote it as the “Third Saint’s Prayer Room,” yet instead they’d simply restricted access to high-ranking Temple members and left it largely unused.
When I was an orphan assigned to cleaning, I hadn’t understood why. But now I was beginning to grasp it.
Rumor had spread that the Third Saint’s chamber was cursed—that those who entered died within a month. They were clearly avoiding this Prayer Room for the same reason.
Since my time as the Third Saint had brought such great benefit to the Religious Order, they couldn’t simply erase or seal it away.
“I understand. You shall have that room. Please feel free to pray there whenever you wish.”
A smile of barely concealed delight crossed Archbishop Marius’s lips. So my reasoning had been correct.
“Then I shall see you at the Inauguration Ceremony. I pray it proceeds without incident.”
‘As if I’ll let any of your scheming happen?’
The Archbishop himself opened the door for me. The moment I stepped out of his office, I let my lips curl upward into a smile.
A prayer of gratitude—my ass.
All I wanted was to recover the hidden funds.
The hidden funds were kept inside the Main Temple’s Prayer Room, which is why I’d offered the pretext of a grateful prayer.
This way it wouldn’t seem suspicious to them, and the Temple wouldn’t gain any leverage over me through granting this request.
“Would it be acceptable if I showed you to the Prayer Room?”
I nodded at the polite question from the priest standing before the Archbishop’s office.
“I would appreciate that. I’ve been so occupied lately that I’ve neglected my prayers. It brings me joy to commune with Caritas once more.”
I’d established the pretext for visiting the Prayer Room frequently, and the priest led me down the path I already knew by heart.
“Here it is.”
The priest stopped a hundred meters before the Prayer Room, respectfully gesturing toward the door. He seemed afraid to draw any closer.
Hmm, but they had no trouble sending orphans in to clean. I remembered cleaning this room myself a few times.
They said it was cursed and wouldn’t enter themselves, yet they dumped the cleaning duties on the orphans. This was a bit… lacking in character.
The Prayer Room, meticulously cleaned by unknowing children, was just large enough to accommodate about five adults.
Though truthfully, the space itself wasn’t particularly small—the Divine Statue made it feel cramped by comparison.
This Prayer Room held a colossal statue of a hawk with wings spread wide. The Divine Statue of Caritas.
From our first meeting, and whenever appearing in my dreams, Caritas had taken the form of a hawk wreathed in light, so I’d had it crafted this way.
Indeed, even in that recent incident of the false flames of judgment in the Plaza, hadn’t Caritas assisted me as a luminous hawk-shape? Though the irony was that this counted as one of my few deep involvements in mortal affairs.
At least because it was an animal form, I felt less irritated by playing the divine proxy in this farce.
Imagining people fainting or being hauled away to circuses upon seeing a hawk speak was too absurd. Of course, even thinking such a thing counted as Blasphemy.
This statue was slightly smaller than the Divine Statue in the Grand Cathedral. Yet it had cost five times as much to create.
First, the marble used was far more expensive and superior. And there was something else—something more special.
Three of those five times the cost came purely from the exceptional craftsmanship required.
‘Surely no one is spying from outside?’
If anyone saw what I was about to do here, they’d cry out that the Saint had committed Blasphemy without hesitation.
“O Caritas, forgive my irreverence.”
You overlooked it five hundred years ago, so I trust you’ll let this pass now as well.
I expanded my Aura Sensing to confirm no watchful eyes were nearby, then sprang lightly onto the statue.
My physical capabilities and strength were identical to what they’d been in my previous life during the Demon King raid. Without them, this life would have been considerably more difficult.
With a racing heart, I tapped the hawk’s head in a Jajinmori Rhythm, striking the beat with spirited vigor. More than a hundred years had passed since my reincarnation into this world, yet I hadn’t forgotten this rhythm.
If anyone caught sight of this, it would be straight to Religious Trial for Blasphemy without even a Heresy Inquisition.
With a soft click, the hawk’s crown split silently open along both sides.
It was a mechanism I’d commissioned when I had the Divine Statue made.
Of course, I’d also intended to conceal Hidden Funds within it…….
‘I arranged everything so carefully for the sake of future generations, and this is how they repay my grace?’
As the futility of my efforts sank in, my teeth clenched of their own accord.
If the Temple’s finances had grown so dire that they’d smashed and sold the Divine Statue made from the most expensive marble, then it was a safeguard meant for the moment when my successors faced their darkest hour—a mechanism designed to help them save the Religious Order.
Though looking at the Temple’s current state, it seemed my concern had been unnecessary.
Still, even if eighty percent of my intention had been to hide the Hidden Funds and only twenty percent to aid my successors, at least I’d acted on that twenty percent, hadn’t I?
At any rate, I’d never feared the Hidden Funds would be discovered.
Striking the Divine Statue’s crown was Blasphemy, something only I would dare do, and it was obvious no one else could strike it with the precise rhythm of the Jajinmori Rhythm.
But now I couldn’t be certain of anything. Human affairs are unpredictable.
Look at them—those successors I’d trusted absolutely, believing they would never fall into corruption and would keep to the path of righteousness, now demonstrating the very textbook decay of a corrupt Temple to me, an avid reader of such stories.
Who knows? Perhaps someone had accidentally recreated the Jajinmori Rhythm on the Divine Statue’s crown.
Or perhaps they’d been trying to move the statue from this Prayer Room to elsewhere, heard it creak, smashed it to pieces, stolen my Hidden Funds from inside, and already converted them into the Temple’s coffers. And they might have replaced this statue with a replica…….
My mind flooded with every negative possibility imaginable.
I swallowed hard, my throat dry, and carefully peered into the interior of the Divine Statue’s crown.

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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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