The Saint’s Manual for Redemption - Chapter 38

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

Chapter 38
Honestly, I didn’t need to see it coming. I was certain they’d push forward with the conclusion that it was a facilities problem.
A few words about negligent maintenance of the aging Bell Tower, insufficient budget—that was all these people needed to bury an accident that nearly cost someone their life. As for responsibility, it would end with reprimanding the Bell Tower keeper.
So the Archbishop’s words caught me completely off guard.
“Fortunately, we have apprehended the perpetrator.”
For a moment, I couldn’t quite grasp what he meant.
Thrown off by a report I hadn’t anticipated, I narrowed my eyes at the Archbishop.
“A perpetrator exists?”
They didn’t just pin this on someone at random, did they? Or did they pin it on someone already locked away in the Heresy Interrogation Chamber? That seemed far more likely.
“A terrorist, Your Holiness. One who deliberately damaged the Bell Tower with meticulous planning, targeting you. We believe he has deep ties to heretical cults, and the inquisitors are currently interrogating him.”
The Archbishop added his words in an even tone, as if reciting a prepared script.
“Still, it would be best if you were to meet him face-to-face directly. Otherwise, he’s unlikely to speak freely.”
Ah. Now I understood what this was about.
The culprit was almost certainly not genuine. There was no way a perpetrator would surface this quickly and cleanly. From the start, this had been a card kept in reserve for exactly such situations.
Even they had to know the facilities excuse was too flimsy to use. So they needed a scapegoat to bear the blame.
I swallowed a bitter laugh and nodded.
“Fine. Let’s have a look at this person.”
A faint satisfaction flickered across the Archbishop’s lips.
The moment the door to the Heresy Interrogation Chamber swung open, a stale water stench mixed with the metallic reek of blood hit me hard. And my worst fears were confirmed in an instant.
A figure with a swollen, bruised face and nearly blood-soaked features let out a desperate wail the moment he saw me, straining frantically against his bonds.
The instant I recognized him, my heart sank.
It was Dino—my fellow orphan from childhood.
I recoiled involuntarily, stumbling back a step or two. Arden caught me quickly.
“Ciela!”
Dino, reduced to this wretched state, cried out my name like a scream.
His hands bound so tightly the blood had drained from them, his hollow face, his split lips—anyone could see at a glance he’d already endured at least one round of what they called “interrogation,” which was really just violence.
I’d meant to visit him once Church matters had settled, but I never imagined meeting him like this.
“Ciela, it wasn’t me!”
Dino cried out urgently, leaning his body forward.
“I swear it wasn’t! I would never try to kill you!”
Tears streamed down his face, and the way he strained against his bonds to reach toward me—it looked like a desperate plea for help. And truly, that’s what it was.
“Audacious!”
A sharp rebuke came from behind.
“How dare you address the Saint so casually!”
Dino flinched as though recognizing his mistake, but it was too late. An inquisitor struck his head hard in reproof.
“Stop!”
I cried out as if screaming.
The Archbishop, watching me with my lip pressed between my teeth, smiled slowly and spoke at leisure.
“Whether this matter grows larger or is buried here depends entirely on your wishes, Your Holiness.”
My fingertips trembled uncontrollably. I’d bitten my lip so hard that blood finally began to seep out. The iron taste of blood coated my tongue.
Of course Dino wasn’t the real culprit.
His role was singular: to prevent me from digging deeper into this affair. A bargaining chip. Leverage for the Church.
I couldn’t speak for a moment. Dino’s eyes held mine, refusing to let go.
“I’m telling you I didn’t…… Ciela, please, just believe me once……”
Dino sobbed. That desperate plea struck my ears once more.
I knew better than anyone that Dino couldn’t possibly be guilty.
Like me, Dino had been abandoned at the Orphanage as an infant. We’d spent more years together growing up there than anyone else in that place.
In the end, I opened my mouth.
“……I’m closing this investigation here.”
My words of defeat, spoken heavily, brought a smile of victory to the Archbishop’s face.
“A wise decision.”
The moment I loosened the rope binding him, Dino collapsed to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.
“Then do share this time with a brother-like peer you haven’t seen in ages.”
With those final words—taunting in their mockery—the Archbishop turned and left the Heresy Interrogation Chamber, taking the inquisitors and his attendant priests with him.
“Dino! Are you alright? Open your eyes!”
I hurried to gather him in my arms and poured Healing Holy Power over him. Slowly, the swelling subsided, the torn skin closed, and the bleeding stopped.
“Thank you, Ciela.”
Now that the pain had faded and he could breathe easier, Dino offered me his gratitude. I bit my lip and shook my head.
“……Don’t thank me. I’m the one who should be sorry to you.”
Whether he understood the weight of those words or not, Dino simply nodded and held me close, sobbing quietly for a long time. I patted his trembling shoulders gently, again and again.
A fellow who’d left the Temple Territory to settle elsewhere out of disgust for its corruption came to visit a classmate, and now this humiliation of all things……
Dino, finally composed, looked at me with worried eyes.
“Ciela, why don’t you just seek asylum overseas? Staying here much longer seems dangerous……”
I shook my head firmly at Dino, who’d offered the same suggestion as Vivian.
“I’m fine. How could I turn my back on God’s will?”
The likelihood that those around us were eavesdropping was high, so that was all I could say.
As Dino and I—without a single mark on him—stepped out of the Heresy Interrogation Chamber, two or three priests stood guard just as I’d expected.
Only once I’d confirmed that Dino, now sound, had safely made it out of the Main Cathedral did I turn my attention away.
As Arden steadied me on my way back to my quarters, a chill crept through my chest.
The Church had surely confirmed today that this method works.
The next step was obvious. The children still remaining at the Orphanage attached to the Main Cathedral, and my other classmates who’d gone independent—they were all hostages and cards the Church could use to tighten the noose around me at any moment.
Arden guided me carefully to the bed and I collapsed onto it, leaning on his steadying hand.
The moment Arden closed the door, I exhaled a long breath.
“…Why do those people think selecting a Saint is their prerogative?”
My weary voice echoed in the room—words that had spilled out before I could stop them. Arden listened without speaking.
“Caritas was always meant to choose the Saint, after all.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Caritas merely stepped back and is now reasserting that unique authority—so why do these humans who’ve gathered in service to God deny God’s will itself and try to impose their own instead?”
Arden fell silent for a moment, then spoke quietly.
“There may be a difference in how one feels when something was never possessed, and when something once held in one’s grasp is taken back.”
His low voice brushed against my ear.
“In the latter case, the sense of having one’s own possession stolen amplifies the grievance, I suspect.”
And so they cling more desperately to reversing it.
“I’d intended to make a report, but it seems you’re not in a state to hear it today.”
Arden adjusted the blanket up to my neck with a delicate touch and straightened.
“I can manage listening.”
“Better to hear it when you’ve regained more strength.”
That one needed strength merely to listen. I grew even more curious about what our successors had been scheming.
“Rest, then.”
With that brief instruction, Arden left the room, and I too closed my eyes, drifting off.
Perhaps it was because the Enthronement Ceremony had ended today and so much had happened in its wake that exhaustion crashed over me all at once. I’d witnessed poison assassination attempts, a building collapse, and a forced frame—it was reason enough.
Having spent considerable Holy Power purifying that deadly toxin in the wine and healing the wounded parishioners must have taken its toll as well.
In my past life, I could have coughed a few times and brushed off something like this, but it seemed I’d grown weaker than I was then. Perhaps it was because the Demon Realm had been so quiet and peaceful, not causing any havoc.
Now, if I didn’t protect them, someone close to me would surely shatter. So I had to find a way—any way—to shield those around me and keep from being manipulated by the Church.

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