The Saint’s Manual for Redemption - Chapter 72

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

Chapter 72
A hollow laugh escaped me unbidden.
“Do you understand what you’re saying right now?”
The Butler’s face had already gone ashen. Yet he seemed not to have regained his senses, pressing forward with something even more terrible.
“If you dislike sacrificing the escort knight, I can fetch the new maid at once—”
I didn’t wait for him to finish. The end of the silver candlestick in my grip drove sharply into his jaw. The skin didn’t tear, but the pressure was enough to make clear that a fraction more force would drive straight through his neck.
The Butler trembled and fell silent. I watched him shake and laughed all the colder for it.
“Go ahead. Explain to me, in your own words, exactly what I just heard.”
The Butler spent a long moment gasping for breath before he finally opened his mouth.
“After all the servants managing the villa were slaughtered, I only discovered what had happened. I escaped the calamity because I was away from this manor attending to my mother’s final days—”
The Butler’s voice trembled more and more.
Splatter.
At that moment, the creature wearing the form of Count Norbert turned its head, dark crimson liquid dripping from its body—as though it were listening to him speak.
Perhaps it truly was listening. It mimicked human shape, but it was no longer human.
The moment the Butler caught sight of that gaze, his face drained to white. I didn’t miss the shift in his expression.
“So the maids vanished because of this?”
At my question, the Butler’s lips trembled. He offered no answer.
But the silence itself was answer enough.
Emily’s sibling, who disappeared a year ago. A manor with only three servants remaining. And a portrait painted over daily with Holy Power-Infused Paint.
The pieces began to fit together. Or rather, the more they aligned, the more sickening the picture became.
God almighty. The madness of the Ecclesia Sect at least had some excuse in their derangement, but why did these people live this way?
“The lady bears no fault!”
The Butler cried out desperately.
“She tried to stop it! She kept painting over it! She tried to seal it with Holy Stone Ground Paint!”
“Seal it?”
“The Holy Power-Infused Paint could put the Count to sleep temporarily! That’s why she repainted the portrait every night! She only hoped to endure until you all departed, truly until you departed—!”
The Butler’s wail echoed through the corridor.
I turned slowly toward the portrait. But it could no longer be called a portrait. It had completely emerged from the frame.
What had crawled out of it barely mimicked human form. Dark crimson paint served as skin, pooling across its body, and its face was twisted like melted wax.
I regarded that shape and spoke with certainty.
“That’s not the Count.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The Butler’s face collapsed in bewilderment.
“It’s a monster born from consuming the Count’s flesh, blood, and bone.”
At those words, the Butler’s expression shattered completely—whether from the despair of learning his master was gone, or from the despair of his own ruin, having hidden a monster only to be caught by the Sect’s leader, I couldn’t say.
But either way, I had no reason to pity him now.
Then came the sound of hurried footsteps.
“What is this commotion!”
It was Johan. The moment he saw Arden under the creature’s assault, he didn’t ask for explanation—he drew his sword and charged without hesitation.
At least the man had some use after all.
With Johan engaged, Arden’s burden eased somewhat. Yet even with two Holy Knights set upon it, neither could land a decisive blow; they were struggling.
Each time a Consecrated blade touched the creature, its body scattered like dark crimson paint before reforming, the torn portions flowing and reshaping themselves. It was like a monster painted over again and again, no matter how many times it was slashed.
I looked down at the Butler and asked.
“One question: did the Count want to become this?”
The Butler, lips clenched, nodded very slightly.
“Then it’s hardly pitiful.”
I scoffed and drew Holy Power through the silver candlestick I held.
The Holy Power spread across the second-floor corridor. Light that began as a thin trail along the floor soon flowed up the walls and across the ceiling.
The Holy Power seeped through the gaps in doors and windows, like the manor’s own breath, until it enfolded the entire building.
Not that I intended to let it escape, but as a precaution, I’d thrown up a barrier to keep the thing from fleeing outside. The Holy Power pressed in from all sides like an invisible tide, and the creature’s movements grew sluggish by degrees.
But that alone was not enough.
I lacked the time to properly consecrate the silver candlestick. So I would need to bind it with Holy Power as a temporary measure. I wrapped the candlestick in Holy Power and, without hesitation, moved toward the now-empty canvas.
Thunk—the end of the silver candlestick drove into the canvas. I bore down with force and raked it diagonally across, tearing the fabric.
The wound that split the canvas appeared on the creature’s body in perfect correspondence. For the first time, it made a sound.
I gritted my teeth and tore the canvas more violently. Yet the monster continued to move, tattered though it was.
Worse, the canvas writhed and kept mending itself. The wound closed, the torn edges re-adhering, restoring themselves. As the canvas healed, so too did the creature’s injuries recover completely.
“Damn.”
I couldn’t keep my attention on the canvas alone. I threw myself directly into battle with the creature and shouted to Johan.
“Fetch Lady Edeline!”
Johan hesitated for a moment, then exchanged positions with Arden and bolted toward the far end of the corridor. Arden, blood seeping from his arm, gripped his sword anew and, with no time for healing, wrapped Holy Power around it and swung as the creature bore down.
I should’ve brought Wilson Junior after all. What a waste of Holy Power.
Before long, Johan arrived with Lady Edeline, her face drained of color.
The moment Lady Edeline saw the monster emerging from the portrait, she drew in a sharp breath. Her pupils trembled. Fear, despair, and a long-suppressed revulsion tangled together in her gaze.
“I don’t know how to destroy it……! If I had known, I would have granted Father eternal rest long ago……! Instead of sealing it away like this, over and over……!”
I stepped back in exchange with Johan, moving urgently toward Lady Edeline.
“You must have seen it while painting over the canvas! Where is the Marquess’s signature?”
Lady Edeline faltered.
What does a person exist through?
Blood and flesh and bone, and the name that designates existence itself.
Marquess Norbert, having surrendered all of it, was reborn as a nameless being. Yet no matter how he transformed into something without a name, if a contract existed, that name had to be inscribed somewhere within it.
The name of the one who sacrificed himself. A signature written in his own flesh and blood. It was likely the anchor binding this monster to the world.
At my cry, Lady Edeline answered in a trembling voice.
“I couldn’t see it on the front side.”
Then there was nowhere but the back. Without hesitation, I flipped the canvas over. But the back appeared empty.
A curse nearly escaped my lips. Yet as I ran my fingertips across the back, I felt it—a different texture from the front. Something had been pasted over.
I scraped at the edge with my nail and lifted it away. A thin sheet of paper peeled free from the canvas’s back.
Beneath it.
The entire back surface revealed itself, covered densely with crimson markings.
At the center lay Marquess Norbert’s signature. The dark-red script still reeked of blood. It was written in Ancient Language.
But naturally, I could read it. In brief, it was both a ritual incantation to combine with a human blessed by the divine, creating a monster immune to Holy Power, and a contract pledging the Marquess’s entire being.
A human blessed by the divine. If Holy Power was a curse and weapon to a monster, it was a blessing and mercy to mankind.
Even where Holy Power existed, the monster remained a predator. So what kind of catastrophe would a monster that transcended Holy Power be to humanity?
But the most horrifying part was that the Marquess had signed his name in his own blood upon his own skin. A contract so dreadfully powerful, saturated with the desperate wishes of a man dying in agony.
I had seen with my own eyes that Holy Power would not take. Even if I burned the canvas with sacred flames, as long as this contract remained intact, the portrait would not be destroyed. There was only one way forward.
The contract had to be nullified.
And the only method was to erase the Marquess’s name.
But without Holy Water, Holy Power-Infused Paint alone could not break such a vicious contract. Erasure was impossible. Then…….
My gaze fell upon Lady Edeline.
The only way was to alter the name and render it void.

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