The Saint’s Manual for Redemption - Chapter 74

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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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Chapter 74
Baron Norbaldt had failed to achieve eternal life even within the portrait as he desired.
To be precise, the moment he entered into the contract, he was as good as dead as a human. The eternal life promised by the Ecclesia was no miracle that preserved the Baron’s soul and body intact.
The Baron’s flesh became canvas, his blood and ground bone mixed with monster blood to become paint, and within the completed portrait, something new was born.
It wore some of the memories and desires of the previous Baron Norbaldt, yet it was never the Baron himself. It was not a person—it was a monster.
The Baron had met the most agonizing death, becoming the cradle and foundation for the monster.
For a sinner who could not bear the weight of guilt and reached out to heresy, it was a fitting end indeed.
Lady Edelin continued her confession.
Nothing happened during the first several days, she said.
Lady Edelin mistook that silence for a miracle, she said. She had wanted to believe that perhaps her father had truly overcome death, that he had escaped the curse-like illness and survived in some other form.
“I truly…… believed that.”
Lady Edelin laughed weakly.
“Even if his appearance had changed, my father was still alive.”
But that belief did not last long.
One day, a servant disappeared. At first, they thought he had fled in the night—that he had abandoned his post, unable to bear the life at the country villa.
But soon another vanished, and then another after that. Those who disappeared had not packed their things properly, left no letters behind, and bid no one farewell.
As if they had evaporated without a trace.
“That was when I realized something was wrong,” she said.
Lady Edelin clasped her hands tightly.
“The day the third person disappeared…… I saw my father in front of the portrait.”
The air in the reception room grew heavy.
“It was no longer my father.”
Her voice trembled as she spoke.
“It wore my father’s face, but it was not the man I had known.”
From the moment she realized this truth, Lady Edelin said she had begun a desperate sealing.
She gathered Holy Stones and ground them into powder, mixed it with paint to create oil paint infused with Holy Power. She had tried painting it black, turning the portrait face-down, even attempting to tear the canvas, she said.
But none of it lasted.
The black paint melted away within days, the turned-over portrait returned to its original position of its own accord, and even the torn canvas knit itself whole again with time.
“Nothing worked.”
The only thing that had any effect was painting an identical image over the original portrait with paint infused with Holy Power—as if covering the original with a copy.
Lady Edelin had to repaint the portrait regularly. Holding her brush and painting over her father’s face again and again, she prayed only that what was trapped within would not awaken.
“But when it grew hungry, the barrier…… the paint would melt away. And it would wander the manor in search of prey.”
From that fractured voice alone, there was no need to hear an explanation of what came after.
I regarded Lady Edelin in silence.
“So you hired servants periodically and fed them to the monster? Because you didn’t want to be eaten yourself?”
Lady Edelin bit her lip hard. She could not answer.
Emily, who had been listening, understood the meaning of that silence and broke into sobs. She covered her face with both hands, her body trembling.
What had become of her sister, where those who had vanished from this manor had gone—I could now know without asking.
People who had been someone’s family. People who sent letters and money to their families and friends. People who had expected to return alive had been thrown as feed to maintain the filthy secrets of a single noble house.
Emily, who had collapsed prostrate before me, wailed.
“I will report them as heretics! Please, I beg the Saint to look upon us mercifully and punish those who have not merely turned a blind eye to the betrayal of God but actively conspired in it!”
Her fingertips trembled where they touched the floor. Her voice came broken through her tears, but the anger and despair contained within it was clear.
“My sister, why did my sister have to suffer such a fate! What sin could that child have possibly committed!”
No one in the reception room spoke readily.
Lady Edelin kept her pale face bowed, and the butler stood rigid as a convict awaiting execution.
There were perhaps aspects in which they could claim injustice. After all, it had not been Edelin who created the monster in the first place, and the butler had not been at the manor that day, as he said.
But what came after was different.
At minimum, they could have chosen not to hire new servants and instead confess at the Main Temple. Yet they did not.
They knew people were disappearing, yet they continued to bring people into the manor. Whether from fear, inability to abandon their master, desire to preserve the family name, no reason could erase the deaths of those who had been thrown as feed.
I looked down at Emily and slowly opened my mouth.
“I understand.”
At those words, Emily caught her breath. I turned my gaze toward Lady Edelin and the butler.
“By the authority of the Saint, I have identified heretical contact, concealment of a monster, and complicity in murder arising from those acts by the House of Norbaldt. All involved in this matter will be remanded to Inquisition.”
It was tantamount to a death sentence.
Lady Edelin and the butler, who understood well what that meant and the weight of heresy interrogation and inquisition, both gasped at those words.
“Your Highness, we did everything we could! To stop my father—or rather, that thing……!”
“If it were not for us, many more would have died!”
It was a desperate appeal. But it fell on deaf ears.
“Since you failed to report to the Main Temple a father who laid hands on heresy, and instead threw people as feed to your master, you too are accomplices.”
There was no room for excuse.
Even if Lady Edelin hadn’t created this monster from the beginning, she had concealed everything that followed.
The Butler helped her do it. He knew that feeding it people would keep it quiet, and he’d been ready to throw even the newly arrived maid to it as food.
No matter how terrified they were, the moment they offered someone as food, they could no longer be called mere victims.
And this was also a perfect opportunity to be rid of those tiresome watchers.
Before I could even push away those who clung to my skirts, pleading desperately for their lives, Arden had already whisked away Lady Edelin, the Butler, and the Head Maid—who was equally complicit.
I summoned everyone together.
Kalianna and Johan, the attending priests, and some of the Holy Knights gathered in the Reception Room. I made a point of speaking with an even graver expression than usual.
“Time is pressing, so we shall depart for the Croen Grand Duchy at once. You will remain here and keep watch over them until the Heresy Interrogators arrive from the Main Temple.”
Johan made as if to object immediately.
“Your Holiness, but—”
“Is catching those heretics not what matters now? Is escorting me more important? The Church must exist for me—for the Saint—to exist at all!”
My sharp rebuke shut Johan’s mouth.
“This place bears traces of heresy. The Ecclesia was involved, there was a monster that fed on people, and the Norbaldt family concealed it. You would have us leave a matter of this magnitude unattended until the Main Temple’s investigators arrive?”
Faced with such reasoning, Johan found it difficult to offer further objection. After all, I hadn’t ordered him to stay—if he insisted further, it would be overstepping his authority and open insubordination.
“I’ll leave letters for my contacts to be delivered on the way.”
In the end, I managed to leave behind roughly half our company at the villa.
I boarded the freshly repaired carriage with only Arden and the remaining members of our escort.
I would have dearly liked to leave Johan behind as well, but he refused to bend and stubbornly insisted on remaining with the party bound for the Croen Grand Duchy, until finally I threw up my hands in defeat.
As I glared at Johan across from me, he wore a smug little smile. How infuriatingly irritating. I would repay this humiliation someday, without fail.
The villa receded behind us. The sun rose, spreading its pale morning light across the fields.
The road to the Croen Grand Duchy stretched ahead once more.

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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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