The Saint’s Manual for Redemption - Chapter 85

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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 85
I gathered up the documents and left the Abandoned Temple.
The papers I’d recovered from the records chamber behind the altar were old and badly deteriorated in places, but the essentials remained intact.
The old lord had been frightened by the Fortune Teller’s prophecy and tried to move the castle; the Temple priests had opposed it on the grounds of Raum’s Seal Site; and in the end, the Main Temple had accepted a donation and performed a consecration, tacitly endorsing the decision.
Magnificent. Magnificently headache-inducing.
I turned back to look at the Abandoned Temple. I had to admit, my order or not, they’d built the structure impressively large, and it was a shame to see it reduced to ruins.
That was when I noticed Arden gazing intently at the Old Castle Ruins. His face, as he looked down at the broken ramparts, the snow-covered rubble, and the weathered pathways that no longer seemed to be paths at all, was quieter than usual.
Perhaps he was feeling the transience of time itself.
“What are you staring at so hard?” I asked.
Arden answered a beat late.
“I was thinking of when this land once thrived with vitality.”
Ah, Arden—I hadn’t expected you to have such a sentimental side. I moved to stand beside him, gazing out at the Old Castle Ruins as well.
Then, naturally, memories surfaced.
After our failed raid on Raum, we had remained in this castle for a month.
More precisely, we’d had no choice but to remain. I had managed to save Valente, who had suffered a mortal wound, by squeezing out my Sacred Power, but I hadn’t channeled enough to complete his healing. It was barely keeping the thread of his life intact.
My own injuries were the same. Normally I would have cast a self-healing spell with Sacred Power and gone about my business, but then I didn’t have the reserves for even that.
A healing priest from the Main Temple came urgently and gave my wounds rough treatment, but the damage I’d taken from the Arch-Demon couldn’t be fully cured by ordinary healing.
Valente was in the same situation. In the end, only I could Purify and fully heal him.
So I spent two weeks in this castle, waiting for my Sacred Power to recover.
The moment my Sacred Power had restored sufficiently, I Purified and healed Valente. And then, for three weeks after that, I remained in the castle watching the Northern Region’s scenery, fawning over Valente like a fool.
Looking back now, it was an utterly senseless span of time. Having barely managed to Seal away the Arch-Demon without destroying it completely, there I was holding Valente’s hand on the snow-covered castle walls.
Yet at the time, it was good.
It was cold, my body ached, I had lost Raum, and chaos must have erupted at the Main Temple, but Valente was alive. He was there beside me, alive.
Because of those memories tied to this castle, I had bestowed a blessing upon it before I left, hoping it would stand guard over this land for a long time to come.
But here they were tearing it to rubble and relocating everything. Good grief. I was clicking my tongue silently when suddenly Kroen appeared beside us.
“Hmm, being an old center of commerce, it does seem a waste to leave such land unused,” he remarked.
There was not a trace of romance in his words.
I turned slowly to regard the Grand Duke. Arden quietly turned to look at him as well. Kroen remained utterly unmoved by our stares.
“Why the concern? You yourself said you have no interest in barren lands, so there’s nothing wrong with me considering development, is there?”
This man was relentlessly consistent.
I listened to my old memories shattering and looked up at the sky. The sun was already setting. The Northern Region’s sky had darkened into twilight, and long shadows fell across the Abandoned Temple and the Old Castle Ruins.
“We’ve found what we needed. Let’s return.”
At my words, the party began to move.
We pocketed the documents we’d collected and returned to Kroen Castle, leaving the old fortress ruins behind as darkness deepened around us.
I showed the records I’d brought from the Abandoned Temple to the Grand Duke.
Kroen carefully turned through the old documents one by one. The Fortune Teller’s prophecy, the Complete Annihilation of House Heros, the castle relocation, the priests’ opposition, the Main Temple’s request for payment. After reading to the end, he set down the papers and spoke with a flat expression.
“So in short…… the previous lord was swindled by a charlatan fortune teller, is that it?”
I tapped the floor with the tip of my foot.
“What if this isn’t simply the method of some common swindling fortune teller?”
The Grand Duke’s eyes turned toward me. I lightly pointed at the documents with my finger.
“Do you really think it’s coincidence that these ill-omened deaths actually came to pass one after another?”
“Then you’re saying this fortune teller brought about the Complete Annihilation of an entire noble house?”
“A fortune teller alone couldn’t accomplish such a thing, but what if there was a faction backing them?”
Kroen’s expression hardened as understanding dawned.
“Then…… you’re saying there was a faction that manipulated things to make this castle get built here?”
I flicked my finger lightly.
“Quick on the uptake. So now are you feeling a bit more inclined to cooperate?”
But Kroen didn’t nod readily.
“However, this happened a hundred years ago, didn’t it? Whatever plot was afoot would have come to fruition a hundred years ago.”
“Even heretical sects call their deeds righteous by their own logic.”
I spoke calmly.
“And those they deem righteous, they pursue across centuries.”
Just as I had, five hundred years ago, built a Temple outpost here and ordered surveillance of Raum’s Seal Site. Just as I had left records and impressed upon them the utmost importance of maintaining them.
So that someone in a future age might understand, so that if Raum ever stirred again, we could respond.
Though I never imagined that future someone would turn out to be myself.
Kroen closed his mouth firmly. I seized upon his silence and continued.
“You need not give me the blueprints. Keep them yourself and verify. Come, let us examine the first level of the castle together to see if there is any space that doesn’t appear on those blueprints.”
“Space that doesn’t appear on the blueprints…… you believe such a space actually exists?”
“You said the castle was built a hundred years ago, didn’t you? And that castle happens to stand directly above Raum’s Seal Site. How can one simply assume the work ended with merely constructing the castle?”
The Grand Duke looked back down at the documents. His fingers tapped slowly across the aged paper.
“If it’s neither land nor scripture, why are you so eager?”
At the grand duke’s question, I studied him for a moment.
He looked genuinely baffled. And truthfully, from his perspective, the confusion was warranted.
Every Temple person I’d encountered thus far had moved for one reason or another—coveting land, demanding donations, wielding power.
So it made sense he couldn’t fathom why I clung so fiercely to something that seemed to profit no one. I exhaled slowly.
“Grand Duke.”
“Yes?”
“The greater demon Raum is sleeping beneath this castle right now. Isn’t passive action the real oddity here?”
The grand duke fell silent, words failing him.
Thus began our search of the first floor.
Kroen didn’t hand me the blueprints, but he held them open before me as he led the way. The first floor of the castle was vaster than I’d anticipated. I walked with my eyes alternating between the plans in his hands and the actual layout spread before us.
The problem was that even a man ten years into residing at Kroen Castle hadn’t scrutinized the first floor with such rigor.
“There was a place like this?”
Each time the grand duke murmured absently, my heart would leap uselessly.
I’d check, hoping to find a space absent from the blueprints, only to discover it marked clearly on the plans after all.
The servants’ passage, an ancient provisions cellar, a room for seasonal decorations, even a small alcove where firewood was stacked for heating—all of it was there. He simply hadn’t known these places existed.
“Grand Duke, that’s marked on the plans too.”
“I’m aware.”
“You looked like you’d never seen it before.”
“I don’t happen to memorize the location of every woodshed in the castle.”
We traversed nearly the entire first floor.
The area near the central staircase, the corridors, the space behind the dining hall, the narrow passages used by servants, the southern parlor, and the northern study.
I checked the thickness of walls, the length of hallways, even the resonance of the floors beneath our feet. I counted my paces to see if any section deviated from the blueprints. But infuriatingly, everything aligned with meticulous precision.
At last, the search of the first floor concluded. Kroen waved the blueprints lightly as he spoke.
“As you can see, there is no location absent from these plans.”
A faint glimmer of triumph hung across his face.
“Then let’s have a look at the greenhouse.”
“The greenhouse?”
The grand duke raised an eyebrow.
“I passed by it yesterday, and it seems rather well-maintained. Keeping a greenhouse of that caliber in the Northern Region is no trivial undertaking, is it?”
“I didn’t construct it—it was already here when I took possession of the castle. But if Your Grace wishes to see it, I’d be happy to show you.”
This time too, Kroen made no objection.
The greenhouse door swung open.
The moment I stepped inside, my jaw fell slack at the sight before me.

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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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