The Fake Saintess Awaits Her Exit - Chapter 3

Not too long ago, the entire army of the temple was sent to battle the monsters that appeared on the outskirts of the continent. It was a large-scale battle that even the commander, Latban, took part in, leaving only a minimal amount of people to guard the Grand Temple.

The army traveled all over the continent, spreading the name of God. And after months of battling the monsters without casualties, a problem occurred as the army was returning to the Grand Temple. The sudden appearance of a huge monster caused damage towards the entire army. The monster was taken down thanks to commander Latban, but the vice commander suffered a great injury.

The top priests who had been with them tried to treat him, but it wasn’t enough. Commander Latban took him and rode back to the Grand Temple like a madman. Then he went to Yvelina’s room and begged.

“Please tell the Saintess! Hurry!”

The priests were shocked to see Latban running towards them, carrying a bloody knight, and knocked on the Saintess’ door. But Yvelina did not come out.

“Why isn’t she responding?!”

There was no way she didn’t hear the cry of help from outside her door. But Yvelina did not come out. Latban was losing his composure. Right then, a priestess came out of Yvelina’s room. It was the priestess that served Yvelina. She hurried to Latban and asked.

“By any chance… Did something happen between you and the Saintess before you left?”

Latban’s expression scrunched up at these words.

Before he left, Yvelina requested that he remained at the Grand Temple. It would’ve been a different story if there was a valid reason for it, but Yvelina had requested this because she couldn’t have lower quality guards by her side when she went out of the Grand Temple. And of course, Latban had told her that it would be difficult for him to remain.

Then Yvelina broke out in anger.

“You dare? You are obligated to serve the Saintess, and yet you’re disobeying my words right now?!”

Yvelina suddenly went silent after raging like a madwoman. Then she smiled so brightly that it was hard to believe she had been angry just moments ago. But those who knew Yvelina backed away at her smile. They knew Yvelina was the most dangerous when she smiled like this.

“Yes, go ahead and go, commander Latban.”

“Thank you, Saintess.”

He felt slightly uncomfortable that she had suddenly changed her mind when she had been saying she wouldn’t allow him to go just moments ago, but Latban said his goodbyes and left her room. And while gazing at Latban, Yvelina spoke.

“…I’ll make you regret this day one day.”

The expressions of the priests nearby became dark. They knew Yvelina would do something terrible to commander Latban for what happened today.

And now, everyone realized what was going on as they saw Latban waiting nervously for Yvelina to come out. The Saintess was taking her revenge for what happened on that day.

“Perhaps… The saintess is…”

Latban made an incredulous expression. A Saintess was supposed to serve God and use her powers for the people. But she was refusing to treat the vice commander who was dying from a monster attack just because of the argument they had?

He disliked Yvelina. Her outer appearance was fancy and beautiful, but her violent, poisonous, and cold personality was enough to overshadow her title as the Saintess. But because he was a part of the temple’s army, he served the Saintess. No matter what kind of person Yvelina was, she was the Saintess chosen by God, and was someone he absolutely had to obey. This was why he had continued to lower his head towards her,

but she was about to throw away someone’s life because he had disobeyed an order that sounded more like a child’s whining.

The priestess hurriedly stopped Latban when she saw that he was grimacing.

“Please, you mustn’t argue with the Saintess now. You must beg for her forgiveness. Otherwise she will never come out!”

“…”

Even now, the vice commander’s breathing was thinning out. At this rate, he would not last much longer. Latban gritted his teeth and spoke to the priestess next to him.

“Please ask her what she wants.”

“What?”

“Please… Ask her what I need to do for her to forgive my rudeness from last time and treat the vice commander.”

At these words, the priestess hurried into the Saintess’ room. She soon returned to Latban and hesitated.

“What did she say?”

“Well… uh…”

Latban desperately asked the priestess, who was hesitating to speak.

“What did she say I had to do for her forgiveness?!”

At these words, the priestess shut her eyes and spoke.

“S-She asked that you crawl to her bed on your knees. She said she couldn’t have faith in your apology if you didn’t…”

The people around them gasped at her words. It was ridiculous for her to ask him to crawl, but asking him to kneel in front of her was outrageous. Kneeling was an action one should only do in front of God. But he was being told to kneel in front of the Saintess and even crawl to her bed.

As the commander of the army, it was something he could not do.

Even the vice commander, who had barely been holding onto his consciousness, shaked his head at this.

“You can’t… Commander… That’s… Only for… God…”

Latban did not hesitate any longer when the vice commander coughed up blood and breathed heavily after struggling to speak.

“Please, open the door.”

After saying this to the priests, he got on his knees. Then he crawled towards the Saintess’ bed, which he could see beyond the door, just like a dog. Yvelina was smiling while watching Latban on the bed.

Next to Yvelina, who did not respond to Latban’s calls, were beautiful men in disheveled attire. Yvelina’s attire was the same. It was too easy to tell exactly what they had been doing here until a moment ago.

Yvelina spoke kindly to Latban, who had crawled to the foot of the bed.

“As expected of the commander of the temple’s army. You’re kneeling for a single subordinate of yours. I’m tearing up at your dedication.”

“…Please save the vice commander.”

“Yes, of course. How could I ignore your sincerity when you crawled here like a dog?”

Yvelina’s laughter echoed in the silence, as if she could not contain her joy. That day, thankfully, the vice commander was able to live. But even with Yvelina’s holy powers, it was impossible to treat the injuries completely. Although his life had been saved, he was no longer able to hold a sword, and returned to his hometown.

After that day, Latban no longer seeked out Yvelina. Yvelina did not call for him either. The priests worried that the two with the highest positions in the temple had completely split off, but no one could fix their relationship.

* * *

“Why in the world did you do that…”

I could only sigh after thinking about the novel’s contents. Commander Latban was an exemplary holy knight. He was a knight who had no personal greed and only sought out noble honor. And yet she had mocked someone like that by telling him to break the rules of the temple and crawl on the floor in front of everyone.

‘Can my relationship with him get better even if I try?’

My initial plan to ‘improve relationships with the male leads’ was beginning to seem ridiculous.

My relationship with Latban, who’s in the same temple, is like this, so how complicated must my relationship with Leon, who’s at the imperial palace, and Aslan, who’s at the tower of mages be?

I continued to draw circles around the male leads’ names with a blank stare as I thinked.

Knock knock.

I heard the knock on the door of the study, and soon I heard the voices of the priests standing outside.

“Saintess, priest Carus wishes to see you. What will you do?”

I hadn’t fully gotten used to Yvelina’s life yet. Therefore, I asked the priests guarding the door to reject anyone asking to see me so I could avoid interacting with people as much as possible. They accepted it without question, because Yvelina wasn’t someone who enjoyed meeting people in the first place.

Since then, they hadn’t informed me of anyone’s visit.

‘Priest Carus, hm?’

It was a name I had seen several times in the book as well. He must be quite an important character, since he’s visiting even when I’ve declared that I won’t be seeing anyone. I wondered if I should see him or tell him to leave, but ended up telling the priests to let him in for now.

‘Since there are people I need to meet anyway, it’ll be better to meet them one by one and slowly find out what kind of people they are.’

I put away the paper with the names of the male leads and Iris, and prepared to greet priest Carus.

Soon, the door opened and a huge middle-aged man walked in.

‘He’s one of the senior priests.’

Judging from his robes, he was one of the few senior priests of the Grand Temple. The temple’s structure begins with the Saintess at the top, and the pope, senior priests, middle class priests, lower class priests, and common priests. The army that commander Latban was in had a different hierarchy from the priests.

Anyway, the man named Carus that just walked in now was someone with quite a high status. He walked into the study and bowed his head deeply, following the etiquette of the temple.

“God’s servant Carus, standing on the third stair, greets the Saintess.”

“Please raise your gaze.”

Although I knew how to act because of Yvelina’s memories, I became nervous when meeting people like this. I expected someone to realize that something was off and yell ‘She’s the fake saintess!’ any second.

Much to my relief, priest Carus didn’t say such things, but gazed at me after standing up straight.

“Why did you ask to see me? I’ve announced that I wouldn’t be seeing anyone for the time being.”

Would this be similar enough Yvelina’s usual way of speaking? I spoke nonchalantly, as if I was annoyed, with my voice full of arrogance.

“I know you must not be feeling well since you lost consciousness for a long time, but I came to hear your decision regarding the issue with the priest in charge for the prayer meeting…”

“…Prayer meeting?”

I desperately looked through my memories when he mentioned a prayer meeting.

“Ah…”

A few moments later, I pressed my forehead in frustration. There was an occasion that showed exactly how irresponsible of a Saintess Yvelina was after the fight with Latban. This was the prayer meeting. It was a huge event that was held once a year at the temple, and it was the only day where ordinary people could come into the central square of the Grand Temple. And during this event, the Saintess, Yvelina, must pray to God with everyone.

That was what should have happened.