The Priest Wants to Retire

EP.236 A Song for the Remnants of Ashes (7)

Thud.

As the intense tension reached its peak and then gradually dissolved, all the strength supporting my body seemed to be pulled out in one go.

Thanks to the Saintess sharing her holy power, my ragged body had completely recovered, but the mental fatigue was a different beast altogether.

Huff…

At this moment, I could deeply understand the feeling of a deflated balloon.

Sitting on the floor, letting out a deep sigh for a while, a random thought suddenly crossed my mind.

“Priest! Are you alright?!”

In my weary vision, the Hero’s anxious face slowly came into view.

He must be just as exhausted.

As soon as the situation ended, he rushed towards me, and if it weren’t for his tattered clothes, he would have seemed relatively unscathed.

“Don’t worry. I just loosened up a bit at the waist. But are you okay, Hero?”

“Yes! I’m fine! At this point, I could do a cartwheel around the city right here!”

“Please don’t…”

What could be a joke from someone else might just be true coming from the Hero.

I couldn’t let my guard down.

“How about Bigtim?”

“……”

I asked the late-arriving Bigtim.

With his thumb up and silently looking in our direction, he gave a silent signal indicating he wasn’t in bad shape.

With armor and a shield shattered like cookies, it was hard to believe he was unwounded.

Despite their striking personality differences, in moments like this, they were unmistakably siblings.

“I’ll treat your wounds, so both of you come here. The Saintess has sufficiently replenished her holy power, so you don’t need to worry.”

“I’m fine! Priest! As I mentioned earlier! I’m in a so-called perfect condition right now! If you want to pray, just pray for Bigtim!”

“Enough talk. Hero, you come too.”

“Ah, yes…”

As I cut him off with a somewhat sharp tone, the Hero immediately changed his attitude to comply.

It wasn’t the first time the Hero treated the Saintess like an arch-nemesis and avoided her help as much as possible.

But come on, he wasn’t a three-year-old.

I wouldn’t let him stubbornly resist in such a precarious situation.

“Doggy. You’ve been scolded.”

“Y-you…!”

The Hero glared at the Saintess with a drawn sword as she playfully pointed at him.

Sigh…

Bigtim, clearly annoyed, sighed heavily and stopped the Hero.

Had it been a normal day, I probably would have reacted similarly to Bigtim, but now, I couldn’t help but let out a satisfied smile instead.

“Hero… please don’t look so gloomy; lighten up your expression…”

“I’m not gloomy at all! My expression hasn’t changed one bit!”

The cheerful energy was only reflected in his words.

With his face covered by his hands, curling up like a snail, the Hero looked every bit the unhappy person.

Murmur.

As I grew accustomed to the Hero’s booming voice, the murmur around us began to clarify little by little.

“Is Mother dead…?”

“We lost… did we lose…?”

“So, what now for us…?”

Their disoriented appearance was reminiscent of children who had lost their parents.

More than the dungeon rapidly collapsing, their pitiful figures were clearer in my eyes.

“What about the new world Mother was creating? What will happen to our paradise? Where should we… where should we go…?”

A voice filled with sorrow suddenly reached my ears.

Among them, the term “new world” particularly resonated.

Come to think of it, the other Saint Candidates had also mentioned something similar.

This is just my guess, but perhaps they were merely used as tools for revenge under Raiza’s manipulation.

Seeing how similar they were to the Saintess at the young age of discovery, it was easy to imagine how they could be blindly swayed by Raiza’s few words.

It was fortunate that they weren’t moving right now due to the immense pressure emanating from the Saintess and the Hero.

But that meant, without the suppression of the Saintess or the Hero, these individuals could turn into bombs that could explode at any moment.

The only safe and sure method I knew of dealing with such bombs was, unfortunately, just one thing.

Removing the bomb.

That brutal reality was slowly but surely tightening its grip on my heart.

Having just overcome mankind’s greatest challenge, the dungeon raid, I now found myself facing another enormous predicament, and my head began to pound.

Knock knock.

Just then, the frustrated Hero was being observed from a distance as the Saintess tugged at my sleeve.

“Saintess?”

“……”

While holding onto my sleeve, her gaze was firmly fixed on a group of Saint candidates nearby.

“Ah? Saintess, your hair color is…?”

Only then did I start to notice the changes in the Saintess’s appearance.

Since she’d drawn a considerable amount of holy power from me, about half of her hair had recently regained its original color but was now pure white again.

Without needing to say a word, I shot a questioning look at Bigtim.

Given that Bigtim had been with us since we entered the dungeon, I figured he’d know about the Saintess’s change.

“……!”

After our eyes met, Bigtim hesitated for a moment.

But soon, lost in deep thought, he opened his mouth.

“They said let’s go to the meeting room… so I went with her…”

“……What!?”

Though he had only spoken two words, they felt like a thousand.

Suddenly, my heart raced.

It wasn’t just because Bigtim, who rarely spoke, had clearly conveyed a message.

The Saintess had visited the meeting room.

Having wielded a massive amount of holy power, she had wiped out the enemies.

The sheer absurdity of that fact, which I grasped in an instant from the information given, sent waves of panic through me.

“Saintess. Could it be…?”

“Brother.”

A question barely forming in my mind was completely shattered by the Saintess’s single word.

“Pray for me.”

“S-Saintess…?”

Before the panic had fully settled, the Saintess continued without pause.

“Saintess. Why suddenly…?”

“You said you’d heal me.”

“……Yes?”

“You said you’d heal me. So, I need prayer. Isn’t that right?”

“W-well, that is true but…”

It wasn’t something one could easily dismiss.

I had been the one saying that I would pray to heal the wounds of the Hero and Bigtim.

But for some reason, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something important.

The impression that the Saintess’s previous words seemed to have evaded my inquiry played a significant role in that unease.

Given her personality, it was unlikely that she’d directly answer if asked, so I had no choice but to put that matter aside for the moment.

I promised myself to discuss this with Sister Beltein soon.

“Alright. Then, I’ll start the healing now… Hero. Bigtim, lend me a hand—”

“No.”

Just as I was about to begin the prayer, the Saintess’s interruption halted me once again.

“Saintess, why now…?”

“That’s not it. You need to say it out loud. You have to speak.”

“Eh…? No, why the fuss…?”

It wasn’t the first time the Saintess had shown her strange stubbornness, but this time, it seemed particularly intense.

After receiving holy power from the Saintess, I had long been able to perform miracles without uttering prayers.

In recent times, I hadn’t needed to use prayer to perform miracles.

Thus, outside worship times, I hadn’t spoken a prayer at all, and I honestly preferred that.

So, the Saintess’s sudden insistence on speaking a prayer was nothing short of perplexing.

“How dare you interrupt what the Priest is saying.”

The already somewhat irritable Hero now looked furious at the Saintess’s continuous antics, his lips twitching dangerously.

Crash!

In that moment, a chilling roar echoed from afar, shaking the ground beneath us.

Looking in the direction of the sound, it was clear it originated from the city’s entrance, near the city wall.

“This is!”

“gasp!”

The Hero, quick to react, and following him, Bigtim, snapped back to focus, preparing for combat.

Then, I, the last one to understand the situation, hurriedly raised my awareness.

If my instincts weren’t off, that was the cry of a colossal monster.

Not just one, but two cries sounded out in a chaotic symphony.

There was no doubt.

Two gigantic monsters that were guarding the entrance to the city.

The cause was unknown, but it was almost certain they had gone on a rampage.

“A hollow shell! It’s rampaging! The Demon King’s hollow shell is going wild!”

As one of the Saint candidates whispered that thunderous news, my eyes bulged in shock.

“Hey! What the hell is going on?! Hey! Are you all alright?!”

“Is everyone okay?! Hero! Lowville! I apologize for the inconvenience! Now things are fine!”

Suddenly, the reinforcements I had momentarily forgotten made their grand entrance.

“Apis! Dawna!”

The entire Hero Party gathered.

Their ultimate mission was about to begin.

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