🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 62
“Since you’ve returned from the Academy, you must have learned what happened to His Highness Ferdin, right?”
Though Isis was smiling, his voice was chillingly cold. Ever since he had become a formal priest, he had begun addressing even his older brother, Helix, with honorifics.
Today, those polite words felt unusually distant to Helix.
“Helix, no matter how focused you are on the affairs of the West, we must not forget our true purpose.”
“……”
“Our mission is to protect His Highness Ferdin and to find the one the Saintess spoke of.”
“I know that.”
“Then tell me—was Erin Lises ‘the one’? Why does their engagement still remain? You should have found a way to separate them, no matter what it took.”
“But…”
“There can be no hesitation when it comes to acting for the greater cause. Especially since the Emperor’s interest in her is far from ordinary.”
A shadow of exhaustion clouded Isis’s face.
“The movements of the monsters are also suspicious. We can’t even figure out where they keep appearing from.”
“……”
“It feels like we’re just sitting here waiting for some great tragedy to strike. You know as well as I do how hopeless that is, Helix.”
Helix let out a sigh at Isis’s words.
The Saintess could see the future, but she could not easily give prophecies to change it.
If she spoke of a specific future, she had to pay a heavy price.
Helix had witnessed firsthand, at the side of the previous Saintess, what that price looked like.
Each time she tried to alter the future by speaking of it, her health declined, and her lifespan shortened.
And in the end, she couldn’t even live out that shortened life fully.
Whenever Helix recalled her final moments, a crushing guilt weighed on him.
She used to call them often and share many stories. And without fail, she always spoke about the one Ferdin would one day love.
“Far in the future, he will meet someone. A kind and strong child.”
“When you see that child, could you treat them gently? They’ll be someone with many wounds. Only that child will be able to save Ferdin.”
“The lives of the people in the western kingdoms… that child will protect them, too.”
Using those fragments from the previous Saintess, Helix and Isis had no choice but to search for that person.
Erin Lises, whom they had seen at the Academy, was slightly different from the rumors—but she could not possibly be the one.
Raised indulgently under the Marquis’s love, she looked nothing like someone with such deep wounds that the Saintess would pity her.
Helix remembered visiting the previous Saintess the day before she passed.
She knew she was going to die.
Even now, he could not forget her tearful words.
“What if I can’t recognize the one His Highness will love? What if I don’t know?”
“That child… will be one with many wounds. They’ll seem strong, but inside, they’ll be fragile.”
“……”
“If only I could be by that child’s side, I would hold them warmly. If only I could meet them…”
She had hugged Helix tightly then.
“I could have told them that it wasn’t their fault. That they were a beloved child.”
“Saintess?”
“What a cruel fate this is…”
Those had been her final words that Helix remembered.
“Helix, you know as well as I do that we don’t have much time left. The Emperor’s movements are ominous. Even arranging the engagement between Erin Lises and His Highness Ferdin must have been part of some scheme.”
“……”
“Perhaps we’ll meet our downfall before ever finding the one the Saintess spoke of.”
The smile that Isis had worn until now twisted with pain. Helix’s face was no different. Even imagining such an outcome was dreadful.
Once the affairs in the West were settled, he swore he would separate Erin from Ferdin. Just as he resolved this, a commotion broke out outside.
“Sir Helix is not someone you can meet whenever you please!”
“If you keep barging in like this, we’ll have no choice but to call the knights and forcefully remove you!”
Helix paid little mind to the disturbance.
There were always countless believers in the West who wished to see him, and he assumed this was simply another of their antics.
But then, a familiar voice rang out—and Helix could not believe his ears.
“Sir Helix.”
Thin, yet firm and commanding. A voice he had heard not long ago.
Startled, Helix instinctively opened the door to the prayer room.
And when he saw Erin standing there, a hollow laugh escaped him.
“Erin Lises? Are you insane? Do you even realize where you are?”
He glanced back quickly—Isis’s eyes were fixed on Erin, cold and unyielding.
Helix had no idea how he was supposed to treat her. But one thing was certain: Isis would not think favorably of her. Already, his gaze toward Erin was icy.
Ignoring Isis’s stare, Helix asked,
“Why did you come looking for me? I have nothing to discuss with you.”
“Let me accompany you on your mission.”
At her words, Helix’s face hardened.
“My destination is the same.”
“Do you even know what my mission is?”
Erin shook her head.
“Not exactly. But His Majesty ordered me to undergo my promotion trial in the West. And there’s no better place to do that than wherever you’re headed—it’s dangerous enough.”
Helix’s expression stiffened at that. He could not guess what the Emperor was plotting.
“You must be tired from your journey, but I cannot offer you any assistance in your trial.”
He tried to close the door, but Erin’s hand was quicker.
She gripped the door firmly before it could shut, her voice unwavering.
“I don’t need your help. And don’t assume things. I’ll be facing the trial on my own.”
Something shifted in Helix’s expression.
“Then why seek me out?”
“To be my witness.”
“……?”
“I need someone to prove that I completed my trial in the West. And who better than you, Sir Helix?”
“……”
“Duke Asili wrote me a letter of recommendation.”
Helix accepted the letter Erin held out, his face taking on a complicated look.
Her reasoning made sense.
A Holy Knight might withhold the truth, but could never speak a lie—making him the most reliable witness.
Still, among so many Holy Knights, why him?
“This could be… interesting.”
It was Isis, who had been silently listening, who stepped forward.
“Helix, I don’t see the harm in joining Erin on this. You’re planning to visit that cursed orphanage, aren’t you?”
“What’s gotten into you? You’d actually suggest this?”
Helix looked at him in bewilderment.
“I don’t mind.”
Erin agreed quickly.
Isis stepped closer to her, his hollow eyes meeting hers directly.
What Helix saw in those eyes was distrust, plain and sharp.
“I’ve heard plenty of rumors about you. They say your misdeeds echo all the way out here in the West.”
“……”
“That you torment people, strike them, and feel no guilt for it. How very much like that wicked Emperor.”
Isis tilted his head slightly. Dressed in his priest’s robes, he looked so solemn he might almost be mistaken for holy itself.
With a gentle smile, he spoke to Erin.
“As a servant of God, there are some rumors I cannot ignore. Therefore, I will join you as well.”
He stepped closer, leaning in to whisper near her ear.
“I’ll be watching you closely, to see what kind of person you truly are.”
Unlike Helix, Isis did not naively believe she had come purely for a promotion trial.
He wanted to uncover her true intentions.
Why had the woman the Emperor cherished come all the way to the West, asking Helix to be her witness?
There was no way Isis would pass up the chance to keep such a person within his sight.
He studied Erin carefully. Her wide eyes blinked up at him, looking harmless.
If she turns out to be an obstacle to finding the one… I will not let her live.
Dangerous light flickered in Isis’s gaze.
He was a priest devoted to judging the wicked. If Erin acted as the Emperor’s pawn or carried out the evil deeds spoken of in rumors, he would not hesitate.
“Tomorrow. We’ll meet in front of the temple gates.”
