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chapter 33
With an expression so complicated it seemed he had a thousand things he wanted to say, he stared for a long while at the illustration—Yurian, bravely lifting the holy relic. Then, slowly, very carefully, he reached out and traced her face with his fingertips.
He had deliberately erased her from his memories, but suddenly, after all this time, he missed that blunt, unsmiling face.
“Ah… I want cake.”
“But you don’t like sweet foods, do you?”
“Not just any cake.”
Ah, Yurian.
I want the cake you used to give up for me.
That one tasted the best.
Without even realizing it himself, the man abandoned all dignity and sucked greedily on an empty fork held between his lips. Naturally, there was no taste—aside from a faint trace of sauce clinging to the metal.
“…Bring more food. I’m hungry again.”
Licking his lips, he cast a bored glance over the dishes on the table and impatiently urged the servants on. The silent attendants’ faces went pale—then gray with fear.
For a long while after, the only sound echoing through the dining hall was the mechanical crunching of food. Even while eating delicacies that commoners might taste once in a lifetime, the man’s expression remained utterly bored.
‘Is this thing really a holy relic?
It just sucks the life out of people—it feels more like a cursed object.’
In the end, the hellish cycle of Billod getting struck by the Rod of Repentance, throwing a tantrum, and getting struck again only ended when his legs finally gave out and he collapsed, raising the white flag in surrender.
The strange thing was that despite being hit hard several times, Billod’s forehead was perfectly fine. Instead, it was as if only the contents had been drained—like a deflated, limp balloon.
Yurian looked down at him quietly, then explained a few tips on how to stop the rod from activating.
“Repeat after me, starting with number one. Begin.”
Billod almost snapped back at the nonsense, but when the rod began glowing and slicing through the air with a threatening whoosh, he swallowed his defiance and merely bit his lip.
“One: I will not shout!”
“…One: I will not shout.”
“Too quiet! One: I will not throw objects! One: I will not touch others without permission!”
Perhaps the rod truly frightened him. His face flushed red with humiliation, Billod followed along reasonably well. Still, people didn’t change easily—less than ten minutes later, he suddenly jumped to his feet.
Yurian, unsurprised, merely fiddled with her nails, wearing a sullen expression.
After all, Billod was the one getting hurt. If he needed to be disciplined a little more to come to his senses, Yurian didn’t particularly mind.
“What good is this supposed to do?! You said it yourself—you know what my sin is! Then why not just tell me and be done with it?!”
“—Are you a thief?”
She flicked two sharply grown nails together and shook her head as if he were pathetic. Then she picked up the Rod of Repentance again.
Billod flinched, shoulders trembling, but Yurian scoffed lightly. She planted the rod upright and rested her chin atop it.
“I don’t believe for a second you’d understand even if I told you. And if it were that easy, why do you think all this happened in the first place?”
“What?!”
Helping him was one thing, but Yurian had no desire to keep staring at the faces of the so-called sinners’ party—except for Sol. Whether they believed her or not, the person who wanted this whole ordeal over the most was Yurian herself.
Make them realize their sins, hear their confessions, say goodbye—then she could go back to school and either renew her contract or change jobs.
If she was late, that snake of a principal might spread rumors about her being a runaway teacher. Then she’d be stuck renewing her contract—probably with a measly four percent raise.
“Look closely with your own eyes. Ah! O God, I confess the sins of Billod Barf. His sin is—!”
Tap.
Suddenly, the Rod of Repentance stuck itself firmly against Yurian’s lips.
“What the—!”
“See? (You get it now?)”
That’s right. Yurian couldn’t directly speak their sins out loud.
The night before, once she finally obtained the rod, she had been at a loss over where and how to start dealing with her enemies. So she decided to first clarify the nearly certain sins of Theorn and Billod and figure out a solution together.
But the holy relic blocked her.
When she tried writing, it shattered the pen.
When she tried speaking, it sealed her lips shut.
Meeting a holy relic for the first time and having it aggressively press against her mouth, Yurian had thought:
Is this really necessary, O God? Do you have to go this far with me?
“Wh-why…?”
“You get it now, right? So do your best to realize it yourself—with a little help.”
“Then why does the relic hit me so hard but go easy on you?!”
That was his complaint?
Billod was genuinely indignant, his ears burning red with anger. Yurian stared at him coldly, then scrubbed her face once, changing her mood.
Right. He was a noble brat with an iron rice bowl. His boss was his father—no matter how much trouble he caused, he wouldn’t get fired.
The one who couldn’t afford this dragging on was Yurian.
Letting out a deep breath, she calmed herself and handed paper and a pen to the grumbling Billod.
“And what’s this for?”
“In that case, write it down.”
“Write what?!”
“Why you’re angry.”
Yurian forcibly pressed the pen into Billod’s hand as he wore a face that clearly said, What kind of trick is this now?
“Write down what made you so upset that you smashed the furniture in my room and screamed loud enough to rupture eardrums. You keep spewing nonsense when you talk, so just write it. I’ll read it.”
She’d already used the whip.
Now it was time to dangle the carrot.
The problem Billod faced wasn’t unfamiliar to Yurian at all. Sudden anger. Irritation. Hitting, biting, pinching classmates because things didn’t go his way.
Every classroom had a kid like that.
The problem was—Billod wasn’t a four- or five-year-old who couldn’t tell the difference between dirt and chocolate anymore.
At his age, he should have learned how to regulate his emotions. Not through these tantrums of his.
“Who would do something that pointless?!”
“Let’s find out whether it’s pointless or not. You’re the one who came all this way to talk to me.”
Billod was hot-tempered, but he wasn’t stupid. Leaving aside values and remorse for later, he at least had the cognitive ability to grasp the sequence of events and judge whether something was wrong.
The reason he kept exploding was because he kept missing the premise of the situation. He fixated on the parts that were disadvantageous or unpleasant to him, letting emotion explode before logic could catch up.
What he needed was a way to see cause and effect all at once. He needed time to calm his rampaging emotions and pinpoint exactly where his anger came from.
Yurian had tested this “write down what upset you” method many times before. The test subjects were usually children between five and seven years old—but the results were reliable.
“This, this, and this…”
However, what Yurian failed to consider was that Billod—despite everything—was not a child.
Children, when told to do something by a teacher, will at least pretend to try.
But adults like him—
“This is ridiculous and childish!”
They bolt.
And when that adult happens to be a healthy twenty-six-year-old man?
He bolts very well.
“Billod! Stop right there!”
Yurian’s belated shout echoed thunderously—but instead of stopping him, it only gave him more momentum.
