CH 80

The priests who supported the state religion of the current empire did not believe in anything.

They worshiped God, but they were clearly aware that a religion mixed with people had already become a way of life.

Besides, money couldn’t help the priests who walk into the temple on their own feet and were satisfied with a day’s worth of meals.

Coincidentally or inevitably, only those without external ties became priests, so there were no weaknesses.

Wouldn’t it be okay if a weakness was created? There were not simply a few people who thought so.

However, they didn’t really try because they knew that there was no point in tying up the temple that way, and Raisa was no different.

In order to move the priests of the temple as she pleased, she would have to seize all of their weaknesses.

But was there a need to do such troublesome and time-consuming things?

She created a whole new religion. In order to make a kennel where she could use humans to her heart’s content.

“But a saint appeared? Suddenly?”

For a moment, she thought it might have been from her village, but if so, there was no way it wouldn’t have been reported in advance.

That woman known as the saint broke through several layers of surveillance, and now she was distributing medicine to her heart’s content, a medicine which even Raisa herself couldn’t get her hands on.

“That’s nonsense.”

Twisting the corner of her lips, Raisa hesitated.

“Could my mother have moved?”

She immediately shook her head.

While it was said the saint was distributing them, if her mother was behind this, she should have known about it.

‘Someone who wants to be in control of everything and knows the main tools to get things going.’

“…the imperial family?”

Recalling the crown prince whom she met at the festival, Raisa had to grit her teeth because her jaw trembled involuntarily.

Her eyes were unfocused, looking towards the future yet to come.

She pictured the day his corpse would roll under her feet, but the tremors barely subsided.

The moment her eyes turned hazy, she hit the desk with the pink vial she was holding.

—Pwak!

Along with the sound of the vial breaking, her palms were covered in blood, but Raisa, who let out her blocked breaths, didn’t even have time to pay attention to it.

“Ugh… ha! Haa, haa, haa, haa, haa…”

She gasped for breath alone for a long time. The whites of her eyes were stained red as if a blood vessel had burst from the inside.

Blinking once, she rubbed her bloodshot eyes vigorously.

‘Calm down.’

‘Calm down and assess the situation.’

She pressed agitation down again and again, but her head continued spinning.

It could not be said that this had never been the case since she started regressing, but she had not been like this recently.

It was fear, nothing else, that now stiffened her head and narrowed her field of vision.

Fear of death, nothing else.

Raisa smoothed her neck— a habit she had for some time after the regressions.

A stupid life and even more stupid death would have been lost in a regression.

‘But now.’

Back then, that fear manifested in Richard’s golden eyes and swallowed her shadow.

Raisa’s nervousness and uneasiness brought up another of her old habits.

As she bit her fingernails until they were bleeding, she muttered without blinking.

“Regression, I have to regress. So I have to find out where the saint came from and use her…”

But she wasn’t quite willing to send an assassin. 

The experience of the festival had caught her by the ankles and was shaking her by the neck.

“I can’t make such a terrible failure again.”

Reflecting on the moment she met Richard, she shook her head vigorously.

It would never happen.

“What went wrong during the festival?”

She asked herself, but she couldn’t conclude that any of the things she did served as a cornerstone to the failure.

The time and place were perfect.

The person she wanted was there at the place and time she wanted.

But it failed.

The smell of her own blood filled her nostrils as it did before the regression, but Raisa didn’t know then and now.

That it was because the opponent was Ophelia.

Raisa, who voluntarily repeated countless regressions to obtain her desired result.

Richard, who forcibly repeated countless regressions and gave up his life entirely.

The main character in the novel and the villain who opposed him.

The infinite regression of the two was a kind of balance, somehow pulling out the twisted world like a cogwheel.

However, someone else, neither the protagonist nor the villain, was caught in the loop of infinite regression.

Ophelia.

It was something no one expected, but it was also something that would happen in a world twisted and cracked by repeated regressions.

“What. What is it?”

‘The past that had already disappeared, or should I say, the future?’

As she pondered over and over again the incident that transpired before the regression, Raisa’s eyes did not see the present as before.

That’s why Raisa didn’t notice.

—She was crumbling with just one failed regression.

Since she had infinite regression, she had never once suffered such a terrible and unaccountable failure.

Despite the experience and years accumulated throughout the regression, she was impatient, acting as she pleases without thinking about the consequences, and she was reverting to ‘herself’ without even realizing it.

The ‘Raisa’ before the regressions…

.

The rumor that a saint had appeared was spreading, not in secret, but openly, going in and out of everyone’s lips.

At the same time, the medicine that was circulating in the back alleys, that was, the miraculous fatigue reliever without side effects, spread throughout the capital like wildfire.

Should it be said that it was fortunate that there was not much going out of the capital because there was not that much supply?

“Phew, I finally got it.”

“What, where did you get that!”

“Oh, don’t look at me. I barely managed to get it too.”

“Of course the blessed water is precious! Instead, please give me a hint of where the saint is.”

The medicine didn’t have a specific name. Rather, it was called the blessed water of the saint.

“Huu… okay, I’m only telling you this.”

“Of course!”

Everyone swore to keep a secret secret, but then why are most of the world’s secrets not secrets?

The movement of the saint that flowed out, in other words, her next destination after the temple, moved from one mouth to another mouth, making the entire capital noisy.

Nevertheless, not everyone believed in the existence of the saint.

Religion was a way of life for them.

Even the annual day to honor God was just one of many festivals for them.

“Saint? It sounds like fun, right?”

“So you want to go and have a look?”

“What’s with those pathetic eyes?”

“Let’s go together.”

Those who went to see the saint only for interest and fun, those who were curious about the drug that was said to be effective, and those who went with the purpose of finding out if she was a real saint, etc…

“Oh, don’t push.”

“Me? I didn’t push… Ugh!”

Even before the end of the sentence, the face of the person who pressed his nose in the back of the person in front of him was crushed because of the people who had gathered like clouds.

And in the middle of them, stood a woman.

She was obsessively surrounded by white things, as if to emphasize that she was pure because she had dedicated her body and soul to God.

White clothes, white robes, white gloves and even white pouches.

‘Is she the saint?’ It was enough for this thought to come to mind at once even at a glance from a distance so great that she could be seen as a dot.

The saint spoke to the people with a well-crafted benevolent smile.

“It’s dangerous, so please yield a little.”

She didn’t directly hold the hand of the person who was about to be trampled on by the crowds coming in, but pointed with her finger.

As a result, people looked at each other and reached out their hands to the person who had fallen, and fortunately he was able to get up without any injuries.

The man, who survived the crisis of being trampled to death, blinked and opened his mouth.

“Thank you?”

Even though he said it himself, it was a thank you greeting that he didn’t quite understand, so it ended in a question.

And at his reaction, the people around him also tilted their heads with subtle expressions.

Something was unpleasant, but they couldn’t say exactly what was unpleasant.

And the person who watched only the saint from the beginning of the situation to the end touched her chin.

“Hmm.”

“Why?”

“No…”

“It’s always a big deal when you say ‘no’. What is it?”

She consciously lowered her voice to the question of her friend, who had come all this way out of curiosity.

“Isn’t it normal for a saint to help people when they fall?

“Huh? I guess so? After all, it’s a saint.”

At the thought of the existence of a saint, people would naturally think of the innocent, pure, and infinitely kind saint from a fairy tale.

The idea was substantiated because the priests in the temple who presided over the religion were exactly the same as it was in stories.

“Even before that man fell, the saintess had been watching him. But she didn’t do anything.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I have been watching that smiling face. And even after he fell…”

“She didn’t help him up, she just pointed her finger at him.”

The two glanced at each other with matching puzzled expressions.

“Isn’t it a bit strange for a saint?”

“I’ve never seen a saint, so I’m not sure if it’s strange or not.”

The friend added flippantly. 

“It’s clear she’s someone I can’t trust.”

“Shall we go back?”

“Yes. The medicine is a bit… I want to disagree when someone tells me to take it.”

“Hey, you too? Me too.”