How the Reincarnation Seat Destroys the Original - Chapter 88



Only Noblemtl

Episode 88. The Last Saintess (4).

Kael and Mabel looked at each other at the same time.

No words were exchanged, but they both knew they had heard the same sound at the same time. Mabel’s clear, purple eyes filled with tears.

[Huh…? Huh? Why, why are you crying. Are you… Are you also having your divine powers exploited by that bastard Matthias- no, that bad guy?]

“No, no. That’s not it….”

Selena turned her head to look at Kael as Mabel’s voice trembled with a sore throat. Her bright golden eyes gleamed in the dark underground.

[You’re Mabel’s dad?! Can’t you see she’s about to cry? Or are you in league with that bastard Mathias? Huh?!]

Selena glared at Kael, who was approaching her as if she would grab him by the collar if he even affirmed that it was true.

“We’re not in the same group. Strictly speaking, we’re enemies.”

Selena stopped and froze at the sound of his indifferent voice.

[Enemy? Did you just say enemy?]

As if he was wondering if he heard it correctly.

Kael nodded silently at the girl’s question, asking for confirmation again.

Strictly speaking, Lars was under the command of the High Priest, Matthias Limpite. Interfering with Lars’ work would be no different from interfering with his work, so it wouldn’t be wrong to call him an enemy.

[If he’s the enemy, will you kill him?]

The questions continued to sound rather creepy coming from a girl in her late teens.

Kill me… .

In the original, he deceived Lars from beginning to end and received no punishment. Among the readers who read until the end, there were even comments asking if he would kill that high priest bastard, which seemed unusual.

By the way, did Mabel, who seemed to have read and re-read my work, leave a comment? Before I could resolve my curiosity that suddenly arose, Selena started nagging Kael, who was not answering my question.

[Are you going to kill him? Kill him. No, you don’t have to kill him. Give him a pain worse than death.]

Selena, who had been asking to be killed, soon changed her words as if a better idea had come to her mind.

[Take away the divinity of others, including me, and take away their lives to maintain their youth and live their lives. Take away the divinity of him. Make him feel my. Our pain equally.]

As she continued speaking, the girl sank to her knees, holding onto the hem of his clothes if necessary, as if to beg.

A very… long time ago. But the girl’s face was distorted as if she was about to cry, as if she was recalling a memory that still torments her.

“Selena.”

Mabel, whose emotions had calmed down, slowly approached Selena, who was sitting down, and stretched out her arms.

Selena knew that the arms reaching out to her would not embrace her. Kael and Mabel were not the only ones who had come here for 300 years.

There have been a few others who have visited this place in the past following my voice.

The first person to visit this place was so happy to see me that he reached out his hand as a greeting, missing the warmth of people. But the hand of the living passed right through his own.

And the next time, and the next time, it was the same.

That’s when Selena realized.

Ah, I will never feel human warmth again. Just as I died here alone in my life. And I will disappear here alone after I die.

[ah…?]

The moment Mabel’s outstretched arms embraced her, Selena let out a dazed voice.

He felt the soft texture of the cloth worn by the one who was embracing him. And the two arms that were holding him tightly. He felt the chest that was embracing his head. He felt the heartbeat that was beating beneath them.

[This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening…?]

He felt a hot, no, warm warmth from the small hand that touched his shoulder.

The moment the warmth she never thought she would feel touched her, tears fell from Selena’s eyes without even having time to gather.

[It’s warm… Really… It’s the warmth of a person…]

A voice mixed with tears flowed out of Selena’s mouth. As if in disbelief. The girl stretched out her arms and slowly hugged the child who was holding her.

A warm feeling lingered beneath my palm.

I touched it. I could touch it.

When Selena realized that, she burst into tears like a child, and a strong light flowed out from the girl’s body. Before Mabel and Kael could react, the light instantly enveloped both of their bodies.

* * *

“Mabel. Come to your senses.”

Mabel opened her eyes to the harsh hands shaking her body as if she was being turned by a threshing machine. The shaking was so strong that as soon as she opened her eyes, her surroundings began to spin.

“You’re awake.”

The owner of the rough hands that shook her. Mabel wanted to say, ‘Please touch the child with delicate hands!’ at Kael’s voice, but she felt like everything inside her would come up if she opened her mouth, so she kept her mouth shut and endured the dizziness.

After a while, when the dizziness finally subsided, Mabel looked around.

Surely… he and Kael should have been underground. They were currently on the altar in the waiting room they had seen before coming underground.

That too, a waiting room full of people.

Everyone sitting on the chairs put their hands together and looked at the altar with a moved expression. Everyone’s gaze was focused on…

“Selena…?”

Not a blurry image of a soul.

Selena, looking full of life and vitality, stood on the altar with a gentle smile.

“Ahh…, Saintess!”

“Please bless me today too…!”

From the whispering voices of the people, Kael and Mabel were able to realize that what they were seeing was Selena as she was when she was alive and active as a saint.

As I realized that fact, scenes of Selena healing the wounds of children, adults, and the elderly and giving blessings to them passed by like a panorama, and then stopped at one point.

“Selena. Our saint. Didn’t I warn you? Not to use your divine powers without a price.”

A man with blond hair of a similar shade, though a little different, and with clear golden eyes like Selena’s, who could be considered father or sister, was sitting with the girl and talking.

“But Your Highness. I… want to use this power to help more people. You said so too, Your Highness. If I become a saint, I will be able to help more people than I am now. Those who live miserable, painful lives.”

“Matthias Limpite… .”

Selena called the man the High Priest, and Mabel, realizing his identity, muttered his name softly.

You must not use divine power without a price.

The two people’s clash of opinions over whether to use divine power without compensation continued.

The scene changed again.

This time, Kael and Mabel were in the basement of the familiar main building. There, Selena was seen, looking completely lifeless, unlike before.

The girl’s delicate ankles, which did not look like a handful, were bound with heavy shackles, and her ankles were swollen red and her hands were covered in blood, a sign of an attempt to free her.

“Let me go…let me go…. I won’t resist anymore. So…let me out of here….”

How much did he scream? How much did he cry? His hoarse voice cracked and shook the air. His golden eyes, which had been looking at people with a gentle light, stared at one place without any light.

“Oh, there’s no use saying that now, Selena. This is all the result of your foolish choice not to listen to my warnings.”

A kind voice, which sounded eerie and rather out of place compared to the situation she was in, answered the girl’s plea.

“Matthias… Limpite….”

“You’ve withered away even more since I last saw you. How pitiful. But don’t worry. I’ve found a way to make that divine power you possess completely mine.”

Matthias Limpite. Selena’s eyes slowly widened at the Archon’s words.

– Okay.

Selena hesitated and crawled on the floor away from him.

The power of the one loved by the gods. Taking away the divine power was no different from taking away their life. The reason why they withered away like this, the reason why they felt the pain of their bones breaking into small pieces, wasn’t it because their divine power was exploited?

Making his divine power his own.

It was no different from saying that you would kill yourself.

“When I was in the position of the High Priest, God sent you, a saint, to me. I guess that is proof that God still loves me.”

The high priest, who looked up at the statue of the primordial god behind Selena with an ecstatic expression, slowly approached the girl.

“At first, I thought I should conceive a new life through you. Since we are both loved by God, the child born from us would also be loved by God.”

“You are… crazy.”

“But I serve the primordial god. Everything I have is for him, so I have come up with another way. A way to make the divine power of others mine.”

The high priest stopped right in front of Selena and bent his knees to look into the girl’s eyes. The golden eyes looked the same as before. However, the moment Selena met those eyes, she screamed in pain.

He moved his head slightly as if he was listening to the girl’s screams as sweet music, then soon closed his eyes.

“Ugh…!”

As his eyes were covered, Selena’s body, which had lost its strength, fell to the cold floor. She curled up into a ball, breathing heavily and trembling.

As if trying to protect himself.

“The chains you are wearing. I made a prosthetic eye out of a substance that has the same properties as the one that absorbs divine power, and put it in my eye. I gave up my eyesight, but the more I absorbed divine power, the more my eyes began to see.”

“Ugh….”

“I’m still struggling with this, and I’m not very good at it. So, Selena, I need you to help me.”

“Poem, I hate it….”

How many times do I have to feel this pain?

Selena crouched down even more, but Mathias looked down at the girl’s struggles with a puzzled expression and straightened his bent knees.

“Then I’ll come again tomorrow.”

The scene changed.

Selena’s screams of pain continued, and the girl’s pleas to be let out gradually turned into pleas to be killed.

How long. How long has it been?

In the basement, where only the blue moonlight shines, Selena was stuck in a corner, unable to even get up, leaning her head against the wall, and then, using all her strength, crawled to the altar where the statue of the god was.

“Why… why did you give me this power?”

Selena asked, looking up at the stone statue of the god. She opened her lips, which were dry and cracked, and bloody, and the wound burst open, and red blood flowed down the corner of her mouth.

“Curse…you…. me. You who gave me this power…. The one loved by God…? I never wanted to be loved by you. I never wanted this power….”

“Curse God,” Selena said, the corners of her lips rising.

“I… won’t… go back to your side….”

Selena, who had come to the statue with all her might, rested her cheek on the floor, as if she no longer had the strength to raise her head. Selena’s eyes slowly closed as she looked into the cold, cold… dark, damp underground, where there was nothing but stone.

Tears flowed down my face and soaked into the cold stone floor.

“It’s cold… so… cold….”

That was the end of the saint, Selena.