The Blind Saint Who Can See - Chapter 1
Only Noblemtl
#1. Prologue
Justinas was an unusual child.
“Are you okay? You look very sick.”
Cedric first met her on his eleventh birthday.
“Can you get up?”
That day, I was particularly unlucky.
For two weeks, all I ate was weeds and tree bark growing on the roadside.
Even the restaurant trash can, which was always full of trash, was clean without a single crumb, as if someone had emptied it first.
He was so hungry that he almost felt sick. Then, he lost his senses and ended up stealing a baguette because of the delicious smell of bread coming from across the store.
“You dirty rat! Where did you put your hands on someone else’s bread!”
I got caught and was beaten to the point of almost dying.
I felt dizzy, maybe because I was so hungry.
I felt no strength in my hands and feet. The back of my head, which had been hit several times, was also throbbing.
But then suddenly a pretty girl of his age approached him and held out her hand like a fernbrake.
“What is your name?”
“… You don’t know.”
“I am Justinas!”
She forcibly grabbed Cedric’s hand and supported him as he stumbled.
There was a rumbling sound in my stomach.
Justinas, who was watching Cedric like that, soon searched through his pockets and took something out.
The bread was soggy and moldy.
“You eat this- what!”
Before she could finish speaking, Cedric was already shoving a piece of moldy bread into his mouth.
The bread was hard as a rock, no matter how old it was, but after starving for a week, even that tasted too sweet. Cedric ate the whole thing and licked every last crumb off his palm.
It was nice to receive a favor after such a long time, but a piece of bread was not enough to satisfy the hunger. Justinas looked at Cedric with wide eyes and then asked him affectionately.
“Do you want to come to my house?”
Cedric nodded.
***
From that day on, Cedric began living with her.
Of course, the two of them didn’t live alone.
“Youth Sister! Marty stole my bread!”
“Huh, that’s because you looked away while you were eating.”
“Okay, okay… both of you calm down.”
Forty-two children lived in Justinas’ house.
“Here, I’ll give you my bread. Marty, from now on, you won’t steal other people’s food, right?”
“… Yeah, I got it. Sorry.”
As he watched Justinas hand over his share of the meal, Cedric recalled their conversation earlier.
“You, the new kid?”
“…however.”
“Don’t be mean to Yus.”
The boy, three years older than him, looked at Cedric and gave him a stern warning.
“It’s all thanks to Youth that the orphans around here can live like this. It’s because he gave us his home.”
“… How did Yusei come to have this house? Isn’t he an orphan?”
“No, not until two years ago.”
Cedric found out that day.
The fact that Justinas had lost his parents two years ago and was living in a dilapidated house.
She took orphans from the streets in and gave them a shabby but comfortable home, meals to fill their stomachs, and love.
“Isn’t that amazing? I can’t believe she’s nine years old.”
Cedric agreed, although he couldn’t answer at the time.
The bread that Justinas gave him on his birthday was a food that he could only eat once a day.
She gave that precious food to someone she had never met before.
‘If it were me, I would have lived alone.’
To be honest, the house was too small for over forty children to live in. As the babies grew bigger every day, the living conditions became more and more strained.
But Justinas didn’t care at all. She was a girl who willingly gave her entire share to her younger siblings who were begging for more, even though she herself was starving.
‘How can there be such a person?’
It was an action that Cedric could not understand.
He has lived in the slums ever since he can remember. He has been an orphan who does not even know the faces of his parents.
Except for the nine years before that, which he strangely cannot remember, his life for the past two years has been a constant struggle.
If you are weak, it will be taken away.
If you are strong, you will be taken away.
I thought the world was made up of just those two propositions.
“Cedric, why aren’t you eating?”
While I was thinking about this, Justinas approached me.
Clear blue eyes sparkle.
Cedric, looking at that doll-like face, suddenly felt embarrassed and turned his head away.
“You eat. I’m not hungry today.”
“Huh?”
The girl was taken aback when she saw the loaf of bread he held out.
“He, Cedric.”
“I told you to eat it.”
Cedric stood up before she could say anything.
‘I was hungry yesterday too.’
Today, too, I felt bad about handing the bread over to my younger sibling.
‘It’s okay to live a little selfishly.’
As expected, he is an incomprehensible person.
Just as I was thinking about that and about to go out.
“thank you.”
At the small remark, Cedric turned around without thinking.
“Thank you, Cedric.”
Justinas was laughing.
Even though she has a skinny body and looks pathetic because she doesn’t eat properly, that smile is really…
“Tch. … Over something so trivial.”
Cedric turned around hurriedly.
For some reason my ears felt hot.
***
It’s already been three years since I started living with Justinas.
At the age of fourteen, Cedric went from being the one receiving help to the one giving help.
“Cedric, wash the blankets!”
“okay.”
Meanwhile, the children staying at Justinas’ house are now over fifty years old.
However, that was the maximum number of children the old two-story house could accommodate. These days, Justinas no longer takes in orphans.
‘This life isn’t bad either.’
As children grew older, they earned money by running errands for adults nearby.
Cedric would soon join that crowd.
‘I have to do well in the future too.’
He loved it here.
I envisioned a future where I would be with them even as adults.
“Hey, don’t you smell something?”
“What does that smell like?”
“Something burning… … .”
Until that happened.
“Fire, fire!”
“Take all the babies out!”
The old wooden house was instantly turned into a sea of fire. The older children, taking the younger ones with them, hurriedly escaped outside.
Cedric was the same. He was gasping for breath while holding his two-year-old brother.
“Are they all out?”
“Oh, what should I do?”
The fire spread in an instant and the surroundings were in an uproar. In the meantime, a girl shouted with a face as pale as snow.
“Luca! Luca is gone!”
Luca was now a five-year-old boy. At those words, the children looked at the burning and collapsing house.
“I’ll go in.”
Justinas was the first to step forward.
“It’ll be out soon, it’s okay.”
Cedric wanted to hold her.
But there was no time to stop it.
Justinas ran into the burning house without a moment’s hesitation.
‘How can a person do that?’
Justinas is only twelve.
Even at the age of fourteen, the thought of a burning house was too scary and terrifying, but she acted as if she had thrown her life away.
‘No, but still, if it’s youth… … .’
Justinas is a great kid.
I believed that such an extraordinary person would naturally rescue his younger brother from the burning house and return alive.
That shouldn’t have happened.
“Oh, the house is collapsing…!”
“Youth! Luca!”
This whole situation seemed like a lie.
My heart was pounding.
“Luca, it’s Luca!”
As the entrance to the house collapsed, Luca was pushed out.
And Cedric saw.
“Youth, no!”
Justinas pushes Luca away and gets trapped behind the collapsing timber.
What did she say?
Cedric ran towards her.
One was not enough.
Even if I screamed at the top of my lungs, the fallen timber would not rise and the fire would not go out.
Her last moments kept lingering before my eyes.
“Cedric, be a good adult.”
Last words.
***
Another ten years have passed.
After losing Justinas, Cedric grew into the leader of the underworld.
Assassination. Illegal distribution. Tracking.
He can do anything if you give him money. As a capable errand boy, he has become quite famous in the underworld.
“I have a request.”
It was a strange day.
The guest who came to see him was a priest dressed in white robes. He was a man who did not fit in with the back alley at all.
“What is a religious person doing here?”
“I need your help.”
He held out his purse.
Cedric nodded as he accepted the heavy package. Then the priest spoke again.
“Please escort the saint.”
“…Saint?”
He paused at the unfamiliar word.
‘I heard that the saint has returned to the Eastern Continent.’
In the present age of magical engineering advancement, the authority of the gods has fallen to the ground.
During that time, he heard a rumor that a certain woman was being made a saint and laughed at it.
It was a sentiment that he was running wild, trying to somehow maintain power on the uncivilized continent across the river.
‘Are you going to be the Pope’s puppet?’
There is no such thing as a saint in this world.
A mere human being can work a miracle.
If he were a great conman, I wouldn’t know.
But there was nothing he couldn’t do once he had the money. Cedric nodded as he grabbed his pocket.
“Can I go to the Eastern Continent?”
***
“Is this your first time at the temple?”
“You’re asking the obvious.”
Although he is called the leader of the underworld, he is ultimately just a hunting dog that cleans the behinds of those in power.
Cedric was not in the mood for complicated examples. He frowned as he looked at the pristine white temple.
“What’s the point of such an inefficient building? Wouldn’t it be better to tear it down and build a food factory instead, which would help the poor?”
“Don’t you believe in God?”
“Yeah. I don’t believe it.”
He answered concisely.
“The saint is inside. She is praying, so I’ll come back later-”
Cedric opened the door to the prayer room, ignoring the priest’s words.
‘Your hair is gray.’
A memory from long ago comes to mind.
There was no further excitement than that.
I don’t know who that poor woman is who is being used as propaganda for the Holy Land, but she only worked as much as she was paid to do.
“Is that you?”
A woman praying in front of a statue of a goddess wearing a white veil.
Cedric greeted the woman curtly.
“From today, I will be escorting the saintess. Please take good care of me.”
“ah.”
A short exclamation was heard.
Everything was fine until then.
But soon on the way back.
“Hello, brother.”
In words spoken with affection.
“My name is Justinas.”
Even as time passes, that smile remains unchanged.
“Please take care of me in the future.”
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
My heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to burst.
It was my first love that I had missed for over 10 years.
I thought he was dead.
But why here-
“You, you… … .”
The words that came out were pitiful. He reached out to Justinas with a trembling voice.
However, the opponent did not move at all.
As if he hadn’t seen Cedric’s broken expression and outstretched hand.
Then the priest standing nearby said:
“Lord Cedric, the saint cannot see.”
“what?”
Only then did he look at Justinas’ condition with puzzled eyes.
‘The focus is….’
Her two beautiful eyes, like glass beads, were just fixed, without moving at all.
Perhaps uneasy at the continued silence, Justinas writhed his hands in embarrassment.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I do something rude?”
“…no.”
Cedric clenched his fists.
“There is no problem.”
The first love I met again was someone I could never see again.