revelation (5)
hungry.
Normally, I never felt hungry just because I skipped one or two meals, but thinking that I couldn’t eat comfortably for no reason made me feel more hungry.
I quickly put the bite-sized piece of chocolate that I had prepared earlier into my mouth.
Celia made a suitable excuse to act as bait and sent them outside for a while, and the knights guarding the door also sent them out to pray for a while, so there was no need to notice anyone now.
If you want to prove that you are going on a hunger strike in modern times, no one will believe it unless you do it in front of an unspecified number of people, but no one is watching here, so everyone believes in the rumors. There is a corner where you can feel it.
It was already past normal dinner time, and the fact that I was really fasting was spreading everywhere, simply because no one had ever entered my room with a meal tray.
And since the relatively time-consuming schedule of dinner had disappeared, I was spending time looking at the scenery outside through the window, with nothing to do.
Basically, I’ve already done everything I can.
From now on, I have to show movement from the church side, so I can respond appropriately… I hope you do it a little faster.
I shouted out a fast to pressure the church, but I’m already a little regretful after only a few hours.
Is it too greedy to want the bite to come right away?
As I was contemplating whether I should continue the show for two or three more days, or whether I should put on a surprise fainting show in the middle, I saw Celia walking towards me from afar, and the figure of a person following her. do.
What, weren’t you greedy?
As soon as I saw it, a smile spread across my lips.
Ah, this is not the time. Hurry up, groom, groom.
I went to a nearby mirror, parted my neatly arranged hair so that it was a bit scattered, and then looked at it with all my heart and soul so that I could look as haggard as possible.
After that, I was thinking about getting wrinkles on my clothes, but I changed my mind and, on the contrary, straightened the minor wrinkles on my clothes.
It is counterproductive if real skin and bone are in contact with each other, or if it gives the impression that it is messy or dirty because it is haggard.
The point, to the end, is to slightly appeal to the fact that even though I am undergoing such a difficult ordeal, my will and faith have not diminished at all.
Even though he is exhausted, it is important to show a neat appearance that would only be possible in a fantasy.
If you look at a person with a modern point of view like me, it’s been less than half a day since I said I would fast, but what the hell does this mean?
However, that is only the point of view of modern people who are familiar with the rule of three: 3 minutes without air, 3 hours without temperature, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food, and who have become part of a diet.
The concept of deliberately not eating here is awkward, so you won’t think that it’s worth doing since not much time has passed yet.
It’s just that I’m fasting, and if I show you how tired I am because of that fasting, you’ll think I’m tired even though I only skipped one meal.
Besides, the person who is now approaching me has already been caught on a fishing hook.
In a relaxed state, there was a high possibility of accepting what I see as it is rather than evaluating it coldly by combining my appearance with the information that only a few hours had passed. Originally, people tend to see what they want to see.
Come on!
After getting ready, I decided to take a seat by the window and pray.
As soon as I calmly assumed the posture of prayer with an expression of “I don’t know anything,” I heard a knock on the door a few seconds later.
“Come on in.”
As soon as I said that, the door opened, and on the other side of the door stood the knights, Celia, and the person accompanying Celia.
“Holy Son, Miss Celia has brought her companion… what shall we do?”
It’s funny if you think about it coldly.
I’m nominally in custody right now, and Celia, my attendant, isn’t even allowed to roam around at will, and I’ve brought in a bright red stranger, and no one questions that the knights ask me what to do with him, let alone stop it.
Really…desirable. After all, this is the true taste of power. It’s always new. Exciting. the best.
If someone wielded power towards me, I would shout with all my might to stop absurd abuse of power and eradicate corruption, but I was the one who could enjoy wielding power in private, that was me.
I nodded, smiling the slightly weary smile I had in the mirror as I had just been grooming myself.
“Oh, it looks like you’ve come to talk to me. He’s fine. Let him in.”
“All right.”
The knights let the person accompanying Celia in without questioning my words.
No matter how it was, it was nominally detained and actually my escort, but it was passed without the slightest hesitation to the extent that I wondered if it was too defenseless. Conversely, if you think about it, all of this situation was actually caused by my insistence in the first place, so my current words could carry a lot of weight. It could be interpreted as meaning. Besides, the saint, who went out for a while in the first place, accompanied the attendant, and the saint said it was okay, but it would be difficult to say anything. Even if it was a person from the church.
Since I bothered to mention that I was part of the church, you might have thought that I was a pure priest who had nothing to do with them. In fact, it’s not even that.
I entered the room and tried hard to show my nervousness on the outside, but in my heart I smiled as I looked into the other person, who was already in a crucible of chaos.
“It’s been a while, Barca-sama.”
“Yes… It seems like it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you.”
At my words, the other person responded with an awkward expression.
“It seems like a really long time has passed.”
Barca, the bishop belonging to the shadow of his real name, Melvin, responded with a helpless look, as if he had gone through dozens of times more alone.
There was deep resignation and sadness in his voice.
…
There was tremendous pride in Melvin, as well as the members of the shadows. There is no clergyman in the world who would not take pride in being chosen by God and being guaranteed that his faith was not wrong.
In addition, the shadow side also selected and contacted those who had the qualities to blindly devote their loyalty to the shadow by inducing the direction in the first place, so those who belonged to the shadow all had tremendous loyalty to the shadow and the prophet.
A sense of superiority and a sense of purpose to take a step closer to the true cause of a god unknown to others and directly carry out that noble mission was also one of the factors that made them strong.
Even before Melvin’s confrontation with Ronan, Melvin had never once denied his beliefs in the long and short decades of his existence.
And since he was a man of deep faith, the things he went through at the academy over the past few weeks were even more painful than hell.
After meeting Ronan, the doubts that settled in his mind plagued Melvin endlessly.
The doubt went beyond the level of simply disturbing Melvin’s mind, and even in his dreams, he had dreams of Orion-sama urging him.
So in the meantime, Melvin worked hard to avoid Ronan.
Melvin himself couldn’t imagine what would happen if he met Ronan again.
Suspicion kept tormenting him, but Ronan thought that all of this would be the devil’s work to enthrall people, and he took control. Their efforts as shadows would not be known to anyone, but Orion said that their dedication would be remembered. Melvin held onto it like a rope, repeating endlessly that Ronan was a false prophet.
If not…if Ronan is right and they are wrong, then all the actions they have never doubted in their cause will be for nothing. Orion will not remember them, and there will be no space reserved for them in Paradise. is not it.
Melvin couldn’t accept that reality. However, he endlessly thought Ronan was a false prophet, but he hesitated to report Ronan’s abilities to the end. Peace came for a while because I didn’t want to look at the scale.
The weight actually tipped again when I heard that the Church had done a great job in dealing with the traitors and demon worshipers of the dwarves without Ronan stepping out.
If Ronan was right, why didn’t he go ahead and eradicate those demon worshipers? It was clear that this was the limit of the false prophet.
That small reassurance had to be put aside as he personally witnessed the disaster that had come to the academy and looked at Ronan, who dealt with it himself.
Melvin had an act that was close to fanaticism, that he could die for a cause, and he approached the scene of the monster rampage as much as possible to get information somehow.
That’s why it was not difficult to see all the miracles Ronan performed, even from a distance.
Blocking the rain of flames that cover the sky, blocking the hellfire spewing out through the monster’s breath, and finally binding the monster that has transformed into a complete monster with chains, and sealing the monster with a tree he has created. figure.
In Melvin’s eyes, the monster was an existence that could never be defeated without Ronan.
Is that all? The monster was getting stronger in real time. The proof was that the heat he felt from Melvin, who was far away, was getting stronger.
How much stronger would he have become if he had given a little more time. If that time came, would he have been able to stop that monster even if he had poured all of the empire’s forces into it?
If Ronan is a false prophet, if his purpose is to deceive and deceive people and destroy them. Why did he fight that monster with all his might?
The miracle that followed made Melvin no longer able to think about anything.
The miracle that happened throughout the academy after Ronan touched a tree in a ruined vacant lot with no one awake.
That Ronan was the performer of all the miracles, Melvin witnessed firsthand, not through rumors that had been floating around for a while.
And Melvin, who looked at it, now had no idea what was what.
Is it even possible to deceive people? If that is possible, if it is fake that is better than the real thing, can it be called fake in the first place?
Melvin gave up everything and handed over all the information he had come across to the shadows. He could no longer know anything.
It was hard to think of anything on my own anymore.
Anything, please, anything, I wanted the prophet to say just one word to me.
I didn’t ask for much.
Who the hell is Ronan to be able to exercise such ridiculous abilities? Are we really the ones who do Orion’s will? Are you able to exercise those abilities too?
There were many questions, but unanswered questions were like the destiny of priests for the rest of their lives.
For Melvin, a single word was more desperate than answers to all those questions.
you are not wrong
He didn’t even need an elaborate reason for it.
I just hoped for that word, that what you have done so far is not meaningless.
However, after Melvin posted all the reports, there was no case of contacting Melvin from the shadows.
A newly dispatched person was in charge of pressuring the imperial family and the princess at the academy, and through that person, they were told that Melvin was in a very tired and exhausted state, so he had to step back from the front line for a while and take a break.
The voice of the bishop who conveyed the words, probably belonging to the same shadow, was very kind, but it was a story that no longer meant much to Melvin.
That was the end. Every time he looked at the cold communication phrase, Melvin’s heart grew cold as well.
And when the power struggle between the Imperial Family and the Order took shape in earnest, and Ronan subtly pointed out the shadows of the Church through bombshell remarks.
Melvin just thought it was coming.
It was them who had been doing the wrong thing all along, and Ronan was right. Even if Ronan knew everything about them, it wouldn’t be too strange.
And as soon as the uproar broke out, when his communication channel shone bright after a long time.
Melvin was deeply resigned.
If you are still for Orion-sama, if you believe in the Prophet, you must prove your faith by sacrificing your life.
Ronan, who seduces people and slanders the church with nonsense, was clearly a group of devil worshipers, so the order was to kill him.
Well, what Ronan was pointing at was, to all eyes, a shadow. Among those who don’t know the existence of the shadow, there may be people who might think it’s a hoax and a slander, but to those who do, does this really sound like a lie?
Does Melvin himself believe Ronan’s words?
Melvin laughed hysterically.
It wasn’t just the embers that fell on their feet, but the fire that spread all over their bodies, making the shadows clear, so it wasn’t strange that they were in a hurry.
And since he was in such a hurry, the fact that this was the number he came up with to stop the other person’s mouth in this situation made Melvin feel oddly dwarfed by the shadow group he had dedicated his entire life to.
However, Melvin decided to follow the command of the shadow, which could be the last one.
After a long time, he cleaned up his holy clothes and refined his devastated appearance.
It wasn’t a decision that came about because he had made a great decision, because he had already reached an irreversible situation, and he had rather made a mad determination to get rid of the legitimate existence and replace him.
It was resignation, it was suicide.
Melvin thought his actions would fail.
Just as Ronan knew all the things he couldn’t possibly know, just as he revealed the shadow of the church with the word revelation this time, his assassination attempt will also be thwarted.
Though thinking so, Melvin quietly prepared to obey the order.
It was just that he was unbearably sad that all the deeds he had devoted his life to were remaining worthless, and that he had decided to express his condolences because the direction he had been running toward was all wrong.
What Melvin chose was poison.
He intended to poison the saint’s food, and he himself would die from eating the poison.
He will not be remembered anywhere. At most, he will be remembered as a wicked man, as one of the ‘persons controlling the church’ that the saint claimed to have committed suicide while attempting to poison the saint.
The moment I made up my mind, Ronan made an additional declaration like a lie.
He meant that he would pray for forgiveness while fasting in order to atone for the sins of the church.
Prayer, it can be. Looking at Ronan’s actions so far, he could really feel responsible for all of this.
But… why the hell is fasting?
But was Ronan a man who moved with such political calculations? Of course not.
Most people probably won’t find the reason for Ronan’s eccentricity, and in the end, he feels a great sense of responsibility.
But Melvin had goosebumps as he held the vial of poison in his hand.
Could it be… to prevent this…?
But why?
If he senses that he will attempt to poison himself, isn’t it far better to catch the assassin and put pressure on the shadows of the cult that instigated him?
If you’ve noticed, why is it so quietly that the assassination itself doesn’t happen?
After struggling for a while, I couldn’t come up with an answer.
Even though he had doubts, Melvin decided to choose a lane steadily. If the poisoning was blocked, he had no choice but to try to kill Ronan himself.
Of course, this will also be blocked.
In the first place, Melvin didn’t even have the confidence to pull out the knife in front of Ronan.
And at that point I stopped thinking about it further.
After all, this isn’t really an assassination attempt to kill Ronan, it’s a grand and embarrassing suicide.
Melvin set aside his unanswered questions and started looking for a way to contact Ronan.
And it was not difficult to find a way.
It was because as soon as Melvin stepped outside, Celia, who had been hanging around nearby, caught his eye.
“Miss Celia, what are you doing here?”
“Ah! Bishop Barca. Ronan-nim gave me a simple errand.”
The conversation between the two that started like that naturally led to the reason for Ronan’s declaration of hunger.
“So, you say you let go of everything so you don’t make innocent victims!”
In order not to…make innocent victims…let them go…?
Hearing those words, Melvin was acutely aware of what it felt like to be hit in the head with a hammer.
Ronan said that he took such measures to avoid making innocent victims, but in fact, if things are blocked in advance in that way, aren’t the people who are simply involved the most saved?
The one who will be saved the most… is the assassin who tried to assassinate him.
Naturally, he can’t attempt an assassination, so he’s not guilty. You can’t punish someone just because he had the heart to harm them.
Melvin’s eyes shook violently.
Did you know all this? Did you give yourself a chance? Or did you know that if you blocked it like this, you would try to kill Ronan yourself, and you really tried to reduce the people involved?
No, in the first place, how on earth could that be? From Ronan’s point of view, on the contrary, it’s the same as forgiving someone who was determined to harm him once.
Melvin managed to follow Celia to Ronan in the confusion.
Right before I die, there is something I really want to know.
The last time he entered Ronan’s room like that. When Ronan didn’t stop Melvin and sent him into his room without hesitation.
Melvin was sure.
That this was all a situation created to give Melvin a chance.
In the first place, Ronan knew that there would be a poisoning attempt and declared a hunger strike to prevent that from happening.
There is no way that Ronan, who knew that far, would not know that he was the mastermind of the assassination.
Even so, he couldn’t help but think that by letting himself into the room, he was giving himself a chance.
That too many times. Despite the fact that one’s own life could be in danger.
Eventually, Melvin entered the room and quietly knelt down in front of Ronan, banging his head on the floor and shouting with a voice mixed with tears.
“How do you do this? Why do you do this for someone like me?”
A desperate echo, like the voice of a lost child, rang through the room.
