The Priest Wants to Retire

〈 Chapter 19 〉 Gloomy Premonition

*

In fiction, when a normally intact object suddenly breaks or shatters, it often serves as a foreshadowing of someone’s misfortune.

If the camera zooms in meaningfully on a plate that a housewife, humming a tune while washing the dishes, accidentally drops, then it’s safe to say that her husband, who appears in the next cut, has already been sentenced to death.

The idea that something as trivial as a broken object can reflect someone’s demise shows just how prodigious humanity’s imagination is.

But one has to wonder if this power of imagination, which sprouts unnecessary worries and fears like weeds, is all that beneficial for us.

Kaboom!

That makes five forks broken already.

I could understand it if they bent or lost their heads, but having a perfectly good fork split cleanly in half? No way.

That’s ominous.

This level of foreboding hasn’t been felt since the party members lied to me about going on a picnic and then dove into an unregistered dungeon.

The bewilderment and betrayal I felt then still linger vividly in my mind.

You lied. Bad. Humans are ugly creatures.

To me, repeating the same words like a broken doll curled up in misery, the elf comrade who mocked me for not giving up seemed so cruel back then.

For a while after that, every time my comrades suggested somewhere to go, I would involuntarily go into a defensive posture, suffering from a serious neurosis.

“Huh! Another fork has broken! I’ll quickly get a new one!”

“No, really, there’s no need to….”

Before I could finish, I found myself unable to keep my eyes on the familiar yet strange man who rushed off somewhere.

With his dazzling blond hair now turned into a shiny buzz cut, his name is Robel Wright, popularly known as the Ranobel Priest.

Once a renowned figure who wore the title of ‘Flower Boy Priest’ like a cape, it’s puzzling why he now shines with a different meaning while serving as my attendant.

The day I unwittingly pulled him from the depths of death after falling for the nun’s trick, all I could see was a man looking like someone who had just awakened from anesthesia, lost in a daze while buried under his sobbing fiancées.

But about a week later.

“From today onward, I, Robel Wright, will revoke my support declaration for the Regis Guardian Priest! From today, the Regis Guardian Priest and I declare that we are no longer in a supportive relationship and will regard any attack on him as an attack on myself!”

During the weekend worship time when all the priests gathered in the chapel, he boldly ascended the podium and spouted such nonsense. I decided to regard him as an unavoidable enemy I must exclude from my life.

“Hahaha… that bastard…”

And at that moment, a curse from my hometown, which I had never uttered even on the day my belly was pierced or when I was on the brink of death from poison, finally escaped my lips.

◈◈◈

At first, I thought it was just a new way of tormenting me.

That ruthless guy finally resorted to such complex methods to harass me.

To repay the life-saving grace like this? I shouldn’t have saved him after all.

Back then, I profoundly misunderstood the severity of the situation.

Given my mental state, it was understandable.

It was as if a torrential rain was pouring over a calm lake, dramatically shaking my previously dull work environment to the core.

There was no way I had the luxury to worry about a freak who had abruptly changed his profession from priest to monk.

On the positive side, the meal issues I had previously complained about were significantly improved.

Being responsible for the saintess’s meals, I could hardly go to the strict meal schedule set in the monastery without two bodies.

I learned that the improvement in my meal situation had already been suggested several times by the Sister before I even voiced my complaints. Thanks to that, I was granted a so-called special meal ticket, allowing me to get meals whenever and however much I wanted.

The unlimited meal ticket I joked about with classmates turned out to be real.

I shouldn’t even need to mention how that revelation felt like the beginning of an epoch, surging up from my dantian.

In my left hand, an outing permit. In my right hand, an unlimited meal ticket.

It was just two scraps of paper, yet I felt a surge of unexplainable omnipotence—something distinctly different from the old me.

Ah! So this is what power feels like!

The delicious wild edible plants blooming everywhere around the chapel couldn’t help but look like mere weeds at this moment.

They say that when a person becomes tainted by power, their perspective on the world shifts, but I never expected it to happen so instantly.

It was a clear moment that proved the dark claws of desire resided within my cramped heart. I wondered if these claws would one day try to consume me. A faint fear brushed past my thoughts.

But, good changes inevitably bring about bad ones as well.

Just like the monsters said to live in far-off Japan have to sacrifice one of four techniques they learned to gain a more powerful technique.

The price I had to pay for obtaining ten outing permits and an unlimited meal ticket wasn’t trivial.

To discuss this, I first need to explain a ridiculous rumor that has been making waves through the entire system.

The Saint’s Personal Guardian Priest can even resurrect the dead.

This gossip, which spread throughout the system after I saved the Ranobel Priest, has been fueled by his fiancées who witnessed the whole scene and has yet to cool off even weeks later.

I’m certain it’s due to the upper echelon of the Vatican trying to hide truths that could tarnish their honor while spreading the beneficial lies far and wide.

For those in the know, that might be fine, but for those unfamiliar, unable to even see the concept of Divine Power, I likely appear as a miraculous priest who brought the heart and pulse back to a dead person.

Moreover, considering that most of the people gathered there were nobles with ties to the upper political class, it didn’t take long for a hollow rumor to take root as credible information.

Whenever someone would ask me about the truth of the rumor, or any time I had a chance to correct the so-called rumors, I would adamantly deny it with the most sincere voice I could muster. But this time, my embarrassingly high position only held me back.

For a priest of the highest rank within the system, making self-deprecating remarks only seemed humble to the lower ranks.

Later, I even received a timid reprimand from some elder priests about how excessive humility can degrade one’s status.

Lord.

However, what troubled me more than anything else was.

“Oh my! Isn’t that the Regis Guardian Priest? What a remarkable coincidence to run into you here!”

A few of the Ranobel’s fiancées began to blatantly cling to me.

They didn’t even bother hiding the black claws of desire flickering in their eyes.

*