The Priest Wants to Retire

〈 Chapter 35 〉 Meeting (5)

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“Explain.”

“Apis····.”

“Explain. Right now.”

“····”

As I threw the wet kindling into the campfire, the flames flickered strangely, spewing out acrid smoke. It felt like I was right in front of that grim, black flicker.

If I were to carelessly inhale it, it would slither into my lungs and soon suffocate my entire body, darkening my insides with the fire’s grimy touch.

The stuffy emotions she sometimes evoked felt oddly similar to the antics of those flames.

“Hii, hiii!”

One of the guests rolling at my feet spilled the food he hadn’t bitten into yet.

But there was not a single person here qualified to reprimand him.

A man curled up on the floor, clutching his head. Blood gushing from his arm as he tightly wrapped it with his clothes, trembling uncontrollably. Among them was a man who had vomited everything in his mouth onto the floor.

It was no surprise.

This was likely their first encounter with the cold needle of murderous intent piercing their spines.

Even I, who had gotten somewhat used to it, felt my expression tremble with dread. How much worse would it be for them?

It was almost commendable that they hadn’t fainted.

“Apis. I can vaguely guess what you’re thinking about my current appearance, but I swear, there’s no misunderstanding here! Once I finish treating these folks, I’ll explain everything slowly.”

“No. Explain. Right now.”

Every time her small lips moved, cracks appeared in the walls, the floor quaked, and the air shuddered.

Her dry tone, devoid of any human warmth, felt like it was spitting out immense magic power instead of emotions, indicating that Apis was preparing for yet another spellcasting.

I had once teased her about sounding like she was in a bathhouse and got slapped for it.

What a memory.

“Apis. Please calm down a little····.”

“Calm down? After seeing you like this, I’m supposed to calm down?”

Her wild emotions seemed to burst forth, as if Apis’s fiery red hair stood on end, infused with fierce magic.

“It must have been forced upon you. I don’t care about the circumstances. All you need to do is tell me the names and characteristics of the bastards who made you suffer. I’ll burn every one of those prison rats to cinders, not leaving a scrap or a soul behind.”

Suddenly, a sense of déjà vu hit me.

This had happened once before.

It was just after our party had started making a name for ourselves when we accepted a request to hunt down a group of slave hunters.

While Apis and I were on our own, we found a poor elven girl, cold and dead, in a stinky beast cage.

It didn’t take long for me to realize she was from Apis’s hometown, growing up in the same place.

Even though her face was so bruised and bloodied that I could barely recognize her, we elves have a unique color of magic that is like a fingerprint. No one from our kind could miss recognizing it.

This was knowledge Apis had shared with me directly, after all.

Decades earlier, she had told the story of being banished from her hometown for the absurd reason of having a different hair color. She brought it up every time she drank, providing me a mix of her complaints and entertainment.

Thus, I could confidently say that none of our party members had ever heard her speak well of her hometown, let alone about her fellow townsfolk.

They were a bunch of idiots who would reject anything different as wrong. A collective of reclusive misfits. Madmen obsessed with their own principles.

Every time Apis talked about her old town, I listened with half an ear, and the sheer variety of her insults left no need to explain further.

Soon after her discovery, what Apis said about facing her kin after so many years might have seemed inconsiderate for someone meeting a corpse.

“Tough luck,” she had muttered.

But I clearly remember that day.

As I prayed while making her grave, I saw Apis gnawing at her lower lip. Her clenched fist was trembling.

When it came to shooting a target, she’d always say that the most efficient thing was to hit the vital spot with just one arrow, but that day, she made some lame excuses about not feeling well and drowned the slave hunter leader’s body with dozens of arrows instead.

Even if they deserved to die, I had to intervene to prevent excessively torturing a life, yet it seemed like I couldn’t bring myself to do anything that day.

After all, it was one of the rare opportunities to witness a human turning into a porcupine in real-time.

Being yelled at by a porcupine, who claimed I was a creature of sin unworthy of the clergy, while I let the torture happen without a word, felt a bit infuriating, I suppose.

I don’t know.

I still vividly remember that porcupine died a moment after saying those words, struck by an arrow in the forehead.

I offered my condolences. I might have dozed off in the process.

Yes, it had probably started back then.

It was when I began to realize that Apis could genuinely feel sorrow and anger over the deaths of those who had nothing to do with her.

However, at this very moment, Apis’s kindness was instead sparking troubling troubles.

“Apis····. I’m telling you, it’s a misunderstanding····.”

“Hah! So even now, you’re being snarky? Didn’t I tell you once? If you keep indiscriminately covering for everyone, you’ll end up getting stabbed in the back one day and die!”

Of course, I remembered, and I could feel the weight of those words deeply.

I heard tales of unfortunate individuals who ended up in trouble for helping someone in peril, even back in my previous life.

Experiencing it firsthand felt utterly infuriating.

“Sa-save me! No, please! Male prostitute, please! We messed up!”

“Right! We only did what the boss told us to do!”

“I’m sorry! Please forgive us just this once! Male prostitute!”

While my mind was in turmoil, the men clinging to my pant leg were heavily curtailing my quest for a rescue.

They must have lost the courage to speak to the embodiment of destruction across from me, desperately begging for their lives from me, their only lifeline. It was quite pathetic.

But if I heard “male prostitute” from them just one more time, I felt like I’d end up killing them. So I chose to focus on the opponent in front of me.

“There are some people here whose lives are in danger without proper action. So please give me some time to treat them first. Explanations can come afterward.”

“Those filthy bugs are that important? They were just trying to kill you moments ago!”

“They tried to kill me. They didn’t kill me.”

If they were truly people who deserved to die, I wouldn’t have gone this far.

Though being treated like a male prostitute bothered me, they were just trying to retaliate against their comrade being treated as trash by some lowlife.

It’s clear from reading a few books back in the comic shop from childhood that being looked down upon in the alley world comes with significant implications.

“You····. Are you ordering me right now····?”

“I’m just asking. But who knows? If even one person among them is harmed, I might never utter another word to Apis again regarding any of her questions.”

“Hick! You····!”

Maybe it’s because I’ve been bickering with the Saintess for months.

Convincing someone who can have a conversation, someone I recognize, and at least someone who has a minimum level of discernment now feels trivial.

Apis was, after all, a person likely to lose her temper. But she wasn’t so emotional as to lose all sense of judgment.

What if the Hero, not Apis, was the one here right now?

····There’s really no need to imagine such an horrendous future.

For sure.

“Phew····. Solve it in ten minutes····. Or no, in five minutes.”

“Thank you, Apis.”

As soon as I successfully convinced Apis, while I gathered them in one place to prepare for spellcasting without letting the prayer escape,

I couldn’t help but feel a bit uncomfortable under their admiring gazes, which seemed to view me as some mafia boss, but I decided not to dwell on it.

Ah, while I was deeply focused on my prayer, Apis casually said a few words to them in a nonchalant tone.

“You there.”

“Yes? Me!?”

“Take off your shirt and cover this guy with it.”

“Y-yes! Alright!”

I decided to ignore the fact that the man trembling as he draped his shirt over me had pants soaked in some unidentifiable liquid.

*