The Priest Wants to Retire

〈 Chapter 85 〉 A Wedding that Can’t be Blessed (1)

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This might turn out to be a bit of a ramble, but I usually enjoy puzzles.

Ever since I was recruited as the Saintess’s exclusive attendant, I’ve been unable to just go outside the monastery, and with all the priests in the monastery casting me those piercing glares, finding an entertaining opponent for a game like chess or poker was like chasing after a mirage.

Until I got permission to go out, my only pleasure was losing myself in reading or enjoying the jigsaw puzzles that the Sister brought me.

As a result, I’ve become someone who can’t find satisfaction with just any moderate difficulty puzzle.

I’ve devoured all the puzzles available in this area, whether they be jigsaw or 3D puzzles, and even when encountering a new type of puzzle, I could grasp the tricks just after a few tries.

However, in front of the unsettling puzzle that I’d never seen in my life, I was left in a state of confusion.

Not because of its difficulty, but because of the risk involved in failing to complete it.

Unlike other puzzles where I could give up midway or lose pieces without care, this puzzle allowed for no such mistakes or failures.

It was a puzzle that determined the fate of a person’s life.

Huff…

When the robbed man suddenly fell apart, it was as if the world had gone dark before my eyes.

Thanks to the countless hours I had dedicated to puzzles, even without my mind giving orders, my hands naturally pieced together the puzzle in front of me.

And so, over tens of minutes of assembling the man puzzle without any glue, I managed to return the robber, who had just a moment ago seemed like a crumbling stone wall, to his original form, letting out a sigh of relief.

But I couldn’t let my guard down just yet.

I hadn’t received confirmation that this human puzzle was truly complete.

“How does it look? Is it seamless?”

“Hii-iiik! I-I was wrong! I’ll hand over everything I’ve got! Please! At least spare my life!”

“No, I meant does it look seamless…?”

The man, startled by my indirect question, suddenly prostrated himself on the ground, begging for my forgiveness.

It was a surprising stroke of luck that he had acquaintanceship with the stuffed robber I had laid out.

No matter how skilled I had become at puzzles, there was no way I could perfectly reconstruct something complex like a human figure without a guide.

While connecting visually prominent body parts like limbs was relatively straightforward, assembling intricate features like a face based on just a fleeting memory was quite exhausting work.

So, I tried getting occasional help from him, who would surely remember the robber’s face accurately, but it seemed he was still struggling to accept the fact that his acquaintance had turned to stone and fallen apart.

Each time I sought his advice, all he did was scream as if his ears were being ripped apart, doing nothing but hinder my efforts.

However, I couldn’t just blame him without reason.

If I had witnessed such a horrifying spectacle without understanding the context, I’d undoubtedly react much the same way.

“Here.”

“Huh?”

At that moment, the Saintess suddenly poked my shoulder and handed me something.

It was one of the pieces I had absentmindedly dropped—a finger of the man.

The sight of a young girl casually holding a man’s finger was disturbingly eerie, but in light of the rare kindness of the Saintess, I couldn’t afford to frown and accepted it with a bright smile.

“Th-thank you. You did well.”

“I did well?”

“Of course! Thanks to you, I’m alive.”

While I felt somewhat uneasy under the gaze of the man, who seemed to watch us as if we were slasher film villains exchanging body parts, I realized that regardless of what I said now, his impression of me wouldn’t change, so I decided to continue my work in silence.

Clack.

“Ker-ack!”

Just then, as I fitted the finger—the final piece—into the robber puzzle, it was as if time started moving again, and suddenly the robber took a deep breath.

“Hah! Hah!”

“Di-Diroy!? Wh-what’s happening!? Y-you’re alive!?”

His hands clutched his throat, gasping as if about to vomit his insides, exuding a palpable fear of death and a brutal yearning for life.

“Um, uh…?”

Just as I felt a twinge of sympathy for the robber, who couldn’t gather himself mentally or physically, I tried to speak to him.

“Ah! Ahh!”

The acute emotion flickering in his gaze as he looked at me suddenly made my consciousness come to a halt.

It was a familiar look.

The fear that wells up from deep within when gazing upon a transcendent being with overwhelming power.

It mirrored how I looked at my comrades.

“AAAHHH!!!”

“Hey! L-let’s go together!”

Right after, with a scream that pierced the air, they bolted, reminiscent of a flock of small sparrows panicking and fleeing at the sight of a scarecrow.

◈◈◈

I felt unsettled.

Despite successfully keeping the gold safe from the robber and averting a crisis that could have exposed the Saintess’s true identity, I couldn’t shake off the nagging feeling that something had gone awry somewhere.

“Come on. Hurry.”

The Saintess, clutching the ring box she had taken from me, kept pulling at my finger with her other hand, urging me impatiently.

“Saintess, the Sister hasn’t returned yet. Let’s wait a little longer…”

“I waited plenty earlier. We need to hurry. This way. Come on, quickly.”

“Hah…”

The Saintess, looking like a child hurrying to buy a loaf of bread she wanted, was nagging me as if there was a fire lit under her feet.

Had I been mistaken to think her mental age had matured recently?

I foolishly boasted that I would grant a wish to this Saintess. It seemed I had courted trouble.

A fleeting regret brushed through my thoughts.

After that, a small question popped into my mind.

“Saintess… can you tell me what your wish is now?”

Initially, I thought she just wanted to go out with me, but her actions since we came outside hinted otherwise.

However.

“Still a secret!”

“Ah, okay…”

Her overly bright eyes filled with anticipation allowed no room for further questions.

I tried to guess the outline of her wish based on the direction she was leading me in but could only suspect that she was searching for an appropriate place to achieve her goal, rather than having a clear destination.

“Well! Well, this is a nice coincidence! Priest Young Man!”

“Huh? Aunty?”

Just then, a familiar warm voice suddenly caught my attention, and it belonged to the woman from the tavern where we regularly received wine deliveries for our monastery.

“Ah, hello? Are you well…?”

“Priest Young Man! I need to ask you something about the time! Are you busy!?”

Before I could finish my greeting, the woman urgently squeezed my shoulders.

“Umm, Aunty. Actually, I’m a bit…”

“It’s about my daughter! She’s getting married today, but the Pastor who was supposed to officiate has had some trouble and can’t make it! So, I was wondering if you could officiate instead of him!?”

“Ah…”

With just that fragment of information, the circumstances filled themselves in.

If asked what the luckiest day in this system was, anyone would undoubtedly answer this way.

The day of the Blessing Ceremony.

Because during this blessed period when the Blessing Ceremony takes place, the number of couples promising their future to each other is by no means small.

It’s a well-known tale that couples marrying during this time would live in eternal happiness, something even three-year-olds in this system are aware of.

As a result, the priests tasked with blessing such couples become overwhelmingly busy during this period.

Some highly respected high priests have their officiating schedules booked years in advance by nobles.

“I’m sorry… Aunty… I really want to help, but I have urgent business right now…”

“Is that so! H-how can that be!? Young man!”

“If it were tomorrow, I could manage, but right now it’s a bit…”

Just as I was trying to gesture apologetically while spreading my arms to ward off her request…

“Let’s go.”

With no warning, the Saintess chimed in, her voice ringing clear.

That firm and bright tone felt as if it carried a certain intention.

I found it.

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