Lucas, sitting across from Aman, had a serious expression.
"So... that's the only thod you could think of?"
"Yes."
He had just heard the results of the heated eting between Hasel and the elders.
"How absurd. Are they all idiots?"
"But there's no other good way."
Aman shrugged at Lucas's scathing criticism.
"You're telling you ca up with that pathetic thod because there was no good way? How absurd."
"Then does the Lord have a better idea?"
Aman looked at Lucas with expectant eyes. At that, Lucas's eyes rolled to the side.
'A good idea...?'
He had heard that Hasel and the elders had gone around trying to persuade the other races.
'I also knew they would fail to persuade them.'
It was a natural result. They were no different from kings who had lost trust.
For countless ages, they had only lived under the shadow of the dragons, never receiving help in anything.
Therefore, Apre, the Gold Dragon and Allie's father, was said to have proposed a new opinion.
But that opinion itself was so absurd and ridiculous.
"You don't have one either, do you, Lord?"
"Wait a minute. I still can't understand why they decided to follow Apre's opinion in the first place. No, what on earth..."
"I feel the sa way. To play a ga as the race you're trying to persuade..."
That was right. They had apparently co up with the idea of each dividing up the races and going on a ga as that race. The reasoning was that if they were the sa race, they would listen to their words better.
Tene Helbert, the Red Dragon, upon hearing that opinion, was said to have argued that it would be better to just massacre them all, as there would be no military power left then.
Lucas, too, thought that thod seed slightly better, that's how foolish Apre's opinion was.
"Still, since my father said he would send Apre-nim first, maybe there's another way?"
"I suppose so. Apre is a dragon of considerable age, after all. It's not a good ti to completely dismiss his opinion."
Aman nodded his head.
"It would be better to go to the temple and all pray together."
"...Huh?"
Aman's eyes widened at the words thrown out as a joke.
"Crazy."
"Isn't that a really good idea?"
"Hah... think a little, Amarok. How do you know which side that god is on, that you would go and spill everything?"
"Ah."
Aman let out a small sigh at that.
"Tsk. There must be a good way. Hasel is probably looking for that way too."
"Hmm..."
The two fell silent again. They were putting their heads together, pondering what good thod there could be.
'Not foolish... what would be a proper thod?'
Lucas was thinking of the races he had built friendships with while living as a human, one by one.
"I'd better go myself."
Lucas slapped his knee.
"Pardon?"
"Yes. I have to go."
Lucas shot up from his seat.
***
The academy's library.
There, Pala was working harder than anyone as a librarian.
'I must absolutely not be a burden.'
Every day, she climbed the ladder and ticulously swept and wiped the dust from the high shelves.
"Cough!"
Sotis, if she put her hand in the wrong place deep in the bookshelf, a cloud of hazy book dust would rise, causing her to cough frequently, but that was fine.
"Hmm~"
Humming a tune, she put away the ladder she had climbed, and wrote down and organized the returned books and the books that had not yet been returned.
"Ah, this one... is it over there?"
Pala took a returned book and went around the bookshelf.
"Librarian-nim?"
At the voice calling her, Pala quickly turned her body and headed towards where the voice had co from.
"Yes~ Just a mont."
She quickened her pace, lest a student be waiting.
"Ah, soone asked to give this to you."
And then he held out a box in his hand to Pala.
"To ?"
The box was crudely made of wood.
"Yes. Well, I've delivered it."
"Ah, yes. Thank you."
As Pala, who had received the box in a daze, bowed her head, the student left through the door.
"What is this."
Before opening the box she had received, Pala examined it for a long ti.
"Is it okay to open it..."
It was a suspicious item, but in the end, Pala could not overco her curiosity and undid the lock on the box.
"Th-this is!"
Seeing the item inside the box, Pala almost dropped it on the floor.
"Hah... hah..."
Her breath ca in short gasps. The harsh tis of the past flashed quickly through her mind.
Pala, with a trembling hand, took out the note that was inside and began to unfold it.
"Hah..."
Tears began to well up in Pala's eyes as she read the note slowly, gasping for breath.
"Sob..."
Tears fell like rain, soaking the box, and a groan full of pain escaped through her clenched teeth.
The item in the box was none other than sothing from the Resurrection Cult.
A bead in which hundreds, thousands of souls had been gathered and condensed. They called this the Soul Bead.
They justified all the slaughter they committed by saying that this was an item that would save the world and a noble sacrifice to open a new world.
"Huu-euk..."
Pala, who was looking at the contents of the note, wanted to deny all of this.
[Yante is no more. I earnestly ask you to open a new path for the Resurrection Cult. You may ignore this request, but I would be very disappointed. I hope my disappointed heart does not turn towards your precious younger sister.]
It was an incredibly polite threat.
Pala, who knew every aspect of the Resurrection Cult, knew who the sender of the note was, and she also knew what would happen to her younger sister if she refused.
[P.S. Ah, and please keep the bead in the box. If you want to prevent it from going berserk, that is. Then I will see you at midnight.]
He would co.
***
With each tick of the clock's hands, Pala's misfortune also moved forward one step at a ti.
'Will it be okay if I disappear?'
She repeated it to herself countless tis.
'If I leave this place without permission, I was told I would die.'
She raised her hand to the doorknob and lowered it countless tis.
When it beca eleven o'clock, her anxiety began to reach its peak.
'There's only an hour left. Should I tell Pola the truth right now?'
But she couldn't muster the courage. What if her younger sister found out about all the nefarious deeds she had committed so far?
'I don't have the confidence to face Pola's disappointed eyes. But...'
In the end, Pala went into her room and took out a pen. And then she began to write down all the last words she wanted to leave for her precious younger sister, without missing a single one.
"Huu-euk..."
Wiping away the endlessly flowing tears, the letters she had written over several pages were honest and also sorrowful.
-Dong... dong...
The sound announcing midnight was heard, and Pala quickly shoved the written letters into a drawer.
-Knock, knock, knock.
As soon as the bell tolling midnight ended, a knock was heard, and Pala's body flinched.
"Hah... hah..."
Her chest heaved with her quickening breath.
"Greetings."
When she opened the door, a man with jet-black hair cascading down to his waist faced her.
"Hah..."
In the end, Pala's legs gave out, and she collapsed to the floor.
"Are you alright?"
As the man's hand touched her shoulder, the startled Pala trembled and scrambled backward.
"D-don't touch ..."
"I'm sorry if I startled you. But more importantly, I'm not as bad a person as you think."
The man looked down at Pala with a genuinely sorry expression.
"I found out about everything you suffered at Yante's hands. I found out after you left. I'm truly sorry. It's my fault for not stopping it in advance."
"L-lies!!!"
Pala's tearing voice echoed through the small room.
"Oh dear... the wounds you've suffered are deep."
Pala did not believe the man's snake-like tongue. If what the man said was true, he shouldn't have threatened her with her younger sister.
"It's true that I kept you here using a sowhat drastic thod. But that was not my true intention."
The man smiled faintly.
"...Devil. You are a devil."
"Haha. You're putting on the sa level as the base demon race."
The man's red eyes flashed for an instant.
"However."
Pala's anger-filled eyes looked up at the man.
"It's alright. I ca to make you an offer."
The man, who had closed the door, walked past Pala and sat down in a chair.
"We must open a new world. I would like you to take the lead in that."
"Please just leave alone. I just want to wipe the bookshelves here and wait for the day I can live with my younger sister soday. Please..."
Pala, who had turned her body towards the man, prostrated herself on the floor and began to beg earnestly.
"This is truly... upsetting. It's about opening a new world. Pala."
The man leaned back slightly in his chair.
"The dead Yante led the Resurrection Cult in a direction different from what we wanted. Ah, of course, the Resurrection Cult was not what we wanted either."
"...Please."
But the man ignored Pala's words and continued.
"We did not want such slaughter. We gave Yante the power to save the world. The power to heal and save the sick. The power to raise the world again."
A small, dark red sphere appeared at the man's fingertips.
"This is a power that can save and heal people. We shared this power with him. But he used this power to kill and harm people. We wanted to save the world. Truly."
The man's earnest voice reached the ears of Pala, who was prostrate on the floor, crying.
"Pala. We want to give this power to you. The power to save the world."
The dark red light descended onto the back of the prostrate Pala's hand.
-Saaaaa.
"Ugh...!"
Startled by the foreign sensation, Pala shook her hand as if to shake off the descended light.
"It is not dangerous. It is rely to heal you."
"...!"
The scars on all the places where the light had descended began to disappear.
The scar on her wrist from being trampled by her stepfather when she was young.
-Saaaaa...
The scars that had appeared every ti she was beaten by her stepmother.
-Saaaaa...
The scars from being whipped by the cult leader.
All disappeared.
"So Pala. Please join us in our cause. In our cause to save the world. Feed the hungry, give warm clothes to those shivering in the cold, and give a new ho to a child wandering the streets."
These were all things the Resurrection Cult had done. If it weren't for the vile deeds behind it, the Resurrection Cult was not a bad group at all.
"There will be no slaughter. This bead is made of the souls of monsters. The monsters that tried to harm humans."
The man took out the bead from the box.
"We also do not want an unholy power. So please, help the pitiful humans."
Pala's eyes began to tremble.
"Beco the new saintess. Pala."
[End of Chapter]
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