Only the Party Members Returned, Not the Hero

26. The Unforgiving Saint (3)

26.

“Actually, there are a few.”

After hesitating, Dar Han confessed his doubts about EL and Ellen.

Ordinary people cannot mobilize that much mana.

I have not even heard of the eccentricity of blocking the sword by surrounding mana.

In order to do that, at least someone at the level of a saint would have to help.

In other words, he wanted to protest that he had been tricked by the saintess and EL, but Darhan didn’t say it because he feared that it would make it worse if he went that far.

“Yes, it is. f*ck it makes no sense I know your skills, and I know a little bit about the skills of the strongest people on our continent, but even the bravest can’t go that far.”

Pair.

Rayhandro clapped his hands.

It seemed like I could see the clue of the thread that hadn’t been solved until now.

Still, it’s not that I didn’t have much income.

When he thought that Ellen’s terrifying skills were in fact a collaboration with the saintess, Raihandro felt his legs loosen up without realizing it.

It didn’t seem like it, but he went beyond being afraid of Ellen and feeling fear outside of her.

With that resolved, Raihandro felt much better.

“Darhan, as soon as you feel better, stop all the current schedules. The important thing right now is not the seizure of the temple, but the relationship between EL and Ellen.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Please use my authority to recruit my enlisted soldiers and the knights of Erantel I have designated as much as I can, so that they will continue to monitor the saintess and gather information.”

Rayhandro stood up from his seat.

“Especially if you judge that it is related to the hero, somehow.”

The door to the hospital room opens and then closes.

Darhan gritted his teeth.

As expected, his judgment was correct. If it wasn’t for the power of the saintess, the person who should have been lying in this position should have been Ellen, not himself.

***

The Pope’s Chamber.

The elders of the Church of Erantera still brought up that it is the place where the pope works and has many good names, but Pope Pevro laughed and asked to be called just a room.

So, in the Pope’s chambers, it was written in Erantera.

Room.

EL opened the door to the room and went inside.

“Hello, saintess.”

“Hello, Elder.”

In the Pope’s room, another guest must have arrived first, so the elder who was sitting in the seat got up and bowed to EL.

“Then I will go first, Pope. May the goddess bless you.”

“See you next time, Goddess bless you.”

After leaving the usual greeting, the Elder leaves the Pope’s room.

With the sound of the door closing, the pope smiled kindly and invited EL to take her seat.

“It’s been a while, Saint EL.”

“Long time no see, Pope.”

Two people looking at each other while sitting face to face on a soft sofa.

The Pope, who was quite old, stared at her EL, then took off her Pope’s hat from his head and set it down on her table.

Should we say that we are close friends?

To the Pope, EL was like her foster daughter.

Her

She was chosen by her goddess from her birth, brought her to her temple and raised her almost. So, if there was a change in her EL, she could easily grasp whether it was a mental, physical, or trivial change.

So, as usual, without hesitation, has anything changed? EL used to ask, too.

Febru was cautious about speaking out today.

“Something seems to have changed. Holy Maiden.”

The saintess smiled lightly.

He thought it would be hard to fool the Pope’s eyes, but he didn’t expect to feel a sense of discomfort the moment he saw it.

“… She wandered a little. It’s been quite a while. And then she found out too late that she made a lot of mistakes that she shouldn’t have made.”

“Is wandering over now? Holy Maiden.”

For now.

Yes, for now.

“Yes, Pope. But…. I feel like my faith has finally come into its own, but it’s not easy to adjust.”

It’s all my fault.

The Pope looked at EL with her deep eyes and pushed a steaming cup of tea in front of her.

“Everyone makes mistakes. No matter how good a person I have watched, they always make mistakes, but the saintess has endured for a long time because she only makes mistakes now.”

“… I regret that it would have been better if I hadn’t done it.”

Many believers have honestly confessed to EL, looking for her goddess figure.

She was unfamiliar with telling her inner feelings to others.

“The moment you make a mistake, it becomes the past and cannot be changed by human power, so why did I think it was so easy….”

Confessing her own faults, confessing.

How difficult it was for her to keep her lips from falling even to the pope, whom she had watched with her faith almost all her life.

“Wrong to do, wrong not to do…. Humans tend to divide it like that, but in the end, it’s just a matter of choice from God’s point of view. Holy Maiden.”

The Pope kept his eyes on EL, who was like a wandering adolescent girl.

EL was always slow in that way.

It’s not that she’s not smart enough, she’s a saint, and no one dares to claim to be her teacher.

Her saintess, no one dared to approach her as her friend.

Because no one dared to tell her about her negative feelings.

But she had to go through those things in order to live as a human being.

The Pope had vaguely hoped that the expeditionary force would be able to fill that role.

“El.”

“Yes, Pope.”

The pope took out a sugar cube and placed it in the teacup that was pushed in front of her.

“Forgive me.”

Fondant.

The sugar melts and scatters away.

“Or, won’t you forgive me?”

Talk.

A square lump of sugar placed next to a teacup.

“If you forgive…. Mistakes disappear as if they never happened. However, the deepening of cognition through forgiveness and the sympathy with each other remain.”

The Pope tapped his index finger on the rim of the teacup containing the sugar.

“…… Will it be this sweet?”

El’s dumbfounded question.

“Sure, very sweet. It’s so sweet that old people like me have to worry about their teeth.”

The Pope’s joke made EL smile again. The core in her heart was still there, but at least she seemed to be able to have a little courage.

“God will eventually forgive you for any wrongdoing. If the saintess is sincere.”

She was more confident than anyone else.

In everything related to Ellen.

“I didn’t even say who I believed in, but you already say it’s God.”

“If the saintess believes, even a stone will soon become a god.”

Pevro’s good-natured laugh fills the Pope’s room.

EL raised the teacup and took a sip into his mouth. She had always been her favorite tea.

She used to think she was just sweet, but now, whenever she sighed, Ellen’s voice started to come to mind.

Thinking she might be sick, EL turns the topic back to her work.

“Ah, Pope, I hope you don’t dispatch the Knights of Erantel in this subjugation.”

“Can I ask if there is a reason?”

When the story of the subjugation came out, the pope took out the permit he had obtained in advance and asked.

“Ergeneuk Knights are coming, and Elish Charlotte’s magic priests corps are also coming.”

Of course, the Magic Priest Corps decided not to come.

El felt his conscience pricked a little.

But she’s for Ellen.

“Then the defensive power must be sufficient. Still, wouldn’t more be better?”

“The Pope. If the Erantel Knights came too, they would intensively protect me…. To be honest, I don’t know when my skills will improve.”

You think you’re overprotective.

Thinking so, Febro nodded his head.

Feeling that existing protection is a regulation is inevitable for all growing beings.

“Even without the knights of Erantel, if two good knights come, the moonlight Caulcasus will not reach the saintess.”

“That’s the problem, becoming a plant in the greenhouse?”

The pope laughed out loud at EL’s whining, mixed with aegyo, and stamped his license.

“Anyway, the saintess will have enough thoughts, so I won’t ask any more. Are you leaving tomorrow then?”

“I guess I should. I had to go and prepare something, and I had to talk to the expedition members.”

“Is that so, I’m sorry.”

The pope left his regret behind and rose from his seat.

Eli, who stood up at once, brought his hands together and bowed his head, saying that he drank his tea well.

Febro put the pope’s hat on her head again, looking at EL, whom she had always regarded as her daughter.

The back of EL as he walks farther and farther away.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Still, procedure is procedure.”

The pope wants to leave her greetings to the saint.

The benevolent old man smiles at her blue-eyed woman.

“God bless you.”

Let’s bow slowly like that.

As for EL, who smiled comfortably after a long time.

“…… God bless you.”

We greeted each other again.