031 Last and only (3)
Are you a wizard?
“Are you inside?”
A woman’s voice was heard from outside.
It was difficult to pinpoint exactly with his voice, but he seemed to be quite an old man.
I calmly inhaled my nose and opened the sanctuary again.
A huge golden circle unfolded in an instant and spread far beyond the confessional.
Thanks to the stronger light beam, Sadie’s young face could be seen more clearly.
“Yes, it is inside. I am not being confessed now, but what has caused you to come here?”
I answered.
The imperial palace cannot be entered by anyone without a certain identity and purpose, and in particular, the main gate of the palace is guarded by elite knights.
There is no need to be too vigilant about someone who has been identified twice. However······.
“I came here to make a confession. Oh, there’s an absent sign here. I didn’t know. Please forgive me.”
I didn’t know if I really didn’t know, or if I was just picking up excuses too late.
Although the woman’s tone sounded serious at first glance, it was somewhat light.
It seemed as if she had released the doorknob when she saw that there was someone inside, but instead of taking my hand off the door, I looked back at Sadie.
The little boy’s eyes were still sharp.
“it’s okay. The sign was so small it was hard to see. But by any chance, did you use magic in the temple?”
“Five.”
When I stopped a little at the end of my speech, the woman across the door muttered, ‘Look at my spirit.’
In Chapter 2 of ＜The Rules and Beliefs of Shintoism>, it is clearly said that not using magic in the temple is polite to the gods.
This is also a fairly old custom, so it seems that there are few wizards to guard these days, but anyway, the principle was there.
“I am also sorry. But it wasn’t intentional. I rarely go around without using magic. Forgive me, Prince Jesse.”
I know that what’s inside is me. I sighed a little.
“I will forgive you. But please be careful in the future.”
“thank you. Then I sit here and wait.”
“Are you waiting?”
“You seem to be resting, so I’m going to wait until you come out and then confess.”
It seems that the purpose of the visit is really confession.
– Again, again
For the first time I heard her footsteps.
A little while ago, it seemed that there was no presence due to the magic approach.
Seeing the sound of her clothes being crumpled, the woman seemed to be sitting somewhere in the new seat.
I let go of the doorknob and moved towards Sadie.
The boy’s eyes met with dissatisfaction.
“Sadie, go away today.”
I whispered
“You can’t let that person know. Next time you need help, come to my room.”
“Don’t go on like this.”
“What?”
“You don’t necessarily have to make a sacrament at the confessional.”
“No, it is, but…”
The little boy let out a loud noise.
So, why not sit the woman outside and get confession while hiding in the confession room for me and myself.
“You mustn’t openly listen to someone else’s confession. It’s a secret.”
I whispered
Come to think of it, when the Duchess of Sarnez listened to her confession at the spring ball, the prince was standing beside him.
From https://noblemtl.com
Once again, he seemed to know who Sadie looked like.
“Sarah Beliard doesn’t deserve that kind of consideration.”
The boy whispered sharply at my words. I was momentarily stunned. Who is that person?
“Actually, there is no such thing as a confession. I just needed a place to complain.”
At that moment, a woman’s voice resounded through the temple.
I swallowed a dry saliva and opened the confessional door to look outside.
An old man with unfamiliar white hair was sitting in the second row of the new seat, staring into the air.
Looking at her elegantly cut hair and luxurious green dress, she was no ordinary person.
Like the priests of the new kingdom, the wizards of the Empire also said that most of them were nobles or royalty.
Besides, if that person is the real ‘Sarah Beliard’…
“My grandson is sick. But I wondered if it was my fault.”
The woman spoke. I wondered if I should respond.
He seemed to have begun to meditate on his own, but it seemed to be a better situation to stay still.
Sadie, noticing that it wasn’t a confession, looked at me with a confident face.
From https://noblemtl.com
Okay. Listen, listen.
“I gave my grandson a name. Even though he was a son, he gave the boy his middle name.”
I tilted my head. That would never be common.
What this means is that there was a custom of making the middle name a little special whether it was the people of the Empire or the people of the New Kingdom.
When a boy was born, the middle name was the girl’s name, and when a girl was born, the middle name was the boy’s name.
This was a tradition that stemmed from the continent’s ancestors trying to confuse the child’s gender so that the mischievous and arrogant god could not take the child back to heaven.
Since this is a worldview that uses foreign names, there was a clear difference in titles by gender, unlike in Korea.
“Why did you put it like that? It was just my whim. The meaning was good, and the name suited my grandson well. There were also some doubts about the superstition that the Lord took the child away. If you ask me what kind of hitting I am over the age of 60, I have nothing else to say.”
she let out a smirk. I leaned back and sat down with the door slightly open.
“My daughter and son-in-law are also happy to say that it is a good name. It certainly was, until my grandson collapsed one day and became unconscious.”
The woman’s voice was as dry as a desert.
“It is a common story. The child is sick, the parents try to fix the child, but to no avail. Eventually, that resentment came to me.”
The last sentence was muffled with a sigh, and I couldn’t hear it.
I recently came across a story similar to this.
The faces of Christel, the protagonist of ‘Toegye Gong’ and her mother, Isabelle de Sarnez, floated up and down quietly.
“Why did you give him such a middle name? Because of his mother’s pride, God wants to take the child. I know it’s not half sincere, but I’ve heard that the other half are obviously sincere… I wondered if this was the curse of the Lord God, whom I had only heard of. My grandson got sick, and my family broke down because of it.”
Sadie let out a long breath from behind.
I checked the condition of the child and listened to her story.
“That’s all. It happened, so I wanted to tell someone. The future work is again up to my daughter and my wife and I. Whether it be an incurable disease, a curse, or whatever.”
I could hear the rustling of the cloth and the sound of shoes.
Looking out carefully, the woman had risen from her seat, preparing to leave.
“Then I will go away. Thank you for listening to the old man’s complaint, Prince.”
“Lord Beljar.”
She stood tall at my call.
There was a little surprise in the emerald-colored eyes looking back.
I looked at her through the crack in the door.
“You know me.”
“It would be harder not to know.”
I smiled bitterly and cleared my throat.
Sarah Beliard, editor of Biweekly Lister.
A celebrity in the imperial press, called a ‘new country expert’.
The person who wrote a feature article about me last month.
“first······. I am very sorry for what happened to your grandson.”
She nodded slightly at my words.
Even without looking closely, I could tell that the old man’s face was paralyzed with sadness and remorse.
“It may sound cheeky, but please don’t think of it as a curse.”
I spoke carefully.
Even if it was a fictional religion that the people in the novel believed in, I did not want to take lightly the beliefs and views of those who work hard every day in front of my eyes.
“Not long ago, I met a person who was having a hard time because of the idea of ‘the Lord’s curse’. I told him the same, I believe it is not a curse. These aren’t just words of comfort. Because I sincerely think so.”
“·················ogue.”
Sadie and my eyes met. I smiled at the child.
“I think the word curse has that much power. Once you think of it as a curse, once you listen to such a story, you start to wonder if this is really the Lord’s will, and you gradually feel helpless. Even if that is not true.”
“·················ogue.”
The boy’s orange eyes stared intently at me.
“Of course, the grandson is really sick. It is not a lie and it is a fact that will not be erased in the future. However······. If you accept it as a curse, it may become easier to give up. Because it is the will of the Lord, you may feel that people cannot control it.”
I slowly reached for the kid’s forehead. Suddenly, the cold skin became soft.
A breath of relief escaped.
“I hope that Sir and his family will not give up and continue fighting. You will do whatever you want in the future.”
Be careful not to twist the words.
I also did not know what a tragedy it was to have a critically ill person in the house, how the people around me could be frustrated, and how I could recover little by little.
“And I know it’s strange for me to say this, but……. I believe that if someone is resentful, the target should be the Lord. People who do good deeds with a good heart should not criticize each other.”
It was quiet outside the confessional. It was a presumptuous meddling to anyone who heard it.
But her heart was so heavy and dark that she could open it to a prince she didn’t even know she had come this far.
I couldn’t easily ignore it.
“······thank you.”
Lord Beljar spoke to me in a small but clear voice.
Then she turned completely back and started walking.
With a small open door, a long shadow of an old man could be seen coming out of the front door.
I slowly opened my eyes.
“·················ogue.”
“Sadie, you are fully charged.”
Grains of golden ether were floating from room to room from the little boy’s body.
But even with my gestures, the child did not blink an eye.
“Why, do you have something to say?”
The staring eyes were not clear and it stinged.
I’m trying to close the open door first, wondering if it’s going to hurt somewhere else.
– Dumpling!
There was a loud noise from the side where Sadie was sitting. I turned my head in surprise.
“her······.”
From the ceiling of the confessor’s seat, the afternoon sun was shining brightly on me.
The child had disappeared in no time.
it was above Not the confessional floor or the back wall, but the ceiling cover was the little boy’s secret passageway.
*
And again Monday.
“Have you met Sir Sarah Beliard?”
Cardinal Bootier, whom I met after five days, looked a little tired.
I nodded at her question and took a sip of anise tea.
Christel, who was sitting next to him, was drinking cold coffee like water.
I hope group tutoring ends soon.
“I just stopped by the temple.”
“Well, there was a meeting with Frederic and Sir Beliard on Saturday.”
she laughed softly.
“A supplemental version of ＜Biweekly Lister> on April 15th was about to come out.”
“Is it a supplementary version?”
“yes. In fact, on the 15th, François announced that he would be putting up ‘The Wisdom of Mars’ as a prize for winning the ‘Great Subjugation of Witch Beasts’, so the news was omitted from the latest issue. It was too late to post the article. So Sir Beliard wanted to add content as a supplementary edition, and Frederic and I were exhausted trying to convince him.”
My expectations were roughly correct.
The cardinal seemed to have struggled for days to prevent further spread of the news about the Martian Witnesses.
“It’s not our taste to control the press, but it’s something we had to do because it was related to the gods.”
I shook my head and chewed on the spiced bread.
In fact, even if media control was a hobby of the Emperor and the Cardinals, there was nothing I could do otherwise.
“But I won’t do it for nothing.”
“The word is….”
“The Hye Gum will be the winning prize for the Great Beast Subjugation as it is.”
Me and Kristel’s eyes widened.
“And this year, instead of Frederik and I, Cedric is participating.”