episode_0065

“It wasn’t just me the Cardinal touched. Most of the sisters were defiled by his hands and dick.”

Elena’s voice held no emotion.

There was no sadness or regret, no anger or hatred.

Only a dry, detached gaze, as if watching ants dragging the carcass of a grasshopper, hung at the end of her empty eyes.

Her words, as if simply stating that such a phenomenon had occurred, made my heart feel even heavier.

It felt like an irremovable fog had settled in my mind.

“I cried a lot. I resisted, broke taboos, swore, and cursed. But it was all useless. How could a man over sixty have so much strength?”

“…”

“Ha, well, he had to. He’s not just a priest, but a Cardinal. He must have suppressed his desires until that age. To him, who had been starved of lust his whole life, we must have looked like golden-brown turkeys.”

Elena even burst into a hollow laugh.

“One of the sisters took her own life. She couldn’t bear it. The world was destroyed, the faith she thought was inviolable crumbled, and even her virginity, which she had guarded so fiercely, was torn away.”

I couldn’t say anything.

Even nodding in agreement with her words felt too cautious, so I could only listen to her silently.

“I tried to die at first too. Then, about a month later, as I was watching the Cardinal panting on top of me, I suddenly realized something.”

“… What did you realize?”

“Hehe,”

Elena replied with a laugh.

“That it’s not a big deal.”

“…”

“So what if I’m having sex? Everyone else does. So what if the world is destroyed? Everyone dies eventually. So what if I’m sinning? There’s no one left to judge anyway.”

“Damn it.”

I ended up spitting out a curse.

A Saintess candidate is different from an ordinary Nun.

Their faith is on a different level than that of ordinary Clerics, and their worldview exists on a plane of pure good that ordinary people can never understand.

The fact that such a Saintess candidate had to push herself to the point of not grieving over the loss of her virginity and the destruction of the world felt so terrible.

An unbearable revulsion crawled through my chest, just below my throat.

At the same time, I felt a sensation like my stomach was burning.

This was betrayal.

The fact that a Cleric, and especially a priest in such a high position as a Cardinal, had committed such an act filled me with unbearable disgust and betrayal.

If I, who had only heard the story, felt this way, how much more must she, or they, have felt?

“That bastard… what happened to him?”

“He died.”

“… How?”

“Well… it wasn’t from apoplexy, at least.”

Elena smiled faintly and answered slowly.

I squeezed my eyes shut and asked cautiously.

“Did you, or one of your sisters… kill him?”

“Oh, no. We ran out of food and went out to search… well, you know. *It* snapped his neck.”

She raised her hand and mimed snapping her own neck.

*It*.

That must mean a Monster.

I sighed and said.

“That must have been relieving.”

“I don’t know. By then, I was already enjoying sex quite a bit, so it was a shame.”

Elena shrugged her shoulders.

Even though she said that, I could read some other emotion in her voice.

More precisely, I read some suppression, as if she thought she shouldn’t be expressing emotion.

Perhaps what I felt was her sense of morality, which judged that it was wrong to feel pleasure at someone else’s death.

No matter how broken her mind was, the values formed by a lifetime of education must have remained in some miserable form.

As a Priest qualified to preside over confession, I could see her miserably twisted mind and the line that still stood, albeit tilted, within it.

It must have been easier for her to accept her defiled self than to hate others.

She may have thought that it was better to become a defiled, lewd woman than to become someone who rejoiced in the miserable death of others.

It might be a way of thinking that ordinary people would find difficult to understand, but since the mind of a human exposed to extreme situations could not function normally, it was a story that could be understood well enough.

“The sisters who survived until then scattered. Well, most of them are probably dead by now anyway.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Well, they all had no goals. We had lived in the Convent since we were children, so there was no way we would have a hometown to return to now, and they were all in a state where it wouldn’t be strange if they committed suicide at any time…”

“You’re alive.”

“I’ve set a goal for myself.”

“May I ask what that goal is?”

“It’s nothing special. Just a vague and hopeless goal to see the wide world.”

I tilted my head.

“Isn’t the world now so dangerous that the Convent feels safer?”

“That’s right.”

Elena nodded, agreeing with my words.

I didn’t bother asking how she had survived in this harsh world until now.

Just by looking at her action of offering me Sex as a ‘reward,’ I could easily guess.

Elena seemed to have read my thoughts as well, as she said with a faint smile.

“Sex, it’s really nothing special.”

“…”

“No matter how mean a person is, if I take off my clothes first and offer to do oral sex, they’ll take me around safely.”

“Ha,”

“Well, even those who said they weren’t that kind of person usually couldn’t last a week before they knocked me down. They don’t restrain themselves even more when they learn that I’ve already been through the hands of many men.”

“Elena…”

“Father, I didn’t know there were so many men who looked at Nuns with lecherous eyes.”

I massaged my throbbing temples and said.

“Is that so? I didn’t know either.”

“If you think about it that way, you’re a really strange man.”

“Maybe everyone except me is abnormal.”

“Then you’re the abnormal one. If everyone is crazy, then the normal person is the crazy one.”

“…”

Listening to Elena’s words, I worried that humanity had already broken down beyond salvation.

“That man who was with you… by any chance.”

“Paolo? Of course. They were thieves. They found me sleeping in the stable and tried to rape me… well, I didn’t need to be raped. I enjoyed it to the fullest and then joined their group.”

I couldn’t help but sigh deeply.

I had briefly thought that it would be nice if they could get together with one of the Nuns because they were strong young men,

But even if they were in an imminent situation where they were targeting me, a Priest, I couldn’t leave them to such hooligans.

Maybe I’m being too soft.

It would be difficult to find a blameless good person among the people alive in this world now.

“The situation is worse than I expected.”

“Come to think of it, you said you were living on an Island, right?”

“I was.”

“Is that why you’re still so pure?”

Elena shook her head.

“No, the Nuns didn’t seem as pure as Father.”

“Those kids are pure. They’re so naive that they don’t know anything.”

“… Hmmm,”

Elena said with a snort.

“It’s Father who doesn’t know anything.”

“What?”

“… No, just pretend you didn’t hear that.”

Elena stared at me intently and said.

As if trying to engrave my current appearance in her memory even a little, her two eyes scanned my face in detail.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because people like Father are too precious in this world now.”

“Still, somewhere, there must be Clerics who are keeping their duty.”

“There won’t be.”

“… Aren’t you being too quick to assert that?”

“Among the many men I’ve traveled the world and had sex with, there were quite a few Priests.”

“Oh, dear God…”

“Right now, I’m even thinking that I want to defile the pure Father who doesn’t know anything, you know?”

“…”

“Of course, no matter how defiled I am, I think I’d regret ruining such a clean hero with my own hands, so I won’t touch you.”

“…”

“In the first place, what could I do if Father refused?”

Elena rubbed the forehead I had hit and shook her head.

I looked at Elena and asked in a low voice.

“What are you planning to do now?”

“Hmm, I’m thinking of staying for two more days and then leaving. As soon as my Priest Robe is done being washed, I’ll change into it and hit the road again.”

“You know it’s dangerous outside, right?”

“I know. There hasn’t been a day that wasn’t dangerous in the past year. Ah, by the way, if Paolo wants to stay, could you accept him? He’s hurt more than he looks, so it’ll be difficult for him to recover in two days.”

“Wouldn’t it be better for you to settle down somewhere too?”

Elena silently shook her head.

It was just a small nod, but the meaning it contained seemed firm.

I looked at her and asked in a low voice.

“You want to see the wide world. Is that the reason?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

Elena looked up and stared out the window.

Her eyes seemed to be looking somewhere far away.

“The clean me is as good as dead in the Convent. The heavily defiled me will keep going around to see what this world is like.”

“But…”

“It doesn’t matter if I die. Well, a defiled whore who isn’t even a Saintess candidate… who would care if I died on the street?”

“… Elena. Stop the self-deprecation.”

“It’s not self-deprecation.”

She said in a firm voice and looked straight at me.

Her large eyes shone with a strange light.

“I’m going to see that it’s not just me who’s defiled. If I confirm that this world itself is fucked up, I feel strangely good.”

“…”

Harsh words that hadn’t come out until now.

It felt like the hatred and anger that she had been suppressing until now were condensed in that word.

Elena exhaled through her nose and closed her eyes tightly, then soon showed a cute eye smile and scratched her head.

“It’s strange. I’ve been finding comfort in seeing the world fall apart, but seeing Father, who hasn’t fallen apart at all, makes me feel like this isn’t such a bad feeling either…”

“…”

“Maybe, like Father, I wanted to believe that not all Clerics have lost their former selves…”

“Elena…”

“Father.”

Elena leaned forward and gently grabbed my hand.

“I’m really glad I met you, Father.”

“…”

“It’s partly because you saved my life… but more than that, it’s because I met someone who’s trying to prove that there’s still hope left in this world that even the Goddess has turned away from…”

“Stop,”

“…”

I cut her off with a firm voice.

“The Goddess hasn’t abandoned us.”

“Ah, you didn’t need to be like the old Clerics to this extent…”

“Elena, the Goddess is always watching over us. You know that.”

“I know those words. But I don’t know if it’s really true…”

I know.

Because *She* gave me a Revelation through a dream, I knew what had happened to the Goddess.

The Goddess who had been deprived of her wings and was bound in chains.

I clearly understood that *She* did not have the time to take care of this world.

But, that didn’t mean that the Goddess was simply standing by and watching this situation.

If the Goddess really didn’t want to care about this world, why would *She* bother to give me a Revelation?

The Goddess needs my… no, humanity’s help more than ever now.

*She* needs time to recover, and *She* needs to buy time to delay this world from falling apart any further.

“The Goddess…”

“…”

“… It’s nothing.”

I closed my mouth.

It was not wise to carelessly disclose information about the Goddess’ situation.

It could cause unnecessary confusion, and if I made a mistake, it could reach the ears of the Devil.

Kunat, that bastard, is definitely listening to this conversation secretly somewhere even now.

After a moment of thought, I decided not to tell Elena the details.

“Father?”

“Ah, sorry. I was just thinking to myself.”

Elena slowly released my hand and bowed her head.

“… I’m sorry. I apologize if my words offended you.”

“It’s okay. It’s not because of you.”

“Ah…”

Elena continued, as if making an excuse.

“That’s not to say that I particularly resent the Goddess. I’m enjoying this journey in my own way.”

“… You’re enjoying it?”

“Of course. Putting aside my twisted desire to see the world fall apart, seeing the wide world is quite enjoyable in itself.”

“That’s right, the scenery doesn’t disappear even if humans do.”

“That’s right. If the world hadn’t been destroyed, I wouldn’t have been able to take a single step outside the Convent in my life.”

Elena smiled and nodded.

She slowly got up and continued.

“I’ll go out now. Father is a patient, but I’ve been talking to you for too long. You must be tired… it’s all my fault.”

“No, don’t worry about it. I’ll get better soon.”

“Really… I don’t know what kind of body it is.”

“It’s the Goddess’s grace.”

“Ew.”

“…”

“… I’m just kidding.”

She slowly walked towards the door and said.

“Should I tell the Nuns that Father has woken up?”

“No, don’t tell them. I have a lot to think about, so I want to sleep for now.”

“Yes, good night.”

Elena opened the door.

Elena, who had left the room with quiet steps, muttered in a small voice just before closing the door.

“Thank you for not falling for my seduction. I’m really grateful.”

“…”

*Thump*.

The sound of the door closing was heard.

After waiting with my eyes closed for a while, I also heard the sound of her leaving through the front door.

I waited long enough for Elena to be far enough away from the house.

After a little wait, I quietly opened my mouth.

“Kunat, I know you were listening.”

“I can’t miss such an interesting story.”

Before I knew it, Kunat was on top of me.

It was the same posture as when Elena was on top of me.

“… What are you doing.”

“Billy, after seeing the conversation a little while ago, I had an idea.”

“What idea. Like, what kind of Devil would suit Elena?”

“No. *She* still smells too much of the Goddess, like you.”

Kunat shook her head and continued.

“Lucia, Anna, and even Elena.”

“…?”

“Those poor girls who showed you goodwill but were rejected.”

“What’s poor about it. It’s obvious.”

“So, maybe you just don’t have a thing for Nuns, maybe? Who knows? Maybe you have a thing for beautiful Devils like me.”

“Wow…”

“How about it? Did I guess it right… Keuk,”

I grabbed Kunat’s neck in one swift motion.

Then I mercilessly punched her face.

“You’re just asking for it. Seriously.”

“No, Keuak! Elena only got a flick on the forehead… Euh. Why, me… Uwak!”

“You’re so smart, why can’t you read the room? Why, seriously.”