episode_0190

A boat moving by rowing.

A wide river with no end in sight.

“Styx…?”

The sight of the River Styx, along with the River Sanzu and the Yellow River, all three famous rivers of the underworld, made me jump up, frown, and look around.

For now, there’s no ferryman, and it’s full of fog.

“The worldview is weird…”

I’ve never seen a scene like this even when I actually died.

And this world isn’t a Buddhist-like religion, but a Catholic-like religion.

If I died, a six-winged, twenty-eyed angel should appear and say, ‘Fear not, young lamb,’ as it approaches.

If it’s Catholic-like, shouldn’t the Jordan River appear?

Contrary to what people think, the Jordan River is not a river you cross when you die.

You cross it alive to the land of milk and honey.

It’s the BC version of exploring the New World.

“What kind of dog dream is this…”

Feeling uncomfortable, I plopped down on the boat drifting on the river.

Usually, when you have this kind of dream? Near-death experience? Someone is bound to be waving from afar…

“William…”

“Oh…”

Speaking of which, they appeared right on time.

Seeing that it’s not my name from my past life but my current life, it must be someone from this world.

I turned my head towards the sound.

“… Father?”

“Yes, William, come this way.”

“……”

I scratched my head and averted my gaze from the thing that looked like my father.

They should have brought my grandfather from this world who passed away before I was born, or my father from my past life.

If they bring someone who is alive and well, would I even go there?

“That unfilial bastard…”

“Then, should I become a super unfilial son who dies twice before his father?”

“……”

Something wearing my father’s mask muttered in a brusque voice, but it didn’t damage me at all.

You can’t die young twice.

The best act of unfilial piety a child can commit is dying young, but dying young twice?

I can’t do that.

“Heeuung~”

I stretched and lay flat on the floor of the boat.

Soon someone will shout, ‘Don’t go, William!’ and wake me up.

There’s no way someone can die from being hit in the head with a book.

So something like that black hand popping out of the water right now will…

A black hand popping out of the water?

“Huh…?”

I turned pale and sat up.

Being dragged to the bottom of the river on the way to the afterlife means dying.

I didn’t expect an ending where I’d be dragged to the bottom of the river?

I rolled around trying to avoid the black hand coming towards me, but another hand grabbed my collar from another direction and dragged me out of the boat.

My body floating up.

A river so dark that I can’t tell how deep it is.

The black hand strongly pulled me floating.

“Kkueeb…! Glug…”

Dying young twice is…

_

“Heueok…!”

The moment I felt the horrible sensation of water flowing back into my lungs, my vision blurred like someone who had drunk a lot of alcohol, and I was able to open my eyes in reality, not in a dream.

The reason I knew this wasn’t a dream was because my head throbbed so much, as if I had a cute little hole in my skull, unlike a moment ago.

This vivid and clear pain in my head was something I had never experienced in my life, so I couldn’t experience it in a dream.

“Kkeungh…”

I forcibly gathered my churning stomach and shaking vision and tried to figure out what situation I was in.

Although half of my vision was covered by a puffy white cloth, I could see the ceiling, and seeing that something hard like a wall was touching my back, I was lying on the floor for now.

The pillow behind my head was a little high, but it felt quite firm.

It was an excellent texture comparable to a high-quality memory foam pillow with strong elasticity and hardness.

“Ugh…”

It’s very comfortable.

That’s all I know.

It was too hard to think deeply because of the concussion.

“Ouch, my head…”

“Young master? Are you awake?”

As I gently groped my head, which had been attacked by my sister’s divine attack (physical), while groaning, the cloth that had been bulging shot towards my face at a rapid speed along with Emily’s surprised voice.

The other side of the cloth was very bouncy, but unfortunately, unlike the pillow, I didn’t have the leisure to feel that texture.

“Woobeub!”

Because I couldn’t breathe.

“Hueueup…! Eueup…!”

Because of the same feeling as sticking my face in a balloon and not being able to breathe even if I wanted to, I wriggled my arms and legs while mumbling loudly.

“Oh? Young master? Why all of a sudden…”

“Emily, if you don’t really want to kill William, straighten your back. People like us are in big trouble if we put someone on our thighs and bend our backs.”

“Ah…!”

“Heueok…!”

Only after hearing Emily’s exclamation of deep realization was my face able to see the light of the world again.

And when Emily’s arm pressed down on the white cloth, Emily’s forehead and eyes finally peeked out from beyond the cloth.

“…!”

So that was heaven just now.

Damn it, I would have held my breath if I had known.

– Tak…!

While I was regretting that I had missed the opportunity to die a peaceful death, the sound of a book being slammed shut next to me shattered my stray thoughts.

“My sister is watching next to you, and you’re still flirting so sweetly, you got hit once and still haven’t come to your senses?”

“Oh, how could that be? I was still dizzy.”

I hurriedly put a smile on my face and placed my hand on my forehead.

“Tsk…”

It was also true that my condition was so bad that I could barely see my sister, so she lightly clicked her tongue and approached me, putting a small glass bottle in my mouth.

“Eueuk…!”

The moment the liquid flowing out of the glass bottle touched my tongue, a bitterness that felt like it would tear my tongue apart went up my nerves and stabbed my brain from all directions.

“Euk… Kkeueuk… Uueup…!”

I want to spit it out right now.

But the glass bottle didn’t fall from my lips, and slender fingers firmly fixed my head so that it wouldn’t move.

“It’s bitter, but drink it, it will make your dizziness much better.”

“Kueok…!”

Instead of drinking this bitter medicine, I tried to report a non-existent secret base, but my esophagus, stimulated by my sister’s very concise and clean chop, swallowed the medicine without noticing.

“Kkeueoeoeok…”

My stomach is bitter.

I don’t know what the principle is, but I could taste the bitterness in my stomach and esophagus.

This is why I didn’t even try to take medicine…!

“I was originally going to scold you more severely, but I heard various stories from Emily while you were passed out. You were in a difficult situation too. I don’t like that you can’t make a decision, but the attitude of blaming yourself instead of using a woman as an excuse was really manly. You’ve grown up quite a bit since I last saw you.”

“Eh…?”

While I was holding my stomach and drooling, my sister suddenly said something incomprehensible and looked at me with pitiful eyes.

While stroking my head gently, the part hit by the Bible was so swollen that I felt a tingling sensation down my spine every time my hair fluttered.

“Still, if you had explained calmly, things wouldn’t have gone so far…”

“Well… but the mistake is still a mistake…”

I don’t know what Emily said, but things worked out well.

I was prepared to be torn limb from limb, but if it ends with just a blow to the head, it’s a very cheap price to pay.

“By the way, now that you’re awake, when are you going to stop rubbing your head on Emily’s thighs?”

“Ah.”

I forgot for a moment because the texture was so good, but this wasn’t a pillow.

Realizing the reality at my sister’s words, I slowly got up.

Whether the words that the dizziness would get better were true or not, there was not much difference from usual if I didn’t move quickly.

“Now that you’re awake, we need to continue the story we were just having.”

“… Wasn’t that over?”

Wasn’t the problem solved by my head and Emily’s earnest persuasion?

“Regardless of the unavoidable circumstances, it doesn’t change the fact that your actions were quite rude to the women, right? Especially regarding the necklace, you went too far.”

“Umm… that’s true.”

“It’s common sense that if you’ve done something wrong, you have to receive atonement and penance, right?”

Atonement and penance.

To put it a little differently, if you did something wrong, you have to be punished.

The problem is that this is a punishment to prevent you from going straight to hell, so it’s quite heavy.

“Suddenly my head is dizzy again…”

“There’s plenty of medicine, should I give you another one?”

I grabbed my head and tried to fall to the floor again, but the glass bottles popped out of my sister’s pocket the moment I tilted my body.

“I’m suddenly feeling better.”

“That’s a relief.”

Just looking at the glass bottle, the Lord’s grace miraculously swept through my body and the dizziness was completely resolved.

As expected, divine power is amazing, the effect is amazing.

“Kkeungh…”

The effect of divine power is amazing, but what excuse should I make now?

“… I haven’t made a confession yet?”

After much deliberation, I came up with a slightly petty but very righteous rebuttal.

A procedural problem invalidates the result, I haven’t made a confession yet, so there’s no reason to receive penance!

I made a very clever rebuttal.

“I’m a priest?”

The thought was neatly blown away by the young priest in front of me.

If there is a priest, I can send Emily out right now, close the door, set up a partition, and start confession.

Or they can drag me directly to the church and shove me into the confessional myself.

“Please be gentle if possible…”

Realizing that further resistance was meaningless, I rubbed my head gently and made a pitiful expression to reduce my sentence even a little.

“Don’t worry too much, considering your situation, I won’t do anything too difficult.”

My sister opened the first page of the Bible she was holding in her left hand and held it out to me.

“William, you just need to read the Bible very diligently in this room. If you want to leave the room after atonement, you just need to answer a few questions that I give you, easy, right?”

“Yes…”

I had no choice but to nod with tears in my eyes.

Compared to transcribing the Bible without a single typo, reading the Bible for 72 hours without sleep, going on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, or being confined to a monastery for penitential prayer, it was a very light penance.

I’ve read it a few times before, so I should be able to escape by tomorrow evening.

Probably…