episode_0003

003 – Unlucky Priest #3

Do you know anything about “church retreats”?

Usually, a youth group church retreat meant singing hymns, reading the Bible, praying, eating something delicious in the evening, and having a BBQ party and recreation at an outdoor retreat center.

If you go through such a retreat for 3 days and 2 nights, the participants become closer to each other and couples form.

In my opinion, the 21st century church retreat was really a social gathering.

“But even among fakes, there is something real. Just like me.”

There were also real training sessions where the word training would be appropriate.

When I was still a seminarian, I went to retreats like this every quarter.

I read the Bible from morning until I go to bed, pray out loud until my voice is hoarse, and discipline myself to the point where I get bruises from kneeling all day long.

Life at this Emiris monastery was similar to that.

A week of solely cultivating divine power and meditating on faith.

I finally got to the test.

“Monk Hyde. Kolok, if you have awakened your divine power, you will be able to purify this muddy muddy water. This water may be muddy, but it is holy water and will respond to your divine power. Collock.”

Puccino, the bishop of the monks, his bald head shining like the yolk of an egg, offered me a bowl.

“Cough! Crumble!”

Puccino coughed every day, probably because his bronchial tubes were bad, but he didn’t even cover his mouth and just sprayed germs everywhere.

He was a very ignorant guy.

The bowl that Puccino gave me, which looked like a washbasin, was so cloudy with muddy water that not even my face was visible.

“Now, try it. Collock.”

I accepted the treat at Puccino’s words.

My test is to purify this bowl with divine power.

“Did that Midbarian really gain enlightenment about divine power?”

“Wow, that guy is not a saint or a saint. How did he awaken divine power in just one week?”

The monks looked at me and whispered in disbelief, but I was very confident.

That is to say, during this week, I have lived a truly pious and healthy religious life.

I will make this muddy water clear in an instant.

“Heu-!”

I held on to the washbasin with my hands and tried to exert strength with my whole body.

Chellang-challang-.

Perhaps due to the force in my hand, there was a gentle wave in the washbasin for a moment.

Bubbles – Bubbles began to form in the muddy water in the wash basin.

“Oh?”

Honestly, I was surprised.

Even though I had no talent for magic or auras, it seemed like I had a mysterious power!

To become more focused, I closed my eyes and paid attention to my inner spirituality.

I felt a tingling sensation starting from my heart and traveling through my entire body.

I felt like my body temperature was rising as I felt hot blood spreading through my clogged blood vessels.

“Hey, look at that!”

“What in the world is that!”

“The water is changing!”

I heard people being surprised.

Did the water in the bowl become so clean that it became rainbow-colored holy water?

When I opened my eyes with such expectations, I was a little surprised.

This was because it was like very cloudy muddy water.

The only difference is that it is bubbling like carbonated water.

“What is this.”

Phew-.

Soon I heard laughter.

When I turned my head, I saw monks with slickly shaved heads looking at me and smiling.

“It hasn’t cleared up at all, right?”

“Oh my god, even if you don’t have any talent for divine power, how can you do that!”

How on earth did this happen?

I really honed my pious and ascetic discipline during this week.

When I woke up in the morning, I prayed and meditated until I went to sleep. Why did this happen?

“There is a problem. There must be something wrong with this muddy water!”

I was convinced that there was some trick to this muddy water. Are you saying that I, no one else, can purify water? Because I had no choice but to resort to trickery in muddy water.

But Puccino, the monk bishop, shook his head.

“Tsk tsk, there is no problem with the water. Collock. There really is no problem with the water, so don’t be suspicious, you rude bastard!”

“No, I still want to check.”

When I tried to dip my hand into this cloudy water, Puccino snatched the bowl from my hand and threw it on the dirt floor.

It was the moment when I was about to say “no─.” to this arbitrary behavior.

“This ugly guy! You can’t admit your own shortcomings!”

A sound like lightning was heard.

When I turned my head, a gray-haired man with a clean-shaven beard who looked unusually thin was frowning very grimly at me.

The head of this monastery was a nomad.

“Why do you blame water for your ungodliness and immorality? Now I see you lack discipline. Participate in physical training starting tomorrow!”

“Physical training?”

What is physical training?

Are there any other methods of cultivating ‘sacred power’ that I don’t know about?

My interest is piqued!

next day.

I was able to understand what physical discipline was.

This Emiris monastery lived a largely self-sufficient life, and they cultivated a fairly large field behind the monastery to grow vegetables.

This barbaric medieval field farming was completely hard labor.

Honestly, I felt like it was a waste of time to farm when I didn’t have time to pray.

“There was definitely a problem with the muddy water. That the soil was not good. Or maybe the holy water was a bit cheap. Or is the foundation of this monastery bad?”

I wanted to take the test of divine power again.

However, my body was getting more and more tired from the hard work of farming every day, and there were times when I would just fall asleep while praying.

“I finally got a second chance, but if I continue like this, I will end up becoming a farmer instead of a priest.”

Sze-.

I sneaked out of my room at night when even the moonlight was obscured by clouds.

I was planning to test my divine power on my own using the holy water provided at the monastery.

However, because holy water was a fairly rare item, it was located in a chapel in the monastery that only high-ranking monks could enter.

Also, in places like that, it was a rule to have someone on watch, but the person on watch at the chapel was dozing off.

The monks of this monastery work in the fields every day, so they are exhausted at night and have no choice but to doze off.

“You idiot. Salvation and heaven come like a thief while you are sleeping. So people must always be awake.”

Susss-.

After giving a brief sermon to the sleeping watchman, I passed by him without making a sound.

As I entered the chapel, there was a bowl filled with holy water.

I mixed the dirt I had previously put in my bag into a bowl and infused it with ‘divine power’ as I had done during the test.

“Huh!”

Then a strange change occurred.

The holy water did not become clear and boiled into bubbles.

“What is it.”

As I was feeling puzzled, a familiar sound struck my ears.

Collock-. Collock-.

It was a coughing sound.

As I listened, I could not only hear coughing, but also loud talking.

“Is Director Puccino muttering a prayer?”

Prayer text.

It was only recently that I found out that the prayer that Director Puccino gave me on the first day was “Prayer on a Wooden Plane.”

In this world, monks recited different prayers depending on their rank, and it was clear that the higher the rank, the greater the effect of the prayer.

Puccino is a 10-year monk whose name is engraved on the iron plaque.

The prayer must also be a prayer of iron defeat.

If you pray with it every day, it will be much more helpful in cultivating your divine power than the prayer on the wooden tablet.

With that in mind, I listened toward the prayer room where Puccino was staying.

━Yes. We did the same thing this time too. The muddy water was just ordinary water. If it’s not holy water, it won’t respond to divine power, Kolok. It was a play suitable for physical training, using the lack of training as an excuse. Collock.

━That Midvar guy has good stamina. Very lively. The sisters wanted a lively sacrifice. Let’s pamper him a little longer and then sell him to the Sisterhood.

━You are indeed the director. Collock. This time, the muddy water was bubbling. Even Puccino was very surprised. Collock. Is this a hex taught by the Sisterhood?

━Boiling? I don’t know what that means. But I always get help from the Crescent Moon Witches in various ways. If I soon become a bishop, it will be thanks to them.

“ what the fuck.”

I knew it would be like this too.

It wasn’t my fault that there was a problem with cultivating divine power.

Since these heretics occupied the head of the monastery, no matter how hard you worked, you could not accumulate divine power.

No matter how clean I tried to be, it was natural for my clothes to get dirty when there were loaches splashing dirty muddy water next to me.

When I came to that thought, I started to get very angry.

“My time.”

Almost 12 days.

I couldn’t stand it because I was so angry that two weeks of my time had been wasted on these despicable guys.

The 12th may not seem like a big deal, but in religious terms, the 12th was the time when God could create the world twice and be resurrected from the dead four times.

“Dare─.”

It was unacceptable that those who were in cahoots with pseudo-heretics were calling themselves monks.

Are you scolding me in front of everyone for calling me immoral and playing tricks on a topic like that?

How much worse are you thinking of exploiting me and selling me out to the ‘Crescent Sisters’?

“─Guilty.”

# # #

Abbot Nomad of Emiris Monastery was in a very good mood.

This was because the newly arrived slave-monk was very strong and healthy.

‘He was a guy who knew about letters and theology. This is what faith should be like every day—I don’t like making a big fuss, but sooner or later this guy’s life will end!’

Nomad was excited to hand over the new recruit to the “Crescent Sisters.”

The new recruit was tall, had a handsome face, and could read, so his price would have been high.

The “Crescent Sisters” especially liked tall, handsome, and smart men.

“Wouldn’t I get 30 nyang in silver this time?”

30 silver coins.

Nomad’s hips were already shaking at the thought of using that money to buy a headband for his girlfriend, Cristona, who lives in sodomy.

The money left over from buying a gift for your lover will be used to express ‘sincerity’ to the Archbishop of Durgien. Then, it would not be a dream for a nomad to be recommended for the position of bishop of sodomy during this council.

“Bishop Nomad. Nomadra, who became a bishop of the silver tablet 20 years after being a monk with the bottom wooden tablet─.”

It was a time when I was deep in a dream.

Rattling-rattling-.

The window of the abbot’s office shook violently and flew open.

“It’s summer, why is the wind blowing like this?”

Nomad grumbled and went to the window to close it, only to notice that there was someone standing outside the window.

“Huh?”

The distance is approximately 50 feet.

It was like a pitch black shadow.

Under a dark sky where even the moonlight was obscured by clouds, it lifted its finger toward Nomad.

As if using a point.

The movement was seen exceptionally clearly even in the dark.

“You are a bastard of heresy, a motherless nomad. Everything about you is a lie except breathing. No, now even your breathing will be a lie. I will curse you with awareness─.”

“What, what? pup? There is no mother… ? Who are you! What kind of guy is playing around on this night!”

Nomad was startled by the voice clearly heard in the dark.

When I wondered what the hell was going on, a dark voice added.

“He said, You will be able to breathe only when you become aware of breathing every second and every moment. Inhale and exhale. Try to vividly feel the air entering your lungs every day.”

“Who is there! Who are you! What a bastard! What kind of bastard would pull a prank like this on this night! Are you Hans? Are you holding a grudge against me for kicking you out of the monastery!?”

Nomad shouted hurriedly as he picked up a nearby candlestick.

However, when I turned my head, the black shadow had already disappeared.

“Alternative… .”

Nomad sighed, thinking it was a strange thing, but soon noticed something strange. From exhaling to breathing in.

I began to become particularly aware of this act, which I had never felt was special because it was natural.

“Soo, my breath… ?”

Take a breath, drink.

I had to focus on that fact and couldn’t do anything else.

10 minutes, 15 minutes—no matter how much time passed, it did not return to its original state.

Nomad was so embarrassed that he broke into a cold sweat.

“… Let’s sleep! Yes, you are sleeping!”

Thinking that things might get better when he wakes up, Nomad lies down on a soft goose down blanket. The moment he closed his eyes like that—this man realized that things were scarier than he thought.

The moment you close your eyelids and enter unconsciousness to sleep.

At that time, Nomad’s breathing also stopped.

“… Holy shit, you forget to breathe when you sleep!”