episode_0006

006 – Hyde draws a perfect lot #2

I have come to rescue Psyche, the daughter of Agarpe─.

The guard frowned at my honest answer.

Soon he asked his colleague next to him in a low voice.

“Chopping board, what should I do? The pass and ID are authentic, but it feels a little suspicious in many ways.”

“There was an order from the Count to bring in any therapist. And if you can memorize Bible verses without looking at them… Isn’t he really talented? Let’s send it in first.”

I’m saying this very bluntly.

It was inevitable that he would be easily suspected.

My oriental appearance seemed to resemble the strangers of this world in the “Wilderness of Midbar.” Most of them in this kingdom are robbers or swindlers.

Originally, when the Lord went around the city preaching, he was always questioned by asking, “Aren’t you a Sazza!” and eventually he was hung on a cross.

Since the path of a priest has always been a series of ‘doubts’ and ‘proofs,’ I also did not think much about doubts and cautions.

The guard at the entrance to the manor kept looking back and forth between my face and my identity card.

“… This is the certificate of identity of Galatea, the knight of the Bronze Plaque. Wasn’t it said that Galatea is the owner of the famous sword “Demon Punishment”? Great, good.”

“What does it mean to be good?”

“Monk Hyde, welcome to the Agarpe Estate. As long as you don’t cause any trouble, the city will welcome you.”

With this feeling, I was able to enter the realm of Agarpe.

If I hadn’t had a “pass” and “wooden ID card”, I would have been held at the entrance for over two days, so I was very fortunate.

“Is this Agarpe’s territory?”

The roads were fairly straight and the houses were made of white plaster, making it a beautiful city.

People’s faces and clothes were also much more decent and clean than those of sodomy.

Tap, tap.

First of all, the fact that the walk was neat and tidy and not muddy gave me 100 points. In sodomy, people threw excrement out the windows of their houses.

In comparison, this estate seemed to have neatly maintained water facilities.

Waterworks in this barbaric world.

Also, in Sodomy, clotheslines were hanging everywhere like spider webs, making the cityscape very scary, but here, there were no such things, so the clear sky was clearly visible.

“What about a church in such a wonderful city?”

I asked the children playing nearby.

“Guys, where should we go to church?”

The pumpkin-haired girl with a scruffy face raised her eyes at my question. Was he about 7 years old? From what I could see, it looked like an alley leader.

“When you say church, do you mean a chapel? If it’s a chapel, you have to go to the alley over there.”

In this world, did you prefer to use the word chapel rather than church?

Of course, I preferred the word ‘church’.

The word chapel is meaningful in meaning a place and a building, but the word ‘church’ means a place and a building, and at the same time, the word ‘community’.

Did you know that Paul, who is called the king of evangelism, always visited church communities first when traveling around the world and exchanged greetings with local believers?

I wanted to do that too.

“By the way, brother, are you a priest? Your skin is very clean and white. Are you a noble person?”

“… oh? Does it look like that?”

The children’s eyes were pure.

He immediately recognized me as a priest! The children’s pure and upright eyes revealed the steely faith in my heart!

Indeed, it was a moment when the Bible verse that said, “Heaven belongs to those like children” came to mind.

I like kids because they are pure.

I smiled and said to the children.

“Half right and half wrong. I’m a priest, but I’m not from a noble family.”

Ssuk seu-.

It was when I stroked the head of a girl with pumpkin colored hair.

“Unless you are a noble… .”

The girl trembled and shouted to the kids around her.

“The evil priest has appeared again!”

“Bad guy!”

“Get away from Agarpe!”

“Please return the oil tank and the offering that were forcibly taken from my mother!”

The children cursed at me with malicious intent and then ran away. Some kids even threw stones. I was stunned, as if I had suddenly been attacked by a group of chimpanzees.

Should I be unilaterally criticized for what I did?

But that’s how kids used to be.

They look like fucking kids!

This is why I hate kids.

Nonsense, rude, arbitrary, capricious, and barbaric!

“What on earth is going on?”

I looked around and saw people looking at me, then clearing their throats and quickly disappearing on their own paths. Open windows were slamming shut, and there were women spraying cold water down the street where I was.

“… … .”

I definitely felt like I wasn’t welcome.

Because he’s a black-haired foreigner?

No, perhaps because the Agarpe territory is adjacent to a foreign country, there were many foreigners similar to me.

Rather than being ostracized because I was a foreigner, it seemed like it was because I was a ‘priest.’

“Why?”

In this world, being a ‘priest’ was a promising profession. It was the intellectual class that was closer to receiving treatment, not the profession that would be ostracized like this.

Because I’m a wooden monk, the lowest of the low?

No, no matter what, what connection do I have with these people that they treat me, a traveler, so harshly?

I guess I should go to church.

# # #

“This is a church?”

I was a little surprised.

In many ways, I was surprised in a bad way.

I was honestly looking forward to seeing how the church was built because Agarpe’s buildings and roads looked good. The church building that appeared before my eyes… It was gloomy and eerie, like a ruin.

The windows were all broken, the paint on the stone walls was peeling off, and the floors were cracked or collapsed.

“Excuse me.”

Squeak, clang-.

As I pushed through the tattered door, I was greeted by a fairly spacious interior.

It was dark, as if no light could penetrate even in broad daylight, and only a few candles were burning.

The men who had been sitting on the long chairs and talking for a while suddenly stopped talking.

“Brother Manaan, it looks like you have a guest.”

“Who?”

Unlike the tattered building, the priests were neatly dressed. There were two priests with iron plates and one was a priest with bronze plates.

A priest of bronze.

At that moment, Abbot Nomad Emiris came to mind and I felt like my forehead would bulge out. Of course, this one looked much healthier.

Although his thin face looked stern, he was not bald and had abundant gray hair.

I spoke to the priests who seemed to be wary of me.

“My name is Hyde, a wandering monk.”

When I showed my ID and pass, the priests’ attitude softened a little. If I didn’t have my ID and pass, it might have taken me several days to explain who I was.

“Wandering Monk Hyde, my name is Manaan and I am the senior priest of the Agarpe Church. Thank you for your hard work in coming this far. Agarpe Church welcomes you.”

Bronze Priest Manaan showed me courtesy. In this world where it is okay to speak informally at first glance, this is truly a highly educated person.

He truly deserves to be appointed as the head priest of a historic city!

Manaan, a man in his mid-40s with graying gray hair, asked me.

“What happens in this city?”

“It is because of the calling as a person who will become a pastor. I will help Lady Psyche and heal her illness.”

I confidently announced my aspirations.

Then, a laughing sound was heard.

They were iron-clad priests.

Bronze Priest Manaan asked when he seemed to be slightly offended by their open ridicule.

“Ho, it’s the calling of a pastor. It seems like you have some beliefs. I, Manaan, would like to ask you for guidance. What are the two most important things for a priest?”

The two most important things for a priest?

Answering these questions is a piece of cake.

“Of course, aren’t they “divine power” and “spouse”?”

There is no need to mention the importance of divine power.

The second most important thing was, of course, my spouse.

Even in secular, open 21st century denominations, one could not be ordained as a pastor without a spouse.

A soloist cannot be a pastor.

Manaan’s eyes lit up in many ways at my question.

“I thought you were going to say “Bible” and “Faith”.”

“It is a waste to say that.”

“Ho… .”

It was when Manaan stroked his rough-looking chin with his short beard.

I took advantage of the quiet atmosphere to ask.

“I met some children on the way. He ran away, calling me a bad priest. The locals don’t seem to be very happy with me either. Do you know what happened?”

“Isn’t it because this territory, Agarpe, is cursed? People in this city neither believe in God nor worship on Sunday. They are very impious people.”

Is it possible?

Honestly, I was surprised.

Well, I knew very well who Psyche, the daughter of Agarpe, was. She was one of the most wonderful and devout believers out of all the people I know.

He was so pious and faithful that on the day the royal palace fell to the cultists, he fought until the end and fought against the cultists.

Honestly, I fell in love with her at first sight from the first time I met her.

Okay, now what am I going to hide?

Psyche Agarpe was my first and unrequited love.

Although… We had never even had a meaningful conversation because our situations were different.

anyway.

Since it was the church in the estate where she lived, I honestly expected it to be a place where people would passionately believe in their faith, but I was very disappointed.

Soon the monks opened their mouths and shouted loudly.

“The illness that Lady Agarpe is suffering from is also a result of being punished for being impious! They once took the side of the royal family and rebelled against the church!”

“It is a punishment from the Lord, so no one can cure it.”

Thanks to the story we just shared, I have a general idea of what happened.

The Agarpe Estate was hostile to the church for political reasons.

How could a young lady as faithful as Lady Agarpe emerge from a territory like this?

I wanted to meet and talk more.

“Priest Manaan, I would like to meet Lady Agarpe. What should I do?”

“If you go to the mansion, call someone and state your purpose, they will give you a wooden plaque with your waiting number written on it. Many people have come to us claiming to be healers, so you may have to wait a few days.”

I see.

I bowed my head to the Bronze Priest Manaan and left the church.

Giik-.

chin-.

It was time to close the old door.

“ As the Agarpe family is shaken, even wooden claws, who don’t know where they came from, are coming to pick up the falling debris. What kind of nonsense are you saying that the important things for a priest are divine power and a spouse? Those pseudo-bastards pretend to be priests, so even we get criticized.”

“That’s right. Isn’t it truly ignorant to completely deny the ‘Bible’ and ‘faith’, the priesthood preached by Archbishop Archibald? Priest Manaan, what do you think? Can a guy like that cure the young lady?”

“Fuha! I had a hard time holding back my laughter! How can a Midbarian like that do something that even we can’t do? Let us prepare to receive Archbishop Archibald’s healers who will be dispatched soon!”

What a clap!

What is a pseudo?

What you say is so fucking harsh.

You are one out.

But since there were three people talking, we multiplied by three and got three outs.

“This is a feeling of change.”

I understand why the people of Agarpe were hostile towards priests.

Since hypocrites like that are establishing themselves in the church, isn’t even a good priest like me being caught and criticized?

It’s the same as more than 80% of pastors who serve without receiving minimum wage because of a few mudfish pastors who are jointly and severally blamed.

bang-!

I opened the worn-out church door again and entered.

And I shouted at the priests who seemed dumbfounded by my sudden reappearance.

“You brood of vipers! Don’t you know what James 4:11 tells us not to gossip about others? Isn’t the whole church collapsing because cults like you are taking root?”

“What? venomous snake? Sa, pseudo? Hey, hey, that guy is the best, huh-!”

“What do you mean rudely now? How dare you swear in the temple!”

The Cheolpae priests blushed and were openly angry.

I drove a word of conversion into the faces of those guys like a wedge.

“If I cure Lady Agarpe’s illness within a week, you will be removed from this church. I own this church.”