Ch.149149. The Perfect Human

At this moment, there were two people who were shocked.

One was Lilith.

Lilith hadn’t noticed the flying daggers aimed at Ludion.

By the time she became aware of them, Celia had already suspended them in mid-air.

Until then, Lilith had taken it lightly.

‘Someone attacked Ludion. I didn’t notice at all,’ she thought.

But then, Lilith saw it.

Ludion was having a similar reaction to her own.

She even heard him muttering under his breath, “Damn, I almost died.”

‘Huh?’

It was strange. Shouldn’t he be able to easily dodge attacks like this?

Unlike Celia and Alkine, who had spent considerable time with Ludion, Lilith didn’t yet know.

That Ludion wasn’t such an overwhelming and perfect being.

That’s why she felt confused by this disconnect in her perception.

But that didn’t last long. Lilith calmed herself down and thought carefully.

What was certain now was that if only she and Ludion had been present, he might have died.

Realizing this, her heart suddenly began to race.

Even though he was standing perfectly fine before her, just the thought of what could have happened made her breath catch.

‘No, that can’t…’

Eyes that would grow dim with embedded daggers. A heart that would stop beating. Lips that would never open again.

And… the warmth that would no longer be felt even standing beside him.

A form of farewell she had never really considered or wanted felt as vivid as if she had experienced it herself.

There was no way for Lilith to know that this overly vivid sensation was the ability of “Revelation.”

So, Lilith acted instinctively, pouring out the emotions she felt.

‘I need to protect him too. Even if I don’t know if it will help.’

Whoosh—

Instead of the tears that seemed about to fall, Lilith began to release the divine power that was boiling up inside her.

It was divine power more intense and abundant than ever before.

“Wow.”

Even Celia, who was rarely surprised when it came to handling magical power, couldn’t help but exclaim in admiration.

The massive divine power manifested and covered the entire cathedral.

However, this lasted only for a moment, and in the next instant, all that divine power converged toward one man.

Ludion. She had poured all the divine power she could handle into him.

Hoping it would protect him.

She wasn’t sure what the result would be, but judging by his reaction, it wasn’t a failure.

“Hey, Lilith.”

“What.”

“What did you just do?”

“…I don’t know.”

But she wished he wouldn’t ask what she had just done.

This feeling was clearly affection, but she wasn’t ready to express it openly yet.

In a little while, she might become like Senior Celia or Alkine… wait a minute.

‘I don’t have to be exactly like those two.’

Come to think of it, those two were strange.

No matter how much they liked him, how could it be normal to be so openly attentive without any hesitation?

She didn’t have the confidence to act like that, and therefore, it seemed difficult to become like those two.

She had thought about it a few times, but being so forward like those two was embarrassing. Really.

This distance was enough for now.

Yes, just this much distance was fine…

“…Are you going to keep doing that?”

“Someone who almost died should just stay still.”

She wished he would stop trying to move away from the current state.

She was worried about him, yet he was casually making strange comments like “Lilith forever.” Really.

Despite her complaints, Lilith didn’t leave Ludion’s side.

Thanks to her, Ludion continued to glow.

Meanwhile, the other person who was shocked was Ludovic.

He had used his ability to check Ludion’s sins, and he saw.

Checking another person’s sins was mentally taxing, but Ludovic trusted his mental strength, so he never hesitated to use it.

Rather, not checking the sins of someone he was curious about would be worse for Ludovic’s mental state.

This case was similar.

In truth, Ludovic had no reason to check Ludion’s sins.

He wasn’t curious about the sins of the Imperial Princess, the Northern Duchess, or the Saint. He didn’t think they would be particularly bad, and if the results turned out to be ambiguous, it would clearly lead to troublesome consequences.

But Ludion was different. It seemed suspicious that a commoner male had those three people seemingly overly dependent on him.

While suspecting innocent people was a bad habit, Ludovic had numerous experiences of filtering out hidden villains with this intuition.

So this time too, following that intuition, he checked Ludion’s sins…

If the man these three people depended on turned out to be evil, how should he respond? Such concerns were rendered moot by the results that emerged.

‘What is this…!’

If Ludovic, who had lived a long life as a wanderer and accumulated countless experiences, were asked to recall his most intense memory, he would answer without hesitation.

“Once, I happened to see the Demon King by chance. I was definitely well-hidden, but the memory of when our eyes met still appears in my dreams occasionally.”

The dirty sensation of the Demon King’s gaze scanning him at that time was etched into his brain as an unforgettable unpleasantness.

He thought that nothing more unpleasant would happen to him, already nearing the end of his life and no longer even wandering.

He was wrong.

There existed something in the world that made the Demon King seem insignificant by comparison.

Although he never imagined he would encounter it like this, Ludovic ultimately faced it.

Ludovic’s method of seeing sins was simple.

When he looked into a person’s eyes, he could sense the depth of darkness contained within, and simultaneously, fragments of the sins they had committed were transmitted to him.

Since it was basically about gauging the depth of darkness rather than judging good and evil, it was an ability extremely suitable for measuring someone’s “evil,” because no matter how virtuously one lived, as long as one was born human and bound by society, being completely flawless was impossible.

At least, that’s what Ludovic was convinced of.

Even he himself had accumulated sins where his actions intended for good had caused someone else’s misfortune.

At most, only newborn babies were without sin. That’s what it meant to be a flawless human.

This was the insight he had gained from his long life of wandering.

In other words, he had already given up on the idea of a perfect human.

However, this result shattered Ludovic’s belief.

If perfection in the world were measured from 0 to 100, this would be perfect in terms of being 100.

He recalled what he had just seen.

Darkness.

Just deep darkness.

Darkness that spread endlessly wide, and no matter how deep one sank, it had no end.

That was Ludion’s sin.

The darkness of the worst humans he had met so far was certainly deep, but it felt like it was only a few dozen meters deep, so one could quickly reach the bottom. Ludion’s sin was different.

The only fortunate thing was that, for some reason, while the darkness was deep, not a single fragment of sin could be felt.

But there was no time to realize this.

Ludovic’s mind was in the process of falling into darkness of indescribable depth.

The sensation of falling into darkness continued like eternity.

It wasn’t a metaphor; it really felt eternal. In his perception, it lasted at least dozens of hours.

In reality, it was only a moment from when Ludovic looked at Ludion’s sins until he fainted, but during that time, he perceived an endlessly long period.

No matter how strong one’s mind was, fainting was inevitable.

It’s rather remarkable that he woke up so quickly.

“Are you conscious! Ludovic!”

“You don’t need to speak so loudly; I can hear everything. Be quiet… my head is ringing.”

The illusion that he might have had a bad dream was denied by the splitting headache.

Ludovic, with his rich experience, knew that this headache was the sensation felt when something unacceptable was forcibly imprinted on one’s mind.

He looked at the man called Ludion.

For some reason, he was emitting brilliant light, surrounded by the Saint’s power.

What he had clearly seen was deep darkness, yet the current appearance was so sacred.

The discrepancy left him speechless, and though he wanted to say something, he stopped when his eyes met Ludion’s.

Every time he looked at his face, that endless darkness came to mind… and his mouth automatically closed.

“Please calm down and wait a moment. I still need time to organize my thoughts.”

It seemed he needed a bit more time to calm down.

And so, facing Ludovic who had closed his mouth, Ludion…

‘I want to go home.’

He had clearly just come to catch some heretics, but now he was trembling at the current situation where the Elnos Association was also involved in the cathedral.

In this situation where he had no idea how to handle things, all he wanted was to return home quickly.