episode_0118

*

The sun was almost completely down, and the world was beginning to be dyed a deep navy blue.

The sea breeze was still a bit chilly, but I no longer felt cold.

It was proof that the long winter was over.

“The weather is slowly getting better.”

I muttered quietly, watching Sola’s hurrying steps ahead of me.

I had never told the nuns this, but I wasn’t sure if I would make it through this winter.

Of course, that was understandable.

The world was destroyed by a bizarre monster, and even the monastery on the remote island, which was once our home, collapsed under the demons’ onslaught.

And then came the winter.

I couldn’t help but feel lost and hopeless.

Outside the boundaries of civilization, it’s never easy for humans to survive the winter with only their bare hands.

But we survived.

Even though we were helped by a devil, saw some filthy things, and as a result, Anna, Lucia, and I were all deeply immersed in corruption…

Anyway, we made it through this winter without much difficulty.

When spring comes, we can gather spring greens and cultivate a small garden.

In the summer, the vegetation begins to flourish, and in the fall, we can secure a fairly large amount of food just by gathering.

We will be able to face the next winter in a more prepared state.

In other words, we can continue to survive.

The nuns will be led to hell after death by the devil, and I, too, am destined to be caught up in the eternal war between devils and angels in hell.

However, until the day we face death, we can survive.

Perhaps Anna and Lucia will give birth to my children.

No, at this rate, they will definitely get pregnant.

Spending season after season, raising children, and, well, someday finding a decent guy, not some Paolo-like scoundrel, for Sola to marry…

We are destined to fall into hell, but until then, we may be able to live a normal, perhaps even happy life.

It may not be a life befitting a priest, but it means we can live a life befitting a human being.

Having spent a painful childhood, I knew all too well how absurdly extravagant it was to enjoy such an ordinary life.

Moreover, in this ruined world, its value would shine even brighter.

“Yeah. I… must be happy. If it’s this much.”

I thought as I watched Sola, who stopped ahead to wait for me, then ran again and stopped.

I quietly warned Sola.

“Slow down, Sola. You’ll fall.”

“You’re just slow, Father! I’ve been starving all day, you know?”

“Okay, okay, I got it.”

“Sigh, it’s okay, Father is old. I understand.”

This damn brat…

I sighed and widened my stride.

She’s really carefree.

When I think about the days she’s lived, I can understand why she has no sense of things, but I still think she’s too immature for her age.

But, isn’t this immature side Sola’s charm?

Catching up to Sola as quickly as my widened stride allowed, I mischievously ruffled her hair and said,

“What’s the rush? The meal won’t be ready yet anyway.”

“Ugh, Anna is already cooking. Did you think I only whined to you about being hungry, Father? I did it to Anna first.”

“How long have we been back…? Anna must have just started cooking. It’ll take a while to get ready, right?”

Sola looked at me with an absurd expression.

“You have to help! That’s men for you!”

“…That’s… true.”

How humiliating.

To be speechless by Sola…

“Certainly… it might be a bit early… It’ll still be undercooked… But, it’ll be ready by the time we eat…”

“Undercooked? What?”

“Huh? Oh… the food, I mean. Hehe…”

“Huh…? Well, you have to eat it when it’s cooked, you wouldn’t eat it when it’s undercooked, would you?”

“Ah, there is, something like that… You don’t need to know, Father.”

Sola smiled mysteriously, saying something incomprehensible.

*

The priest’s room, the very dark corner between the drawer and the wall.

In that deep darkness, a small crack quietly began to form.

The crack slowly spread as if the space was cracking, and soon, with an ominous ‘crack—’ sound, a large gap appeared in the air.

And through the gap, a red-skinned devil poked out her head of blood-stained green hair.

It was Kunat.

After barely pulling her body out of the gap, she collapsed powerlessly on the floor of the priest’s room, like a calf emerging from a cow’s womb.

Her entire body was covered in torn wounds, and the blood that flowed out stained her skin red, making her a bloody mess.

It was as if she had been stabbed thousands of times all over her body with a small knife.

Her red skin was peeled off in places, and swollen inflammations were mixed in, making it bumpy like crocodile skin.

She slowly stretched out her hand, trembling with pain and fatigue.

Clenched tightly in her fist was the priest’s rosary.

After catching her breath for a moment, she raised her body and muttered lowly.

“Haa… shit,”

Just a moment ago, right when she was about to tell Father Theodore about Sola… no, about the Demon King.

At such a perfectly timed moment, the Demon King entered the priest’s room.

“…No, he must have been watching from the beginning. There’s no way he would have trusted me.”

The Demon King immediately realized that Kunat was about to reveal everything to the priest.

He deliberately burst into the room and caused a commotion, and in that brief moment when the priest’s gaze shifted away from Kunat, he immediately sent her back to Hell.

It was a power that only the Demon King possessed, like a divine privilege, not magic or sorcery.

The strict hierarchy of demons, the tacit contract of demon society.

A demon, especially one who had not borrowed a human body, had no choice but to be helpless.

“If I didn’t have this… I really would have been dragged straight to Hell.”

She looked at the rosary clenched in her hand.

The rosary was wrapped tightly around her hand, just like when the priest attacked her, and a gruesome burn remained on her hand, tracing the shape of the rosary.

It was a burn caused by Holy Power.

After receiving a warning from the Demon King, she had taken it as a protective charm in case of an emergency before the priest returned.

With the faint hope that the small amount of Holy Power remaining in the rosary might be able to resist the Demon King’s power even for a moment, or with the intention of gaining some superstitious reassurance…

“Ha, I was going to use it right away.”

Kunat flicked her hand and dropped the rosary.

She wasn’t sent to Hell, but in return, she was trapped in the twisted space between Hell and Earth, and her entire body was torn to shreds.

It wasn’t that something sharp had cut her, but the space itself had torn her flesh to pieces.

Even in that terrible pain, she desperately clung to the priest’s rosary, resisting the curse that was pulling her in.

And she barely managed to create a crack and escape.

Kunat quietly closed her eyes and slowly inhaled.

The wounds all over her body began to heal little by little.

However, the Holy Power burn remaining on her palm did not disappear easily.

She looked down at the bloody rosary lying on the floor and muttered quietly.

“Well… it was bearable. Compared to the violence the priest inflicts on me normally…”

A strange light flashed in her eyes as she chuckled.

“I bet he didn’t expect a demon to use Holy Power as a protective charm. Even if he is the Demon King…”

Kunat crouched down and instantly transformed into a small, sleek black cat.

Then she hid in the darkness and quickly slipped out of the priest’s room.

“The King is now… with the priest.”

The King is trying to kill the priest using the monster.

But, is it ‘now’?

Kunat shook her head and hurried her steps even more.

“The monster hasn’t hatched yet. The reason he took the priest away was clearly just to stop me from telling the truth, he’s not trying to kill the priest yet.”

She ran towards the beach, desperately trying to sort out her thoughts.

Of course, Kunat had no intention of letting the King’s plan proceed.

The priest dying was not part of Kunat’s plan.

‘Besides…’

Kunat paused for a moment and, in cat form, raised her front paw and looked at it.

In the middle of the small cat paw, the faint Holy Power burn that remained still tingled and shone.

“I haven’t even tasted it yet. Do you think I’ll let you die?”

Kunat quickly arrived at the beach.

Now that the King is with the priest, if she eliminates the monster first at this timing, the King’s plan will fall apart.

This monster only hatched in the middle of this village due to the King’s scheme, other monsters can’t even dare to approach this village full of demons.

The demons cannot oppose the King, but the priest who is by his side now is different.

There’s no way the priest would allow himself to be stopped while revealing himself right next to him, with eyes wide open.

Checkmate, the King’s scheme was clumsy and hasty.

In the first place, he is famous for his cruelty, but he was not a very wise demon.

“That’s not how you make a plan. Your Highness.”

Kunat mocked the King and dug up the sand pit where Paolo’s corpse was buried.

But…

No matter how deep she dug, the corpse was nowhere to be seen.

There was no trace or smell of the monster either.

“Wait, why isn’t it here…”

Kunat blankly looked down into the sand, and her pupils shook.

The initial premise was wrong.

“…Could it be, it hatched? Already?”

His scheme is hasty.

But if the goal is not to win a big war, but just to kill one person, a hasty operation can be better than a thorough operation.

In the first place, if it’s not a perfect crime that must not be discovered by anyone, you don’t even need a scheme to kill someone.

You just need a weapon.

Just as you can kill someone by stabbing them with a clumsy, crude, dull knife, the King didn’t need to carefully nurture the monster.

It just needed to be a monster.

After all, the Ebony Wolf and the Succubus cannot interfere with him, and the priest cannot defeat the monster with his bare hands.

Cold fear tightened her heart.

Her complexion instantly turned pale.

“Billy!”

Kunat turned around and ran madly towards the village.

The place she arrived at after running until her back was soaked in sweat was the communal dining hall where the priest and nuns gathered to eat.

If she makes eye contact with the Demon King, she might be dragged back to Hell again.

Kunat hid her body as much as possible and cautiously slipped into the dining hall.

“No way…!”

Was it thanks to the cat’s low stature?

No one noticed, but she could clearly see from her eye level.

Under that table where the priest, the nuns, and even the King were gathered, laughing.

Underneath the tablecloth.

One pale, slender, and chilling hand,

was slowly reaching out through the floor as if rising from under the water.