Liberation

“…….”

Hearing the sound of the items I was holding in my arms clattering down, the Popes, who had stopped what they were doing, turned to look this way. And then, they froze in the exact posture they had when they turned to look at me.

The surroundings were, quite literally, a mess. In the place where the building leading underground originally stood, a pit several times a person’s height was visible. The excavated earth piled up like a mountain around it was a bonus.

Floretta’s face was drenched in tears. Her nose was bright red, and transparent liquid dripped in beads from her sparkling green eyes. The sound of her sniffing and swallowing tears could be heard intermittently.

Even though the long-awaited reunion with her older sister had come to pass, what Floretta was shedding were not tears of joy, but tears of sorrow.

On the contrary, Luna looked as if she might collapse at any moment, completely devoid of vitality. Her face was deathly pale, and she was trembling uncontrollably while tightly gripping her younger sister’s hand.

“Honored Guest-nim! You’ve come at just the right time!”

“We need the Honored Guest’s help.”

Stella and Selene, who had been flustered and at a loss next to the Popes, immediately brightened up the moment they saw me, and instantly approached my side.

The two of them each grabbed one of my hands. Then they started dragging me towards the Popes. I was dumbfounded. I wondered what on earth was happening right now.

After happily returning to the surface, why was the Pope of the Sun wailing loudly, and why was the Pope of the Moon frozen in a daze, looking as if she had lost all reason to live?

Regardless of my bewilderment, Stella and Selene, looking extremely desperate, brought me in front of the Popes. Hicc, Floretta swallowed her sobs.

Her green eyes, wet with tears, and her purple eyes, devoid of vitality, were solely fixed on me. I suppressed a sigh that was about to escape naturally and opened my mouth.

“What is all this about, Your Holiness?”

“Hicc… Honored Guest-nim… You’re… alive…?”

“Well, did you expect me to appear dead instead of alive? I am perfectly fine and alive. Why on earth are you acting like this? And what is this situation?”

“I… Hngh… I…”

As soon as Floretta heard my voice, it seemed her sorrow welled up again, and she shed tears profusely. She seemed to try to say something, but each time, her words were interrupted by her sniffling.

I turned my head towards Luna, implying if she could comfort her younger sister. But the Pope of the Moon, in her own way, was frozen in a daze and couldn’t collect herself.

It seemed I would have to step in after all.

I reached out my hand and slowly wiped under Floretta’s eyes with my thumb. Tears smudged onto my finger, and the transparent liquid flowed down my finger onto the back of my hand.

“Why are you crying? I’m right here. You can stop crying now.”

Tears continued to flow. I wiped under her eyes so much that I started to wonder if her skin might be chafing, but even after caressing it several times, there was no sign of that.

Floretta continued to cry in that state for a long time. Only after both my hands were thoroughly soaked with tears did her sniffling finally subside. Though she was still hiccuping, hicc, hicc.

“Are you a little calmer now?”

Floretta nodded slightly. Her cheeks were slightly red, as if she was embarrassed about having made such a scene in front of me.

“In that case, I will ask again. Your Holiness. What on earth happened?”

“The Honored Guest… with that monster, hngh, I thought you had died…”

“Died? Me?”

Nodding, nodding, Floretta, this time too, answered by nodding.

“May I ask why you thought I had died? Because I didn’t come out for too long?”

“That too, but… I also heard an explosion from underground… so…”

Her usual calm and benevolent tone was nowhere to be found, and her words were constantly broken by her sobbing in between, so I only understood about half of it, but I could roughly guess the reason.

To get straight to the point, the special death animation of the creature abandoned by God was the cause. Floretta had heard the explosion that occurred when its body burst.

‘Wow, that was heard all the way up here?’

I thought it would just echo a bit in the boss room and that would be it.

The situation clicked into place in my mind. It seemed Floretta had heard the explosion while waiting for me to come up from here.

Since I hadn’t returned for several hours even after the explosion was heard, her delusions must have run wild in a negative direction.

In reality, it was just a special death animation, but Floretta didn’t know that. There was plenty of room for misunderstanding.

Thanks to the unknown power that began to manifest midway, the time it took me to defeat the creature abandoned by God was just over an hour. Perhaps even shorter.

But after freeing the Popes from the curse in just one hour, I hadn’t shown myself for several times that amount of time.

Moreover, a massive explosion was heard, loud enough for the sound to reach all the way here from where the monster was, making it a perfect condition to think that something had gone wrong.

‘……I thought, “Surely nothing will happen just because I’m a little late.”‘

“Surely not” truly caught someone. It was a blessing in disguise that I didn’t linger because I didn’t want to be in that place any longer. If I had been any later, the situation would have gotten completely messed up.

“It’s okay. Your Holiness. I didn’t die, did I? I’ve returned perfectly alive like this.”

“Yes… that’s, that’s right. Sniff. You returned without dying.”

I quickly wiped the corners of Floretta’s eyes, which had started to well up again, and turned my head to Luna. Luna had been sitting there, staring at me with vacant eyes, but she flinched when our gazes met.

“Your Holiness, Pope of the Moon.”

“……Yes. I’m listening.”

“I kept my promise.”

There was no need to boast about my achievements, nor to give a lengthy, detailed explanation. A single phrase, “I kept my promise,” could convey a great deal.

I had promised that the Pope of the Moon would no longer have to sacrifice herself, and that the Pope of the Moon would never have to make a sacrifice. And I faithfully fulfilled that promise.

That no one had to die anymore. That was all I had to say.

The Pope of the Moon remained with her head bowed for a long time, then intermittently her shoulders hitched, and she barely managed to open her mouth in a deeply submerged voice.

“Thank… you… truly…”

Judging by the sounds of her sniffling and swallowing sobs intermittently, it seemed she was desperately trying to hold back her tears. I wiped Floretta’s tears one last time and stood up.

Floretta, seeing me stand up, flinched and raised her head. I let out a small laugh and said.

“You’ve confirmed that I’m perfectly fine, so isn’t it time for you to do what you need to do?”

With that, I cast a quick glance at Luna. Luna also carefully raised her head. Her purple eyes alternated between looking at me, who was moving further away, and her sobbing younger sister.

Until just after I came up to the surface, they had been too preoccupied, one crying and the other dazed, while embracing each other, so it was clear they hadn’t even exchanged proper greetings.

After confirming that the Pope of the Moon and the Pope of the Sun were looking at each other with tear-filled eyes, I retreated to a suitable distance. Stella and Selene took positions on either side of me.

“Why didn’t you come a little earlier, Honored Guest-nim?”

It was a voice close to a whine. From their perspective, it must have been extremely difficult. Since the Popes were grieving so much, thinking I had died, there would have been no clever way to comfort them.

“As you can see, I had quite a lot of luggage. When I tried to pack everything, the quantity was quite substantial.”

I pointed to the pile of items discarded behind my back. Selene asked in a slightly exasperated tone.

“……What are all those things?”

“They’re the things that were underground. I don’t know if that monster had a hobby of collecting treasures, but anyway, there was quite a lot. It would be a waste to just leave them there, wouldn’t it?”

“Is that so? I understand, Honored Guest-isiyeo. I will prepare one more carriage.”

“No. You don’t have to go to the trouble.”

“Huh? Then how will you take them?”

“They’re not things I need, you see.”

“Just a moment, Honored Guest-nim. What do you mean byㅡ”

Stella and Selene’s eyes widened in surprise. Just as Stella was about to ask what I meant, I raised my right index finger and brought it vertically to my lips, making a gesture for silence.

As if they realized why I was doing that, the two of them simultaneously closed their mouths and looked forward. Floretta and Luna were looking at each other, holding hands.

“……I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Evangelina. For saying bad things to you, for hitting you, just, just… I’m sorry for everything. For everything…”

Finally, tears burst from Luna’s eyes as well. Floretta strongly squeezed her hand and shook her head.

“No. I know why you did that, unnie. You wanted us to hate you, so that we would grieve less even if you sacrificed yourself, didn’t you? So why would you have any reason to be sorry, unnie…?”

The Popes couldn’t bring themselves to speak and just shed tears, then soon burst into loud sobs and embraced each other.

Their breasts, almost exposed, met in the center. Both were slightly pressed, changing shape. The pressed breasts pushed out amply to the sides.

Flesh mingled with flesh, and breast rubbed against breast. The opaque fabric covering the pink tips at their ends was pushed aside, proudly displaying the symbol of abundant motherhood.

Tears flowing from their green and purple eyes mixed and became messy on their cheeks each time they rubbed them together. A few drops of tears rolled down, gathered at their chins, and fell onto their chests.

The transparent liquid that fell onto their chests settled between the large masses of fat. Slipping, their touching breasts began to move even more smoothly.

Their arms, tightly embracing each other, naturally touched each other’s backs, and slender fingers spread out, slowly stroking the bare skin beyond the thin, sheer fabric.

Their other hands were clasped together. Their fingers were tightly intertwined as if they would never let go of this hand again. Their fingernails dug into the backs of their hands, but because of that, the grip on their hands grew even stronger.

I heard Stella sniffling beside me. Selene also had a somewhat choked-up expression.

Both of them had witnessed the suffering the Popes endured firsthand, so they must have been overcome with emotion at the thought that they no longer had to go through such pain.

As I, too, watched the Popes’ reunion scene…

‘If I react now, I’m trash. Good thoughts. Good thoughts. Good thoughts. Good thoughts. Good thoughts.’

I desperately tried to find somewhere to put my eyes.

It was clearly a reunion scene between sisters that should have been touching, but with their attire and actions overlapping, I couldn’t think of anything but how provocative it was. Even though I knew it was an unavoidable physiological phenomenon for a man, I felt a slight sense of self-loathing.

After that, the Popes continued to rub their tear-soaked cheeks together for a long time, and shared the joy of their reunion by pressing their chests together.

Similarly, my torment also continued for a long time.