Chapter 53
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Volume 2 + Chapter 53: She Knows Saintess Very Well
“I didn’t expect it to be like this. Her Holiness Saintess Selina has truly descended,” Mirexia mused thoughtfully. “So, did Her Holiness say anything else to you?”
“Well…” Winnie was momentarily stumped.
How could he tell Mirexia about the true appearance of his ancestor and her subsequent matchmaking phase?
“No, after possessing me to expel the Demon God Pillar, she seemed to have left.”
“Such a thing is truly remarkable,” Mirexia exclaimed.
Although there have been many historical accounts of goddesses or saintnesses appearing, they were all too ancient and lacking credibility.
It was exactly because the goddess had not appeared for so long that people had become unfamiliar with the term and gradually stopped believing in it.
“Winnie, you have gained the favor of Saintess Selina.”
“Uh, yeah,” Winnie remained silent.
He knew what the real Selina was like, but he had no idea how Mirexia would react.
“Perhaps this is the will of the goddess,” Mirexia looked at Winnie. “It is determined that the position of the Radiant Saintess will not be vacant, nor will it be without a successor.”
“No thanks, the current church is a mess, and I don’t want to get involved,” Winnie shook his head.
“Winnie, I actually think this can be seen as a revelation from Her Holiness the Goddess. If you have the desire to become a Saintess, this would be your legitimate reason.”
Winnie, of course, understood Mirexia’s words. Imagine a descendant of Varelis who was possessed by the Saintess, even if no longer affiliated with the church, after revealing the truth to the world, he would be the rightful heir to the Saintess.
But the church would undoubtedly interfere in this process, and he would face countless obstacles, even life-threatening ones.
For someone who wanted a peaceful life, the risks were too great.
Varelis had been expelled from the Church of Radiance for three generations, and no one could say for sure how powerful the Pope’s influence was in the current church.
Conservative estimates suggest that no church families dared to openly oppose the Pope anymore.
“Mirexia, you know me, I’ve never had such thoughts. Besides, this isn’t as simple as me turning into Venessa and shouting a slogan. If I want to establish myself in the current Church of Radiance, I need support. Otherwise, I’d just be a puppet manipulated by others,” Winnie explained.
For now, the entire incident could still be attributed to the goddess’s apparition.
If she were to step forward and declare herself the Radiant Saintess, wouldn’t that be like shouting to the church, ‘Come on, hit me!’?
“Isn’t there someone supporting you?” After a moment of contemplation, Mirexia suddenly spoke.
“Who? Who would dare to stand up to the church for me?” Winnie spread his hands, then realized what Mirexia meant and looked at her in surprise.
However, Mirexia’s expression remained unchanged, and Winnie knew that his childhood friend didn’t joke around.
“…Mirexia, don’t mess around. I appreciate your sentiment, but don’t lead the kingdom to rebel against the Church of Radiance for my sake,” Winnie said gravely.
If that were to happen, the continent would be plunged into war, and with the Church of Radiance as one of the belligerents, the nature of the conflict would be different.
It would be an unprecedented human upheaval, and if they lost, opposing the church would also strip the Camella Kingdom of its legitimacy.
Mirexia was his childhood friend, but personal matters were one thing, and national matters were another.
Mirexia was personally willing to help Winnie, but before that, she had to consider her identity.
She was the princess and first heir to the throne of the Camella Kingdom, the future queen of Camella.
If she, as the princess, led the charge in helping Winnie, it would mean the entire Camella Kingdom was opposing the church.
Mirexia understood this, and so did Winnie, which was why he had never imagined that Mirexia, as his close childhood friend, would lead the entire kingdom to help him.
The king of a country could have close personal friendships and help someone in a personal capacity, but when exercising royal power, he bore the responsibility for thousands of citizens, and it was no longer a matter of personal will.
Personal friendships and national matters had always been separate.
“Winnie, you know I’m not joking. I believe in you,” Mirexia said.
It wasn’t just because Winnie was her childhood friend.
She had her own judgment. In her eyes, there was no one more trusted than someone willing to sacrifice their life to save those who ignored them.
Who would doubt that Venessa was the Saintess??
If the current church doubted it, Mirexia would have to suspect that something within the church had become corrupt.
“…Let’s talk about this later,” Winnie felt the topic was too heavy and shifted the conversation to other matters.
“Alright, in the midst of misfortune, the silver lining is that this incident seems to have uprooted all the ‘Bronze Blood’ spies planted in the academy. It’s shocking that even the sanctuary had the claws of the Demon God Pillar, who were responsible for administering the alchemical potions that turned students into the Demon God Pillar’s minions,” Mirexia handed Winnie the list of exposed Demon God Pillar followers.
“By the way, Mirexia, what about the students who accidentally ingested Erunes’ potion and turned into monsters? Have they returned to normal?” Winnie asked anxiously.
“Hold on, let me check the relevant reports,” Mirexia expertly flipped through stacks of reports that were almost taller than her and pulled out the key ones.
—
A week had passed, and Carillian Academy seemed to have gradually emerged from the shadow of the recent Demon God Pillar attack.
Logically, experiencing such an attack would leave the survivors with some degree of psychological trauma, and in some cases, even mental disorders.
The Demon God Pillar was something foreign to the Terraria continent, and directly gazing upon a higher-dimensional outer god would cause many to suffer mental contamination, leading to cognitive disorders.
The reason everyone’s mental state recovered so quickly this time was entirely due to the blessing and healing bestowed by the descending goddess.
The light particles shed from her feathers not only heal the physical wounds of the victims but also their minds and spirits, purging the mental contamination from those who had seen the Demon God Pillar’s true form, and the goddess’s apparition had uplifted everyone’s spirits.
During this week, the students contaminated by the Demon God Pillar who were sent to the sanctuary recovered at a normal pace, with all their bodily functions returning to human levels, and they gradually regained consciousness.
At this moment, inside the academy’s sanctuary.
“Hey, buddy, where the hell am I?” Fred crossed his arms, frowning. Normally, he would wake up to a familiar ceiling, but today was different.
“Strange, I remember I had a cold and didn’t go to the Healing Festival celebration, and was sleeping at home. How did I end up here?” Fred asserted to himself.
Could he have been sleepwalking? No, he had never had a habit of sleepwalking.
Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his head and immediately clutched it, screaming.
“Ahhh! Damn it, damn it! What the hell is all this?!” Fragmented memories flashed through his mind, as if someone had forcibly stuffed them into his brain, causing him to grimace in pain.
Wait, what was all this?
Looking at these familiar yet strange and unimaginable scenes, Fred’s pupils contract.
Had he been controlled by the Demon God Pillar? And had he been used in a ritual with other controlled students?
In the air, what was that, six wings, shining so brightly it was blinding…
Was that the Goddess of Radiance?!
He was supposed to have turned into a monster, but was saved by the apparition of the Goddess of Radiance?!
What was this memory??
He clearly had no recollection of this, yet it feels as if he had experienced it firsthand.
When he tried to think more about it, a sharp pain shot through his head, almost suffocating him.
“Student, are you awake? What’s wrong? Do you have a headache? Where does it hurt, tell me quickly,” a nun in a habit, holding a cross, gently asked as Fred recovered from the pain.
“Ah, yes, I have a bit of a headache,” Fred was stunned. He used to be a card enthusiast, but now he suddenly felt he had the potential to become a sports fan, stammering his response.
“Is that so? Wait a moment, come closer, student,” the nun extended her hand towards Fred, and a green healing light appeared.
“Sister, don’t worry, that guy is fine. I think he’s just been lying down for too long, and his brain’s waterlogged,” a teasing voice came from the side, as a blue-haired young man lifted Fred on the hospital bed with a look of disdain.
“Tsk, you’re really something, usually bragging about how focused you are, and now this.”
“Tsk! Winnie, don’t ruin my moment!” Fred angrily retorted.
“See, Sister, he’s only been awake for a short while and can already shout this loudly. I told you he’s fine,” Winnie pointed at Fred and teased.
The newcomer was naturally Winnie. After finishing his tasks with Mirexia that day, he sprayed on some cheap perfume, returned to the dormitory, and informed Shikondel that he was safe, seeing that she had been worried about him all day without sleeping.
Winnie felt a pang of guilt and urged her to rest, then went to visit his card-playing friends.
“Student, are you here to visit?” the nun asked Winnie.
“Yeah, sort of, to see if this guy’s dead yet. But it seems he’s tough and not easy to kill,” Winnie said nonchalantly.
“Is that so,” the nun gasped, covering her mouth.
She had noticed this blue-haired male student a few days ago, always keeping an eye on whether Fred had woken up. Now that he was awake, he acted as if he didn’t care at all.
The nun just smiled and didn’t point it out.
“Well, students, if you need anything, just call me. I’ll be in the main hall outside,” with that, the nun turned and left.
“Hey, hey, Sister, I’m actually still a bit uncomfortable,” Fred couldn’t help but said.
“Enough, stop pretending. I could hear you shouting from the hallway,” Winnie rolled his eyes at Fred.
“You were controlled by the Demon God Pillar and still managed to survive. You’re really tough.”
“Demon God Pillar, controlled?” Fred frowned, recalling the fragmented memories that had flashed through his mind.
“Memory lapse? You have no idea how big this incident was. You’ve been unconscious for about a week,” Winnie then recounted the entire incident to Fred.
“Damn, this sounds like a made-up story, but it’s so intense?!” Fred exclaimed.
“All this happened to me? But it feels like it was just a short while ago. We were still in the middle of a card game two days ago.”
“Completely unaware, yet unharmed. You’re really lucky.”
“What, jealous?” Fred snorted. “I’ve got a tough life, always have someone to help me out.”
“I guess my luck isn’t so bad after all. I usually can’t even draw a gold card, but it seems all my luck was used up in this situation. Lucky me, I tell you, Winnie, if it were you who got caught up in this, you might have really been done for.”
“I used up all my luck at the critical moment, unlike you, who used it all up in normal times. What would you do at the critical moment?”
“Luck?” Winnie thought about how Fred was saved and found it quite amusing.
But it really was a matter of luck. If Selina hadn’t descended at the critical moment, the outcome would have been hard to say.
Winnie couldn’t help but wonder what Fred’s life was like in the original story. In the original, Fred was a nameless NPC.
If it wasn’t for him, would Fred have died in this incident according to the original plot?
After chatting with Fred for a while, the guy said he was hungry and asked Winnie to bring him some food.
In the end, Winnie agreed to the deal at the cost of a pack of cards, and went to get Fred some food.
“Excuse me, excuse me,” just as he stepped out of the room, a figure hastily passed by in the hallway and bumped into Winnie’s chest.
“Ouch! Who the hell is it? Daring to bump into me, don’t you have eyes?!” Winnie almost fell over, cursing while thinking the figure looked familiar. He looked up and saw it was someone he knew.
“I’m so sorry, I…” Fanya paused when she saw who she had bumped into.
“It’s you?!” They both spoke in unison.
“….”
“Uh, that day, I’m sorry,” seeing Winnie, Fanya was about to speak but suddenly seemed to remember something, opened her mouth, then fell silent.
She then placed her hands on her abdomen, pursed her lips, as if going through a fierce internal struggle, and finally calmed her conflicted expression, bowing deeply to Winnie and sincerely apologizing.
“Huh?” The apology caught Winnie off guard.
He had expected her to start an argument upon seeing him, but instead, she directly apologized.
“What are you talking about? What happened that day?”
“I shouldn’t have bothered you with that reason that day,” Fanya apologized.
“But, even though I’ve apologized! I still have doubts about your identity, because…” After all, she had seen the true form of the Goddess of Radiance, or the Radiant Saintess, with her own eyes.
In her eyes, Winnie was far from being comparable to the goddess who had appeared that day.
Only the compassion for all beings and the determination to follow through with actions were the qualities of the goddess and saintess she should follow.
So far, this boy who superficially bore the surname Varelis was far from achieving that, and she hadn’t even seen him during the incident.
After saying this, Fanya hurriedly left, and seemed also here to visit someone.
“…” Winnie watched her retreating figure and scratched his head.
