MPBGS 70

Chapter : 70

 The maid with a scarf wrapped below her nose watched without blinking as Evangelin drained the wine. Only after retrieving the empty glasses from Evangelin and Kinder Toten did she move again.

How strange. Holy water had no effect on Evangelin Rohanson. Was she not a demon?

Judging by the way she swallowed it, there had been no trick—she had truly drunk the wine mixed with holy water in its entirety. The way she downed it in one go almost seemed like a display, as if to prove that holy water was no weakness of hers.

As the maid idly turned the empty glass in her hands, a supervising maid snapped at her.

“Hey, you! What are you standing around for? Do you think you have time to rest? Hurry and serve more wine!”

Nodding, Saraka picked up another tray. From the pocket of her apron, she mixed holy water into every glass. Some glasses were taken from her along the way, but she didn’t stop them. Holy water wasn’t poison—whoever drank it didn’t matter.

“Bring me a glass as well.”

Fortunately, she reached the person she needed before all the glasses were gone. Handing one to Viscount Huikel, she delivered her request.

Contrary to his public reputation, Viscount Huikel was perceptive and tight-lipped—one of Saraka’s most useful tools. Recently, she had even helped him build ties with Count Rohanson, making him all the more convenient to use.

“So? You want me to subtly provoke Duke Hosaquin? Hah… you sure know my specialty.”

Duke Hosaquin had sticky fingers and a fiery temper. Especially when angered, he lost all rational judgment. If Huikel provoked him just right, he would inevitably throw a glass of wine at Evangelin.

Drinking hadn’t worked. Then what about being doused in it? And what about wounds?

Saraka felt her heart race, just as it had when dealing with heretics in the underground prison.

Soon after, Evangelin and Kinder approached Duke Hosaquin. The duke smashed one intact glass before hurling another filled with wine. However, Saraka hadn’t expected the knight commander to shield Evangelin and take the blow instead. She had briefly arranged for Sir Muzeta to remove him, but he had already returned.

Viscount Huikel avoided Saraka’s gaze, aware the plan had slightly gone awry. But Saraka paid him no attention—she was overwhelmed with delight. Beneath her scarf, her scarred lips stretched into a grotesquely wide smile.

Huikel believed the knight commander had only been hit with ordinary wine—but the second glass thrown by the duke had also been mixed with holy water.

“Ah!”

A maid cleaning the broken glass cut her hand. Even she dismissed it as a mistake, but Saraka clearly saw the moment the skin split. The holy water mixed into the wine healed it instantly.

Yet the knight commander’s wound—though struck directly by holy water—showed no sign of healing.

Found it…

She had intended to uncover Evangelin’s secret, but instead discovered the knight commander’s weakness. An unexpected gain.

Seeing his soaked and injured state, Evangelin told Gabriel to go change his clothes.

Saraka followed him out. No one paid attention to a single maid moving about—it made things easy.

Servants were not treated as equals to nobles. Even with half her face hidden by a scarf, no one found it strange.

Except for Kinder Toten. The fact that she had spoken to Saraka and asked about her situation showed how considerate she was. Truly a pity—if not for her son, she would have been a perfect devotee of Lady Rahel.

Thinking back to when she had been ordered to stop supplying holy water to Kinder Toten, Saraka felt a pang in her chest. But openly giving holy water to the “cursed” would make the temple look greedy—it couldn’t be helped. Still, Kinder seemed to have come to despise Saraka—and more precisely, the one she served—as hypocrites.

Quietly, Saraka trailed the knight commander.

“Sir Gabriel! What happened to you?”

“It was unavoidable. Could you fetch me a change of clothes?”

“Yes! I’ll bring them right away!”

The knight who went to retrieve the clothes soon returned. Waiting nearby, Saraka stepped forward.

“You’ll deliver them to Sir Gabriel? Then I’ll leave it to you.”

Saraka took the clothes and entered the room where Gabriel was waiting. He had already removed his soaked upper garments.

“Are you bringing them on his behalf? Thank you.”

Unlike other knights, Gabriel spoke politely and received the clothes with courtesy.

Saraka stole a glance at him, feigning shyness as she covered her face—when in truth, it was to hide her splitting grin. Afraid her pounding heartbeat might be heard, she quickly left the room.

She had seen it clearly.

On Gabriel’s chest was a round scar.

Back when he—no, Bishop Marik—could still speak clearly instead of merely breathing, he had once begun recounting a memory while pressing Saraka’s hand into a brazier.

“Seeing fire reminds me of the past… haha. Not when my family burned to death in a heretic’s fire and I alone survived—but long after that. Saraka, have you ever heard of His Majesty’s youngest child?”

Unable to speak due to the burns on her face, she had shaken her head. Without pause, Marik continued—still holding her hand in the fire.

“They say the child died before his first cry—but that is not true. How do I know? Because I was the one who smuggled the prince away.”

Even as her hand burned, Saraka listened intently.

According to him, royal family members bore a sacred mark—a dragon biting its own tail, symbolizing eternity and the empire’s everlasting rule.

It was an honor to receive this mark, engraved by the most trusted priest—Marik himself during Emperor Mater’s reign.

The newborn royal’s body would be branded with fire, then healed with holy water. The flesh would recover, but the mark remained like a tattoo.

“But for the youngest prince… holy water did not work.”

Marik smiled faintly.

“Do not be surprised. Sometimes such beings are born—those so steeped in sin that even upon rebirth, Lady Rahel turns her face away from them.”

Such beings must suffer through many lifetimes of atonement before being accepted again.

The emperor ordered the child killed—but Marik instead entrusted him to a couple to raise.

Later, when the emperor discovered this, he was furious and sent knights to kill the boy. But all they found were the adoptive parents, living decadently off the funds Marik had given them. The child was gone.

Those without Rahel’s blessing rarely lived long. Marik believed the child must have already met his fate.

“I only hope he lives on… suffering somewhere.”

“Now your hands resemble mine as well.”

After removing her hand from the fire, Marik smiled gently at the matching scars. Saraka mimicked his smile.

“With this, no one will be able to tell us apart.”

He had also told her how to recognize the prince: the mark would not be a proper tattoo, but a scar.

Just as he described—a ruined dragon, stripped of wings and claws, reduced to something like a serpent.

That very scar was on the knight commander’s body.

Suppressing her excitement, Saraka headed not to the banquet hall, but to a room provided by a royal descendant.

Inside stood a holy knight who appeared devout—hands clasped, eyes closed in prayer.

Around him lay dismembered corpses.

Five heads. Seven arms. More than thirteen legs.

How many had died in such a short time?

“Lord Azazel.”

At her call, his eyes snapped open.

Azazel Astaroth was not part of Gabriel’s knight order, but a personal guard of Bishop Marik.

“You’re late, Saraka. I got bored and played with some palace servants.”

“I believe I’ve found what Bishop Marik lost. I took time to confirm it.”

By “lost,” she meant Gabriel.

With a breath, Azazel erased all traces of the massacre. Only the lingering scent of blood remained.

“You’re awfully devoted to a dying man.”

He mocked her, then pulled her close, removing her scarf and gloves to reveal her burned face and hands.

“What’s so great about the one who did this to you?”

Saraka never resented Marik. She had been raised not to.

“So? Did you test the holy water?”

“Yes. It had no effect on Evangelin Rohanson. She’s not a demon… perhaps just cursed?”

“You think that’s human?”

Azazel scoffed.

Saraka flicked holy water onto him. His flesh melted instantly.

“If she were a demon, even a drop would do this.”

“…Try not to experiment on me. It’s hard to recover.”

His flesh slowly regenerated—but more sluggishly than before.

“So what is she?”

A god? Impossible…

“Are you sure you want to frame Evangelin Rohanson?”

“Precisely because it’s her—it has meaning.”

Azazel had wanted to eliminate Evangelin as a threat. Saraka thought the opposite.

This was all to recreate the golden age of the temple—the era of heretic purges.

If she could experience it firsthand, just as Marik had, she could truly become him.

A being immune to holy water, with demons at her side—wasn’t that the perfect enemy to unite believers against?

Azazel suddenly leaned in, inhaling her scent.

“…This is Flauros.”

The demon had been in the banquet hall.

Azazel smirked.

“Will it interfere with the plan?”

“Not at all. Fooling Flauros is easy. Aside from his eyesight, he’s nothing special.”

He exhaled softly.

By now, the banquet hall would be in total darkness.

Humans would be panicking.

And Flauros—blinded—would be the most confused of all.

Azazel grinned.

He couldn’t possibly miss such an amusing spectacle.