Chapter 37

After that, for about three weeks straight, I visited the princess every single day.

It might sound a bit strange to say, but it felt somewhat like taming wild animals. I would bring snacks and delicious food, feed her, and also bring a few picture books to read to her.

Every Tuesday at 2 PM, she would become neurotic as always, trying to self-harm and exhibit violent behavior. But every time, I would actively hug her and soothe her.

I sang nursery rhymes, songs, anime theme songs, and every song I could think of until she fell asleep while sobbing and trembling.

Could it be because of all that effort?

“I’m leaving. I’ll come again tomorrow…”

Today, just before leaving,

Princess Iomenes smiled at me.

“She smiled… Iomenes smiled…”

When I relayed this story, the Empress and Emperor could not hide their tears.

Yes.

Even though this is all just an act to avoid my own impending doom, seeing their happiness didn’t make me feel bad at all.

Judging by her condition, it won’t be long now.

The piece of the Evil God inside Princess Iomenes will soon transfer to me.

It’s a bittersweet feeling.

Even though my life in this world has been filled with unpleasant memories, I still feel sad knowing I’ll never see these people again.

Particularly… Erpa.

I had just started courting a woman, and now I have to leave so soon.

But what can I do?

Surviving must come first.

“Saint! My son!”

“The mother cannot see!”

I kept treating, and treating, and treating the sick.

Anyway, I won’t see them again.

It’s best to treat them as much as possible before I leave.

Without distinguishing between the poor and the rich, nobles and commoners, I spent the past three weeks running around and healing the sick and injured.

Thanks to that, the contributions and donations from the nobles increased even more, and the slums flourished using those funds, but now, it doesn’t matter.

I don’t care anymore.

Being this so-called saint,

The ridiculously crude skill descriptions.

It’s all over now.

Times feel as if I’ve reached enlightenment.

Well.

The slums have stabilized too.

What else could possibly happen now?

“Saint! Saint!”

“Saint Amael! My daughter…”

“My wife suffered burns! Please, Saint!”

It happened.

One morning.

While still drowsy from sleep, a group of people suddenly arrived, banging on my door.

When I rushed out in a hurry due to their frantic voices, countless people were lying on the street, melting faces and frothing at the mouth.

“Quickly! Bring the potions! Hurry!”

The clerics from the treatment center were frantically flying around, treating people, but there were far too many to handle.

Mostly women.

And young girls.

In that moment,

I recognized them.

The 15 matchstick-selling girls I had saved from the back alleys.

They were exactly the same kind of people.

“Fire broke out in a nearby factory! Saint! Please save my wife!”

I felt a sharp jolt of alertness from the cries of grief.

“Bring severely injured patients to me! Immediately!”

When I shouted, it seemed like the Lilia clerics from the Church of Grace were already accustomed to such situations as they swiftly sorted and brought patients to me.

I urgently treated the collapsed women.

Their faces were all horrific.

Someone choking while burning.

A woman with her head completely charred, looking grotesquely like a lump of meat.

A child, likely poisoned by phosphorus, with her jaw melted away down to the bone.

As I kept treating them frantically, familiar faces began to appear before my eyes.

“Saint! Please heal her!”

I remembered treating a young girl whose face had melted from exposure to chemical products while making white phosphorus matches.

This girl was suffering from the same reason as the one I had healed before.

There was a woman who, despite having too many mouths to feed at home and being poor, continued working in a factory that paid a meager wage and caused her bones to dissolve with hard labor, and now she lay before me with severe burns all over her body.

I had healed these women and children before, so their faces were engraved in my memory.

Fury began to rise.

Why.

Why!

Why!!

Why are they coming back to me in the same condition after I healed them?

I know.

“I can’t promise that the factories in the third district of the slums will offer high-wage jobs. We’re doing our best to attract businesses… but still, the majority of workers go to the factories on the outskirts of the capital. All the poor people in the capital cannot survive on a daily wage of 1 sared.”

Those words of Jonathan Karma came to mind.

My fists clenched tightly enough to crush them.

After treating all the dozens of severe patients brought before me, I left the treating clerics and walked forward.

“Where is the factory that caught fire?”

“The fire hasn’t been extinguished yet! It’s dangerous, Saint!”

“Guide me! Immediately!”

At my rare shout, the slum dwellers were startled but quickly led me.

As I walked with them, the smell of burnt human flesh and acrid smoke invaded my nose.

Fed up, I enhanced my strength through body modification and began sprinting at an incredible speed.

There might still be people who can be saved.

If I arrive just a little earlier,

I can save them.

While running and running frantically with that thought in mind,…

“AAAAHH!! My daughter!! AAAAHH!!”

“Mom! Mom!!”

“No! No! Please!”

In front of the burning factory, dozens of charred bodies that were hardly recognizable as human lay sprawled on the ground.

They cried and wept while clinging to the charred remains.

I approached the remains and used my skill.

[The skill can only be cast on living beings!]

[The skill can only be cast on living beings!]

[The skill can only be cast on living beings!]

[The skill can only be cast on living beings!]

I kept trying the skill repeatedly, but the results were the same.

Can’t save them.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t revive the dead.

Damn.

What is this wretched feeling?

As I helplessly stared at the completely charred bodies in despair,

“My daughter! My daughter is still up there!”

“You can’t go in!”

“Daughter! Daughter! My daughter! Please save her! She’s still inside!”

The cries of a young mother reached my ears.

Looking back, I saw a young girl standing precariously on the third-floor balcony, amidst the roaring flames.

She’s still alive.

With that thought, my body moved instinctively.

“You can’t go in! Saint…”

Before the policeman blocking me could finish his sentence, I cast Time Stop.

I don’t know how much longer the girl can hold on.

I need to hurry.

As always, I partially lifted the Time Stop in a specific area.

How?

I did it in a way that allowed me to walk directly from where I stood to the balcony where the girl was.

Fortunately, my plan worked just as I anticipated.

In an instant, I reached the balcony by walking on air and broke through the window into the room, where I found the young girl right in front of me.

The girl, whose skin had already been severely burned, was lying face down on the floor, foaming at the mouth, unable to breathe properly due to the smoke.

I released the Time Stop on the girl’s body and picked her up.

I used Body Modification.

Immediately, the girl’s body was healed.

As the pain disappeared and she returned to normal, the girl looked up at me with wide, surprised eyes.

“Saint?”

I didn’t have the strength to respond to her words.

Damn.

Despite walking only that short distance, I’d already consumed a considerable amount of mental energy.

This goddamn skill mechanism is ridiculous!

Still, it was manageable to some extent.

“Clutch onto me tightly.”

The girl obeyed my command and tightly pressed her body against mine.

Focus.

If I make a mistake, I might not hurt myself, but the girl could get injured.

Just like before, I carefully stepped down on the air layer frozen in time and began descending slowly.

It wasn’t long before

I was standing outside the factory with the girl in my arms.

“……Sir! It’s dangerou……. Huh?”

The policeman who tried to stop me shouted and rushed towards me the moment the Time Stop was released, only to halt in shock when he saw the girl in my arms.

He probably thought that I, who was standing still a moment ago, had suddenly appeared with the girl in my arms.

I placed the now completely healed young girl gently on the ground using Body Modification.

“Take this girl to her mother…”

“Adel!!”

Before I could say anything, the girl’s mother rushed forward and hugged her tightly.

“Ah! Thank you! Thank you! Lady Lilia! Saint! Thank you… thank you.”

Watching the mother and child wail and cry in gratitude, I couldn’t help but smile faintly.

“Bring the patients to me. I will heal them.”

I did my best to heal as many people as possible.

I didn’t want to see anyone else end up like those charred bodies.

As I put forth great effort, firemen from the capital and wizards from the Mage Tower arrived in a hurry, dousing the factory with water and magic to finally extinguish the fire. Only then did I finally have a chance to breathe a sigh of relief.

“What is this outrage!”

As I leaned against a wall, catching my breath for a moment,

Someone shouted.

“Who gave you permission to use the water from the warehouse? All that belongs to Leota Company’s inventory!”

A chubby middle-aged man was yelling.

“If we hadn’t taken that water, the fire would have spread even more!”

“I don’t care about that! We’ll calculate the amount of water you used and charge accordingly! There’s no law allowing you to use company property at will!”

The middle-aged man paid no heed to the firemen’s words.

As his words reached the ears of the injured workers lying on the ground, they rose one by one with fiery eyes.

“It’s your fault, you bastard!”

“Factory manager! If you had just told Baron Hanson, CEO of Leota Company, to properly install fire prevention facilities, my family wouldn’t have burned to death! You disgusting piece of crap!”

The families of the victims, now charcoal-blackened, yelled furiously, but the man dubbed “factory manager” didn’t seem to care at all.

Spitting out a yellow glob of saliva, likely from chewing tobacco, he slowly said,

“You noisy bastards. You’re just trying to extort money. Ah well! I’ll give you some compensation. Let’s say 1 sared per person who died. That should be enough, right? That even exceeds three months’ wages for you lot.”

The factory manager chuckled.

“You were cursed by the gods for being born poor. Why should we waste money installing proper firefighting equipment when it’s cheaper just to pay each dead person’s family 1 sared? Are you upset? If you’re upset, I’ll fire everyone! Fire! Do you want to lose your jobs, along with your families?”

“Evil bastard!! Evil bastard!!”

“Your soul will descend to hell! You piece of trash!”

The cries of mourning spread, but no worker dared to charge at him.

The policemen, armed with guns, stood guard near the factory manager who had arrived at the fire scene, and behind him were men who looked like bodyguards, openly displaying handguns on their hips as they glared at the crowd.

Of course.

They’re scared.

Gun wounds hurt.

Moreover, even if they managed to overpower the bodyguards and the policemen and beat him up, the aftermath would be far more frightening.

Losing jobs.

Being unemployed is sometimes scarier than getting shot.

I understand.

But what about me?

The police and bodyguards,

Do you have the guts to shoot me?

I’m the person treating the emperor’s daughter.

I’m a saint recognized by the Temple of the Divine.

I guarantee it.

You would never dare to shoot me.

And the aftermath?

I’m leaving for Korea in a while anyway.

I’ll return to Korea where there’s no divine curses or soul destruction.

So…

[Body Modification! Strength increased 20x!]

This is fine for me.

After applying Body Modification to myself, I looked around for something I could use as a weapon but didn’t find much, so I loosened my belt from my waist and held it in my hand.

Then I charged at the factory manager with incredible speed.

Empowered with 20x strength, my belt whipped towards the factory manager who was spewing nonsense.

With a sharp crack!

The manager flew through the air, spraying bloody teeth like a red corn cob, and slammed into the side of his car.