Chapter 62
Chapter 62. Miracles Don’t Happen So Easily
It was the same place, but a different memory.
A priest standing on the platform at the front of the prayer room began reciting a prayer in a quiet and calm voice. In front of the priest, who was tediously expounding on the need for praise and faith towards God, several children sat in chairs, joining in prayer. Nemil also offered a brief prayer before raising his head.
“They seem to be children being cared for by the temple.”
“Why do you think so?”
When Tatar asked, Nemil pointed to the clothes the children were wearing.
“Their clothes are all the same. The orphanage where I stayed used to send clothes like that from the temple… But it’s a bit strange. They usually send clothes of the same design every year, but I’ve never seen those clothes before.”
“Empress.”
“Yes. I think I understand roughly what you’re getting at.”
She knew what he was trying to say.
The priest Barmando, who was sent in place of Nemil, is well over sixty years old. The marks he said he left on the chair when he was young are not visible, and the clothes provided by the temple, which packages old-fashioned practices as rules and is reluctant to change anything easily, are different from what they are now.
It might be someone’s memory from at least decades, perhaps even hundreds of years ago.
At this moment, why did Balak’s words come to mind? That girl named Ansha, who he said first discovered Sefitiana, dying lonely in a remote rural village.
“Look, it’s the person we saw earlier.”
Following Nemil’s gaze, they turned their heads to see a black-haired woman sitting at the very back of the lined-up chairs, quietly staring straight ahead.
The woman’s eyes, which were not offering prayers, showed no trace of awe or faith towards God. Vinea felt a strange sense of kinship with that woman for some reason.
The woman’s lips moved slightly. A small voice, as if scattering, flowed from her mouth.
[Why did it have to be me? Why…]
It’s a familiar phrase. Those words uttered by that woman in front of God, in the temple where one is thought to be able to come closest to God.
Noticing the strangely subdued atmosphere between Vinea and Tatar, Nemil opened his mouth to change the mood.
“Could the memory in the artifact be of that woman?”
Vinea shook her head lightly.
“No. Rather, it should be the other one. The person who has appeared without fail.”
There was a girl sitting a little distance away from the woman, glancing at her. Then, as if afraid their eyes might meet, she quickly turned her head back to resume praying, her curiosity evident.
Vinea turned her head to look out the window above the priest’s head who was offering prayers. A sky with no visible sun. The dark clouds were full, and the pouring rain showed no signs of stopping.
Once again, the space began to distort. Soon, a space that looked like the priest’s office appeared before their eyes. In the not-so-large space, the woman and the girl were standing opposite the priest.
As if to show that they were not the protagonists of this story, Vinea, Tatar, and Nemil were standing outside the wide-open office.
Nemil muttered, looking at the large luggage bag placed to the left of the woman.
“I wonder if she’s trying to leave the temple…”
The weather outside the window behind the priest was bright. However, the shadow cast on the woman’s face hadn’t changed much from when she first entered this temple.
The priest spoke to the woman.
[Is what you say truly the truth?]
The woman nodded. With a mix of surprise and disbelief on his face, the priest pulled out a small bottle from the drawer. Nemil looked at the bottle with a surprised face.
“It’s holy water. I heard even priests can only receive it once every three years…”
He had only seen it once since entering the temple.
The priest opened the cork stopper and poured the holy water straight down.
“Such a precious thing…!”
Nemil’s expression of bewilderment changed to shock at the scene that followed.
A fantastic aurora light filled the room. Although the room brightened, it didn’t hurt the eyes, and instead seemed to emit a warm energy. If there was God’s blessing, would it be like this?
In this space, only Vinea, Tatar, and the unnamed woman standing with an expressionless face showed no reaction.
Soon, the light began to fade. Despite the quickly extinguished light, the shock remained, and the priest staggered and leaned on the desk.
The remaining holy water flowed down under the circular gem that had lost its light in front of him. Droplets fell to the floor, making a dripping sound as they ran down the desk.
[How can this be…]
[It’s no longer of any use to me. It’s not even something I can use.]
The priest raised his head.
[What is your reason for handing this over to our temple?]
The woman’s head turned towards the girl standing beside her with a surprised face. Her eyes furrowed. Her lips, holding a bitter smile, moved.
[This child asked me if I believe in God.]
The woman raised her hand and gently stroked the girl’s head. She continued speaking.
[That’s why. Because I don’t believe.]
Once again, the space began to distort.
Now Vinea was almost certain. It was that woman.
The first person to make a wish to Sefitiana. The very person who led us to hell.
Soon, a space that seemed to be underground, unlike before with not a speck of light entering, greeted them.
Now the girl’s figure was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a boy who looked about the same age as the girl from earlier was diligently scrubbing the floor with a rag.
Seemingly struggling with his frail body, the boy put down the rag for a moment to catch his breath. Then, he clasped his hands together and closed his eyes, beginning to offer a prayer to God.
Although it seemed pointless to pray to an illusion that had already passed, Nemil closed his eyes and joined in prayer as if to lend strength to the child’s prayer.
Vinea sneered. Where does this faith come from? According to the scriptures, it’s all due to the fate determined by God that the boy came to the orphanage without a guardian and is now cleaning here with difficulty.
Thinking that if it were her, her faith would have disappeared instead, Vinea watched the boy get up from his spot and walk somewhere.
The space moved based on the child, following his figure as he walked, suppressing his footsteps as much as possible.
Nemil tilted his head.
“This is strange. Judging by how the illusion moves following the boy, it seems to be the boy’s memory, but he wasn’t in the memory we saw earlier.”
Tatar, who was following the boy’s back figure with his eyes along with Vinea, answered.
“The fact that it’s showing such vivid illusions in the first place is proof that this is no ordinary artifact. It could contain the memories of two, or perhaps even more people.”
The boy who stood in front of a room where light was leaking from the barely lit basement with only a few candles lit, brought his left eye to the slightly open door gap.
The sound of someone reciting a prayer came from inside the room.
The boy’s posture of secretly peeking remained the same, but the door that had only a small gap slowly began to open. The three realized that this was a device to show the memory in more detail.
As the door fully opened, there was a priest kneeling below what was probably the cleanest white marble platform in this temple. At a glance, it wasn’t the priest seen in the girl’s memory.
The attitude of the priest, who was muttering prayer without stopping, showed some obsession or madness rather than noble faith.
What on earth was he praying to so fervently? There were no symbolic objects needed for prayer in the room. No statues modeled after God, no scriptures, no crystal glasses filled with holy water.
Instead, there was only a single translucent circular gem that had lost its light on top of the platform.
“What on earth could that be, I’ve never seen it before…”
It wasn’t Vinea or Tatar who answered Nemil’s question.
The priest who had been praying finally raised his head. He muttered towards the gem with a face full of ecstasy.
[—Therefore, please bestow your blessing, Sefitiana.]
Nemil muttered with a bewildered look.
“Did he say Sefitiana…?”
“The memory is changing. Focus.”
At Tatar’s words, Nemil’s head turned back to the front.
The space began to ripple. Eventually, the place where the three stood was once again upstairs.
The priest and the boy seen in the underground prayer room were standing in front of the open temple door, looking outside. Another child holding a small luggage bag left the temple.
The boy looked back. There was no longer any sign of life inside the temple except for the priest and the boy.
The priest put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
[Now you are the one to succeed me and uphold God’s will.]
The priest turned the boy’s body towards him and bent down. He firmly grasped the boy’s thin shoulders. As if not seeing the boy’s pained face, blue veins were visible on the back of the priest’s hand gripping the shoulder.
[You must not forget that this is an honor and a blessing. We are the chosen ones of God. When Sefitiana regains its light someday, we will become God’s messengers recorded in history.]
[Priest…]
[Don’t doubt. You shouldn’t. All of this is a trial given by God.]
Once again, the space began to change.
Since all of this was just an illusion, and the space they were actually standing in was still the reception room in the imperial palace, there wasn’t much worry.
What appeared before their eyes was a priestess screaming in the basement where Sefitiana was placed.
In the arms of the priestess, who looked quite old, was a baby wrapped in a cloth. However, the state of the baby, who neither cried nor made any small movements, was easily guessed.
The kneeling priestess wailed towards Sefitiana.
[Please, God! I’ll do anything, I’ll pay any price! So please bestow Sefitiana’s miracle! Please grant me the chance, the mercy to save my child!]
Then, with the arm not holding the child, the priestess took out holy water from her bosom and pulled out the cork stopper with her mouth as if tearing it off. Without hesitation, she poured it over Sefitiana, and a brilliant aurora light filled the basement.
But that was all. An empty glass bottle fell from the priestess’s hand. The glass bottle rolled and stopped at Vinea’s feet.
Deep resentment and hatred instantly filled the priestess’s face. She screamed.
[It’s been 700 years! Is this really the response to God’s blessing, the secret we’ve kept for such a long time? Urogia!]
The priestess called out God’s name. Daringly irreverently, and desperately.
Nemil muttered with a blank face.
“Could it be real? That gem, I mean. If it’s really Sefitiana, then why…”
“No.”
Vinea said.
“Even if it is Sefitiana, that’s not God’s blessing or anything of the sort.”
The priestess carefully put down the child’s corpse she had been holding in her arms on one side of the platform. Her empty eyes were full of hatred towards God.
Eventually, the priestess, holding the lightless Sefitiana in her arms, passed through the three of them and went out of the basement.
Vinea could guess where she was heading. Towards the border of Veshnu and Tessibania, where the long war began, when humans most sought and began to doubt God.
The surroundings began to blur like smoke. Finally, the old memories come to an end. Beyond the blurring space, the familiar appearance of the reception room was gradually becoming clear.
Watching the disappearing back of the priestess, Vinea coldly spat out.
“Because what that woman gained from Sefitiana was not a miracle, but only despair.”
