I’m Not A Saint Though?

Chapter 3

The cave I had entered in a fit of anger was incredibly dark and chilly.

I walked briskly through the space, which resembled the belly of a giant snake.

I walked, and walked.

It was just when my feet were throbbing and I thought I couldn’t walk any further…

*Growl—*

A loud beastly roar echoed through the cave.

A terrifying sound that made my heart drop and my legs tremble.

*Gasp!*

Frozen in shock, unable to react, two lights flashed in the darkness.

The fierce eyes of a beast.

It was undoubtedly the eyes of the very lion, the Goddess’s Representative.

*Thud—*

My legs gave way, and I collapsed weakly onto the ground.

The lion, staring intently at me, took a heavy step forward with its massive paws.

*Thump. Thump.*

Finally, revealed under the torchlight, the lion’s body was even larger than I had imagined.

Large enough to swallow me whole without even chewing.

‘N-No…’

What? I wanted to die quickly?

I wanted to see for myself if ghosts really existed?

My pathetic bravado crumbled before the imminent fear of death.

‘I… I don’t want to die. I didn’t struggle to survive just to become a beast’s meal!’

A belated yearning for survival washed over me.

I wanted to run away right then and there, but perhaps due to the overwhelming fear, my legs wouldn’t move.

Just as I was wiggling my bottom like a worm,

*Growl—!*

The lion, now right in front of me, stretched its neck and opened its mouth.

As if it were about to swallow me whole.

‘It’s over…’

I stared at the lion’s gaping maw with resigned eyes and wished.

That my flesh and bones wouldn’t be crushed by those terrifying teeth.

That I could be swallowed whole and spared the agonizing pain of being torn apart.

As if answering my wish, the lion roared once more.

“Damn it, I said I’m not eating!”

“…?”

What was this?

I widened my eyes and looked around.

There was no way a lion could speak human language, could there be another person in this cave besides me?

But no matter how thoroughly I searched, there were only two of us in the cave: the lion and me.

‘What? Is something wrong with my ears?’

Or had my mind gone haywire from the extreme fear of death?

As I sat there blankly, unable to discern what was happening, the lion slammed its large paw on the ground.

And roared again…

“Why do they keep sending humans in here? I said I don’t eat humans!”

…What struck my ears was indeed human speech.

And it was in the Catalon Empire language.

‘Am I dreaming right now?’

So dumbfounded, I stared blankly at the lion, frozen like a statue.

The lion, glancing at me, sighed deeply.

“Sigh, she must be dead again.”

Then, it turned around irritably.

‘Wh-What? Is it leaving? Am I… alive?’

Forgetting my doubts about how a lion could speak human language, I swelled with the faintest glimmer of hope that I might live.

But then, what was this?

The lion suddenly started acting strangely.

It raised its tail straight up towards the cave ceiling.

Just as I tilted my head, wondering what it meant,

My body, which had been stuck to the ground, suddenly floated up into the air.

‘Wh-What is this…!’

An unfamiliar sensation of my feet not touching the ground made me want to scream.

But before I could, my body began to float somewhere.

What in the world was going on?

‘Is this the lion’s doing?’

No matter how much I thought about it, that was the only explanation I could come up with.

There were only me and the lion in this cave, and the direction my body was moving coincided with the path the lion was walking.

‘…So the Goddess’s Representative wasn’t an ordinary lion?’

Thinking that way, its ability to speak human language made some sense.

But where was it taking me?

Just as I was wondering,

“Damn humans. How long are they planning to keep throwing humans into my cave? Because of their strange antics, my precious drinking water is getting contaminated!”

The lion started grumbling.

“But I can’t just watch corpses lying around in my dwelling. Sigh, my fate.”

After grumbling for a while, the lion finally stopped in front of a small spring.

A spring so clear it was almost transparent, yet so deep that its depth was impossible to gauge.

Truly bottomless…

‘What? Bottomless?’

Suddenly, what the lion had said earlier echoed in my ears again.

“Because of their strange antics, my precious drinking water is getting contaminated!”

‘Wait, if that’s the case, then could it be…’

Had the lion been throwing the sacrificed women into the spring all this time?

And did that mean I would soon meet the same fate?

‘What? So, I’m not even a sacrifice, I’m just going to drown after struggling in the water?’

This was an even more absurd ending than I had imagined.

As I was inwardly aghast, the lion, with its back to me, muttered in a heavy voice, “Poor human. May you live a long and full life in your next life, and not die so meaninglessly like this.”

As soon as the lion finished speaking, my body lurched towards the spring.

So the ‘soon’ I had foreseen earlier was right now.

‘Damn it, even if I die, it shouldn’t be so meaningless!’

Forget the fear of the lion, I had to stop the imminent death in front of me.

In my desperation, I blurted out, “Stop! I can’t even swim!”

At that moment, my rapidly falling body stopped abruptly.

At the same time, the fierce eyes of the beast fell upon me.

I didn’t avoid those eyes, which contained a chilling coldness that seemed to freeze everything in the world.

No, I couldn’t avoid them.

Because I had to live.  Because I desperately wanted to live.

“P-Please, save me. Please…”

I pleaded with the most pitiful expression I could muster.

But then.

“You, how are you still alive… No, more importantly, how can a human understand a lion’s words… M-Monster! Lion, help meeee!”

The lion, with a more terrified expression than mine, scurried away.

***

‘What in the world…’

After being dumbfounded for a while, I finally yelled, “…Who are you calling a monster? And who’s saving whom?  It’s obviously me who’s in danger!”

The fear that had made me tremble a moment ago had long since evaporated like a mirage along with the lion’s reaction.

Then, the lion, which had dashed into the depths of the cave, poked its head out from the darkness.

“Oh, is that so? Am I the dangerous element here?”

It tilted its head, and its appearance was so absurd that I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle.

“Haha.”

It was as I was laughing emptily.

*Thud, thud.*  The lion, approaching me again, started circling and observing me.

“Hmm, hmmm, hmmmmm…”

As if it were looking at an alien life form.

‘Ha, how annoying.’

To feel annoyance instead of fear with a giant beast pacing back and forth right in front of me.

It was truly absurd.

“If you have something to say, just say it. Don’t get on my nerves.”

As I spoke, massaging my stiff neck, the lion stopped as if waiting for me to finish.

“Alright, then I’ll ask without hesitation. What are you?”

“What else would I be? A human.”

“What? A human? Are you really a human?”

“…Why are you so surprised?  Don’t I look like a human?”

I retorted curtly, feeling inexplicably offended by the lion’s reaction.

“Hmm, your appearance certainly suggests so…”

After nodding for a moment, the lion asked, as if it couldn’t comprehend, “But how can a human understand a lion’s words?”

“What in the world are you talking about… It’s not me understanding lion speech, it’s you speaking human language!  And in the Catalon Empire language, no less!”

As I yelled in bewilderment, the lion widened its eyes and shook its head.

“Huh? No? I’m speaking in the language of lions.”

…What?