Wasn’t This a Night Game

Viper’s Spawn

After that, I went to see the Princess almost every day for about three weeks.

It might sound weird to say, but it’s kinda like taming a wild animal. Packing snacks, tasty food, feeding her, even bringing a few picture books to read to her.

Tuesday, two in the afternoon. Like always, she’d turn jittery, trying to hurt herself, lash out. But every time, I’d hold her tight, try to soothe her.

Singing lullabies, pop songs, anime themes, everything I knew. Staying there till she slept, trembling, whimpering.

Maybe all that work… maybe it paid off?

“I’ll go. See you tomorrow…”

Before leaving today.

Iomene, she smiled at me.

“She smiled… Iomene smiled…”

When I told them, the Empress and His Imperial Majesty, they couldn’t hide their tears.

Yeah.

Even if it’s just to keep me from going to hell, seeing them this happy… it ain’t so bad.

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

The fragment of the evil god inside Princess Iomene… it’ll be transferring to me soon enough.

Bittersweet, this is.

This whole life in another world… it’s been nothing but bad memories, but still. Thinking I won’t see these people again, it’s kinda sad.

Especially… Erpa.

Just when I finally got something going with a girl, gotta leave.

But what can you do?

Saving my own skin comes first.

“Saint! My son!…”

“Mother, you cannot see!”

I kept on treating the sick, and treating them again.

People I’d never see again anyway.

Might as well give them my all one last time before leaving.

Poor and rich.

Noble and commoner alike, for three weeks I ran ragged, healing the hurt and ailing.

Thanks to that, the donations and offerings from the nobles swelled even more, and the slum, using those funds, flourished further, but whatever now.

Doesn’t matter to me.

Neither does playing the saint, which never suited me anyway.

Nor those skill descriptions, vulgar as hell.

Farewell to all that, forever.

Feels almost like enlightenment, these times.

What.

Slum’s stabilized, hasn’t it?

What more could possibly happen now?

“Saint! Saint!”

“Saint Amael! My daughter…”

“My wife’s burned! Saint, please!”

It existed.

One morning.

While I was still deep in slumber, a group of people suddenly knocked on my door and came looking for me.

A voice, wild with urgency, yanked me outside. Faces were melting, froth bubbling at the mouth, countless people collapsed on the street.

“Hurry!! Get the potions, quick! Now!!”

The temple healers from the clinic flitted about like mad things, trying to heal them, but even so, the people needing help were endless.

Mostly women.

And young girls.

A jolt.

I knew who they were.

The fifteen matchstick girls I’d pulled from the back alleys.

The very same people as them.

“Fire at the nearby factory! Holy One! Save my wife!!”

The wails, ripped from the throats of weeping men, snapped me to attention.

“Bring me the critically wounded! Now, this instant!!”

At my shout, Lilia Priestesses of the Grace Order, well-trained and used to this sort of thing, started sorting and bringing the patients to me in a flash.

I treated the fallen women with desperate haste.

Every single face, a ruin.

Some choked, skin crackling from burns.

One woman, her hair burned away, face a hideous lump of meat.

A child, poisoned by indium and white phosphorus, the flesh melting from under her jaw, bone gleaming bare.

As I treated them, frantic,

familiar faces began to catch my eye.

“Saint! Heal me, please!”

I remember the little girl whose face had been melted away by chemical exposure while making white phosphorus matches, the one I’d healed.

That girl was suffering before me now, for reasons similar to those before.

A woman who’d had her fingers severed and came to me for healing, forced to keep going to a factory that paid meager wages for bone-grinding labor because there were so many mouths to feed and their home was poor, now lay before me, her whole body burned.

Humans like mangled lumps of meat, reshaped back into the semblance of people—these are the faces of women and children that remain etched in my memory.

Rage began to swell.

Why.

Why!

Why!!

Why, after I heal them, do they reappear before me in the same wretched state!

I know why.

“There are few jobs that pay as well as the factories in Slum District 3. We are doing our best to attract businesses… but the majority of workers still go to the factories on the outskirts of the capital. Not all the poor in the capital can live on a daily wage of 1 saler.”

Jonathan Karma’s words echoed in my mind.

My fist clenches until it feels like it will shatter.

After treating all the dozens of critically ill patients delivered to me, I left the healing priests to their work and strode forward.

“Which factory is on fire?”

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

“Guide me! Right now!!”

Rarely did I raise my voice. The slum dwellers, startled, quickly began to guide me.

With each step I took following them, the stench of burning human flesh and acrid fumes tickled my nose.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I augmented my body, boosted my strength through a physical mod, and took off running with monstrous speed.

Maybe, just maybe, there were still people left to save.

If I just got there a little earlier.

Could save them.

That thought fueling me, I ran like a madman, ran and ran, but…

“aaargh!! My daughter!! aaargh!!”

“Mom! Mom!!”

“No! No! Please!”

Before the burning factory, dozens of black lumps, charred beyond human recognition, were already sprawled across the ground.

Families clutched at the lumps, wailing.

I approached the charcoal corpses and tried to use my skill.

[Skill can only be cast on living beings!]

[Skill can only be cast on living beings!]

[Skill can only be cast on living beings!]

[Skill can only be cast on living beings!]

Again and again.

Again and again, I tried to use the skill, but the result was the same.

Can’t save them.

Those already dead, no matter how hard I try, I can’t bring them back.

Shit.

What the hell *is* this goddamn feeling?

Right when I was staring down at the burnt corpses, all hopeless and ruined.

“My daughter!! My daughter’s still up there!”

“You can’t go in there!”

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

The young mother’s scream rips through the air.

I turn my head and, past the burning blaze of the factory’s third-floor balcony, I see a little girl, faltering.

Still alive.

The thought makes my body move on its own.

“You can’t go in there! Saint!…”

Before the cop blocking me can even finish, I freeze time.

Don’t know how long that kid can hold on.

Gotta hurry.

Like I always do, I released a localized stop.

How?

In a way that I can just walk right up to the balcony where the kid is, straight from where I’m standing.

Inside the space where time’s released, I start climbing, stepping on the frozen air like it’s solid.

Just thought, what if I could use it like this? And thank god, it’s actually working.

In a flash, sky-walking, I reach the balcony, smash the window, jump inside, and get right in front of the little girl.

Her skin’s already burnt something awful, and she’s collapsed on the floor, foaming at the mouth, barely breathing with all the smoke.

I unfroze the little girl, time’s grip released from her small body, and scooped her up into my arms.

Then, the Body Modification.

The child’s body healed almost instantly.

The pain gone, whole again, she stared at me, eyes wide with shock.

“Saint?”

I didn’t have the strength to answer.

Fuck.

Just walking that short distance had already drained a good chunk of my mental energy.

This goddamn skill mechanic, seriously!

Still, manageable enough.

“Hold tight to me.”

The child did as I said, pressing herself close.

Focus.

If I mess up, I might be okay, but the kid could get hurt.

Just like before, I stepped onto the frozen layer of air, descending slowly.

And before long…

I was outside the factory, the child with me.

“…Sir! It’s dangerous! … Huh?”

The cop, about to yell at me, to stop me, froze as time resumed. He charged forward, then stopped dead, shocked to see the child in my arms.

To him, I must have just appeared there, holding her, out of nowhere.

I gently set the child, healed clean by body-mod, onto the floor.

“Take this child to its mother…”

“Adele!!”

Before I could even finish, the child’s mother rushed forward, clutching the little one tight.

“Ah! Thank you! Thank you! Lady Lilia! Holy one! Thank you…thank you.”

Seeing the mother wailing and weeping with her child, a smile, unbidden, touched my lips.

“Bring me the sick. I will heal them.”

I treated, and treated again, giving the people the very best of what I could offer.

I didn’t want to see any more turned to charcoal like those ones.

I was struggling so, when the capital’s firefighters and the mages from the Magic Tower finally came rushing in, pouring water and magic to subdue the factory fire. Only then could I catch my breath.

“What is the meaning of this!”

I was leaning against a wall, letting my weary mind rest for a moment.

That’s when I heard someone shouting.

“Who gave you permission to draw water from the warehouse! That’s all Leota Company property, I tell you!”

A stout, middle-aged man was the source of the yelling.

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

“I don’t know about that! I’m going to measure how much water was taken and bill you for it! Is there no law?! Using company property without permission!”

The middle-aged man remained unmoved by the firefighters’ words.

Hearing that, the workers, sprawled on the ground, sharpened their eyes and started to rise, one by one.

“It’s your fault! Your fault!!”

“Foreman! Had you just told Baron Hanson, that Leohta Company b*stard, to put in proper fire prevention at the factory, my family wouldn’t have burned alive! You son of a b*tch!!”

The families of those turned to charcoal screamed, spitting curses, but the man called Foreman couldn’t give a damn.

He spat a glob of yellow phlegm, probably from all the cigarettes, and smirked.

“Noisy lot. Just raising hell for the payout. Fine! I’ll throw you dogs some compensation. One salred per corpse, ain’t that enough? You won’t be complaining, right? It’s more than three months of your wages.”

The Foreman chuckled, a dry, rattling sound.

“Born poor, you’re all cursed by the gods. You fucking b*stards. Fire prevention? It’s cheaper to give you one salred per burnt corpse. Why waste big money on that shit? Mad? Then you’re all fired. Fired! Want to lose your job along with your family?”

“Devil! Devil!”

“Your soul will rot in hell, you son of a b*tch!”

The wails echoed, but still, no one charged.

Near the man called Foreman, police with pistols stood ready, brought in to clean up the fire scene, and behind them, brutes who looked like bodyguards openly displayed the guns at their waists, glaring down at the crowd.

Yeah.

They’d be scared.

Getting shot hurts, after all.

And even if they managed to overpower those guards and cops, beat them senseless, the aftermath would be even more terrifying.

The sack.

Losing your job is sometimes more terrifying than a bullet.

I get it.

But what about me?

Cops and bodyguards.

You got the balls to point your guns at *me*?

“I’m the one healing the Emperor’s daughter.

A Saint recognized by the Pantheon.

I guarantee it.

You lot can’t shoot me, not a chance.

And consequences?

I’m heading back to Korea in a bit anyway.

Returning to Korea, where curses and soul shattering, hell-bound stuff ain’t got no hold. Gonna live there.

So…

[Body Modification! Strength x20!]

I can do this.

Having slammed Body Modification onto myself, I scanned around for anything nearby that could serve as a weapon, then I yanked the belt off my waist and held it in my hand.

And charged at the factory boss with insane speed.

The belt, amplified by twenty times my strength, lashed out at the babbling factory boss.

*Crack!!*

With that sharp sound, the factory boss ejected a flamboyant spray of red corn from his teeth and flew, slamming into the car door he’d arrived in.