Wasn’t This a Night Game

I’m The Madman of This Temple

{And those who doubted asked the Prophet again, saying:

Prophet, should grace also be bestowed upon the wicked? And if so, until when should it be bestowed? They asked, for it was to test him.

The Prophet answered them and said:

The Goddess of Grace has granted humankind the ability to discern good and evil. Therefore, give your heart to those who strive for good, and endure patiently.}

But for those whom the Goddess abandons to their own lost hearts, spare not the rod.

For they are the blamers. Greedy, malicious, filled with envy, murder, and strife.

Those who show no pity for the widow and the orphan.

Who fill only their own bellies with the grace meant for the hungry.

Those who swallow tears and feel no shame.

These the Goddess despises, curses, that not only their bodies, but their souls, may meet death.

-The Book of Grace, Chapter 13, Verse 11-

*

The factory boss, sprawled on the floor, stares at me with a face twisted in shock.

“Th, This is bo-viol…!!”

This is violence!!

He tries to say. Seems like.

Yeah.

True words.

Words getting clobbered.

“There are words to say and words better left unsaid!!”

I flew at that factory boss.

My belt, merciless, screamed as it sliced through the air.

His well-tailored, sleek suit rips open.

And beneath, his fat, naked flesh is laid bare.

The fallen pose, perfect. Just *perfect* for the cover of a DVD case titled: ＜Naked Exposure Under Torn Clothes AVI. Watched by All＞.

Now then. Scream for the people, why don’t you?

“Screeeeeech!! S-saint! S-sainttt!!”

The factory boss, his lips swollen from the beating, could barely form the words. He flailed his hands at the police and his guards, begging, but none dared to rush forward.

“C-can we shoot, hyung-nim? Really?”

“Sung-ja. A Saint, sanctioned by the Pantheon, the first in 300 years. If even a single bullet grazes him, we’re finished.”

The police didn’t even think about charging, and the boss’s bodyguards just shifted their weight, glancing around, paralyzed.

Meanwhile.

I was having the time of my life beating the factory boss.

“Screeeeeeech!! A-Ah-ba!! aaah!!”

“Hurts? Hurts? Does it hurt? How much more did it hurt those who burned to death in your factory!”

I beat him and beat him until he foamed at the mouth and passed out.

Only then did I stop the beating, and only then did the police slowly, cautiously, approach me.

Of course, they all wore expressions that hinted at secret satisfaction.

“Holy Saint. It’s enough now. This is more than…….”

No.

It’s not fucking enough yet, you b*stards.

I placed my hands on the factory boss’s body.

I’m the Healing Saint, aren’t I?

Gotta live up to the name, right?

The factory boss’s puffed-up cheeks and the corn, scattered glorious in the air, sprout back anew.

His bruised body and swollen face, neatly restored.

I don’t have any intention of killing you.

I’m going to make damn sure you don’t die.

So you can get beaten for a long, long time.

“N-now, just a moment. Just a moment. Holy man. Just calm down a sec!…….Screeeeeeeech!”

Calm down my ass?!

Healing you was just to get the momentum to beat you more!!

Again, the sound of leather splitting, and a savage beatdown show commenced.

The factory boss’s screams, and the juicy sound of skin popping, brought the onlookers to their feet, one by one.

“Good! Hit him harder!”

“Good! Good!”

“That son of a b*tch! Works people over 20 hours a day for 1 leon (About 1000 won)!! Even the dogs he keeps are treated better than that!”

Everyone started cheering me on.

Beat him unconscious, then heal him.

Beat him unconscious, then heal him again.

An endless cycle of beatings repeated.

“Save me! What are the police doing!! I’m telling you, save me! Are you just going to stand there and watch this violence!!”

After his third healing, the factory boss grabbed onto the police’s pant legs, begging.

But the police just slithered away, subtly slipping their feet out of his grasp.

A sly, smug amusement was the extra thrown in.

“My apologies, Foreman. If we go by the law, we should arrest the Saint for assaulting a civilian… but what if we touched him and got smote by divine punishment? We don’t want to get smote, either.”

“What kind of dogshit is that!……..SCREEE!”

Around the fifth treatment, he clung to the thugs guarding him.

“Money! I’ll give you money! You goddamn b*stards! I told you to protect me! Do something! Block him!”

“If the Saint even gets a scratch, how would the Lily followers and the Grace Order react? We don’t want to be inquisitioned for saint blasphemy, Foreman. Unless you give us ten times the money, maybe.”

“I’ll give it! I can give you twenty times, so please!……SCREEE!”

The sound of flesh splitting, *slap slap*, made my stress just melt away.

Feels good.

Feels like all the time I spent shivering, scared of going to Hell, is finally easing.

You goddamn son of a b*tch.

You b*stard dog.

I practically walked on air to save someone’s life, and you, you didn’t even install proper fire safety, turning people into charcoal, and you say that shit?

You goddamn piece of trash.

You’re dying by my hand today.

Seven.

Eight.

After the tenth treatment ended.

Finally, the Foreman grabbed my pant leg.

“Spare me! Please! I’ll do anything you say! Please! Please stop hitting me!!”

I stopped whipping the belt, now crimson with blood and shreds of flesh.

“This factory. You said Leota Company runs it, right?”

“Y-yes! Leota Company runs this place.”

“Get your boss out here.”

“…Huh?”

“The BOSS!! Lead me to your damn boss!! You want more of this?!”

“I’ll take you! Get in the car! Right now! I’ll deliver you there, quick as a bullet!!”

“Hurry it up!!”

I got in the car with the factory manager.

“He’s going to punish the Leota Company’s boss!”

“Let’s follow him! You can see him if you go to Baron Hanson’s mansion!!”

Everyone who’d been watching the Saint’s beatdown shouted like that and started following my car.

I glanced back at those people, then ordered the driver in front.

“Floor it, you b*stard. What are you waiting for?”

Maybe it was thanks to witnessing over thirty minutes of that brutal beating.

The driver didn’t say a single word, just stomped on the gas like a bullet.

Not even three minutes later.

I arrived in front of a mansion in District 10, where the wealthy lived.

“H-here it is. Baron Hanson is inside…Ghak!”

I kicked the factory manager to make a path, then got out of the car.

The mansion’s iron gate stood, a solid damn barrier in my way.

“Open it.”

I ordered the factory boss, and he started to whimper.

“Unless it’s a permitted person, I can’t open it… uh? Uh???”

“Guess we’ll open it with you, then.”

Muscle strength, times twenty.

Fatso toss!

The pudgy factory boss took flight through the air.

His body slammed into the iron gate.

It was a solid iron gate, alright, but it couldn’t withstand the momentum generated by the insane speed multiplied by the factory boss’s weight.

With a monstrous clang, the iron gate swung wide open.

“Kuh-erk!”

He rolled and tumbled across the ground like something out of a kids’ cartoon, groaning. I walked over to him, and he was leaking tears, plastered face-down on the ground.

“P-please!! Please, just stop hitting me!”

“Don’t you move an inch from here.”

I don’t plan on killing these b*stards.

If I kill them, it’s just my own petty murder.

I want the people who were hurt and scarred back at the factory to receive some comfort.

I want to show them the sight of these sons of b*tches being punished by the law, by the system.

That’s how we can say the world is still worth living in. Say, even though it’s tough and shitty, let’s try to live tomorrow, yeah?

“Aye! Aye! Won’t budge an inch!……..Screee!”

The foreman scattered more corn on my belt, and then he was sprawled on the ground.

Eyes rolled back, foaming at the mouth, piss trickling down his leg – looked like he was properly knocked out.

You just wait, I’ll get the Lilia Order, the Pantheon, even the Emperor himself involved to make damn sure you’re punished.

Some kind of heresy charge, anything to nail you!

But before that.

I had to beat the living crap out of this Baron Hanson or whatever his name was too.

I strode into the mansion, blood-and-flesh-enchanted belt in hand.

Inside, maids and butlers flinched at the sight of me.

No wonder they did.

My pure white priestly robes had been sullied long ago.

Hair a mess, belt soaked in blood and gore.

“Where’s Baron Hanson?”

I spoke in a low voice, and the answer came immediately.

“I-in his study, attending to business…”

“Lead me there.”

A maid gestured towards the location of the study.

I started walking purposefully in that direction.

Guards armed with pistols spotted me, but most cleared a path when they saw me.

And the ones who didn’t?

“Even a saint gotta respect private property here! …Screeeee!”

The pig-squeal got cut short, a final death rattle before he crumpled to the floor.

A heap of crimson corn spewed out, the price for his puffed-up, steamed-bun cheeks.

Nobody could stop me, and before long, there I was, stood before the office of this Baron Hanson or whatever his name was.

The door was bolted tight, but that was no kinda problem.

I kicked it in, just like that.

A skinny, fifty-something fella jumps back from his desk like he’s about to piss himself, eyes wide.

“Wh-who is it?? Who are you? How did you get in… Saint?”

“You the boss of Leota Company?”

“Y-yes, but?”

“You know there was a fire at your factory?”

Hanson’s eyes went round and round like marbles.

He gets up from his chair, forcing this pathetic, smarmy smile.

“Haha! I dispatched one of my men already. Surely it’s being handled appropriately… Is there a complaint?”

“Just one question for ya.”

I flashed him a smile, sweet as could be, and laid the ironclad hypnosis on him.

“How do you usually handle it when someone gets hurt or dies in the factory? No lies, just the truth.”

“We pay out compensation, roughly 1 salred. But only on paper, of course. There are ways to get it back, see? We send the boys to scare ‘em, get them to hand it over. Or we give ‘em four months’ salary in a lump sum, then make ‘em work four months without pay. Bunch of beggars, they’re more afraid of losing their jobs than anything else, so a little threat is all it takes for them to cough the money back up.”

Hanson chuckled, all smiles as he spilled it.

And the real kicker? Usually, after blurting out the ugly truth, they’d cover their mouth or be shaking like a leaf, but this son of a b*tch didn’t even flinch.

There wasn’t any guilt, or apology, not even a shred of shame for what he was doing.

“Still, I’m pretty fair. There are places that just kick ’em out without any compensation. Why, is there a problem? Are those burned-up beggars…uncomfortable for you? *Screeeeeech!*”

“You fucking son of a b*tch, your mother’s cunt! Are you even human?!”

The belt cracked, a meaty *thwack!*

Baron Hansen took flight, a graceful swan in the air.

I, too, became a swan, soaring into the void.

Flew right over and started beating the shit out of him.

“*Screeeeeech! Screech!* No, stop! This, this is illegal! You! Just because you’re some saint, doesn’t mean you can’t see! Even a saint can’t just assault a civilian, the Supreme Court will take you away! Wanna go to jail?! You b*stard!!”

*Smack. Smack.*

I answered with my hands instead of my mouth.

Even while getting hammered, Baron Hansen kept flapping his gums.

“It’s illegal! You! Saint or not, don’t you see? Even a Saint can’t just attack a civilian, the Supreme Court can arrest you! Wanna…wanna go to jail?! You little shit!!”

That made me laugh.

Jail?

Sounds good?

I’m the one who thought about tossing the saint gig and going to jail.

You think I’m scared of that kind of threat?

Hell no!

Even better!

If I get life in prison, I won’t have to play fake saint anymore.

Great! Just great!

“Send me! To jail!! I’m begging you!! You fucker!!”

“Th-This madman!!… Screeeee!!”

“Yeah! I’m crazy! I’m fucking crazy, you son of a b*tch!!”

A man gets so pissed off, tears just kinda come out.

I wailed and wailed, kept pounding the shit out of the b*stard.

A man died, turned into charcoal.

But this son of a b*tch, and that factory boss I’d pulverized outside…

How could they be so utterly without a shred of remorse?

“I’m the crazy b*stard of this goddamn temple!! You dog!!”

You… I swear, even if it means going to prison, I’ll make sure you get what you deserve.

Heresy, whatever… I swear I’ll drag you and that factory boss straight to hell.

Thinking like that, I put even more force into beating the baron.

“Y-You son of a b*tch!! aaagh!!”

The pain must have been unbearable, ’cause Baron Hanson, like his last stand, conjured black energy from his hand and flung it at me.

…….Huh?

Hold on a second.

Black energy from his hand, flung at me?…….

Isn’t that a curse?

“…Huh? Why isn’t the curse working?”

I was stunned that Baron Hanson had shot a curse from his hand, and Baron Hanson was stunned that I was perfectly fine even after being hit by it.

“Why? Why this, this curse?……”

We both stood there, blankly staring at each other for a moment.

“Were you… a worshiper of evil gods?”

I asked, breaking into laughter at the absurdity, and Baron Hanson answered with genuine honesty.

“Yes.”

Again. He said it again.

“I am a worshiper of evil gods. I was assisting the Collector with the collection of grudges.”

The power of absolute hypnosis was, well, absolute.