Chapter 249 – [Poverty] Ep.17 – Miracle (3)
Helen waited in the damp stone prison for people to come to her. She waited anxiously for the archbishop or cardinal until Dariel’s pale body grew cold, with only a small hope that she would soon be able to heal her father again.
Because she was a saint. No matter how much friction she had with the church, the divine will engraved on her wrist was not false.
That’s why she was able to wait without causing more trouble. Helen could become anything as long as she could save her father.
A gentle saint, a good chess piece who listens well, and a swordsman of the cult who does whatever he is told.
“Father, don’t worry. The church will send someone soon. I will definitely rescue your father. I promise.”
But no one came.
It was as if time had stopped in the world. Helen could understand how it felt to be left alone and isolated from the rest of the world.
Looking up at the night sky outside the only open iron bar, she waited for salvation. The moon was still hanging thin, but the night was clearly fading little by little.
“Father, the moon has risen beautifully. The moon is particularly bright today.”
Helen’s hand touched Dariel’s cheek, but he could not react and lay still and exhaled.
Helen knew that even her irregular breathing was getting weaker little by little. That may be why she kept trying to talk to her.
“Father, when you get better, take the time to go on an outing. On a day when the full moon rises, I sit on the hill and listen to the sound of insects.”
When Dariel’s head was carefully turned to look outside the iron bars, his eyes slowly blinked and turned to the moon.
Clear eyes that once shone brilliantly.
Now blurry eyes that can’t even focus properly.
“Father, the full moon will rise in just a few more days. Even if I can’t go this time because I overslept, I’ll definitely go with you next month. I’ve been so tired the past few days, so it’ll be okay to get a little more sleep.”
His last gaze rested on the moon.
“Father, I still remember what you said. The moon is God’s eye, and you said God was looking at us by closing and opening your eyes.”
However, Helen’s eyes, which were talking about the moon, were now turned to Dariel, looking at his final moments.
“… Father, I don’t know anymore.”
She didn’t want to see the moon anymore.
Tears sparkling brighter than the silent moon formed in the girl’s eyes and eventually fell on Dariel’s red face.
Those tears were different from any before. Instead of tears caused by sadness and pain, unfamiliar emotions seeped into the corners of the girl’s eyes.
“Father, does God really love us?”
It was blasphemy,
It was suspicion and distrust,
It was a pity for everyone.
“If you love us so much, why don’t you save us and just look at us like that?”
There was only silence in the prison. In that dirty space, only the little girl’s questions echoed.
“Father, do you still think the world is a beautiful place? Will the world that made you like this really become a better world someday?”
Helen’s small body hugged Dariel tightly. Her only remaining love was fading away.
Helen couldn’t help but cry as she watched Dariel still dying to hear her daughter’s voice even a little more.
His body, already having difficulty maintaining its sanity, only let out a short twitch or a faint groan, and his bluish lips trembled.
It was a whisper. A whisper that cannot be heard properly.
“Father, don’t you hate the world?”
Dariel whispered to the back of his daughter’s neck as he hugged her tightly.
Helen, it’s not your fault.
… At the moment when her bitter suspicions, beyond anger and hatred, were confirmed, Helen was finally able to feel at ease.
“Father, the church probably wants me and you to die quickly. In fact, they don’t even consider things like saints that important. They are like shells with only a name left. In the end, they only see them as tools.”
She laid Dariel down in a more comfortable position and continued her words.
“The gods don’t seem to be very involved in human affairs, so there is no salvation in the end.”
It was only then that Helen realized. She realized how painful the world she had to live in was.
And, how unhappy everyone in it must live.
“Father, are you still there?”
There was no reply from Dariel.
“Not yet.”
However, Helen received an answer from another being.
Inside a cell full of emptiness, at a very close distance,
Helen could see the girl staring at her and her father.
“But you’ll die soon.”
The girl, who looked as young Helen, gave off an alien aura. It was similar to the vague sense of discomfort felt inside a church building or a statue of a god, but there was a high-level twist that was difficult to express with human words.
Helen stared blankly at her girl, then turned her gaze back to her father. The faint sound of his breathing was heard very slowly and very softly.
“It’s God. Not Raphael.”
“Yes.”
The two girls began to talk with the dying Dariel between them.
It was quite dry and calm to say that it was a face-to-face meeting with the God she had been crying out for,
A vivid strangeness seemed to be blooming inside the prison.
“Have you been watching this whole time?”
“Yes.”
Helen laughed. “Haha.”
Helen smiled for a long time before the hand of salvation finally came to her,
She quietly closed her father’s eyes and asked God.
“Am I a saint?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t even handle sacred power like this properly?”
“Because the world doesn’t need you yet.”
Yes, that’s right.
With a short nod, Helen spoke to God.
“Was the reason you were just watching until now because my father and I didn’t need salvation yet?”
The little girl didn’t open her mouth. She seemed to be lost in thought about what to say, but Helen did not even allow her to wait and spoke straight to her girl.
“Can you save us now?”
“If you want.”
Despite her tone of resentment, God was not disturbed at all and listened to Helen’s words in silence. Helen’s request from the little girl was simple and clear.
“Anything?”
“Okay then. I can give you two things.”
“Then, first, give me strength. Enough strength that no one can even make a dent in me, and enough strength that my prayers can achieve miracles.”
The girl nodded her head without saying a word, and she thrust her little red finger at Helen. Immediately, a brilliant golden aura appeared around Helen.
Helen smiled her smile once again, seeing a light she had never seen before. Then, with her hands full of that light,
She prayed.
Prayer for the soon-to-be dead.
A prayer to honor the soul of that wronged soul was recited quietly in front of the girl who volunteered to God.
“Still alive?”
Helen did not respond to the girl’s request to be her god. Instead, she only prayed for her father’s peaceful rest during his suffering.
Then she lowered her head and kissed his cold cheek,
Putting her hands together respectfully over her heart,
She gave us quiet rest with her incomparable warm prayers.
O sinless one, I hope you will be at peace hereafter.
“…”
The girl looked at him in silence and waited. Unlike the delicate cry that had been crying for her life just a few hours ago, she saw a serious smile that had put a lot of things aside.
“You are too great a person to be in a world like this.”
Dariel’s body, which was held in Helen’s arms, suddenly became a bright light and disappeared into the night,
The only ones left in solitary confinement were the two girls.
“You said you’d give me two things, right? There’s only one left.”
Helen smiled through her tears and she spoke to God.
“I will take revenge myself, so you don’t have to worry about it. Instead, when I am done with my revenge, I want everyone to die. For the sinful, I want a death that is more painful than anything else, and for the good, I want a quiet death that is like mercy. I want nothing left in this world and all existence disappears…”
It was a decision.
“I want you and me to die. I want a world like this to never be created again, and there to be nothing left in the whole world.”
God’s answer to that little human’s decision.
“… Yes. But I think that will require some conditions and take some time, right?”
—————————————
That day,
Hundreds of people disappeared without knowing why, and they were nowhere to be found.
Because of the list of missing people that it was difficult to find anything in common with, this was thought to be the work of unsavory demons, and even though it was an incident big enough to turn the entire kingdom upside down, everyone was reluctant to mention it,
Strangely enough, the beach facing the castle was filled with the smell of blood.
That morning, the sea was stained the color of blood, and the fish were making a fuss and stirring under the sea, so most of the fishermen were reluctant to go out to sea and prayed.
However, according to the words of some fishermen who bravely went out to sea, when they cut open the stomachs of the fish they caught that day, strange pieces of flesh came out, twitching and shaking as if they were alive.
It is said that its appearance was so strange that in the end, they had no choice but to throw it back to the beach.
