Chapter 28 – (Abduction) Martha
Martha has no father.
It didn’t mean that her mother didn’t know who her father was because her body was reckless, or that he died early, but he really didn’t have a father.
A child born of a virgin conception with snow-white hair and golden eyes shining brightly like gold.
Its pupils reflect the shadows cast over human hearts and see through any lies.
It wasn’t that she doubted the existence of God, but she was the kind of mythological saint that no one took seriously.
It was a hellish world where mountains of corpses piled up every day and rivers of blood flowed.
Martha has been separated from her mother since her childhood and trained hard in order to accompany the hero who will one day appear and defeat the demon king.
The training was too harsh for a child to handle, but Marta was not bothered.
No, she was hard and painful, but she didn’t express it or let it come out of her mouth.
At that time, the corpses of the Holy Knights and Priests dispatched to the front lines in various places and the Paladins and Priests, who were in a state of no different from corpses, were transferred every day.
Seeing them die or her arms or legs torn off and her moaning, no word of hardship came out of her little Martha’s mouth.
She must work so that she can change this hellish world with a hero who will appear one day.
Martha, obsessed with the thought, did not express how much she suffered, and she just worked hard on her training in silence.
Then one day, the high priest who was educating her Martha pointed to her Martha’s eyes and said,
‘The blessing that the Lord has bestowed on Martha is the power to see the shadows cast in human hearts.’
‘… A shadow of the heart?’
‘That’s right. To be precise, it is the power to see the heart.’
No matter how good a person is, there is a shadow of the heart that is invisible even to that person on one side of the heart.
The blessing that Martha received from God is that she can see the human heart by visualizing it, and she can also see the shadow of the heart.
‘I am… I can’t see that…’
‘It’s just that you can’t see it yet, but you will definitely see it in the future. But that’s not something we can teach you…’
The ability to see the heart is a blessing bestowed by God only to saints.
No matter how high the divine power was, it was not possible to obtain a blessing that was not received.
‘Shadows of the heart…’
For some reason, the word “Shadow of the heart” Kept haunting her mind, and from that day onwards, Martha tried to express her blessing.
He had a desire to see the heart at least once, but he also had a strong desire to use it because it was a blessing bestowed by God.
After the training was over, after trying to express the blessing for several days, Martha began to see the human heart in her eyes.
When the blessing manifested, Martha first stood in front of the mirror and looked at her heart.
Martha stood proudly in front of the mirror, thinking that her heart, like her hair, would be pure white like snow, but that confidence was shattered the next moment.
‘… Black.’
That was Martha’s first impression as she checked her own mind with her mirror.
As if a drop of her ink had landed on her white snow, a dark, dark shadow lay in the middle of her Martha’s chest.
Of course, not all breasts were dyed black. The size of the dot was smaller than a fingernail, and only a very small part was stained black.
‘Nonsense…’
The shadow was just a small dot that wouldn’t even be 1 out of 100 of Martha’s body.
However, Martha, who had been subjected to brainwashing education since childhood and had a morbid aversion to evil and uncleanness, could not tolerate even the slightest point.
From the moment she saw it, Martha prayed over and over again, but it did not disappear.
‘What about other people…’
Eventually, giving up on erasing the shadows in her heart, Martha turned to other people.
She herself is still immature and has a shadow in her heart, but other people will be different.
Yes, what if, for example, Ellie, the faithful teacher who teaches Martha the divine power?
What about noble paladins who sacrifice their lives for the world?
What if the pope is revered as a saint by everyone and is the spiritual leader of the church?
With the hope that perhaps he might be different from his immature self, Martha looked through her own eyes at the people she admired most.
But the reality was grim.
The respected teacher, the lofty teacher, and the most faithful pope had a shadow of a heart greater than that of Martha.
Martha was devastated when she realized that the people she had admired had a deeper shadow of her mind than her immature self.
All of them were kind and respectable people more than anyone else, but still, an ugly evil was sprouting in their hearts.
‘If they are like that, what about the others… ?’
In the reality that she didn’t want to accept, Martha even questioned whether the human race was worth continuing.
Even while Martha was suffering from such anguish, time passed by.
After that, Martha saw many people, but except for those who did not even distinguish between good and evil like a newborn baby, no human without a shadow of heart appeared.
Disappointed at his miserable reality, Martha’s eyes began to close, and a fake smile became a routine.
And from some time ago, when Marta was dealing with other people, he unknowingly built a wall in his heart.
By doing so, he intended not to spread the shadow of his heart any further, but it was unknown whether it actually worked.
Ordinary people do not have eyes to look inside, so they judge people by looking at the outside.
However, Martha, who can see the inner side of people, has grown into a human being who cannot see the outside and judges people only with the shadow of her heart.
I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but at least Marta has never been happy with the awareness of this blessing.
‘Great Lord… Why did you give me this kind of power?’
No matter how many times I asked, there was no answer to that prayer.
As time went by and Martha became an adult, a few years later, Martha was called before the Pope, the leader of the Holy Church.
‘Martha… The hero has finally appeared.’
‘… You mean the hero?’
Warrior.
Even to Martha, a creature from the same myth, she doubts whether she really exists or not.
When the name of such a being came out of the pope’s lips, Martha opened her eyes for the first time in a long time and looked at the pope.
‘According to reports, the hero is still immature, but his potential is said to be enough to defeat the demon lord. Martha… It’s a bit early, but join the hero’s journey.’
‘Yes, I will obey that order.’
As she grew up, Marta stopped having expectations of a human being, but she was interested in the hero.
A miraculous product that, like himself, God took pity on humans and let them down.
What is the human heart like?
Martha was the first to see the world outside the church, but the thought filled her head and she could not see the outside scenery.
A few days later, Martha, who first came to the meeting place, leaned against the wall and waited for the hero to come.
‘It’s ugly…’
Dark shadows hung over the hearts of passers-by.
Even the ignorant Martha knew that it was impossible to live a clean life in this chaotic world, but even so, it was inevitable that she felt ugly.
After waiting for a while, figures similar to the impressions I had heard in the church before coming from afar were approaching Martha.
A tiger-beast knight wearing heavy armor all over his body.
A wizard with blue hair.
A green-haired elf archer.
A human male in his 30s carrying a large backpack.
And a dark-haired young man with a sword at his waist.
Martha moved toward them, closing her eyes softly, thinking that they had finally arrived.
‘I… Are you Joa by any chance?’
‘Yes, then, are you a priest from the Catholic Church?’
‘Yes, I am Martha from the Catholic Church.’
With the idea that delicious food is eaten last, Marta looked at the comrades standing behind the hero using a blessing one by one.
All of them didn’t have much sentiment, like the average person walking the streets, but the person called the porter couldn’t look after him because his heart was ugly.
‘I wouldn’t be so trustworthy if I took a human like this with me…’
Marta looked at the last remaining hero without much expectation.
‘Ahhh… !’
Martha’s eyes, which she saw without much expectation, were shining with a pure white light she had never seen before.
At the light she saw for the first time in her life, Martha was speechless and she just stared blankly at her hero.
Seeing that pure white light without a speck of cloudiness, Martha thought.
It is for today that the great Lord bestowed this ability.
As Martha stood there blankly at the scene that she thought she was dreaming of, the hero said,
‘Hey priest? Are you okay?’
‘Yes? Ah… It’s okay, it’s okay. Just…’
Martha said, holding the warrior’s hands.
‘Just… I just stared at it in my mind.’
‘Yes?!’
I saw two people glaring at the hero from behind, but Martha, who had the hero’s light in front of her, saw only the hero.
*****
From that day on, Martha, who was fascinated by the hero’s light, wanted to be with the hero, and she gradually narrowed the distance between her.
Although Yuria and Mirian looked at Marta disapprovingly, she had nothing to do with Marta.
No, beyond irrelevant, it was even annoying.
‘Dirty things.’
The first time Marta had such an idea was when the two of them let out a vulgar moan in the Horde’s tent.
Unlike the hero Martha, who has eyes that can see through hearts, Martha, who saw the Horde’s heart, recognized what had happened at once.
To be honest, she was Martha at first, and she was a woman, and she had sympathy for both of them.
But she was out the first time, though she fell for a mistake or trick, from then on she got drunk on her pleasure and put her body on his side.
Besides, every time she heard the voices of the Horde treating the champions as fools, a deep hatred welled up in Martha’s stomach.
‘… Sluts…’
Martha, who was careful of her words and every word she said, fearing that the shadows in her heart might grow thicker at some point, cursed words came out every time she thought of them and the Horde.
But none of that mattered anymore. Because her Martha has a mission more important than the shadows in her own heart.
‘The warrior… I’ll protect you.’
Protects the warrior from the hands of those filth. At some point, that was the only thing left in Martha’s mind.
To protect the hero, you must plan thoroughly. To that end, Martha, who was carefully observing the Horde party, said to the warrior after she was convinced.
‘Hero, can you give me some time?’
‘Hour? It’s okay, but why?’
‘That… I’m really sorry to say this, but I have something to tell you because of the noise coming from Mr. Hod’s tent…’
