The Fake Saint Decided to be Real

The butler looked at me with a blunt face and turned to the document he was holding. It was familiar, so I calmly waited for his answer.

After waited for a moment, he gave me an answer. Still, this was faster than before.

“The Marquis went to Lucderin Street.”

It was a downtown area. A place selling luxury goods such as fancy jewelry and clothes for nobles.

“What did he go for?”

“I don’t know. But The Marquis said he’d meet someone.”

Was the Marquis trying to contact Blue Rose?

In my memory, Astein was a stronger knight than anyone else. Even if dozens of knights attack, he could protect me for a long time.

But that didn’t guarantee that he could avoid the assassin. I wanted to find out at least when and where they’d be working.

“When will father come back?”

“The Marquis said he would come late after dinner.”

“I see.”

I thought I should wait first.

“When the Marquis returns, I will give you a message, so you can rest in your room.”

I was slightly surprised by the word ‘message’. So far, the butler had never shown this kindness. He had never greeted me if I came back or went to the temple.

I looked at the butler with my eyes wide open to his strange manner.

“Oh, maybe you don’t need it.”

He still replied in a hard voice without looking at me. He still hated me as the shame of the Marquis Futor.

“Thank you.”

But I chose to go back to my room, left him without my answer.

In my room, Selemion was waiting with warm tea and refreshments.

“Why do you look so happy?”

“My Lady, you know. Sir Solar is bragging about you.”

“Me? Why?”

“He said you’re praised more than the Saints in the slums. You did a miracle.”

I didn’t really want this. What I did wasn’t a miracle. In the beginning, I wasn’t a person who could make miracles.

“I have only made medicine.”

“That’s a miracle! A lady who didn’t know anything about it delivered the medicine that God gave her.”

Turned out, it worked out better. If they believed that and started to reveal the truth, people wouldn’t blame me.

My father couldn’t hold me and make me a fake Saint.

“Thanks to you, my shoulders have also risen a bit.”

“Is that so?”

I felt a little bit stung by Selemion’s reaction.

“But the butler ignores it, for something sacred you’ve done.”

Wasn’t that a natural response?

The butler’s family had been a very loyal family for generations. So, after I became a Saint, it was said that after a while, he would return to his hometown to take a break. Then, he would come back when the next prospective saint was born.

“Ck, our Lady did a great job as the Saint…. I hate the butler.”

Selemion continued to keep picking on the butler. It was a little unfamiliar to me.

“So you’ll be the best Saint. Will the Marquis and the Saint also compliment you?”

“Is this something to be praised for?”

“Of course! Don’t you know how wonderful is that?”

Would Astein compliment me if I told him about this?

Suddenly, I looked at the silver bracelet on my hand, a gift he gave for my birthday as a compliment.

Just looking at it made me feel like Astein was stroking my hair.

“Oh my, My Lady! Are you shy?”

My face looked red. By the time I barely gave an excuse, the butler announced that my father had arrived.

I hid my complicated feelings and moved toward the front door.

However, before I even got to the front door, my father’s laughter was heard. It sounded like he had everything in the world.

He laughed more pleasantly as soon as he found me.

“Freya, they said you showed a miracle today? Ho ho, finally, you’re spreading the word of God! Soon you will be able to show your divine power properly.”

He’d got it all wrong. However, it wasn’t too bad for him to believe and be vigilant.

My father seemed to want to hug me, so I stepped back a step away from my sloppy father. Then, I noticed there was a bright and cute flower on my father’s chest that didn’t suit him.

“They said that God will select and picked up a person to bless within a month, so I think today is the day God blessed me.”

Did he successfully contact the Blue Rose?

I smelled a strong liquor from my father who didn’t know my anxiety. He looked at me and giggled.

“Do you know how frustrating it was to think that after you entered the house, you were going to cut off the support of the Saint? Hm?”

He was drunk. He cursed me without being aware of the eyes of his employees.

“Do you know how much money you’ve spent? I don’t know Duke Pamir was overlooked by the Empress to find her lack of divinity and to search for a saint. Blue Rose bastards! That time, they found you and I paid for it. But how dare you ignore me like this?”

I couldn’t believe that it was Blue Rose who passed me to the Marquis. I didn’t even think about it.

Even though they knew I didn’t have divine power? Since then, I had become a feathered bird living in a broken cage.

“Well, there are many things similar to Blue Rose.”

I saw the yellow flower on his chest again. Yellow carnation?

I frowned upon knowing its flower language. Did it feel good to get something like that?

I despise you.

I stared at the flower that represented my heart.

“Cheeky bastard, I’m going to break your nose at the Imperial banquet next week! I’ll go to another world before I feel ashamed, ha ha ha.”

My heart was beating hard again. I’m a little bit worried about Astein now.

“Who are you talking about?”

I tried to ask as nuanced as I could. But my father wasn’t listening to me at all.

“Freya, please take your divine power back. So when I go into the grave, I can see the face of my ancestors proudly.”

It seemed not easy to get the information I wanted. He was drunk more than I thought. Even the butler and a knight had to support him to walk to his room. But I blocked their way.

“I will take you to your room.”

Now was the chance. I had to figure out the identity of the people who were aiming for Astein.

My father would’ve pushed me as usual, but I still tried to support him myself.

“I’ll do it.” The butler said, he didn’t want to leave my father to me.

“It’s okay. I can do this too.”

After hung my father’s arm over my shoulder, I brought him to his room on the third floor. A room where there wasn’t much warmth left after the wife of the Marquis died.

I laid him on the bed there. The butler had followed me in case I fell.

“Bring warm honey tea. If my father’s like this, he will wake up and suffer tomorrow.”

I sat beside my father when I ordered the butler. And then, I asked my father politely in the softest voice as possible.

“Father, the Grand Duke Dandelion.”

“Ck, don’t even call the child’s name in front of me!”

I jumped at the sharply changing eyes. However, I couldn’t give up.

“Now that God has started to speak to me, I want to pray for my father, but how can I ask Him to cut his name?” (I’m unsure about this)

When I finished, my father’s eyes shook. Then, he laughed.

Suddenly, my father woke up and laid me on the bed. His eyes staring at me were full of madness. The powerful hand pressed my neck.

It was the first in a long time. But it was just a threat, and now I wasn’t even scared. I became dull.

From the day I realized that he couldn’t kill me, I simply waited for my father’s anger to go away. Like now, I would be a cat with my claws hidden and quietly calmed him down.

“Are you going to beg God for such blasphemy and then take away the divine power to finally return? To put God’s wrath on our family?”

I endured laughing at his voice. It was funny. The sound of someone who should be the most God’s wrath among us.

“Dandelion, that son of a bitch will burn himself to death, so you don’t have to worry.”

Even then and now, I was still speechless when I saw him.

God was full of resentment. I hated him who made me pay for all his debts, not for his descendants to God.

“I brought the honey tea… My Lord!”

The butler was a little surprised when he saw me who was unable to breathe and turned white under my father. I closed my eyes quietly when I saw him.

He wouldn’t save me anyway. It would’ve been less shameful if people didn’t see it.

“My Lord,” the butler again called my father.

It wasn’t a direct help, but thanks to that, he was able to calm down a little. I used the gap to get out of the Marquis.

I coughed from the pressure on my neck. He seemed to hold it stronger than I thought. After the cough stopped, I raised my upper body and bowed. Tears welled up in my eyes. But I didn’t regret following my father.

Earlier, when my father pushed me, I grabbed a piece of paper that fell on the bed in secret.

“You’d better go back.”

“I tried to help, but I was only a hindrance. I’m sorry.”

The butler bowed his head with his expressionless face.

He would’ve looked down on me normally, but did you feel pity for me? I was puzzled.

But it was time to get out. I had to hide what I held in my hand. I left the room in a hurry, avoided the knights who were guarding outside the room in silence.

“What is this?”

When I returned to my room, I opened my hand. Half burnt paper and black powder. It looked a little different from ash.

I sniffed it. Obviously, when a paper burned, it smelled, but there was another strange smell on it. It was like the smell of rotten egg and it’s unpleasant to my nose.

“I have a bad feeling.”

This obviously had to do with the attempt to kill Astein.

I put it in a small pocket and went to the library. I searched all night long, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find a book that revealed this.

༻✿༺

The next day, after the sun came up, I went back to my room.

“My Lady! Oh my, look at your eyebags. No, what happened with your neck? That bruises…”

Selemion, who came to help me took a bath, almost dropped the water.

“Is there a dress with a neck cape that rises to the top of the neck? Or bring me a scarf.”

Selemion went calmly to the dressing room. She came back with a chiffon lace scarf in her hand.

After I washed and dressed out, Selemion wrapped my neck with a scarf. The ends of the scarf were fixed with pins with small, pretty pearls.

“Ah, it’s too old to fix.”

I didn’t have any small accessories, so the scarf had to be fixed with this. Selemion tried a few more times and barely pinned it.

“I think it would fall down if I do something wrong. Is it all right?”

“It’s all right. We can’t solve the scarf. If I move quietly, we won’t have any trouble.”

Selemion looked at me with a bit of pity. After all, she knew how I was treated in this mansion. And I was really grateful for that.

So, I smiled to comfort her.

“It doesn’t hurt. So don’t worry.”

“You always pretend to be okay. But what about your face?”

“Is it serious?”

Selemion nodded. It was natural because I hadn’t been sleeping well for two days.

Selemion helped me dressed up with all her heart, but her stiff expression wasn’t easily concealed. Because I was a prospective saint, she couldn’t help it because I couldn’t use dark makeup.

“My young Lady was thin and fragile, so I wanted to protect you…. You look sick.”

“I will be fine after I take a nap in the carriage.”

However, I couldn’t fall asleep in the carriage easily. It was even more strange to fall asleep in a wrecked carriage.

When I arrived at the temple’s prayer room, I knelt down. From today, Astein said he would come to the prayer room. So I had to wait until he came. It was so strange to wait for him.

“I was always looking back…”

The waiting continued and I was exhausted. I sat on the wall of the prayer room for a while. Then drowsiness came. I didn’t know when he would come so I tried to hang in there, but it didn’t work.

Eventually, I couldn’t resist the temptation and fell asleep.

Was I sleep? There was a loud drop on the floor. I also felt my scarf fell down.

“Ugh…”

I could hear someone’s going right in front of me. Was Astein here?

I was worried, he couldn’t see me like this. But my eyelids, which suffered for two days, refused to open. Instead, they searched for the warmth nearby.

༻✿༺

It was a dream, but it was very comfortable and warm.

After taking a long sleep, I opened my eyes only after something tickled my cheek.

“I-I’m sorry.”

A woman of my age, with reddish-red hair and yellow eyes, was in front of me.

“Who are you?”

“I’m from the slums. I just wanted to thank the Saint for yesterday’s incident so I picked the flowers.”

Was I expecting Astein to come? No, I was disappointed.

The door was tightly closed and Sir Solar stood with an awkward face next to him.

“I’m sorry. Because she is tired and wants to take a break, so she asked me to let her in.”

What tickled my cheeks was a wildflower that gave out blue light in the woman’s hands. I looked at it for a long time and said to Sir Solar.

“Can I talk to her for a moment?”

“Yes, I understand.”

Sir Solar, who was still in trouble, had surely shut the door. I checked to see if the door was closed well, then turned to the woman.

“Did the Grand Duke Dandelion send you?”

She nodded hard at my question.

“Yes, he said that the Prospective Saint wants to make sure if I’m the person you’re looking for.”

Pure, clear eyes, and bright smile seemed familiar. The woman I met before the reversion.