After I Died, The Male Leads Became Strange

The azure sky stretched above, and amidst the fresh greenery that spread out like an earthly paradise, a man stood.

The man had long pink hair flowing down to his waist, greeting the breeze while frolicking with chirping larks.

This man with a pure appearance, dressed in white priestly robes, was none other than the former Pope Johannes.

In reality, he had been confined to this space called the Holy Land by his son’s hand, unable to freely come and go.

Nevertheless, he had been spending relatively peaceful days here, away from worldly affairs.

But then.

The larks playing around him flew away at the sound of approaching footsteps from behind.

“Lord Johannes.”

A group of priests had come to see him.

Johannes’s eyes widened.

It was the first time in seven years that the door to this place had opened and outsiders had visited.

“What brings you here?”

“Pope Yupheon’s tyranny grows worse by the day!”

“Please lend us your strength to bring him down!”

The priests told him about what had been happening in the outside world.

Johannes’s expression gradually became serious as he quietly listened to their story.

“…So, the priests are sharply divided into two factions regarding his punishment.”

Currently, the Grand Temple was experiencing intense conflict between the elder priests who valued tradition and the younger priests who valued ability.

“Yes, Lord Johannes. Please help us bring down Pope Yupheon, who ignores tradition and acts tyrannically on his own accord.”

“If you take a stand, even the young priests will bend their will and follow.”

“Please become our Pope again, Lord Johannes. The current Pope Yupheon is severely lacking in qualification.”

Those who had come to see Johannes were the elder priests who valued tradition.

They had been greatly displeased when Yupheon deposed his father Johannes seven years ago and took the papal position for himself.

In the midst of this, Yupheon had provided them with a pretext to bring him down by overturning an oracle without the consent of the Council of Elders.

Johannes’s expression darkened.

Although it was his son who had confined him here seven years ago and never once showed his face since, he still worried about him.

What on earth was his son doing out there?

“…Where is he? Where is Yupheon now?”

“Pope Yupheon will be confined in the west annex of the Grand Temple with his position as Pope suspended until his punishment is decided.”

“I need to see Yupheon.”

With the help of the elder priests, Johannes was able to leave the Holy Land for the first time in seven years.

He went straight to see Yupheon.

The priests guarding the annex recognized Johannes and greeted him.

When he nodded, they opened the closed door for him.

Johannes stepped into the annex.

And he was able to find Yupheon without difficulty.

A small fountain decorated with angel statues in the front yard of the annex.

Yupheon was sitting in front of it with a bored expression, splashing water.

Rustle.

Yupheon raised his head at the sound of footsteps on the grass.

Upon discovering his father, a smile spread across his face.

“It’s been a long time, Father.”

Yupheon greeted him with a soft voice and a gentle smile.

However, the father facing his son could not bring himself to smile and stood frozen in place.

“Yuphe…”

Johannes’s face turned pale, then gradually filled with horror.

“This can’t be, this energy… What on earth have you done…”

Seeing his father’s eyes trembling violently, Yupheon let out a small laugh.

“Ah, I knew this would happen. I knew Father would recognize it immediately upon seeing me.”

“You, you…”

“That’s why I tried not to meet with Father.”

Yupheon smiled playfully, his eyes curving.

“Ah… Ah…”

Johannes, ashen-faced, approached Yupheon with trembling steps.

Splash, splash…

And the moment he barely managed to stand before his son.

Thud.

Realizing that what he sensed was not wrong, Johannes fell to his knees on the ground.

“Why, why did you do such a thing…!”

Johannes grabbed his son and collapsed. He sobbed with an anguished face.

“Why did you do that, Yuphe! Why on earth…”

“….”

Yupheon looked down at his father, who was sobbing on his knees with an expressionless face.

Suddenly, why was he crying?

When he deposed his Father with these hands, he had already resolved to throw away everything he had.

So, he merely discarded it. All of himself.

Quietly observing his sobbing father, Yupheon slowly parted his lips.

“…I told you. That I had to protect Jella. That if Jella’s death was God’s will, I would kill that God.”

It was a dry voice without even the slightest hint of a smile.

Johannes raised his tear-stained face and cried out.

“But, now that you’ve killed God, you…!”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Yupheon cut off his father’s words and spoke in a calm voice.

“I don’t care about anything. Because I saved Jella.”

Whatever the price for killing God, he didn’t care at all.

Hearing this serene confession, Johannes painfully closed his eyes.

***

Seven years ago, during the time when the world was buzzing about the appearance of a saint.

An oracle was given to the Pope of the Grand Temple.

‘Kill Jella Shunaibel. Then peace will come to the world.’

Johannes, who was the Pope at the time, agonized over the oracle.

Jella was like a child to him too.

That little bundle wrapped in swaddling clothes, who had lost her parents as soon as she was born and was abandoned in the Holy Nation, regarded him as her guardian and followed him.

Johannes also adored such a Jella very much.

And at the same time, she was a grateful existence who had rescued Yuphe, his only son, from the pit of terrible abuse.

News reached him that Jella, who had returned to the imperial palace, had caused a bloodbath before becoming the Emperor herself and subsequently ruled with tyranny.

He couldn’t believe it. Because Jella, contrary to her public stigma as a witch who had devoured her parents at birth, was a child with a good nature.

However, that was solely an imperial matter.

The Grand Temple did not interfere.

But then an oracle came down saying she must be killed. That if not, this world would perish…

Johannes was the Pope of the Grand Temple.

He was a servant of God who had to live serving God’s will for the greater good rather than personal affection, more precisely.

So, after much deliberation, he decided that the oracle must be made public.

But Yuphe, who had noticed this fact, came to see him.

“Are you really, really going to make the oracle public?”

“…How did you know about the content of the oracle?”

Johannes hardened his expression, unable to answer his son’s question.

“Tell me, Father! Are you really going to make public that absurd oracle saying Jella must be killed?”

Yupheon raised his voice for the first time before his father, veins bulging in his neck.

The power of an oracle was extremely strong.

Arne was the only God believed throughout the continent, and oracles proclaimed in the name of the Pope had enough power to check even the imperial family of the Empire.

If the oracle were made public, people who had already been whispering unfavorable things about Jella would rise up, shouting that she must be killed.

And at the end of it, she would surely meet her death. Because people who rise in the name of God would never back down until she died.

“It can’t be helped.”

Johannes answered with a dark face.

“Please, please reconsider.”

Yupheon begged his father in a desperate voice, grabbing him.

“I’m begging you like this. Father, please…”

Johannes had never seen his son beg like this before. So his heart wavered, but…

“Everything is God’s will. It’s unfathomable.”

“….”

Yupheon’s lips slowly closed.

All expression vanished from his face. Just like in his childhood days when he was abused in the punishment room in the basement of the Grand Temple, before he met Jella.

Johannes’s heart ached at his son’s empty, hollow eyes, as if the light had gone out.

However, as a servant of God, he could not go against God’s will.

It was when Johannes was trying to dismiss him in a deliberately cold voice.

“You may leave now… Ugh!”

Suddenly, a dull impact struck him.

As Johannes’s body fell to the ground, an invisible force bound and restrained him tightly.

“Th-this… Yuphe!”

It was Yuphe’s holy power.

“I’ve repeatedly taught that divine power should be used to protect and safeguard people! How dare you use divine power to harm someone…! Ugh, urgh…”

Yupheon was known as the individual with the most powerful holy power of the current generation.

Johannes let out a painful groan, crushed by that explosive power.

“I always remember Father’s teachings.”