Oh, noble and benevolent representative of the divine!

Confess my sins to the Father.

Judge every part of me before the tribunal

And deliver us eternally

From the persistent greed that corrodes us to our very core.

* * *

One who stood at the pinnacle of purity.

A boy who shone so brightly he made the embroidered gold crossing humbly over white silk seem faded.

A child who held a modest golden holy relic without strain, keeping his back straight and never losing his compassionate smile.

That was her impression when she first saw Solaith.

The boy with platinum hair so white it bordered on ivory, and eyes more radiant than gold, took one step at a time. As his noble form descended from the platform, the priests bowed their heads in unison.

Beautiful. It was a holiness that made me question whether a temple cleaner like me should even dare to peek.

Gulp.

Lev felt a thrill rising within her at the situation—hiding behind the stone door, observing a boy that even high-ranking priests couldn’t look at directly. 

The sensation coiled within her heart slowly raised its head as the saint drew closer. Her eye pressed to the keyhole trembled like a thief enjoying a delightful theft.

‘Eek!’

That’s when it happened.

Her eyes met with the boy walking across the carpet. With her pupils contracted sharply, Lev immediately turned and pressed her back against the door.

No way. He didn’t see her, right? 

Her head spun from the suddenly intersecting gaze. She’d only wanted to spend her grueling day as a laborer with a small transgression. Though it was unlikely he’d actually seen her, guilt washed over Lev and she ran toward the Salamedes Plateau like a petty thief.

‘Ah d*mn, that’s why they said only priests could enter. Surely the divine won’t punish me just for sneaking a peek.’

The girl roughly combed through her wind-tousled red hair with her fingers, then began sweeping the stone floor atop the plateau with a broom. 

Good heavens. Who knew that just seeing the boy who’d ascended to become the continent’s one and only “saint” would stir faith she never had?

Lev, the illegitimate daughter of a humble Baron family who’d been practically dumped at the temple, had been a notorious troublemaker since childhood. 

At sixteen, she was a bit old to be called a girl—with less than four years until adulthood—but her frame was more delicate than her peers, and her eyes, ignorant of the ways of the world, were endlessly innocent.

Her heart troubled by sin, Lev hurriedly clasped her hands together. Then she prayed for absolution for the act of peeking at the divine messenger. Though her faith had become something like a habit after years of service.

Lev moved her arms with fervor, sweeping the floor like the act would atone for her misconduct. Soon the sunset covered the sky and early evening arrived.

“I heard there was a saint’s inauguration mass today. It’s remarkable that His Holiness the Pope and all the archbishops from each district came.”

“Indeed.”

When Aunt Margareta offered her warm oat porridge, Lev roughly averted her eyes. If anyone found out she’d hidden behind the stone door of the chapel to spy on the mass, they’d all faint.

“I heard that because he’s chosen, an aura fundamentally different from ours flows from him.”

The young boy sitting next to the girl spoke. It was the boy in charge of cleaning supplies, his face smudged with soot.

That’s right. Incredibly beautiful, and as chilling as he was beautiful.

Lev still couldn’t shake off her impressions of the chosen one’s appearance. Skin so white and elegant it was hard to believe he was human like her. 

Irises that looked like melted gold poured directly into place. She resented that this magnificent impression was hers alone to bear, unable to share it.

“That’s right. He’s a saint chosen by a revelation after fifty years. Even without the revelation, he’s different from us. I heard he’s the second prince of the Yusdainut Imperial Family.”

“A prince? Wow. Then his skin must be white like snow with blue blood flowing through him.”

Her heart thumped. So that’s what he was. Finding the reason for the overwhelming pressure she’d felt from just one second of eye contact actually relieved Lev. It felt like a rational explanation for her strangely pounding heart from morning till evening.

“Lev’s too busy eating. Usually you never miss out on conversations like this.”

“It’s just, I’m hungry…”

“Huh? Didn’t you eat barley bread earlier and wild strawberries for a snack? You’re eating a lot today.”

“……”

Lev scrunched her brow at the kid’s interference. He then held his breath like a baby mouse and turned his head back to his food.

“If he’s fourteen, he’s only two years older than Derek. For such a child to leave home for the first time and climb these high mountains. It must have been difficult, and then to hold an inauguration ceremony too. I feel a bit sorry for him.”

“I saw the covered carriages earlier. Someone of noble status would never walk here. And he’ll only enjoy wealth and glory here anyway, so what’s there to pity?”

“Watch your words, child. Derek.”

The aunt scolded the sullen boy’s voice with some concern. Demaret Temple. This relatively modest place situated in a rural mountain range had been decided as the new saint’s sanctuary according to the revelation from the holy capital. 

So for a month, personnel from all temples had to gather to scrub away grime and polish every surface. 

Would it be explanation enough to say that hundreds of square meters of moss that had turned the plaster walls blue had all been removed?

Derek, as the cleaning supplies manager, seemed to still harbor resentment about suffering considerably, unable to close his protruding lips.

“Phew, the menial work will just keep piling up anyway…”

Whenever someone of high status visited, everyone busily moved about. If a foreign bishop or royalty came, without exception everyone had to gather to clean the sanctuary and prepare a formal dinner. 

The amount of work increased depending on how many days they stayed. But not just days or weeks—a lifetime. Derek’s complaint wasn’t entirely incomprehensible.

No matter how much this was a place that served the divine, in human-made society, class lines were clear.

But that made the child—whose name she didn’t even know—seem just as pitiful. Not only had he left home, but he’d spend his entire life in a place where he wasn’t welcomed. 

When she’d come here at the age of seven, knowing nothing, she’d been so sad to be separated from her friends—so how must that child feel, separated from his family for life at fourteen?

Lev gazed at the crimson lantern creaking and swaying in the summer night breeze as she listlessly spooned oat porridge into her mouth.

* * *

“…A person praised by the absolute omnipotent Heavenly Father through the fullness of faith and the Holy Spirit, chosen as one of the apostles, has such abundant authority that signs appear on every side. When he goes forth and speaks with wisdom and spirit, no matter how many people gather to argue, he will open the right path…”

The saint mechanically recited the Acts of the Apostles. Then he chanted passages from chapters 2 through 7 for over ten minutes, which would form the foundation of worship. He must be a genius. 

Was it because he was a child who’d received divine revelation? To recite such long passages before all those believers without a single sign of nervousness.

Today the girl was hiding in the storage side room, stealing glances at the chapel.

There were hardly any children her age in the temple, so perhaps it was a sense of kinship welling up, or curiosity about the sacred being, or maybe half and half.

Before ascending to these mountains, there had been exactly one month of preparation time, she’d heard.

In that time, he’d memorized the Acts perfectly and conducted worship like an archbishop—the sight filled Lev with awe. Was he really fourteen?

Noble beings captivate everyone’s attention just by breathing beside them. On top of that, when he was going to deliver sacred words, how could anyone not want to see him up close? 

After such wicked rationalization, the teenage girl continued to spy on the worship conducted by the mysterious saint.

‘People like us can’t even pray in the chapel anyway. Does it make sense that we can only worship in the basement? Even the divine would understand this.’

The girl closed her eyes in time with the clear voice. Somehow she had a premonition that if she prayed here in accordance with the saint’s blessing, it would reach closer to the divine’s ears.

‘Please let my puppy Ellie, who I left at home, stay healthy. And the maid Lena too, and my childhood friends. May they all be happy eating warm porridge right now.’

Having spent most of her life at the temple, Lev’s prayer topics weren’t particularly diverse. But when it came time to pray, she would pray with her own sincerity for the few people who’d been part of her life.

And so the first worship service ended. When the saint turned the holy staff to the side, the priests bowed their heads as though they’d been waiting and received it on white cloth.

She’d once heard that high-ranking people like prophets, the pope, and saints shouldn’t be looked at directly by ordinary priests. 

The boy gave an emotionless nod to the bowing believers and slowly disappeared through the main door. Afterward the priests left the chapel, and then the servants in charge of cleaning filed in.

‘Oh no. Why is everyone coming in so quickly?’

Lev had missed her timing to leave. Usually there was some time gap to prevent servants and high-ranking priests from encountering each other. She’d planned to leave the side room then and do her cleaning work, but the servants had rushed in without giving her any opening.

‘If I go out now, they’ll definitely find it strange… If the apprentice priests see me, they’ll ask why I’m coming out of there.’

The servants scheduled to clean the chapel with Lev would wonder about the missing girl and continue cleaning. The girl had no choice but to hold her breath and wait until everyone left the chapel. Even if it meant accepting penalty points in her evaluation.

She told herself this was the divine giving her a small punishment, and resolved again and again not to do this anymore.

After a long while, silence fell over the chapel.

No one’s here now, right? 

As Lev checked through the keyhole, she jerked back in shock when someone’s silhouette covered her view.