“Thank you for coming all this way to this distant place. Thanks to you, this land where death has settled will receive some blessing.”

The Border Count’s voice of gratitude cracked like parched earth, making even the listener feel weary.

“Having Norton Border Count as the guardian of this land is the greatest blessing. As an imperial citizen before being a priest, I always respect and thank you.”

“These days, priests speak well without being presumptuous.”

“……Ha. Haha.”

Gabriel, the representative and only intermediate priest of this volunteer priest group, forced a laugh while racking his brain to engage the Border Count in more conversation, desperately trying to impress his superiors to escape this volunteer group.

“So. How long do you plan to stay?”

The Border Count clearly looked annoyed.

“One month. His Majesty’s will is for us to examine as many children as possible.”

“I thought you followed His Holiness’s words.”

“Yes. Since His Holiness follows His Majesty’s words, His Holiness’s words are His Majesty’s words.”

“……I’ll provide you with an annex.”

With a casual gesture, he left the guidance to his aide and immediately turned away. However, Gabriel wasn’t the type to let this opportunity slip. 

He couldn’t accept the fate of wandering the country to waste his talents outside the temple, in places without walls and roofs to shield him from wind and rain, all because he had failed to align himself properly.

Evelyn, who stood behind him, sighed. Her luggage was heavy, and she desperately wanted to receive room assignments and rest, wishing Gabriel would just shut up.

“Border Count, you appear to need healing most urgently!”

At Gabriel’s desperate cry, the Border Count with hollow eyes turned around. 

Though fatigue had accumulated thickly on the middle-aged face where white whiskers began to mix with his short beard, his imposing build, commanding presence, and experience clearly showed he remained a formidable figure.

“How can you leave the demonic energy as it is? It must be very difficult for you. Ah, perhaps the territorial priest is absent……”

“No.”

Norton Border Count, cutting off Gabriel’s words, swept his sharp gaze over the volunteer priest group lined up behind Gabriel, looking like he could discern even lies. 

His stare made people shrink even without guilt. Finding it amusing that this worked on priests too, he adopted a somewhat deflated attitude.

“I’m incompatible with divine power. Therefore, I need no help, so you should just do your volunteer work.”

Norton Border Count overflowed with such thick, sticky energy that demonic energy seemed to drip from his body, even without measuring it with divine power.

Most people wouldn’t be able to endure it, yet how he managed to walk around remained a mystery.

Evelyn looked at the empire’s guardian and couldn’t understand how someone who didn’t need sacred power could defeat monsters.

Did he have multiple lives or something?

“I’m Renner, aide to the lord’s castle. I’ll guide you. Seven priests and three attendants. Is that correct?”

Gabriel clicked his tongue while watching Norton Border Count’s retreating figure stride away.

Evelyn passed him and stuck close behind Aide Renner.

“Evelyn!”

“Ah……damn……”

“Evelyn!!”

At Gabriel’s loud voice, Evelyn squeezed her eyes shut once before turning around. Before she could even respond, sacred language poured out.

“Go check where the kids gather, and this time absolutely!! Tell them to prepare everything properly. We’re going to help these broke vermin who can’t afford to use divine power, so we’re not going to make a spectacle on the streets looking pathetic! I get goosebumps thinking how many beggar kids there must be in the countryside, really. Ugh!”

“……Yes.”

“Ah. And. Absolutely demand they set it up inside the lord’s castle. Don’t let them make us face the cold wind in an empty field like last time because commoner kids smell and can’t enter the castle. Divine power doesn’t work if it freezes to death, Evelyn. Got it?!”

Anyone listening would think he was coming out to bestow blessings on the children himself. Yet he never even leaves the castle. Evelyn nodded halfheartedly.

She wished Gabriel would hurry up and make some good connections to get out of this volunteer group.

Even though he was called an intermediate priest, both he and she had the same white light aura, yet he acted like he was a high priest or something. Now just hearing his voice made her feel nauseous.

Evelyn threw her luggage in the assigned quarters and returned to the main building to summon the aide. While pleading with lengthy divine words mixed in for them to please set up a windproof barracks, she achieved an unexpected result.

“If divine power doesn’t work when frozen to death, we can’t provide barracks.”

With a low, murky voice, the surrounding air grew heavy.

“We’ll clear out one of the outposts so children can come and go easily. It’s spacious and the knights’ regular duty station, so it’ll be safe in many ways.”

“Yes. I’ll relay this to the knight order immediately.”

When the aide left to carry out the task, Evelyn had to awkwardly face Norton Border Count alone. Finding it difficult to please high-ranking people, she decided to briefly express her gratitude and quickly leave.

“Thank you for your consideration.”

“If not for the volunteer group, commoner children would never meet a priest even if they died and came back to life, so I’m the one who’s grateful.”

“I’m merely a servant of God. Since God wishes to care for everyone, these servants are doing what we should naturally do……”

The priest had delicate, snow-white features befitting someone who possessed sacred energy. 

The sudden urge to see that face turn red was perhaps the mischief of a powerful person who had grown bored with everything after working himself to death for so long.

“Is God also a noble?”

“Pardon?”

Did he know she was trying to brush it off? At the Border Count’s sudden question, Evelyn raised her head. It was because he was so tall.

Norton Border Count stood with arms crossed, looking down at Evelyn like he was a god surveying the world. Watching her eyelids flutter open and closed, Norton waited for the young priest’s face to become stained with confusion.

“You care for everyone, but does that ‘everyone’ include commoners?”

‘Ugh. I don’t like this topic.’

Evelyn sighed inwardly.

If you want to debate such things, don’t grab a volunteer group priest from among the lowest-ranking priests who are considered the most troublesome, and instead discuss the ‘everyone’ that includes the noble people defined by the high-ranking officials among themselves.

That was Evelyn’s true feeling, but she couldn’t voice it aloud when she received wages by following God’s will.

“That’s why we travel throughout the empire year-round regardless of weather. Caring for the pain of commoner children everywhere and bestowing blessings is what I do.”

“Hmm. Now that I hear it, it sounds plausible.”

How could agreeing words sound so sarcastic!

Priests with sacred power, especially healing priests, could only meet nobles. Among these healing priests were various ranks, and the volunteer priest group that Evelyn belonged to was where those pushed to the very bottom ended up.

This volunteer group, created under the grand premise of ensuring that healing priests, who were the exclusive privilege of nobles, would provide equal blessings to children who would brighten the empire’s future, was grandiose in name only. In reality, it was tantamount to receiving punishment.

Evelyn had been assigned here immediately upon becoming a healing priest. It was practically the same as being expelled for failing to make offerings to the high priest after entering the temple claiming to follow God’s will.

“Your Grace, your eyes!”

At that moment, dark energy flickered in Norton Border Count’s eyes. This was a phenomenon that occurred like a complication in those poisoned by demonic energy. Evelyn instinctively reached out and covered the Border Count’s eyelids.

Thwack!

Her wrist was caught by strong force, but the Border Count stopped moving at the white divine power shooting out from her palm.

“Ugh, urgh!”

With blood circulation cut off from her caught wrist, Evelyn’s hand quickly turned dark red then pale. She was so tall that even standing on her tiptoes, her hand kept slipping, making her body sway. 

Seeing the Border Count tremble, unable to control his own strength as he gripped her wrist, Evelyn pressed against his chest to steady herself and drew up her divine power.

As a low-ranking priest with white light aura, she couldn’t completely purify it, but temporary complications should be somewhat healed.

When sweat began to bead all over her face, the sticky air loosened and strength gradually left Norton Border Count’s hand.

When she withdrew the divine power she had forcibly drawn up, Evelyn swayed from dizziness and sat down.

“Ah……”

Only then did she realize her wrist was still caught by the Border Count.

It was rare for her to overexert herself like this. The demonic energy accumulated in his body should have been purified when it met divine power, but strangely, instead of being purified, it had thrown a fit.

Still, it seemed to have some effect, as the dark shadows completely disappeared from the Border Count’s pupils, and sunlight rippled in them.

He stared down at the seated Evelyn with a bewildered expression.

“How did you do that?”

“Just with divine power……”

“No. You did something different. Didn’t you?”