A Practical Guide to Ending a One-Sided Love - Chapter 19 - ɪɪɪ.

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After being abandoned at the temple, Bjorn was baptized and became an apprentice priest as soon as he was old enough. And, around the age of thirteen, he manifested divine power. After suffering a severe holy fever and rising again, he naturally transferred his affiliation to the paladin Corps.

The amount his mother received when she gave him up was three gold coins, so for the temple it was a profitable trade. The benefit a single paladin could bring to the order was worth far more than a mere three gold coins.

As everyone expected, Bjorn grew into an excellent paladin. With flawless skill, divine power stronger than anyone else’s, a diligent attitude, and even a holy looking appearance, he became a figure like the temple’s banner even before reaching adulthood.

Given all his positive traits, the temple Bjorn and treated him as a valuable resource. For him, that was not a particularly desirable phenomenon. The temple’s favor was always connected to unpleasant matters.

First among them was the issue related to the divine power they so welcomed.

Until before he suffered the holy fever, Bjorn did not know. What some called the blessing of God could become the yoke of life to someone else.

Divine power was a force that materialized according to the user’s will and could be wielded freely. A powerful strength capable of killing gigantic demonic beasts, or surviving even a rain of arrows without a single wound. However, every power came with a price.

It was something one couldn’t know before becoming a paladin, but for those who used divine power, major and minor side effects inevitably followed. Authority belonging not to humans but to God placed considerable burden upon the owner’s body.

The human body, always near its limit because of the power dwelling within, caused overload in some form. Mental erosion, physical fatigue, insomnia, delirium, the symptoms were diverse.

In Bjorn’s case, it appeared as physical pain. He realized this from the moment he felt the divine power flowing inside his body.

It felt as if the veins spreading throughout his body had turned into thorn bushes, and unknown sharp things stabbed, tore, and burrowed into him. Only after some time did he realize that it was the divine power he held committing it.

Paladins had to dominate and control divine power through endless training and discipline. Bjorn was no different. Because the divine power rampaged as if to kill him the moment he showed even a brief lapse, he lived a life of enduring pain again and again.

If he had not been born with a sturdy body and stamina, it would not have been strange for him to collapse and die at any time. In fact, among those who were not trained enough to join the order or were weak, there were many cases of losing their lives at the moment of awakening divine power.

‘Such powerful divine power. A blessing of the Almighty God.’

Even so, the temple called it only a blessing. Even though the one who carried it in his body had to endure pain close to a curse.

Yet Bjorn somehow survived within the cutting pain every day. Half of him wanted to die, but the other half was driven by bull-headed tenacity.

Whenever he tried to give up on life after wandering, a revelation from the Almighty God appeared in a very peculiar way to urge him on. Thus, Bjorn became curious. What on earth lay at the end of the path arranged by the Almighty God? And with only the will to confirm that, he continued a life he did not welcome.

As he struggled through each day like that, the temple endlessly demanded things from him. Sacred Flower activities were also one of them.

Each time he recalled it, his blood ran cold, and it could be called without doubt the worst experience of his life.

The order selected those among the knights belonging to the temple who had decent looks and utilized them under the pretext of missionary activity.

On the surface it was to maintain the order’s reputation and fame, and more concretely, they actively sold them to nobles in order to receive material sponsorship.

From childhood, when he knew nothing, he sensed something strange. It began with being made to wear a formal uniform far removed from practicality and neatness as soon as he passed a certain age.