Don’t Be Holy! - Chapter 175

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A roar of shouts reached her ears.

In her dream, Eir was running away for reasons she didn’t understand. Numerous battles were taking place, with knights confronting monsters that appeared from all directions.

The smell of blood stung her nostrils, and the ground in various places was darkened, swallowed by shadows.

‘But this is strange.’

Eir thought as she ran frantically.

For some reason, the monsters weren’t attacking her at all. It was strange. Could it be that they couldn’t see her? Eir paused her steps for a moment.

Perhaps because of her muffled hearing, even the fighting happening right next to her sounded distant. Just then, something flew by, grazing Eir’s arm.

‘Wake up!’

Chrome?

Chrome, who had been walking slightly ahead of her, shouted intensely as he pulled her along.

‘Don’t you see? That person has no intention of forgiving you. He’s trying to kill you.’

Who?

Eir instinctively turned her head to see who was behind her.

In the distance, cutting down monsters with sweeping strikes, was someone very familiar and dear to Eir.

His red hair, which suited the bloody scene so well, caught her eye first, followed by the glint of light from the sword he held high. She squinted slightly because of that bright light.

What was strange was that his sword-wielding felt threatening. From the first time she had seen Rubel, watching him wield his sword had always inspired admiration, never fear.

But now it felt as if he would cut down everything, including her.

Just then, Rubel raised his sword.

‘Seize that witch immediately!’

Rubel shouted, staring intently at Eir. His flashing eyes and betrayal-filled face were so unfamiliar that Eir found herself gaping in shock.

Knights roared as they charged forward with their swords, and Rubel grabbed an arrow from a nearby knight and aimed it at her.

Eir finally came to her senses and hurriedly turned to run, and the arrow Rubel shot sliced through the air as the dream abruptly ended in darkness.

The next scene was a quiet room.

Eir was wearing a white dress, and as she opened her eyes and looked around, she could see that she was sitting in some kind of prayer room.

There was a short knock at the door, and as Eir turned her head, Rubel quietly opened the door and entered.

Eir was startled, fearing he might draw his sword, but far from it, Rubel embraced her with a gentleness she had never seen before.

It was the natural attitude of lovers rather than something passionate. He lowered his head and carefully examined Eir’s face, sighing with concern at the wounds here and there.

‘What happened to your face?’

‘I’m fine. It only looks bad, but I’m okay.’

Her mouth moved on its own to answer Rubel. It felt as if her soul had left her body and entered some strange vessel.

‘Only looks bad, you say.’

Rubel tenderly reached out to stroke her cheek, as if he had never aimed an arrow at her. Every place his hand touched stung as if there was a long cut on her cheek.

‘Does it hurt?’

‘I already applied medicine earlier.’

‘You probably washed it off when you cleaned up earlier. We’ll need to get more medicine. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been kissing your face all over.’

He muttered irritably about his foolish mistake while unconsciously planting another kiss on Eir’s cheek.

Eir took his hand and at the same time pushed away his shoulder that was leaning toward her.

‘I have something to tell you.’

‘What is it?’

‘About my true identity. I’m…… not a witch. I’m a priestess who ran away. I wanted to tell you clearly.’

Rubel looked at her quietly with inscrutable eyes, then asked indifferently:

‘Are you saying that again?’

‘Everything I said then wasn’t a lie. It’s true. Soon Granny’s curse will disappear and everyone will recover their memories of me, and you’ll know too. I wanted to tell you before that. My true identity.’

Her heart felt like it would burst. Eir took a hasty breath. Even knowing it was a futile dream, she couldn’t bear her curiosity about Rubel’s reaction. She wanted to see what emotion would be reflected in his steady gaze. Even though she knew it was a form of self-harm.

But no particular expression appeared on Rubel’s face.

He looked at her quietly before speaking.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘What?’

‘I said it doesn’t matter. Whether you’re a witch or a runaway priestess. What does that matter now?’

‘It doesn’t matter? Then what does matter to you?’

Rubel gently stroked her hair, then placed his palm on her back and pressed her upper body slightly, bringing their bodies together. She was enveloped in his large embrace, but Eir felt her heart beating unstably for some reason.

‘That you are by my side. What else could matter?’

Her eyes closed, and the warmth of Rubel embracing her tightly dissipated.

Eir felt her head splitting with pain as she barely managed to open her eyes. This time, Chrome was looking down at her with concern.

“Are you okay? Are you conscious?”

“Chrome?”

Wondering if this was a continuation of the first dream, Eir coughed as Chrome supported her body and helped her sit up.

There wasn’t a part of her body that didn’t hurt. The aftermath of torture and the impact of hitting the ground when she fainted earlier severely shook her body.

And with that, Eir naturally came to realize.

Ah. This is reality.

Right. We were in the middle of escaping from the witch.

“Were we caught?” Eir asked in a gloomy voice. Her last memory was of falling after hitting a wall that suddenly appeared while fleeing with Chrome. But hearing those words, Chrome’s face became strange.

He frowned and carefully examined Eir’s face, looking for anything unusual.

“What are you talking about? Don’t you remember?”

“Remember what?”

“When you did that to Freidis…….”

“Huh?”

He stopped speaking. He frowned as if unsure how to explain.

Chrome carefully recounted what had just happened.

When the wall suddenly appeared at the last moment, Chrome thought they would be caught without being able to move. Since only Freidis could manipulate darkness like that, and if she had come there, there was nothing more they could do.

But at the last moment, just when Freidis was about to grab Chrome’s head, a sacred light suddenly burst forth from Eir’s body. The witches were startled and raised defensive barriers as the light illuminated the entire world, but even that was useless as the darkness soon dispersed.

With the terrible feeling of their skin burning, Freidis and the other witches screamed and fled inside.

Even the defensive barrier of darkness began to collapse under the divine energy Eir was emitting.

‘Are you okay? Let’s go quickly.’

And Eir calmly approached Chrome, reaching out to grasp his arm.

Chrome was afraid his body might burn like the other witches’, so he instinctively brushed her hand away forcefully, but Eir was not hurt and instead reassuringly extended her hand to Chrome again.

‘Don’t worry. You won’t get hurt.’

‘How did you do that?’

‘Let’s run away first. We don’t have much time.’

After saying that so calmly and even escaping together, now this.

Could it be because of the teleportation spell Chrome had cast?

He had been so startled when Eir suddenly collapsed as soon as their bodies passed through the darkness and fell elsewhere. And now, after waking up after a long time, she was acting as if all her memories were gone.

“My body was glowing?”

When Chrome explained what had happened, Eir frowned as if it were nonsense. He blankly described that it wasn’t just her body glowing.

“Not just your body, everything around was so bright that it was impossible to see anything. Even Freidis couldn’t do anything and had to flee.”

“That’s impossible. Even a decent High Priestess would find that difficult.”

“But you did it!”

Eir, who had been deeply thinking about something, let out a soft exclamation of “Ah!” and hurriedly checked what she was carrying. Thankfully, the God’s Mirror was still there, unharmed and intact.

Eir let out a sigh of relief and said,

“It must have been the God’s Mirror.”

Chrome tilted his head as if that wasn’t it, but soon gave up and nodded.

Well, when it came to divine power, Eir would know better.