Chapter 164
It was the same story everywhere she went. Arzeletta held her breath and waited for the guards to pass. It was the most familiar thing for her to hold her breath as quietly as a butterfly so as not to be found out.
Once the guards disappeared, Arzeletta walked towards the main street again.
The square, the main street… The places that might be the safest for ordinary people were the most foreign and alien places for Arzeletta.
Yoseph’s slaughterhouse, which everyone shunned, was, on the contrary, a safe refuge for Arzeletta.
And now Arzeletta was going to a place she had never once set foot in during the 10 years she had lived within these walls.
The highest and most sacred place in this domain,
The place that, as great as its glory was, had driven Arzeletta into a corner without light.
It was the great temple.
It was deep in the early hours, a time when there would be no one left praying. Arzeletta wrapped herself tightly in her veil again and walked towards the great temple.
“…Ah.”
And then Arzeletta collapsed, as if she was falling, onto the floor.
What was clear even in the deep darkness was the strange, black, and thick bloodstain that had been left on the stone floor without being erased.
Arzeletta bowed her body as if crouching. She kissed the spot of the tragedy she had caused. Arzeletta’s tears fell onto the bloodstain he had shed, soaking into the stone floor.
“So please don’t cry. I cannot bear it when you cry.”
He had told her not to cry, but she could not keep that promise from the very first day.
What kind of expression would he have if he knew this fact?
He would wrinkle his mature brow slightly and let out a light sigh that no one would notice. He would look at her without hiding the look of not understanding why she was like this. Her own reflection would be in those eyes, which looked as if they were seeing something very sad.
…She had learned too much and remembered too much.
Bearing that would also be her responsibility.
Arzeletta rose to her feet. The door of the great temple she had walked to again was open. The temple was always open for believers. So that a thief or a sinner could hide in its embrace at any time in the dark of night.
But she wondered for a moment if the sinners it embraced also included heretics, as defined by that God himself.
“……”
The things she had expected, such as her body burning up or her going mad from a curse the moment she entered the temple, did not happen after all.
In a place filled with huge and magnificent, endlessly high and pointed ceilings and beautiful holy paintings, Arzeletta took off her veil.
She walked into the center of the temple.
In the center of the great temple, which was lit by thousands of candles, Arzeletta’s silhouette in her black clothes was precarious and beautiful.
Arzeletta stood in front of the huge, radial symbol that resembled the light of the sun.
The symbol of God was shining with a brilliant golden light.
Arzeletta, who had been looking up at it for a long time, slowly knelt down.
She raised her hands and placed them over her heart.
It was the prayer of Impellias that she had never once done before.
“O God.”
Arzeletta’s lips trembled as she called out to him.
“Please save him.”
The moment she called Ragnar’s name, tears wet her cheeks again. It was truly an inconvenience.
“Please give the punishment to me.”
This God was Ragnar’s God. He was the God who had oppressed her, abused Theogrim, and driven Yoseph into the shadows, but Ragnar stood on the side of this God. She could pray for him.
“I will bear any punishment.”
It was a sincerity without any falsehood. Arzeletta recalled the words she had said to Ragnar again.
Because she had so little, the only thing she could offer was herself.
“Please…”
Ragnar’s great God, even though he had never been benevolent to her, would at least know her sincerity.
It was then.
“……!”
Arzeletta inhaled sharply, startled by a shadow standing far away.
Someone was there.
As if he had known everything from the beginning, the man’s eyes were pointed directly at Arzeletta.
They were cold, snake-like eyes.
“Chief Priest…”
Arzeletta clenched her trembling hands and rose from her spot. Her long, loosened hair and her shaking veil were even more precarious among the light of thousands of candles.
She was inauspicious.
Excessive beauty was absolutely inauspicious. Carmen once again recalled the words of God.
Carmen silently watched the fearful eyes that trembled slightly, and the steps that approached him as if something had been decided.
It was still a face that was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
Arzeletta approached him. Her face, which had become even more transparent from tears, was directed towards Carmen.
“Chief Priest. Please, hear my confession…”
Her inauspicious lips opened towards him.
“…I have committed a great sin.”
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