How Could the Villainous Young Master Be a Saintess?

Inside the second-floor hall of the Sanctum of the Sacred Tree, everyone held their breath as they watched. It seemed none of them had expected things to become this troublesome.

“How strange. I was quite sure the force I used, and the point where I landed it, should have left you with no possibility of striking back, young man.” The cardinal casually released a curtain of light and knocked aside the ice chain flying at him, his tone calm. “Could it be I’ve grown old? Has my control weakened to the point that I failed to leave you completely unable to move?”

“Time really spares no one,” the cardinal said with a sigh.

“Old bastard... you really are good.” Exhausted, Vinny’s body gave out beneath him. He crashed to the floor, and [Frostfang] tumbled off to the side. The armor on his body had already been blasted into tatters, but he still forced himself upright into a seated position, staring fixedly at the cardinal.

Sure enough, the gap was just too wide.

When the difference in raw strength was this overwhelming, all clever tricks and little opportunistic schemes were worthless.

“May I take that as praise, Young Master Vinny? As praise for still being vigorous in old age? Then I’ll gladly accept it.” The cardinal chuckled. “Though I am advanced in years, I do rather enjoy being praised by the young.”

“I do admire you, really. Your only flaw is that you’re far too impatient. Then again, that’s why your disguise fell apart so quickly. There isn’t the slightest trace of a Saintess about you. Anyone would suspect you.”

At the side, the scar-faced knight silently glanced at the cardinal, then withdrew his gaze again.

“Pah! That still makes me better than you leeching bastards! At least this young master dares to be himself in front of other people. Do you? Do any of you dare show your real faces? Tear away the clergy’s fig leaf and you’re nothing but a pack of unforgivable scumbags.”

“The fact that you can still say things like that only proves you are not mature enough,” the cardinal said, leaning on his staff.

“...”

Vinny was gasping for breath. His last burst of strength was about to end. His mental state rapidly withered, like a punctured balloon collapsing in on itself. Not an ounce of strength remained. Not a shred of mana could be drawn out.

He couldn’t move anymore.

Was there still a way to break this deadlock?

If there wasn’t...

Then he could only use his final method.

Even if he used it, he still probably wouldn’t win. Worse, once it was over, it might end up benefiting the Church instead.

Because right now, at most, the Church of the Dawn only believed he was a useless dead vein.

If they discovered that his bloodline had already awakened, then he would be exposing his greatest secret to his greatest enemy.

And if the Church of the Dawn learned the truth about his bloodline, what would they do?

Whatever it was, it definitely wouldn’t be anything good.

Maybe the Blessing Angel bloodline would end up being used by them, turned into an accomplice for their cause.

But now...

It seemed he had no other choice.

Vinny’s gaze drifted uncertainly. He could already feel his focus slipping away. His condition was worsening by the second. Maybe the next moment, his vision would simply go black and he’d collapse.

Should he give up?

Or gamble everything on this last throw?

With all the concentration he could still force together, Vinny slowly moved his eyes to [Frostfang], lying beside him and radiating a cold gleam.

“This would have been so much easier from the beginning.” One hand behind his back, the cardinal slowly walked toward him. “Young Master Vinny, are you now willing to listen to a few words from me?”

“Really, why force things to this point? You had to be taught a lesson before you were willing to behave. Though I was rather fond of blades and violence when I was younger, these days I don’t care for such things anymore. Unless absolutely necessary, I would never do this.”

“Well then, Young Master Vinny.” The cardinal smiled. “Now you may tell me what you think.”

“And don’t say you’ve already done so. A person’s thoughts are never fixed. In different times, under different circumstances, they change. They keep changing.”

“Your thoughts now should be a little more... mature than they were just now, shouldn’t they?”

“...What I think now?” Vinny stared at the cardinal as he approached and fell into silence for a moment.

“You’re right. I do have a thought now. Want to hear it?”

“Oh?” The cardinal smiled as he stepped closer. “Listening to the repentance of one who has lost his way? That is what I am best at. Speak, Young Master Vinny.”

“What I’m thinking right now is this...”

Vinny’s eyes widened until blood vessels burst red across them.

“Your old man here is the notorious young master of Camella Royal Capital! Burn that into your head!”

Enduring horrifying pain, risking his already shattered mana channels breaking completely, he seized [Frostfang] from beside him and hurled it at the cardinal.

Yes.

The cardinal had already beaten him until all four limbs were useless. Vinny had bitten through the tip of his own tongue, using the violent spike of pain to shock his numb nerves awake. Forcing [Frostfang] to move, he unleashed his strongest spell.

[Icefang’s Roar]!

Once again, he had surpassed his own limit.

With his body already broken to pieces, his mana already dry, he used his own life force as kindling and released this final killing move.

A frost dragon wrapped around the shaft of the spear, carrying snow and frozen mist with it as it became a massive white dragon of frost. At point-blank range, it lunged straight at the cardinal and opened its enormous jaws. Even cast with only Intermediate Magus strength, [Icefang’s Roar] had become a monstrous thing—its maw wide enough to swallow the cardinal whole.

And yet, faced with that surging, terrifying tide of ice mana rushing toward him, the cardinal’s expression remained perfectly calm.

Watching that, Vinny immediately felt a chill of foreboding.

The cardinal lifted his staff.

A purple sphere of light emerged from the crystal set at its tip.

The little orb moved slowly and was no bigger than a palm. It looked utterly insignificant. No one would ever believe it capable of resisting a frost dragon of that size, with its overwhelming mana roiling like a storm.

Yet the instant the purple orb touched the frost dragon’s forehead, it expanded at once, becoming a giant sphere of light. Inside it floated layer after layer of reflective, irregular crystal fragments.

The frost dragon was sealed inside that sphere.

It crashed into the crystal plates, was converted into a burst of icy blue light, and then reflected back out by the shards, scattering away into countless blue sparkles.

[Curved-Light Prism]

“?!”

Vinny stared in total shock as his strongest killing move was neutralized so effortlessly.

“Young man, you truly are ruthless with yourself.” The cardinal lowered his hand. “Do you realize that unleashing a spell that powerful from such close range would have caught even you in the blast if it had exploded?”

“If the spell I had used just now had not been [Curved-Light Prism], but [Light Protection], then you would already have been blown to death by your own spell.”

“...”

Vinny, now utterly incapable of getting back up, collapsed flat onto the floor and said nothing.

At the side, Ronilei sat at the tea table and watched the scene unfold. She glanced at Vera beside her. Vera’s expression had not changed. Of course, her gaze had never left Vinny either.

“You really are trying hard enough to throw your life away. Why go this far?” the cardinal sighed. “Young Master Vinny, perhaps you have suffered quite a lot on your way here. But now there is a road laid before you—a road where you will never have to suffer again, a road with a bright future stretching out ahead of you. Why won’t you choose it?”

“To be honest, isn’t this what you wanted all along?” the cardinal suddenly asked.

“It’s right in front of you now, within arm’s reach. And yet you still refuse to come to your senses.”

“That is what I truly cannot understand. Young Master Vinny, what is it that you actually want? What are you after? To throw away the kind of overwhelming fortune placed right before your eyes—this is the very thing your former self could never have dreamed of obtaining.”

“...Yeah,” Vinny said after a long silence, his lips moving faintly.

“? Oh? What was that?”

“I said, yeah. You reminded me. At the beginning... all I wanted was a simple, peaceful life.”

“......”

Everyone present fell silent and watched Vinny.

“And now?” the cardinal asked, hands behind his back. “Not anymore?”

“No. Even now, that’s still what I want.” Vinny fell silent for a moment. “It always has been.”

“To be with the person I like. To live plainly. Safely. Peacefully,” Vinny said calmly.

Whether as a transmigrator or as someone who had lived twice, Vinny was still someone who had already died once.

No one valued stability more than he did.

No one valued survival more than he did.

“Now that is strange. Logically speaking, someone like you ought to be terribly afraid of death,” the cardinal said curiously. “So why, even after being pushed this far, are you still unwilling to cooperate with us? Could it be that the King of Camella is holding some member of your family hostage and using them as leverage against you?”

“Drop the act.” Vinny’s voice sank low. “Doesn’t your Church know better than anyone that I’m completely alone? That I’ve long since had no family left, no weakness left for anyone to use?”

“I...”

Then, beneath the astonished gazes of everyone present, Vinny dragged his half-crippled body.

He struggled.

He fell.

Again and again, he fell.

And yet he never gave up—just like the path that had brought him all the way here.

Finally, he managed to sit upright.

The scar-faced knight’s gaze changed.

Even the cardinal, who had been calm and composed from the beginning, had a flicker of change pass through his eyes.

“You can still get up?”

“All of this...” Vinny ignored him, speaking through gritted teeth. Even his words were slurring now. “All of this is because you forced me to.”

“My original goal was just to graduate from Carillian Academy and, as a normal top student from a magic academy, live a normal life.”

“It was you people who kept forcing me, again and again, squeezing the space I had left to survive tighter and tighter.”

“All I wanted was to stay alive. And you wouldn’t even leave me that chance. You slandered me, pinned crimes on me that never existed, framed me, and kept coming up with ways to get rid of me.”

“So what, was it wrong for me to pursue the life I wanted? Should I have stayed that maggot rotting in the gutter so you could all finally feel satisfied?!”

No one in the hall spoke.

“Facilis. Facilis...” Vinny muttered the name to himself a few times. “What bullshit Facilis!”

“You think I wanted this? That damned surname never brought me even a single day of happiness. From the day I was born until now, all it ever brought me was endless disaster!”

“It was like those people when I was little, shoving me into the ditch over and over again. It’s like you now! All it ever brought me was disaster without end!”

“You just said I’m nothing like Facilis, that I don’t resemble a Saintess at all. Ha! Good! I couldn’t ask for anything better! But why am I not allowed not to be Facilis? Do you know how badly I wanted to be just an ordinary person?!”

Vinny roared the last words out.

“But I can’t tear it off. I can’t tear off that surname, and I can’t tear off the prejudice you all have against me either!”

Ronilei watched Vinny, and her expression shifted slightly.

Vera, the cardinal, and the scar-faced knight all said nothing now. They merely listened to him speak.

“Then why won’t you simply abandon it?” After a moment of thought, the cardinal suddenly spoke. “The choice is already laid before you. Privilege, authority, a comfortable life—they are all right in front of you. And the price is merely casting aside the thing you’ve hated most since childhood.”

“Cast it aside?” Vinny suddenly let out a few dry laughs. “It’s true. All I ever wanted was to live as an excellent student from a magic academy and enjoy a rich, peaceful life.”

“But now I know I can’t step back.”

“After going through all this, I finally realized something. I’m not the only one in this world who wants peace and stability. There are many people like me—people living under misfortune.”

“How tragic. They haven’t done a single thing wrong, yet they still get caught in the crossfire of the powerful crushing each other across their game board.”

“They lose their families without a sound. They lose their lives without a sound. They’re not like me—when they hurt, when they suffer, they don’t even have someone they can curse at. They can’t make any sound at all!”

“And all of it is because of bastards like you.” Vinny turned his words back toward the cardinal. “You’ve been colluding with the Demon Pillars in the dark—how many people have you dragged into it? And yet not once, not for a single moment, have you ever felt remorse.”

“Heh. Don’t you keep the Goddess and the Saintess on your lips every day? But that only proves one thing—that they can’t see what you’re doing now. They don’t know what you’re doing.”

“If they did, they would wipe every last one of you guilty parasites off the face of the world.”

“And that is what you think too?” the cardinal asked with a faint laugh.

“Me?” Vinny said. “At first, I couldn’t understand them. But later, I understood more and more clearly that if filth like you isn’t completely eradicated, then the countless living beings of this world will never know a single day of peace!”

“So for the sake of all those people as unfortunate as I am—for the sake of those who are about to become unfortunate—I absolutely cannot retreat!”

“The Church of the Dawn... If destroying you means I have to take the side of righteousness, means I have to prove I’m the legitimate one, then being called the Dawn Saintess or whatever...”

Vinny closed his eyes and prayed in his heart.

“I don’t care.”

In that instant, cherry-blossom-colored radiance burst brilliantly from his body, wrapping around his ruined form.

“That—?!” Ronilei’s eyes flew wide open.

Beside her, Vera stared fixedly at the sight, the teacup still in her hand, her lips parting without her even noticing.

At this point, there was no need to explain anything.

“My lord bishop,” the scar-faced knight said, turning to the cardinal beside him.

The cardinal abruptly raised a hand, signaling him to be silent.

He himself only stared fixedly at that sacred cherry-pink light before him.

“So that’s how it is,” the cardinal murmured, reaching out his hand. “So that’s what this was.”