Chapter 3 – 003 – The Unlucky Priest #3

003 – Unlucky Priest #3

Do you know anything about the “Church Retreat”?

Usually, a youth group church retreat meant singing hymns, reading the Bible, praying, eating something delicious in the evening, and having a BBQ party and recreation at an outdoor retreat center.

If you go through such a retreat for 3 days and 2 nights, the participants become closer to each other and couples form.

In my opinion, church retreats in the 21st century were actually social gatherings.

“But even among fakes, there is something real. Just like me.”

There were also real training sessions where the word training would be appropriate.

When I was still a seminarian, I went to retreats like this every quarter.

I read the Bible from morning until I go to bed, pray out loud until my voice is hoarse, and discipline myself to the point where I get bruises from kneeling all day.

The life of this Emiris monastery was similar.

A week of only cultivating divine power and meditating on faith.

I finally got to the test.

“Monk Hyde. Kolok, if you have awakened your divine power, you will be able to purify this muddy water. This water may be muddy, but it is holy water and will respond to your divine power. Collock.”

Puccino, the monks’ director, held out a bowl to me, his bald head shining like the yolk of an egg.

“Cough! Cough!”

Puccino coughed every day, probably because his bronchial tubes were bad, but he didn’t even cover his mouth and just sprayed germs everywhere.

He was a very ignorant guy.

The bowl that Puccino gave me, which looked like a bathroom sink, was so cloudy with muddy water that not even my face could be seen.

“Come on, try it. Collock.”

I accepted the treat at Puccino’s words.

My test is to purify this bowl with divine power.

“Did that Midvarian really gain enlightenment about divine power?”

“Hey, that guy is not a saint or a saint. How did he awaken divine power in just one week?”

The monks looked at me and whispered in disbelief, but I was very confident.

That is to say, during this week, I have lived a truly pious and healthy religious life.

I will make this muddy water clear in no time.

“Hmph!”

I held on to the bathroom sink with my hands and tried to stretch my whole body.

Challang-.

Perhaps due to the force in my hand, there was a gentle wave in the bathroom sink for a moment─.

Bubbles – Bubbles began to form in the muddy water in the wash basin.

“Oh?”

Honestly, I was surprised.

Even I, who had no talent for magic or auras, felt like I had a mysterious power!

To become more focused, I closed my eyes and paid attention to my inner spirituality.

I felt a tingling sensation starting from my heart and traveling through my entire body.

I felt like my body temperature rose sharply as I felt hot blood spreading through my clogged blood vessels.

“Hey, look at that!”

“Oh my god, what is that!”

“The water is changing!”

I could hear people being surprised.

Did the water in the bowl become so clean that it became rainbow-colored holy water?

When I opened my eyes with such expectations, I was a little surprised.

It was because it was like very cloudy muddy water.

The only difference is that it is bubbling like carbonated water.

“What is this?”

Phew-.

Soon I heard laughter.

When I turned my head, monks with slickly shaved heads were smiling at me.

“It hasn’t cleared up at all, right?”

“Oh my god, even if you don’t have any talent for divine power, how can you do that!”

How on earth did this happen?

During this week, I really honed my pious and ascetic discipline.

I woke up in the morning and prayed and meditated until I went to sleep. Why did this happen?

“There is a problem. There must be something wrong with this muddy water!”

I was convinced that there was some trick to this muddy water. Are you saying that I, no one else, can purify water? Because I had no choice but to resort to trickery in muddy water.

But Puccino, the monk bishop, shook his head.

“Tsk, tsk, there’s no problem with the water. Collock. There really is no problem with the water, so don’t be suspicious, you rude bastard!”

“No, I still want to check.”

When I tried to dip my hand into this cloudy water, Puccino snatched the bowl from my hand and threw it on the dirt floor.

It was the moment when I was about to say, “No…” To this unruly behavior.

“You ugly bastard! “You can’t admit your own shortcomings!”

A sound like thunder was heard.

When I turned my head, a gray-haired man with a clean-shaven beard who looked unusually thin was frowning very grimly at me.

The head of this monastery was a nomad.

“Why do you blame water for your ungodliness and immorality? Now I see you lack discipline. “Participate in physical training starting tomorrow!”

“Physical training?”

What is physical training?

Are there any other methods of cultivating ‘sacred power’ that I don’t know about?

My interest is soaring!

The next day.

I was able to understand what physical discipline was.

This Emiris monastery lived a largely self-sufficient life, and they cultivated a fairly large field behind the monastery to grow vegetables.

Field farming in this barbaric medieval era was completely hard labor.

I honestly felt like it was a waste of time to farm when I didn’t have time to pray.

“There was definitely a problem with the muddy water. The soil was not good. Or maybe the holy water was a bit cheap. Or is the foundation of this monastery bad?”

I wanted to take the test of divine power again.

However, my body was getting more and more tired from the hard work of farming every day, and there were times when I would just break down and fall asleep while praying.

“I finally got a second chance, but if I continue like this, I will end up becoming a farmer instead of a priest.”

Zek-.

I sneaked out of my room at night when even the moonlight was obscured by clouds.

I was planning to test my divine power on my own using the holy water provided in the monastery.

However, because holy water was quite a precious commodity, it was located in a chapel in the monastery that only high-ranking monks could enter.

Also, of course, it was a rule for someone to be on watch in such a place, but the person on watch at the chapel was dozing off.

The monks of this monastery work in the fields every day, so they are exhausted at night and have no choice but to doze off.

“You idiot. Salvation and heaven come like a thief while you are sleeping. So people must always be awake.”

Susseu-.

After giving a brief sermon to the sleeping watchman, I passed by him without making a sound.

As I entered the chapel, there was a bowl filled with holy water.

I mixed the dirt I had previously put in my pocket into a bowl and infused it with ‘divine power’ just like I did during the test.

“Hmph!”

Then a strange change occurred.

The holy water did not become clear and boiled into bubbles.

“What is it?”

As I was feeling puzzled, a familiar sound struck my ears.

Collock-. Collock-.

It was a coughing sound.

When I listened closely, I could not only hear coughing, but also loud talking.

“Is Director Puccino muttering a prayer?”

Prayer.

It was only recently that I found out that the prayer that Director Puccino gave me on the first day was the “Prayer on a Wooden Plane.”

In this world, monks recited different prayers depending on their rank, and it was clear that the higher the rank, the greater the effect of the prayer.

Puccino is a 10-year monk whose name is engraved on the iron plaque.

The prayer must also be a prayer of iron armor.

If you pray with it every day, it will be much more helpful in cultivating your divine power than the prayer on the wooden tablet.

With that in mind, I listened towards the prayer room where Puccino was staying.

━Yes. We did the same thing this time too. The muddy water was just ordinary water. If it’s not holy water, it won’t respond to divine power, Kolok. It was a play suitable for physical training, using the lack of training as an excuse. Collock.

━That Midvar guy has good stamina. Very lively. The sisters wanted a lively sacrifice. He will pamper himself a little more and then sell it to his sister group.

━You are indeed the director. Collock. This time, the muddy water was bubbling. Even Puccino was very surprised. Collock. Is this a hex taught by the Sisterhood?

━Boiling? I don’t know what that means. But I always get help from the Crescent Moon Witches in various ways. If I soon become a bishop, it will be thanks to them.

“What the fuck.”

I knew it would be like this.

It wasn’t my fault that there was a problem with cultivating divine power.

Since these heretics occupied the head of the monastery, no matter how hard you worked, you could not accumulate divine power.

No matter how clean I tried to be, it was natural for my clothes to get dirty when there were loaches splashing dirty muddy water next to me.

When I came to that thought, I started to get very angry.

“My time.”

Almost 12 days.

I couldn’t stand it because I was so angry that two weeks of my time was wasted on these despicable guys.

The 12th may not seem like a big deal, but religiously speaking, the 12th was the time when God could create the world twice and be resurrected from death four times.

“How dare you—.”

It was unacceptable that those in cahoots with pseudo-heretics were calling themselves monks.

Are you scolding me in front of everyone for being immoral and throwing me into muddy water on a topic like that?

How much worse are you thinking of exploiting me and selling me out to the ‘Crescent Sisters’?

“—Guilty.”

# ​ ​​​ ​ ​ ​ # ​ ​ #

Abbot Nomad of Emiris Monastery was in a very good mood.

This was because the newly arrived slave-monk was very strong and healthy.

He ‘was a guy who knew letters and theology too. This is how faith should be every day—I didn’t like making a big fuss, but sooner or later this guy’s life will end!’

Nomad was excited to hand over the new recruit to the “Crescent Sisters.”

The new man was tall, had a handsome face, and could read, so his price would have been high.
The “Crescent Sisters” Especially liked tall, handsome, and smart men.

“Maybe I’ll get 30 nyang in silver this time.”

Silver coin 30.

Nomad’s hips were already shaking at the thought of using that money to buy a headband for her lover, Cristona, who lives in Sodomi.
She would buy her lover a gift and use the remaining money to express her ‘sincerity’ to the Archbishop of Durgien. Then, it would not be a dream for a nomad to be recommended for the position of bishop of sodomy during this council.

“Bishop Nomad. Nomadra, who became a bishop of the silver tablet 20 years after being a monk of the bottom wooden tablet.”

It was a time when I was deep in a dream.

Rattling-.

The window of the abbot’s office shook violently and flew open.

“It’s summer, why is the wind blowing like this?”

Nomad grumbled and went to the window to close it, only to notice that there was someone standing outside the window.

“Huh?”

The distance is approximately 50 feet.

It was like a pitch black shadow.

Under the dark sky, where even the moonlight was obscured by clouds, it lifted its finger toward Nomad.
As if using a point.

The movement was seen exceptionally clearly even in the dark.

“You bastard of heresy, motherless nomad. Everything about you is a lie except breathing. No, now even your breathing will be a lie. “I will cast a curse of self-awareness—.”

“What? Pup? There is no mother… ? Who are you! What kind of person is playing around on this night!”

Nomad was startled by the voice clearly heard in the dark.

When I wondered what the hell was going on, a dark voice added.

“He said, you will be able to breathe only if you become aware of your breathing every second and every moment. Inhale and exhale. Try to vividly feel the air entering your lungs every day.”

“Hey, who is there! Who are you! What a bastard! What kind of bastard would pull a prank like this on this night! Are you Hans? Are you holding a grudge against me for kicking you out of the monastery!?”

Nomad shouted hurriedly as he picked up a nearby candlestick.

However, when she turned her head, the black shadow had already disappeared.

“How…”

Nomad sighed, thinking it was a strange thing, but soon noticed something strange. From exhaling to breathing in─.

I began to become particularly aware of the act, which I had never felt was special because it was natural.

“Soo, my breath…” ?”

Take a breath, drink.

I had to focus only on that fact and couldn’t do anything else.

10 minutes, 15 minutes─No matter how much time passed, it did not return to its original state.

Nomad was so embarrassed that cold sweat poured down his face.

“… Let’s sleep! That’s right, you’re sleeping!”

Thinking that things might get better when he wakes up, Nomad lies down on a soft goose down blanket. The moment he closed his eyes like that—this man realized that things were scarier than he thought.

The moment you close your eyelids to sleep and enter unconsciousness─.

At that time, Nomad’s breathing also stopped.

“… Holy shit, when you sleep, you forget to breathe!”