Free Web Novel“Old wom—no, Fubeka?”
Muen’s heart nearly skipped a beat.
Because those towering snowy peaks, ranked impressively high even by his own experience, and that face whose seductive power even time seemed unable to erase, had left far too deep an impression on him.
For a moment, he nearly thought that old woman still had not given up even now, and had actually disguised herself as some strange salesperson to, once again, again, again, again prepare to murder him.
Fortunately... the real, not particularly powerful aura, and the childishness on that pretty face that only resembled the other by forty or fifty percent, both proved that the other party was not the Witch of Repentance.
But her daughter.
Fubeka.
“So your previous face was a disguise?” After reacting, Muen felt a small burst of surprise. He remembered clearly that Fubeka had not looked like this before.
“Uwaa... it’s actually you!”
After she also saw clearly who had come, the nun-dressed girl who had been so full of momentum just now immediately flushed bright red and froze in place.
A full three seconds passed before she seemed to react and immediately hid behind the gate.
After another long while, the girl carefully poked out only her head, secretly sizing Muen up from behind the gate... cute.
“Why are you here?”
Fubeka stared at Muen warily, dense Holy Light already beginning to gather around her.
“Are you trying to do something bad?”
“That’s... what I should be asking you, right? Your face...”
“What does that have to do with you?”
“I helped you people, at least. I heard Archbishop Ision was only temporarily removed from office? If the Salvation Society’s scheme had succeeded, I think his ending might have been even worse?” Muen shrugged.
“...Des-despicable!”
Fubeka bit her lip, her face full of unwillingness.
“......”
I only gave her a kind reminder. Why does she make it sound like I’m some evil uncle threatening a young girl into doing bad things?
Muen began to find the girl’s thought process a little impossible to understand.
“This was a disguise Father... no, Lord Archbishop personally made for me before. He said my face was dangerous.” Fubeka touched her own face, her expression somewhat sorrowful.
Being unable to show her true face to others and living every day behind a disguise had not been easy for her either.
It was only that in front of her father, she had to pull herself together...
“No, wait. Why are you asking about this? Are you trying to use it to threaten Father?”
Fubeka glared fiercely at him again. It seemed that although she had fully inherited her parents’ looks, some significant mutation had occurred in terms of intelligence.
Worrying...
“So that’s how it is... I understand.”
But Muen immediately understood Archbishop Ision’s intention as well.
Fubeka’s true appearance did not merely somewhat resemble the Witch of Repentance. It also bore traces of Archbishop Ision.
Although those traces were faint, and difficult to notice if one did not think in that direction, someone observant would eventually realize it. For example, back when Muen had first seen Fubeka, if she had been using this face, then combined with the information he had gathered from Kore, he might truly have realized the connection between the two of them right then.
If he had had that suspicion, he might not have been so passive at the time.
Unfortunately, there were no ifs.
“So... why are you here?”
Muen’s expression turned strange. After confirming that the girl before him was indeed, absolutely, one hundred percent Fubeka, he likewise spent quite a while digesting this excessively peculiar scene.
But no matter how Muen thought about it, he still could not understand...
The daughter of Archbishop Ision and the Witch of Repentance, a girl with the special identity of an “Evil God’s scion,” who, if not watched carefully, might truly be able to destroy the world... Fubeka, had actually appeared in a place like this?
And judging from her appearance...
“Are you... selling grave plots?”
Muen followed the falling streamers with his gaze and discovered a bright banner hanging above his head. Written across it in sharp lettering was:
Hope Graveyard Grand Opening Promotion! Buy one, get one free, while supplies last... Purchase now and receive a free coffin, plus Church-certified priestly eulogy service!
Muen was truly dumbfounded.
...No, girl, forget everything else. Can grave plots even be discounted and promoted like this?
And this discount... don’t say it. Seriously, don’t say it. It’s actually pretty good.
If two people in a family died at once, they would probably be pretty tempted.
As for showing this to someone after only one person had died, then he could only wish you good luck... maybe the second one lying in there would be you.
“I told you not to get scared.”
The priest stepped past Muen and entered the graveyard gate. He seemed long accustomed to this scene, his mind completely in a state of neither joy nor sorrow.
It was merely that the graveyard where he had stayed for decades now had bright colorful decorations hung everywhere, artificial flowers spread everywhere, and cheerful slogans and discount notices plastered all over the place.
Even the tombstones had magic lamp orbs placed on them that could glow at night. According to a certain someone, it was because she was afraid the people buried in the graves would be cold at night...
None of this was a big deal.
Lively was good...
A little livelier was good...
Even if this was a graveyard.
“This one has been holding a grand opening promotion for several days already. You’re the first customer to come in, so she’s a little excited.”
“When did I become a customer?”
“Why not buy one in advance? Like I said earlier, sooner or later, you’ll be chopped to death by a hatchet. You’ll be able to use it.”
“Then the buy-one-get-one...”
“Of course, because you’ll be dismembered along the way... Huh, put that way, two may not even be enough.”
The priest stroked his chin and pondered seriously. “Then would you like to buy our family bundle package? Also a genius concept from a certain someone. Its meaning is that a family should be neat and complete. No matter how many pieces you’re cut into, they’ll all fit!”
“...I don’t even know where to begin criticizing this!”
Muen’s cheek twitched.
Should he say the person who came up with these things had been kicked in the head by a donkey? Or that they had been kicked in the head by a donkey with a good business sense?
With literally anything else, it might have worked... but this was a graveyard!
“Let’s get to the point.”
In the end, Muen gave up thinking.
When facing people whose thought process you could not keep up with, it was best not to try.
Because the other party would use their brain to drift around a storm drain, while you did not even know how to drift.
“The point is, according to the Church’s instructions, she will be staying here for a very long time.”
The priest walked to Fubeka’s side and quietly said something to her. She nodded, then ran inside like a wisp of smoke.
The hem of her nun’s habit fluttered. When those jade-white feet lifted, Muen saw a small black shackle around the girl’s ankle.
Although it did not affect her movements, it was extremely conspicuous. At the same time, it also indicated her current status as...
“A prisoner? So she’s under house arrest here?”
“In a sense, yes.”
The priest leaned against the specially decorated gate and rummaged in his chest pocket, only to come up empty. That habitual movement made even him subconsciously pause.
“Damn it. I forgot that girl doesn’t like the smell of smoke and confiscated all my tobacco.” The priest smacked his lips unhappily.
“Looks like this is a hard job.” Muen raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah... house arrest. Although I was once the Church’s executioner, what I handled was imprisonment and execution. When have I ever put a young girl under house arrest? Look, she’s only been here a few days, and this place has turned into this.”
The priest pointed at Fubeka’s genius handiwork all around them and said with a bitter face:
“The originally gloomy graveyard has become a graveyard of ‘hope.’ If this continues, maybe she’ll even open a dance hall and specifically invite people to dance and rave on the graves, all to deepen their connection with their deceased relatives.”
“Although that sounds extremely deranged... she might really be capable of doing it.”
The banner fluttered in the wind, its bright red lettering so glaring that Muen could almost already see the day the graveyard dance hall opened.
Bringing a small, non-mainstream shock to this old-fashioned city of art!
“So this is how the Church decided to handle this Evil God’s scion?”
Muen restrained his joking tone and finally began asking about the most important core issue.
“To be honest, it’s a little beyond my expectations. In my original guess, even if the Church didn’t deal with her directly, she would have been locked away in some lightless Church dungeon, the same as her mother before. I didn’t expect... only house arrest.”
Imprisonment in a Church dungeon and house arrest in a place like this were completely different concepts.
With the former, there was basically no possibility of escape. Even the Witch of Repentance back then had only gotten out because the priest softened and released her on his own initiative.
As for the latter... although the shackle on Fubeka’s ankle definitely was not an ordinary shackle, how could the level of security compare to a dungeon? Not to mention, judging from her appearance, she even had the right to move freely within a certain range.
And aside from safety, the implications represented by those two options were worlds apart.
“When did the Church become so merciful?”
“After all, her identity is special. She isn’t just a simple Evil God’s scion, but also the daughter of a Church archbishop. The Church has to weigh things a little.”
“That doesn’t sound like the key reason. If the Church really became cold-blooded, I don’t think Archbishop Ision could stop them.”
“The most crucial point? Heh...”
The priest suddenly laughed. “I think it’s probably that what happened with the Witch of Repentance made the Church realize that the scions of that one... may be impossible to kill.”
“Impossible to kill?”
“That’s right. As long as the stars remain, so will His scion. It’s just... that qualification can transfer.”
“Transfer...”
Muen reacted. “You mean the Witch of Repentance transferring her identity as an Evil God’s scion onto Fubeka?”
“That’s right.”
The priest nodded.
Unable to smoke, he subconsciously reached for the wine flask at his waist, only to remember that even his flask had been confiscated. His awkward hand had nowhere to go, so in the end, he could only pluck one of the last late-autumn leaves from a nearby tree and put it in his mouth to chew.
Bitterness spread continuously, as if it would travel all the way along his tongue and into his heart.
“During the previous battle, I spoke with Repentance. About her, about the past, about Fubeka... many, many things.”
“She revealed information about that Evil God’s scion to you?”
“That’s right. Among all registered Evil Gods, that one’s scion has the least information, is the most mysterious, and is the hardest to speculate about. Even the Church knows very little about them.
“And the reason is very simple...”
“His scion... is unique,” Muen continued.
Unique.
It meant rare.
It meant there were no samples to study at all, much less any way to uncover the truth.
For example, with Senior’s snake-transformation disease, she had merely been a student at the time, so why had she understood that incurable condition so thoroughly?
Because the Moon’s scions were many. So many that that state could already be called a kind of... “disease.”
But the Lord of the Stars’ scion was unique, and very rarely stood on the front stage.
Tracing back from this moment, over the past thousand years, His scion might have stirred up some terrible storms on this continent. But how would one distinguish them from ordinary believers?
As an Evil God’s scion, they had no special traits, and unlike snake-transformation disease, they would not grow scales and transform into a snake.
They were also different from those other Evil God scions, who were almost left to grow wild.
Precisely because His scion was unique.
They were granted an extremely powerful self-preservation ability.
“And that self-preservation ability is a ‘kind’ personality that can perfectly integrate into human society and arouse no suspicion,” the priest said.
“A kind... personality? You mean... the Witch of Repentance didn’t suddenly change her nature. Instead, because she transferred away her identity as an Evil God’s scion, she returned to her original self?”
“Yes.”
“......”
Muen was somewhat shocked. He had not expected that the kind version of the Witch of Repentance, who had flirted with the priest, then flirted with the archbishop... and even further back, flirted with Saint Peron V so deeply that he still could not forget her before his execution, had actually come about this way.
No.
It should be said that the girl named “Olive” had never actually existed. She had merely been a protective personality granted by the Lord of the Stars.
That had been nothing more than... an illusory dream.
“Very ironic, isn’t it? So kind, so beautiful, so fascinating... yet only a false existence bestowed by an Evil God.”
The priest once again sank into memory.
But when he tried again to recall the smile he had seen in the dungeon back then, he suddenly realized that he could no longer even remember the details.
Perhaps he had already forgotten it long ago. It was only because of his self-reproach over the years that he stubbornly believed... he had not forgotten.
All along, he had merely been searching for excuses for what he had done back then.
“And then that beauty turns, at the most critical moment, into pus that tears this world apart... How vicious. That one.”
Muen sighed.
This Evil God’s scion had been discovered too early and become a chess piece in the hands of every side.
But think about it. If decades ago, Olive had not coincidentally been captured by the Church, and had not exposed her identity as an Evil God’s scion...
Then whether she had become the Kingdom’s queen or Archbishop Ision’s wife, at the moment of outbreak, she would inevitably have caused unimaginable harm.
The Lord of the Stars had wrapped the deadly poison He meticulously cast down in the sweetest outer shell.
Waiting only for the moment someone swallowed it gladly.
“So the Witch of Repentance had always been fighting this ‘kind personality’ cast down by the Evil God?”
“That’s right.”
The priest said, “According to her, she was watched by that one during an accident when she was seven and obtained the identity of an Evil God’s scion. From then on, another personality appeared inside her body, a personality named ‘Olive.’”
“But how could a mere human consciousness contend against an Evil God’s will?” Muen sighed. Once one was targeted by an Evil God, the subsequent development was only natural.
“Yes... humans cannot oppose Evil Gods. That is why the Witch of Repentance’s original consciousness had always been suppressed. And that suppression transformed into hatred toward Evil Gods and toward Evil God scions. Until, after a series of developments...
“She met the Holy Lord of Salvation, Gaius.”
The priest paused, then continued:
“Gaius helped her temporarily suppress Olive’s personality and told her the method for stripping away the identity of an Evil God’s scion... That was why, afterward, she gave birth to Fubeka, escaped the identity of an Evil God’s scion, joined the Salvation Society, and became the famous Witch of Repentance.
“And her pitiful daughter ignorantly shouldered that sin, waiting only for this world’s judgment upon her.”
The priest closed his eyes.
Perhaps the cruelest thing in this world was not losing something, giving up something, or being unable to obtain something.
It was that some things were destined from birth, and no one could change them.
Just like Fubeka now.
Kill her, and the qualification of Evil God’s scion would transfer. And no one could predict where it would transfer after death.
But if she was not killed, this sin would continue to be borne by her. That was hardly any kinder than killing her.
Even if she had done nothing wrong now, her birth itself was a mistake.
She had been born carrying original sin.
“The tea is here!”
Fubeka carried a tea tray and carefully made her way over to the two of them.
It was only a path of a few dozen meters, yet she walked it extremely slowly. After arriving, she even glanced behind her with lingering fear and clenched her fist in tiny excitement.
“Good. I didn’t fall this time, and the water in the teacups didn’t spill. Perfect!”
“...You forgot to put in tea leaves,” the priest said helplessly, opening his eyes.
“Eh? Did I?”
Fubeka craned her head and opened the cup lid.
Inside the teacup, steaming hot water rippled, clearly reflecting her currently silly expression.
“Ah, sorry, sorry, I really forgot... I’ll go brew it again right now!”
Fubeka trotted back, and then right at the doorway of the little hut... with a smack, as expected, she fell to the ground. The “tea” she had worked so hard to brew spilled all over the floor.
“Maybe her chest being that big is also a kind of natural selection, an adaptation to her environment?” Seeing the surging elasticity Fubeka’s chest displayed when she fell, Muen could not help having such a thought...
“She’s really cute...”
“Yes, really cute. Cute and sensible. She clearly knows this is a disguised form of imprisonment, but she has never complained at all. She has always worked very hard and lived very optimistically. It makes one pity her.”
“She knows her own identity?”
Muen was surprised, because according to the previous timeline, Fubeka should not yet have been captured by the Salvation Society and forced into that sort of thing, right?
“She has known for a long time.”
The priest sighed deeply.
“That is what hurts the most...”
“......”
Muen also did not know what to say. He raised his head, looking at those carefully prepared decorations and banners, and suddenly he could also feel a certain strength and intelligence hidden beneath that clumsy, silly-sweet personality.
“But... according to the characteristics of that Evil God’s scion, her current personality should also come from the disguise the Evil God meticulously prepared, right?”
Muen still cruelly pierced through that sweet outer shell, because he felt that if they did not lay it bare now and the priest became lost in it once again...
Then without a doubt, Fubeka would still pose a tremendous threat.
Unlike Senior, the Lord of the Stars was still present. So the deadly poison He had planted still had the possibility of erupting.
“I know... I know this personality was born from the Evil God scion’s self-disguise.”
But the priest was even calmer than Muen had imagined.
“But... do you think her current personality is false?”
“Current?”
Muen frowned. “According to the Witch of Repentance’s experience, it should be...”
“But the Witch of Repentance was suppressed by the ‘Olive’ personality at seven years old. Her real personality had already existed there long before that. So for her, and for us, the corresponding ‘Olive’ was naturally false.”
The priest turned his head and looked into Muen’s eyes.
“But for Fubeka, she was born an Evil God’s scion. In other words, from the moment she was born, she only had this personality.”
“A personality that does not know what it did wrong, yet suffers the malice of the entire world.”
“Is that... also false?”
