It was a usual morning in the Shrine — peaceful, as if there was nothing noteworthy.
This day, this time, this moment — the only ones who knew something happened other than ‘him’ would be the other deities.
‘Elder Brother.’
Adoracion gazed out of the window, staring at the blue sky overhead, before closing his eyes for a moment.
The words from a long distant past flashed through his mind.
“ — What’s the point of protecting these humans to this extent?”
‘Elder Brother won’t understand.’
He was the greatest, the most precious one who could never err, the supreme deity among all the deities.
His benevolence knew no bounds, but it was also precisely because of that that he was as ruthless as can be. He would never understand, let alone pity, the dog-eat-dog world of the creatures living on the surface of the earth, and their need to trample on others in order to survive.
‘This kingdom will probably meet its end.’
The lush verdure trees outside the window of the aged building remained unchanged since the founding of this nation.
He stared with blazing eyes at the land that she loved and yearned for.
‘The day will come.’
The scales were tilting.
The humans were unable to prove their worth even after all the grace that had been bestowed on them.
The only thing he could do now was to wait for the entire world to be wiped out —
That was what he thought.
Until he saw the nostalgic and glorious, albeit somewhat silly, smile blooming on the esteemed person’s face — which, frankly speaking, looked as if he had his head in the clouds.
“..Adoracion, sorry that you always have to take care of me. Honestly, I’ve been in a bind. There’s nothing to wear here, but I can’t go out naked…”
Adoracion could only blink as he stared at the embarrassed, but thoroughly relieved appearance of this person.
In the past, this esteemed personage had a placid and cool disposition in addition to his lofty status, but the current him was totally different.
He didn’t have the air of someone that was out of reach because of the absolute power that he possessed.
Nor did he have the aura of someone that could make anyone facing him tremble in fear on their knees.
Above all —
“…The filth isn’t gone?”
“Yeah.”
The man nonchalantly nodded as he put the clothes Adoracion gave him, and yet an ominous amount of filth still swirled within him.
His noble body couldn’t be tainted by heavy emotions of humans reminiscent of darkness, but it couldn’t reject them either, so it was in an awful, unstable state.
“It seems your memory has not completely returned. And yet, you have regained your appearance…”
Adoracion — it’s been a long time since the man called him by this name.
And yet, it was obvious that he hadn’t recalled anything other than this.
Well, if he did remember everything, then there was no way this nation would be able to remain safe.
‘So this is also possible?’
The balance would tilt one of two ways.
In order to restore his noble body, a human must completely purify the filth. The other option would be if he had absorbed so much filth that even his magnanimous, tolerant body could no longer hold it in.
It was supposed to be only one of those two outcomes.
And yet here he was — he managed to carry the filth within him while reverting back to his former appearance, although it was terrifyingly unstable.
‘It’s because of that girl.’
She is Lidianne’s friend, and Adoracion himself recognizes her virtue — however, it couldn’t be denied that that was the only thing going on for her.
Her mana is almost zero, and she doesn’t possess any special abilities, nor does she have an outstanding visage.
She is such a plain girl, and yet, she paved another path for this country’s future that supposedly only had two choices.
Adoracion was secretly shaken because of that fact.
‘No, wait a moment.’
He suddenly realized.
‘Where is that girl in question?’
“My Lord, what happened to the Saintess?”
This room was too cramped for the supreme deity to live in.
Adoracion gazed around the space that didn’t have any crooks and crannies to hide in with narrowed eyes.
Only this esteemed personage and himself were inside this room.
“…Eleanor-san..”
The noblest deity sighed in response to Adoracion’s query.
His gorgeous face fell as if he, a deity, was in the midst of lamentation, and his shoulders drooped as he closed his eyes — there was no other way for Adoracion but to describe it as sulking.
“……ran away.”
It was only understandable, given that the girl found herself in an unfamiliar bed upon waking up, with a stranger — a naked man — lying beside her.
…However, Adoracion had no way of knowing this.
He could only remain standing while being dumbfounded, not knowing how to come into grips as the figure in front of him became even more dejected.
T/N: I accidentally left out a line in the ending of chapter 29, so the cliff was pretty bad. It was already fixed 🙂 Thanks 😀
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