The Heretic of Cleric Academy-Chapter 62

"Are you doing this on purpose? To piss me off?"

Yeo Min-seo’s voice was razor-sharp. It was a threatening tone that made my body instinctively shrink back.

"My strength gave out."

However, I must never lose my composure. The moment I lose psychological advantage, the chance of victory I barely created would disappear.

"Your strength gave out? Look at your opponent before you lie. Do you really want to die?"

"It’s not like I’ll die from losing one sparring match. You’re really sensitive."

"Just one sparring match," "sensitive."

With each word I spoke, Yeo Min-seo’s eyebrows twisted grotesquely. Her reaction went beyond being displeased; it was as if she detested the words themselves.

It didn’t deviate from my expectations. It seemed I had accurately read her psychology.

"...Ah, right. It’s not like you’ll die from losing. Your strength could give out. That’s right."

Yeo Min-seo muttered to herself while staring at me with empty eyes. Immediately after, she emitted divine power and quickly drew a blessing circle.

And she threw it into Saint Judas’s blessing circle.

Saint Judas’s blessing circle became entangled and twisted with Yeo Min-seo’s blessing circle, then began to distort.

Boom!

The explosion sound followed.

Saint Judas’s blessing circle finally exploded.

The students who had been analyzing Saint Judas’s blessing circle in earnest sat down in surprise. Some screamed and fled in panic. It seemed some students had suffered minor injuries.

"Now you should have some strength, right?"

Yeo Min-seo approached. The light of blessing was still flowing through her body.

In contrast, I had nothing. No light of blessing, no Bosu’s divine power.

But I couldn’t just stand still.

I swung my mace at Yeo Min-seo. I didn’t aim for her head, since hitting her head with a mace might kill her.

Crack.

However, when Yeo Min-seo nonchalantly caught and crushed the mace, I realized I wasn’t in a position to show mercy to anyone.

"Are you holding back now? You have no shame, you damn bastard."

It wasn’t that I was holding back; my strength had drastically weakened because Bosu’s divine power had disappeared.

However, Yeo Min-seo seemed to think I was holding back against her. Her whites were filled with red blood vessels. She seemed really angry.

Soon, her fist came rushing toward my face.

Clang!

I ducked my head to avoid it. Her fist barely passed over my head and struck the cage.

A fist-shaped mark remained on the cage exactly. It was terrifying strength, no, blessing.

Without time to be impressed, another attack came. This time it wasn’t a punch but a knee strike.

Getting hit directly with a knee strike while my head was down would mean at least a fracture. If I was unlucky enough to get hit in the eye, I could go blind or even die.

Yeo Min-seo was now attacking with the intention of killing me.

Thwack!

I couldn’t avoid it. I didn’t even hear the impact sound. The moment I was hit, tinnitus rang and my vision turned black.

The part that was hit was my nose. That was fortunate. If my eye had been hit, my eyeball would have burst.

However, it hurt so much that calling it fortunate was meaningless.

My nose bone was either broken, twisted, or shattered. It seemed to be one of the three. It hurt so much that I couldn’t even scream.

I couldn’t take this kind of attack twice.

I grabbed my nose that was bleeding profusely and read Yeo Min-seo’s next movement with my eyes. However, Yeo Min-seo’s attack was too fast to follow with my eyes.

She raised her elbow and struck down at my back of the head. If that hit, I would really die.

Crack.

An ominous sound echoed through the Sacred Training Ground.

However, it wasn’t me who collapsed but Yeo Min-seo.

Behind Yeo Min-seo, who had fallen unconscious face-down, So Do-jin stood on one leg. His eyes were drooping with fatigue, but only his gaze staring at Yeo Min-seo was clear.

"Being reckless is fine, but don’t cross the line."

So Do-jin said while sheathing his sword, but it was a warning that the already unconscious Yeo Min-seo couldn’t hear.

It was too fast for me to see in detail, but it seemed he had knocked Yeo Min-seo unconscious by striking her head with the back of his sword.

I wondered if it was okay for a teacher to beat a student like that, but since I wasn’t the one who got hit...

"Yeo Min-seo disqualified, Do Seon-woo wins. Come down. Do you need treatment?"

So Do-jin asked matter-of-factly. It wasn’t a worried tone.

"I’m fine, ow. Ah."

Drip.

Blood that poured from my nose stained the floor. It wasn’t thin blood, but blood that came out in clumps.

Seeing the blood seemed to make the pain intensify.

"What’s fine about this. Your nose will be ruined like this."

"Sniff, ah."

"I’ll give you first aid for now, so go to the hospital first."

So Do-jin emitted divine power and drew a blessing circle.

Ah, it’s not a blessing circle but a healing circle.

Anyway, the light flowing from the healing circle approached and enveloped my nose. Nevertheless, the pain remained. It hurt as if my entire nose had been torn off.

"You did something, right? It keeps hurting."

"...Healing isn’t my specialty. Stop complaining and go. Use this to stop the bleeding for now."

So Do-jin said somewhat embarrassedly and handed me a towel.

I received the towel and stopped the bleeding while looking around.

Jeong In-ah and Gu Jun-hyeok were looking at me with worried expressions, and So Do-jin was calming the confused students.

Yeo Min-seo, who had collapsed, got up from her position while groaning and holding the back of her head.

Saint Judas’s blessing circle, which had exploded due to the collision phenomenon, was operating again as if nothing had happened.

Even Yeo Min-seo, who had been acting superior, couldn’t completely destroy Saint Judas’s blessing circle. Temporarily damaging it was all she could do.

I blocked my nose that was bleeding profusely with the towel and strode out of the Sacred Training Ground.

Despite clearly winning, I somehow felt hopeless.

* * *

I didn’t go to the hospital and headed straight to the chapel.

Throughout the journey, I had trouble breathing, and occasionally I felt like blood clots were coming up through my throat. It was unpleasant.

[Who can you blame? It’s something you brought upon yourself.]

"Ugh. Stop..."

[Why did you do such a reckless thing?]

"It wasn’t reckless, no. Ah. It hurts, so stop talking."

I meant stop talking because it hurts.

Legba called it reckless, but it wasn’t entirely reckless. I had read Yeo Min-seo’s inner thoughts from her eyes.

Yeo Min-seo is obsessed with ’proving.’ She’s desperate to prove her thoughts, hypotheses, or abilities to others... But if I forfeited, she couldn’t prove her ability through sparring.

Since Yeo Min-seo is so obsessed with proving, I was confident she would never accept a victory with a bitter aftertaste.

Though I didn’t expect her to come at me while even destroying Saint Judas’s blessing circle. But that ended up being beneficial to me.

Yeo Min-seo was disqualified due to her impulsive behavior, and as a result, I won the sparring match.

Anyway, I won.

[Everything was a gamble. From beginning to end.]

Legba seemed quite displeased.

I didn’t answer. Every time I spoke, my nose hurt too much to dare answer. So instead of answering, I nodded.

[Also, there was no need to endure such bleeding just to win a mere sparring match.]

"..."

Since this was also correct, I nodded, but it was only half correct.

Although it was just a sparring match, it had meaning for me. After all, I had won an ’unwinnable fight.’

Also, to win an unwinnable fight, you must be prepared for sacrifice. This time it happened to be my nose.

It hurt tremendously, but this was a level that could be healed with just low-grade restoration sorcery.

"Ow."

At the sudden surge of pain, I pressed my nose firmly with the towel to stop the bleeding while walking. The white towel was already stained red with blood.

Passersby glanced at me. Uncomfortable with those gazes, I arbitrarily lowered my head.

Before I knew it, I had arrived at the chapel. Uncle seemed to have gone out, and Kang Ji-ah was making coffee with sleepy eyes as if she had just woken up.

"You’re early today, huh? Why is your nose..."

"I got hurt sparring at school."

"Somehow it seems like you always come home injured."

"Right. I’ve been getting hurt a lot lately."

I laughed nonchalantly and headed to the bathroom.

I casually threw the blood-soaked towel in the trash and looked in the mirror. My nose was completely smashed.

I healed it with low-grade restoration sorcery.

"Damn, it hurts."

Since it was restoration rather than healing, the wound healed completely but the pain still remained. I washed off the blood that was stuck all over with water and looked in the mirror.

"Did I get uglier?"

Somehow my nose seemed a little crooked.

[You always looked like that.]

"Really? That’s shocking."

I was newly shocked at my own face and left the bathroom. Kang Ji-ah was sipping coffee while looking at me with a worried expression.

"Doesn’t it hurt?"

"It hurts a little but not severely."

This level of pain was bearable. I was naturally somewhat insensitive to pain.

I left Kang Ji-ah behind and rummaged through the cupboard looking for something. I was sure I had put it somewhere here, but when I actually tried to find it, it wasn’t visible.

"Where is that thing? The keepsakes and ring."

"They’re probably in the storage room... no, in the cult leader’s room dresser drawer."

Kang Ji-ah said after rolling her eyes here and there as if thinking.

I was about to head to my room but stopped and looked at Kang Ji-ah to speak.

"Kang Ji-ah... um."

The way to address her still wasn’t quite right. Kang Ji-ah put her coffee cup on the table and looked at me with her hands folded modestly.

"As I mentioned before, you can address me comfortably. You can even say ’excuse me.’"

"That’s too stiff. How about I just call you sister?"

"If the cult leader is comfortable with that, please do so."

"Yes, then we’ll use that form of address. Anyway, please don’t enter my room for the next hour."

"May I ask why, ah."

Kang Ji-ah seemed to realize belatedly and trailed off. Her eyes were trembling with confusion. Her face seemed to have reddened slightly too.

Kang Ji-ah had distinct expression changes when she was confused or scared.

"Uh, don’t mind me and make yourself comfortable. Yes. I absolutely won’t enter."

"Huh? I wouldn’t mind anyway... I understand for now. But you really can’t come in."

I earnestly entreated Kang Ji-ah and entered my room. Kang Ji-ah’s expression was somehow reluctant, but that wasn’t what was important right now.

When I rummaged through the dresser drawer, Father’s keepsakes, the box and ring, came out. I laid them out on the floor and used sorcery.

Low-grade reproduction, ritual candle.

Mist flowed from the candle flame created by reproduction sorcery. It was the purple mist that was the symbol of sorcery.

I put the candle on the floor and extinguished the flame. In the deep darkness, only the candle’s purple flame and mist were clear.

"Whew."

I lightly regulated my breathing. It wasn’t the first time, but since it wasn’t something I did often, I was a bit nervous.

I knelt in front of the candle and pricked my fingertip with a needle to draw blood.

"Ugh."

It hurts. I let that blood drip into the candle.

The candle’s light touched the blood and gradually changed to a murky, deep purple color.

I looked at the flickering flame and opened my mouth.

"Gede of death and life and resurrection, ruler of all Loa, Baron Samedi, the cult leader of Voodoo wishes to pray."

Prayer ritual.

It was a ritual I had never done except when first accepting the Loa. Originally, there’s no need to do it except when first accepting the Loa.

Once you accept the Loa through the initial prayer ritual, the Loa dwell in your body, and from then on, you can call upon the Loa without going through a ritual.

However, Baron Samedi is different. Baron Samedi is a so-called ’wandering Loa’ who doesn’t dwell in my body but wanders the world.

To meet Baron Samedi, I had no choice but to wait for him to dwell in my body or ’forcibly’ call him through a prayer ritual.

[I wonder if that guy will respond to the call.]

Legba muttered in a dubious voice.

Baron Samedi has an incomparably more difficult personality than other Loa.

Even though I said I would forcibly call him through a prayer ritual, it was uncertain whether he would respond to the call.

In the first place, Baron Samedi isn’t a Loa to whom the word ’force’ applies.

Purple mist and light cutting through the darkness. In the silence flowing between them, I waited for him with my eyes still closed.

"..."

Tap, tap, tap.

Soon, the welcome sound of footsteps came through the darkness.

However, I don’t open my eyes. I just focus on the approaching footsteps. The presence that had felt distant is now right in front of me... I can clearly feel Baron Samedi’s gaze staring at me intently even without opening my eyes.

I suddenly feel goosebumps rising on my spine.

After a time that could have been an instant or a long while, I open my mouth.

"I have something to earnestly request."