Forsaken Priest of the Hero's Party-Chapter 32: Lost Purpose

“Hero.”

Despite her appearance and general demeanor, Aridel wasn’t a fool who only knew how to preach her Goddess’ gospel.

She wasn’t a puppet with no will of her own.

Even though they hadn’t been together for long, it was enough time for her to notice that the hero party treated her with respect but not intimacy.

“If there are any ways in which I have been lacking, I apologize to you here, Hero.”

“Lacking?! Your Holiness has sufficiently fulfilled your role for us.”

“Does Lady Lucia and Lady Parnell also feel that way?”

When Aridel spoke with a bitter smile, Yurinel nodded.

“They should. Your Holiness has devoted yourself to us to the best of your ability.”

“I merely did my best.”

The saint, who sat down next to Yurinel, muttered while gazing at the stars flowing across the sky.

“I’m not an innocent flower, Hero.”

This chapter is updat𝓮d by freēnovelkiss.com.

“Your Holiness, why would you say such a thing...”

“I grew up in the temple, you know? But despite what others think, a temple is just another place where people gather and live.”

As the Saint took the Hero’s left, the Archbishop Renheim, plopped down on her right.

The Saint grinned at the Hero’s uneasy expression.

“It’s by no means a perfect place. Power struggles, dirty deals, plots, and schemes...Should you stay in the temples for a while you will notice this. To become even a bishop in such a place, one can’t always purely look towards the goddess.”

Nevertheless, the reason the goddess acknowledges them and bestows divine power is that being corrupt and lacking faith are completely different matters.

So what if her faithful are greedy? As long as they continue to serve her, then it’s fine.

So what if her faithful covet power? As long as they continue to adore her, then it’s fine.

It’s hard to find a clean person among the high-ranking members of the temple, but it’s also hard to find someone with shallow faith.

Someone who says ‘Who cares about what the Goddess wants anyway!’ won’t even become a lowly priest, let alone a high-ranking clergy.  They would be arrested by the holy knights for blasphemy before that.

“That’s why I came along as her Holiness’s assistant. While her Holiness maintains her purity of mind and soul and must continue to do so in the future. It’s not to brag, but rising to the position of archbishop in a place like the Holy Kingdom means I’m not ignorant of politics.”

Only the saint is an exception. The saint is directly chosen by the goddess.

It’s as meticulous an examination and declaration as adopting a daughter, so how could humans refute what a god has examined to such an extent? No one among the high ranks of the Holy Kingdom lacks faith.

The current pope of the Nemi Church is someone so filthy that if you search his house, you’ll find statues made of gold decorating the garden, and there are even rumors of him having illegitimate children, but he is also a devout believer.

He does not hesitate to fast and pray for days even with his old body. If one is not sincere about god, they can’t rise to the position of pope in the first place. Such a pope could not possibly mistreat the saint.

Amid this power struggle, the saint alone cannot help but be an exception, and cannot help but deflect any kind of slander. Attacking her is tantamount to betraying the goddess.

Sending such a precious saint to the hero’s party was half the saint’s own will and half the will of the gods. The fact that the pope sent Renheim, one of his most trusted confidants, along with her is because she is that outstanding of a person.

“Your Holiness is the goddess’s proxy. However, you are still inexperienced, so the goddess wishes for you to follow them around, gain experience, and establish achievements befitting a daughter of god.”

“Hm...”

“This is just my personal opinion, but I believe our saint is superior even to the saints of Elysia and Hillai. Even if still lacking, a saint is a saint. There can be no priest on this continent with abilities surpassing you.”

I thought so.

I knew it would be like this.

That’s why I drove Kyle away so easily.

“Yet you all think unfavorably of Her Holiness, so do you perhaps have a reason for disliking her? Did we perhaps commit some rudeness towards you, Hero?”

Yurinel got a headache. But it was also difficult to gloss over it with lies here.

It’s not easy to deceive someone as perceptive as Renheim. Even if deceived once, as long as they have eyes, they will continue to feel a sense of discomfort.

“You misunderstand. Actually, before Her Holiness came, we had a priest on our side.”

“A priest? What was his rank? Bishop? Temple head?”

“We thought that guy was just an ordinary priest, but that was probably not the case. When he said he was the only one on the continent who believed in his god, we should have looked into it then.”

Did Yurinel harbored romantic feelings for him? No.

From the beginning, their personalities just didn’t match at all.

Yurinel is someone who prioritizes success over men. Grasping power and gaining wealth is her goal. Her desire is to establish even greater merits and rise to heights others can’t even look up to.

Of course, it’s not that she had ill feelings towards Kyle. It’s just that the saint seemed better.

She thought the saint, who would become the leader of the Holy Kingdom, was a much better partner than Kyle in terms of both ability and position. A partner worthy of walking the path to success together with her, someone whose hand she could hold.

Since Kyle had saved her life numerous times, she gave him a generous severance pay to cover the value of that life. She thought that was the end of the story.

By the time she realized her mistake, Kyle had vanished. Yurinel had no way of knowing where the man who blessed her until the very end went.

“A god believed in by only one person? Impossible. Even a minor god who protects only a village or tribe needs the faith of at least a few dozen people to maintain their existence. A god worshipped by only one person can’t even be called a god. Or was it a being that didn’t need faith in the first place...”

Renheim’s expression darkened.

“D-Don’t tell me...”

“That priest created the spring you said was imbued with the power of an ancient god, Archbishop.”

“Wh-where is he now? Can we meet him? Matters related to ancient gods are of great importance not only to me but also to the goddess!”

The Archbishop’s expression which was always serene changed drastically at the mere mention of an Ancient God.

Even the three major gods are nothing before an ancient god. If he really is an ancient god’s priest, it’s best to somehow win him over and not become enemies, no matter what.

In fact, with the current power of the Three Gods Church, it may not be difficult to kill an ancient god’s Saint.

However, that would be an act of madness, to the point of being out of one’s mind.

Unlike personal gods who suffer a great blow when their saints die, the power of ancient gods does not waver just because one of their chosen dies.

How vast is this universe, and how small are humans? No matter how great the power bestowed upon one person, it’s no different from scooping a cup of water from the ocean compared to the power an ancient god possesses.

If an enraged ancient god were to curse this world at the cost of their personality eroding, the consequences would be endless. Ancient gods do not make someone their believer unless it is a being they truly cherish.

If a being they are attached to is destroyed by other small things, they may truly become properly enraged. The Three Gods Church, which possesses records of antiquity, was well aware of such fury of ancient gods.

Before humans and demons flourished. Before the three gods stood at the forefront of history, the reason why the vampires who dominated the continent met such a miserable downfall......

It was because an Ancient God broke their hegemony with a single curse.

Now, vampires are a minor race, crouching in a single territory, waiting for the day they die.

“We... drove him away.”

Renheim had a blank expression. For a moment, he truly believed he misheard those nonsensical words.

Only after quickly scanning Yurinel’s face did he make an expression as if looking at an idiot.

That expression was maintained very briefly before disappearing, but Yurinel clearly saw it.

“You drove away an ancient god’s priest?”

“Yes, that’s right. We did not properly know his value at the time.”

“Then of course... no, then...”

It was both despairing and fortunate. Because she confirmed that the hero’s party wasn’t uncomfortable with the saint herself, but just found it difficult because her skills were lacking.

It’s not something to be ashamed of. It’s not something lacking in the saint’s efforts either.

If the other party is an ancient god’s priest, there’s nothing to say even if compared like this.

It’s practically the same as receiving the blessing of the universe itself, so how could even the goddess’s daughter be a match?

“I had a feeling...So it’s true that my abilities were really lacking.”

The saint muttered bitterly.

“What should I do? You must have had high expectations, but I was lacking and couldn’t meet them.”

“Please don’t say such things. We just need to put in a bit more effort together.”

Still, they had a conversation, so the misunderstanding was resolved. Renheim was also relieved, and the saint felt refreshed.

There’s nothing as awkward as being rejected without knowing the reason. Still, they resolved this part by talking to each other, so won’t things improve going forward?

For each of their purposes.

For the values each of them pursued.

By joining forces,

Could they would move forward?

Revenge.

The final obstacle.

The Ancient Demon King, Grimudo.

Can they raise their swords against him once more?

Under the name of revenge, can they charge at him?

Trusting in the saint’s power and abilities, can they go to the North Pole again?

It was utterly daunting. The hero’s party lost its purpose.

A hero who lost the purpose of hunting the greatest demon king was no longer a hero. Just an adventurer.

That has become an unattainable dream.

The second greatest demon king, Harmael had already nearly unified the demon forces.

Breaking through those forces with just five people and assassinating the demon lord was nearly impossible. In the end, all they could do was strike down Harmael’s underlings scattered across various regions.

Then what should we do?

Perhaps it was because they all inwardly acknowledged that their initial goal of overthrowing Grimudo had changed at some point.

That their purpose was Hopeless from the start.

When Kyle was there, they at least got near Grimudo, but now they couldn’t even muster the courage. If they met Grimudo again, the next would surely be death.

No matter what position Saint Aridel held in the Church, it was unimportant before Grimudo.

To survive before him, only one thing was important: power.

Kyle made the entire party survive and escape even before Grimudo, but no one in the party believed the saint could fulfill that role.

If that guy had been here, we could have at least attempted a surprise attack on Harmael.

There was a priest who was so extraordinary in support and defense that even the saint couldn’t catch up.

If they had charged in with his full support, it would have been a feasible operation to assassinate Harmael and escape with their lives.

He was someone who saved everyone even before Grimudo.

Surely the demon armies wouldn’t be greater than Grimudo and his legions?

Of course, executing that tactic together with Aridel meant certain death.

The stark gap in abilities was impossible to bridge no matter how much one used their head.

Although Yurinel was called a hero, she had no intention of risking her life for her mission. If she died, wealth and glory would all be in vain.

And Yurinel wasn’t the type of person to sacrifice herself just for the ‘greater good’.

If they can’t strike Grimudo for personal revenge, and can’t attack Harmael for their mission as heroes,

They needed to seriously consider what meaning the hero’s party even had.

A strategic retreat may be necessary.

No, no. It’s not a retreat.

Just a momentary counterattack to respond to the enemy’s future plans.

However, whether it’s a retreat or counterattack, safely returning to the empire is a slightly different story.

War begins when you want it to, but it only ends when you beg for it. Even if Yurinel wants to stop her small war, it’s already out of her hands.

All decisions will be made far above here.

They will be handed down from the North Pole.