Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 590

◈ 590. Love Is Not a Sin

Aquari wondered just how much more surprised she could be.

What on earth had happened in just over a year?

“So, you decided to divorce? To separate them?”

[Salirus is explaining the situation. One child was suspected to be a fake, potentially sent by demons and carrying negative energy. Both children exhibited faint demonic energy, making it impossible to distinguish them. They decided to observe them for a month to identify the real one, but after a month, both lost their demonic energy. Then, Margata and Salirus each claimed a different child as their own.]

“What?”

[Salirus believes Memia is their child, while Margata insists Memira is theirs.]

“Who are Memia and Memira?”

[Their original name was Memi, but for convenience, they split the name in two, Aquari.]

“……”

[If there wasn’t a prophecy that the fake would kill our child, we would have just raised them as twins, Aquari. But with such a prophecy, how could we raise them together? We must find the real one, but Margata can’t even recognize her own child!]

“Why do you think Memi….”

[Memia, it is.]

“Why do you think Memia is Memi?”

[I am that child’s parent, Aquari. I just know. As time passed, I naturally knew.]

“Why does Kamuel’s child think Memira is Memi?”

[She just has a feeling.]

As Aquari was about to reply, a loud bang announced the arrival of the Northern God, Kamuel.

Kamuel strode over and grabbed Aquari by the collar, shouting fiercely.

“What’s wrong with your High Priest! Seducing our innocent Margata into marriage, only to divorce her after a year!”

Aquari grabbed Kamuel’s collar as well.

“That’s what I want to say! That wicked High Priest ousted our Salirus from his position, and now he’s getting bold!”

“Wicked? Wicked?”

“A fool who can’t even recognize his own child, yet blabs everything to his god! And he’s so loose-lipped!”

“You little…! You know everything because you heard it all!”

“Our Salirus was just talking about it. Your High Priest spoke first, so that child is more loose-lipped!”

It didn’t take long for the collar-grabbing to turn into a fistfight.

Redrin watched them fight and advised Lumena, “You can’t spoil the High Priest too much, Lumena. Look at those two and consider it carefully when you choose your High Priest.”

“Mind your own business.”

“I’m saying it because you keep picking chicken-like ones [cowardly or incompetent individuals].”

Just as the gods couldn’t stop the two High Priests from resigning and marrying, they couldn’t stop them from divorcing.

In the end, former Western High Priest Salirus and former Northern High Priest Margata left an unprecedented situation twice in a row, divorced, and returned to their respective Great Temples.

They couldn’t return as High Priests, but since there were no successors yet, they could handle proxy duties that didn’t require divine power.

The priests of the Great Temples, who were struggling to find someone to handle the High Priest’s duties, rejoiced and welcomed their former High Priests.

The Western Great Temple cursed former Northern High Priest Margata, and the Northern Great Temple cursed former Western High Priest Salirus.

There had been an incident that strained the relationship between the two Great Temples and the two gods, but everyone remained quiet for the next few years.

Memia grew up like a treasure in the Western Great Temple, and Memira was cherished in the Northern Great Temple as if she would fly away if breathed on.

Although Redrin, Aquari, and Kamuel still hadn’t found High Priests, the gods and temples seemed to have found peace again.

* * *

“Then a problem arose.”

Could there be more problems? Rembrary blankly listened to the Demon King’s story, wondering if it was true.

“Did those two children cause problems?”

Still, this time, he roughly guessed where the problem had started.

However, before the Demon King could answer, the sound of a door breaking interrupted their conversation.

The Demon King fell silent, and Cloth muttered, “Ah… X bastard [a vulgar term for someone annoying or troublesome].”

Curious, Rembrary grabbed the sloth and went out of the kitchen, only to find the front door broken and a strawberry blonde sprawled there, reeking of alcohol.

Rembrary recognized him as soon as he saw the back of his head. It was ‘Vinak the Sworn,’ one of the Demon King’s closest aides.

‘He’s like that even in a dream,’ Rembrary thought, staring intently, when Noir approached and kicked Vinak in the head.

Vinak, hit in the head and rolling to the side, seemed to blankly roll his eyes around, then pointed at Rembrary, muttering, “Uh.”

“Uh, uh, uh.”

Wondering what was wrong, Rembrary handed Vinak Shinjo-un [the sloth plushie], who tried to slowly turn to Rembrary in protest.

However, before Shinjo-un could fully turn his head, Vinak first raised his upper body and bowed to Rembrary.

“Hello. I apologize for my rudeness. I am Vinak.”

“Hello. I am Rembrary.”

As Rembrary bowed in return, Vinak turned Shinjo-un upside down, smiled brightly, and asked.

“How kind. Did you give me this to eat?”

Shinjo-un’s eyes widened as he sped up to 0.5x speed.

Rembrary quickly took Shinjo-un back and shook his head.

Meanwhile, Noir poured water on Vinak, who was standing blankly, and clicked his tongue.

“Get half your senses back.”

Vinak stood blankly and got splashed with water.

He just stood there, his medium-length hair getting wet and the water flowing down onto his shirt.

Then, belatedly, he widened his green eyes and looked at Noir, feigning surprise.

And in the blink of an eye, there was another loud bang as another wall broke, and Noir was gone.

Vinak’s water cup revealed who the culprit was.

Vinak turned the water cup upside down, then threw it to the side and made a heart with his hand towards the Demon King.

“It’s been a while, my lord.”

The Demon King turned away without a word, and Cloth lifted Rembrary up with one hand, advising.

“Treat him like a ghost, kid. If you see him, pretend you don’t know him.”

* * *

For some reason, the Demon King was holed up in his room and wouldn’t come out, so Rembrary couldn’t hear what happened to that scandalous High Priest couple.

Instead, Rembrary wandered around with the sloth and lion, and ran into Vinak, whom Cloth had told him to ignore.

Rembrary hesitated for a moment when he encountered Vinak.

Whether to take Cloth’s advice and ignore Vinak, or just do as he had been doing.

But he didn’t feel the need to take the demon’s advice, so Rembrary greeted Vinak.

“I think everyone hates you.”

Vinak seemed almost sober, but when he saw Rembrary, he tilted his head and raised one eyebrow, smiling.

“What’s this chick [a term of endearment, but also slightly condescending]?”

Soon, Rembrary was lifted up by Vinak.

It seemed that Vinak, who had been drunk, had forgotten about Rembrary as he sobered up.

But Rembrary knew what Vinak would do, so he just stayed still in the air.

Vinak would be happy and try to torment him more persistently if he reacted to his actions. It was the same even if the other person was a demon.

If he left him alone, he would probably pretend to know him again.

“Oh, hello. Long time no see? Aren’t you Mr. Rembrary?”

Like this.

The fire lion grimaced and stared at Vinak.

Shinjo-un also thought, ‘What kind of crazy person is this?’ and stared at Vinak.

Rembrary, who already knew Vinak was like this, wasn’t surprised, but he began to worry a little when he saw the surprisingly well-realized illusion.

“What is it? Kids usually cry ‘waaah’ when this happens. Why isn’t he crying? Hey, why aren’t you crying?”

While Vinak was shaking Rembrary, Rembrary sent divine power to Vinak.

Vinak didn’t react at all.

After finishing the check, Rembrary became seriously uneasy.

Seeing Vinak so faithfully realized, it seemed that it wasn’t an illusion created by the demons at will, but a realization of the past.

‘What if this all happened in the past? What if I really could only count to 8? I’ve been bragging about being smart since I was young.’

No, that’s not it. Come to think of it, no one knows about this time.

Even if the demons talk about Rembrary’s past, no one will believe them.

So it’s okay to keep saying that he was a smart child since he was young…….

‘Witness.’

The fire lion flinched and moved to the side when the young Rembrary suddenly looked at them with strange eyes.

* * *

“Did you understand? You must never tell anyone outside that I could only count to 8 when I was young, or anything like that. Got it?”

‘That’s not the important thing,’ the fire lion thought, answering perfunctorily.

– Roar.

“……”

“It’s a promise. Got it?”

– Roar.

“……”

“You have to keep your promise. Then I won’t tell anyone that you slept in the stable, or about the anchovy sloth, or that you were held by the demons.”

– Roar.

“And I may only be able to count to 8 now, but in just one year, I’ll improve dramatically and become a very sharp seven-year-old. Got it?”

‘He doesn’t seem sharp even now.’ Shinjo-un thought, but there was no way to express this, so he just stayed still.

‘He’s using those words because he wants to express himself in a cool Earth-style way.’

‘I don’t know because he’s from another world, but doesn’t he think it would look smarter if he didn’t use words he doesn’t know well?’

Shinjo-un buried this thought for now. He wanted to express it, but there was no way to do so.

Anyway, Rembrary was relieved that his two animal friends had become quiet, so he took the sloth and fire lion and went to the dining room.

Perhaps because Vinak had returned, only food was laid out in the dining room, and Cloth was nowhere to be seen.

However, the Demon King came out with an unwilling face, as if to tell Rembrary old stories, and Vinak was asleep across from him, resting his arms.

Rembrary voluntarily sat next to the Demon King, avoiding Vinak.

The fire lion was amazed to see Rembrary openly avoiding someone for the first time, but he agreed that the demon didn’t feel good, so he sat on the other side of the Demon King.

There was no other option, as the 6-person table had three chairs facing each other.

The Demon King naturally stroked the lion’s mane and began the story again.

“With the divorce of the two former High Priests, peace seemed to have returned to the divine realm and between the temples. As time passed, Aquari and Kamuel, who had grown distant, softened to the point where they could talk without grabbing each other’s collars.”

‘Does that mean they kept grabbing each other’s collars for years?’

The fire lion clicked his tongue, then raised his body and drank the milk when Rembrary pushed a milk bowl in front of him.

Rembrary used a very small spoon that Cloth had brought to feed the baby sloth a little soup.

“But another problem arose.”

The Demon King continued, sighing.

“The children taken by the former High Priests began to show potential to become High Priests in the future. Both of them. …As that happened, the fact that the children had lived with demons in the past became a problem.”