Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 782

782. The Second Rumor

“Head Priest Heather, what’s wrong?”

Rembrary suddenly appeared right in front of Heather.

“Head Priest Heather, are you sick?”

Heather consciously avoided looking at Rembrary’s feathers.

“No.”

Heather pretended to clap.

“As expected, our Rembrary is amazing.”

“Isn’t that right?”

Rembrary smiled brightly and returned to his seat like a proud duck.

Heather was sweating.

‘The feathers are just feathers. It wasn’t the feathers that were healing people; it was Rembrary.’

Looking back, there were many clues. Heather touched her forehead. She felt like an idiot. How could she only realize this now?

Rembrary glanced at Heather while healing people.

“Head Priest Heather, you still look sick.”

“I’m okay.”

Heather lowered her hand and smiled. The child wanted to hide his ability.

It was right to do as the child wished.

The problem was the culprit who swapped the feathers outside the clinic.

“The rumors were true. That kid is really amazing.”

“We should donate a lot to the Redrin Temple.”

“He’s so young, but he’s really great. He’s going to be big.”

The culprit, who was loitering in front of the clinic to see if things were going well, flinched.

A family, who seemed to be relatives, were coming down the stairs, chatting amicably.

“Now that you’ve barely regained your health, be careful.”

“I will.”

“Pray to Redrin often.”

“I will.”

The culprit was flustered and looked at the clinic. He definitely swapped the feathers, so why were people who had been treated coming out?

To thoroughly confirm, the culprit stayed near the stairs.

About 15 minutes later, another family went down the stairs. They were also praising Redrin and saying that Rembrary was amazing.

‘Are there spare feathers?’

The culprit entered the clinic to check.

The culprit bribed an employee with a large sum of money, using the excuse of wanting to see the miracle of Redrin with his own eyes, and changed clothes.

“You have to come out quickly.”

The employee said, putting on the culprit’s clothes.

“Of course. I’ll just watch one treatment scene and come out.”

The culprit spoke politely and followed a new patient into the treatment room.

Inside the treatment room, which looked like a prayer room, was a stone bed where people could lie down.

Unlike other sickrooms or treatment rooms, it was completely empty. Only the child was standing around the stone bed.

The culprit discreetly moved the patient lying on the stretcher to the stone bed with another employee.

The patient’s family stood about two steps away, sobbing.

The culprit stood quietly next to the other employee and observed Rembrary.

When Rembrary held a feather in one hand, the culprit frowned.

‘It’s definitely a fake feather?’

The culprit had tried to make it look similar after hearing about the feather’s appearance.

However, since he hadn’t actually seen it and made it based on people’s rumors, there were too many differences when he compared it to a real feather.

“I will heal you.”

However, Rembrary began the treatment with that crude feather.

Half-closing his eyes and placing his hand on the patient’s forehead, he looked quite like a priest.

“It’s done.”

As Rembrary took his hand away, the person who had been lying down jumped up.

“Oh my god! Redrin!”

The patient’s family screamed. The patient got out of the bed and ran around, then hugged Rembrary.

“You saved me!”

Some of the family members laughed while crying. It was a truly touching sight.

But the culprit couldn’t laugh along.

‘This can’t be.’

Even though he swapped the feathers, Rembrary healed the person.

The healing power wasn’t in the feathers. The healing power was in that prince.

‘Damn it. What should I do?’

Marchioness Luciche was already angry from the previous failure. If he didn’t produce results this time, she would be even more angry.

As he was getting anxious, when Rembrary grabbed a feather and reached out to treat the next patient, he quickly snatched the feather and shouted.

“This feather is fake!”

The families who were watching the patient, hoping for a miracle, widened their eyes.

Rembrary stared at the employee who had acted abruptly with wide eyes.

“What are you doing!”

The manager, who had been standing and smiling, shouted angrily.

“Can’t you give it back right now?!”

The clinic had not been open for long. The manager was a person sent by the lord, or rather, one of the lord’s secretaries.

He didn’t stay at the clinic every day, and the employees hadn’t even gotten to know each other’s faces yet.

The manager didn’t realize that the employee wasn’t an employee.

The culprit who swapped the feathers knew this atmosphere, so he didn’t run away and said.

“What I’m saying is true. The feather is fake. From the beginning, the feather was fake. It’s not the feather that’s healing people, it’s that apprentice priest.”

“That’s nonsense!”

“You’ve been watching, so you know what the feather looks like. Look closely. I’m right.”

The manager frowned.

“Well, first of all……”

Heather stepped forward.

Before she could finish speaking, the patient who had been lying as if dead sat up, fidgeting.

Heather stopped talking and looked down at the patient.

“Um… I’m fine now.”

The patient muttered.

“The baby priest healed me properly.”

“Mera!”

The patient’s mother cried and hugged her child. The patient’s father also hugged his child and wife.

As the three of them began to hug and cry, it became difficult for the manager and Heather to speak.

However, the culprit didn’t hide the touching atmosphere.

“That feather is fake.”

The culprit shouted again.

“What does it matter?!”

Then the patient’s father, who couldn’t stand it any longer, shouted.

“The feather is fake. That apprentice priest healed him directly.”

“So what does it matter? Our child has been healed.”

People opened the door and peeked in, wondering what was going on with the commotion in the treatment room.

“What does it matter? This child is scamming people.”

The culprit raised his voice until the veins in his neck stood out.

“I don’t care.”

The child’s mother intervened firmly.

“What difference does it make whether the feather healed him or that baby priest healed him? The baby priest is using the feather anyway.”

“The reason he hid his ability is because he distrusts people.”

People began to murmur.

Rembrary stood calmly and was not swept away by the commotion.

“Is the feather really fake?”

A spectator asked from beyond the door.

The manager frowned. The feather Rembrary was holding was different from usual. The manager knew that from the beginning.

But the manager wasn’t a priest, so he just thought there were different kinds of feathers.

“I ordered it.”

When the manager hesitated, Heather stepped forward and drew a line [took a firm stance].

“It’s not that the child is scamming people, it’s that I ordered it. It’s a basic principle that apprentice priests don’t reveal their power.”

Rembrary just stood there calmly, whether people were murmuring or the employee was accusing him of being a scammer.

But when Heather stepped forward to defend him, Rembrary widened his eyes and looked at Heather.

“Hmph, you can make excuses however you want.”

The culprit sneered.

“Isn’t it the same?”

Heather said firmly and pointed to the open door with her eyes.

“There are a lot of patients who need treatment. If we waste time here with this, we won’t be able to treat all the scheduled patients.”

At Heather’s words, the people who were watching began to protest.

“Oh, just come out!”

“It’s even more amazing if he heals directly, why are you angry?”

“Come out without causing trouble!”

“Are you even an employee?”

The employee who received money and changed clothes hid behind a pillar and nervously bit his nails.

When the holy knights came inside, the employee got angry for no reason and left.

“Oh, I’m leaving. I’m leaving!”

Heather looked down at Rembrary. Rembrary looked fine on the outside. But Heather didn’t have the ability to read people’s minds.

“You’re really amazing.”

Heather muttered in a small voice while the patient’s family was leaving.

“You’re a really great kid, Rembrary. You’re the coolest apprentice priest I’ve ever seen.”

Rembrary raised his head with a brightened face.

“I know too, Head Priest Heather.”

The child said as if whispering together.

“I’m glad you know too, Head Priest Heather.”

Heather laughed loudly and patted the child’s shoulder.

* * *

“Such a stupid thing to do!”

Marchioness Luciche covered her forehead when she heard her subordinate’s report.

“He must have been very anxious.”

The butler clicked his tongue.

“Does being anxious make you stupid?”

The marchioness sneered and stared anxiously at the fireplace.

“Now that it’s been revealed that the child has healing abilities, it will become more dangerous. The people who were trying to get the feathers will target the child. That child won’t be able to walk around properly.”

The butler comforted her skillfully and took the marchioness’s empty coffee cup.

“It doesn’t matter whether the prince has a hard time walking around or not. What’s important to me is whether that prince has a reputation among the people or not. Even if that prince lives locked up for the rest of his life, he shouldn’t have a high reputation. Even if he lives freely for the rest of his life, it’s better if he has no reputation.”

“After a few years, that prince might forget about the young master.”

“Maybe not!”

“…….”

“Even if it’s annoying now, this will eventually raise the prince’s reputation.”

The marchioness didn’t want to think about it anymore, so she shook her head and got up.

“I’ll have to watch the situation.”

* * *

It wasn’t easy to change a preempted rumor.

The rumor that ‘an apprentice priest of the Redrin Temple heals even incurable patients with feathers gifted by God’ had already spread far and wide.

The newly created rumor that ‘actually, he heals directly, not with feathers’ couldn’t quickly displace that rumor.

Because people who heard the second rumor didn’t know which one was real, they defaulted to believing the first rumor they heard.

The fact that the Redrin Temple didn’t promote the apprentice priest’s great abilities and kept it quiet also contributed to people doubting the truth of the second rumor.

The only people who really believed the second rumor were the people of Florentine Territory, who were close to the scene.

But more than these things, Heather was worried about Rembrary.

She was worried that the child might have been hurt by being accused of being a scammer by a grown adult in front of him.

After returning to the temple, Heather instructed Rishur to take better care of Rembrary.

But Rembrary ate well, slept well, and dozed off as usual.

Not only that, but one day he even came to Heather and said this.

“Head Priest Heather. Now that things have turned out this way, I want to go heal Sir Cheru.”

“Sir Cheru?”

“He’s a holy knight who lost his divine power trying to save me.”

Rembrary was already behind in class compared to the other children.

This was because he often couldn’t attend classes due to various other things.

But Heather thought that the child must have been very surprised by this incident, so she readily allowed it.

“Okay. Let’s do that. Sir Cheru will be happy.”

* * *

And a few days later, Rembrary went to the Holy Knight Training Center with Heather.

This was because when Heather inquired to find Cheru, she received the answer that Cheru was teaching children at the training center.

It seemed that he had gone to the training center because it had become difficult to fight monsters due to the loss of his divine power.

Rembrary, who had entered the Holy Knight Training Center, leaned out of the carriage window and looked around at the scenery he was seeing for the first time.

Heather had opened a book, but she kept looking back and forth between the window and the book, worried that the child would fall.

“Head Priest Heather, Head Priest Heather!”

“Rembrary, be careful.”

“Head Priest Heather, I think I found Sir Cheru’s brother!”