Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 818

◈ 818. I Saw a Black Dragon

Rembrary stared blankly at the strange man.

“Why aren’t you answering?”

The strange man asked again with a smile.

“How are you going to help me?”

Rembrary approached the window and leaned out. It was a second-floor window.

He could climb up the wall to get here, but doing so in broad daylight would make him easily visible. Yet, there was no sound to indicate how this man had appeared here.

“I can take you to where you want to go quickly.”

The suspicious man’s eyes narrowed.

“How fast is quickly?”

“Faster than you can eat that bread.”

Rembrary swallowed the remaining bread in one bite.

“…….”

The suspicious man froze, his smile faltering, then he corrected himself.

“It’ll take a little longer than that.”

“Okay.”

The suspicious man pointed to the forest near the village.

“Do you see that?”

“Yes.”

“You have to get there on your own. Can you do that?”

“Of course.”

“And one more thing. If you accept my help, things might get difficult for you.”

The suspicious man’s eyes curved into a crescent shape.

“Still okay with it?”

Rembrary nodded, gathered his belongings, and left the room. He went out the back door, entered the alley, and headed straight for the forest.

When Rembrary arrived at the forest the suspicious man had pointed out, the man was already there.

As Rembrary approached, the suspicious man extended his hand.

“Let’s go.”

* * *

Thanks to the suspicious man, Rembrary quickly arrived near the opposite village. The suspicious man dropped Rembrary off in a nearby forest again.

“Goodbye.”

Rembrary turned away from the waving suspicious man and walked into the village alone.

But when he passed through the checkpoint and went inside, the village was in chaos.

“A giant dragon flew overhead!”

“No, it wasn’t a dragon, just a big bird.”

“Where would you find a bird that big!”

A farmer pointing at the sky, a merchant shouting while holding a large basket, and children with dirt on their clothes were all excitedly recounting what they had seen.

Rembrary walked through the crowd and spotted a Redrin paladin [a holy knight dedicated to the god Redrin] running towards him.

“You sent a paladin to the Florandia Temple, right?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m Rembrary. Where are the injured?”

The paladin looked Rembrary up and down and asked.

“You came alone?”

“Yes. Let’s see the injured first.”

However, instead of leading Rembrary, the paladin asked again.

“You’re an apprentice priest who uses healing abilities?”

“Yes.”

“Then you shouldn’t have come alone.”

“I usually travel around alone. I’m resourceful, you see.”

The paladin looked at Rembrary with distrust, then walked away.

Rembrary followed him. But the place the paladin arrived at was not where the injured paladins were.

Another paladin was sitting on a chair and stood up when he saw Rembrary.

“Why did you bring a kid?”

“He says he’s an apprentice priest who heals people.”

“Then you should take him to the patients.”

“He came alone.”

‘Redrin, look at these people. It’s no use even if I came quickly. I’m wasting time here,’ Rembrary thought, exasperated.

* * *

However, Redrin was not watching Rembrary being held up by the paladins.

Lost in thought while stirring the clouds, Redrin suddenly stood up.

[What’s wrong?]

Lumena, who had come to play after surveying her territory, approached and asked as Redrin prepared to move.

[I’m going to see Aquari.]

The angel gathered clouds and brought them over. Lumena sat on them, raising her eyebrows.

[Aquari?]

* * *

While the paladins were talking amongst themselves, Rembrary looked at the armor and swords hanging on the wall.

“Is this real?”

When Rembrary asked, pointing at a sword, the red-haired paladin said firmly.

“Yes. Don’t touch it.”

Rembrary reached for the sword.

“I said don’t touch it.”

The paladin quickly approached and lowered Rembrary’s arm.

“Cut me with it. I’ll heal you.”

Rembrary said, raising his other arm.

The paladins, who had been discussing whether Rembrary was a real priest with healing abilities, fell silent.

“I heard there are paladins who are seriously injured and in danger. We need to heal them quickly; we don’t have time for this.”

As Rembrary reached out as if to grab the sword, the red-haired paladin pressed down on his other hand as well.

“Should we take him? If he can’t heal, he can’t heal, but we should at least try,” the paladin with glasses said cautiously. Eventually, the other paladins nodded.

“Follow me.”

Only then was Rembrary able to enter the room where the patients were resting.

“Why are you bringing a child?”

However, a similar situation was about to unfold again even after entering the room. The doctor, who was examining the seriously injured, was puzzled when a child came in.

“This child will heal the paladins.”

While the paladin with glasses was explaining, Rembrary approached the paladin lying closest and touched the area around the wound.

“That little kid?”

The doctor asked back in an incredulous voice.

“I’m all better!”

The paladin Rembrary had touched answered instead. The doctor and paladins looked at him. The paladin whose leg had been pinned against the wall was standing up.

“It doesn’t hurt at all. And I can walk!”

The paladin shouted in a bright voice, then walked back and forth around the sickbed. It happened so quickly that people couldn’t react right away.

“You’re really… that…”

After a long pause, the paladin who had guided Rembrary here continued to stammer, as if he couldn’t believe it.

“I’m Rembrary.”

Rembrary confidently revealed himself and began to walk among the patients.

The mouths of the watching paladins slowly opened.

It was hard to believe, even when they saw the paladins, who had been groaning and making painful noises, suddenly getting up every time the child briefly touched them.

Even the paladin who had lost consciousness and whose breathing was weakening opened his eyes wide when Rembrary briefly placed his hand under his neck and then removed it.

As the paladin, who everyone thought would die, raised his upper body, those watching simultaneously gasped.

“Huh? Am I alive?”

The seriously injured paladin looked around with a bewildered expression, as if he had been sure he would die just before he was injured.

Rembrary looked around the room where the patients were gathered and asked the paladin with glasses.

“Are these the only people who are hurt?”

The doctor rubbed his eyes with both hands and lowered them.

“To heal so easily… what have I been learning all this time?”

The doctor muttered in a hollow voice.

“Thanks to you, the seriously injured survived until that child came,” the paladin pointed out, referring to the events of the past few days. The doctor nodded.

“I know. I was just saying. It’s so amazing how easily he heals them. That’s really… a miracle of God.”

The gazes of the paladins watching Rembrary became reverent. No matter how many great rumors they heard, seeing it in person was the most convincing.

The paladins who had been conscious were moved to tears at the sight of their colleagues, who they thought would die soon, laughing and talking as before.

Then, when Rembrary’s stomach growled, the paladins snapped back to reality and began to fuss over the child.

“You’re really amazing.”

“You’re Rembrary, right?”

“I heard you use feathers, but you just heal people?”

“Why did the feather story come up?”

“How old are you? You’ll become a high priest right away, right?”

Rembrary raised his chin and answered the paladins’ questions appropriately.

Another paladin went outside and brought back crispy bread with a generous amount of jam and butter.

Rembrary dipped the bread in jam, ate it, and said while looking at his watch.

“I have to go now.”

“Did you really come alone?”

The paladin with glasses asked again. When Rembrary nodded, the paladin with glasses said, puzzled.

“Wouldn’t it be better to rest a bit before going back?”

“I can rest when I get back.”

“Then I’ll assign someone to escort you.”

“Okay.”

“You’re going back to the Florandia Temple, right?”

Rembrary talked with the paladin with glasses and went outside the building.

But when he went to the front of the building, there was a crowd of villagers gathered.

“What’s going on?”

When the paladin with glasses asked, the oldest-looking man among the villagers came forward and said.

“Paladin, earlier, something huge and black flew towards the forest next to the village.”

“A bird?”

“Some people say it was a bird, and others say it was too big to be a bird.”

“It was a dragon! A small dragon.”

“Could you go check if something appeared over there?”

“Ah, that child!”

At that moment, one of the guards shouted, his voice particularly loud.

The people who had been talking to the paladin without order became quiet and looked at the shouting guard.

“That child. That blonde child.”

The guard pointed at Rembrary, who was standing next to the paladin with glasses.

“What about this child?”

When the paladin with glasses asked bluntly, the guard lowered his hand and said with a frustrated expression.

“Something black landed in the forest, and then that child appeared!”

One of the paladins who had come out of the ward after hearing the commotion raised his voice at those words.

“Rembrary has been busy healing people; what are you talking about?”

“But it’s clear that that child walked out of the forest!”

Only the guard and a few people living near him insisted that Rembrary had walked out of the forest.

“Children usually like to play in the forest, right?”

Most people didn’t believe the words and laughed it off or said it was a coincidence.

However, the faces of some of the paladins who had brought Rembrary here for the first time hardened.

They had sent a paladin to the Florandia Temple to bring Rembrary, but the child had appeared alone.

Because of that, they didn’t immediately realize whether Rembrary was really the apprentice priest they had invited.

But when they heard that something strange had flown into the forest and Rembrary had come out of there, it sounded quite plausible.

“Come to think of it, when Rembrary first entered the temple, didn’t they say he appeared riding a black dragon? That’s why he’s called the cursed prince…”

One of the paladins whispered to the paladin with glasses but was pinched in the side and shut his mouth.

* * *

The paladins whom Rembrary had healed naturally defended Rembrary.

“If that child were suspicious, he wouldn’t have been able to heal people with divine power.”

The paladins who had seen Rembrary heal also defended Rembrary.

“That’s right. It must be a coincidence. Maybe it’s just prejudice.”

However, those who had witnessed something large and black flying were afraid and regarded Rembrary with suspicion.

“Then why did that child appear alone in the forest?”

“It makes even less sense that that child came all the way here from the Florandia Temple.”

“He must have come because he’s smart.”

Rembrary ate dried fruit while watching people argue.

“Let’s talk about this later. We can’t keep the child here, so we should send him back to the temple first.”

The paladin with glasses tried to send Rembrary back, but the guards jumped up and down, insisting that Rembrary had definitely come out of the forest, and blocked him.

After nearly an hour of arguing, Rembrary decided to rest here first.

But the next day, the fight became even more intense. It was because the paladin who had come from the Florandia Temple to this place was surprised to see Rembrary and shouted.

“Hey, kid. Didn’t you go to Blueire?”

“I went.”

“Already? That’s on the opposite side of here!”