The next night, the typhoon finally came. The windows rattled all night and everyone had a hard time sleeping. The wind was so strong that there was no one on the street.
After the strong wind came rain─thundering rain. More rain fell in this short window of time than it had all summer. The water level of the Tender River began to soar, prompting the residents in the low-lying ground to evacuate. It was a scene of chaos. The wind blew, the clouds rained, and the collapsed debris floated around. Konny murmured in fear that it had seemed like the world was about to collapse.
That night, a black sorcerer and his followers stormed into the Hautean Royal Palace and attacked Princess Sonnet.
And yet Sonnet was not sleeping. The wind noise was loud because of the typhoon and she just got a reply from Lara. Sonnet was so happy that she took Lara's letter to her bed and read it over and over again. She put it on her pillow and read it whenever she could not sleep.
It was sheer luck for the Princess. As soon as she heard the attack, instead of screaming, Sonnet quickly got out of bed and ran to the secret aisle. Outside her room, the knights risked their lives to stop the black sorcerer. The ladies-in-waiting, wearing the same gown as the Princess, fled in different directions and soon alerted the whole Royal Palace about the situation.
Sonnet managed to save her own life. If the Princess had fallen asleep and escaped a little later, she would have lost her life that night.
The Princess' palace was ruined. The black sorcerer that appeared this time was a very cruel man. When his followers killed themselves by spraying blood in the Princess' palace, he used powerful black magic using that blood as a sacrifice. After killing seven knights, 38 soldiers, four ladies-in-waiting, and six workers, the black sorcerer decided to kill himself after saying this.
"A saintess has appeared in Hautean and my lord will tear it up and swallow it! There is no God on this land! O Valac, lord over this land!"
Starting with Princess Sonnet, the same thing happened here and there. A black sorcerer and his followers appeared and attacked the women who were being suspected of being the saintess.
Six people were killed and two escaped death. Those who survived were the daughter of a nobleman and the wife of a farmer. No one knew which of them was the saintess. The problem was that the incident did not end there.
"My daughter is the real saintess! She has been extraordinary since she was a child. We knew this would happen one day!"
"My wife is the real saintess! What was the reason that our farm was harmless during the last typhoon? Because God has chosen my wife!"
Except for the Princess, the other two began to claim to be the saintess. It went without saying that the Kingdom was in turmoil.
'All of these did not happen in my past.'
In her past, when Lara was the fake saintess, neither the demon nor God had given such revelations. That was the reason she was able to be the fake saintess for so long.
It was different now. It was already hard to believe that the saintess that could only be read in records had really made an appearance, but now even black sorcerers showed up to get rid of the saintess.
Saintess, God's vicegerent.
She did not know anything when she looked up close. Now that she became the third party and looked at it from afar, things that seemed just and beautiful at that time were all ugly and made her nauseous. Lara watched it all with a cold, calm gaze.
'Who is it?'
It could have been one of them, and it could have been herself.
A few days later, the saintess candidates left their homes and gathered at the Temple of Glory. Surrounded by solemn-faced priests, they walked with a benevolent look on their faces, pretending to be graceful.
The first candidate who was the daughter of a nobleman adorned herself with her father's wealth and prestige. She wrapped herself in a heavy, white dress that the royal family would wear at weddings, and covered her face with a veil as long as three carriages. There were traces of veil every time the daughter of the nobleman passed by, which resulted in people making a joke that a saintess was the perfect person to clean the street.
The second candidate was the farmer's wife. She implemented an opposite strategy. The farmer's wife who had just reached her middle age appeared in plain white cotton cloth with an apron and a hair towel. She looked shabby against the daughter of the noblewoman. Instead, she appeared with a basket full of her own crops in her arms. It was to show that her farm was perfectly fine during the recent typhoon that caused huge damage to most farms.
On the day the two women marched down the street to the Temple of Glory, all citizens rushed outside and watched the scene.
Who is the saintess?
Was it Princess Sonnet, whom the King had hid, or the daughter of the nobleman, who was said to have had extraordinary nature since she was young? If not them, then was it the farmer's wife, who had experienced miracles on her farm?
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
"Things have turned out to be interesting."
As soon as he heard the news, Demian laughed briefly. He also nodded lightly saying that he had already expected this would happen.
"Do you think there's a real saintess among them?"
"There's a possibility."
Despite saying so, Demian did not look like he really meant it. Lara, who was looking at Demian's face, squinted and asked Demian.
"What are you thinking about?"
"The young princess will be safe for a while, right?"
"Perhaps… The King must have been surprised by the attack."
Her meeting with Princess Sonnet was postponed without any future plans. Konny was very disappointed but it was inevitable for the Princess' safety. For the time being, Sonnet was protected deep inside the palace to avoid the attack from the black sorcerer. Visitors and going out were prohibited.
"Lara."
"Yes?"
"Just wait."
Demian looked relaxed. He said he needed to get the saintess before the black sorcerer does and take her to the Empire. And despite there being several people who showed up and were suspected to be a saintess, he showed no interest.
Demian said to Lara, who was wondering about that.
"It's the temple's job to determine whether they were real or not. I don't think there's a saintess among them. Anyway, things have turned out to be interesting. Let's see how well they read God's mind."
Reading God's mind?
As Lara saw it, it seemed far from possible.
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
If Demian moderately ignored the saintess candidates, Eunice openly mocked them.
"If that thing is a saintess, then am I a fairy?"
When Lara asked her if she knew about the daughter of the nobleman who claimed to be a saintess, Eunice spoke with fervor, while spilling her drink.
"Do you know what kind of bimbo she is? If you go to the night ball three times a night, you will for sure meet her in one of them. She's a hopeless troublemaker."
"Really?"
When Lara asked back in surprise, Eunice nodded quickly and continued.
"When she dates, two-timing is essential for her. Regardless of whether the man in question is her friend's lover or a married man, she would mess around with anyone she could lay her hands on. When she drinks, she will make sure to beat the guy on that table that day."
"Well, I guess you could also call that her talent."
Ximena also seemed to know about the daughter of the nobleman.
"If she's a saintess, Eunice is a fairy… Then, I'm a daffodil? Or a lily?"
"She's that bad?"
Lara asked with a smile. Then, Ximena pointed at Eunice and laughed.
"When was it again? I think when we attended the academy. Eunice dragged that bimbo by her hair many times. She talked about me behind my back saying that Ximena Swavy has no mom. But one time, she got caught by Ximena."
"If God were the Almighty, there's no way he did not know how much of a b*tch she is… No matter how uninterested he is in the human realm, why would he choose her out of all these women? It seems to me that her parents are trying to use their daughter to get money or power."
Eunice's words made sense. Lara nodded quietly, lost in her thoughts. Then suddenly, she had a question.
If the existence who sent her to the past was God, instead of punishing her for being a fake saintess and conducting wrong behavior, he gave her a miraculous second chance.
What's the big deal about going to a dance party and meeting some guys? Isn't that being kind enough?
Lara murmured while looking out the window.
"Maybe God is much more generous than we think. It's unbearably dirty and bad in our eyes, but in God's eyes, it's nothing more than a fly flapping its wings."
"Lara, no matter what, it's not her. Absolutely not."
"Ximena is right. If she's the real saintess… I'd rather convert!"
With Eunice's shocking remark about conversion, everyone shut up and turned their attention out of the window. They were sitting by the window of a cafe high up in the building. They could see the building of the Temple of Glory rising in the distance. There were quite a few people on the street. It was the people who were waiting for the street march of the saintess candidates that was held at the same time every day.