WeTried Translations

Translator: [IncomeElastic]

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◈ I Became an Undetected Priest Impersonator ◈

Chapter 21

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I Became a Head Priest (5)

The difference was slight, but the sapling had definitely grown.

‘..Not bad.’

But the goddess made a huge fuss over a tree whose only change was growing a tiny bit.

-Yuck, yuck! That's not a good thing!

"Isn't it good if it grows fast?"

-No! The tree will develop a self!

"..Is that bad?"

At worst, I figured it would just mean having to watch the tree's mood every time I pruned a branch or picked its fruit.

It didn't look like enough of a problem to warrant such a negative reaction from the goddess.

Wondering if a self might cause some other problem, I waited for her answer.

-I'm not joking, you really have to be careful! In just a thousand years it'll develop a self and become a World Tree!

"…? A thousand years, and that's dangerous?"

-Super dangerous!

The goddess explained as if she were genuinely frightened.

-My mom said she got careless like that, and the World Tree took all of her followers, the whole elf race!

"…"

‘Even if I live out my full natural life and die, I doubt I'll live to see it become a World Tree.’

Dismissing the goddess's warning over such a trivial side effect, I finished sprinkling Heal over the sapling.

I was hoping that if possible, it would keep growing like this and bear fruit quickly.

-Eeeeek! My followers are being stolen!

The goddess's scream rang right into my eardrums.

"..You hardly have any followers left to steal anyway."

-So mean! And I may not have many, but I do have some!

"If you're truly worried, I'll chop it down before I die, so please don't worry too much."

Then the screaming voice went quiet.

-You promise..?

"If it eases your mind, I'll even put it in my will."

She really was a troublesome goddess.

-Hehe, then give me breakfast!

In more ways than one, at that.

"It's morning, so I'll keep it simple."

What I prepared really was nothing special.

It was a breakfast of bread split in half with salad stuffed between the halves, and that was all.

-Nom nom

-It's yummy hehe

But my cooking can't have been bad, because the reaction seemed pretty good.

That went for Priest Malja as well.

"It's delicious! ..But you're not eating again, Priest?"

"My stomach is upset. When you get older, you sometimes get an upset stomach first thing in the morning, so please understand, young Priest Malja."

This time it wasn't an empty excuse to smooth things over.

My stomach really was in bad shape.

For that reason, I had no choice but to head to the clinic with a skipped breakfast, for once.

‘Come to think of it, while I'm hosting the Saintess, the clinic work is a problem too.’

I can't be in two places at once, so one of the two jobs was bound to be neglected.

And the clinic was the likelier victim.

‘Hm, no. If I just take the Saintess to the clinic and put her to work, that solves it.’

She was a saintess, after all, so handling healing miracles shouldn't be difficult for her.

Besides, now that Priest Margaret had run off, the more hands there were to help at the clinic, the better.

If the Lord found out, he'd probably have a fit.

The clinic I arrived at was in an uproar, unlike usual.

Not because there were many patients, though.

The reason was obvious. Priest Margaret, the head of the group, was away.

"Isn't there a proper priest here?! My arm is broken, so I don't want some medicine or a splint, I said bring me a priest who can use miracles!"

A loud shout reached my ears.

The man at the center, judging by his clothes, looked like a nobleman of the city.

Either because he was so obviously arrogant or because he held noble rank, the ordinary priests couldn't even properly lay a hand on him and were having a rough time of it.

It was something that wouldn't have happened on a normal day with Priest Margaret around.

In the middle of all this, I quietly approached the man.

The first to react was a female priest who'd been at her wits' end.

"Priest Flowie!"

Her face lit up as if she'd seen a savior.

Only then did the nobleman turn around to look my way too.

"Are you that Flower Priest? Good timing. My arm is badly hurt, so- Gack."

Before he could finish, I got behind him and lightly choked his neck.

"I'm sorry, but we don't accept difficult customers."

Unable to withstand the pressure on his throat, the nobleman lost consciousness on the spot and went limp.

I would have liked to send him back like this without even a splint, but that would only cause trouble for the clinic's people.

Reluctantly, I healed the broken arm, then made eye contact with the attendant, who was sweating nervously, to warn them.

"This gentleman's blood pressure rose and he fainted for a moment. Fortunately, the proper measures were taken and he recovered safely, so please take him home as he is."

"..Y-Yes, Priest. We will."

Fortunately, unlike their master, the attendants were reasonable.

"As expected, difficult customers do swarm in when Priest Margaret isn't here."

"Haha.."

The female priest couldn't bring herself to agree and smiled awkwardly.

After that, I put my old experience running a healing clinic to use and cleared through the work.

Among the patients, a little difficult customer followed the difficult noble.

It was a small child with a fish bone stuck in the throat, who was scared and wouldn't open their mouth.

In the end I couldn't perform the procedure and had no choice but to treat the child with Heal.

"Priest!"

"Yes."

"I want strawberry medicine, strawberry medicine, please."

"No, you're getting pumpkin medicine."

"Waaaah."

Though there was no need to prescribe any medicine, I found the kid cheeky and made them cry anyway.

-Wait, is there really strawberry medicine?

‘How could there be?’

-Aw, shoot.

‘I have no idea where she picks up that way of talking.’

For a while after that, I kept moving around frantically.

In the afternoon, as the patients were gradually thinning out, the last patient came in.

The patient was an elderly woman.

She wore a faint smile and even a light touch of makeup, giving off the impression of a rather well-to-do madam.

"Young Priest, my back hurts, so I've come. Can I be treated?"

Even her accent and manner of speaking were refined, showing signs of a proper education.

But there was no way I wouldn't recognize her.

"Please don't play games, Priest Margaret."

"Tsk, caught me."

The elegant old woman immediately scowled.

"Just keep quiet for now. I took this leave without telling the church folks, so it'll be trouble if I get noticed here."

‘So the Lord wasn't the only one she's stuck it to.’

I briefly offered my condolences to the people of the Earth Church.

"But if you're worried about that, isn't the simple answer not to come at all?"

"Hmph, how am I supposed to not worry when I see the state this clinic is in?"

Apparently she'd come because she was worried about the clinic.

"On top of that, I heard some noble layabout kicked up a fuss."

"I knocked him out and sent him home safely."

"Dependable. Well done."

After giving a satisfied word of praise, Priest Margaret checked for anyone nearby and lowered her voice.

"Since you've already caught me, I'll tell you. You've probably heard the news by now."

It wasn't hard to guess what she was about to say.

"The news that the Solar Church's Saintess is coming?"

"Yes."

I nodded in agreement.

"And do you know why the Saintess is coming?"

"I haven't heard that."

But I had some guesses of my own.

It was something that had come up in the Gallery once, after all.

"The Solar Church's Saintess is coming because of a demon."

‘So the Gallery's guess was right.’

The guess was true.

But I acted like I didn't know and asked.

"Has a demon been summoned?"

Surprisingly, though, Priest Margaret shook her head in denial.

"If it had been summoned, that would've been the lucky outcome."

"..?"

At the word "lucky," this time I frowned in genuine puzzlement rather than acting.

It was hard to imagine anything that would make a demon summoning count as lucky.

"A demon summoning isn't the kind of thing a saintess of her standing would step in for personally. That's a job for the Heresy Inquisitors or the Holy Knights to handle."

Priest Margaret pressed a hand to her forehead as if she had a headache.

After a brief silence, she sighed and finally opened her mouth.

"The demon crawled in on its own."

And without any summoning ritual, at that.

I thought hard about the meaning of the words that followed.

From what I'd learned studying theology, only one case came to mind.

"Could it be a Demon Lord?"

But Priest Margaret shook her head and said it wasn't that.

"Thankfully it's not a Demon Lord. Or rather, it might be closer to something even worse."

At this answer, I finally couldn't hold back and had to say something.

"Please stop dragging it out. It's frustrating."

"Tsk."

At my nagging, Priest Margaret shot me a sidelong glance, then finally spat out the answer.

"To put it simply, a front door that had been shut got opened."

It was an incomprehensible analogy. But I could more or less understand it from the explanation that followed.

"The land here isn't locked, but the front door is kept shut. That's why otherworlders sometimes drift in, and why the rotten sort pry open the gap in that door to call up demons."

"…"

"But some lunatic threw that front door wide open. And even jammed a wedge in so it wouldn't close."

One person came to mind.

‘That would be the former Admin.’

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