WeTried Translations

Translator: [IncomeElastic]

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◈ I Became an Undetected Priest Impersonator ◈

Chapter 22

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I Became a Demon Hunter

Several thoughts crossed my mind.

But I brushed them off.

‘It's a messy truth, but knowing it now won't change anything.’

That went not only for the former Admin's story, but also for how I myself had come to drift into this world.

"That's probably why the Saintess is coming, too. To close a door, you have to find the one that's open, after all. She means to catch the demon herself and find where it got in."

Priest Margaret left right after saying that, as if she'd finished her business.

But I couldn't get up from my seat until nearly quitting time.

‘The world's door was opened, and fixed in place.’

Because I suddenly felt a sense of déjà vu.

‘..A fixed dungeon?’

Then I remembered the dungeon I'd fixed in place by a certain method not long ago.

I felt I somehow understood why the Solar Church's Saintess was coming to Millers first, passing over every other place.

‘Maybe she's coming not because of the demon, but because she thinks it's connected to the incident.’

…

By the time I headed home from work, the moon had already risen.

And the number 5 that had been carved on the moon as recently as yesterday had changed to a 6 before I knew it.

It sounds silly, but it was this world's own way of marking that June had arrived.

In other words, spring had passed and early summer had begun.

‘Time sure flies.’

And so time passed bit by bit, until the fourth day, as had been announced.

From the morning, the city was buzzing with anticipation.

The whole city was cheering for the procession of the Solar Church's Saintess.

Considering this city was the Earth Church's home turf, it was a rather astonishing sight.

"Saintess, please look this way!"

"You're beautiful, Saintess!"

The city's residents lined the roadside and shouted.

With every step the Saintess took, flower petals fluttered down over her head.

But I couldn't watch that scene with unreserved joy.

‘I kept wondering why the neighborhood kids were always pulling up flowers, and this was why.’

I pictured the church's flower bed, thinned out in patches like it had gone bald.

It left me feeling deeply sour.

I watched the Saintess's procession, which dragged on for a long while, from a distance, then quietly slipped away.

‘Time for me to get ready, too.’

Once the procession ended, the Saintess would be guided by the Lord to my church.

There was a fair amount of time left, but considering how long it took to prepare a proper welcome, it was tight.

‘She looks about Priest Malja's age, so a cake should be fine.’

-I like cakey!

At the mention of baking a cake, I heard Goddess Iris cheer.

All I'd promised the goddess was three meals a day, but I didn't bring that up.

‘I think I made it like this.’

As soon as I got back to the church, I recalled my memories of the past and put the batter into the wood-fired oven.

It wasn't an electric oven, so I wasn't confident it would turn out, but I trusted that the gluttonous goddess would secretly help.

-Huh? I'm not the goddess of bread, I'm the goddess of flowers?

‘It's rising nicely.’

Maybe the goddess's cheering had some power behind it, because the cake baked without any problems.

That was when I was spreading strawberry jam in place of the whipped cream I didn't have.

I suddenly sensed someone in the yard.

And it was an ominous kind of presence.

‘What's this.’

I stuck my head out the window.

A strange man was standing in the church's yard.

If that were all, there might not have been any problem at all.

The problem was the axe the man was holding.

Of all things, he had picked up the axe a laborer had left behind, and he was about to bring it down to cut a tree that had only just started to bloom.

‘Not content with pulling up the flowers, now they're going to cut down a flowering tree and haul it off.’

My judgment was quick.

I crept up and choked the ruffian from behind.

"Gack..?"

I was putting my strength into it, about to knock him out, when.

"Priest Flower! Stop! This is a member of the Saintess's party!"

An urgent cry burst out from behind me.

When I turned my head, there was Charlotte, who still hadn't memorized my name, and the Saintess I'd seen in the procession, both staring with flustered faces.

‘Hm.’

I looked down again at the person in the crook of my arm, tapping my arm with a pale face.

The dust had hidden it from me, but the clothes had a sun emblem embroidered on them.

‘I'm screwed.’

My first meeting with the Saintess was the worst possible.

Realizing the situation, I loosened the arm I'd been tightening.

The priest, barely released from the brink of passing out, gasped for breath and staggered.

"My apologies. When I saw you about to cut down the tree, I mistook you for a thief."

The priest still couldn't seem to speak and only stared at me with a resentful look.

But that didn't last long either.

The moment his eyes fell on the flower-pattern shirt I was wearing, he shut his mouth.

I couldn't tell why, but he was looking at me the way you'd look at a lunatic.

"..You must like flowers very much."

The priest, who had barely gotten his breathing under control, finally spoke.

The Solar Church priest, for his part, muttered in fright that having tried to cut down a flowering tree in front of someone like this, it was no wonder I'd snapped.

"But do you realize that infusing a tree with divine power is a taboo that even the gods frown upon?"

It was a rather stern tone.

Only then did I understand why the Solar Church priest had tried to cut down the sapling.

"I think I know what you're trying to say. But it's fine."

Here, the Solar Church priest's brow creased.

But at the words that followed, it froze in that creased state.

"I've already received permission from Goddess Iris."

"..Is that something permission settles?"

"Yes. It turned out it was."

"???"

A question mark floated up on the priest's face.

He seemed to want to argue, but since I'd said I'd reached an agreement with a god, the priest apparently had nothing he could say.

Just then, the Saintess, who had been quietly watching the situation until now, spoke.

"If the god gave permission in person, it doesn't seem like something we have any right to argue over."

Her voice was young, but her tone didn't waver.

The Saintess looked at the sapling once, then bowed her head briefly.

"We should have checked with you first. I'm sorry."

"No. I'm the one who was very rude, choking someone without checking properly."

I hadn't been a priest for long, so my hands sometimes moved before my words did.

What's more, even Priest Margaret encouraged it, so it was hard to fix.

"Come to think of it, I haven't introduced myself yet. I'm Priest Flowie, who serves Iris, the Flower Goddess."

-My priest. Ahem.

The attendant priest, who had been rubbing his throat, sighed once and straightened up.

"I am Patch, the humble little brazier flame who serves the lofty Sun, Sola."

‘Somehow that sounds like the name of someone who'd betray you easily.’

Of course, I didn't say it out loud.

"Then please, come inside. I've prepared a little something to welcome you."

The Saintess tilted her head, but followed obediently behind me.

She seemed unaccustomed to being led straight inside without anyone asking her name or holding any kind of ceremony.

But she seemed to like it deep down, because her composed expression was gradually loosening.

And the change was most striking when she spotted something on the dining table.

"That's..?"

The Saintess's gaze froze on the table.

"It's a cake I made myself, with unpolished skills."

The Saintess's eyes widened a little then.

-Give me some, too! Me too!

-Hurry!

After presenting the goddess with a slice of cake as her offering, I waited for the Saintess's reaction.

The Saintess looked to be barely in her late teens, so I figured the reaction wouldn't be bad.

But even though she couldn't take her eyes off the cake, she couldn't bring herself to put it in her mouth.

It was the reaction of someone seeing cake for the first time.

-She probably really is seeing it for the first time?

-Someone at a saintess's level usually lives on restraint.

‘Goddess, why don't you take a lesson from the Saintess and try a little restraint yourself?’

-I'm a baby, so it's fine!

A 1400-year-old baby was no easy thing.

But I couldn't help seeing the Saintess differently after what the goddess said.

Restraint at a young age tends to be decided by one's circumstances rather than one's own will, after all.

‘Religion isn't only a good place, I guess.’

I added some persuasion for the Saintess, telling her it was all right to eat.

"I prepared this for you, Saintess. If it isn't eaten today, it may spoil and I'd have to throw it out."

Only then did she reach for the cake she'd been just looking at.

That was when.

"Saintess, even if it's hospitality, sweet food tends to develop into the sin of gluttony."

I mean, that was Priest Patch stopping her.

The Saintess seemed rather used to such words.

‘I should have knocked him out earlier.’

She was about to set down the fork she was holding, when this time I spoke.

"But throwing away food that was made with effort is also a sin. I hope the Saintess will help me so that I don't commit it."

Life came into her eyes only once she had a reason she couldn't refuse.

Priest Patch reacted with displeasure in the process, but it wasn't important.

‘She eats well. It's nice to watch.’

It was after she'd finished one slice of cake that the Saintess, who had been sparing with her words, opened her mouth.

Of course, though she'd opened her mouth, no words actually came out.

"Have another slice. There's plenty left."

After two more slices and finally complaining of being full, she managed to bring up the real matter.

"Priest Flowie of the Church of the Flower Goddess, by the authority of the Saintess of the Solar Church, I hereby conscript you."

"..?"

She had repaid kindness with enmity.

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