WeTried Translations
Translator: [IncomeElastic]
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◈ I Became an Undetected Priest Impersonator ◈
Chapter 24
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I Became a Demon Hunter (3)
As my eyes adjusted to the dark, the figure pointing the blade at me slowly came into view.
It was a familiar face.
"..You're the knight who was with the Saintess."
We had never spoken, but I remembered everyone in her party, so it wasn't hard to place them.
"Priest Flowie. You'd better tell me the truth."
The knight made no effort to hide the suspicion, and the hostility showed plainly.
"Hm, will you spare me if I tell the truth?"
"First of all."
"You're not even listening."
How unfortunate.
Paying me no mind, the knight kept the blade trained on me and moved the free hand toward my collar.
The moment the knight's gaze drifted from my throat to my collar, I thrust my hand out fast.
‘Power of Bless.’
I grabbed the blade right there.
My throat and palm were cut in the process and a burning pain rushed in, but I ignored it and yanked.
"?!"
The knight's balance broke and pitched forward, and in that instant,
I rose to my feet and thrust my other hand out in the same motion.
To block the knight's view, I clamped onto the face and drove it straight down.
Thud!
"Gack!"
With a rattled brain, the knight wouldn't get their sense of balance back for a while.
"I may have retired from the Tower, but I'm still no worse than active duty."
I healed my dripping hand and throat.
At the sight of me being so relaxed, the knight could only stare, wide-eyed, as if unable to believe it.
I'd kicked the dropped sword far out of reach, I think.
I couldn't help scowling at the blood soaking the sheets.
‘Tch, and of all things, blood is hard to wash out.’
Irritated for no good reason, I was about to ask for the reason behind all this when,
"Priest Flowie!"
The door banged open and Priest Malja burst in, holding a flowerpot over her head.
"Um.. the Goddess told me in a dream that you were in danger, Priest, but.."
Priest Malja said hesitantly.
I could see the goddess's effort, but it was needless trouble, and I shook my head.
"It sounds like you dreamed of the Goddess. But it seems to have been just a dream, so you can go back and get some sleep."
"Is that right?"
Priest Malja started to nod, then stopped.
Her gaze went back and forth between me and the knight sprawled on the floor.
"Um, but what exactly are you doing right now?"
It was admittedly a hard scene to explain.
"I was learning self-defense."
Maybe it was because I'd had to make so many excuses since becoming an impersonator, but the explanation came easily.
"I've been interested for a while, and the knight kindly offered to teach me."
Priest Malja looked at the knight as if to ask whether that was true.
The knight said nothing.
It was because the knight's brain was rattled and no words would come out.
"The knight must be too embarrassed to say anything."
"Aha!"
‘She actually buys that.’
"Then I'm sorry for interrupting!"
But when Priest Malja went to leave just like that, a worrywart's instinct left me no choice but to warn her.
"By the way, that flowerpot is very precious to me, so I'd appreciate it if you'd remember to put it back where it belongs."
"Oh, okay!"
Only then did the door close again.
"Now then."
My eyes met the knight's.
"…"
After a few seconds of silence to pressure the knight, I got to the point in a dignified tone.
"I'll ask why."
Whether the knight still couldn't speak or was simply keeping their mouth shut, no answer came.
It didn't matter.
"We can find out in due time whether it was a misunderstanding, or whether Satan has taken hold of you."
I lit the oil lantern I'd left on the desk and shone it on the knight's face.
For some reason, the knight's eyes were trembling.
"Did you know? They say a spoonful of olive oil a day is very good for your health."
It was probably nystagmus from the concussion.
"This is oil too, so it's about the same, isn't it? I'm sure it's good for your eyes as well."
I slowly tilted the lantern over the knight's eyes.
"Don't worry, though. It won't leave a scar."
The oil slowly beaded up and fell.
Drip-
"Aaaaaagh..!"
"Hm, you're more of a coward than you look. I was joking."
I muttered, stopping the lukewarm drop of oil with my finger before it could touch the knight's eye.
Unfortunately, the knight had already fainted, unable to bear the shock of the concussion and the terror.
‘Doesn't matter. I can take it up with the superior directly.’
I was about to drag the knight to the room where Priest Patch should be sleeping, and opened the door.
The moment I did, the Saintess was standing right there, unexpectedly.
-Hehe.
I heard the goddess's voice, tinged with laughter.
-I shook Daddy awake while he was sleeping!
‘..Well done.’
It seemed she'd gone around telling everyone that it was extremely dangerous.
-So you won't convert, right?
‘I'll have to think about that one.’
-Kyaa!
After a glance at the subdued knight, the Saintess bowed her head briefly.
"I'm sorry, it seems there was a misunderstanding."
"A misunderstanding, you say."
"..On top of that, Sir Irsil tends to get worked up over anything to do with demons, so I think that's why it got out of hand."
"…"
"I'll make sure Sir Irsil is punished for acting on their own."
I couldn't very well get angry in front of a minor promising to deal with the aftermath, so all I could do was sigh inwardly.
"Never mind the punishment. Instead, I'd like an explanation. What grounds did this knight have for attacking me?"
The Saintess seemed to choose her words for a moment before she spoke.
"There are two reasons."
Two reasons.
Suddenly, the "first" the knight had announced when starting to speak flashed through my mind.
"The first is that your presence was strongly detected in the dungeon, Priest Flowie."
‘So that was the problem after all.’
It was something I'd half expected.
I also wondered when they'd managed to visit a dungeon half a day away.
But with divine powers in the picture, I figured there must be some way.
"The second is.."
The Saintess trailed off.
"We couldn't find out anything about your past."
‘..That's a problem.’
But the unexpected words that followed cut my thoughts short.
"But I won't ask."
"..?"
"Just now, the god I serve vouched for you, Priest Flowie."
I could roughly guess.
-Ahem.
‘So even a god can't win against his youngest daughter.’
But not every question had been answered.
"Let me ask just one more thing."
The Saintess's head slowly nodded.
"If you'd asked the Lord even once, there wouldn't have been any misunderstanding. Why didn't you?"
The same went for the search for the dungeon.
If they'd asked for cooperation, it would have been settled, yet they had gone the hard way around.
It wasn't unreasonable to ask, puzzled by such an incomprehensible way of handling things.
"It's not that we didn't, it's that we couldn't, Priest Flowie."
The one who answered was Priest Patch, who had shown up at some point without my noticing.
"Because what we're chasing is none other than a demon."
I already knew that much.
But the new information soon left me stunned.
"And it's already in Millers."
The reason they hadn't said so was simple.
It was to keep the demon from noticing as much as possible, which could happen if people learned the information.
…
-Hmnya..
It was a late dawn, the kind where even the goddess up in the lofty heavens would struggle to stay awake.
I steeped the tea leaves I'd brought from the clinic and filled the cups of the Saintess and Priest Patch.
It was rather good tea, but perhaps because of the mood, no one touched it.
"Then your search for the dungeon had to do with the demon as well."
"..Correct. A dungeon is a suitable place for a demon to recover its strength."
Priest Patch's gaze wavered for a moment.
It seemed there was still something being kept back, but I didn't press.
I had a rough guess already, and above all, I had no desire to get deeply tangled up in this.
"The problem is that finding the dungeon took longer than expected. How much strength the demon has recovered in the meantime.."
Priest Patch trailed off and let out a low groan.
"Fixing the dungeon in place for the sake of the territory is what caused this. I'm ashamed."
Fixing the dungeon at Charlotte's request had, as a result, set up a home for the demon.
Priest Patch couldn't bring himself to say it was fine, even as a polite lie, and only heaved a deep sigh.
Looking closely, it seemed he was sighing a little loudly on purpose, so I would hear.
"Even if I was ignorant, I'm the one who did it. I should be the one to set it right."
"A mere country priest can hardly help.."
Priest Patch stopped mid-sentence and glanced at Sir Irsil, still unconscious.
"Hm, you wouldn't be useless, I suppose."
Even the nodding looked so smug that I wanted to strangle him.
At any rate, what I had to do was settled.
I had to go back to the dungeon and smash the Magic Stone.
Even if the Lord whined about it.
The variable was the demon, who could be hiding somewhere in the dungeon or the city, but I wasn't very worried.
‘She's a Saintess in name, at least. She won't lose to a demon.’
Unfortunately, it took less than a day for that thought to change.
‘Nothing ever goes right.’
I could only sigh, looking down at the unconscious Saintess and the people sprawled beside her.
"Demon friend, how about we just call it a draw?"
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