I Became an Undetected Priest Impersonator - Chapter 5

WeTried Translations

Translator: [IncomeElastic]

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Became an Undetected Priest Impersonator ◈

Chapter 5

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I Became a Priest Impersonator (4)

I was able to wake up early in the morning this time too.

I had no intention of leisurely eating breakfast, so I grabbed a single loaf of bread and headed straight outside.

My destination was the market, not the clinic.

"How much for a piece of oak?"

"Half a copper'll do."

"..Give me change, please."

I had no concept of what half a copper meant, so I handed over a whole copper coin as it was, and the merchant handed me back a coin that had been cut in two.

‘So that's why it's half a copper.’

It was a method I'd never have thought of in Korea.

Even if someone tried it there, they'd be lucky not to get hauled off for defacing currency.

‘Now all I need is a knife to carve with.’

Pieces of wood were easy to come by, but the problem was the knife.

"..Is this little knife really one silver coin?"

"Small it may be, but it's made of iron, and the edge is sharpened. One silver coin is the going price."

Worried I might be getting ripped off, I even asked the Gallery.

[Fair price, yep. Iron's damn rare here and their smelting tech never developed, so anything made of iron is expensive]

[Sharp blades in particular are costly no matter the kind. The artisans limit the number of weapons and are unwilling to share their craft, you see.]

But once I heard I wasn't being ripped off, I had no choice but to sigh and pay the price.

It was a necessary expense, but my pouch was nearly empty, and the way my breath caught in my chest was an unavoidable reaction for any human being.

Thinking at least I'd found a job early, I trudged toward my workplace with weak, heavy steps.

…

"Good, you showed up."

That was the very first thing I heard the moment I arrived.

As if she'd been worried a slave might run away.

"..Did you suspect I wouldn't come?"

"Someone who can handle that kind of power claims he's been wandering all this time, and I'm supposed to just believe it? And someone with no real need for work, at that."

I was, in fact, someone badly in need of money, but I couldn't bring myself to show it.

The inside of the clinic, where I walked in with the elderly priest, was quiet, unlike yesterday.

‘Good.’

There was something I needed to do out of everyone's sight.

"I'm going out to get a feel for the area around the clinic."

"You're not running away, are you?"

"Honestly, have some trust, Priest."

Dodging the elderly priest's suspicion, which had gotten downright tiresome by now, I slipped off behind the clinic.

‘Plenty of sun, and out of sight. Perfect.’

I settled into a decent spot, sat down, and took out the piece of oak I'd bought at the market along with the dagger I'd bought as a stand-in for a carving knife.

Dandelions happened to be in full bloom all around, so I could use the real thing as a model to shape the design.

Scrape- scrape-

..Slice.

‘Hm.’

Naturally, since I wasn't used to carving, I cut my hand a few times.

But I healed myself right away and kept carving.

"So this is what you were sneaking off to do."

The voice behind me made me stop the knife.

When I turned my head, the elderly priest was bent over, looking down at the wooden plate in my hand.

It seemed she'd come looking for me out of half worry, half curiosity when I left my post.

‘This is trouble.’

Sure enough.

The elderly priest narrowed her eyes at the dandelion slowly taking shape on the plate.

"Isn't that a symbol?"

"It is."

"Then why are you making it yourself?"

The excuse came out before I even realized it.

Apparently I'd gotten fairly good at making excuses.

"..I ran into an orc and lost my belongings while fleeing. My symbol was lost along with them."

"So you're making one yourself?"

"If there had been a Flower Church nearby, I'd have gotten a replacement, but there wasn't one around here."

The elderly priest stroked her chin and nodded as if convinced.

"True, unless it's the capital or a holy site, you hardly ever see a Flower Church."

Thankfully, there was no sign of suspicion.

If anything, she seemed to think it was exactly the sort of thing a wandering priest would go through.

With the suspicion cleared, I continued carving while the elderly priest watched.

‘..It's actually kind of fun.’

After cutting my fingers a few more times, I felt my carving skills improving by leaps and bounds.

..Though it hadn't even been an hour.

After maybe a little more time passed,

a single dandelion emerged on the round wooden plate.

It was cruder than the photo I'd used for reference, but anyone could tell at a glance that it was a dandelion.

The problem started now.

According to the explanation I'd read in the Gallery, a real symbol carried the distinctive aura of a miracle.

Carving the same shape wasn't enough to make something a symbol.

‘If it needs an aura, I'll just put one in.’

I laid my hand over the shaped symbol.

Whoosh!

Light bloomed from my hand and slowly seeped into the piece of oak.

"So you know how to consecrate."

The elderly priest murmured in admiration.

‘Consecrate?’

I was only pouring Heal into it to make it look like a symbol, but to the elderly priest's eyes it apparently looked like consecration.

‘At least it means I'm not doing it wrong.’

Gaining a measure of confidence, I kept pouring in my power, and the engraved dandelion began to hold a faint glow.

Then,

"It's already finished, so ease up on the pouring. Are you planning to die making a holy relic?"

The elderly priest grabbed my wrist to stop me.

"..I must have gotten too absorbed and overdone it."

"Get that absorbed twice and you really will die making a relic."

Only then did I pull my power back.

Then I lifted the finished symbol and looked it over quietly.

‘It's glowing.’

The engraved dandelion gave off a soft light.

Maybe it was my imagination, but I even thought I caught a faint scent of flowers.

‘Did my power smell like this too?’

Naturally, it was my first time infusing Heal into a lump of wood.

It was a change I'd never seen before, but it didn't surprise me much.

Ever since the Tower appeared, I'd gone through countless things beyond common sense.

There was nothing strange about having one more function I hadn't known about.

"Aren't you going to carve a name?"

‘A name?’

I glanced at the photo of the symbol I'd left open for reference.

Sure enough, faint letters were visible beneath the engraved dandelion.

The writing was so tiny that I'd overlooked it, a minor detail.

‘This is a problem.’

I hadn't studied the writing here yet, so I couldn't carve a name.

But fortunately, the Gallery had a post that organized the letters.

After checking the sound that matched each letter, I carved the name in one character at a time.

Flowie

The moment the scraping blade finished the last letter,

the elderly priest stared at the finished symbol for a while before opening her mouth.

"Flowie, so that's your name."

"Didn't the other priest tell you?"

"She did. But that's not the same as an introduction, is it?"

She was being roundabout about it, but it was a nudge to start introducing myself already.

It wasn't hard, so I made the sign of the holy mark and introduced myself.

"I'm Flowie, a humble servant of Iris, the Flower Goddess."

"I'm Margaret, an old servant of Gaia, the Earth Goddess."

Priest Margaret returned the sign of the holy mark in response.

"I look forward to working with you, Priest Margaret."

"Likewise, Priest Flowie."

Come to think of it.

We'd worked together for a whole day yesterday, and it was only today that we'd exchanged names.

‘No wonder she was worried all day that I'd run off.’

From Margaret's side, a priest she could work to the bone had finally fallen into her lap, and he hadn't even properly given his name, so she must have been anxious about when he'd flee.

…

"Now then, enough slacking. Let's get back inside."

"There aren't any patients anyway. There's no hurry, so let's take our time."

The only reason I'd snuck out to carve the symbol in the first place was that there were no patients.

I'd been hiding behind the building to carve, but I hadn't heard a single patient's footsteps, so it didn't seem likely there were any now either.

But Margaret just chuckled and spoke.

"No patients, true enough. But something more troublesome than that is about to arrive."

"What, is someone who lent you money coming?"

"Hm, something like that, yes."

Thud thud thud-

Speak of the devil, as they say.

Frantic footsteps rang out from the hallway.

Soon the female priest I'd met yesterday morning burst through the back door, her face pale as a sheet.

"Priest Margaret!"

"Well, looks like he's already here?"

Margaret, already visibly worn out, made a sharp contrast with the female priest, stiff and pallid.

And with the female priest's next words, I understood why there had been no patients today.

"Th-the Lord has arrived!"

‘..No wonder nobody came.’

Setting aside the Lord's character, people probably didn't want to come simply because he was intimidating.

If anything, the patients who'd already been admitted probably wanted to run away too.

Of course, I was no exception.

"Then let's go quickly, Priest Flowie."

"..I'm going too? I'd rather skip it, it's a bit much for me."

"The Lord came in the first place to see your face. It won't do for you to be the one running away."

"I suppose not."

I nodded as if convinced, but inside I was anything but.

‘Damn it.’

Still, running would be ridiculous, so I feigned composure and followed Margaret.

At the place the female priest led us to stood several soldiers and a middle-aged man with a vicious look.

Judging by the way everyone was deferring to him, that middle-aged man seemed to be the Lord.

‘He looks like the type to squeeze every last drop of blood out of his people.’

Maybe she'd guessed what I was thinking.

"He may look like that, but he's a good lord. Don't get the wrong idea."

Margaret tilted her head slightly and whispered.

"Ahem, I can hear everything, Priest Margaret."

Though it seemed the Lord's ears had caught it plainly too.

"Well, pretend you didn't."

"Haha.."

Faced with Margaret's brazen attitude, the Lord could only let out an awkward laugh.

But that lasted only a moment.

Soon, composing his expression, the Lord strode up to me and offered a greeting.

"I've heard so much about you, Priest Flowie! You can't imagine how glad I am that you've come to our city!"

"..Thank you for the warm welcome."

But how should I put it.

By looks alone, he gave an impression of greed and viciousness through and through.

But the Lord's actual personality was nothing like his appearance.

"As it happens, I'd been worried that Priest Margaret was struggling all on her own."

For starters, he was surprisingly.. unpretentious.

"And now that you've come in this situation, Priest Flowie, I feel like I've gained an army of ten thousand."

He was also quite talkative for the master of a city.

"Also, I heard you're staying at an inn. If you wish, I'd be glad to build you a church to live in comfortably. I sincerely hope you'll treat this city as your hometown and stay with us for a long time. Ah, of course, I'm not forcing you."

But what struck me as strangest was something else.

The noble who ruled the city was acting far more servile than he needed to.

Title: Is a priest's social standing really that high?

The Lord is acting so servile, and I can't think of any reason for it other than this. Does anyone know?

[A priest does have a high status, but nobles don't act like that toward every priest]

ㄴ[Then why?]

ㄴ[Probably because, on the surface, he's a priest who can use Healing Miracles]

ㄴ[? How is that a reason?]

ㄴ[Well, people are careful around them because they think they're that close to the gods, but]

ㄴ[The biggest thing is that with a priest of that caliber in the territory, the number of residents dying from accidents or disease drops by a wide margin]

ㄴ[Obviously a lord would crawl on his belly if that's what it took to keep one, no?]

ㄴ[I understand.]

[I want to live a life where nobles crawl for me too..]

ㄴ[Being reborn would be faster]

ㄴ[Fuck off]

I finally understood.

It wasn't simply that the Lord was fawning over one priest.

He was crawling on his belly to bring a walking university hospital to his own city.

With the question finally answered, my heart felt lighter.

At least I knew it was an act done for the sake of the city.

"Oh, and I heard from the gate guards. They said you were chased by orcs and lost your belongings."

"Ah, yes."