After making do in this small room for a whole day, Aurelia rubbed her temples.
She looked at the Little Priestess, who remained unconscious, and then at the small bag of copper coins in her arms.
Her current funds were going to run out very soon.
Her current state was not great, Helen’s injury required better treatment, and this Little Priestess, who was severely corrupted by the Power of Calamity, showed no signs of waking.
If she woke up and performed Divine Art: Healing on Helen and herself, things would not be so troublesome.
‘Sigh… Why hasn’t this Little Priestess woken up yet? Should I give her another forehead flick? To wake her up?’
Aurelia looked at the Little Priestess’s small face, which had already regained some color, and shook her head.
‘Forget it. What if I flick her into being an idiot?’
However, perhaps in response to Aurelia’s expectations, the Little Priestess lying on the bed suddenly moved her fingers.
Her eyelashes trembled violently as if she were struggling to wake up.
Her throat moved slightly, and the rise and fall of her chest became more pronounced.
“Mm… Ungh…”
Vague murmurs leaked from her chapped lips, their meaning unclear and extremely weak.
Aurelia immediately stood up from the table, approached the bed, pulled up a chair, and sat at the head of the bed.
Helen also straightened his body from his half-leaning position.
Though he did not speak, he closely monitored the Little Priestess’s condition.
Her struggle seemed to last for ten or so seconds.
During this time, she intermittently let out weak moans, and her body occasionally twitched slightly, yet she still did not fully open her eyes.
Aurelia looked at the light red mark on her forehead.
Although it had faded quite a bit, it was still faintly visible. She felt inexplicably guilty.
‘This girl couldn’t have… developed some kind of problem because of my flick, right? A concussion? Internal bleeding? Or… did I flick her into insanity? No way, I clearly worked very hard to hold back my strength yesterday!’
Setting aside the enhancement from the Power of Calamity, her strength with her Dragonified right hand alone could easily send a trained adult male flying.
Furthermore, the hardness of the Dragon Scales after Dragonification was extremely exaggerated.
Back then, Laurence had struck her several times with all his might, yet it only made Aurelia subconsciously feel a bit of pain without leaving a single mark.
Just as Aurelia began to seriously consider taking some milder measures—such as tapping her face to assist her—the person on the bed finally made a breakthrough.
Those tightly closed eyelids finally opened slowly.
She looked around blankly and then toward Aurelia, who had quickly put on a gentle smile.
Seeing the Little Priestess staring at her for a long time without saying a word, Aurelia sighed.
‘Sigh, here we go again.’
Then, she spoke in a slow voice, “You are still alive. This is a small tavern in a dark corner of Twilight City. My name is Aurelia, and his name is Helen. We saved you together.”
Hearing these familiar lines, Helen raised an eyebrow but did not say anything.
“…Why…”
“Because I dislike the Power of Calamity, and the Power of Calamity on your body was ridiculously high, so I cleared it out while I was at it. As for the debt of saving your life, please be mentally prepared to form an Order with me in the future.”
Aurelia slowed her tone as much as possible, her voice soft, appearing every bit the gentle young girl.
The room fell into silence again.
After listening, the Little Priestess suddenly clutched her forehead and began to cry, leaving Aurelia stunned.
‘Wait, no, why are you crying? I didn’t bully you! Could it be… I really flicked her too hard yesterday? My tone… wasn’t very harsh either. It was very gentle!’
“Hey… don’t cry? If you have any grievances, just say them. Maybe I can help?”
The Little Priestess’s crying paused for a moment, but she continued to sob.
She slowly raised her tear-filled face.
There were enough tears to wash her face with, and her eyes were full of helplessness and fear.
Clearly, the source of this Power of Calamity injury was significant.
“…Help… Help?”
Her voice was thick with nasal congestion and came in fits and starts.
“How… how can you help? That’s… that’s Disaster! It is absolute darkness and filth! It is an evil that must be purified! Anyone corrupted by Disaster… is doomed to die!”
She became more agitated as she spoke, tears surging once more.
Her words were filled with profound fear of her own situation and utter despair for the future.
For a devout Trainee Priest—or even for any normal living being—being corrupted by the Power of Calamity was no different from being handed a death sentence.
“Alright, alright, stop crying.”
Aurelia suddenly took the Little Priestess’s wrist and comforted her softly, “Feel your body carefully. See if there is any Power of Calamity left?”
The Little Priestess was stunned again.
She sniffled and suddenly realized that the gray, corrosive aura on her body had completely vanished, as if it had never existed.
She looked blankly at the black-haired girl beside her, her mind completely unable to process the situation.
“You… you really… cleared the Power of Calamity?”
She asked, her voice light as she posed this question that seemed impossible to her.
“How… how did you do it? That’s… even high-level Saints and Holy Knights, or even His Holiness the Pope…”
She did not finish her sentence, but her meaning was clear.
This exceeded her understanding and perhaps even the records within the Holy Light Codex.
She had never heard of a method in this world that could completely erase the corruption of the Power of Calamity.
‘It looks like she believes it…’
Aurelia could not help but breathe a sigh of relief.
Now the problem was how to explain it.
Tell her directly that she could absorb the Power of Calamity as a supplement?
That would probably scare this newly calmed Little Priestess into fainting again, or even scare Helen so much he would hiss and puff on the spot.
‘If I use the same method I used on Helen… with this Little Priestess’s physical constitution, even a single instant would probably be enough to make her foam at the mouth and go back into a coma for a few days.’
“I… have a very special talent.”
She paused, seemingly searching for the right words.
“I can clear, or rather, disperse the Power of Calamity. It’s just…”
She pointed to the Bandage around her neck and gestured with her eyes toward her pale complexion and exhausted state.
“…I’m not in a very good state right now, so I can’t explain it in detail, let alone demonstrate. Once… my state recovers, or if there’s an opportunity to show you one day, you’ll understand.”
“A… talent…”
The Little Priestess murmured, repeating the word as if she were still digesting the information.
She looked at Aurelia. the fear in her eyes had receded significantly, replaced by a deeper curiosity and a faint sense of awe.
“So… I’m really… okay for now? I won’t… won’t turn into one of those… things?”
Clearly, she was referring to Corrupted God’s Artifacts.
“You won’t. Don’t worry,” Aurelia nodded with certainty.
“With me here, nothing will happen.”
The Little Priestess nodded, her gaze sweeping over Aurelia’s face once more.
“Thank you… really… thank you…”
Seeing that the Little Priestess was about to cry again, Aurelia quickly interrupted her.
“Speaking of which, what is your name? Why were you at the docks of Twilight City?”
She sniffled, rubbed her swollen eyes, and replied with a sob, “I… my name is Rena, Lena Evendrich. I am… a Trainee Priest of the Port District Church…”
She subconsciously raised her hand, squeezing the shattered Wooden Holy Emblem tightly and pressing it against her chest.
“I was assigned by the Church… to go to the abandoned village on the outskirts of Twilight City. Someone said… Corrupted God’s Artifacts appeared there…”
“I went with two other Trainee Priests and one formal Master Saint. We thought… we thought it was just a normal purification or rescue mission.”
Her body began to tremble uncontrollably, and her eyes were filled with lingering fear.
“But as soon as we reached the edge of the village, before we even entered… we were attacked. Many Corrupted God’s Artifacts crawled out from the shadows and from underground…”
Her breathing became rapid and her face grew paler.
Recalling that experience was clearly an immense ordeal for her.
“The Saint leading us told us to run, while he stayed behind to cover our retreat… We… we ran back as hard as we could, but those things were too fast…”
“They caught up to us and pulled down Lisa, who was running at the back… I—I wanted to go back and save her, and then, I was also tackled from behind by something… After that, there were waves of intense pain…”
“Okay, no need to recall that part,” Aurelia suddenly interrupted, speaking softly.
“Tell me about what happened before you were abandoned. Did the Church not try to help you suppress the Power of Calamity?”
Aurelia cut off Rena’s painful memories of the attack’s details.
She could see that simply recounting that experience had brought the young Trainee Priest to the brink of collapse.
Now was not the time to let her relive the nightmare.
More importantly, she needed to understand the specific circumstances before Rena was abandoned.
Otherwise, just like in novels or anime, she might pass out from the stress of the memory, which would be troublesome.
“The Church… they…”
Rena’s voice was still hoarse, but it was steadier than before.
She struggled to calm her breathing and organize her words.
“…The other trainee companion was injured less severely than I was. He risked his life to carry me back to a patrol point near the church, where we happened to meet a returning patrol Order… A Holy Knight rushed us back to the church’s infirmary…”
She paused, her eyes looking a bit lost as she recalled the chaotic scene.
“At first… they did try to save me. Several formal Master Saints came. They washed my wounds with holy water and tried to use Divine Arts to disperse the Power of Calamity in my body…”
“But… the Power of Calamity… with the strength of a small church like ours, even suppressing it was difficult to achieve…”
“Then… the Lord Bishop of Twilight City arrived.”
At the mention of this person, Rena’s body tensed up again, and the color drained from her face.
“He examined my condition, and his expression… was very ugly. He scolded the Saints, saying they had wasted precious time and that corruption of this level was no longer something they could handle…”
“Then… then I heard them say they were going to dispose of me…”
Rena’s voice trembled and stopped at the words “dispose of,” and she reached out to grab Aurelia’s hand.
“I… I couldn’t believe my ears.”
“Dispose of me… like disposing of a broken tool… I—I am a living person! I was just performing a mission for the Church and got injured. Why… why wasn’t I saved? Why was I… being disposed of?”
‘How interesting. Disposing of my Power of the Fallen God? With just a few pieces of trash in some corner of the continent who can’t even use Divine Arts properly?’
‘Tsk, why are you everywhere?’
Aurelia irritably retorted to the Disaster Source, only to receive those few words in response.
‘What of it?’
‘…What kind of things have you been looking at in my head, you old bastard?’