Chapter 1

1. A kidnapped Saint

What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘saint’?

A noble and elegant priest? An honest believer following the words of the goddess Gremia? A miracle maker that heals people with divine power? A honey-colored blonde that no one dares to make eye contact with?

A beautiful woman to the point that it brings tears in your eyes?

All are correct, especially the beautiful part at the end.

That is the most important.

However, the reality of the saint is very different from the image that people come up with.

Do you know that here in the holy land, the Labor Standards Act does not apply to saints? In an era where even slaves work only from 9 to 18 hours and take a break of 10 minutes every two hours!

She wakes up from 5 in the morning and worked until late at night, and even if she wants to eat, the devotees who wanted her healing magic to her, and she often couldn’t even eat properly.

In addition, according to the rule that she must pray for an hour before going to bed even though she’s about to die of exhaustion, she is still often called to the prayer room. Well, thanks to that, she became better in pretending to be praying from behind.

I don’t even know if they’ll give me a lot of money. Then, while I’m still young, I can think of it as me grinding my body and making a lot of money. Hana Gremia is a goddess. But what kind of place is this? Integrity, innocence and poverty are the biggest mottos.

As a saint I was only given a small amount of money because I had to be honest and clean.

Even if I want to drink alcohol secretly on days when the high priest makes me angry, I can’t because I don’t have the money.

How about dinner? All three meals are porridge, according to the commandment that the clergy should eat the same food that the poorest people eat. On days when special meals are occasionally served, they are hard at best.

Only a loaf with cheese was added.

Well, these days, even the slaves who do the dirty work in the village put thick meat on soft wheat bread… If this is the case…

Looks like I’ll starve to death soon.

Lastly, no matter how beautiful I am, what can I do? I can’t even meet a young man. The priest is an old man in his 50s. There were only three types of men in the temple: those who would go to the arms of the goddess Gremia today, those who would go tomorrow, and those who would go next week.

How would I seduce a young man who visits the temple?

There was also. He was quite handsome, and above all else, he seems to be thick under his clothes. So, the moment I took off my veil that covered my face and was about to get on top of the young man, the man recognized me and kneeled in front of me.

He knelt down and said:

“I see the Saint Julia. I dared to feel desire therefore I swear in front of the saint, I will offer an early morning prayer for 30 days for this sin.”

No, let’s get rid of that special desire with me, you bastard…

In other words, I, Julia El Rojas, a member of the Gremian Goddess Church, had a feeling of wanting to die quickly.

Wouldn’t it be possible to die if I put my head down in my soup bowl like this? If I die and meet the goddess Gremia in the afterlife, what will I do?

I will grab her hair off and rip it off.

“Sorry for taking a break. Madame, the hunter was seriously injured by a wolf in the forest.”

Then yes. There is not a single day when I can eat comfortably.

I got up and put the spoon on which I was pouring soup, which had little to no ingredients. Whatever it was, the right words came out of her mouth. I’m used to pretending to be a perfect saint by now.

From a maid to a saint, I must be perfect.

Otherwise, I will be quickly ignored.

“Oh, you have been through a great disaster. The miracles of the goddess Gremia are timeless. Move the patient to the bed quickly.”

At my kind words, the priest puts on a face that is moved by tears. I tried to hide my annoyance due to my interrupted break time by showing a benevolent expression as much as possible.

Soon the hunter was carried over the bed. The wound was very bad from how the wolf had bitten him, and black blood gushed out.

“Please wait. Soon the touch of the goddess will heal your pain.”

I focus my mind and cast holy enchantments on the hunter’s wounds. However, the wound did not heal right away no matter how much divine power was poured into it.

Maybe it was a wound from a demon? No, that’s absurd. There’s no way the demons would appear here in the center of the Holy Land.

Since the war a hundred years ago, the demons were confined to the northern end of the demon realm and did not appear in the human realm.

In the end after pouring out her divine power to the point where her head was throbbing.

The wound treatment was over. The hunter bowed his head and thanked me.

I greeted him.

“Ah, my lady… Thank you, saint!”

After all the following patients were treated, lunch time passed. I leaned back in my chair, hugging my hungry stomach.

Ah.

I didn’t want to become a saint. I was an orphan, and one day the high priest came to the orphanage and told me, ‘If you go to the temple, you can eat a lot of delicious things.’ With that said, I quickly took the high priest’s hand.

At first, she was a maid learning to study while doing chores. Then, at the age of twelve, she was told that she had a strong divine power.

It turned out that she became a saint.

Ten years passed just like that.

It was good at first. When I was an orphan, the high-ranking priests, who could not even look at me because they were afraid, looked up to me as saint and praised me…

So, I tried to become a saint that people envy. But it was just a shiny title, and being an actual saint is hard.

She didn’t expect it to be.

Grandfather Winder, who brought me in, died last year of old age. It is futile to die after suffering hardship and becoming the Pope once.

She has one life. If she died, before tearing off the hair of the goddess, I’m going to pluck her grandfather’s hair instead.

Oh, my grandfather had no hair. She can’t even rip it off when he’s dead.

Ha, I wish even demons would show up and kidnap me.

It sounds wonderful.

If possible, a handsome demon.