Wasn’t This a Night Game

Well Done, Right?(Revised)

The effect of free healing was undeniable.

Day 2 of providing treatment in the capital.

Yesterday, like today.

Before my very eyes, a crowd had gathered, so many that it could well be called a sea of people, milling and clamoring.

“Saint! O Saint!!”

“My son is sick! Saint! Please!”

The cries of the sick and the poor resonated like a chorus.

Exhausted, feeling like I could die, but the mood wasn’t bad.

The word-of-mouth, at least, was truly spreading right.

“One at a time. Don’t push, come slowly and keep the order.”

I don’t know how many times I’d repeated that line today, mechanically healing people, again and again. Then, suddenly.

“Get out of the way!! Get out of the way! You filthy things!”

Shouts, and a group of people barged through the crowd huddled around me, pushing them aside.

A clear flame emblazoned on their chests.

Priests of the Sun Cult, worshipping the sun god Lopus.

I’d heard of the Sun Cult.

They believed status and wealth were gifts from their god.

Naturally, the poor and wretched were cursed by the god, that’s why they were in such a state.

Like the Grace Cult worshipping the goddess Lilia, they were one of the major cults that made money from healing, but while the Grace Cult was closer to public healthcare, these guys were exclusively for the wealthy upper class.

Doctors, if you will, running hospitals only for the VVIPs.

The sight of the Sun Cult priests, accompanied by paladins in plate armor and longswords, and police armed with pistols and batons, made the slum-dwellers hesitate, parting like the Red Sea.

Leading them, a muscle-bound hulk that was hard to tell whether it was a priest or a bear, stomped towards me.

“The Saint of Healing, huh. You’re the saint sent by the goddess Lilia?”

No. I mean, I never even mentioned the ‘Li’ of the goddess Lilia, so why…

I mechanically delivered the same line I gave to all the other slum-dwellers to the hulk in front of me.

“I’m not affiliated with any cult. I’m just someone who heals the sick.”

“Just someone who heals the sick?”

“Yes. One day, I received a powerful will, from someone unknown, suddenly instructing me to do so. And so, I am merely acting accordingly.”

How is it?

Will you still doubt me after this?

The words I had prepared beforehand, for self-defense, caused the paupers around me to murmur, and then soon, they began to raise their voices.

“That man healed us!”

“Filthy businessmen, always chasing after the tails of rich people! You won’t heal us, so why have you come here!”

“Don’t interfere and get out! My son is sick! He needs treatment!”

The priest of the Sun Sect, hearing the paupers’ cries, unleashes a roar of tremendous volume.

“Silence! You filthy things!”

A voice brimming with holy power.

He must have cast some kind of magic or miracle.

There’s no way such a sound could come from a human mouth otherwise.

Having heard that volume at point-blank range, I froze completely, unable to move an inch, but the priest seemed to have interpreted it differently.

“Quite the nerve you have. Either a remarkable con artist or a true saint, it seems. Judging by how still you are, that is?”

I was still frozen, unable to offer any response.

The priest burst out laughing at my appearance.

He scans the paupers.

“Look at you, swarming like locusts just because a ‘saint’ has appeared, stretching out your hands without paying a single coin! How are you any different from beasts? The Sun Sect has always been open to you! We simply ask for a modest sum!”

“That sum is impossibly expensive!”

“If you wish to live, can you not even earn that much! Is your desire for life so cheap?! You are shadows! Beings who have not received the Sun’s grace! There is a reason why Lord Lopus has abandoned you!”

A lump caught in their throats, likely, but the slum folk feared the paladins’ swords and the cops’ pistols, and didn’t step forward.

Grand words, but if you strip it down, what he’s really saying is – you’re pissed I’m sweeping up all the potential clients in your territory, huh?

Looks like this beefy b*stard came to crush me for the sake of the Sun Order’s prosperity.

Gotta stomp out the competition when they’re still just a sprout, that’s the way it goes.

What to do, what to do.

I need to keep healing here, spreading the word.

No choice.

Looks like I gotta come on strong here.

“Born crippled, beaten down by their surroundings, by this damn world, and you’re telling them to go out and earn? Telling those who can’t even walk to *run*?!”

The Sun Order priest looked a little surprised when I roared like that.

Good.

It’s working.

Gotta keep pushing!

Gotta get my healing practice buzzing in your turf!

That’s what it takes to stop the world from ending!!

“Who are you to demean their will to live as cheap trash!! They aren’t cheap! All I’ve done is bring those who were robbed of even the *right* to a starting point back to that line!! *You* are cheap, insulting a person’s life and their desire to live!”

Honestly, I was scared shitless that beefcake was gonna smack me down.

But still, I puffed out my chest as much as I could and screamed.

You’re gonna die too when the world ends!!

I’m going through all this *bullshit* to save your ass too!

“So just get lost, will ya?! Quit botherin’!”

“Whatever you say! Whatever those cops and paladins do to me! I won’t stop bringin’ the weak and wounded back to square one!”

The words barely left my lips when a monstrous pressure slams into my back. I can feel the slum-dwellers, faces grim, glarin’ daggers at the Sun Order priest.

“Don’t you hurt the Saint!”

“He’s workin’ miracles!”

“He ain’t no fraud, I tell ya!”

The beggar I first healed bursts forward, stokin’ the crowd’s frenzy.

“Look! Look! He healed me! Touched me with the grace of the gods!! The boils that covered me are gone, and this twisted leg I was born with? It’s straight now!! After seein’ this, you still gonna say he ain’t a Saint?!”

“Aye!!”

The roar of the crowd makes the cops and paladins falter.

Even the beefy Sun Order priest looks shaken.

“Silence! I said silence!”

He bellows again, loud enough to shatter eardrums.

The slum-dwellers flinch back this time, but their eyes are still burnin’ fierce.

The priest, he sees his yellin’ ain’t workin’ anymore. Time for a change of tactics.

“A Saint, huh? A Saint appeared after 300 years, you say. Impressive. We’ve had countless Saint pretenders. Most ended up as charcoal at the stake, though. Gotta test if you’re the real deal. Gotta test you.”

His eyes are cold, like a snake fixin’ to strike.

“Saint-imposters, they got one thing in common. They only show one miracle. Why? ‘Cause they’re cheatin’ with simple magic! If you’re a real Saint, you can work many miracles, right? Show us another. Then we’ll decide if you’re a Saint or not.”

I could taste the trap, instinct scream’n.

Shit.

Body modification, that was naturally blocked.

If I showcased body modification again, they’d be all “See! Just a charlatan who can only pull off one miracle!” and drag me away.

Probably a hanging.

A dangle-dangle situation, most likely.

Then… sensitivity cranked up 3000x?

If that beefy priest shouts, “I am a castrated sow craving orgasm by burning nipples!! Eeeyooowwwwww♥♥,” reaching his peak, then those paladins behind him will instantly label it wicked heretical sorcery and drag me away.

Another dangle-dangle.

What about absolute hypnosis?

Hypnosis…

Also a dangle-dangle.

If that priest suddenly changes his tune and says, “Ah, this man is a true healer. He kneaded the thoughts in my head,” even *I* have to admit, it sounds way too much like pagan voodoo.

So, all that’s left is…

Time stop, then.

No choice.

Bluffing! Bluffing it is!

“You don’t believe I’ve come to heal the sick.”

“Gotta expect a few scam artists impersonating saints, you know?”

“It’s not that you’re worried about me being a charlatan. You’re just a merchant, anxious about losing potential customers to the Sun Cult.”

“Are you insulting the Sun Cult now!”

The paladins erupt in fury, reaching for their swords.

To turn the Sun Order itself into an enemy, that’s just foolishness.

I hastily tacked on.

“I’m not insulting the Sun Order, nor Lord Ropers. I’m merely saying that the man before us is filthy.”

The beefy cleric let out a burst of laughter, dripping with mockery.

“Your words grow longer and longer. Nothing is emptier than words. If you are truly a Saint, prove it with a miracle!”

At those words, I raised my hand.

“Very well. I’ll show you.”

Here was my plan.

I’d already learned while testing the skill when it first appeared that I could selectively apply Time Stop to only a localized space.

Using that, I intended to apply Time Stop only around the cleric’s legs.

Then freeze him in place and shout! Look! You doubted me, so you’re being punished and can’t move!

Something along those lines was what I had in mind to say.

Of course, the fact that I’d only ever used the Time Stop skill once, just for testing, meant my control was a mess, that worried me something fierce.

Still, I had to try.

I’d bluffed my way this far, if I didn’t do anything, it was a guaranteed hanging.

“The heavens’ wrath upon the unbeliever.”

After throwing out some vaguely impressive-sounding lines, I aimed Time Stop at the beefy cleric’s legs and activated it…

Wait a moment.

It can’t be applied there?

T-this, I can’t control it!

Low on skill, so the control… Ah, goddamn it!

“Guh! Guh-guh-guh! Uh-uh-uh-guh!”

The burly priest suddenly clutches at his heart, begins to shudder violently.

“Guuh… Guuuh… Guuuh…”

Shuddering, he then sags, a heart attack victim.

I frantically try to undo the time stop, but the urgency makes my control even worse.

“Father Barduk!! Father Barduk!”

“Get up, please!”

The paladins rush desperately to the burly priest.

I remain frozen, hand still raised.

Hurry up and release already!! Please!

Only after thirty seconds could I barely undo the localized time stop on his heart.

“Kuh-huh-huh-guh!!”

Seeing Father Barduk exhale again, the paladins draw their swords, eyes fierce.

A white aura, like fire, gathers on their blades.

“This heretical charlatan dares to impersonate a saint and attempt to kill a priest of the Solar Order?”

“We’ll burn you at the stake!”

I’m fucked.

I froze again.

If the paladins take even one more step, I feel like I’ll piss myself, roll on the ground begging for my life.

And thankfully, the paladins didn’t take another step closer.

“Father Barduk! You’re unharmed!……”

One of the paladins, busy supporting the collapsed Barduk unlike those who’d moved to arrest me, stopped mid-sentence.

He wasn’t alone.

Every single one of us, the slum dwellers and the cops alike, had our eyes glued on Barduk.

Why?

Because Barduk’s face had changed.

Gone was the musclebound hulk; Barduk had abruptly shrunk, transforming into a thin, serpentine man.

And etched onto that man’s forehead was a stark, inverted pentagram.

The man frantically touched his forehead, his face paling.

“A worshipper of the Evil Gods!”

A slum dweller yelled.

“An Evil God worshipper was changing his form!”

This time, it was a cop who shouted.

The paladins, too, cried out.

“The inverted pentagram on his forehead!”

“The symbol of the Evil Gods!!”

“Arrest him!”

Clatter, bang, crash.

The Evil God worshipper, disguised as Father Barduk, was apprehended.

I was just there, eyes wide, blinkin’.

Worked out okay…right?