I Became the Teacher of the Imperial Family’s Bastard

043. The Name of the Morning Star (4) (Revised)

The balance of power shifted in an instant.

Yuren and Kallios appeared, and Berheim, unable to tend to his injuries, was subdued by Kallios with a sword to his neck.

Historia only let out a sigh of relief after confirming this.

A sense of exhaustion enveloped her entire body.

No, something more than that weighed down on her shoulders.

Her vision blurred.

She had lost too much blood and expended too much divine power.

“Are you alright?”

Yuren approached and asked.

She couldn’t see his expression clearly.

Historia forced a smile.

“…Yes, I’m sorry. I was careless.”

“Let’s talk about that later.”

Yuren began to examine his own body, and Historia felt a pang of guilt.

She had done everything she could, but it still wasn’t perfect.

The only consolation was that she had somehow held out until the two of them arrived.

Focusing on that fact, she assessed the current situation.

Now, there was only one thing to worry about.

“What will happen to Berheim? Can he come back?”

She spoke more harshly, intentionally, as she faced him.

From the moment she realized that talking wouldn’t resolve the situation, she pushed harder.

But it wasn’t because she wanted Berheim to die.

Quite the opposite.

“···Can you break the enchantment?”

He hoped he would come to his senses.

Historia did not want to give up all possibilities just yet.

Even if it meant her own life was the price··· No, because of that, she hoped even more for a bright outcome.

Yuren then said.

“···I don’t know yet.”

At least, it was a more hopeful answer than death.

A moment of bitter relief crept up on Historia’s lips.

BOOM!!!

Startled, Historia’s head jerked up at the explosion.

Yuren clicked his tongue and muttered lowly.

“You should have held on better.”

Berheim stood up again.

Shaking off Kallios’s suppression.

* * *

He couldn’t give up.

Berheim couldn’t collapse like this.

“Not yet··· Not yet···!”

He detonated the divinity remaining in his body as if to self-destruct.

As a result, he succeeded in shaking off Kallios.

Kallios, who had stepped back, was glaring at him with a hardened expression.

Berheim also took a step back and began to recover his body.

As long as he was breathing, he could heal any injury.

That was the holy knight.

“Do you still want more? The result will be the same.”

Kallios’s words did not reach his ears.

It wasn’t that he wanted to.

He ‘had to.’

Only then could he save Rebecca.

“I must fix her.”

“…What?”

“You were a fool who knew nothing.”

Berheim clicked his tongue.

What was the point of talking more to the author?

Kallios was a man who only thought about how to look good to Rebecca from the beginning.

He was a man who sought his own happiness through her, not her happiness.

That was what made him different.

– I hope everyone smiles. Got it? Ber, you have to help! The saint is the avatar of the god!

Berheim recalled her face, smiling bashfully.

He was someone who could sacrifice everything just for that.

‘Promise, promise…’

His expression crumpled.

His memory was blurry.

Had he lost too much blood?

Surely…

‘We, the smiles…’

That must have been the promise.

Berheim erased the thought.

‘…This is not the time to think about it.’

The situation had worsened due to Historia’s outburst.

But even in the worst of times, there is always some good news, and thus, something was gained from this.

Berheim growled at Kallios.

“…First, tell me. Where did you hide Rebecca?”

“Why are you asking me that?”

“Because it’s certain that you hid her. If not, it wouldn’t make sense that she disappeared.”

Desire for conquest, desire for domination, arrogance.

Berheim knew how ugly the things that made up Kallios were.

The world called those qualities the traits of a ruler.

But if those emotions were directed at an individual? They would become nothing but a terrible obsession.

That’s why.

The conclusion that Rebecca’s disappearance and Kallios’s escape from the island on the day of the demon summoning led to her abduction was inevitable.

The certainty that Yuren Pharos was involved in that event was undeniable.

When Historia realized that she was being investigated, the first ones that came to mind were these two.

Berheim’s gaze turned sharply towards Yuren, who was approaching.

“The heir of a nominal family. Did you need power?”

“What nonsense is this? Damn it.”

“The vile and the vile have joined forces. No wonder it led to such a disaster.”

Rumble―

Berheim spoke as he strengthened his body with divinity.

“Give me Rebecca. Only I can cure her illness.”

Kallios’s brow furrowed.

“Illness?”

“Illness. She is afflicted with the disease of being a demon. So I must heal her…”

It was at that moment.

“…Ha. So that’s what it was.”

Kallios let out a hollow laugh.

Berheim’s eyes narrowed.

* * *

Kallios had pondered quite a bit before coming to this place.

It was about what part of him might be twisted by the demon.

What he wanted to know was the purpose of using the forbidden book.

And now, the answer had come.

“Demon. Disease.”

And the certainty of healing.

What more is there to say?

The concept of a demon has been rewritten by their schemes.

Then what Berheim conducted was research related to species, or perhaps souls.

The former is more likely.

‘I’ve investigated enough to know that such a forbidden book is sealed in the Sealing Chamber.’

Thus, Kallios’s gaze deepened.

“Have you not heard that the woman herself is a demon? If she were a saint, she would have surely spoken to persuade.”

At this point, what came to mind was about Historia.

If there was a fight, there must have been a process.

In that situation, she who cried out for persuasion would have surely told that story too.

But why is this man spouting nonsense?

It was the moment I thought.

“I know. That’s why we need to treat her. If we drive it out, Rebecca will return. With the power of fate and research, it is surely possible!”

His shoulders trembled.

What Callios felt in the returned answer was nothing else.

His brow furrowed.

“I hope you are not serious.”

He felt pure contempt.

In the conviction close to confirmation bias.

In the principle of action driven by delusion.

Emotions were heading in an extremely negative direction.

Callios’s expression turned cold.

“…Did you really think so? While researching forbidden books? While facing a demon?”

He couldn’t understand.

Perhaps it was natural.

Because Callios was a man born to be a monarch.

For the greater cause and the greater good.

No matter how painful the sacrifice for it, Callios was someone who would willingly endure it.

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Wasn’t that the reason he actually gave up on Rebecca?

Because he could do such a thing himself, he took it for granted.

But Verheim was different.

Callios tried to judge the reason as rationally as possible.

But the more he did, the more he reached an inevitable conclusion.

A sigh came out.

“…Was that it.”

The emotion that passed through his mind resembled emptiness.

A hand brushed the chin.

“You were lacking. Just a simpleton, after all.”

Kallios lost his drive.

He began to lose the need to persuade him rationally.

What should he say… Yes.

“I didn’t know. Even though you were called a saint, I thought you’d be different, but there wasn’t a fragment of a superhuman in you.”

It was disappointment.

He thought it would be different.

He thought only Beatrice was strange, and the rest would have some degree of reason.

The reason he didn’t strongly oppose the saint’s request, the reason he bothered to have a conversation, the reason he tried to come up with a humane plan, was all because of that.

But the answer he got back was something no one knew… It only awakened one aspect of Kallios’s true nature that only Yuren knew.

“Thank you. For letting me know your level. For making me give up my expectations. So let me tell you in return.”

A sense of superiority.

The overwhelming conviction that everything must go according to his will because he alone was great.

In other words, arrogance, and thus confidence.

As that trait, which even he didn’t know because it had never been revealed, swelled within him, Kallios sighed and spoke indifferently.

“If it’s that woman, I sent her to your mother’s side.”

Thud, Verheim froze.

Then Kallios added a word, unnecessarily.

“Don’t you understand? She’s no longer in this world.”

Now, Kallios had no expectations for Verheim, or the remaining two.

* * *

At that moment, I felt a strange sense of familiarity in the prince’s curses.

Suddenly, I remembered.

The dignity of a prince, the expectations of those around him, and even his pride in himself.

There were many elements that made him up, but wasn’t there a true nature?

If you peel off just one layer, something is revealed.

-Don’t you have a mother?

-Seeing your cheating mother, I sometimes think it’s better not to have one.

-Haha, you son of a b*tch. Let’s spar.

The Crown Prince is not a man of good character from the very beginning.

His habitual speech is even more vicious.

It’s endearing.

If the situation had been a little better, it would have been even more so.

“…Nonsense.”

The saint’s eyes were bloodshot.

His gaze wavered, and his mind seemed to be even more seriously shaken, with no trace of reason left in his expression.

The saint began to mutter the same words.

“Impossible… How…!”

Boom!

The red divine power shook the space.

It seemed to be rampaging out of control.

I spoke softly.

“Could you scratch a little more gently?”

“Isn’t it more cruel to believe he’s alive?”

“Well, that’s true, but…”

Seeing the Crown Prince’s expression as if wondering what the problem was, I was sure it was the man I knew.

I was briefly lost in such thoughts.

“Ahhh―!”

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much time to spare.

Verheim’s body began to twist.

I knew that phenomenon well.

‘Mutation?’

Is that the best solution he could come up with?

“He’s becoming grotesque.”

I let those words pass by and reviewed the situation.

‘Historia is saved.’

Although his condition doesn’t look good, as long as he’s alive, there are countless ways to save him.

Even if he suffers a major misfortune, I won’t let him die here.

Even if it requires some extreme measures… I have a few ideas.

Rather, the saint.

The problem was that b*stard tampered with the mutation.

It’s one thing to experiment with contamination on his own body.

The important thing is that the worst-case scenario I envisioned has become possible.

“Did you bring the troops?”

“I blocked the front of the chapel and controlled the surroundings. I thought it would be best not to show what’s happening inside for now.”

I saw the transforming Verheim.

His size had grown several times, and coarse fur began to sprout all over his body.

Something like a reindeer’s skull was growing over his head like a helmet, encasing it.

The completed form was like a giant werewolf clad in reindeer bones as armor.

‘Did the research succeed?’

No, that’s not it.

There was something visible.

‘It’s not divine power.’

Entangled with the red divinity like a leech was an aura of the outer realm, something I had rarely seen.

A byproduct left behind by foreign gods that did not originally exist in this land.

In other words, it is so alien that it cannot mix.

If that thing remains unblended over time, the aura of the outer realm will twist and become ‘contamination.’

I know the result all too well.

‘Explosive contamination.’

Just like the Historia of the past life, it could self-destruct and mutate everything here.

“You did well to evacuate the people. It would be troublesome if it exploded.”

“Can’t we just roughly cut it down?”

“We’ll all die. No, we’ll end up neither dead nor alive.”

“Then?”

There was a way, albeit not an easy one.

“We have to cut it off. Just as it is.”

I drew out the sacred tree.

What came to mind were the things I had pondered over the past time…

It was about the worst-case scenario where the saint would terrorize the papacy itself.

There was a time when I pondered how to handle the aftermath of that incident.

In the process, I placed my hopes on the sacred tree.

The basis was Beatrice’s case.

‘Separated the human who had merged with the demon.’

The strange texture seen at that moment, although it couldn’t restore the invaded part, succeeded in detaching the demon from Beatrice’s body.

It was a demon, after all.

Yet, this miraculous feat was performed by a branch of the World Tree.

So, could it not be possible for this incident as well?

If it could separate a human merged with a demon, could it not remove contamination from a human?

No.

Contamination is ultimately an external power.

Moreover, it was parasitically clinging to the divine power without even mixing.

In that case, it might be possible to not only cut it off but also remove it, which means that even if a terrorist attack occurred at the Papal Office, it might be possible to preserve the priests as a force.

Didn’t I have enough grounds to make an effort?

So, I had been experimenting on the Crown Prince all along.

– No! Why are you cutting off only my mana so precisely! Huh? Wait! Is it possible to cut off only the mana? That technique! Teach me too… Ugh!

I experimented with removing the external power from humans.

I practiced cutting off the mana that was bound to them, returning that power to nature.

At first, it was insanely difficult.

Seeing the texture of something as fluid as mana and cutting it off precisely consumed as much mental energy as when I first devised the spell cutting technique.

But, to speak of the result, it was a success.

– …All the mana is gone.

– Recharge it.

– No, it doesn’t work well. I need some meditation…

Humans and mana can be separated.

Humans and divinity can be separated.

And now, to verify it.

[Graaah!!!]

The saint who had become a monster conjured and shot a crimson spear.

I swung a switch at it.

**Chaeaeaeang―!**

As the spear was cut down, it split into divinity and corruption, scattering into the air.

A conclusion was reached.

‘Divinity and corruption can be separated.’

This was enough.

I steadied my stance.

The Crown Prince also drew his sword.

“Give the order.”

I said.

“Just keep them from escaping.”

Peel them off layer by layer.

It was at that moment.

**Kwaaang!**

The saint charged towards us.