The Reward for Saving The World is a Husband - Chapter 19
Except for the times when I was kept as an experimental subject in the lab, I had never worn white clothes.
It wasn’t practical to wear such easily soiled clothing when even drinking water was scarce. I couldn’t wash my clothes every time they got dirty.
Anyway, since the fabric was soft and the pure white clothes were spotless, I was naturally careful with my steps. The front of the garment barely covered my insteps, and it got longer towards the back, so the hem inevitably dragged on the ground. I tried to walk as carefully as possible.
When I exited through the door the saintess had indicated, I found myself in a wide, circular space with an open ceiling.
In the center was a large bath, big enough to fit six adults comfortably, and the saintess was standing there, waiting.
“Oh… you’ve come out. Please, come this way.”
She seemed much calmer than before, likely having regained her composure.
“Could you immerse yourself completely in this?”
“Get in entirely? Not just pour water over myself?”
“I heard you have multiple injuries.”
I stared at her for a moment, then nodded.
“Alright. I’ll do that.”
I followed her instructions and sat in the bath, submerging myself up to my shoulders. Watching the look of relief on the saintess’s face, I asked.
“Did the god you serve tell you that I’m a threat to this world?”
“Pardon…?”
“This isn’t holy water, is it?”
I met the eyes of the flustered saintess and continued speaking.
“Even though I come from a world without gods, I know that much.”
The peculiar power enveloping the saintess was both potent and gentle. If that was ‘divine power,’ then the water I was now immersed in held no such force.
“Why? Why are you trying to harm me?”
From the moment I stepped into this space, I knew. The water filling the bath was not holy water.
I also knew that behind the twenty-something pillars surrounding this circular space, holy knights were lying in wait.
Yet, I obeyed their instructions out of curiosity.
I wanted to know how the god governing and protecting this world would define me. Would they accept and embrace me, or would they view me with suspicion and reject me?
Of course, I could understand either way.
In the same world, within the same organization, people often bitterly oppose and reject one another. Even siblings with the same mother frequently turn their swords against each other.
So, there was no reason to expect that they would accept an outsider from another world into their fold.
What I had hoped for, albeit faintly, was that a ‘god’ might know everything. That they would understand all the things I had experienced growing up.
I had prayed many times for a god, if one existed, to free me from this hellish life, to save me in some way.
Even though my world had no trace of a god and no one to worship, that was all I could do, so I clung to it alone.
I had hoped that, perhaps, a god who tended to another world might still accept me if they knew.
“We’re not trying to harm you. It’s just that we…”
The saintess, whose face was already pale, turned even paler as she spoke.
“We just wanted to have some minimal safety measures in place. To talk with you.”
I didn’t know the creator of my soul, nor the parents of my flesh. The world I belonged to had ended.
Therefore, I shouldn’t be an enemy of this world. As long as my precious partner, Elias, was here, I couldn’t be cast out.
“Alright. Do it that way.”
I didn’t know what the saintess meant by safety measures, but I crossed my arms to show I had no intention of causing harm.
“What do you want from me?”
Seeing that they weren’t intent on killing me outright, it seemed there might be room for negotiation.
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