I Became the Servant of the Blind Wicked Woman

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'Utis.'

Pluto's priestess, Kore, recalled the time she looked into his soul.

Her entire field of vision was filled with a blue light. It was so bright that it felt as if it could blind her.

Though it was often said that one could "read" the color of a soul, the power Kore wielded wasn't simply about seeing the color of a soul.

It allowed her to determine whether someone had accumulated bad karma or performed good deeds. She could discern the path of one's life.

To put it in a metaphor, a soul viewed through her divine power was like a tapestry with embroidered patterns. Some parts shone like gold, while others were tainted with black and murky colors.

But Utis's soul had none of these elements. No, it wasn't even visible.

It was a blinding blue radiance. She couldn't perceive what kind of life he had led. It was a strange thing.

As a priestess of Pluto, Kore possessed the highest level of divine power, both in scale and skill. If she were sufficiently prepared, she could even see through the soul of a demigod who had walked the world in ancient times.

In all her life, the only other time Kore couldn't fully perceive the color of someone's soul, besides Utis, was with one other person.

The Pope.

The overwhelming divine power that the Pope wielded distorted her vision, making it impossible to properly discern his soul, like trying to view an image through a warped kaleidoscope.

There was a time when the Pope willingly unveiled his soul to her, but Kore didn't trust the colors she saw then.

She was certain that, with the Pope's level of control over divine power, he could show only the parts of his soul he wanted to reveal.

'Is Utis a person of the same caliber as the Pope?'

A person so powerful in divine energy that their form in her vision would be distorted. But the distortion in Utis's case was a different type of blinding light than that of the Pope.

As Kore pondered Utis's true intentions, she decided to use the upcoming exploration of the Great Temple as a test to gauge his inner self.

Demus, a priest of Enyalius, was again tasked with guiding Utis to the Great Temple.

'If I hide among the vanguard led by Priest Demus… No, it seemed like he could see me.'

Though it wasn't certain, Utis seemed to have noticed her presence during the last meeting. Just as Hyacinth, another priest of Phoibos, had been able to sense Kore's presence with his foresight ability, it wasn't impossible.

'Even High Priest Hyacinth could only see me when he activated his divine power. Utis didn't seem to use divine power during the meeting. Was it the power of the relic he supposedly has from Phoibos? Or had he been using his divine power ever since the meeting began…?'

Kore abandoned the plan to hide among the priests of Enyalius and monitor Utis from the start. Instead, she decided to track him inside the Great Temple.

As a priestess of Pluto, Kore possessed a divine power that allowed her to detect people inside the temple. She could not only distinguish Pluto's followers but also gauge the supernatural fields of individuals.

'If I could resonate with the Great Temple's emblem, I could increase my accuracy…'

In ancient times, when the cults were thriving, temples had relics that served as their cores, similar to the magic cores of the magic towers. These relics were usually made in the symbolic form of the god they worshipped, known as an emblem.

The emblem acted like a crown. When worn by a legitimate successor, it bestowed rightful authority.

If Kore could resonate with the emblem of the Great Temple, she would be able to manipulate the defensive powers inscribed throughout the temple with a mere gesture.

The divine power of external detection would also manifest with a different level of power. Not only could it sense the presence of outsiders, but it could also identify every item in the temple with precision. It could reveal, for instance, that one room held a relic of Glaucus and another held a relic of Elimon.

However, it was said that the emblem of the Great Temple was destroyed by the Mage King. Even if she tried to find its remnants, they would be sealed outside reality, like the Great Temple itself.

Kore organized her thoughts, pushing aside memories passed down from the previous generation. What mattered more than memories of the past was the future that was yet to come.

If there was an especially unfamiliar aura detected through her divine power, it had to be Utis.

She would move along his blind spots and observe what he was doing.

'At first, Utis will probably stay close to Enyalius's side.'

Demus would likely ask Utis to find Enyalius's relics. No matter how impressive Utis's prophetic abilities were, there had to be a limit.

If Utis was hiding another purpose for being in the Great Temple, he might refuse Demus's request. After all, even prophets don't work for free.

But if Utis readily agreed to Demus's request, there was a greater chance that he had no other purpose than what he claimed—'fighting against the Ten Towers and preparing for the return of the Mage King.'

If Utis truly was someone who could be trusted, someone who was loyal to the Divine Cults…

'He might become a counterbalance to the Pope.'

***

Kore felt an indescribable emotion.

She couldn't quite name the emotion herself. Her mind had long been clouded with the accumulated memories of past generations, filled with a weary resignation and concern.

In truth, the emotion Kore was feeling now was annoyance.

To put it more crudely, it was something akin to being seriously pissed off.

She hadn't witnessed Utis betraying the Divine Cult in secret. To be precise, she hadn't been able to.

Simply put,

Utis was too fast.

Kore had been desperately running after Utis. The moment she sensed he was swiftly distancing himself from the priests of Enyalius, she had started running even harder.

But something seemed off about the way Demus and the other priests were moving.

If Utis had refused Demus's request and gone off on his own path, the priests should have either scattered to find their cult's relics or abandoned the plan and started exploring room by room, gathering whatever relics they could find, regardless of their cult affiliation.

But instead, they were staying in one room continuously.

It happened to be on the path Kore was taking to catch up to Utis. Stopping to check on them wouldn't delay her much.

'…?'

To her surprise, the room where Demus was located was filled with relics of Enyalius. Demus's subordinate priests were methodically sorting the relics and preparing to transport them outside.

'Did they find them immediately after entering the Great Temple?'

How precise does a prophecy have to be to achieve that?

Kore suppressed her curiosity and resumed tracking Utis. But she could no longer sense Utis's aura.

'What?'

Feeling that something was off, she expanded her search range. While the other factions of the Divine Cult were still slowly exploring the upper levels, Utis was advancing deep into the underground.

Kore gritted her teeth and began running again.

But she couldn't catch up to him. Utis's path wasn't a straight line. She could feel him entering and exiting rooms as he went.

To figure out what Utis had done in those rooms, she would have to check at least one of them.

That's when things became strange.

Every room Utis entered had relics inside. But there were no signs that he had taken anything from the rooms—no gaps where items should have been.

Of course, this was because Utis had carefully selected only the most compact and powerful relics, considering their size relative to their potency. Kore, focused on catching up to him, didn't have the luxury of inspecting each room carefully.

As Kore opened each door and found the relics of ancient times still intact, a thought began to form in her mind.

'Is he…'

Is he toying with me, knowing I'm tracking him?

No way… right?

Kore tried to suppress her rising irritation and reasoned with herself. Utis was likely searching for something, and since nothing else mattered to him, he left without touching anything.

Depending on what that 'something' was, Utis could become an enemy of the Divine Cult.

The Pope's decisions weren't always the best, but they weren't the worst either. They were, at worst, the lesser of two evils. If Utis posed a greater threat to the cult's identity than the Pope, Kore had a duty to report it.

She resumed tracking Utis's movements.

He was no longer moving.

But something was moving toward him. She analyzed the waves of the aura. It wasn't a priest wielding divine power.

It was more akin to a mage.

Setting aside how a mage had infiltrated the recently unsealed Great Temple, why were they heading toward Utis?

Kore ran toward the spot where Utis had stopped.

***

'I've got a bad feeling about this.'

These eyes' range of perception goes beyond a normal field of vision.

They deliver 360-degree information directly to my brain. Even the scenery behind me, which shouldn't be visible to my retinas, is clearly transmitted.

In this state, if I wait a little longer, these eyes start to access broader, more comprehensive information.

Like the life path someone has taken. The origin of the stone slab I'm standing on. The distribution of divine power in the surrounding air.

And just now, the presence of a strange mana construct that hadn't existed before.

'Wait… is this even mana?'

It feels closer to raw mana rather than refined magic energy. Unrefined, mutant-like mana from an extradimensional source.

'It's approaching.'

I activated the high-frequency blade.

To read over 260 fully translated episodes, patreon.com/Denji02