PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

“Is it really necessary to rely on violence?” Unable to accept the logic expressed by Desmond, Cecilia tried to argue against it, but she was quickly met by Desmond’s tired face.

“So tell me, Cecilia, How would you have dealt with Erigard without using violence?” Desmond responded with simple.

But Cecilia didn’t answer. She couldn’t; that same question had been haunting her mind, but no matter how many times she thought about it, she couldn’t come up with an answer.

A chaotic, shifting fractal glowed brightly within Cecilia’s pupils, and Desmond understood that the girl was having difficulty answering his question; but that did not arouse any sympathy. Instead, Desmond continued with the questioning. “Would you have allowed him to do whatever he wanted so he wouldn’t have to resort to violence? Would you have seen him murder someone whose only sin was being there to protect you? Or would you have allowed him to play with your body until satisfied? How far would you be willing to avoid resorting to violence?”

Cecilia continued without responding, her face had paled, and her hands were trembling due to helplessness, but no response came from her lips; a naive girl like her had no answer to those questions.

However, Desmond wasn’t expecting an answer from her either. He knew that Cecilia had been just an ordinary girl until a few months ago, whose only job was to do some housework at the church.

Due to her beauty, Cecilia had been coveted by many people inside and outside the church. Still, due to her relationship with a high priestess, she had been saved from receiving all kinds of abuse, but nothing was forever. Cecilia’s biggest supporter died a few days before she got her new gifts and was made a holy priestess. Cecilia was besieged on all fronts in a unique position of power with skills she didn’t understand and without backing.

This was expected; the church had made her a holy priestess hoping to use her gifts for propaganda, thus increasing its political power within the kingdom. The church had never expected the true heart of a saint to beat within Cecilia’s chest, leading to Cecilia gaining the love and support of the ordinary people at a speed that alarmed both the church and the high nobles of the kingdom.

.....

To a certain extent, everything related to Cecilia until now seemed to be arranged by fate, from how she got her gifts to how she ended up being involved in all sorts of incidents that increased her reputation.

According to what Desmond had heard, there was a time when Cecilia relieved a severe drought and food shortages throughout the kingdom. All when she purified the most fertile lands of the domain without even knowing that some kind of mana contamination caused had affected the earth.

From the way some of the priestesses who were present described it, it was like seeing a goddess of light and purity descend upon earth to bathe all under heaven with her holy presence.

And while Desmond was sure there were various exaggerations involved, one fact remained undeniable; Cecilia had earned her title as a saint, at least in the eyes of the ordinary people.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough. Cecilia’s current position within the church said it all, the church didn’t need a true saint to help the commoners. The church needed a tool to increase power; Cecilia had fulfilled that function to a certain extent, but they did not like the power that Cecilia had accumulated, nor did they agree with the ideals of a naive girl like Cecilia.

To some extent, Desmond felt sorry for Cecilia, she hadn’t asked for anything that had happened to her, and she was just trying to do the best she could. Still, it was also true that Cecilia was already lucky enough to stay alive until now.

The long silence had already gone on for too long, and Cecilia felt uncomfortable under Desmond’s cold and detached gaze. But it was Cecilia we were talking about; She didn’t let Desmond’s blue eyes intimidate her, and instead, she stepped forward, trying to check if Desmond was hurt.

Desmond didn’t know what to say; it was clear that Cecilia had felt uncomfortable because of the fight that had just happened and for the interrogation that followed. But she still pushed aside her discomfort and calmed the trembling in her hands to try to check Desmond’s injuries; she wasn’t as weak as she seemed on the outside, or at least that was what Desmond thought.

“Do not worry, I’m fine; just a few scrapes.” Resisting the pain and keeping a neutral expression, Desmond stopped Cecilia and gently brushed her hands away from him.

Cecilia didn’t seem to believe Desmond, but after seeing how stubborn the man in front of her appeared, Cecilia had to give in. “What do we do now?”

At some point, the master and protector relationship was lost when Cecilia began to go to Desmond for guidance. Her prejudices towards Desmond had not faded. Cecilia still firmly believed that there should be a better solution than violence. Still, she at least trusted that Desmond was only looking to protect her, and she recognized that he seemed to be better prepared to deal with everything around her.

Desmond let out a long breath, the coldness and aggression in his icy blue eyes fading into oblivion. His expression became kind and cordial as he bowed to Cecilia and responded with a smile. “The plans of her holiness Cecilia were to go to the orphanage to visit the children, or am I wrong. If that is what we will do, do not let these little things bother you; I will take care of protecting you at all times.”

Without being able to help it, a small and adorable giggle escaped from Cecilia’s fragrant pink lips, who found Desmond’s entire chivalrous attitude somewhat disconcerting and false. Cecilia couldn’t help herself; the scene in front of her was like seeing a wolf behave with elegant manners just after having sucked the life out of a sheep. It was weird, to say the least, though Desmond’s charisma and good looks helped make it funny rather than bizarre and disturbing.

With her long curly blonde hair, her golden squinted eyes, and a pair of adorable dimples in her smooth cheeks, Cecilia’s appearance as she laughed was downright radiant, taking Desmond by surprise for a brief moment.

With all the previous events in the past, Desmond and Cecilia made their way toward their destination on the east side of town. Desmond took an opportunity when Cecilia was distracted to pull out a sizable injection device and stabbed her right arm, emptying the light blue liquid from a glass vial inside the device at some point along the way.

A steady stream of gentle healing energies soon began to regenerate damaged tissue, repair multiple fractures, and nourish the entire area to support the healing process without further burdening Desmond’s body and stamina.

Even now, after feeling the effects, Desmond still couldn’t entirely accept how ridiculously high Sasha’s talent was. The contents of the injection that Desmond had used were nothing more than Sasha’s latest breakthrough when it came to potions.

Apparently, after her moment of inspiration, while creating her first compound effect healing potion, which was followed by an intense and prolonged sexual experience, Sasha had spent a couple of hours in the lab resting before working on a couple of ideas.

Whether luck or talent, Sasha had created a second healing potion that day; the effects of the said potion were somewhat the opposite of what was achieved in her first potion. Healing and regeneration on a larger scale in exchange for a more extended recovery period and having the bonus of not depleting Desmond’s resistance; the new potion was perfect for healing severe injuries when the situation had calmed down enough.

However, Desmond overlooked one thing: Cecilia had been watching him all this time using her connection to light mana. Hence, the girl saw when Desmond used a strange device to administer some kind of healing potion to himself.

This made the holy priestess’s expression darken. Although she wasn’t entirely surprised, Cecilia had already sensed that Desmond wasn’t being sincere when he talked about his injuries. Still, it seemed that these were more severe than Cecilia had expected.

With Cecilia in a lousy mood for everything that happened and Desmond blissfully unaware that his facade had been exposed, both arrived in minutes on the east side of the city; the poor neighborhoods.

Desmond was already having a headache seeing the messy layout of the buildings and the evident lack of planning in the design of the buildings and dwellings; With so many blind spots and tangled alleys, this place was perfect for an ambush.

Perhaps Desmond’s only consolation was that it was unlikely anyone would make a move against Cecilia today, at least not after having a holy knight get hit within an inch of losing his life.

On the other hand, Cecilia did not have all those considerations and concerns. She never thought about things like holing points and the like, firstly because she was inexperienced in the matter and secondly because such things were useless to her, who could see everything within a hundred meters around her.

A plethora of thoughts filled the minds of both people that could not be more different from each other, the saint and the sinner had almost nothing in common, and their lines of thought showed it clearly... But even the greatest sinners will have at least one thing in common with the greatest of saints; that was especially true for a duo like Desmond and Cecilia.

As soon as they both arrived at the orphanage, a small army of boys and girls of all ages emerged from the well-kept, rustic-looking building, all looking with love and adoration at the golden-eyed woman looking back at them with that same love.

In a matter of seconds, Cecilia found herself surrounded by almost a dozen boys and girls who tried with all their might to cling to this woman who gave them so much warmth. In the middle of the little chaos, one of the youngest girls, perhaps only four years old, fell to the ground after being accidentally pushed by the other children.

Tears formed in her little eyes quickly, her scraped knees ached, and crying soon came out of the girl’s little mouth. Cecilia quickly heard the girl crying and tried to go to her, but one can imagine her surprise when she saw what happened next.

For the first time since they met, this was the first time that Cecilia felt that she and Desmond had something in common, the first time that she thought that there was something other than darkness inside the man who first appeared in front of her with a sadistic smile.