MHMMS 06

Chapter 06

There was a presence beside her. From the peaceful sound of breathing, she knew the man was still asleep.

Tilda closed her eyes tightly, as if bracing herself.

*Hoo.*

After taking a deep breath, Tilda slowly opened her eyes and looked at the man who had devoured her like a beast all night long.

As expected, it was a face she knew well.

For a man, he had long eyelashes, a well-defined nose bridge, a slender yet appropriately angular jawline. And black hair, slightly damp and clinging to his forehead…

‘…Black hair?’

Black… hair…?

Tilda, who had been blankly opening and closing her eyes, belatedly clamped her hand over her mouth as if to stifle a sound.

This is impossible…!

The moment she registered that the man had black hair, Tilda sprang out of bed like a swift animal and assumed a defensive stance.

At the sound of her movement, the man slowly opened his eyes. His red eyes, catching the sunlight, gleamed vividly.

Even at Tilda’s pale, horrified face and flustered expression, the man leisurely blinked his sleepy eyes and slowly rose.

Precariously covering his lower body with the blanket, he swept back his disheveled hair.

“Even if not a warm morning greeting, I thought you’d at least acknowledge me first.”

He reached out and draped on a robe from the bedside table.

“…Who are you?”

The man was clearly the one Tilda had expected.

Cales Moin.

One of the High Priests, and a man who always wore a lecherous look.

So while she had suspected it was him last night, she hadn’t been too concerned that a High Priest would lose his divine power because of today’s events.

She had thought he might have already spent nights with others and lost his divine power long ago.

Still, she had expected that with his overwhelming swordsmanship, he could hide that fact even after losing his divine power. Thanks to that, he must have spent countless nights of pleasure with women without guilt.

Yes, that was exactly what she had expected, but…

The man before her was unmistakably Cales Moin, yet he did not have silver hair and green eyes.

Black hair and red eyes.

These colors were unmistakably those of ‘that race.’

“It’s nice to look at, but if you stay like that, you’ll get cold.”

Cales looked at Tilda as if appreciating a view.

Tilda knew her attire was severely disheveled.

A nightgown had been draped over her body when she woke, but in her haste to get up, the chest area had fallen slightly open. The cold air made the fine hairs on her skin stand on end.

But she had no presence of mind to fix her clothes while lowering her guard now.

“Answer me! Are you really the Cales Moin I knew?”

“Are you doubting me because of this hair and eye color?”

Cales grabbed a portion of the hair covering his forehead and looked up at it.

He was nonchalant as if it were nothing, but Tilda could not be the same.

His appearance was unmistakably that of the ‘Turin tribe.’

The race of absolute evil abandoned by the Empire’s one true goddess, Valinea, and known as a pagan tribe that used cunning abilities to plunge people into desire and despair.

The fact that Cales Moin bore the appearance of the Turin tribe carried great significance.

If one of the only three High Priests in the Empire was a Turin, it meant this absolute holy domain was not secure.

Moreover, there was a high possibility that he had hidden other intentions from the very moment he brought her here and took her.

Was he trying to seduce her and attack her grandfather, the Pope?

Just as Tilda’s mind was racing, Cales rose from his seat and approached.

“…Don’t come closer.”

Tilda, backing away to avoid him, grabbed a candlestick placed on a shelf and aimed it like a sword.

“Your form isn’t bad.”

Cales commented playfully.

Without hesitation, Tilda swung the candlestick at the approaching Cales.

“…You had other intentions from the start when you saved me.”

But in an instant, as if it were nothing, her wrist was caught and she was subdued.

“Ugh!”

“A cornered cat is fiercer than I thought.”

Cales took the candlestick from Tilda as if taking a toy from a child and placed it back on the shelf.

Then he scooped Tilda up and dropped her onto the bed as if tossing her.

“What are you doing!”

“Calming an angry cat.”

Cales pinned Tilda’s wrists and looked down at her from above her body.

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

Yesterday, this same situation had been merely humiliating, but now fear took precedence.

She was anxious that her grandfather and the temple might suffer harm because of her.

As Tilda thrashed like an animal trapped in a cage, Cales’s gaze darkened considerably.

“Don’t get excited, relax.”

“…”

“Your body might be strained.”

At his voice, which seemed to be the first time she’d heard it so deeply subdued, Tilda’s thrashing momentarily halted.

At the same time, she recalled how he had soothed her when she was at a loss from pleasure the night before.

‘…Right.’

In any case, there was no way she could overcome him here. His power must have been infused into her body from yesterday’s events. Running away wouldn’t change anything.

If so, understanding his purpose and using persuasion and negotiation was the best course.

It was a conclusion she would have reached quickly under normal circumstances, but upon seeing the unexpected black hair, her thoughts had become hopelessly tangled.

As Tilda slowly released the strength from her hands, Cales finally released her wrists.

Her wrists throbbed. They had turned thoroughly red from being held in his shackle-like firm grip.

He briefly ran his tongue down her reddened skin.

“If you don’t fasten that gaping robe by the count of three, I might go wild this time.”

Cales warned as he rose from the bed.

*You perverted bastard.*

Tilda frowned and properly adjusted her robe, tying the waistband firmly.

“Now answer my question. Are you a Turin?”

Cales stretched his long arms upward and yawned.

“Yes.”

“Then how are you in the holy High Temple?”

“Because I’m a High Priest.”

“There’s no way a Turin could become a High Priest.”

The process of becoming a High Priest was extremely grueling and difficult.

One had to endure ten years of harsh priest training, including seminary attendance, which made 90% quit midway, and at the end, after difficult examinations and divine power tests, a High Priest was ordained.

There was no way a Turin like him could have gone through such a process of endurance, nor could he have completed it. He wouldn’t have divine power.

“Then are you saying I killed someone and took their place?”

Cales asked as he sat in an armchair by the window, leaning back loosely.

“If not, how could a Turin pass the divine power test and complete priest training?”

“I don’t have divine power, but I have a power that can replace it.”

Tilda’s brow furrowed.

“The Turin tribe’s supernatural ability…?”

“Yes. Not a flimsy power like divine power, but a power that can overwhelm everything. It was this power that saved you yesterday as well.”

So it was the Turin tribe’s power that had expelled the poison and filled her body last night.

However, with this level of power, he was clearly no ordinary Turin.

“…Surely you’re not saying you’re the tribal father?”

“The tribe calls me that.”

Tilda had to force her weakening body to stay upright.

Tribal father meant the leader of the tribe.

For Tilda, who had lived her entire life as a faithful devotee of the goddess Valinea, the fact that the unholy Turin tribe’s power had entered her body was a hard truth to bear.

And she had spent a night of pleasure with the tribal father himself, and had her life saved by his power.

Having survived by demonic power, how could she ever return to the goddess Valinea’s embrace now?

Her resentment toward the demon who had defiled her was greater than any gratitude for saving her life.

“Your expression is more miserable than I expected.”

“…Why did you save me?”

For the first time, Cales did not answer immediately.

“Because I didn’t want you to die.”

“To use me as a puppet for the Turin tribe?”

Cales chuckled.

“A puppet… A Holy Maiden in my hands is appealing too, but I prefer a feisty cat.”

“If you’re not going to answer properly, I’ll keep my mouth shut as well.”

Tilda was growing increasingly angry at his persistently unserious attitude.

She was anxious and unable to stay still about how this situation had come to be, yet that cunning man kept playing word games.

Perhaps noticing Tilda’s attitude, Cales also wiped the smile from his face.

“Exactly as I said. I didn’t want you to die.”

“That’s not an answer.”

*Hmm.* Cales bent his brow and stroked his chin.

“Then I’ll answer that I needed you.”

“Why would the Turin tribe need me?”

Cales leaned his upper body forward, separating from the backrest. The robe enveloping his body hung down, revealing his solid, muscular chest.

“Tilda Valinea. Why do you think I went to all the trouble of wearing this ridiculous silver hair and priestly robes to become a High Priest?”

“…To bring down the High Temple.”

Cales laughed shortly.

“If that had been my goal, I would have long ago cut off your grandfather’s head and chewed it up.”

At his graphic expression, Tilda involuntarily swallowed short breaths.

Indeed, the power she had felt from him last night was overwhelming. She had never even heard of a power that could revive the dying and restore lost eyesight. It would more than surpass the Empire’s strongest divine power.

So his assumption was no bluff.

“The reason I became a High Priest was to meet the goddess Valinea.”

At the unexpected answer, Tilda’s tense expression crumbled.

“…To meet the goddess?”

“I wanted to meet the goddess and ask her.”

Cales rested his chin on his hand and gazed somewhere in the sky beyond the window. His eyes looked somehow dark.

“Why she hates our race so much. Why she gave us power that surpasses humans, yet at the same time placed a curse upon us.”

Tilda could not understand.

What Cales was curious about were things so fundamental that even a child in the Empire would know them.

The Turin tribe had long used their given abilities to kill people, indulge in pleasure, and throw the world into chaos.

People feared them, and in the end, the temple carried out large-scale purges.

But they were never completely uprooted, and like Cales, they changed their hair and eye colors to hide and live among people.

This was the first time she had heard they were cursed by the goddess, but wouldn’t the goddess have simply punished the wicked?

Then Cales asked Tilda a question.

“Holy Maiden, do you happen to know of the curse that afflicts the Turin tribe?”