“What’s the matter, Lark?”
Elaine asked with as little emotion as possible, but Lark’s feelings were not the same when he met Elaine for the first time in a long time.
‘Is Elaine this pretty…?’
He squinted his eyes to look at Elaine again, wondering if he had seen things wrong, but Lark’s eyes were not wrong.
Perhaps because she was a young girl just beginning to blossom, Elaine was gradually shedding her childishness and revealing a more mature beauty.
Her body, which had been skinny during her time in Newt, had soft curves in the year and a half she’d spent in the temple, and her cheeks, which had been rosy, were as sweet as a juicy peach.
The eyes that were always looking down were now looking straight ahead, making him realize that those clear peridot-colored eyes were so pretty, and most of all, the lips that seemed to be filled with flower water were. To be honest, it was hard to take his eyes off it.
“Lark…?”
Lark, who had been staring at Elaine’s lips for a moment, came to his senses at Elaine’s urging.
“Ah…I have a lot of work to do these days…I was lost in thought for a moment.”
“Why did you come all the way here when you’re so busy?”
“Because that busy work includes yours.”
Lark still felt resistance to Elaine’s sharp tone, but he avoided eye contact, not wanting to fight.
“Me?”
“You’re eighteen this year. You should debut in society before it’s too late.”
“What…?”
A shallow furrow appeared between Elaine’s eyebrows.
“What are you surprised about? I told you before. I’m going to make you debut in high society.”
“Are you seriously trying to sell me?”
Even the sight of Elaine, who seemed to be holding back her anger while pursing her pretty lips, was somehow lovely.
Lark was confused as his head suddenly started to have strange thoughts.
‘I find even this arrogant attitude cute. I guess I’ve become more tolerant.’
He realized that he had been merciless to his younger siblings but was lenient only towards Elaine.
“That’s harsh, Elaine. It’s only natural for a noble young lady to make her debut in high society, whether for marriage or to become A member of noble society.”
“A member of noble society? You don’t really think that’s possible, do you, Lark?”
Elaine asked back in bewilderment, but Lark pretended not to hear and talked about something else.
“Ellie will also debut this year, so you can both debut with my mother as chaperones.”
“Aunt will be my chaperone? That doesn’t make sense!”
Lark’s plan was ridiculous.
If Countess Newt, who hated Elaine, were to manage both her daughter’s debut and Elaine’s debut at the same time, the results would certainly be dire for Elaine.
The attire, including the dress and accessories, would be very different from Ellie’s, and no matter what kind of banquet it would be, Elaine would be left behind like a sack of barley.
“Or, you can attend as Martin’s partner.”
“Martin? Are you saying that because you don’t know how much Martin hates me?”
“I can be your partner. It might be different if it were before the engagement.”
“Being your partner is something I never wanted in the first place!”
Lark’s eyebrows twitched slightly, but Elaine had no interest in Lark’s reaction.
“I don’t want to debut. I don’t want to do it.”
“I don’t know if you’re still living in the attic, but since you’ve become a saint of our family, you must debut. For the honor of our family.”
“If it was so important, in the previous life, why didn’t you—!”
Elaine was about to ask, “Why didn’t you debut in your previous life?” but quickly shut her mouth.
However, Lark, who had no idea what Elaine was thinking, only thought that he had misheard the word ‘previous life’.
“I don’t intend to deny that my family was cruel to you. But it’s different now. If I hadn’t considered you a member of my family, I wouldn’t have sent you to the temple. I wish you would open up a little—”
“No, I don’t. My uncle and aunt would never approve of me. Don’t think I’m a child who doesn’t know anything, Lark.”
As Elaine knew about her past life, all of Lark’s excuses felt like lies.
How could she forget Rubein, who not only ignored her after he abandoned her in the temple, but also appeared and threatened her when she’d been dragged off to be sacrificed to the dragon?
But to someone who didn’t know that, Elaine might have seemed stubborn.
Lark also thought that Elaine’s rebellious period was not over yet.
“Anyway, your social debut is at the end of this year.”
Once again, Lark had left her with a one-sided notice.
‘I absolutely hate that. My debut with my aunt as my chaperone.….’
Elaine shivered with goosebumps.
‘I hated debuting in the social circle itself, but what I hated most was debuting with Newt as the background.’
It would make them look like a family that cared about their niece, a disgrace to the family name.
Elaine returned to her room and thought about it for a while before finally making up her mind.
‘Let’s get out of the temple. And Newt’s too.’
She wanted to wait until Rabes was ready, but if she stayed until the end of the year, she might have to make her social debut.
She didn’t want to end up like a cow being dragged to the cattle market.
‘If I refuse outright, they might drag me to the mansion and lock me up.’
When Lark said ‘I will take you home and lock you up’, he was definitely not joking.
Even if she was dragged back to Newt, she could be freed if she made a wish to Rabes, but Elaine, who wanted to stay with Rabes as long as possible, was not happy about using up another wish because of Lark.
‘I have to get out of the temple. But how do I do it right now?’
After becoming a saint, she had to obtain a pass even for a short outing. Without it, she could not leave the temple.
Of course, if she borrowed the power of Rabes, it would be easy to get out of there, but if she ran away like that without permission, it was obvious that something more troublesome would happen. Newt would also be desperate to find Elaine, saying that she had disgraced the family.
‘If I run away to a distant land or change my face with the power of Rabes, I won’t be caught, but then I’ll never be able to see my friends again.’
For a saint to run away from the temple was a great dishonor to the family, but also to the saint herself.
When Elaine imagined the disappointed looks on her friends’ faces, she couldn’t bring herself to run away.
The friends she had just made were Debbie, Avril, Danae, Melina, and Sergey.
In particular, Elaine really wanted to visit Sergey’s house at least once, because she wanted to go there and check on how Emily was doing.
‘I can’t just go out and make a fuss. I have to think of another way.’
From that day on, Elaine began to plot a way to leave the temple ‘legally’.
It’s not like there was no way at all.
There are quite a few saints who leave the temple before their coming-of-age ceremony due to reasons such as early marriage, serious illness, or moving to a foreign country or estate.
Elaine, who was heading to the next class while wondering which one would be good, suddenly stopped walking and took three steps back.
One notice on a bulletin board with various news items caught Elaine’s attention.
Notice of Written and Oral Exam for a Chaplain Service.
‘Yes! There was a Dedicated chaplain service!’
Elaine’s eyes lit up with joy.
A chaplain was a special saint who lived in the mansions of noblemen and helped them with their prayers.
Of course, nobles might want to have a priest as their chaplain, but priests were never allowed to reside in noble residences.
It was the Vatican’s intention to keep religion from being swayed by money and power, although corruption still occurred.
In any case, families with strong religious beliefs wanted to leave prayers to those who had studied theology professionally, and so a chaplain service emerged as a compromise.
Although saints were different from priests or clergy, they were educated in theology, and since they were not clergy, they were not prohibited from moving into other noble families and becoming chaplains.
In deeply religious families, if the family liked the chaplain, they would often marry the priest to a child of the family, so many saints wanted to become chaplains for that purpose.
‘How did I forget this? I wanted so badly to be a chaplain in my previous life.’
Elaine laughed in disbelief at how she had so quickly forgotten her previous life.
In her previous life, she had tried to leave the temple as a dedicated chaplain.
However, when Elaine told Newt that she wanted to take the chaplain service exam, Newt naturally opposed it, telling her not to think of anything ridiculous, and from then on, even when she applied to take the exam without reporting to Newt, she had been rejected for some strange reason.
‘I was stupid, why did I tell them I was taking the test, what did I expect?’
Elaine once again blamed herself for being naive and foolish in her past life.
But what mattered was this life.
The exam for chaplains was in some ways more difficult than the exam for priests. Some failed the written exam, which asked for simple theological knowledge, but many failed the oral exam, which required memorization of at least 45 prayers.
Since it took four years to learn the 45 prayers, the examination was reserved for those who entered the temple at the age of fifteen and those who did not return home until their twenties.
Elaine had only been a Saint for two years. Who would have thought that she would pass the examination for a chaplain service?
But Elaine was confident she would pass.
‘I have the entire prayer memorized!’
There are 65 prayers recorded in the scriptures, and few saints can memorize them all.
But Elaine had spent ten years in the temple in her previous life desperately memorizing them for her scholarship, and by the time she was twenty, she was good enough to work as an assistant priest for novice priests.
‘This time, it was time to seize the opportunity I had missed in my previous life.’
Elaine ran straight to the temple office to apply for the chaplain exam.
Since it was the last day, many saints came to apply for the exam. They all seemed to have been living in the temple for a long time and they all looked quite old.
A chaplain was the last escape route for saints who were pushed by their families to become priests or whose families were ruined.
Their situation was not all that different from hers, but Elaine was in no position to consider other people’s circumstances.
As it was a place with fierce competition, the gazes directed at Elaine, who came to fill out the application form, were not very kind.
* * *
