How Could the Villainous Young Master Be a Saintess?

“How ridiculous. Scum as rotten as you lot still have to wrap yourselves in the banner of the Goddess and the Saintess. What a noble-looking act.”

“So what, you want this young master to sell out the benefactor who saved my whole family in our darkest hour just for wealth and glory?”

“You white hats really do love judging others by yourselves. You think everyone in this world is as cold-blooded and shameless as you are.”

“Didn’t you want an answer from this young master? Fine. This is my answer. Open your eyes and look closely.”

As he spoke, Vinny raised a thumb at the cardinal.

Then he slowly turned it upside down.

The contempt on his face was blatant. A fleck of spit flew as he sneered, the air of a notorious young master radiating off him in full.

“Pah! You unforgivable bastards, you parasites crawling in a filthy ditch. Even a rotten young master like me feels sick looking at you.”

“You want this young master to work with you? To obediently become your puppet on a string? Fuck off. Dream on. What, did you wake up halfway through a dream and start babbling the first thing still left in your head?”

“This young master’s spine doesn’t bend as low as yours.”

After that whole barrage from Vinny, the hall fell silent for a moment.

Vera and the cardinal exchanged a look in secret.

“Ah...” The cardinal sighed. “Young Master Vinny, why bother? As expected, you’re still too young. Too inexperienced. Too sharp-edged. Too ruled by impulse. When you’re older, when life has worn those edges down, you’ll understand how fickle the world is. The world is complicated. It was never painted in only black and white.”

“What you’re doing now won’t change anything.” The cardinal shook his head.

“My ass,” Vinny said coldly, glaring at him. “I can’t even be bothered to argue righteousness with trash like you. The world isn’t just black and white? Sure. But doesn’t that only make you even more hopelessly stupid? Even a five-year-old knows anything tainted by the Demon Pillars is something you absolutely don’t touch. But you people somehow don’t.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re worse than a five-year-old. Avoiding harm and seeking advantage is human instinct. At this point, whether you even count as human is still up for debate.”

“Tainted by the Demon Pillars?” the cardinal said, lifting his eyes. “Young Master Vinny, isn’t the one tainted by the Demon Pillars you?”

“Otherwise, what power was it that got you into Carillian Academy?”

“Forget it. This young master can’t be bothered wasting words on bastards like you anymore.” Vinny removed the earring from his ear, and it transformed into [Frostfang]. “You want this young master to be your dog? Then I’ll answer you in two words: dream on.”

“You’re a cardinal of the Church of the Dawn, right? Huh? Still keeping that hood on? Why’s it pulled down so low? Ashamed to show your face? Just wait. I’m ripping that hood right off you. I’m going to smack you in the face.”

Vinny spat out one threat after another, but inside, he was completely calm.

He knew full well that he couldn’t win in a real fight.

His priority right now was escape.

Fighting could only be symbolic. He had to put on the posture of someone ready to drag them all down with him, make them think he intended to fight to the bitter end. That way, when he made his break for it, they might be caught off guard.

Of course, the odds of success were pitifully low.

Any clergyman who could rise to cardinal started at the Master realm, above Magus. Every small tier there crushed countless people in its bottleneck, and there were two entire major realms between Magus and Master.

Vinny wasn’t the only one who had clawed his way upward with his own hands. The man across from him had reached this position with his own strength too. Would an old fox like that really fail to see through a trick as shallow as this?

The chance was too small.

Vinny was surrounded on all sides, trapped in someone else’s territory. The pressure doubled.

But no matter how slim the chance, he had to try.

It was the only method he could think of right now.

“Miss Vera—or maybe I should call you Your Majesty the Queen—if you don’t trust me, I can understand that. After all, I’m a notorious young master. But if you actually believe these bastards completely, then all I can say is that you’re far too shallow for a queen. The elves are this xenophobic, yet you’re pinning your hopes for revival on a madman who’d even dare work with followers of a Demon Pillar to get what he wants. If that’s the case, then you’re a complete fool too.”

Vinny shot Vera a glance over his shoulder and spoke bluntly.

Vera said nothing. She only watched him in silence, utterly unmoved.

The cardinal and the Radiant Cross Knight at his side both watched Vinny as well, seemingly in no hurry to make a move.

That kind of ease...

It was as if Vinny had already become a turtle in a jar.

And in truth, that was exactly what he was.

His situation was terrible.

But he was never going to yield like this.

Since entering Carillian Academy, how many times had he already faced crises like this? If he had chosen to give up every time, he never would have made it this far. He would have died long ago.

Vinny tightened his grip on the ice spear in his hand.

Every single time, he had only survived by struggling with everything he had.

This time too, he would never give up on that razor-thin sliver of life.

“Young Master Vinny, why can’t you understand?” the cardinal asked, staring at him deeply. “This is a chance where both sides win. Don’t you see that?”

“Young Master Vinny, if you had ever lived within the Church, you would know that I have never been a patient man. The reason I’ve been so patient with you—why I’ve explained all the pros and cons to you so carefully—is simply because I admire you.”

“I see my younger self in you. Back then, I was just like you—naive, convinced that as long as I wanted something badly enough, events would move in the direction I wished. But reality proved otherwise. Before the tide of the world, every person is no more than a grain of dust.”

“I am patient with you only because I want to set right a young man who, like I once did, has strayed onto the wrong path and is stubbornly walking it to the end.”

“What is called growth is nothing more than one long chain of regret. It is realizing just how foolish your former self was. I believe that one day, Young Master Vinny, you too will realize this. You’ll understand that the struggle and decisions of your current self are meaningless—that you are incapable of changing anything.”

“A person still has to live in reality. If you want to do anything at all, you need to stay alive first, don’t you?”

There was a layer of meaning buried in the cardinal’s words now, but Vinny had no time to analyze it carefully.

At that moment, he was frantically flipping through his Virtue Shop, trying to strengthen himself on the spot.

He pulled up the [Virtue] item section.

The free item had already refreshed, but obviously, he couldn’t be lucky every single time and just happen to roll a free item that could help him—let alone one that could get him through a situation like this.

Looks like that last [Telepathy Scroll] really had burned through what little luck he had left.

This time, the free item in the [Virtue] item shop was a bottle of skin lotion.

Completely useless.

And Vinny didn’t even have time to look at the other items. The Church’s lapdogs were watching every tiny movement he made. If they noticed him standing there dazed for too long, they’d definitely realize something was wrong.

Looks like he couldn’t count on [Virtue] items.

As for the Virtue Tree, there wasn’t time to spend points on it now, and he didn’t believe that learning a few more spells would make any difference with the gap this wide anyway.

“It seems there is no longer any way for me to persuade you through words, Young Master Vinny.” The cardinal lifted his gaze. “Very well. The power of words has always been frail to begin with. To carry out the will of the Goddess and justice, I don’t mind using a more direct method to make you understand.”

As he spoke, the cardinal lightly tapped the floor with his staff.

Several radiant swords of light immediately formed above Vinny’s head and came crashing down.

[Holy Judgment Baptism]

Vinny’s eyes widened.

The swords of light were too fast—far too fast—and they were descending straight from above him. He had no room to dodge.

At this point, he could only choose to resist with magic and reduce the damage as much as possible.

He used [Ice Skin].

BOOM! BOOM!!

The swords of light smashed down onto the crimson carpet, erupting again and again in pure light energy.

“My apologies, Lady Vera. I’ve dirtied your holy sanctuary,” the cardinal said, one hand resting over his chest as he apologized to the steadily seated Vera.

“It’s fine. As long as you know your measure, Bishop,” Vera said meaningfully.

Radiance swirled.

The light energy gradually dispersed.

A figure wrapped in thick, ornate plating stood there with both hands braced on the spear, kneeling on one knee as though he might collapse at any moment if he stopped supporting himself.

He was still alive?

No.

Vinny saw the cardinal’s expression.

There was no change in it. No surprise at all.

Vinny tightened his grip on the ice spear, and through the chaos and the dimming haze swallowing his consciousness, he understood what had happened.

The gap in realm was too vast. His magic’s resistance had been almost negligible.

The reason he was still alive was not because he had gotten lucky.

Nor because his spell had been powerful.

It was because the other man had held back by a huge margin.

That cardinal had deliberately controlled the spell so it landed off target, carefully setting the force at a level that wouldn’t blast him to death. It hadn’t struck him directly at all—only the aftershock had jolted him. Added to the damage reduction from [Ice Skin], that was the only reason he was still alive.

Killing an enemy far weaker than oneself was not the greatest proof of skill.

The real mastery was injuring them without killing them.

That proved the caster’s control over magic was terrifying—and that his understanding of spellcraft was far beyond what ordinary people could reach.

When the aftershock from the light swords hit Vinny, [Armor Fortress] hadn’t protected him in the slightest.

Just like every other time, it had been pierced straight through.

Even though Vinny had kept his face covered with [Armor Fortress], doing everything he could to make it look like he was still holding on, would a master-realm expert like the cardinal really not know what state he was in?

“Young man, your breathing is disordered now. Your consciousness is fading. Even the mana in your body won’t respond anymore.” The cardinal slowly raised one hand. “You couldn’t even take a single move from me. In that condition, what right do you have to talk about your own wishes?”

“All wishes are built on the foundation of being strong enough yourself. Only then do you qualify to negotiate. As you are now, you’re only a child who entered the Academy one year ago. You live in your own little world and, relying only on your own imagination, convince yourself you can change the current state of things—without ever once glimpsing the most vicious reaches of this world.”

“The most vicious reaches?” Vinny lowered his head slightly and fell silent.

The strength gap really was too overwhelming.

Vinny realized that the cardinal had not merely controlled the attack so it injured him to the exact point where he could no longer resist.

He had shattered his bones and his mana channels too.

Vinny couldn’t move.

He couldn’t draw on mana.

It was surgical external destruction—an attack as precise as a scalpel. Which points to strike, where the aftershock would land, where it would break Vinny’s mana channels just right—he knew all of it with perfect clarity.

“And what makes you think... I haven’t seen vicious places myself?”

Blood seeped from the gaps in his armor.

Vinny trembled violently, forced his shaking knees to move, and used [Frostfang] to lever himself off the ground and stand.

The cardinal and Vera both frowned as they watched.

The force the cardinal had used should have left Vinny unable to resist.

Had he made a mistake?

The Radiant Cross Knight at the side did not think so.

He knew this cardinal. They had worked together for many years.

He knew the man had never once missed.

And if that were the case, then there was only one explanation left.

This blue-haired young man had forced himself back to his feet through sheer willpower alone.

“Boy, if you keep this up, your bones are going to break completely. By then, even I might not be able to heal you,” the cardinal said with a frown. “Must you really suffer more before you’re willing to sit down and talk to us properly? Why bother?”

“Tch. Is this... all?” Vinny’s breathing was already extremely weak. Even speaking came out in broken fragments. The pain in his flesh was enough to suffocate him, as if fine silver needles were being driven into every pore of his body.

“Ah... haha. So this is what it feels like to be hit by light magic? It really does... feel completely different from getting hit by fire magic.”

“...”

At that, even the cardinal fell silent.

“You really piss me off... you old bastard,” Vinny said through gritted teeth. “You dare call this young master a brat? Say I’ve never seen the world?”

“Who the hell are you looking down on?”

“I’ve been through more life-and-death hells than I can count! This young master wasn’t even afraid of the Demon Pillars, and you think I’d kneel to you?!”

Right now, Vinny desperately wanted to strike back with magic.

But standing up was already his limit.

His magic power was draining out of him in a frenzy, like oil spilling from a punctured tank.

Was this where it ended?

What a joke.

The notorious young master of Camella Royal Capital had lost before. He had backed down before.

But he had never given up.

Scene after scene from the past rose before his eyes. Every narrow escape, every moment balanced over the abyss, all of it became the fuel driving this final stand with his back to the wall.

“Don’t you dare look down on me!”

With the last of his strength, Vinny flung out his hand.

A faint, icy gleam spread across his palm, and a chain of ice shot out.

This was his last chance.

A surprise strike—launched at the exact moment they all believed he had already been beaten into total helplessness.

A flash of surprise passed through the cardinal’s eyes.

But it lasted less than half a second.

In the very next instant, that ice chain—so unstable it could not even maintain its own aim—was knocked flying away by a powerful curtain of light.