Bộ Sưu Tập Tội Lỗi Của Vị Linh Mục Ngoan Đạo - Chương 40

Là lúc anh khoảng chín hay mười hai tuổi.

Ngày đó nắng unusually rực rỡ. Ngược lại với những suy nghĩ u ám weighing on his heart, ánh nắng chói lọi scattered over the river’s surface.

“Anh đang khóc à?”

Startled by the sudden voice, Theodore looked up. A round-faced girl was looking down at him. She seemed to be about ten years old. Her loosely tied brown hair and turquoise eyes caught his attention.

“Huh? I thought you were crying, but you’re not. What are you doing here?”

Since arriving at the convent, most people had treated him with unnerving kindness, almost as if they feared him. But this girl wore a slightly mischievous expression. Her sparkling turquoise eyes shone like the glimmering ripples on the riverbank.

He wondered whether they had met before.

Theodore once again buried his face between his knees. When he didn’t answer, the girl giggled.

“You’re pretty, but your personality is a pain in the a**, huh?”

”…Are you saying my personality is bad?”

“Yeah. I asked you something, but you didn’t answer. But it’s okay. You’re pretty.”

“…”

What a strange girl.

When he glared at her with a grumpy look, the girl giggled. Without hesitation, she moved closer, pressing her side against him, but he subtly pulled away. The girl, undeterred, asked,

“Hey, what’s your name?”

”…”

“Hmph.”

When he continued to ignore her, the girl stood up from her seat, scanning the ground for some stones. She picked up a flat, thin rock and started skipping it across the river.

Plunk… plunk.

“Ah, so close.”

The stone that had briefly jumped above the surface of the water then sank, and the once confident girl’s mood shifted. What is she doing? Theodore glanced at her actions, then lowered his head, burying his face between his knees again.

What does it matter what she does? He had disappointed his religious instructor again today.

Though he had managed to grasp the basics in other subjects, why couldn’t he properly use the most important skill?

It didn’t stop there. Theodore overheard him speaking with the other clerics, lamenting about me.

They said that even if he was blessed by the Father, what good was having immense divine power if he could not even control it?

They expressed their disappointment, believing he should have realized the value of being confined, grateful for the life he had in the convent. Instead, they remarked that he seemed unable to feel the Holy Spirit within himself, questioning whether he even had a modicum of faith. But it was these words that stung the most — It’s like putting pearls on a pig’s neck.

Plop, plop…

It wasn’t that he wasn’t grateful towards the Father for choosing him to be blessed with such power. The truth was that he simply couldn’t believe it was so.

Though he had been made to stay in the temple, he still dreamed of being trapped in an underground room — consuming the hard bread and burnt-tasting soup someone had left behind, greedily devouring it only to vomit moments later.

In those dreams, he was a sinner.

The second son, born into a family doomed to ruin. Like many noble families, House Valentino was one that prioritized the firstborn son. However, unlike other families who sought to have many children, theirs believed in having only one firstborn per generation. Every time a second son or beyond was born, it was regarded to herald an inevitable decline.

In such a family, born as the younger of twins, he was originally destined to die at birth. But then…

The Father desires Valentino’s son.

It was Cardinal Clement I, now the Pope, who gave the message that he was to be consecrated to God, thus sparing his life.

He came to learn this truth only after leaving the underground room and entering the temple. Until then, he had simply existed in that windowless basement, breathing but otherwise forgotten.

Plop, plop…

There was a woman who would sometimes come to visit him — his birth mother.

She would often mutter that he shouldn’t be alive for his brother’s sake, and that it was something they shouldn’t be doing. Then, on some days, she’d apologize, while on others, she would repeat that he should be grateful for at least being allowed to keep his life.

So, how could he not be thankful for the comforts of his current life — a warm bed and freshly prepared meals each day?

All of this is the grace of the Father, so how could he not have faith?

But why? Why can’t I be of use? They say I have the power of the divine, but why can’t I use it?

What happens if he truly fails and he proves to be a waste of the Father’s blessing?

‘Am I going to be a waste?’

If he was useless, does that mean he couldn’t live in the temple anymore? Will he have to return to that dark underground room again?

‘I don’t want to go back.’

How can I not go back?

What should I do…

“Ah, damn it…! Why can’t I do it?”

A grumbling voice broke his thoughts.