Chapter 14
“Elisha, promise me one thing. If that man asks you to possess someone, throw him out immediately. If he does that, then he really intends to...”
“Use me as a disposable tool, right?”
Sohee was a little surprised by how calmly yet firmly Elisha said it.
Even so, Sohee could not help warning her one more time.
No matter how fictional their relationship was, Dylan was still someone who had controlled Elisha mentally for a very long time.
“If he threatens you, forces you, begs you, or even so much as raises a hand against you, call me immediately. I’m the person in charge here, and I have a duty to protect my customers. I’ll protect you. No matter what.”
Elisha gave her a bitter smile.
“I only get to hear something like that after I’m already dead.”
With those words, Elisha went into her room.
Nearly an hour had passed since then.
Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, Elisha had not asked Sohee for any help.
“Stop pacing around. You’re making me dizzy.”
“She’ll be okay, right?”
“She must be okay if she hasn’t called you.”
Sohee knew that in her head.
Still, she could not calm down.
“I already told him I’d never allow possession. What if he’s trying to pressure her into regression or reincarnation instead? As long as he can somehow send her back and achieve what he wants...”
“That’s still something Elisha has to decide for herself.”
“...Right.”
Sohee sighed and continued pacing around the lobby.
Then suddenly, she sensed something strange.
She looked up toward the second floor.
A blue light had begun spreading from somewhere upstairs, flowing all the way down the staircase.
“What is that...?”
“Aaaaaaargh!”
A terrible scream exploded through the building.
Sohee did not even stop to think.
She immediately rushed upstairs toward Elisha’s room.
“Elisha! Elisha!”
A blinding blue light was pouring through the cracks around the door.
Sohee hurriedly grabbed the doorknob and pulled, but the door was locked from the inside.
“No! You can’t do this, Elisha!”
If someone caused serious trouble in Wicheon, their character would be deleted.
They would disappear from everyone’s memories, and even from the story they had originally appeared in.
The entire life they had struggled so hard to endure would simply vanish.
Sohee could not wait any longer.
She slammed her fist into the doorknob.
Crack!
The handle shattered, leaving a round hole in the door.
She immediately pushed it open.
“Elisha! Stop right now...!”
Sohee froze while gripping the broken door.
Elisha’s beautiful silver hair was whipping wildly around her.
Blue light covered her entire body.
And from her right hand, an enormous sphere of glowing power kept pouring out without pause.
“Aaaaaaargh! My leg! Ughhh!”
As if she could not even hear Dylan screaming, Elisha slowly turned her head toward Sohee.
“Sohee?”
“...Elisha.”
Elisha’s eyes widened when she saw her.
Sohee had only run from the first floor to the second, yet her forehead was covered in sweat, and the doorknob had been completely destroyed.
Sohee hesitantly stepped into the room.
“Elisha, calm down. This is... this is Wicheon. The laws here are really strict.”
“...?”
“If you hurt someone, then you really will...!”
As Sohee hurriedly poured out her warning, Elisha finally seemed to understand.
Then she let out a small laugh.
“Is that why you rushed up here like this?”
“...Why are you making that face? Don’t tell me you’ve decided to give up on everything and settle this once and for all.”
“Settle this? What are you talking about?”
With a single movement of Elisha’s hand, Dylan screamed again.
He was sitting stiffly on the sofa, unable to move at all under the crushing force of her immense holy power.
“Owner! Save me...!”
“I’m healing him.”
Healing?
Sohee’s gaze naturally shifted toward the huge mass of blue energy.
That was holy power?
Sohee knew Elisha was a saintess, but she had no way of confirming whether that terrifying energy was really holy power.
And hearing Dylan scream like he was dying only made her more nervous.
What if Elisha was pretending it was holy power and was actually trying to get rid of him?
What if she was planning to destroy herself along with him?
Sohee stood there, unsure what to do.
Then a familiar voice faintly reached her from far away.
“It is holy power. She is healing his leg.”
Only after hearing the Moon Jar’s confirmation did Sohee relax a little.
Elisha proudly raised her shoulders.
“Good medicine is supposed to taste bitter.”
“Who... Who heals someone like this?!”
“Oh, right. I forgot to tell you. While I’m at it, I thought I’d heal my wounded heart too.”
At the same time, Elisha poured even more holy power into his leg.
Calling it healing was one thing.
From the outside, it looked more like she was repeatedly smashing a massive boulder against Dylan’s leg.
Thud! Thud!
Each heavy impact made Dylan’s face turn blue, then white, over and over again.
“Don’t worry and go back downstairs. Regression, possession, and reincarnation may be your specialty, but healing is mine.”
After saying that, Elisha moved even closer to Dylan.
The moment he saw her smiling face, Dylan began sweating heavily and tightly grabbed the armrest of the sofa.
“I’ll make sure this leg is completely healed, Father.”
“Aaaaaaargh!”
That was enough for Sohee.
She quietly closed the broken door.
Though with the way it fluttered around like a curtain, it did absolutely nothing to block the screams.
How much time had passed?
Eventually, the screaming stopped.
A short while later, Elisha came out of the room with her usual graceful and proud expression.
“The treatment went well. Father should come out once he regains consciousness.”
Elisha went down to the first-floor lobby.
Not long after that, Dylan suddenly burst out of the room.
Heavy, angry footsteps echoed through the staircase as he came down, breathing furiously.
“I’m reporting this! I’m going to report every single one of you!”
Elisha looked at him with a mocking smile.
“For what?”
Then she added,
“For healing the leg you’ve been limping on your entire life?”
“Y-You... You demon!”
“That hurts. Weren’t you the one who said there was no saintess like me?”
Dylan glared at Elisha, but he could not do anything to her.
She really had healed his leg.
If he harmed Elisha now, he would only create problems for himself.
He looked around at everyone gathered in the lobby and muttered a curse.
“You’re all completely insane! You’re running a regression, possession, and reincarnation service in a place like this? You don’t even understand the situation you’re in. Even if I do nothing, this place will collapse soon enough!”
Dylan spat on the floor and turned away.
His mood was terrible, but his footsteps were incredibly light.
That only seemed to make him even angrier.
“Wait.”
Elisha called out to him.
He stopped.
“You’ve been here for quite a while. Are you planning to leave without paying the consultation fee?”
“C-Consultation fee?! Since when was there such a thing?!”
It felt as though a storm had just passed through.
Elisha was the one who had used all that power, but somehow Sohee was the one who felt completely drained.
The Regression, Possession, and Reincarnation Motel did not normally charge consultation fees.
If they charged people just for talking, no one would ever come inside.
However, Elisha had no intention of letting Dylan leave after all the trouble he had caused Sohee.
And as payment...
Ten rings covered in glittering gemstones were now lined up across the lobby table.
Before Dylan left, Elisha had threatened him with another round of “healing.”
“Father, your stomach isn’t very healthy either. Would you like me to heal that too? You might cough up a little blood, though.”
That had been enough to make him hand over the rings.
Elisha let out a satisfied sigh and looked at Sohee.
“This should be enough as a nuisance-customer consultation fee, right?”
“...Which one of you was the nuisance customer?”
At this moment, there were no nuisance customers.
There was only a slightly sensitive VIP customer.
Sohee picked up the sparkling rings with both hands.
“If every customer pays like this, I could handle ten people a day. They can throw as many tantrums as they want.”
“Haha.”
Sohee finally pulled her eyes away from the jewels and looked at Elisha.
For the first time since arriving here, Elisha was laughing out loud.
There was still a smile in her eyes when she asked,
“My healing skills were pretty good, weren’t they?”
“Yes. They were amazing, but... are you normally supposed to heal people like that?”
“Of course not. You’re supposed to carefully control the power so the patient can endure it.”
“I knew something felt strange. So, do you feel better now?”
“Yes. Much better.”
For just a moment, a spark of genuine joy seemed to shine in eyes that had always looked lifeless.
The sensitive and hysterical Elisha from before was nowhere to be seen.
Now there was only a gentle smile on her face, as if all the poison and bitterness inside her had finally drained away.
Then Elisha spoke.
“I’ve made my decision. I want to disappear.”
Her expression looked completely at peace.
“I believe what you said. If I want to return, regression is probably the right choice. But... I still don’t want to regress.”
“I see.”
Sohee nodded as though she understood Elisha’s true feelings.
Then Elisha continued.
“I realized I love Cedric much more than I thought.”
Cedric was the biggest reason she had given up on regression.
She only had one chance to choose between regression, possession, and reincarnation, so Elisha had looked deeper into her own heart than ever before.
But no matter how many times she thought about what she truly wanted...
Cedric was always waiting at the end.
A life without Cedric.
Do I really need a life like that?
If she went back in time, could she really see Cedric and simply walk past him?
The story had already decided that he would abandon her and choose the true saintess.
So perhaps she could reject him first.
Perhaps she could tell him they should never meet again.
Could she really turn her back on him like that?
Elisha knew herself well.
She knew she could never do it.
