Chapter 67 : The Past is Like a Cemetery 4 - Teresa Kaitlyn

The moment I, the Saintess of the Dead, began fighting against the Demon King's army, the tide of the war began to change.

And around two years later, we started reclaiming the lands that had been taken by the Demon King's army and the hordes of malevolent forces.

Even the descendants of the fallen Mercenary Kingdom in the south and the eastern empire beyond the continent started taking up their swords again, as if they saw hope in humanity.

Five years passed, and we completely drove the Demon King's army out of human territory.

Not a single rebellious demon was left behind, all sent off to the right hand of the nameless god in the sky.

The Saintess of the Dead, who once clung to Menelapie crying for comfort, had become someone who slaughtered the Demon King's forces alone on blood-soaked lands by the fifth year.

"Send them to the god. What happens next is for the god to decide," I murmured as I fought.

Does it sound too cruel?

Ah, I suppose it might.

At first, I also wondered if the demons invaded human lands just to survive.

Perhaps humans had persecuted the demons or encroached on their lands, sparking the war?

Couldn't we, as intelligent beings, resolve this through dialogue?

But that thought vanished within three days of participating in the war.

There was no need to show them compassion or mercy.

The demons were not individuals but mere terminals of the great, malignant entity that was the Demon King.

And I am the Saintess of the Dead.

Even though I stand in an ambiguous position between life and death, I can still comfort the souls of others and honor their spirits.

In fact, I was required to attend and recite blessings at major religious ceremonies and memorials in the empire.

But to return to the point, the demons had no souls to comfort.

It's not that they were evil and therefore lacked souls.

They were truly soulless, born as nothing more or less than the terminals of the Demon King.

They had intelligence, but no rationality.

Without rationality, they had no sense of ethics or morality, nor any concept of right and wrong.

Honestly, I think I started to feel an infinite rage toward the Demon King and his minions the moment I saw them tearing humans apart like toys, devouring them, and discarding the remains like garbage.

Anyway, by the fifth year of my participation in the war, Menelapie and I had completely driven the demons out of human lands.

And after enjoying a few years of brief respite and peace, the great war resumed.

This time, the Demon King wasn't invading us.

We were the ones marching to eradicate the Demon King.

The Demon King's behavior was predictable.

He would gather strength, amass armies, sow the seeds of discord and confusion among humans, and then return to reap his harvest when the time was right.

That cycle had repeated endlessly until I, the Saintess of the Dead, was awakened into this world.

Humans resisted, but countless kingdoms and innumerable lives were lost.

Menelapie's empire had become the last bastion of humanity.

Later, Menelapie told me that without me, she could very well have been humanity's final empress.

Whether that was a joke or the truth, I don't know, but in any case, defeating the Demon King's army didn't mean we could let our guard down.

Even though the scars of war hadn't healed and many had died or were injured, everyone knew.

This was the moment when the Demon King was at his weakest in history.

If we missed this opportunity, the Demon King would gather his strength again and torment humanity once more.

So while we outwardly enjoyed a brief peace, behind the scenes, all of humanity was preparing for a new great war against the Demon King.

It was during this time that I met Teresa.

Ah, I've talked a lot about Menelapie, but I haven't properly introduced Teresa, have I?

Teresa, let's see.

Her full name is Teresa Katrin.

As I mentioned before, Teresa was a witch.

But she wasn't just any ordinary witch.

While Menelapie was called the strongest warrior and hero, Teresa was known as the strongest and greatest witch.

She wasn't just any witch.

She was a black witch, one who practiced forbidden and evil sorcery.

Some even called her the Demon King's right hand.

You see, Teresa wasn't on the side of humanity.

In fact, she was the closest confidant of the Demon King and controlled vast territories in his name.

Some even called her the Witch of Destruction out of fear.

"Um, Shia?"

"Yes?"

"I don't understand. During the last ethical review, you said this Teresa person fought against the Demon King alongside you, right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"But then why do you say she was the Demon King's right hand? Was she a human who betrayed humanity? Or did she once serve the Demon King and then betray him?"

At Choi Bomi's words, I couldn't help but smile.

Right, it did sound like a sudden shift in the story, didn't it?

Hearing about a witch who helped me kill the Demon King and save the world, only to then hear she was the Demon King's subordinate, would naturally cause confusion.

But my experience wasn't just a matter of sudden twists—it was a series of unbelievable days, one after another.

"Hehe, listen. I was about to explain that."

Teresa was a witch.

From the start, witches were never treated as humans.

The entire race was classified as "witches," facing both contempt and reverence.

But Teresa's Katrin family wasn't discriminated against for being witches.

The Katrin family was a prominent family in the empire, a noble house with a history spanning hundreds of years.

They even held high-ranking positions, such as overseeing the supply lines of the western front.

So, yes, Teresa was a noblewoman.

But before I awakened as the Saintess of the Dead, Teresa's family, the Katrin family, had been exterminated by Menelapie.

There had been accusations that the Katrin family was colluding with the Demon King.

It wasn't just a matter of treason by siding with another country.

Colluding with the Demon King, humanity's greatest enemy, was grounds for immediate execution.

It wasn't just a territorial dispute between humans—either the Demon King or humanity had to die for it to end.

Someone siding with the Demon King in such a competition for survival?

They'd be lucky if exterminating their family and house was all that happened.

Anyway, although the Katrin family wasn't actually in league with the Demon King, they were indeed researching forbidden magic.

And that forbidden magic originated from the Demon King.

At the time, the Katrin family had been on the verge of becoming traitors, seduced by that magic.

From Menelapie's perspective as empress, the Katrin family was like a festering wound that needed to be cut out.

I later learned that it was the Demon King's ploy to leak the forbidden magic to the Katrin family.

It was a strategy to weaken the family protecting the western front from within, making it easier to invade.

Ultimately, Teresa's parents, the heads of the Katrin family, were indeed researching the forbidden magic linked to the Demon King.

So, in the end, Menelapie exterminated the Katrin family.

Teresa, who had been traveling at the time and avoided the massacre, betrayed humanity out of fury for her family's annihilation and became the closest servant of the Demon King.

If we were to describe her role in human terms, she would have been one of the Demon King's Four Heavenly Kings.

In fact, Teresa had overpowered one of the Demon King's fingers and taken their place, offering human lands to the Demon King.

It was around that time she earned the infamous title of the Demon King's sinister left hand.

Ah, hearing this much makes her sound like a completely insane woman, doesn't it?

A traitor, a witch who betrayed humanity.

That's what I thought too, at first.

But there were strange things about her.

She was the witch who offered the most land to the Demon King… but apparently, Teresa didn't actually kill anyone herself.

The lands she claimed weren't particularly valuable from a human perspective.

They weren't fertile farmlands or resource-rich territories.

They were mostly barren wastelands or rugged mountains.

Large in size, but not causing any major losses.

Curious, I asked Menelapie about it.

"A black witch like her would know dozens of ways to kill humans far better than I do. She could turn human blood into mercury or create grotesque plagues that cause human cells to grow into insects. She likely knows countless forbidden magics to pollute rivers and lands, or even ways to destroy human souls."

Teresa didn't rule over demons or even the Demon King's forces.

"Her cursed doll army is stitched together from the flesh of the diseased and the profaned souls.They take the form of humans, but there's nothing human about them. They are grotesque monstrosities so repulsive that even I have never confronted them directly."

When those dolls advanced, any living creature nearby would have its soul defiled, making it impossible for humans to approach.

Simply being near them caused humans' bodies to deform.

Even demons, regardless of their allegiance, would die or become twisted.

For anyone not on the superhuman level like me or Menelapie, the only option was to flee.

"But strangely, I've never seen that black witch actually kill a human."

Indeed, that was the case.

Although Teresa was called the sinister left hand of the Demon King, not a single person had ever witnessed her on the battlefield.

The great wars with the Demon King's army were endless, but if Teresa had ever participated, humanity's casualties would have been much greater, or we would have been pushed back before I even joined the war.

"Despite being called the Demon King's left hand, all she ever did was announce, 'We will attack here, at this time, on this date,' and then carry out her advance without any deception or trickery."

Because of the nature of the cursed doll army Teresa led, whenever such an honest declaration was made, humans would flee the area.

Once the humans safely evacuated, Teresa's doll army would occupy the empty lands.

"How many people do you think have died because of the black witch? Would you believe me if I told you that not a single proper battle ever took place?"

"I'm no fool. I can tell whether an announcement like 'We'll attack here' is truthful or a trick, and even if it were a ruse, I would have prepared for it."

"But that black witch never employed any such deception. Even a child would know by now that something was strange."

So, before the great war to sever the Demon King's head began, I started investigating Teresa myself.

It couldn't be a public investigation because the Demon King's eyes were everywhere.

What looked like an ordinary bird might actually be a monster controlled by the Demon King's parasite.

Every day, news came that officials who had served the empire for decades were found to be traitors in league with the Demon King.

If word spread that the empress intended to contact the human-born black witch, it wouldn't be good for either Menelapie or Teresa.

"But I'm not particularly clever. I'm not like Menelapie or Teresa, good at scheming and plotting."

So, I decided to do one of the few things I was capable of.

I disguised myself and went alone to the cursed territory where Teresa resided.

As the Saintess of the Dead, I was able to bypass Teresa's plague-ridden barriers and her doll army, which seemed intent on rejecting everything in this world, and find her.

"A healthy person coming here for the first time? Could you at least knock? Unless you've eaten your manners for lunch."

Surprisingly, Teresa appeared rather normal.

"Well, not human, right? I suppose Saintess of the Dead is the right title for you?"

Considering she was the black witch of plague and forbidden magic, I had expected her to look like the evil, hideous witches from fairy tales, with a crooked nose and a twisted face.

I thought she might at least be a plague-ridden old woman coughing her lungs out, but when I saw Teresa in person, she was truly beautiful.

First of all, her chest was similar to Nana's and Menelapie's.

Maybe she had a bit of a seductive streak, as she wore a surprisingly revealing dress.

According to her, it was a magic-infused ego dress, but to be honest, I didn't really believe it.

What I remember vividly is the long, dark purple hair reaching down to her ankles, and the provocative evening dress that revealed her thighs and cleavage like a temptress.

She had her forehead exposed, and sometimes I called her 'Foreheady,' which surprisingly suited her.

Anyway, Teresa didn't seem all that shocked to see me.

In fact, she said she expected me to come looking for her.

Originally, I planned to subdue her. If necessary, I was even prepared to kill her on the spot.

After all, she was a traitor who had betrayed humanity and an evil black witch.

Even if there were some odd things, if the infamy surrounding the black witch was true, I was ready for a brutal fight.

But when Teresa saw me, she just crossed her legs and sipped her tea with a calm expression, as if she had been waiting for this moment.

"What are you staring at? If you've come, do what you need to do."

"What makes you think I know what to do?"

"You've come to kill me, haven't you?"

No, she wasn't just calm—Teresa acted as if she fully deserved to die.

"Once you kill me, take that safe over there. Inside, you'll find information on the Demon King's army, abilities, weaknesses, maps of the land, and other anomalies related to the Demon King."

"How do I know that's real? What if there's a plague inside? And all the information is likely a deception, isn't it?"

Crash!

When I asked her suspiciously, Teresa immediately wrinkled her pretty forehead and threw the teacup she was holding.

"Then don't believe it, you damn bitch."

…Honestly, that was the first time I'd ever been cursed at in this world.

And I never imagined that such foul language would come from someone so beautiful.

"Goddamn, even when a big-chested whore helps you, you're still complaining."

"What… what?"

"If you're so pissed off, why don't you pry open the safe right here? Or take it to your emperor and have her verify it. Not my problem, bitch…"

Until then, whenever I made a mistake, Menelapie had always spoken to me kindly.

"Shia, you shouldn't do that," she would say, treating me like a parent would.

But suddenly, I was getting bombarded with such sharp insults right from our first encounter, and I was utterly bewildered.

Wait, isn't she supposed to be a noble lady?

I had heard that she was the last remaining daughter of the Katrin family, but the rough street thug language coming out of her mouth didn't match her appearance at all.

"Sigh, if you're going to kill me, just do it. I have no regrets…"

But I am the Saintess of the Dead.

I at least had the ability to discern lies.

And there wasn't a single lie in Teresa's words.

The detailed information about the Demon King's army was real, and her words about wanting to die without regrets were true as well.

So I asked Teresa.

Why are you doing this?

You betrayed humanity?

You're a traitor?

You're the closest aide to the Demon King, and now you feel guilty?

"I joined the Demon King because that bastard pisses me off, and I plan to blow everything up from the inside. Got a problem with that?"

"...."

"Shit, I came back from traveling to find that my entire family had been wiped out by the Demon King. My idiot parents got played by the Demon King and were killed by your holier-than-thou emperor. Life sucks… heh."

As she said that, Teresa laughed bitterly, as if she found her own miserable situation amusing.

"Why did I become the Demon King's hand? Because I had no hope left for humanity."

And that wasn't a lie either.

"Your emperor? Sure, she's strong enough that even the Demon King is wary of her, but she's not enough. You think the Demon King's army is the only enemy? There are traitors, backstabbers, looters, and all sorts of trash that preyed on their fellow humans during the war, handing over their lives to the Demon King. Even among the few who fought to the end, there was no unity. No matter how hard she tried, your emperor was reaching her limit."

That wasn't a lie either.

Menelapie had truly been fighting with everything she had, spitting blood to protect humanity before I joined the war.

Thinking back, I should have taken her hand and fought alongside her much sooner…

"So I thought, if I can't destroy them from the outside, I'll become a bomb inside and blow everything up."

In fact, from the moment Teresa joined the Demon King's army, she had been secretly planning to infiltrate their land, plant magic circles to destroy the ley lines, and even researched ways to banish the Demon King to another world.

Inside the safe, she had even developed spells that could detonate the main gathering points of the Demon King's forces all at once.

Thanks to Teresa being a human traitor who handed over vast territories to the Demon King, he was so satisfied that he didn't interfere too much with her actions.

"But then you showed up at the worst possible time, you big-chested saint?"

"…Big-chested saint?"

"Yeah, you, you dumb bitch. Don't play innocent with me, heh…"

Teresa chuckled, using magic to restore the broken teacup.

"Do you know what I'm good at? Forbidden research."

Oddly enough, I could sense sorrow and resentment in that laugh.

"No matter how much it rains or washes away, the sun rises and sets, and as the barren lands turn to muddy sludge and then bloom again, I kept measuring whether humanity could defeat the Demon King. I broke all taboos, conducting research. I searched for even the slightest possibility, but the conclusion was always the same. No matter how hard your emperor fought, in the end, she would be left alone, and humanity would be wiped out."

She said that the future of humanity, before I arrived, was always the same.

Defeat, destruction, annihilation.

The lands of the living would all turn into the territories of the malevolent forces.

"But the moment you appeared, that conclusion began to shake."

Crack!

Teresa broke her teacup again.

This time, she didn't drop it on the floor; she crushed it with her hand.

It felt like she was filled with anger, sorrow, and resentment.

The white hand of the black witch was cut by the shards, and blood began to flow.

"Why didn't you come sooner?"

"....."

I couldn't tell her it was because I was afraid.

There was a hint of tears in Teresa's eyes.

She knew she had crossed a point of no return.

Although she had avoided directly killing humans as much as possible and had even been kind enough to issue warnings so they could flee, the fact remained that Teresa had betrayed humanity and offered vast territories to the Demon King.

It was too late to turn back.

If I had appeared just a little sooner and turned the tide of the war… could Teresa have avoided pledging herself to the Demon King?

"…What's the point of saying this now? 'What ifs' are the most useless things…"

Saying that, Teresa tilted her head back, exposing her neck.

"Just do it. Kill me. Can you at least make it quick? If your emperor ordered me to be tortured, that would be a problem… it wouldn't be a clean death, would it? Shit, I can't even die easily."

Teresa pretended to be indifferent, but I knew she was deeply sad.

She never wanted to betray humanity.

She had become a villainous black witch, carrying out evil deeds with the intention of destroying the Demon King's army from within.

She had long since given up on saving her own life.

If Menelapie fought under the sun to protect humanity, then Teresa, as a wicked black witch, planned to eradicate the Demon King's forces.

Was that a decision someone could make in their right mind?

No one would have remembered a witch who wanted to save humanity, even if it meant becoming a demon.

Even if Teresa's plan had succeeded and humanity survived, the witch who saved them would have been remembered as nothing more than "the evil black witch who betrayed humanity for the Demon King."

She was truly willing to bear a thousand years of infamy and disgrace.

"Alright, I've made my decision."

"To kill me here? Oh, how merciful, I'm so touched I could cry."

No, there was never any need to agonize over it.

I just wanted to do what I felt like doing.

"…What are you doing?"

"Healing."

"Are you out of your mind? Are you making me pretty so I can die nicely? Or did the emperor's torturer request that I be delivered in good condition for a more painful execution?"

What I was thinking was this:

Just like someone had once reached out a hand to the cowardly, foolish me, I wanted to extend my hand to Teresa.

But unlike Menelapie, I wasn't good at eloquence or using impressive words.

"If you're going to throw your life away… could you give it to me?"

"…What?"

So I just spoke what was in my heart.

"Are you… are you an idiot? What the hell…"

"I'm a war hero. Apparently, I'm the second most popular person after the emperor."

"So what, you stupid bitch? That's not the issue here, and you know it…"

"So I'm asking for a favor. I'll do anything to save you."

"...."

Teresa, who seemed to be reading my sincerity, went from being astonished to having a face that seemed to say, "What kind of idiot is this?"

That face was genuinely funny…

"If it doesn't work, I'll just make a mess and insist. How are you going to fight the Demon King's army without me?"

"You crazy bitch..."

"And… humanity could gain a double agent who knows the inner workings of the Demon King's army inside and out. You're the only black witch the Demon King trusts. You're of significant strategic value."

Realizing that my words were logical, Teresa fell silent.

No, it seemed like she had simply never expected anyone to want to save her.

"…I didn't expect this at all… shit…"

"And I like pretty women. Wouldn't it be a national loss if you died?"

"Wow, you're a damn pervert, aren't you? Weren't you supposed to be a saint?"

"Call me whatever you like. But I really don't want you to die."

At least that was the truth.

I healed Teresa's injured hand as I lifted her up from her seat.

"I'm not very smart."

"…I can see that. You look as dumb as your oversized boobs."

"I'm physically strong, but my mind gets swayed easily. I'm a foolish pushover who can't make decisions like Menelapie or you."

"And so?"

"I'd like your help."

In the end, it turned out well.

"I need you."

"..."

"Will you stay by my side?"

That was how I met Teresa for the first time… and she didn't let go of the hand I extended.

Her answer was all I needed.

Don't call it romantic.

Thinking about it now, I feel embarrassed to death.

What kind of line was that? Sigh…