Cold sweat drenched my entire body.

My deepest, most secret truth…

It was obvious.

The so-called “miracles” I performed weren’t miracles at all—just vulgar, worthless eroge skills.

And didn’t the prophecy just say that the abilities in my hands were tainted and wretched?

There was nothing else it could be referring to.

And now… it said that once my secret was revealed, I would be killed—by the very people who loved me?

“Saint! Thanks to you, I’ve been healed! Thank you!”

“You are the living incarnation of grace! Because of you, I can see tomorrow!”

“Thank you… Thank you. If not for you, I truly…”

The faces of those who had smiled at me flashed through my mind.

The slum dwellers. The followers of the Lilia Order.

I remembered the way they bowed their heads to me, offering their unwavering respect.

They were the ones who loved me most.

And now…

They were the ones who would kill me.

I couldn’t breathe properly.

My body trembled, overtaken by sheer terror.

It felt like I was hyperventilating—my breathing had become erratic, frantic, unbearable.

But the prophecy wasn’t finished yet.

[But even death will not be the end. The one who bestows grace shall claim your soul after your passing. She will send you to the place befitting your deeds, where you shall live through torment you do not wish to endure.]

“Ugh… Ughhh!!”

I collapsed to the floor.

Even death wouldn’t be the end.

“The one who bestows grace.”

It had to be Lilia.

After I died…

Lilia would seize my soul.

And she would cast me into the place befitting my deeds—where I would be forced to endure suffering beyond my worst nightmares.

Where else could that be?

Hell.

HELL.

That was it.

She would send me to eternal suffering.

I finally understood why divine punishment hadn’t struck me down over the past six months, despite my fraud.

It wasn’t that Lilia had forgiven me because I did a good job.

I had been deluding myself.

She had always intended to punish me.

She just didn’t plan on doing it with something as merciful as a bolt of lightning to the head.

No.

She was going to let my secret come to light—let me be exposed, betrayed, and executed at the hands of those who had once revered me.

And then, once I was dead, she would rip out my soul and cast it into Hell.

Not just anyone—the all-powerful goddess herself had just declared that she was going to destroy me.

What did it matter that I’d been acknowledged by the Emperor?

What was the point of feeling happy over all the gifts I received?

If my soul was damned to Hell, nothing mattered.

My breathing grew even more erratic.

[You shall suffer alone, and through your suffering, the world shall witness the will of grace. They shall see you and know—beyond doubt—that the one who bestows grace is alive.]

The will of grace.

What else could that mean?

“Those who dare to impersonate a saint shall be destroyed.”

“No matter how many people you saved, no matter how hard you worked, a man with no faith, wielding vulgar, filthy abilities, shall never be allowed to claim the title of an apostle.”

Lilia would make an example out of me.

By utterly destroying me, she would prove to the world that she still reigned as their goddess.

Fuck…

I…

I couldn’t breathe.

My vision turned pitch black.

“Saint of Healing!”

When I opened my eyes, I saw High Priest Zerva of the Prophecy Church staring at me in shock.

His face was pale, his expression filled with worry.

“W-what… What in the world did Lord Lupiel tell you? What future did he show you?”

I didn’t answer.

My clothes were soaked with cold sweat.

Shivering with chills, I pleaded with Zerva.

“High Priest… Please summon High Priest Yodel of the Lilia Order.”

“R-right away!”

Zerva bolted out of the room like a bullet and soon returned with Old Man Yodel.

I looked at him.

“Yodel–”

“Saint! What in the world has happened?”

I couldn’t tell him the truth.

How could I possibly say it?

That my so-called miracles were nothing but cheap eroge skills.

That my biggest secret was destined to be exposed.

That I would be brutally murdered by those who loved me most.

And even after death, I would be thrown into Hell for eternity.

“I have a question.”

Instead, I asked something else.

“How does one seek forgiveness for wrongdoing in the eyes of the Goddess Lilia?”

First, I needed to figure out how to get her pardon.

“Why do you ask such a thing so suddenly, Saint?”

“Please, just answer me. It is something I must know.”

Yodel looked at me with concern before finally answering.

“Naturally, one must never repeat their transgressions.”

So… I had to stop pretending to be a saint immediately.

“One must distance themselves from their sin.”

I needed to run.

I had been planning this all wrong.

With the elixirs now flowing, there was no way I could just wait for the church to go bankrupt and for everyone to abandon me.

That would take forever.

And even worse—if I actually sank the church, Lilia, who was already furious, might become even angrier!

I was a complete idiot!

I should have just run from the beginning!

“One must embrace endless self-denial.”

I had to start openly denying that I was a saint.

Every chance I got, I needed to insist that I wasn’t one.

“And they must dedicate themselves to good deeds to return to the goddess.”

Well, at least I had already done a lot of that.

I had healed countless people—surely, that was enough.

I didn’t need to keep playing the role of a saint any longer.

But something still felt… lacking.

These were just basic principles.

I needed something more.

My sins weren’t ordinary.

The Goddess of Grace herself had declared that if I died, she would personally drag my soul to Hell!

This wasn’t just mild divine anger—this was an all-out execution order.

I needed…

I needed a backup plan.

Just in case abandoning my sainthood wasn’t enough.

“Is there a way for a soul, cursed directly by the goddess, to avoid going to Hell?”

Zerva recoiled in shock.

“Saint… Just what kind of prophecy did you hear?”

Like I was going to tell him.

“I cannot answer that. Yodel, please tell me—is there a way?”

Yodel hesitated before speaking.

“If one is cleansed of sin through the miracle of a saint, they can be saved from damnation.”

Useless.

There were no other saints besides me.

Which meant I had no way of using this method.

A real saint didn’t exist—only me, a fraud.

So if everything else failed, I would not be able to rely on another saint to save me.

“Is there any other way?”

Yodel frowned, as if reluctant to speak, before finally offering an answer.

“There is… one method. Though it is unconventional.”

“Tell me.”

“If one’s soul is utterly shattered by a powerful curse, it will not prevent damnation entirely—but it can delay it.”

What?

“Explain in detail.”

“It is exactly as I said. A shattered soul cannot be judged. If a soul is completely destroyed, it cannot even enter Hell.”

“There are historical records of evil necromancers using this method to escape suffering in the afterlife.”

This…

This was exactly what I needed!

“How does it work? How does one stop it?“

Yodel exhaled heavily before continuing.

“Destroying a soul is extremely difficult. However, even if a soul is shattered, it does not cease to exist. It will naturally begin to recover over time.”

“If it still has remaining lifespan, it will eventually regenerate and continue to live out its remaining years before fading away completely.”

“And how does that prevent one from going to Hell?”

“By deliberately destroying one’s own soul with a powerful curse while still having time left to live, one can control the speed of their soul’s regeneration—slowing it down to an extreme degree.”

“The idea was that, by the time they fully recovered, everyone who remembered their crimes would be long gone… and even the gods themselves might have forgotten about them.”

“It was a desperate attempt to avoid damnation… but ultimately, it failed.”

“Why?”

“A soul, once created, belongs to its originating dimension. The moment it is destroyed, it naturally begins regenerating in the place where it was first formed.”

“Because of this, the gods could easily track these souls. No matter how much time passed, the necromancers who attempted this method were all found and eventually dragged to Hell.”

There it was.

The perfect solution.

If I shattered my soul with a powerful curse…

I could escape Hell.

Sure, those necromancers failed…

But I wouldn’t.

Because unlike them—

My soul wasn’t from this world.

If my soul was destroyed, it wouldn’t regenerate in this dimension.

It would return to its original plane—Korea.

And once I was reborn in another world, Lilia wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing to me.

If I got hit by a curse that shattered my soul—I could skip Hell entirely!

I’d wake up back in Korea, safe and sound.

Sure, I’d be a nobody again.

Just a mediocre college graduate from a no-name university.

But compared to eternal torment in Hell?

That was a thousand times better.

“Thank you, Yodel. I’m exhausted. Could you both leave me for now?”

High Priest Zerva and Old Man Yodel looked at me with deep concern but eventually bowed respectfully and left.

Alright.

The plan is set.

To successfully escape, I needed three things:

A way to evade tracking miracles. If I ran but got caught right away, it would all be pointless.

I needed to counteract any divine tracking.

Secretly amass enough money to survive wherever I escaped to.

Improve my control over time-stopping skills, which would be essential for my escape.

Once I secured these three conditions—I’d run.

Then, I’d modify my appearance and live in complete obscurity.

Of course, this was the standard escape plan, but the failure rate was far too high.

The devotion of the Lilia Order and the slum dwellers was beyond fanaticism—even if I was careful, they would track me down.

That meant I needed a contingency plan.

A guaranteed escape route.

Something that would let me skip straight past Hell.

A powerful curse that would shatter my soul.

The problem?

Curses of that magnitude weren’t exactly lying around on the streets.

In short:

The standard escape had a low success rate but could be attempted anytime.

The cheat code escape—getting hit by a powerful curse—was difficult to find but, if successful, would guarantee my survival.

No choice.

I’d proceed with the standard plan while keeping an eye out for a powerful curse.

If I found one, I’d take it immediately.

That was the plan.

As they say—even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

For now, I needed sleep.

Hearing that terrifying prophecy had drained me completely.

With heavy eyelids, I collapsed onto my bed.

And before long…

I fell asleep.

A Nightmare Foretelling Disaster

A world twisted into something monstrous.

Humans—disfigured, warped into grotesque forms—were screaming.

But the worst part?

The affliction was contagious.

The twisted ones hunted the living—to make them the same.

Gunfire. Magic. Divine miracles.

They all rained down upon the abominations, trying to push them back.

But they wouldn’t stop.

The walls fell. The cities fell.

Humanity fell.

Like zombies, like ghouls—these undead horrors devoured every last human.

And once a corpse had been stripped bare, it rose again—one of them now.

At the center of it all—

Two women.

One lay slaughtered, blood pooling beneath her lifeless body.

The other—who bore the same face—was kneeling beside the corpse, wailing in despair.

Black wings had sprouted from her back.

And from those wings, a vile, corrupt energy pulsed outward—the very source of the twisted abominations.

“No… No!!”

The woman with the blackened wings screamed.

“I just… I just wanted to be loved!”

But there was no one left to love her.

Like a fallen angel, she knelt there, crying and crying.

But the only things left around her…

Were monsters.

No one remained to love her.

No one.

The Moment of Realization

I shot up from my bed, drenched in cold sweat.

Again!

Another prophetic nightmare of a terrible future!

But this time…

I wasn’t scared.

I wasn’t afraid.

Because in that dream…

The black-winged woman’s aura…

That corrupt energy pouring from her wings—

That was a curse.

A powerful curse.

The kind that could shatter a soul.

If I took that curse and died from it—

My soul would be destroyed…

And I would skip Hell entirely!

I’d be reborn in Korea.

This was it.

I had found my cheat code.

I just had to find her.

The black-winged woman.

And when I did—

I had to take that curse straight on.

As I was reveling in my breakthrough—

Knock. Knock.

“Saint, are you awake?”

It was Yodel, calling from outside.

I had just woken up from a nightmare, but…

Why was Yodel awake at this hour?

“Yes, I’m awake. What is it?”

When I opened the door, I saw the serious expression on his face.

Something was wrong.

“His Majesty the Emperor wishes to meet with you. In secret.”