The Max Level Hero Has Returned!

Standing before the new arrivals, Agatha gave a slight, respectful bow. “It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Saintess Agatha.”

“N-nice to meet you, Saintess!”

To a normal person, a saintess with a stigmata from their god was an elevated and legendary being.

Seeing the many priests who stared back at him with tense faces, Seung-Hyun took a deep breath. He’d thought the church would have a lot of young people since it hadn't been around for long, yet that didn't seem to be the case.

He remembered hearing that even a few papal candidates of other religions had converted after receiving Neltarid's revelations, witnessing his miracles, and learning the truth of the scriptures. They were accepted with open arms, of course. After all, if one were to run a church, one needed professionals.

Regardless, the Church of Neltarid clearly still had a lot of work to do.

Agatha slowly looked at Seung-Hyun, who was dressed as neatly as possible, and Grace, who was only wearing an oddly non-see-through white oversized t-shirt and small slippers.

For a church that served a god, and especially in front of its saintess, her attire was incredibly disrespectful, yet no one said a word.

They knew that, just as Agatha had received the stigmata, Grace was also a being with Neltarid's blessing. Born with it, in fact.

Agatha continued, “Thank you for visiting us with such short notice. Lord Neltarid actually gave us a revelation of your imminent arrival, so I decided to call.”

“Yes. I was wondering how to reach you and complete the sale, so it was a relief.”

“Indeed. It's fortunate I was already in Korea.”

“I didn't think that far ahead. Haha...”

Agatha smiled gently at his awkward laugh, trying to calm herself and saying, “Shall we go inside?”

“Yes, please.”

Grace tapped on his arm, whining, “Seung-Hyunnn. I'm too lazy... Hurry up and carry me!”

He chuckled, turning and offering his back to her with a crouch. “Ugh. I wished for someone to help me. How’d it come to this?”

Grace smirked, proudly declaring, “I'm a precious being. You better serve me well.”

“I could just go back home, though.”

Hearing that jab, Grace frowned and tightly squeezed his neck with her arms. Alas, she wasn't ever motivated enough to use much strength, so it was like a child's piggyback tantrum.

Guided by Agatha, they went inside and looked around at the amazing interior. Seung-Hyun looked around the inside of the giant cathedral, where ordinary people were forbidden, and let out a short gasp. After all, the news segments only showed the exterior, never the interior.

Grace was similarly stunned, marveling, “Woaaaah!”

Seung-Hyun looked around before chiding, “Stop gawking, it's embarrassing...”

“Hey, this is a place you can’t even see on the news! When else am I gonna get to visit here?”

Agatha chimed in, asking, “Do you find it fascinating?”

“Ah?Ah. Yes.”

“Fufu. It’s not a fact we’ve told the rest of the world, but this giant cathedral and the main temple building were personally conjured by Lord Neltarid. Though the building’s history is short, its value is immeasurable.”

It was a place more sacred than any other building on Earth.

“It was here that I received a revelation from God, informing me that you have Lord Neltarid’s sacred item.”

Seung-Hyun shrugged his shoulders to jolt the couch potato on his back. “Hey. Show her the goods.”

Grace, who'd been yawning widely while on his back, lightly hopped down. She groaned, “This is too much work...”

“We made a deal.”

Grace would've been stubborn and refused if Nelatrid had asked the same of her, but she was strangely obedient to Seung-Hyun. “Just a sec...”

Her oversized t-shirt, fluttering like a dress, suddenly seemed to birth a golden sculpture from underneath. Once descended to the floor, it seemed to shift to the side as it continued sliding along the ground until it fully emerged.

The high-ranking Archbishops who followed Agatha gasped in surprise at the sight.

“O-oh my!”

“Good heavens...”

Some were stunned by the enormous sculpture, which seemed impossible for a little girl to carry all that time, while others were flustered by her wildly inappropriate behavior.

Agatha gasped in surprise, “Good heavens! A sacred item, and it’s imbued with such a powerful aura...”

Their embarrassment was instantly replaced by astonishment. The archbishops currently leading the church were people who had attained special divine power after devoting themselves to God. They had undergone a baptism. It was a special blessing granted to those of Neltarid’s church with pure, devout hearts after a small amount of holy water was sprinkled over their heads.

Of course, it wasn't a great power akin to that of an Awakened, but it was enough that it enabled them to see the divine power emanating from the sacred item.

“Good heavens... This is clearly the best of all sacred items I've ever seen.”

“What... is this, exactly?”

Grace, who was speaking casually with no honorifics, dropped a bombshell. “Umm. So. That dude Neltarid said something when he gave me this.”

Everyone gawked as she continued, “He said it's a sacred item that a prophet who received the divine commandments once used to change the desert and lead his followers. It may not look like much, but it's apparently thousands of years old...”

There wasn't a single line in any history book about it. No record whatsoever.

Yet, the moment Agatha touched it, she flinched in surprise. Her eyes went wide at the past the unknown girl's sculpture showed her.

She saw a massive migration, a pilgrimage, led by one person. The statue was a sacred item that performed a miracle to allow them to pass through places like deserts of death, which were thus transformed into greenlands. The scorching air was cooled, and the desert, which was no different from a land of death, became a vibrant area of plants and trees as they passed.

Without realizing it, Agatha shed a tear and backed away slowly.

“S-Saintess?!”

“Archbishop... would you... come take a look at this?”

Curious, the Archbishop slowly walked over, placed his hand on the sculpture, and closed his eyes. After a short while, his eyes shot open as he immediately knelt down and began to pray.

“Ahh! My God...”

It was an artifact from thousands of years ago. The vast memories of the past, unrecorded by the world, still remained in the sculpture.

Grace didn't understand why they were being so dramatic. “I didn't see anything...”

“Only those who have received a baptism from God will be able to see it. It's a miracle God granted when they sincerely dedicated themselves to the church. More importantly, we need to investigate exactly what kind of artifact this is, and its exact origins.”

It was a precious artifact that could provide clues about Neltarid's actions, previously lost to time.

Seung-Hyun hesitantly spoke up to say, “Umm. I'm sorry to say this, but I was told that if I hand this over, I can get her living expenses...”

“You mean you're handing over this precious sacred item to us?”

Seung-Hyun resolutely gave up on a greed he couldn't afford to harbor. “Well... it was never ours to begin with. I don't want to get greedy and end up losing what I already have.”

“We're truly grateful. However, just a girl’s living expenses? Accepting such a valuable artifact for a low price like that would be a sacrilege to God.”

“No, it's really okay.”

They thought he was generous, but he was just trying to stop the church from paying a high price for it.

“What I need right now is her clothes and daily necessities. As you can see, she doesn't have any clothes to wear, so I was just about to get some money.”

Agatha lightly clapped her hands, waking up one of the archbishops who was weeping and praying. “Archbishop.”

Countless religions had existed on Earth. It had already been somewhat known that some of their miracles were actually hidden miracles from Neltarid, but personally witnessing proof of such things was a completely different feeling.

“Ahh. Saintess, I made a fool of myself.”

She waved his apology off. “Not at all, Archbishop. Could you arrange for some clothes that Lady Grace can wear right away?”

A red-haired woman who looked quite old straightened her robe and stood up to say, “I'll take care of it right away. Didn't I pick out the Saintess's robes, too?”

At the same time, Grace glanced at Agatha's classic and elegant yet extremely heavy-looking outfit. Eyes shooting side to side, she took a slow step back before abruptly trying to bolt for the door.

In response, Seung-Hyun didn't even look at her. He simply reached out and grabbed her by the scruff of her neck.

“That’ll be perfect for you, right?”

“Seung-Hyun, I think I'm full now! Let's go back and finish the game...”

“I'm leaving her to you.” Seung-Hyun gave a respectful bow, Grace thrashing like a fish out of water or cat thrown into a bathtub.

However, she had barely received any combat abilities from Neltarid, so the only thing she could do was change her hair to all sorts of hues like a chameleon.

Seung-Hyun gave a wry smile, leaving Grace behind to be dragged away. “Whew. What a relief.”

It was two hours later that she finally appeared before Seung-Hyun, looking half-dead. Unlike when she was wearing an oversized t-shirt like a dress with slippers, the Grace he saw was wearing a super cute outfit.

She was pouting up a storm, grumbling, “I'm seriously mad...”

“Good work. Let's go eat the pasta and brick oven pizza you love.”

Her eyes lit up. “Pork ribs too!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Seung-Hyun didn't know how valuable the incredible sacred item was, but he had spent those two hours caught up in negotiations with the seasoned archbishops over its price.

He'd tried to sell it cheap, yet they insisted that such a thing would hurt the church's dignity, so he ended up in a circular negotiation.

It was something he wouldn't ever try again, but the advance payment he received from the church was three billion won.[1]

If they'd insisted on looking into whether it was genuine, where it had actually been used, and how valuable it really was, Seung-Hyun's stress would've been through the roof. The people working with Agatha in the cathedral were veterans with discerning eyes, and stubborn ideals.

Of course, getting a huge amount of money all at once was a good thing. No matter how successful he was, his usual income was only about a hundred to two hundred million won a year. Three billion won was a massive amount of money.

Grace smirked and remarked, “Seung-Hyun, you don't look so hot.”

“Yeah, something about procedural negotiations or whatever. I don't even know how many contracts I ended up signing. Thanks to that, I have to keep coming here for a while...”

“Is it because of the sacred relic? Is that what's stressing you out?”

“I didn't know the process would be this complicated.”

When Seung-Hyun nodded at her question, Grace smiled creepily. Then, she walked up to Agatha, who was seeing them off, and said in a sly voice totally unlike her usual tone, “Excuse me, Saintess.”

“Yes, Lady Grace. Do you have something to say?”

“Sacred items.” When she gently grabbed the hem of Agatha’s skirt with both hands, Seung-Hyun freaked out and tried to stop her. She continued, “I have more. Hehehehehe.”

Thump! Thump!!

At the same time, five more sacred items, big and small, dropped from under her skirt hem, seemingly descending out of nowhere.

The materials used varied—bronze, wood, and iron included among them. However, the subtle divine influence emanating from them was no different from the sculpture before. They were all sacred items from Neltarid that could no longer be found on Earth. He had personally collected all of them and had given them to Grace.

Davey had been stunned when he watched the god hand them over, thinking Neltarid had gone totally bonkers spoiling his first child. Neltarid seemed to have been very concerned about Grace, who had an exceptionally problematic personality.

“While you're negotiating, make sure to add in requests for pasta, brick oven pizza, and pork ribs.”

“Good heavens! So many sacred items...”

Seeing the archbishops' stunned expressions, all the color drained from Seung-Hyun's face. Each sacred item could vastly increase the church's prestige once revealed to the world.

Their value wouldn't pale in comparison to the original cross Jesus Christ was nailed to, or the original tablets containing the Ten Commandments.

Since they'd already seen them, negotiations were unavoidable for Seung-Hyun, much to his dismay. If one small sculpture took over three hours to negotiate, there was no telling how long five would take.

Seung-Hyun stumbled backward, but Grace tightly gripped his pants and smiled sweetly. She slyly told him, “Work hard. This is me going easy on you.”

That evening, Seung-Hyun was featured in news segments around the world, his face pixelated.

As the person who'd found and transferred genuine, divinely powered sacred items related to Neltarid, he became the center of attention in the religious world.

1. Approximately 2 million USD. ☜

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