It all started when the Holy Saint, Luca Alberich, who is the said villain of the narrative returned from a long pilgrimage to the Elian Mountains and was on his way back to the Temple, when all of a sudden, he was surrounded by thousands of assassins sent by the male lead, otherwise known as the Crown Prince of the Caelum Empire.
The order was to capture him and bring him back alive. As to what the purpose was? It wasn't mentioned in the novel.
During the struggle, countless Paladins died under the assassins' blades and Luca Alberich was hunted by them for several days. Severely injured with neither food and water nor rest, he was finally cornered on a perilous cliff where he jumped in a final attempt to escape from his assailants.
The assassins jumped after him. However, what greeted them below the cliff was a deep and rapid river that branched out into more than eight directions, making it difficult for them to track him down and therefore throwing them off his trail.
They searched for him for a long time, yet in the end, their labor bore no fruit and they had no choice but to retreat.
On the other side, the unconscious Holy Saint drifted in the river for more than a week before he was fished out of the water by a passing witch.
However, it seemed that after he jumped down the cliff, he accidentally hit his head on a rock and ended up losing his memories.
The witch fooled him into thinking that he was her slave and ordered him to do a lot of things for her. All of which he, with his kind and pure nature, ended up obeying without complaint.
Life after that was peaceful.
She was his master.
And he was her obedient and devoted slave.
However, everything changed when she accidentally discovered his true identity as the Holy Saint and that drinking his flesh and blood could heal all kinds of diseases and regenerate broken limbs.
There were even speculations among the masses, one said in hushed whispers at night, that eating the heart of the Holy Saint will give people eternal life.
And thus, driven by curiosity and greed, the witch decided to dig out his heart and devour it.
After forcing him to ingest the most potent drug she could find in her inventory, she pulled out a blade from her sleeve and was about to carve out his heart, when all of a sudden, countless priests and paladins from the Temple of Light flooded in from all directions, catching her in the act, which resulted in her being executed and burned at the stakes.
It was a horrible death.
One that she deserved.
However, the Temple's wrath didn't end there as the flames of their anger spiraled out of control, implicating all the other witches in the continent, thereby causing them to suffer the consequences of her mistake.
And as batches upon batches of witches were executed and burned at the stakes, the people cheered on, like devils in human skin, reveling in the torment of their compatriots.
By the time Luca came to his senses and recovered his memories with the help of High Priest, it was already far too late.
Thousands of witches had already died and those who remained were now in hiding, each fearing for their lives and unable to see the light of day ever again.
The Holy Saint, Luca Alberich was filled with remorse for the innocent lives lost during the disaster.
He held a grudge towards the witch who lied to him and tried to harm him. However, what the Temple of Light had done disgusted him even more.
He wanted to hate them, and yet in the end, he couldn't bring himself to do so.
The Temple of Light was his home and the perpetrators of the disaster were the ones who raised him and those he grew up with.
Thinking back, if it wasn't for his own weakness, being unable to defend himself, none of these things would have ever happened.
Torn between grief and self-blame, the Holy Saint fell ill and eventually withered away.
Unable to watch his current condition, the High Priest decided to send him to the countryside to recuperate and that was where he met the female lead of the novel.
The one who became both his salvation and the cause of his downfall.
...
"Ha..." Aella sighed.
Finally got a second chance at life, yet it turned out to be so miserable.
No wonder, even though the original owner had been reborn, she had chosen to forfeit her life and traded her body to the system for a chance to be reincarnated as an ordinary person in a peaceful world.
Probably got traumatized after everything she had been through and wanted a change of environment.
And now she, the new owner of this body was stuck here, awaiting her doom.
Haha.
She wanted to laugh to cheer herself up, yet found herself unable to.
Aella gritted her teeth.
That thrice-d*mned, little b*tch of a System! It better not let her catch it or else she will tear it into pieces!!!
Forcing her into a contract, throwing her into this situation, and then just disappearing without a word, not even leaving a golden finger she could use to protect herself.
Just a bunch of memories that will definitely give her nightmares for days on end and a novel plot that contained below-the-neck scenes every other chapter after reaching the middle, almost causing her to vomit blood.
An R-19 novel!
Aella held her chest, on the verge of a heart attack!
That stupid system! Did it not notice at all that she wasn't even an adult yet?!
Calling her a suitable Host...
Was it's CPU flooded with water or was it just purely retarded?!
Not to mention a little girl like her who has never even dated anyone her whole life...
At the very least, it should have chosen someone of the right age, right?!
Just as she was fuming in rage, a familiar static voice resounded in her head.
[ Host, this System is neither retarded, nor was there any mistake in my judgement. Declaring you as a suitable host was made after a thorough investigation of your background and a DNA Test. ]
"Then what about my age?! When I died, there were still three days more to go before I fully turn into an adult, yet now you're saying there was no error in your judgement?!"
The System replied. [The World Transfer took about six days to travel from your previous world to this one, so logically speaking, you are now a full-grown adult, both in body and in mind. And with an extra three days to boot. ]