I Quit Being a Priest

The situation had not been good recently.
While shell dragons, which rarely showed themselves to humans, had been encountered twice recently, the frequency of magical beasts appearing near the village had increased exponentially.
To begin with, shell dragons weren’t that numerous. They were so few that they could be counted on fingers across the entire continent.
But for some reason, shell dragons had increased. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that someone had deliberately released shell dragons near the village.
Whoever was behind it, in a situation like this, Illis would have given cool-headed instructions if he were here, but now he was gone.
There were only Iris, whose spirit had been completely broken, and Yuria, who had been watching Iris’s mood all along.
“Um, Karnel… I found this in the shell dragon’s body…”
“…What is it?”
Karnel received some kind of orb that Yuria handed over.
It was just the right size to fit in one hand, and emitting a somewhat ominous atmosphere with its dark red glow that anyone would notice. Karnel examined it closely.
“Iris, can you tell what material this is made of?”
Since he couldn’t determine what material it was composed of, Karnel handed the orb to Iris.
Iris, still with unhealed arms and on edge, almost threw the orb in irritation, but the moment she received it, she knew.
This was a substance that shouldn’t exist in this world.
“This is…”

Receiving the orb, Iris examined it again, wondering if she had felt wrong.
It seemed like something mixed with various things, but Iris could faintly sense it.
“…Holy power.”
“What?”
In response to Iris’s words, Karnel asked again as if he had misheard, but Iris continued with a tone of certainty.
“It’s hard to believe, but it’s true… Most of this is composed of holy power.”
“There’s no way magical beasts or demon folk could… handle holy power…”
It was impossible. Demon folk are vulnerable to holy attributes like holy power, and magical beasts don’t have any magical organs inside their bodies to begin with.
So.
“It’s human.”
Iris said in a low voice. Mana and holy power are authorities given only to humans. Especially holy power, which is a product of God given only to a select few among them.
But there weren’t many people on the continent who could stuff in this much holy power.
If one had to count them.
“Illis… He’s the only one who could do something like this.”
But.
“That doesn’t make sense, Iris. Illis was still with us until we confronted the first shell dragon.”
It was Yuria’s words. As she said, it didn’t make sense time-wise for Illis, who had left the party, to be the culprit.
The incident happened just two days ago. Moreover, these people encountered the second shell dragon yesterday, which means if Illis was the culprit, he would have used alchemy with his holy power in just one day.
It was unlikely that he, who didn’t have basic knowledge in alchemy, could do something like this in just one day.
Of course, Iris knew this too. She shot a sharp glance at Yuria as if telling her to listen to people’s words until the end, and then added.
“I know that.”
Iris put the orb down on the floor. The orb, which emitted a somewhat ominous atmosphere, gave off a faint demonic energy.
“What I meant was, he’s the only one who can hold this much holy power alone. If not him, it means multiple people who can handle holy power gathered together. It might be related to ‘that incident’.”
“…”
There was something they didn’t know. Something big was involved in this incident.
And unfortunately,
It was an issue that arose after Illis left, making the situation even worse.
If only he were here now, the situation would have been a bit better.
“So, what are we going to do?”
Iris asked. Even Karnel, who wasn’t particularly bright, could understand what she was asking.
Whether to just let it go despite knowing that there’s a mastermind behind it, or to temporarily change their course to solve this problem.
“The opponent is creating shell dragons. If we leave them alone, who knows what will happen. We need to check it out before heading to the magic boundary.”
“…And get a priest while we’re at a standstill.”
Iris said, biting her lip. She hadn’t expected that silver-haired priest’s influence to be so strong.
Still, she couldn’t just ask him to come back now. So for now, they needed to recruit a decent priest from the village for their journey ahead to be smoother.
“Illis… He really won’t come back?”
Karnel was still looking for the priest who had left. His first recruited companion and, though self-proclaimed, the continent’s best priest.
No, at this point, even Karnel had to admit. It would be hard to find a priest as good as him even if they searched the entire continent.
He hadn’t expected to send him off like this, but if he had known, he should have taken his side on that day, Karnel thought with a bitter expression.
“…”
To this, Iris remained silent. The truth was, she had intended to drive him out from the beginning.
She had viewed the silver-haired priest, who was her party member, with a negative perspective, questioning whether a priest was really necessary on the battlefield.
As is often the case, when looking at something with colored glasses, one tends to see the negative aspects more prominently than the positive ones.
Iris was the same. When the silver-haired priest commanded the party, she was displeased about what authority he had to give orders when he wasn’t doing anything, and when he healed her wounds, she thought he was just a man who could do a little better what Yuria could also do.
The number referred to as the golden ratio when forming a party is four. If it becomes less, the party’s combat power decreases, and if more, coordination becomes difficult.
Therefore, Iris firmly believed that expelling the silver-haired man and recruiting someone else would be beneficial in the future.
That’s why she always criticized him by finding fault and sometimes hurled harsh curses.
So that he would leave the party on his own out of disgust. Just when she thought he had endured for longer than expected, Yuria chimed in.
And when the two turned their backs on him, he finally left.
As Iris had wished, he had left, but…
Now she was beginning to doubt whether it had truly been for the benefit of this party.
“…That righteous man wouldn’t come back now, would he? There are many priests besides him. If we look hard enough, we might find a priest as excellent as him.”
“Is… that so?”
Yuria spoke cautiously, still gauging the reactions of Iris and Karnel.
Yuria, who was versatile in various aspects, was certainly a necessary talent for this party, but when facing overwhelming monsters like the shell dragon, her abilities couldn’t exert proper power.
That’s why Yuria observed their reactions without joining the conversation.
If she hadn’t supported Iris back then, wouldn’t Illis not have left?
If that were the case, the atmosphere within the party wouldn’t have become like this, and Karnel and Iris wouldn’t have been wounded to this extent, would they?
Yuria ruminated on her belated regret. Although she knew that he, who had already left, wouldn’t return, she regretted it all the more for that reason.
“Well, let’s head to the nearby village for now. Luventus… was it? Everyone’s had a tough time this time, so let’s rest well and think about it.”
Karnel said that and got up from his seat. In the current situation, trying to do anything would only backfire.
Their morale had been completely crushed, and they were wounded in both body and mind, so they needed some rest now.
And there was no objection to that. It was unanimous.
“Then, you keep this for now, Iris. It doesn’t seem good for us to mishandle it.”
Karnel picked up the ominous orb from the floor and handed it back to Iris.
It was his judgment that Iris, who had expertise in handling mana, should keep it, even though he didn’t know what material was mixed with the holy power.
Karnel had no way of knowing what other substances were mixed with the holy power.
Iris seemed a bit disgruntled but accepted the orb and pushed it into her pocket.
She wanted to throw it away somewhere because it was ominous, but it was an important clue, so she couldn’t act on that thought.
And so they moved toward the nearest village they could reach.
Their next destination, Luventus. A human-friendly city also known as the City of Freedom.