“The appointment ceremony for the Young Lord of Viscount Edrion will proceed soon. Additionally, the Young Lord will be entering the Great Temple tomorrow.”
At the High Priest’s words, Raha nodded once, maintaining as stoic an expression as possible.
However, despite his calm exterior, his mind was a chaotic mess as he recalled the plot of the original story.
It had been three days—no, two days, since he had been unconscious for a full day afterward—since he realized he had possessed a character in a BL novel he was reading.
Specifically, he was now in the body of the High Priest, ‘Raha Ruan Shaiar,’ a man destined for an early death.
At first, when he opened his eyes after his accident, he thought he had died and gone to the afterlife because he was in such an unfamiliar place.
But after hearing many priests look at him with worried faces, saying he had been unconscious for a day, and hearing them call him the “High Priest with the unique ability to suppress rampages,” he realized this was the world of the novel.
Moreover, he had possessed the body of the villainous side bottom in a “multi-love interest” story.
He was the empire’s youngest High Priest, the only one gifted with the light attribute that could stabilize and suppress the “rampages” of nobles who held elemental powers.
He was called the youngest because he had been appointed at the earliest age in history.
A High Priest rarely appears more than once in a generation because they are born with their attribute, much like other elemental users.
In this world, those with the power of fire, wind, water, earth, and darkness use their strength to defeat monsters and stabilize the empire.
However, their powers have a drawback: the more they use them, the more “turbid energy” accumulates like a poison.
Once this energy reaches its limit, they undergo a “rampage,” becoming so dangerous that they threaten not only their own lives but the very existence of the empire.
The one responsible for suppressing and calming that rampage was the user of the light attribute, the High Priest, also known as the “Servant of God.”
Since all those born with elemental powers were high-ranking nobles, and the High Priest held the highest position in the temple, the novel’s setting was essentially a world where the “silver spoon” elite handled everything among themselves.
Fortunately, he hadn’t possessed a commoner with no influence or a noble without powers, but the fact that he was the villainous side bottom destined for death made him feel quite miserable.
‘So, the plot has already progressed that far.’
Having figured out the exact status of the novel’s timeline two days after his possession, Raha began to organize his future plans upon hearing that the main bottom’s entry into the temple—the true beginning of his “death ending”—was tomorrow.
Currently, the body he possessed was using the fact that he was the sole light-attribute user to manipulate the other elemental users as he pleased.
From the Crown Prince with the fire attribute to the Northern Grand Duke with the darkness attribute, he had been committing unspeakable atrocities against all five of the original male leads under the pretext of suppressing their rampages.
In particular, he had been borderline harassing the Crown Prince, Blizan, whom the original owner of this body had a long-standing unrequited crush on.
Of course, physical contact is necessary to suppress other attributes with light, but he had intentionally increased the level of contact with Blizan out of personal desire.
In this situation, the entry of the main lead, Edrion, into the temple would serve as the catalyst that narrowed Raha’s influence.
It was only natural, as the empire’s “one and only” High Priest was about to become one of two.
In the original story, this leads Raha to start bullying Edrion to protect his position, and Edrion overcomes this bullying under the protection of the five male leads.
‘If only I had possessed this body a little earlier, I could have forced a friendship with the main lead.’
But that ship had already sailed.
After all, once Edrion’s light attribute manifested and he began frequenting the temple, Raha would have already bullied him in various ways.
Because of that, the male leads would likely already be on edge regarding him.
In fact, on the day he possessed the body, the reason Raha had lost consciousness was that he had been strangled by Teore’s darkness attribute.
It seemed impossible to live a leisurely life by befriending Edrion now.
‘Of all things, why did I have to wake up right after being knocked out by the person who kills Raha in the original story?’
Recalling the Northern Grand Duke, Teore, Raha decided to make him the top priority for social distancing.
Regardless, if the plot was at the point where the main lead enters the temple to become a High Priest, it meant a significant amount of narrative had already built up between the main lead and the male leads.
The main lead’s “heroic moments” that captured the hearts of the five men were likely already over.
Since befriending the main lead or replacing him to befriending the male leads was out of the question, the only thing he could do to escape the death ending was to distance himself from the men and leave the Great Temple, which served as the backdrop for the original work.
“I would be grateful if you would recover quickly and joyfully attend the appointment ceremony of your fellow High Priest, Your Grace.”
Nodding half-heartedly at the High Priest’s words, Raha thought about how he could gather money to escape this temple where money wasn’t even needed.
Or rather, should he first think about where he would live after leaving?
Feeling that he should look for a place to flee first and then create the funds to live afterward, Raha abruptly asked the High Priest, who was still explaining the ceremony.
“What do I need to do to see a map of the empire?”
Stunned by the unexpected question, the High Priest eventually replied that maps of the empire were kept in the temple library.
“Where is the temple library?”
“…Are you asking for the location of a place you visited just a week ago?”
As the High Priest asked in disbelief, Raha quickly came up with an excuse.
“Ah, my memory seems to be a bit unstable, perhaps because I was strangled.”
When he raised his hand and gestured toward his neck—the one strangled by Teore’s darkness—the High Priest’s face stiffened.
Not just the priests of the temple, but all the citizens of the empire revered Raha as a man chosen by God, at least until Edrion appeared.
Therefore, the incident where the Northern Grand Duke, one of the elemental users, threatened his life was extremely distressing for the temple.
“Ah, why on earth did Grand Duke Scarade act like that…?”
The High Priest trailed off, glancing at Raha’s reaction.
