As soon as Aster set foot inside the church, he was greeted by two familiar faces.

‘Deacon Wang and Deacon Paul!’

When they saw Aster, their jaws dropped, sweat started trickling from their forehead, and their faces were horrified.

“Ah, why do you guys look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

Aster asked, mustering the most genuine smile he could form, his eyes turning into two crescent moons.

“P-priest Aster.”

Deacon Wang finally squealed out a few words, horrified beyond belief. From his memories, Aster could clearly distinguish all the abuse that the previous Aster had to bear due to these guys.

Even though they were merely deacons and Aster was an official priest, his fame amongst all the priests was rock bottom, making him the target of contempt even from deacons like Wang and Paul, who had the support of more popular priests and archpriests, treating Aster worse than dogs.

“I see you both are doing well. May the blessing of Hourah be with you.”

Aster said with a smile that could kill people and immediately went towards the living quarters without waiting for them to reply or react.

The reason he did that was because of his own heart. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t suppress the indignation of the previous Aster as soon as he saw those deacons.

‘Damn it! To think I’d be feeling angry in someone else’s stead.’

Aster cursed himself as he ran towards his living quarters.

___________________________________________

“D-deacon Paul.”

Deacon Wang, who had fallen to the ground after Aster left, trembled as he looked at deacon Paul.

Deacon Paul himself wasn’t in a very stable state, as he kept quivering.

“How is he still alive?”

Wang asked the question that Paul himself wanted to ask. Even though they weren’t involved in his murder, they were the ones that had been given the duty to throw his dead body. 

So if there was anyone who could confirm whether Aster had died or not, it couldn’t be anyone other than these two.

“Deacon Paul! Why is he still alive?”

Wang asked in agitation. The fact that an apparently dead person had crawled back out of his grave was starting to eat up both Paul and Wang.

Not to mention, they had already taken a huge risk when they agreed to dump his body.

“W-why are you getting so agitated? If he is somehow alive, I’m sure those people will surely kill him for good this time.”Deacon Paul, being the older one, tried to reassure Wang.

“Are you kidding me? Do you know who he is? He is a son of the Duke! It doesn’t matter if he’s illegitimate or not, if we get involved with his murder, there’s no way the duke would let us live.”

Wang wanted to scream but couldn’t, fearing someone might hear him talk. Even if it was well known that the duke didn’t care about any of his children, especially some illegitimate children, that didn’t change the fact that a duke had his dignity to protect.

Previously, they agreed to get rid of Aster’s body because the plan was to make it seem like he just ran away from the dukedom after being ashamed of his life. But now that he had come back, there was no way they could go with the same plan again.

Not to mention.

“His demeanor has changed.”

Wang had seen it bright and clear; there was no longer the fear and uneasiness that Aster usually showed. Instead, his face seemed to hold back an insurmountable amount of resentment and anger.

“Let’s go and inform Leo immediately.”

__________________________________________________

—Puah!

Aster took his head out of the bucket of water, taking in a huge breath.

He was currently in one of the bathrooms made out of wooden mats for the deacons to bathe. Even though Aster was a priest, he didn’t have his own room, hence no personal bathroom.

After cleaning off the dirt and filth from his body for almost an hour, Aster finally started looking a bit more human, no longer smelling like a stink bomb.

He had eventually calmed down, and his heart stabilized. Too many things had happened too fast in his life, and he wanted nothing more than to get rid of all the troublesome things right this instant.

‘But I need power for that.’

Aster had come into a world that had swords and magic, guns and roses, and everything in between. The development of land depended on who it belonged to. This was a truly mixed cultural world with hundreds of countries.

The current dukedom that he was a part of was apparently the size of China, and it was barely one of the many dukedoms under the Tristain Empire.

This world was definitely bigger than Earth, and several times at least.

Not only that, even with the previous Aster’s limited involvement with anyone and anything in the world due to his meek personality, he still knew of the basics of the world, some of which had piqued Aster’s interest.

For example, the empire he was under was ruled by an Empress rather than an Emperor, and the name of that Empress sounded rather familiar to Aster.

Henrietta de Tristain.

‘Isn’t she the chick from Zero No Tsukaima?’

The name was exactly similar to a character from the Anime, The Familiar of Zero. Not only was she one of the supporting characters, but she was also the crown princess of Tristain.

‘But the Empress is apparently 39 years old, and her 40th birthday is coming in a few months, which will apparently be one of the biggest events in quite a few years in the Tristain Empire.’

Not only that, the bishop of the Hourah Church was someone extremely concerning.

Kirei Kotomine.

Aster himself could vouch for this guy as the previous Aster had seen him quite a few times. He actually was the Kirei Kotomine from Fate/zero.

That’s when Aster realized that he wasn’t in just any world but a world that was filled with anime and most probably other characters that he had already heard about or seen before.

This got Aster quite excited for a while before he sunk into despair. All the members of the church of Hourah were mostly healers or paladins, and Aster was the former.

In this world, healers were absolutely top of the food chain simply due to their ability to heal people and cure wounds.

High-ranking healers could even heal an amputated limb according to legends.

So any healers were respected in this world, be it an illegitimate son of a noble or a commoner.

Then why was Aster treated like a piece of trash?

‘Cause he actually was one.’

Aster didn’t have any aptitude for magic or any form of martial arts, and the only thing he showed a little talent in was healing. But that little talent was an overstatement.

From the age of 10 to 18, his holy power didn’t increase even a single ounce, making him an eyesore that even the church didn’t want.

His birth mother had died when he was five years old, and the Vatican raised him, but even the only person that cared for him, priest Hamdel, died when he turned 12, bringing about Aster’s worst years of life.

‘I’m doomed.’

[Hey! Hey! What am I here for?]

“I would be less doomed with a potato. At least I’d get to fill my stomach with it.”

[You have a talent for pissing people off.]

“I wouldn’t be here if that weren’t the case. Ah, I miss Rosy.”

Rosy was the wife of the underworld don that had sent Aster over to this world.

Aster adorned another pair of the priest's clothes lying around in the laundry and ran back towards his bed.

‘At least I don’t have to sleep on a haystack.’

It was already the middle of the day, and Aster had all his priest duties pending from the last three days due to being dead, but he didn’t care as he jumped on the bed.

[Hey, you really don’t wanna survive?]

The system screen made a frown appear on Aster’s face as he finally sighed.

“Can you even do anything to make me survive?”

[I guess you don’t need your beginner bonus packages. I’ll just delete them, then.]

A bit of cockiness could be felt from the system’s text, but Aster ignored it as a slight glint passed through his eyes, but he immediately covered it up with his unamused look.

“Fine, if you are really this desperate, just show it to me. I might as well check it out.”

[This motherfu—]

“Hey, hey, I am a priest. No cursing, you mofo.”

[......]

[Tutorial mode has  been forced disabled.]

[Checking for backlogs.]

[Initiating non-sentience mode.]

[Would you like to open the ‘Beginner Chest’ x1?]

[Yes] [No]

For some reason, it felt like the system had suddenly become lifeless, but Aster didn’t care about that as his eyes glistened. He immediately clicked on the [Yes] button.