Chapter 203: Sloth and Charity

“Haaah…”

Anastasia dropped herself onto her bed, staring at the ceiling lazily in her cell.

She had returned to her cell after bidding farewell to Braham and apologizing to him for concerning him. Now, she was left with nothing to do.

However, her eyes suddenly widened as she bit her torn lips until they bled. All her muscles tensed, and she held the sheets of the bed as if holding her life.

The white bird appeared behind her head and patted her with its feathers, it couldn’t really touch her physically.

And then, it started.

Anastasia’s veins suddenly became visible on her skin. They once were glowing subtly with green light due to radiation, but now they were turning into greyish-blue color.

Slowly, that greyish-blue light became more intense, and it even spread slightly beyond her veins, reaching her skin and flesh.

“Urgh…!”

Anastasia’s body trembled violently. She felt overwhelming pain striking every cell in her body.

But out of nowhere, something else inside her body started pushing back the greyish-blue corruption. Her body slowly returned to its former self, and the pain vanished gradually.

Once the pain disappeared, Anastasia finally stopped biting her lips. Instantly, she looked up and saw a hovering object above her head.

It was a halo.

A greyish-blue halo.

With a shaky hand, Anastasia grabbed the halo and brought it to her mouth.

Crack!

One strong bite was all it took for the halo to shatter into thousands of shining particles, which quickly disappeared in the air.

Anastasia finally let out a sigh of relief: “It’s done.”

She gave a quick glance at the gate of her cell. A giant guard was staring at her sharply, as if waiting for anything unusual to happen.

Both she and the guards knew what that was. It was the curse of having two opposing bloodlines.

Her bloodlines were conflicting frequently. At a random moment, the demon bloodline would try to spread, and the angel bloodline would stop it.

It was simply because she had the angel bloodline since she was a child. The angel bloodline was half awakened, and the new demon bloodline was trying desperately to awaken by force.

And that process caused immense pain to her. Every. Single. Time.

’I’m tired of this.’ Anastasia covered her eyes and sighed.

She wasn’t getting used to this.

That pain was completely random. Sometimes it was intense enough to make her fall unconscious, sometimes it felt like a simple stab. And the random timing made it even worse.

Despite this, here she was, trying to complete some missions.

’Can’t I just stay like this?’ Anastasia wondered thoughtfully: ’Braham is taking care of my cure. He can’t help with the quota, but the small missions are enough for it. Why do I have to work harder and help the other prisoners secretly? Why can’t I just rest all day, Charis?’

The bird’s expression turned serious immediately. With a calm yet commanding voice, Charis, the bird that only Anastasia could see, spoke: “Because then, you’d be falling into sloth. You can’t lose now, not after enduring that for so long already.”

Sloth.

It was one of the Seven Deadly Sins, therefore it was one of the seven demon bloodlines too.

And that was the bloodline that Anastasia had alongside charity.

It was conflicting with the charity bloodline in more than a simple conflict between demon and angel.

Charis explained: “Charity is the highest form of love—a selfless, unconditional goodwill toward others who deserve it, even at the cost of oneself. And you, Ana, were chosen for that bloodline.”

“It is meant for you. You’re born to be a kind person who helps all people to come out of their despair. Don’t you remember? Even a smile from you could help a person at his toughest moment in life.”

“To follow the path of charity, you’ll have to work hard to help others or even understand their emotions to know the best way to correct them. There are many ways to show your charity, it doesn’t have to be physical… but sloth?”

Charis’ voice suddenly became colder: “It is a spiritual, and emotional exhaustion that leads to a refusal to engage with one’s responsibilities, especially the responsibility to LOVE others! If it was simply physical exhaustion, it wouldn’t have been a sin.”

“When charity urges you to help a child, Sloth would tell you not to bother yourself. It’ll fill your mind with corrupted thoughts like ’Someone else will help them’, ’It isn’t my problem’, ’Why would I do that?’, or ’It simply doesn’t benefit me’. Once you start listening to those thoughts, you’d officially lose yourself.”

“Charity is the highest form of love. Sloth is the lack of love. You can’t have both natures.”

Anastasia looked at Charis for a long moment, wanting to say something, but she immediately dismissed that.

She wanted to just stay sleeping all night, making only the minimum movements.

She wanted to stop loving all people. Why did she have to love someone like Valor?

She wanted to stop making sacrifices for those who couldn’t repay her kindness, which only harmed her.

But at the same time, she wanted the opposite.

She wanted to stand up and do something useful, pushing away the laziness from her mind.

She wanted to show love to all people. She wanted to see Valor apologizing to her and asking for forgiveness and redemption instead of seeing him suffer.

She wanted to keep making sacrifices for those who couldn’t repay her. If she didn’t help a child who couldn’t get money for himself, who would? Was the harm she’d get from her actions worse than dying from starvation?

Why would she do that? The answer is quite simple.

Sometimes, you don’t need a reason to be selfless. Every person has different kinds of happiness, and Anastasia’s happiness required seeing the others smiling.

“Fine… I’ll do something.” Anastasia stood up and went to the first floor. There, she saw a list of the available missions hanging on the wall.

The mining mission had the word “Unlimited” behind it. This meant the mission could be taken anytime without a limit.

But the other missions had certain times, a specific maximum number of complications, and required informing a guard before accepting the mission.

The missions kept changing frequently under Anastasia’s gaze. Some jobs were taken, others were added.

But…

’No one is taking this.’

There was a mission that required only one person and paid a good amount of points, yet no one took it.

It was about feeding a prisoner.

Anastasia smiled faintly: ’I’ll do it.’

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