Drugs, Self-Harm, and the Saintess
Lately, a strange rumor had been circulating inside the cathedral.
In the dead of night, when everyone else was asleep, an eerie sound could be heard coming from the empty confessional.
According to those who claimed to have heard it, the sound was something like a woman’s laughter—or perhaps her sobbing.
Once the rumor spread, the faithful began trading all sorts of theories. Some said a ghost burdened with sin had come to make confession. Others insisted it was nothing more than the cry of some animal passing by.
Yet for all the speculation, no one had ever actually uncovered the truth. The hour was late, after all, and no one possessed the courage to open that door and look inside for themselves. So most simply dismissed it as another ghost story drifting through the cathedral halls.
None of them ever imagined that the source of the rumor was the very Saintess they so deeply loved.
Inside the confessional, Alice sat crouched in her nightgown.
“Heh… eheh… hehehehehehe.”
Her condition, however, was anything but ordinary. Drool spilled freely from the corners of her smiling mouth, and her vacant eyes stared into empty space, pupils blown wide. Most unsettling of all was the syringe lying beside her—an object she had no medical need for whatsoever.
Even so, she picked it up without hesitation and drove the needle into her own arm.
“Ehehe…”
With a soft push, she depressed the plunger, and the contents of the barrel flowed into her body. Alice’s frame shuddered with pleasure as a blissful sound escaped her lips. Her eyes grew even more unfocused.
“Ah… aha… ahahahahaha.”
Her laughter filled the confessional. Empty syringes rolled across the floor, and the puncture marks riddling her arms far outnumbered the discarded needles. In short, this was far from the first time she had done this. She had already been using the drugs long before the ghost rumors ever began.
“Heehee… H-Hero… where are you? I’m right here…”
Her empty gaze wandered, searching for Kyle. Ever since his death, she had been wasting her days like this. Of course, neither the faithful nor the Pope knew anything about it. No matter how deep her despair, who would ever imagine that their Saintess was shooting up inside the cathedral itself? Anyone who claimed to have seen it would only be accused of blasphemy and cursed for their trouble. Within the Holy Kingdom, the Saintess was as good as inviolable.
“Heh… hehe… ehehehehe.”
But that sacred image was nowhere to be found in her now. Her nightgown was soaked with drool, her body limp as a broken doll. Countless injection scars marked her arms.
“Heh… hehehe…”
The Saintess was nothing more than a drug addict.
Two weeks had passed since the Demon King subjugation force set out.
After leaving the Empire, they headed straight for the Holy Kingdom. Their reason was simple: they needed Alice, whose holy power was a natural weakness of the demonkin.
“Heya. Finally made it. Damian—just like we talked about earlier, I’m counting on you for the rest.”
“Y-Yes…”
“It’s nothing complicated. Just treat her the same way I told you to handle Emilia and Jain. Got it?”
Upon arriving in the Holy Kingdom, Yuli clapped Damian on the back and offered his advice. Damian, looking somewhat unconvinced, asked,
“But Master… wouldn’t it be better this time if the people who were actually her companions went instead of me?”
“Well… about that…”
On the surface, the boy’s point made sense. Hero or not, Damian was still a complete stranger to the Saintess. It might have been wiser to send the companions who had known her for so long. The problem was that those women no longer considered one another companions—and Alice was no exception.
“No. We’ll wait here.”
Emilia’s refusal was absolute. Jain and Muni shared the same view. In the end, the soldiers remained behind while only Yuli and Damian passed through the gates.
Near the cathedral, a believer was waiting for them.
“Welcome. You must be Hero Damian and Sir Yuli?”
“That’s right. I’m Yuli, the Empire’s hero.”
The Empire’s hero—Yuli made a point of emphasizing the title for himself. The Holy Kingdom was no vassal of the Empire, and his fame had hardly spread across the entire continent, yet Yuli fixed the believer with a hard stare. The man finally lowered his head and corrected himself.
“…Forgive me. Hero Yuli, please come inside. His Holiness the Pope is waiting.”
“Hmph.”
Yuli’s stride as he entered was more arrogant than ever. Watching him, one might have thought he had already slain the Demon King himself.
“Welcome. We have been expecting you.”
The Pope awaited them in the cathedral’s inner sanctuary and wasted no time getting to the point.
“We received the documents. You say you require our Saintess’s power.”
“Yes. With the Demon King’s defeat ahead of us, the Saintess’s abilities are absolutely essential.”
“Hmm…”
Damian’s earnest plea left the Pope looking troubled. Why the hesitation? There was no reason to waver before such a great undertaking—if anything, having a stake in it should have been pure advantage. Yuli, irritated by the Pope’s reluctance, glanced around.
“By the way, where’s Alice right now? What, is she sleeping in or something?”
“What—you…!”
The Holy Knights standing beside the Pope bristled at once. Not only had Yuli casually dropped formal speech toward His Holiness, he had shown open disrespect to the Saintess as well. In a single breath he had insulted the two most revered figures in the Holy Kingdom. Every believer nearby glared at him, but the Pope raised a hand to restrain them.
“Very well. However, the Saintess’s condition has been unstable of late. Please wait a short while.”
“Yeah, fine by me.”
Leaving Yuli’s magnanimous reply behind him, the Pope went to fetch the Saintess. While they waited, Damian carefully addressed his master.
“M-Master… wasn’t that a little rude just now?”
“Eh, don’t worry about it. What are they gonna do?”
“B-But we’re the ones who came to ask a favor…”
Damian glanced around and felt the believers’ hostile stares prickling against his skin. He wondered whether he ought to apologize then and there, yet Yuli remained completely at ease.
“It’s fine. All they can do is glare—that’s why they’re stuck doing just that.”
Just like someone who had been framed and left with no choice but suicide. Yuli thought of that someone and smiled with arrogant satisfaction.
Before long, the Pope returned with the Saintess.
“Oh? Yuliii?”
“Ha—long time no see, Alli—”
“Waaah! It’s Yuli!”
Something was clearly wrong with her. Had she truly been asleep? Her steps were unsteady, her speech slurred. Her eyes were unfocused, and saliva looked ready to spill from her slack, open mouth at any moment. Even now she could barely support her own weight and had to be held up by the believers.
“Hehehe. Long time no seeee. What brings you heeere?”
“….”
For a moment Yuli was at a loss for words. The pure, refined air she had once carried was gone without a trace. The woman before him looked no different from a drunken whore wandering the back alleys.
I never thought she’d fallen this far.
Compared to the other companions, her state was in a league of its own. Judging by the wreck she had become, she had clearly been touching drugs—and this was no one- or two-day habit. Roll up those sleeves and you would find countless injection scars. The rope marks around her neck were equally hard to ignore. The believers tried their best to look away, but anyone could tell what they were. Those were the traces of self-harm.
Yuli let out a silent sigh and sank into thought.
Is dragging something like that along even going to help?
She might only get in the way. Still, having the Saintess meant they could cut off the Demon King’s escape routes. A barrier of holy power would seal every path of flight; the demonkin would not be able to snatch their king away and run as they had last time. For the sake of contingency, they would have to take her.
Having finished his calculations, Yuli nudged Damian in the side. The boy immediately offered Alice a greeting.
“Ah—hello, Saintess. It’s an honor to meet you.”
“Yeees. Nice to meet youuu~”
“Um… I’m Damian, the 182nd Hero.”
“Hero? A Hero?”
For the first time, the half-conscious Saintess reacted. She staggered toward Damian, peered intently at his face, and then giggled.
“Nahhh. You’re lying.”
“Pardon?”
“You’re not Kyle.”
“Ah, well…”
“Come to think of it, where’s our Hero? Ehehe. Yuli, do you know?”
Alice grinned as she asked after Kyle. Neither Yuli nor anyone else present could bring themselves to open their mouths. In truth, Yuli had planned to use Damian the same way he had with Emilia and Jain, reeling Alice in as well. That was why he had brought the boy all this way…
In the end, Yuli abandoned the scheme and made the request directly to the Pope.
“Your Holiness. As we discussed, we’d like to take Alice with us.”
“Hmm. But as you can see, the Saintess still needs more time to recover…”
“Doesn’t look like staying here is going to fix anything. Coming with us might actually be better for her. Joining the subjugation force would do wonders for her image, don’t you think?”
“….”
The Pope’s expression grew troubled. Yuli was right—Alice’s standing within the Holy Kingdom was steadily shrinking. She had shut herself in her room for over a month without performing a single duty, and the rare glimpses people caught of her were like this. Her reputation was crumbling by the day. Rumors were already circulating both inside and outside the cathedral; if things continued, she would have no choice but to step down as Saintess.
At last he nodded at Yuli’s proposal.
“Very well. In that case, our Holy Knights and believers will accompany her as escorts.”
“Sure. We’d be grateful for that.”
And so Saintess Alice joined the Demon King subjugation force. Supported by the believers and Holy Knights, she stepped into the sunlight for the first time in a month and a half.
“Heehee, Yuli. Look at thisss.”
She called to him and pointed at her own neck. The rope marks he had noticed earlier stood out clearly against her skin.
“Matching couple marks with the Hero. Ehehe—pretty, right?”
Alice beamed as she proudly displayed the scars of her self-harm. In that smile, not a single trace of the Saintess she had once been remained.