The Saintess of Belir (1)
Kaitos.
The S-rank awakener who supposedly protected Belir.
He could command three elements—water, wind, and lightning—and had signed a contract to shield Belir from disasters like typhoons and tidal waves. He handled monster and villain incursions as well, of course, but Belir's immigration was so notoriously strict that, aside from the occasional marine beast, he rarely had to step in himself.
In the original story, what happened in Belir was what drove him into retirement, after which he lived quietly on a small island. Beyond that, I didn't know much about him.
"You didn't bring the Golden Witch with you this time?"
"No. After what happened last time, she said she wouldn't be setting foot in Belir again..."
Kaitos glanced around as he spoke.
That explained it.
I'd been wondering why a Saintess who'd visited Belir so many times would flinch at mere mermaids. Until now, she'd apparently always come with the Golden Witch, a fellow S-rank hero. The Golden Witch possessed a terrifying mana that even monsters steered clear of, so marine beasts would never have dared come near.
"That's a relief, honestly. That witch of a woman... well, she is a witch, but I never particularly wanted someone like her coming to this beautiful Belir of mine."
"I'm sorry about what happened then. I'll apologize on her behalf."
The Saintess bowed her head and apologized again. Something must have happened last year, when the Golden Witch came to Belir. I hadn't had the luxury of keeping up with the news back then, so I'd need to look into it separately.
"Anyway, someone like you, Saintess, is welcome anytime. Come—I'll personally show you around this beautiful Belir."
Kaitos beamed and offered to guide her around the island himself.
"...Yes."
In the process, he reached for the Saintess's shoulder as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She bit down hard on her lip, visibly forcing herself to endure it.
I could more or less guess the situation. Well then. Time for a little test. Leaving her like that was a bit pitiful, anyway.
Smack!
"?!"
I slapped Kaitos's hand away as it reached for her shoulder. Both the Saintess and Kaitos stared at me, startled.
"Be—Bella?!"
Their reactions split in two. The Saintess: surprise, then worry. Kaitos: surprise, then rage. The first beat was the same; everything after diverged sharply.
"...What the hell do you think you're doing?"
A blue aura seemed to gleam in Kaitos's eyes. I'd only knocked his hand away, and already he looked ready to kill me on the spot.
"My apologies. When I'm on escort duty for the Saintess, I have orders to block anyone whose identity hasn't been verified."
"Identity not verified, is it... Don't tell me you don't know who I am?"
As if.
"...Kaitos. S-rank awakener of Belir."
I might not have known the details, but if they were S-rank, I at least remembered every name and ability. I'd already taken the measure of how strong he was, and of the gap between him and other S-rank awakeners besides.
"I'm also aware you failed to qualify when Hero City was recruiting S-rank heroes."
That struck his reverse scale.
"You insolent bitch!"
"Kaitos!"
Crack—!
Kaitos's hand cracked across my cheek. It was clearly an open palm, but it sounded like a fist connecting. The pain arrived a beat after the noise—as if my head were being torn from my shoulders. That, however, was nothing but the brain's theatrical little lie.
"...You took that? My hand?"
I'd come within a hair of blacking out, but surprisingly, an S-rank awakener's hand didn't sting as badly as it looked.
I spat the blood pooling in my mouth and, as naturally as breathing, drew a dagger from my pocket.
"Interesting. No S-rank hero besides the Saintess should be able to set foot in our Belir anymore... Don't tell me Hero City has an awakener I don't know about?"
Let's see. I'd been through a lot, but I'd never actually gone up against an S-rank awakener. In this situation, a head-on fight would obviously go to him. And yet a stubborn heat rose in me all the same. I'd already provoked him more than necessary without meaning to—maybe it was aftereffects from using my ability last time. I'd seem fine, then turn combative without even noticing. That was exactly why I didn't use my ability.
"I don't know who you are, but I'll give you credit for the guts...!"
Kaitos grinned and raised his hand again—and the Saintess stepped in front of him.
"Please stop, Kaitos."
She bowed her head and pleaded earnestly.
"Saintess, I'm sorry, but we'll have to change your escort. I'll stay by your side myself, so there's no need for a bitch like—"
On the Saintess's finger sat a gold ring set with amethyst. Everyone present knew who had made it.
"...Understood. If the Saintess wants it that badly, I'll look the other way this once. I'll be going."
And so Kaitos was the one who backed down first. Which meant I lived—not because he withdrew, but because there was no chance of the Golden Witch showing up here. I hadn't expected the Saintess to have an artifact like that, either. I'd nearly summoned a witch to drive off a wolf.
"Are you all right?!"
The moment Kaitos vanished, the Saintess checked on me.
"Well. It hurts enough that I'm not all right, no."
"Just wait a moment. I'll heal you right away..."
After assessing my condition, blue mana flowed from her hands, and the pain began to fade. So this was how the Saintess healed: she sent her own mana into the damaged area to rapidly regenerate tissue and ease the pain. I'd seen the method once before, aboard the Titanic. This time, though, the quality of the healing was on a different level.
"...What were you thinking? You could have died from that just now."
She seemed worried about me, but my attention was on her astonishing healing ability. I hadn't given it serious thought because it seemed so unlikely, but... maybe I could use the Saintess's power to treat Lena's body?
Of course, I knew even the Saintess couldn't fix a Mana Incompatible's body. A Mana Incompatible wasn't a disease, strictly speaking—it was a constitution. Even if a panacea existed, you couldn't treat something that wasn't an illness.
"You looked like you didn't want it, so I stopped him. Was I wrong?"
"No, thank you... But I was too scared of him to find the courage to refuse."
Scary enough that you couldn't refuse. Fair enough. I'd only gotten stubborn a moment ago myself. Being S-rank, the weight of the mana he radiated was no joke.
"For someone that scared, you stepped up pretty well just now."
"I don't really know. But if I hadn't, I thought you'd get badly hurt, Bella..."
If the Saintess hadn't blocked Kaitos, a fight would have broken out then and there. I hadn't planned to take the next hit lying down the way I had the first, so this passenger liner would have been wrecked for starters. Of course, this was the sea—as good as Kaitos's home ground—so I couldn't have won anyway.
"Please don't do anything that dangerous again. I can't heal the dead, you know..."
Her voice trembled on the verge of tears. Did she even realize I was her bodyguard when she said that? Having grown up on battlefields and in churches since childhood, she came across as almost excessively kind. But in this world, being kind just made you a sucker. At this rate, regardless of whether villains ever kidnapped her, she'd be used her entire life. And she didn't even have any combat ability of her own. It was genuinely pitiful.
There'd been a bit of a commotion, but thanks to the Saintess stepping in, it was resolved without further incident. I continued escorting her without any particular change in my assignment. Honestly, part of me had hoped that mouthing off to Kaitos would get me kicked off the security team. Instead, the Saintess started keeping me even closer.
"Bella, could you pass me the disinfectant over there?"
"Here you go."
The moment we arrived in Belir, the Saintess started making the rounds of hospitals on the island's outskirts. It wasn't that Belir's medical facilities were particularly backward. The country even advertised free healthcare, and it enjoyed a decent international reputation. The reality, however, was less pretty.
The hospitals run by Belir itself were free, so they were packed, and the quality of care was poor—you'd go in, get a few antibiotics prescribed, and that was it. Private hospitals could provide proper treatment, but they weren't covered by insurance, so even if your body recovered, your bank account would be in agony from the staggering cost.
"Even if a monster bite heals, that doesn't mean it's fully gone. If you're not careful, the wound can reopen, so please avoid strenuous exercise for a while."
"I understand... Thank you, Saintess. Thank you so much."
So a lot of people simply didn't go to the hospital even when they were sick, or they scraped by on a handful of pills until they died. I'd forced my way into Hero City in no small part because of its well-developed medical system. Belir, it turned out, was nowhere near as nice as it looked from the outside.
After arriving in Belir, the Saintess spent until nine at night going around dozens of hospitals, focused solely on treating people.
"Ugh, why can't my ability even fix being tired..."
As a result, the moment she reached the hotel that was our lodging, she collapsed onto the bed. She'd barely made it into the room—her legs had given out, and I'd had to support her just to get her through the door.
"Fatigue from using an awakener's ability can only be resolved by actual rest."
"If they're going to give you the power to heal people, they could at least let you fix that too."
"Life in this world doesn't tend to go the way you want."
"Seems that way..."
In truth, it was especially bad for the Saintess. An awakener's ability placed a tremendous burden on the body the higher the rank, but the body itself had already transcended human limits, which was how they endured it. The Saintess's body, however, wasn't much different from how it looked. Even a relatively low-burden healing ability left her this exhausted.
"Haa..."
I looked at the now-quiet Saintess and let out a sigh. The one silver lining was that among the places she was visiting was my destination: Korchma Taras. If I moved on my own, I'd definitely get caught by Belir's security system, so I'd have to slip over when we were nearby. Especially since I'd already been marked by the guy who was basically the neighborhood boss around here.
"Insolent bitches."
Kaitos, S-rank awakener of Belir, returned to his office still unable to fully swallow his rage. As a result, Belir's weather stayed overcast all day, and the waves ran so high that the coastline was placed off-limits.
"Did something happen?"
A black-haired secretary greeted him as he entered. Kaitos drained a whole bottle of beer and opened his mouth.
"What about the thing I told you to look into. Who's that insolent bitch who was with the Saintess."
"...Please wait a moment."
Before long, the secretary returned with a file. When he was this angry, talking was pointless—he wouldn't listen. At times like this, doing as you were told was the way to stay healthy.
"She's a D-rank awakener recruited from Hero City. Name's Bella. Nothing particularly noteworthy."
He was Belir's only S-rank combat-type awakener, and he held power to match. At least within Belir, making a single person vanish without a trace was trivially easy.
"D-rank...? D-rank? What kind of bullshit is that?"
"Eek?!"
Apparently the information didn't sit well with him. Kaitos grabbed the secretary by the hair and started going through the documents she'd brought.
"I-it clearly says D-rank... I don't see any signs of tampering..."
Indeed, there were no signs of forgery. It didn't look like a hastily prepared fake identity, and the information matched the escort he had seen exactly.
"...Fine. Get out."
"Yes, sir."
After releasing the secretary, Kaitos studied the documents a little longer. Looked at again, there still wasn't anything particularly strange.
"And when you come in tomorrow, don't worry about being late. Just change that hair color."
"Last time you said you didn't like blonde, so I changed it. Is there a color you'd prefer?"
"Pink would be good."
"Yes. I'll have it changed."
Once the secretary had withdrawn, Kaitos set the papers down and sank into thought.
"...I held back enough not to kill her, but it shouldn't have been something a mere D-rank could take."
The Saintess's insolent bodyguard bothered him, strangely.