Holy Shroud (1)
In the end, that day had finally come.
"What? The battlefield?"
When I asked that, the Pope nodded and answered.
"Indeed. A request for support has arrived from the Imperial Court. I intend to dispatch the Holy Knights as reinforcements."
My expression hardened on its own at those words. Ordinarily the Church sent aid to the front under the banner of relief work. Direct requests from the Imperial Court for battlefield support were rare.
If they were asking anyway, it meant the situation on the front was that dire.
"Does the Saintess wish to join this reinforcement force?"
Asking my will meant that if I refused, they would not send me. But I had steeled myself long ago, and my preparations were more or less complete.
So I answered without hesitation.
"I will join."
The Pope looked faintly surprised, then nodded at once.
"…Very well. Do not worry. I will do everything in my power to ensure the Saintess’s safety."
With that, he rose.
"Please follow me."
Just what did the Pope intend to show me that required descending all the way into the basement?
Multiple layers of security were not enough; Holy Knights stood guard at the underground entrance. This place almost certainly held something of great importance.
The Pope walked in silence, candle in hand, until at last he spoke.
"You must be wondering what this place is."
"…It would be a lie if I said I wasn’t curious."
He laughed easily at my blunt honesty. Had I been too straightforward?
"I shall tell you. This is where the remains of the First Saintess are kept."
In other words, the First Saintess’s tomb.
The moment he said it, the atmosphere of the basement seemed to turn eerie.
J-just my imagination, right? Right?
My body shrank in on itself without my meaning to.
…Does bombardment work on ghosts?
Not that I planned to open fire if one appeared. Firing a beam cannon underground would just bury me alive.
"Th-then why have we come here?"
"May I digress for a moment? Of course I will answer the Saintess’s question as well."
I found the sudden change of topic odd, but since he promised an answer I nodded.
"Ah, yes."
"The garments the Saintess currently wears are modeled after the holy vestments of the First Saintess—the Holy Shroud."
Oh, so that was it.
Come to think of it, the Saintess’s attire I wore now was a bit too ornate to pass for ordinary clerical robes. Without the veil, no one would even recognize it as priestly clothing.
I had assumed the extravagance was simply to emphasize that a Saintess was special among the clergy, but there had been another reason.
Still, the explanation felt incomplete.
"Was there a particular reason they insisted on copying the Holy Shroud?"
"Because its defensive power was extraordinary. The greatest reason the First Saintess survived every deadly battlefield she walked was that she wore this Holy Shroud."
In short, the Holy Shroud was the ultimate endgame gear for a Saintess. I nodded, and the Pope continued.
"In the past, the Holy Shroud was virtually synonymous with protection. By wearing garments of similar form, later Saintesses prayed for the First’s guardianship."
"…But if they were going to make similar clothes, why not simply pass the original Holy Shroud down?"
Had someone lost it? I tilted my head in confusion, and the Pope answered the unspoken question.
"We would dearly like to. Regrettably, we cannot."
He fell silent for a moment. A door blocked the path ahead.
Slowly pushing it open with both hands, he said,
"Because the Holy Shroud still guards the remains of the First Saintess."
The Pope entered first; I followed.
The candle in his hand cast a soft glow across the chamber. Inside stood a single coffin.
And within that coffin lay a young woman, dressed in garments almost identical to my own.
"That is the First Saintess."
At a glance it was hard to believe she was dead; her remains retained the exact appearance of life.
"It is the influence of the Holy Shroud. It still holds the First Saintess in the form she possessed at the instant of her death."
Which meant she had died young.
The realization left a bitter taste in my mouth. Perhaps it was even more bitter because I had studied the life she had lived.
While I was lost in that melancholy, the Pope spoke again.
"Since the First Saintess’s passing, the Holy Shroud has accepted no later Saintess as its master."
No one who was not a Saintess could remove it. Even a Saintess who touched it would face a trial—a trial to prove she was a worthy master.
"What happens if someone is not a fitting master for the Holy Shroud?"
"They die."
"…Excuse me?"
I asked again at once, certain I had misheard. The Pope elaborated.
"More precisely, they are killed by the Holy Shroud within a mental world. Afterward they are said to be unable to speak for several days from the aftereffects."
What kind of item was that?! I was left speechless with disbelief.
Even for something with great performance, that was going too far.
While I reeled in shock, the Pope pressed on.
"Every Saintess who challenged the trial failed and suffered the aftermath, so in time the trial of the Holy Shroud came to be forbidden."
By now I understood why he had brought me here.
"Yet we have concluded that if the Saintess is to fully wield the Grace bestowed by the Goddess, the Holy Shroud is indispensable."
Sending me to the battlefield bare-skinned was simply too dangerous.
"Now I will tell you why we have come to this place."
He was offering me the chance to claim the ultimate defensive item for a Saintess.
"Undergo the trial of the Holy Shroud. Become its new master."
An enormously dangerous opportunity that would let me taste death if I failed, of course.
Honestly, it was incredibly tempting.
My physical abilities had risen once close-combat functions unlocked, but my durability still left something to be desired. Dodging solved the problem of toughness, sure—but how easy was it to never take a single hit while only landing your own?
And here was an item that would give me real tanking power?
Turning it down would make me a complete idiot.
The problem was that not a single person had ever passed the Holy Shroud’s trial. What kind of test boasted a zero-percent pass rate?
"I’ll do it."
Even if I was worried, I had to try. The return on success far outweighed the risk of failure.
I took one deep breath and reached for the Holy Shroud—then an important question struck me.
"…Is there any way to know what kind of trial it will be?"
If I knew the scope of the exam, I could prepare. Previous candidates existed; maybe the range of questions was known. I held a faint hope.
The Pope shook his head.
"Every Saintess who underwent the trial said the contents could not be spoken of."
Thorough to a fault. I clicked my tongue inwardly and looked at the Holy Shroud again.
All right. Let’s do this. No matter how impressive it is, in the end it’s just clothes.
The pinnacle of creation—humanity—isn’t going to lose to a piece of cloth!
With that bold spirit I firmly gripped the First Saintess’s shoulder.
And at once the world before my eyes went dark.
I stood in a place painted pure white, empty of everything. This had to be the Holy Shroud’s trial ground.
While I wondered what sort of test would take place here, I noticed one strange detail.
"Why is this here?"
Behind me the Holy Relic floated gently in the air.
This was supposed to be a mental world. Shouldn’t it be gone?
I poked it a few times; apparently it retained its form even here.
Could I fire a bombardment too? Maybe I should test it just once—
That was the moment.
"Waaaaaah!!!!"
Something plummeted from the empty sky.
A thunderous crash slammed into my ears hard enough to make me grimace. My hands flew up to cover them automatically—except my right hand had already snatched the Holy Relic, so my right ear stayed unprotected.
So now my hand went to the Holy Relic by reflex whenever anything happened.
If Andreus saw this, he would probably weep with joy and declare that the Saintess had become a proper warrior at last.
Anyway, I was about to check what had fallen from the sky. Something white, roughly, and far too large to take in at a glance. I decided I would have to tilt my head back.
I shall ask.
In that instant, a voice rang out.