A Saintess Should Manage at Least This Much, Right?

Everything had started only a little while ago.

It had been an ordinary day, no different from any other. A semi-basement. The only thing in the room that could be called a window was a single small ventilation slit set about as high as a person's calf, and through that narrow gap all I ever saw were the legs of people passing by. The stink of mold packed the place to the walls. It was a shut-in's life, one that spent more hours under a fluorescent bulb than under the sun.

For an orphan like me, thrown away by his own parents, it was a perfectly familiar, perfectly ordinary day.

"Ah, shit. What kind of plot is this garbage? Has the author lost his mind...? I just wasted my time. Damn it..."

The blue light pouring off the monitor washed over my shabby figure. I leaned back in the creaking chair and chewed my lip.

The Hero of Aeternia — the web novel everyone was talking about, sitting at number one on the real-time rankings of the serialization platform. I'd started it wondering just how great a masterpiece had to be to whip people into a frenzy like this, and the more I read, the more the frustration boiled up inside me. The real problem was the path taken by one of the main heroines: the Saintess, Elysia de Claris.

"I mean, she's got a broken cheat of an ability called regression, so why does a woman who's supposed to be the Saintess never even try properly to save everyone — and then fail to save them anyway?!"

Along with a vast store of divine power, she possessed an authority that used death itself as the trigger to rewind her to a specific point in time. A power unique to the Saintess, granted as a blessing of God. Die, and you could start again; in theory, that meant infinite chances. Set aside the fatal flaw that she couldn't choose the point she returned to, and it was an ability anyone would call a blatant cheat.

And yet Elysia, the Saintess of the novel, couldn't stop her comrades from dying. She screamed, she suffered under the guilt, and in the end her mind simply broke.

Well, she does get saved by the protagonist after that... but if you've got an ability like that in the first place, aren't you supposed to not create a situation where your mind falls apart? Is she an idiot?

"If I'd been the Saintess, I would've saved every last one of them and had room to spare, lol."

The baseless confidence of an unemployed orphan rotting in his room. Even so, no matter how I turned it over, it didn't look all that hard.

Regression. Even thinking about it simply, wasn't it an absurd power? A mad ability that let you know the future and correct your failures. An exam? Fail it, die, and take it again. An assassination? Die once, then dodge. A war? If you know the future where you lose, you stop whatever caused it. Even if you didn't stop it outright, preparing with the information you already had would let you win battle after battle.

What part of that is supposed to be difficult?? No matter how I look at it, it's a fucking cheat.

So what if death was the condition for regressing? What did that matter?

You come back to life anyway, don't you? Endure that split second of pain, and you can save the people you love — save the world itself. Isn't that right?

If you were the Saintess, a noble being, a being with convictions, someone who had received a cheat of a blessing from God, then that was exactly what you ought to do. The god had given you the power for that purpose. If you weren't going to use it, why put an authority like that in your hands at all?

It demands sublime sacrifice? That's just the basic qualification of a Saintess, isn't it...?

To think a Saintess could have her mental state collapse over dying a handful of times and drag the whole ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠novel down into misery porn... If I, Kang Jinhyeok, had been Elysia, I would have saved everyone without ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠fail.

I opened the comment window at once and started hammering the keys.

The moment I hit post, a strange catharsis washed through me. Right. A person ought to live having said what needs saying. Isn't that so?

I was basking in that small satisfaction, skimming the other comments, when the monitor began to hiss and crawl with noise.

"Huh...? What is this, why's it doing that? Some new kind of virus?"

I shook the mouse in a panic, but the noise on the screen only grew worse.

"What the — fuck, why is it doing th—"

I never finished the sentence. A radiance of pure white burst out of the monitor and swallowed my one-room apartment in an instant. Pain stabbed through my eyes, and I felt my body lift, weightless, into the air. As my mind went faint and distant, someone's voice reached me.

"...What?"

That short, dying breath was the last of it. I lost consciousness.

The mold-stink of the cold semi-basement vanished. What came in its place, in the very instant after my mind went dark, was the thick scent of lilies tickling my nose, and the touch of luxurious silk against my skin.

And so, the present.

"....Fuck?"

That was how I had ended up in a situation like this. My mind was on the verge of slipping under a panic my brain couldn't process when another translucent blue window rose in the corner of my vision.

"This is... a status window. Stats? According to the original setting, you were only supposed to be able to see this through a crystal orb...? Some kind of possessor's bonus?"

My eyes picked the window apart line by line. Strength 68. Agility 84. Stamina wasn't particularly high either. In a word, the body was frail. But Intelligence was 402. Mana was 471. And Divine Power was...

1284??

"...Hold on."

I looked again and again, and the numbers didn't change. The original had mentioned more than once that Elysia's divine power was abnormal, but I hadn't imagined it was this abnormal. My gaze, though, had stopped somewhere else entirely.

Alignment: ?

Ego Contamination Rate: 0%.

"...What kind of ominous combination is this. Ha... haha."

It was so absurd that only a hollow laugh came out. The beauty in the mirror looked back at me and wore the exact same empty smile.

Ego Contamination Rate. Did it mean that every time I regressed, or performed whatever "certain actions" the system was talking about, the core of me — Kang Jinhyeok — would be corrupted? What in the world were those certain actions?

"...Well. Set the body aside, and the other stats aren't bad, I guess."

I was pressing a hand to a head still spinning from the sheer unreality of it all when a careful knock sounded beyond the heavy door.

"Saintess? You're already awake? I'll come in."

If anyone was going to come to this room right now... yes. There ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could only be one person.

The door flew open, and a small, slightly young-looking woman stepped in, her pink hair tied into twin tails. There was no mistaking her. Nina — the exclusive maid who, in the novel, had followed Elysia like an older sister.

Nina took in the sight of me standing blankly before the mirror, and her eyes went round.

"Wow...! Your skin looks even clearer than usual today, Saintess! It must be because you receive the Goddess's protection and love so fully. I'm so jealous."

Nina laughed, bright and unclouded, ran over to me, and caught my hand in both of hers. It was warm. Not a scrap of text seen from the far side of a monitor, but the warmth of a living person.

Nina... was, of course, a stranger to me. Part of that was simply that I was seeing her for the first time, but more than that, Nina was a character the original had already established as dead. A character who never got so much as a single line, already dead before the novel even began. The first person Elysia gave up on. That was Nina.

Someone might ask how I knew about her at all, then. The answer wasn't in the main story. It was in a side story. I had first learned of her in the side story that showed Elysia's past before she entered the Academy. On the screen, her death in the attack had been delivered in nothing but a few short sentences. I, the reader, had felt a brief pang of pity at Nina's death and then forgotten her the moment the next chapter went up.

But this was different. The warmth coming through the hand wrapped around mine — that alone made it vividly, unmistakably clear that this existence was a living person. That someone smiling this brightly would meet her death in a future that wasn't even far off... honestly, it didn't feel real at all.

"Saintess, please sit down quickly. We have to do your hair."

Led by Nina's hand, I sat in the chair at the vanity. Humming, she began to comb my hair.

"By the way, there's only about a month left until the Academy entrance exam, isn't there?"

"...The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Academy."

In the mirror, Nina's radiant smile and my expressionless face crossed each other. While she combed, I thought it through carefully. If Nina was at my side, then this place was probably the Papal Palace of the Luminaris Holy Kingdom. In the original, Elysia had stayed at the Papal Palace until she left for the Academy.

A month until the entrance exam, and Nina is alive... which obviously means this is before the main story begins.

In a month, the Academy entrance exam would be held. The original story had begun three days before that exam. The original Elysia had scored close to the very top and entered the S-Class in second place, right behind the protagonist, Sian. From there she had built her bonds, and the narrative of the novel had taken shape.

But... right now I had one fatal problem. I picked up the glass bottle sitting on the vanity.

Something was clearly written on the bottle, but to me it was nothing but writhing patterns. I couldn't read it. I had possessed the Saintess's body, so I'd assumed that language, at least, would come to me automatically... Apparently her knowledge and memories had not crossed over with me.

...I'm screwed. Speech comes out on its own, so why won't the letters read? Don't novels and anime just let you read this stuff from the very start...?

Written exam. Practical. Interview. Of those, the written test was, for the me who couldn't even read the letters, a guaranteed failure. At this rate, never mind second place — admission to the S-Class itself would be in danger. Then the flow of the original would tangle... my position would be threatened... problem after problem...

Ha... my head's spinning. I'll think that one through bit by bit later.

Because right now there was a problem I had to solve before the entrance exam. I looked at the system window.

My fingertips seemed to tremble on their own. My eyes wouldn't leave the quest window.

The attack by a pack of magical beasts on the road as the Saintess traveled to the Academy — an incident mentioned in the side story. It had noted only where the attack took place, and what the result had been. No detailed account of the battle itself ever appeared. But the result, at least, was certain. Nina dies that day. Even the manner of her death was never properly shown, because in the narration that followed the attack, Nina was already described as a dead woman.

Elysia regressed dozens of times and still couldn't save the girl who had been so precious to her. In the end she gave up on Nina and arrived at the imperial capital, where the Academy stood, with only her knight, Bern de Lacroix.

That was all the result had said. And the system was telling me to stop that future — under the absurd condition that there not be even a single sacrifice.

I stared hard at Elysia in the mirror and clenched my fist. I had been confident I could save everyone. I had shot my mouth off saying that if I became the Saintess myself, it would be possible. Yes. It was too late to take it back now. I had already possessed her, and this place was not a novel. It was reality.

Infinite regression or whatever else — first I had to save the child smiling right in front of my eyes. I had to survive, for a start. If I died, I could come back. If I failed, I could die again, revise, fix, and prevent it. I only had to repeat it until everyone lived. A death or two — I could endure that as many times as it took. A Saintess was supposed to save everyone. Obviously.

And just how arrogant those words had been, I did not yet know.