Worries (1)
After seeing Lilith and her guardian Ethan off from the private sickroom in the church and back to the dormitory—
As she tidied up the private room where Lilith had until just recently been staying, Serista quietly turned over a worry she could never share with anyone else, chewing on it alone.
“I definitely felt it…”
That mysterious, yet somehow familiar power she had sensed from Lilith's body.
For the past three days, Serista had been the one examining and treating Lilith's body more closely than anyone.
Even before that, she had been able to wield the strongest divine power among the children her age at the church.
It was only natural, then, that such a Serista had steadily cultivated her talent as a priestess—it was the obvious result.
By now, she commanded holy power with such skill that the title of Saintess would have suited her better than that of the ordinary mid-ranked priests she so surpassed.
More than that, her true gift was the ability to react far more sensitively to even the faintest traces of divine power than any of her fellow priests.
Which meant that even the very weakest of powers lingering within Lilith's body—Serista could find it without fail.
That faint, unmistakable divine power that no one could possibly possess without receiving the priest's consecration from the Church of Aurelia.
“Perhaps she was once consecrated as a priestess at the church…?”
She had even considered that possibility for a moment, but it was utterly impossible.
If only to keep divine power from spreading recklessly through the world, the Church of Aurelia strictly managed consecration, performing it only once every five years and only for a fixed, limited number of candidates.
It was also part of that principle—meant to keep too much power from pooling in any one individual—that they never consecrated nobles or those of noble birth.
And yet, from the body of the woman she had faced for three days, Serista had sensed a divine power that, however faint, could not be hidden.
It was only natural, then, that Lilith's own claim of being a noble had raised questions in Serista's mind.
“Could it be… that Miss Lilith is really…”
A noble by birth, and yet carrying divine power within her despite never having received the priest's consecration.
There was no way Serista could fail to understand what that meant, and so an unease was slowly kindling in her chest.
Because she could see it all too easily—that this woman was the very 'true Saintess' the Church of Aurelia had once searched so desperately for.
Unlike herself, a manufactured 'fake Saintess.'
Thump.
"……"
Sitting on the bed where even now a trace of Lilith's divine power still lingered, Serista sank quietly into thought.
Would revealing right now that she had found the 'true Saintess' the Church of Aurelia had been seeking actually be the right choice?
For the Hero's sake, wouldn't Lilith—the Saintess herself—be far more help in the crises to come than someone like her, who was merely at the level of a high priestess at best?
…And if she did expose the existence of the true Saintess, what fate would befall her in turn?
The true Saintess, whom the Church of Aurelia had failed to find.
Serista didn't even know the reason they had failed to find her, but at the very least, she understood all too clearly just how precarious her own position was.
The fake Saintess—that was what the high priests of the Saintess search party had created to shift the blame for their failure onto.
It had already been five years since those high priests had appeared out of nowhere and abruptly made a Saintess out of her, a prospective priestess raised in the orphanage.
At first, she had been content simply with the little luxuries—food a bit tastier than usual, a soft bed to sleep in instead of a stiff mattress.
But as time passed and she grew older, she came to realize with painful clarity just how crushing the weight of the Saintess title she carried truly was.
Time and again, she had been pressed down by that heavy burden and yearned to throw away the title and run.
Surely what the world needed was not a fragile fake like her, but the true Saintess.
Serista was convinced that Lilith—who possessed the composure to face even a colossal monster like the Kraken without losing her head—would serve the Hero and the world far better than she ever could.
…Of course, whether she could actually bring the truth she had uncovered to the mother church was an entirely separate matter from the thoughts drifting through her head.
“If I were to report this to the mother church…”
It wasn't hard to imagine what her future would look like once she was no longer of any use as the fake Saintess.
If she were merely stripped of the title of Saintess and returned to being an ordinary priestess, she wouldn't have minded at all.
Even if she were expelled from the church and excommunicated for the crime of impersonating a Saintess, that, too, would have been something she could accept.
But Serista instinctively sensed that the title of fake Saintess she had already borne was not a problem that could end so simply.
The moment the words left her mouth—that she was in truth a fake, and that she had found the real Saintess—she would undoubtedly be eliminated on the spot, to redeem the church's honor and seal her lips for good.
With the disgrace of 'the priestess who impersonated a Saintess' heaped on top of it all.
“I don't want that…”
Why had she ended up in a position where she had to agonize over something this heavy?
She had vaguely understood, ever since she first began acting the part of the Saintess in earnest, that the responsibility on her shoulders was immense.
But she had never imagined it was a title that might, one day, demand she sacrifice her very life for the greater good.
Since the true Saintess had not appeared in over five years, she had assumed that perhaps she no longer existed—or had ceased to be a Saintess at all.
And she had vowed that if the Saintess truly never appeared, she would do her utmost, as one humble priestess, to become the Hero's Saintess and no one else's.
But contrary to Serista's expectations, the Saintess of Prophecy still existed—and her potential remained intact as well.
In the end, the choice would have to be made with her own two hands.
Would she gladly sacrifice her life for the sake of the world, shoulder the disgrace, and bring the true Saintess Lilith into the Church of Aurelia in her place?
Or would she go on playing the Saintess as she always had, turning a blind eye—utterly unprepared—to the crisis looming in the future?
“Hero… I've only just barely gotten to meet you…”
Their bond had begun, from the very first encounter, with him saving her from a swarm of monsters.
Even from those who had begun to wonder whether she truly had the right to be called a Saintess, he had protected her without a shred of doubt, despite how recently they'd met.
He had even deflected credit for his own deeds as though she, the Saintess, had accomplished them—time and again preserving the honor of a fake Saintess like herself.
He had even whispered to her, when the two of them were alone, that it wouldn't matter to him if she weren't a Saintess at all.
Toward that Hero—like a knight on a white horse straight out of a fairy tale—Serista had long since fallen in love.
The desire to stay by his side for as long as she possibly could. And the greater good that demanded she sacrifice herself for him and elevate the true Saintess in her place.
For a young girl of twenty, hopelessly in love, it was a choice far too cruel to bear.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
The Swordsmanship Department—the Hero's dormitory.
Gehwa-joses-gigwat Volt, first-ranked of Luminor Academy's first-year Swordsmanship class and the Hero of Prophecy who had achieved no small number of feats against the enemies of the realm.
He, too, was wrestling with a considerable worry of his own—born of the same incident two days prior.
The person who had changed the most from the original story, ever since he had found himself possessing the Hero in the world of Luminor Academy: the Pig Prince, Ethan.
No—come to think of it, from the very first moment they had met in this world, the title attached to the man hadn't resembled 'Pig Prince' in the slightest.
In the first place, far from being fat enough to earn the name of Pig Prince, he was—if anything—closest to a lean, wiry, muscular build.
Ethan of the Twin Swords.
It was a simple epithet, but even that alone carried meaning for him.
The fact that it wasn't a negative title like 'Pig Prince' was enough to tell him, at minimum, that this man wouldn't simply appear as a villain the way he had in the game.
Moreover, half a year and one month had already passed since the moment they first met.
By now, the Hero was firmly certain that this Ethan was a different person entirely from the Ethan Richard Blackwood of the game.
And so, at first, Gehwa-joses-gigwat had naturally considered the possibility that Ethan was himself a possessor—or a regressor.
“Maybe it's not possession. Maybe he's a regressor.”
The incident from two days ago had introduced a subtle shift in the Hero's speculation.
That flustered, helpless look on his face when he saw Lilith in cardiac arrest along the lakeside walkway.
Above all, the way he had raged at the Hero's attempt to perform CPR and never once let his guard down to the very end—those things made it fairly easy to conclude that, at the very least, Ethan was not a possessor.
If he had been one, he would naturally have possessed knowledge of CPR; if anything, he would have attempted chest compressions himself to save Lilith before the Hero ever arrived.
With that possibility eliminated, two main scenarios remained.
The first: that Ethan was not a 'possessor' but a 'regressor'—someone who had died once in a possible future and returned to live a second life.
And if that wasn't it, then the other possibility was…
“Could it be… not Ethan at all?”
The possibility that someone else around him—someone close—had been the one to transform him from 'Pig Prince Ethan' into 'Ethan of the Twin Swords.'
Though the catalyst had been pure chance, it was thanks to that chance that the Hero, Gehwa-joses-gigwat, had finally begun drawing near to the truth.