Before She Was a Saint
Hilde mastered Outer Gravity Shift on her very first try, and though she practiced hard through to the following night, she still hadn’t managed to improve her speed all that much. All she had gained was a little more range—her movement had gone from about ten centimeters to fifteen. To Agatha, though, even that was an impressive leap. She was thoroughly astonished by her daughter’s quick wit and talent.
Agatha herself had once been called a genius of the age, but Hilde was different. It was as though the blessings of every ounce of divine power in this world had gathered in a single body.
On a moonlit night, mother and daughter rested for a moment. Hilde, who had spent the entire day doing nothing but eating and training, lay flat on the ground, drenched in sweat. Her long hair spilled across the grass, but she was too exhausted to care. Agatha sat beside her with a hand on her hip, gazing at her admirable daughter, when she suddenly spoke.
“Hilde, do you hate the saint?”
Unable to read Agatha’s intent, Hilde answered honestly.
“Yes. I do. The saint insulted the person most precious to me for no reason at all.”
A bitter look flickered across Agatha’s face. She understood her daughter’s circle of friendships, but she supposed that the person most precious to Hilde was herself. And if the saint had insulted her, that meant Hilde understood, to some extent, just what that would lead to. It also meant she knew, in her bones, just how lonely that woman’s position truly was.
“Still, Hilde. Don’t hate the saint too much.”
Hilde fell silent. Whether her mental age was following along with her body or not, the eleven-year-old Hilde still harbored ill feelings toward the saint. Besides, all the children at school feared the saint. Agatha lowered her voice and said,
“Saint Irene… has survived a total of 107 assassination attempts.”
“What?”
“That’s the official number. The restricted records would probably list even more.”
Hilde was so shocked she felt the blood drain from her body. She shifted upright and stared at Agatha. Agatha continued.
“That child was chosen as a saint candidate when she was very young. The church people couldn’t bear to leave the vacant saint’s seat unfilled, so they placed an eight-year-old child on the shortlist based solely on her gifts. As a result, there were countless checks and pressure from other churches, and there are even records of a high priest from the Senium temple trying to assassinate her. That child, along with her friends and family, must have suffered terribly, while the saint lived on all alone.”
When she thought about it, the only person by Hilde’s side had been Trisha. No matter how hysterical a person might be, the office of saint was one that wielded unmatched authority. No matter how much suffering there was, there would always be people eager to line up for a chance to cling to the saint’s favor.
The saint, traumatized from a young age by the thought of the people around her getting hurt, never allowed anyone near her except her guards. Just because she had looked young and easy to target, she had likely endured an uncountable number of assassination attempts—and that thought made Hilde feel sorry for her.
No one in this wide world truly wants to be alone. And yet the saint had always been alone. Since she was eight years old and had become a saint candidate.
“Personally, I’d like it if you didn’t hate her too much. All right?”
“Yes…. I’ll think about it.”
It was the same answer as before, but the weight behind it had changed a little.
---
Sniffle. I’m so glad our sweet, pitiful daughter is alive.
Irene! We’re friends, aren’t we? I want to live! Please save me! I’m really not a spy! Ack!
Saint, you should run while you still can. Cough. Gurgle.
“Hup!”
Irene’s usual nightmare had felt especially vivid tonight. Her breathing suddenly turned ragged, and she choked for air, her eyes rolling white for a moment before she gasped and finally managed to draw in a breath. The monster standing atop the corpses of her acquaintances was still alive. Or rather, it was less that she was alive than that she didn’t feel alive at all.
I want to die. But…
Irene thought of the friends and parents who had died for her. The holy knight she had once considered a true friend had tried to assassinate her, only to plunge a knife into the chest of the mother who had rushed in behind her. There was only one reason to continue this cursed life: the survival of humankind.
It was still pitch-dark outside, and when she checked the clock hanging on the wall, it was only four in the morning. School was still a long way off, but the fear of having the same dream again kept her staring blankly out the window. She had never really possessed any sense of duty to begin with. She had wanted to become a saint because she wanted to protect everyone around her. And then, suddenly, she remembered today’s trivial incident.
Hilde. That brat really has nerve.
The place they had first met had been the training grounds. From a distance, she had fallen for her despite them both being girls. But then, seeing Hilde receive the boundless admiration and affection of their peers, she had felt a surge of jealousy so intense it nearly made her sick. And then she had said something she could never take back. If I weren’t the saint, could we have been friends? The fact that she’d even thought that made Irene feel like a truly ugly person. By now, though, the question was meaningless.
As her thoughts drifted on without her meaning them to, the sun began to rise beyond the window. The saint would have to keep moving forward today by trampling over one person. The act of stepping on a child she wanted to be friends with hurt more than she had expected.
---
Hilde felt lighthearted enough to take a stroll before the final exam in the afternoon.
Her chances of defeating Trisha, who ranked among the very top students even in the advanced class, were originally around fifty-fifty. But thanks to her mother’s teaching, she had come up with a way to handle Trisha—an opponent she would otherwise have struggled against quite a bit—and that was a relief.
Heh. Even if I’d just dragged it out, this would’ve been a pretty profitable test, but things worked out nicely.
After eating a light lunch to prepare for the duel and walking around the temple grounds to help her food settle, Hilde slowly approached the source of some bustling noise that had begun to reach her ears. Suppressing her presence as much as possible, she leaned in to look. A group of children raised in the church, all under the age of ten, were gathered together.
“You think we’re the same as you? It’s because you’re such a mess that your parents abandoned you and left.”
“Ugh. Just breathing the same air as this filthy little bum makes me want to puke.”
“You’ve been coming to church for three years and you still can’t handle divine power? Wow, you’re really stupid.”
For a moment, Hilde’s mind simply stopped. Five children were surrounding one child, hurling abuse as they beat him down together. She had spent more than half a year in the church, but this was the first time she had seen anything like it. The child being bullied couldn’t even fight back; he just curled up on the ground and cried.
As the beaten child’s reaction started to fade, one girl turned pale with panic.
“Jake! Stop hitting him already! What if the adults find out?”
“Heh heh. It’s fine, Shady. Watch closely. Do it like this.”
The little boy called Jake bent down and reached out a hand, making the bullied child flinch in terror. But Jake paid it no mind and touched the bruised areas; little by little, the dark marks began to disappear.
“See? That way, you can just beat the hell out of him without worrying about it. It’s not like he has anyone to tattle to, right? That gloomy little freak is the one who’s wrong for coming to church in the first place.”
Hilde, watching in silence, dropped her jaw. It was eerily similar to witnessing juvenile delinquency in South Korea with her own eyes. After looking a little closer, she realized the bullying group seemed to be the children of wealthy families who came to the church once a week to pray.
Seeing the others marvel at Jake’s ability, Hilde lost her temper. The fallen child was about to be subjected to more abuse, with only the blood bruises barely hidden.
All right. Time to warm up. You little shits picked the wrong day.
Just as Hilde was about to crack her knuckles and step forward with every intention of thoroughly fixing those kids’ characters—
“What are you all doing?”
The saint appeared with Trisha in tow, her brow deeply furrowed as she approached the children. The moment Hilde saw her, she reflexively hid herself again.
What the hell? Why is she there?
“U-uh….”
The children who had been bullying the boy froze, visibly flustered. Even the children knew the saint’s vicious rumors. She was someone even their own heaven-high parents mentioned only with utmost respect. Jake, realizing he might be in serious trouble, suddenly lifted the corners of his mouth. A good idea had just struck him.
“Good day, Saint. This little brat was talking behind your back and insulting you terribly. Violence is wrong, of course, but I just couldn’t stand it. If Your Holiness decides to punish me, I’ll accept it gladly.”
“S-sniff. I-I didn’t do any of that…. Really….”
The child lying on the ground forced out his voice with great difficulty. His body had no strength left, but if this kept going, it felt as though even his heart would break.
Jake exploded at the boy’s words.
“What did you say? Are you calling me a liar, you despicable little bastard?”
“Y-yeah! I heard him clearly say the saint was a demon who kills people!”
Jake exaggerated his anger, and the other children quickly joined in. They had judged that, given the saint’s personality, she would never just let someone get away with badmouthing her from behind. If they pushed the story this way, then the brat who lived off the church with no parents to speak of would be cast out under the saint’s fury.
But when they saw the saint’s cold eyes, the children grew anxious.
“……”
The saint silently watched them, gradually piecing together the situation.
Their faces the moment she arrived—like they’d been stabbed. Their clumsy excuses. The others were glancing nervously at the boy who looked like their leader, only echoing him awkwardly.
No matter how vile or crafty they were, they were still just children, and their act was painfully obvious.
After a moment, the saint spoke.
“You.”
“Yes, Saint! We did well, didn’t we?”
Jake smiled ingratiatingly. It was a sneaky, underhanded kind of attitude that hardly seemed fit for a child. But contrary to Jake’s expectations, a shadow fell over the saint’s face, and her expression turned cold. For a brief instant, when Jake met her eyes, he felt as if he might wet himself on the spot.
“All of you, get lost. You’re annoying.”
At her icy rebuke, the children bolted toward the side where Hilde was hiding. Hilde, startled, hurriedly pressed herself back, but the children, tears welling in their eyes as they ran, fled without even realizing Hilde was there.
The saint approached the child who lay obediently on the ground. The child trembled violently, his face turning white. He wanted to bow his head even while lying down, but his body hurt too much to move.
“I-I’m sorry, Saint. B-but I didn’t do anything bad….”
When the saint touched him, the child squeezed his eyes shut. If she slapped him on the cheek in this state, he would feel terribly wronged. But then, just as he flinched in fear, a warm sensation washed over him, and his trembling body gradually calmed.
The child lifted his eyes and looked at the saint. The terrifying expression from before was nowhere to be found; instead, she was gazing at him with sad eyes, her entire body wrapped in golden divine power as she focused on healing him. Unlike Jake’s healing, which had only made the bruises fade little by little, the saint’s power quickly filled the child with strength.
“Wow….”
The child sat up and examined the injuries all over his body. They had vanished cleanly, and his body felt lighter than usual. He was overwhelmed with emotion. The rumors had called her a terrifying woman, but the saint he had experienced for himself was an angelic person.
The child bowed deeply to the saint. Far from being frightening, she felt like a hero.
“Thank you so much, Saint! I’ll never forget this kindness.”
The child had thought the rumors were nonsense. A witch who devoured her parents and the people around her. A monstrous tyrant who terrorized even her classmates with her brutal temper.
No one said such things to the saint’s face, but the rumors never disappeared. Yet the saint the child had met directly was nothing like that at all.
The saint opened her mouth, then paused to choose her words. In the end, she gave a light wave of her hand.
“Go on. And don’t stand there getting beat up so stupidly from now on.”
“Then, goodbye!”
Watching the tearful child smile brightly as he ran off, the saint let a small smile rise to her lips. Then she flinched inwardly. The nasty words of the children she had just driven away came back to her.
I heard him clearly say the saint was a demon who kills people!
The smile at her mouth slowly faded. It wasn’t wrong. Anyone who stayed near her would end up unhappy. Her parents, her friends, and even the classmates who had been close to her when she was little.
“……”
Hilde, who had been watching, felt strangely conflicted. After hearing a little about the saint from her mother, she had thought the girl must have her own hardships. But she had never imagined the saint would step forward for a child she didn’t even know.
If anything, from a coldly practical standpoint, it would have been more like the saint Hilde knew to favor Jake—who at least looked like a powerless orphan—because that would bring profit to the church.
Hmm….
Then Hilde suddenly wondered something.
What, really, was a saintly thing to do?
Even in this fragmentary scene, it was difficult to grasp the girl’s true nature.
Lost in thought, Hilde didn’t notice the passing time.
Dong. Dong. Dong.
When the bell rang, Hilde gathered up her thoughts and headed toward the exam grounds.
There was no point worrying about it now.
Rumors were nothing but empty shadows, and no one could truly know another person without experiencing them firsthand.
And yet…
Hilde felt like she understood the girl called the saint, even if only a little.
---
“Wow! Bridget’s in first place!”
“Hehe.”
In the vast training hall, matches began with the beginner class. Since the exam included the beginners, intermediates, and advanced students all together, the place was bustling with noise.
The priests competed against one another directly. The rule was simple: whoever used healing to make a specially treated withered flower bloom first won. For the beginner class, healing was the main criterion.
Bridget, who had only spent about six months in the beginner class, came in first among the priests. She had always said she wanted to become a priest from a young age, and it seemed she really had a knack for it.
About thirty minutes after the exam began, the last diligent beginner student finally coaxed their flower into bloom. In the beginner class, there were occasionally cases where the very last student still couldn’t make the flower bloom even after an hour, so this group was more capable than the previous ones. After recording the results, the teachers finished judging the priests and moved on to the holy knights’ duels in order.
“Although the wooden swords are used, any action that may endanger life is strictly forbidden. If either student yields, or if the injury reaches a certain level, the teachers will stop the match. Do both students understand?”
The two beginner holy knights nodded stiffly, clearly tense at the thought of their first duel. They had only ever fought in mock battles before. Even with light dueling armor on, they wouldn’t suffer serious injuries if struck by a wooden sword, but in a duel, anything could happen.
The duel began. The sound of wooden swords clashing rang out several times before the nervous child lost grip of his weapon and made a pitiful face. The intermediate and advanced students smiled at the cute sight.
“You used to be like that too, you know. You’ve really grown up, you punk.”
“What are you talking about? You pissed yourself in your pants!”
As the crowd chatted idly while watching the beginner children duel, they suddenly looked up at the arena and felt something was off.
“Isn’t that Trisha? Why is she out there before the intermediate kids have even gone?”
“Hey, didn’t you hear? That beginner kid asked for a duel. It’s been all over the place.”
“But is she really a beginner? Her looks and body are insane.”
“She’s only eleven, apparently. Watch your mouth, idiot.”
“Huh! I didn’t say anything!”
The cheerful atmosphere quieted down. It was an unprecedented duel between a beginner and an advanced student. Hearing the news, Agatha and the pope, along with several elderly high priests, had all come to watch.
“You must be quite worried, Lady Agatha. Your daughter must be very reckless. Hahaha.”
Agatha answered,
“She must take after me.”
“...If you say it like that, it makes me sound like the only bad person here.”
A high priest with a friendly face and a somewhat sloppy shave, his stubble still jutting out here and there, pouted his lower lip. Agatha ignored him and focused on her daughter, as if she had just seen something she’d rather not.
“It’ll begin soon. Brother Reims, you should stop chatting.”
At Agatha’s pointed rebuke, Reims hurriedly turned his attention to the stage where the duel was about to begin.
Trisha looked at her insolent junior, who seemed somehow more absent-minded than usual, and smirked quietly where no one could hear.
“You stupid girl. So what if you were the sky above all the others in the beginner class? You made a huge mistake. I’ll show you that there’s always a bigger sky above the sky.”
Even as Trisha spoke, Hilde’s mind was on the saint standing near the edge of the stage below. When their eyes met, it almost seemed as if the saint lowered her head. Thinking back, even while bullying her, those eyes had been faintly trembling. Hilde wondered what the girl had been thinking while tormenting her. Had she felt guilty? Or had she been relieving stress and feeling a thrill? She wanted to ask.
In truth, she felt like she already knew.
“Do you regret it now? Insolent bitch. I’ll break your arms and legs before you even get a chance to surrender.”
“Do you only know how to fight with your mouth, senior?”
“We’ll see how long you can keep that attitude up!”
“All right, both students have acknowledged the rules, yes? The duel begins at the signal.”
Hilde and Trisha nodded. When the signal rang, Trisha immediately activated her divine power and rushed forward.
Trisha specialized in the arms. Her style was one of overwhelming force, crushing the opponent with sheer physical power. The speed and strength behind her swings were enough to call her a true holy knight in active service.
Whoosh.
The wooden sword came down with a heavy sound. Watching Hilde narrowly twist her body to evade it, the spectators felt their hearts turn cold.
“Isn’t she taking this way too seriously against a beginner?”
“Good grief, if that lands wrong, something might break.”
“Shouldn’t they stop it now?”
Even the high priests looked toward Agatha for her reaction. No matter what anyone said, Hilde was her precious daughter. If something happened to her, no one knew how Agatha would react. But Agatha watched in calm silence.
“You made such a big show of provoking her, and now you’re dodging like a rat!”
Trisha taunted Hilde, but Hilde didn’t answer. That was, in fact, part of Hilde’s strategy. As Hilde lowered her head, the wooden blade passed just over it by a hair’s breadth. The onlookers let out breathless sighs. The strike Trisha had just aimed should have been nearly impossible to avoid. And yet Hilde kept slipping away inside the narrow arena.
At first, when only about three minutes had passed, everyone watched anxiously, but after fifteen minutes, they had all begun to marvel. Trisha, who had intended to finish things quickly, was now breathing hard. Her slashes aimed at Hilde had lost all their earlier force.
“What is this? Are we already done?”
Hilde spoke indifferently, and Trisha’s face reddened. At this rate, she would be branded with the shameful humiliation of losing to a beginner.
Trisha was furious. There was no way Hilde, whose divine power was weaker than her own, could keep dodging like this. No matter how much her specialized body part improved her dynamic vision, avoiding every attack in such a tight space was close to impossible. The insolent beginner girl in front of her kept slipping away by mere centimeters, like a ghost.
In truth, Hilde was making excellent use of the advantages of Outer Gravity Shift, which Agatha had taught her two days earlier. Under normal circumstances, she might have seen the attack but been unable to get her body to move in time. But by vibrating her divine power just before impact, she made her body react a little faster. Against Trisha, whose every blow could be fatal, the duel might have been brutal if not for Outer Gravity Shift.
As Trisha became visibly exhausted, Hilde’s eyes shone even brighter. When Trisha caught sight of that eerie blue glow, she stopped attacking for the first time and took a defensive stance.
When Trisha’s posture wavered under Hilde’s pressure, Hilde seized the opening and struck her wrist.
“Aaah! Damn it! Damn it!”
To Hilde’s eyes, Trisha had far too many openings. A woman who had always won by pressing forward on offense had absolutely no talent for defense. After the one-sided beating continued and her strength gave out, Hilde’s wooden sword stopped at Trisha’s throat.
Everyone stared at the stage as if bewitched. This wasn’t merely a duel between a beginner and an advanced student. It was a battle between a grown adult and a child. That was how wide the gap looked to everyone watching. Even the high priests and the pope, gazing at Agatha, had envy in their eyes.
“Your daughter is truly something else, hahaha.”
The high priest who had earlier been snapped at by Agatha spoke to her.
“Lady Agatha, you were worrying over a daughter like that for no reason.”
The pope said as well. Agatha looked at her admirable daughter, and perhaps feeling a little shy, a blush touched her cheeks.
The teacher in charge, still dazed by the unbelievable result, quickly recovered after hearing the high-ranking officials’ chatter and announced the outcome.
“Victory goes to beginner-class student Hilde!”
Waaah!
The students shouted loudly. Trisha was one of the strongest students in the advanced class.
“Seriously, how is she a beginner? She could go straight into the advanced class.”
“Trisha’s going to be mortified. Heh.”
“I heard she hasn’t even been enrolled for a year. That’s insane.”
“Ahem. We’ll now prepare for the next match. Both competitors, please step down.”
The children’s goodwill toward Hilde, enhanced by her looks and her skill, caused a brief uproar, but the teacher quickly settled it. Still, their attention remained fixed on Hilde, who had just fought.
The saint shouted at Trisha.
“How could you lose to someone who’s only been enrolled for six months? Did you learn nothing in the nine years you spent at your last school? I can’t believe you were supposed to be my guard. Don’t show your face in front of me starting tomorrow.”
Irene spoke harshly to Trisha. Because Trisha had been weak enough to lose to a beginner, Irene thought that keeping her around would only make her unable to protect herself from danger—and that Trisha might die just like the close people she’d lost in the past. She had also been too preoccupied watching the match properly, fearing that Hilde might be utterly defeated by Trisha. She needed a guard who would never lose to anyone. Only then, she believed, could she be of use to humanity.
Hilde caught on to something strange when she saw Trisha approaching the saint. If she had gone down to the duel, she should have returned the wooden sword, but instead she stood before the saint, trembling while still holding it.
I’m going to end up as some pathetic loser who even loses to beginners. No one will keep me on as a holy knight anymore!
Her anger erupted in an instant.
“You arrogant bitch! After everything I’ve done for you, you’re throwing me away without a second thought? I’ll kill you!”
Trisha whipped her sword upward. With her divine power drained away, she had lost some of her usual strength, and she now intended to kill the saint using nothing but her waist, her arm strength, and her shoulder power.
Damn it! I don’t even know how to use that ability!
If the power that had suddenly awakened in the mountain village appeared again, this could be settled in one move. But for now, Hilde had no idea how to activate it. The advanced students and the teachers who had been evaluating the match rushed in at Trisha’s shout, but they were too far away to stop what was about to happen. Hilde was the closest.
Action came before judgment. It took 0.1 seconds to coat her feet in divine power as much as possible. Another 0.2 seconds to strike the ground. And 0.3 seconds to throw all the force of Outer Gravity Shift forward. Even while exhausted from the long duel, Hilde hurled her greatest gravity outward.
She moved like a streak of light. A sharp cracking sound rang out as Trisha’s wooden sword snapped in two. The blow, delivered at a speed that covered twenty meters in an instant, shattered both Trisha’s and Hilde’s wooden swords alike.
It all happened in just 0.5 seconds.
“Aaaagh!”
Trisha clutched her hand and collapsed, shocked by the immense impact she felt through her grip, and was quickly restrained by the teachers. Irene, once again nearly killed by someone she knew, sank to the ground and wept without end.