Apprentice Saintess
Demonkin.
They were a race that didn’t exist on Earth, where Daeun lived, and yet they didn’t feel strange to her at all.
Well, they’re the kind of race that shows up all the time in fantasy novels, aren’t they?
If they didn’t appear, that would be more disappointing, honestly.
She had never seen one in person, but Daeun’s sense of familiarity had already maxed out long ago.
Even though she had been a little startled when she first heard Canaria mention them—
...Yeah, that makes sense!
Come to think of it, there were countless stories that portrayed demonkin as kind and decent people.
Adding one more to the pile wasn’t anything especially remarkable, so Daeun quickly steadied her heart.
Still, there was one thing she absolutely refused to yield on.
“If Celine is coming with us, then I can relax! Sacred power and magi are opposites, after all!”
What was a demonkin’s weakness?
Holy power, wasn’t it?
Golden sacred power that stubbornly endured the raging storm of magi.
The sight of a frail priestess standing her ground against overwhelming magi stirred the romance buried deep inside Daeun’s heart without mercy.
If the Priest class in Silia Online hadn’t been almost useless in combat, she might have chosen it without a second thought.
That was why—
Going to Laxia, the Demon Continent she had only heard about in stories, was still frightening.
But if Canaria, their dependable tank and damage dealer, and Celine, the healer, were going with her…
Just thinking about the three of them heading to Laxia together made Daeun’s frozen heart start beating again.
This is totally a hero party…!
Canaria insisted it wasn’t true, but in Daeun’s eyes the little girl looked like a stalwart hero.
...Huh.
Something felt a little off.
Daeun stopped her endless daydreaming and frowned.
If Canaria was the dealer and Celine the healer, then what was her role…?
Of course, there was no rule saying a hero party could only have one damage dealer, but no matter how she thought about it, Daeun couldn’t picture herself doing anything useful on the Demon Continent.
...Wait. Am I the luggage carrier?
Was this actually one of those regretful, miserable, obsessive stories?
Canaria noticed Daeun’s utterly pointless thoughts and looked at her with pity, but Daeun remained oblivious to the end.
She only snapped out of it when she heard Celine’s bewildered reply.
“Pardon? Opposite forces?”
Celine looked genuinely confused, as if she had never heard such a thing in her life.
Thanks to her voice, Daeun, who had just been waking from her little world, fell into confusion as well.
“Wait, they’re not?”
Things like dealing double damage to magi-aligned life forms, or purifying land corrupted by magi.
“...Those don’t exist, do they?”
“No, they certainly do not.”
BOOM!
Celine’s immediate answer struck Daeun like lightning.
“My… romance….”
Like a person with a broken heart melting into a puddle, Daeun slumped and grabbed onto Canaria.
She needed healing for her wounded feelings.
Here we go again.
For a brief moment, something like that seemed to flicker across Canaria’s otherwise blank face, but she didn’t resist the embrace.
After hugging Canaria and recovering her sense of peace, Daeun said, “Then isn’t there no real point in us going together? I mean, I’m not doubting Celine’s abilities or anything….”
“Fufu. I understand your concern.”
Celine placed a hand lightly over her chest.
“But I am, after all, an apprentice saintess of the Edel Church. You may rest assured that I’m quite confident in my abilities.”
“...Apprentice, saintess?”
“Yes.”
“...What’s that?”
“...Pardon?”
When she saw Celine looking so proud, it did seem like something impressive.
She didn’t know what an apprentice saintess was, but it still had the word saintess attached to it...
Should she be impressed, or should she just brush it off?
Daeun wavered uncertainly between the two.
While she hesitated, Celine, now calm again, kindly explained.
“An apprentice saintess is a term for the nuns who undergo training to become saintesses.”
“Huh? Isn’t a saintess chosen by the grace of God Edel?”
“Hmm, that’s an interesting way to put it. A saintess is someone who can handle Edel’s grace more skillfully than others, so I suppose one could view it from that angle.”
She’d said it in a roundabout way, but in summary, the answer was no.
So that wasn’t it after all….
Then what exactly did saintesses do? How did one become one? And how many apprentice saintesses were there?
There were still so many things she wanted to know.
But Canaria, trapped in Daeun’s arms, was beginning to squirm from the discomfort.
Sensing from the tiny movements in her arms that time was running out, Daeun gave up on asking everything at once.
There was no need to ask everything right now.
After all, if they were going to travel together from here on out, there would be plenty of time to talk.
Instead, Daeun asked the one thing she was most curious about.
“Um, and this really isn’t because I don’t trust Celine or anything, but I have just one last question. Just one. Would that be all right?”
“Of course. You may ask as much as you like.”
“I’m sorry if this sounds rude, but… if you’re an apprentice saintess, then that means you’re still below a saintess, right?”
“...That’s correct.”
“From what I’ve heard, Laxia on the Demon Continent is an incredibly dangerous place. So if we’re going somewhere like that, shouldn’t we be sending an actual saintess instead of an apprentice? O-of course, I’m glad I get to go with Celine, though!”
Even if she hadn’t meant to diminish Celine, it was still a question that could easily sound rude.
Daeun knew that, which was why she laid the groundwork three different ways as she asked it, but she still couldn’t hide her nerves.
As Daeun had expected, the chat window was being flooded with variations of “habitual rudeness,” or just “me” and “Lack.”
But I’m curious, okay?
Why send someone of a lower rank when they had the strongest candidate available?
Or was this one of those symbolic positions that couldn’t be sent into dangerous places?
“Ah! That’s what you wanted to know?”
Fortunately, Celine didn’t seem offended in the slightest and answered gladly.
“The saintess position is vacant at the moment.”
So I’m the most likely candidate, which is why I’m the one going.
Her voice brimmed with pride as she said it.
* * *
Demonkin were not a race that had originally existed on the Ardina Continent.
But that only meant they hadn’t existed on the Ardina Continent; it didn’t mean they hadn’t existed in the world of Silia.
Unlike the Dimensional Beasts that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere the day Edel was defeated, the demonkin had lived for ages on a continent beyond the western sea.
In other words, demonkin were beings fashioned by Edel’s hand.
Humans, elves, dwarves, demonkin, monsters… every beast and even the smallest fly.
With the exception of the Dimensional Beasts, every living creature in the world of Silia had come into being through Edel.
Ah, right. I should exclude myself too.
Anyway, there was no way Edel’s sacred power would have a negative effect on beings she had created.
Too much of anything probably wouldn’t be good, so it wouldn’t be strange if being exposed to it all day caused problems, but it wouldn’t have the dramatic effect Daeun had imagined.
That was how I felt after hearing Daeun’s explanation.
And then.
“Idiot.”
“Ugh….”
That was my summary of the situation in one word.
Of course, Daeun was an outsider, so she might not know the full circumstances.
But that didn’t matter to me; it was simply more fun to tease her, and as soon as I said it, she swayed like someone who’d been hit by an arrow.
“I didn’t know…! I didn’t know that!”
That was the defendant’s defense.
If magi and sacred power were truly opposing forces the way Daeun believed, then the Sedes Holy Kingdom would have stepped in during the Second Race War and mediated things.
Calling sacred power “opposite” to magi meant it was a force opposed to Edel’s will.
“Sacred power is a force connected to life.”
Not all holy arts are connected to life, though.
“That’s why it can heal wounds and cure diseases, and why it can also strengthen the body by invigorating it.”
“Ah… so that’s why….”
At my words, Daeun reacted as if something had suddenly clicked into place.
“That’s why priests have higher healing output than other healers.”
When she suddenly started muttering in Arkish, it seemed like she was talking to the viewers.
If I knew Arkish, I would’ve understood.
I didn’t regret never learning it, exactly, but I did feel anew that I needed to learn it quickly.
So I pretended not to hear her muttered conversation… or rather, the conversation disguised as one.
It wasn’t time yet. Right.
“Remember what I said about magi?”
“What, that you didn’t know? ...So you did know? Then did you all—huh? Canaria said that?”
Whatever she heard, Daeun, who had been huffing and puffing a moment earlier, completely changed color.
“Hmph, hmph. Canaria, what did you say?”
“...I asked if you remembered what I said about magi.”
“Yeah. Of course I remember. You said it was like poison to beings that aren’t demonkin. Or wasn’t that it?”
“It was.”
The streets were still bustling since the Advent Festival was ongoing.
With my hood pulled low, I walked through the lively streets together with Daeun.
“Any living thing that comes into contact with magi grows weaker over time.”
The longer the contact lasts, and the denser the magi, the stronger and faster that effect appears.
If you have resistance to magi, then you’re fine, but not every living being is born with a body tough enough to withstand it, nor can everyone reach a high enough level. There’s no helping that.
“And there are only two possible ends for a creature that loses the battle against the magi that’s invaded its body.”
Death, or becoming a monster.
The reason monsters were especially numerous near the place where demonkin lived wasn’t just a matter of imagination.
That was a headache for Grasis too.
Since the land where the demonkin had settled was only a little way to the west, monsters naturally swarmed around Grasis as well.
...Well, in truth, Grasis had brought it on themselves.
It was a foregone conclusion that if demonkin settled near Grasis, monsters would start swarming there as a result.
And so all the powers of the Ardina Continent had agreed to support monster suppression, but then they had thrown away that support with their catastrophic diplomacy.
Wasn’t it a talent to kick a continent-wide coalition out from under your own feet?
“Now do you see why people think demonkin can’t coexist with everyone else?”
Probably, the rumor that demonkin controlled monsters had spread for exactly that reason.
“U-um… but why are you telling me this all of a sudden? I’m even more scared now….”
Daeun, who came back from death only to die again—more accurately, only looked dead—shivered all over.
If this had been before, I might’ve thought she was being needlessly scared when she didn’t even really die.
“...You seemed to be wondering why I’d decided to travel with Celine.”
But not anymore.
Talking with Daeun had shown me why she had such a pathological aversion to getting hurt.
“Like I said, sacred power is a force connected to life. So if it’s Celine’s sacred power, it should be able to protect you from being affected by magi.”
She was skilled enough for Edel herself to approve, so that level of ability should be no problem.
And if Celine wasn’t strong enough to use her power, then I wouldn’t be able to endure either.
In that case, it would be better to just….
...
No, that’s not it.
I hastily erased the thought that had flashed through my mind.
Thoughts were free, sure, but even so, that had gone too far.
“I’m not going to just let you die.”
“Canaria…!”
At my words, Daeun’s voice wavered as if she were about to cry at any moment.
Then suddenly, as if some new thought had struck her, she stopped sniffling.
“Then does that mean you’ll teach me swordsmanship more gently now?”
“...”
“...Canaria? Um, Canaria? Are you listening to me?”
“...”
No. That’s not how it works.
You said you wanted to learn swordsmanship.
That’s teaching swordsmanship, not trying to kill you.
If anything, training hard enough to survive dangerous situations made more sense as proof that I wouldn’t let her die.
Yes, that had to be it.
I turned my head and pretended not to hear Daeun.
“Waaah! I hate Canaria!”
Even someone who truly cares for others has to accept being hated sometimes.
It was heartbreaking, but she would have to bear it too.