A Warm Embrace
Yeah. That's exactly what they were like. (1) What could I do about it? In this life, I have to rely on the power of the Earth Mother. Just like I can't swap out my parents because I don't like them, I can't undo becoming her Saintess just because she doesn't sit right with me. Good grief. I called her Mother, and she really started acting like one. ――All I can do is hope things get a little better, bit by bit.
Still, if there's one thing I desperately wish for, it's that when Ailin grows up and has her first conversation with the Earth Mother, this fragile-looking child won't be too shocked. The thought of her experiencing the world crumbling around her made me feel a pang of pity, so I stole a quick glance at her.
Sensing my gaze, Ailin tilted her head, met my eyes, and broke into a bright smile.
"Are you traveling alone, Saintess?"
"Huh?"
"The head nun and the other sisters all had people they traveled with, I heard."
She meant party members? Though it was a bit surprising to learn the head nun had been in a party.
"I do have people I travel with."
'By the way, what happened to the others?'
We're almost at the Pope's location.
That was faster than I expected. See? They could do it when they tried.
"Then where is everyone? Did they leave you here by yourself, Saintess?"
Ailin looked at me with pity in her eyes. When did I become such a pitiful person?
"No. They say they're all here…"
"Who does?"
"The Earth Mother."
"The Earth Mother?"
Why doesn't she know about the… oh… Right. I call her Mother every day, so maybe she doesn't recognize the title.
"I mean our goddess, the one we call Mother."
The kids here must be more familiar with the name Mother than Earth Mother.
"Is that the goddess's real name?"
I didn't know her true name either.
"Well… It's more like a nickname."
"Oh. But is it okay to call the goddess by a nickname?"
"…I'm fine with it."
'She said she's fine with it too.'
When did I say that?! Well… I guess it doesn't matter.
She was the one who told me to call her Earth Mother in the first place. The Pope called her that too.
"Are the people who travel with you strong, Saintess? They must be really strong, right?"
Her round eyes sparkled like jewels. Faced with that gaze full of inexplicable admiration, I pressed my lips shut.
In the past, I would've thumped my chest and confidently told her about all the battles we'd survived and everything we'd accomplished. But I couldn't exactly thump a chest that felt like it would kill me with pain if I so much as pressed on it a little.
"Um…"
They used to be strong, sure. But I wasn't sure about now.
"…They were strong, yeah."
Especially those guys with ridiculous durability. When I thought about how they traveled without a healer, they really must have been tough.
"Wow!"
Ailin looked as happy as if she'd joined our party herself.
"Then they'll protect you, right, Saintess?"
"Hmm."
Having personally experienced the power of the divine power I wielded, I didn't see much reason for them to protect me. If anything, it felt like I could stand on the front lines where the hero used to be without it seeming strange at all.
The most important thing was what classes they'd chosen this time.
"Hmmm."
'I wonder what wishes those guys made.'
I'd always said that if I ever got the chance, I'd choose divine power without hesitation because I wanted to try using it. But I couldn't recall ever hearing what the others usually wished for.
'Please, just don't let them have picked anything weird.'
During our last journey, the hero had acted like he was possessed, constantly saying we had to defeat the Demon King in the shortest time possible. Yet the directions he pointed us in were obviously the long way around, no matter how you looked at it.
Whether we were gathering materials to create a gate from the Garden of Flames to the Demon Realm, or sneaking into the imperial treasury to find the Key of Destiny, we never once chose the easy path. At the end of those roads there always seemed to be something strangely important to us, so in hindsight our journey would end up shorter than expected. But any other party wouldn't have pulled the kind of stunts we did.
When I asked the hero about my rather plausible suspicion that he might have known something in advance, he would just brush it off with, "It's the luck you get from moving with pure romance and following your heart!"
The memory of him saying that with such a bright, sincere smile suddenly came back to me, and a chill ran down my spine.
'…If he really meant it, that's a problem in its own way.'
If all it took was the occasional healing, that would be one thing. But if they charged straight into traps like before――.
――They'd definitely do it again. Of course they would. Now that they had the relief of knowing they could be healed, it would be stranger if they didn't run wild like horses off their reins.
My head hurts.
"Oh, that's right! I've been curious about this for a while, Saintess. The head nun never answered me, but can I ask you?"
"Hm?"
I was scared. What kind of question would make even the head nun refuse to answer? At that exact moment, Ailin's bright, innocent smile overlapped in my mind with the faces of those guys who kept doing absurd things. Gulp.
"What does it feel like when you use divine power?"
'What the…'
The surprisingly cute question made me relax. I let out a small chuckle.
"I-I was just curious, that's all."
The way I looked must have seemed like I wasn't going to answer, because Ailin hurriedly offered excuses. She looked like a graduate student at the magic academy who'd created a new spell formula and was terrified of getting scolded by her professor.
"Hmm. What it feels like, huh…"
I thought it would be an easy question to answer, but the moment I tried to put the sensation into words, my throat closed up.
It's convenient. I wish the Earth Mother wouldn't shout weird battle cries. Every time I pray, it feels like all my organs are twisting inside my body. None of those feelings were easy to say out loud.
To a child looking up at me with those sparkling, innocent eyes, I couldn't possibly say, 'It's so depressing that I have to beg that damn Earth Mother for power.'
'I can't shatter her innocence…'
I couldn't trample on a budding sprout like that. Let's see. Something I could say instead――.
"…It feels warm."
I'd never felt that way myself, but maybe the previous Saintesses had. Even if they hadn't, hadn't they given that warmth to others? Everyone who had been healed by a Saintess'sdivine power described it the same way: warmth. The records said that the moment they felt a gentle, enveloping heat, their wounds and injuries began to disappear one by one. I'd definitely read those accounts.
Within that warmth, some people thought of lovers who worried about them. Others remembered children who missed their father's empty place. Still others said they felt the embrace of a mother who'd passed away years ago.
No matter how I felt, if that's what they experienced… if the people I healed felt that way, then wouldn't I eventually feel the same?
"It feels warm? Like your chest, Saintess?"
"…What?"
This little brat. Was she actually some middle-aged uncle in disguise? In a world where hundred-year-old geezers could become young ladies who'd only just shed their girlhood, it wasn't impossible for a perverted old man in his fifties to turn into a little kid.
'Everything's starting to look suspicious now.'
This was all the Earth Mother's fault for putting me through these bizarre experiences.
"When you hugged me earlier, it felt warm."
"Don't――."
I was about to tell her not to tease me. But before I could, Ailin drooped her shoulders and continued.
"I wonder if that's what it felt like when Mom hugged me…"
"……"
It didn't take deep thought to realize that the little nuns generally all had their own circumstances. No matter how benevolent and free-spirited the Earth Mother seemed, a priest was still a priest. The sisters seemed so eager to throw themselves into battle that it felt more like a training ground for warriors, but in the end they were still healers.
They participated in all kinds of battles. They had to travel through any dangerous region. Every monster instinctively targeted priests first. What parent in the world wouldn't try to stop their child from walking such a difficult path?
No matter how many mercenaries in the world would risk their lives for money alone, and no matter how many monsters threatened to kill them at any moment――.
――No. Precisely because such monsters existed, what parent in all the world would want to send their child into a deathtrap where dying wouldn't be the least bit strange?
"No. When your mother hugged you, it must have been even warmer than mine…"
In the faint memories I had of my own mother, I could vaguely recall a warm, nostalgic feeling. I didn't remember it clearly, and I knew I could never have a child of my own, but…
"…I'm sure it was like that."
This, at least, I could say with certainty.
"Then… can you hug me one more time?"
The hand Ailin had been holding slowly went limp.
"Alright."
If this were the old me, would I have felt this kind of pity seeing a child so dejected and wilted? I could confidently say no. Wasn't I the one who used to tell students clinging to me and crying that they should find their own way to survive?
After I lifted Ailin onto my back and felt her bury her face in my chest, I found myself wondering. Was this what all the mothers of the world had done? Had my own mother been like this when she took care of me and my sibling? It made me think about quite a lot of things.
"Ailin. It tickles, so don't breathe on me like that."
You perverted little brat.