The Blunder
This is bad.
A searing pain coiled around my throat as blood gushed in thick, rhythmic spurts from the severed carotid artery.
It hurt.
Something had gone wrong with my head — the world spun, and a bone-chilling tinnitus stabbed at my eardrums.
Unmistakable, irrefutable signs of death.
The lantern still watched over me, yet it showed none of the special reaction I had been hoping for.
Looks like the gamble had failed.
"Sorry, Asty."
With the carotid cut, this was the end.
I offered a final apology to the pitiful girl whose life I had stolen.
There were others I wanted to apologize to as well, but my mind — already beginning to unravel — could no longer recall whom I needed to beg forgiveness from.
Damn it. Why the hell did I have to copy what that person did…
Even the words of resentment toward my love-hate senior failed to leave my lips.
And so the body of the Saintess who had lost her gamble grew cold, and only pure white snowflakes—
"…?"
Wait. It isn't the season for snow yet.
Something felt wrong.
Driven by an inexplicable sense of dissonance, I carefully lifted my head. Before me stretched a landscape utterly devoid of any sense of reality.
The city had vanished without a trace. The sky was painted pure white. And a small, humble hearth filled this unknown space with warmth.
"Ahahaha… I should've done this sooner."
What it meant was clear, so I laughed hollowly and rose from the floor.
Hestia, who once held a seat among the twelve Olympians of Greek myth as the goddess of the hearth and home.
Identified with her Roman counterpart, the goddess Vesta.
The transcendent being who had summoned me here after I died once, revived me, appointed me Saintess, then irresponsibly abandoned me.
At long last, our goddess — whom I had so desperately wanted to meet — had revealed herself before me!
"Um… hello? Where are you?"
But why is no one visible.
Something… something was strange.
The blood that had been pouring from my neck had long since stopped. The spinning vision and the tinnitus that had been piercing my eardrums had both stabilized.
Yet even with my senses returned to normal, the goddess who must have summoned me here was nowhere to be seen.
Only the hearth sat alone, filling the space with warmth.
For a moment I wondered whether the hearth itself might be the goddess's true form, but considering what was written in the Order's scriptures, that seemed unlikely.
In other words… our goddess had hidden herself again.
Even after clearly watching her summoned Saintess drive a dagger into her own throat, even after bringing me to this place with the hearth and healing me, she still stubbornly refused to show her face.
"Well, at least she's consistent."
But I wasn't particularly angry.
I had already fully anticipated she might respond this way. Besides, my goal had never been some cozy little chat with the goddess.
Before the countless lives that would be sacrificed in the coming wars, questions about my own life or identity were as insignificant as dust.
For now, the right course was to focus solely on somehow extracting her power so I could minimize the blood that would flow in those wars.
"Since it's come to this, I'll just take a few things."
I smiled as brazenly as I could and stretched a hand toward the hearth.
I neatly gathered my five fingers, spread them wide, and turned my palm skyward.
It was the simple, unmistakable pose of a punk loitering in some seedy back alley proposing a transaction: hand over everything you've got.
"You couldn't have thought you'd just get away with this either. Answer just three things for me, and I'll go back without any lingering regrets."
The titles of goddess and Saintess make it easy to mistake the power dynamic, but between the two of us, I was the one holding the initiative.
Asty, the youngest daughter of the poor tenant farmer Cooper, had made a special wish on her eleventh birthday.
To make her someone special, like the heroes in the old stories.
So the goddess had awakened her past-life memories to grant that wish, and the awakened memories of Cheon Si-jun had consumed Asty's ego, granting me a second life.
If this looks like mere coincidence, you need to go to a hospital and have your eyes gouged out.
Vesta had clearly reincarnated me here with some purpose.
She had sent an oracle to the Lantern Bearer to appoint me Saintess, then immediately used her power to stop me the moment I attempted suicide.
I don't know exactly what that purpose is, but it means she has a reason she must keep me alive.
But I have no reason to rely on her.
I had resolved to accelerate civilization's development with twenty-first-century knowledge to make more people happy. But if some irresponsible goddess kept abandoning me like this, I might get so pissed I'd just die for real.
This whole incident was an accident that happened because I got cocky thinking I was a modern person, wasn't it?
Better to die than keep fumbling around with all these shackles hanging off me.
I have zero intention of continuing as a Saintess without Divine Power, so I will extract a price.
"First. Is what you're entrusting to me the reconstruction of the Order and the prosperity of humanity?"
But receiving Divine Power from Vesta means becoming subordinate to her to that extent.
I have no intention of volunteering as a puppet for a goddess whose face I don't even know.
Of course, the Vesta I had encountered in this world's books was a gentle and benevolent goddess called the Flame of Benevolence. But this was also the same person who had once made every priest on earth unemployed.
To avoid being unilaterally dragged around by the leash of faith, I at least needed to confirm whether she shared the same goals as me.
"If yes, make the hearth's flame stronger. If not, make it weaker than now."
And the answer that came back was affirmative.
The goddess expressed her agreement by making the hearth's flame burn stronger.
Thank goodness.
If there had been no reaction at all after all that, I would have wanted to die of embarrassment. But our goddess can at least communicate, which is truly fortunate.
And the fact that she answered she shares the same purpose as me is fortunate too.
"Second. The twenty-first-century knowledge in my head. Is it okay to prioritize this over faith?"
Another affirmative.
As expected, Vesta knew I was a reincarnator from the twenty-first century.
Seeing her nod without the slightest hesitation at my statement that I would prioritize civilization's development over faith, she must have reincarnated me with this in mind from the start.
I don't know how a transcendent being from this hellish medieval fantasy world came up with the trick of borrowing a modern person's knowledge, but this confirmed that our goals aligned.
It also raised the suspicion that the reason she had withdrawn her power from the earth might not have been solely because of the Order's corruption.
"…Finally, three. Is there a reason you shouldn't — or can't — grant me Divine Power right now?"
But the most important part is this.
After quelling this disturbance and rebuilding the Order, the karma I would have to bear in exchange for borrowing the goddess's power.
Heretics.
The power balance between the real transcendent beings of this world, and the reasons they intervene on earth.
I condensed all those questions appropriately and threw them, and the goddess's answer was the same this time too.
"Ah, damn."
Affirmative.
A de facto death sentence that I was already on the chessboard of the transcendent beings.
Now I understand Vesta's lukewarm attitude.
I don't know the details, but she was probably bound by some complex laws and causal relationships operating in the high world of transcendent beings, and needed to keep her distance from the earth.
Reincarnating me here and appointing me Saintess was likely groundwork for counterattacking something I don't know about.
Which means her not granting me Divine Power wasn't reasonless neglect but a strategic decision…
"By any chance, if you grant me Divine Power, will humanity be destroyed, or—"
The flame rapidly dwindled.
Negative.
"Or will you, Goddess, be put in danger?"
Another negative.
Then it doesn't matter.
I stretched my hand toward the hearth again and brazenly tilted my head.
"Then hand it over right now. I'll handle the aftermath myself."
This time, affirmative again.
With this, I had grasped Vesta's disposition.
That her goals were extremely similar to mine, and I had also roughly figured out why she hadn't shown herself to me until now.
Then further probing was unnecessary.
I would receive the goddess's power as is, purge the rotten feudal lords obsessed with their petty war games, and declare the Order's revival.
Of course it wouldn't be as easy as it sounds — but with a transcendent being's patronage, wouldn't the story be different?
In a world where Rebecca, barely middle-school age, can spin the jaws of fully armed knights just by holding a sacred relic, how strong would her proxy become after receiving concentrated patronage from Vesta herself?
The hearth's flame glowed softly. A corner of my heart began to boil as if on fire, spreading warmth through my entire body.
An omnipotent feeling, as if I could do anything right now — truly about to burst.
With this, I don't even need Count Montpellier.
I can just toss that psychopathic serial killer into the sea off Bordeaux and proclaim the founding of the Holy Vesta Empire.
With just this power bestowed by our merciful goddess—
"Huh."
Why is the firepower like this.
It's about the same size as the flame of a cheap lighter sold at convenience stores for a few hundred won?
"Is this the best you can do? Seriously?"
Having just watched Vesta Coin, which had been rocketing through the ceiling, plunge straight through the mantle, I forgot even the minimum of courtesy and spat out rough words. But our merciful goddess generously forgave even that.
And she answered my question by slightly strengthening the hearth's flame.
This is the best, she said. Seriously.
"Uh… um… uuuuhm…"
I didn't see this coming.
To think that even after receiving Divine Power, I'd have so little talent that both capacity and output would be tiny as mouse droppings.
In that case… well, maybe France's future really should be left to the wise and merciful Count Montpellier after all…?