The Genius Girl of a Rural Village
"We don't have a spare room, so you'd have to share with me. Would that be all right?"
"I'd rather prefer it that way. Thank you."
Rebecca ended up staying at our house for a while.
She had insisted on serving as my bodyguard and flatly refused to leave my side no matter what, and for my part I couldn't simply send her away. Casting someone who'd just gone bankrupt out onto the streets felt wrong. This girl had handed over her entire fortune to me, after all.
"So... this person is going to stay at our house?"
"Yep."
"I'll be in your care, Father."
Convincing Father was no trouble at all. Taking in one tenant for two hundred florins was basically free money. I smoothed the difficulty over with a modest outlay of wealth. The country man's iron resolve never to let a suspicious stranger under his roof displayed remarkable flexibility the moment two gold coins appeared.
"Asty. Just whose daughter is she, to hand over that kind of money all at once?"
"Uh... she said it's a secret and I absolutely mustn't tell. She's not dangerous, at least."
In the process my family somehow got the idea that Rebecca was the daughter of a wealthy house, but since I myself still had no clear idea what she really was, I decided to leave it at that. Honestly, it didn't seem all that far off the mark. The complete wreck of her financial sense alone made her every inch a rich man's spoiled daughter—an especially childish one.
"A Water Frame...? So the Saintess is well-versed in engineering as well. Truly a remarkable invention."
"...Huh? You didn't come here because you heard the rumors?"
"I am not particularly well-informed about worldly gossip. I simply followed the guidance of the lantern."
I discovered a small misunderstanding and corrected it. Rebecca was not a resident of any nearby city, nor had she sought me out after hearing stories about me. She had been living in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Paris—little more than ruins—and had walked for dozens of days wherever the lantern led her until she arrived at our door.
"The lantern?"
"Yes. It is the sole sacred relic of the Goddess that remains on earth."
When I asked out of curiosity, the answer came back thick with pride. When Vesta had withdrawn every scrap of Divine Power and every holy relic from the world, the one thing she left behind was this lantern. Rebecca herself was the only daughter of the family that had guarded that final relic as Lantern Bearers. One day, while she waited for the Goddess's return, the lantern had suddenly lit and a warm voice had spoken to her.
"May I take a look at the lantern for a moment? There's something I want to check."
"You may keep it as long as you wish. It originally belongs to the Goddess, so as Her representative—the Saintess—you have every right to possess it."
"No, I don't even know how to use the thing."
The story was hard to believe, yet this was not the Earth I had lived on; it was a medieval fantasy world where the divine still breathed. Curious about the relic's authenticity, I took the lantern from Rebecca.
And I became certain.
This was a genuine sacred relic.
A completely sealed metal lantern with neither ventilation nor fuel port that nevertheless burned steadily—if that wasn't a miracle, what else could you call it? On top of that, no matter how I turned or tilted the lantern, the flame always pointed toward me, like a tracking device. There was no doubt. This was not something made by human hands. Even twenty-first-century civilization couldn't produce a portable light source that ran forever without power. The lantern itself was casually trampling the laws of nature.
Which meant Rebecca really was a Lantern Bearer, and her claim that she had followed the lantern's guidance was true as well...
"When did the lantern first light up?"
"At dawn, one month and two days ago. It began guiding me with a revelation that I was to seek out the Saintess and protect her."
One question rose naturally. Vesta had given Rebecca the revelation and lit the lantern thirty-three days ago. Asty had made that botched birthday wish and awakened to her past life thirty-three days ago as well. Calling it simple coincidence was absurd.
Vesta was watching me.
She had taken a mere country girl named Asty, gifted her the memories of a previous life, reborn her as the hybrid Cheon Si-jun–Asty, bestowed the rank of Saintess, and attached the guardian of a sacred relic as a bodyguard. All of it thoroughly inconvenient for me.
"...Looks like I'll have to study theology too. Could I borrow a scripture?"
"I left it at home. I have the entire contents memorized perfectly, so please ask me anything at any time."
Being suddenly designated Saintess didn't particularly bother me. I had already adapted to this world. The first week, when I had been reeling in horror at how far medieval reality fell short of expectations, might have been different—but being told now that a goddess had intervened was no longer surprising. If anything, a world with souls but no divine beings would have been stranger.
Arguing with a supernatural entity about why it had used supernatural power on me would only make me look ridiculous, so I decided to be grateful that I could now borrow the Goddess's authority.
"Is it really all right for me to spend these ten thousand florins however I like?"
"W-well, if I may be so bold... I would hope you refrain from pure extravagance at least..."
"I won't. If I were going to embezzle offerings for private luxury and betray the people's trust, I'd rather kill myself first."
I had no complaints about the size of the subsidy either. Ten thousand florins was a fortune on the order of several billion won in modern Korea. Modest for the secret funds of a major religion that had once dominated Western Europe, yet considering the Vesta Order had completely collapsed in the Goddess's absence, it was an astonishing amount of capital to mobilize.
"But Rebecca, are you any good in a fight?"
"I still have many shortcomings, but in my resolve to protect the Saintess I yield to no one."
"Uh, Rebecca, how old are you?"
"Fourteen."
The real problem was the combat ability of the delivery girl who had brought the sponsorship money... or rather, of big sister Rebecca. She was small, young, and looked so airheaded she would probably fall for any scam. At a glance she seemed so frail a single punch might snap her. If the person standing here had been my previous self instead of Asty, I would have been the one who needed to protect her.
Honestly, I was disappointed.
Not in Rebecca—in the Goddess.
Even if the Order was short on people, attaching a girl barely old enough for school uniforms as a bodyguard was excessive on several levels. This neighborhood was dangerous. If you were going to call someone a Saintess, at least let her throw Divine Power around freely, or assign a Holy Knight Order as escort. What was this supposed to be?
Waaah, baby Asty wants a fortress, wants a Holy Knight Order, wants to use Divine Power, waaah.
"The holy capital of Paris, once the Order's headquarters, fell to an orc invasion because of the Holy Knight Order's incompetence. The city that burned that day still has not been rebuilt a hundred years later... I believe the Goddess's disappointment in us was largely due to that event."
Ah. So there was no fortress and no Holy Knight Order. They had truly collapsed into nothing but ashes.
But then why no Divine Power?
Religious authority or not, without the Order's protection I was just a walking target. Did they seriously believe this fanatical middle-school girl alone could hold back the brutal threats of the medieval world? Really?
"Ah, I'm going to run a quick errand. It's time to take Father his mid-morning snack."
"I will do it! There is no need for the Saintess to waste time on such menial tasks—"
"No. I want to do it myself. I have no desire to swagger around as Saintess and boss you about, Rebecca."
I stood up on the pretext of delivering the snack. Of course, ever since I had shown my parents the Water Frame I had been completely freed from household chores, but once the banner of filial piety was raised, no one could call me on it.
"You can't run away this time, Asty."
The moment I stepped outside with the snack for the first time in ages, the neighbor boy Hans blocked my path.
Ah, life. Even being alone was hard.
"Tell me. Why do you keep running away?"
I tried to ignore him and walk past, but the clueless Hans clung stubbornly and demanded attention. Seriously, this steamed-bun-faced kid—was he going to keep pestering me forever?
"Just tell me! Why are you suddenly avoiding me!"
The next-door steamed bun was more persistent than expected. Apparently my complete cold shoulder after inventing the Water Frame had made him properly angry.
Tsk. If he was going to act like this, there was no choice. I would have to reveal the secret I had carefully hidden so as not to wound the steamed bun's tender heart.
"I don't like you. You look like a steamed bun."
For the record, this was one hundred percent pure Asty's opinion. I was merely occupying the life she had left behind. If she had liked this snub-nosed steamed-bun lookalike, I would have at least been decent enough to treat him kindly. But she hadn't liked him.
"Get lost."
Get lost, you wicked steamed bun. Stop blocking the path of this super ultra hyper-genius beautiful inventor Saintess and vanish!
"B-being pretty isn't everything! I'm not playing with you anymore either!"
The sulking steamed bun shoved me hard and ran off bawling. Unable to withstand the full-force strike of an enraged elementary-schooler, I sat down hard on the ground and watched Hans's retreating back. My knee stung. Blood was dripping from the scrape where it had dragged across the dirt.
All because of one little brat.
"...Still not going to give me Divine Power? A wound like this could get infected and kill me, you know?"
I sighed and demanded my reincarnation perk from the Goddess.
Of course, no answer came.
She really was a taciturn goddess.