The Saintess Who Couldn't Look at Faces Logs On
Saintess Orphea.
A saintess.
One of those rare, singular beings born with an exceptionally strong share of divine grace, alongside the saints. Wielding miracles and holy magic far beyond anything ordinary people could hope to match, they save humanity, tending to the sick and the wounded. Sacred beings, living examples for all to follow.
But not every saintess and saint was born into a happy life.
Some collapsed under the crushing weight of obligations far too heavy to bear. Many more were corrupted by their own overwhelming grace and authority, or swollen with arrogance by it. And then there was the worst case of all—
When the power of one's innate grace so dwarfed one's natural temperament and personality that a normal life was simply impossible from the very start.
Of all the saintesses belonging to the Holy Fire Order, Orphea was precisely that case.
The authority to read the thoughts and emotions buried deep within the souls and hearts of others. For a young child—especially for a girl in the throes of adolescence—it was unbearably cruel.
A face and body so breathtakingly beautiful they could only be the work of divine favor. The carnal desires of countless men who came crawling, coveting her beauty at the very peak of its ripening. Every manner of ambition and hunger for political power aimed at a saintess. And after facing the hidden, filthy hearts and twisted minds of the adults around her one time too many—
"Aaaaaargh!"
"Lady Orphea! You mustn't!"
Orphea attempted to claw out her own eyes with her bare hands, and at fifteen years old, she ended up sealed inside a solitary cell in a monastery.
No—sealed wasn't quite the right word.
She could have left at any time. It was she who refused to come out.
"Lady Orphea, you must practice your holy magic."
"I won't. I can't. And please, I'm begging you, don't come inside my room. I end up reading every thought and feeling buried in your heart. And this blindfold I'm wearing—bring me a thicker one."
And so, across three years of living in that solitary cell, Orphea was reborn as an extreme introvert.
"Stop telling me to go out among people. I'm going to live buried in this cell for the rest of my life. I hate standing in front of people. It terrifies me!"
For the first year, she didn't speak to a single human being. Even in year three, her best year, that snippet above was the extent of her conversation, followed by nearly half a year of complete silence.
"Goddess? No. I'm not going out. Don't you dare tell me to go out. I will live here forever."
"R-really? The Goddess went through that too?"
"It's still so scary. I like the Goddess. I want to talk to the Goddess and no one else until the day I die."
"I love you, Goddess. Please stay by my side forever."
In exchange, the frequency of her whispered monologues—her conversations with the Goddess—had skyrocketed to absurd levels.
That was the true face of Saintess Orphea.
From the Holy Fire Order's perspective, she was, quite literally, a migraine-inducing problem they had no idea how to make use of.
"A saintess is hardly a talent we can afford to waste! We must put her to work! If even one saintess stands on the front lines, how many demons could she exorcise? How many hordes of evil could she strike down?"
"Isn't it precisely because she keeps watching all that political scheming that she can't stand meeting people in the first place?"
"What's wrong with a little politics? A little purpose? Is it truly right to let a talent like a saintess rot idle like this? We're drowning in work as it is!"
"Merely reading ordinary emotions already pushes her to the brink— and you want her to read the minds of demon worshippers and black magicians? Oh, she'll manage it fine, I'm sure! Why don't we just have her pray until her mind shatters completely and be done with it!"
She had to be used. But not a single soul had the faintest idea how.
And so Orphea spent three years, until she turned eighteen, goofing off and lazing about in that monastery cell—until one day, at last—
"A request for support has arrived from the Black Magic Tower!"
"Regarding what?"
"A black magician in possession of multiple souls. They wish to discuss his handling!"
"......There is no one in this Order idle enough to take on such a task right now."
"Then let us send Lady Orphea!"
"Have you lost your mind?"
"I have not! They say it concerns Soul Net! With Soul Net, there's no need to meet face to face, is there? It's perfect for Saintess Orphea!"
"........Hm. That... actually makes a great deal of sense."
They had found a way to make use of Saintess Orphea.
A saintess dispatched by the Holy Fire Order had arrived at the Black Magic Tower.
We'd been forewarned through High Inquisitor Akram that her personality was... unusual.
But still—
"So you're telling me the saintess is inside that palanquin?"
"We ask that you take the route with the fewest people possible."
"Surely, at the very least, we should see her face and exchange a few words—"
"The saintess does not wish to look upon human faces."
It began when four holy knights emerged from the teleportation circle carrying a black metal palanquin plastered head to toe in concealing magic circles—and only escalated into what I'd call outright antisocial behavior. They ushered her into a room specially prepared for her, one with no windows at all, then hung heavy black curtains two and three layers thick so that no face could be seen.
Only then was I granted the privilege of speaking with the saintess.
"Hello? Um......"
"This is Saintess Orphea."
"Saintess Orphea? I'm Elsy Bwenner, creator of Soul Net."
No answer.
Awkward smiles bloomed on both my face and the Tower Master's.
What exactly was the point of all this?
"Lady Orphea, this is a matter rather awkward to discuss through a curtain."
"Indeed. We need to walk you through the Soul Net window as we explain, and with this curtain between us, that's rather difficult."
At my words, the holy knights shook their heads solemnly.
"Lady Orphea does not wish to meet people."
"I understand that, but surely you must see we need to explain at least a little. If we can't even see her face, then—"
"We ask for your understanding. The saintess reads everything—the emotions and even the thoughts of everyone she meets. That is why things have come to this."
The Tower Master wore an expression that plainly asked what nonsense he was hearing.
But it didn't matter to me.
Someone who hated seeing people's faces? The old Earth of my past life was crawling with those types.
The ones who couldn't hold it together for five minutes in person but turned into absolute maniacs the moment they were behind a screen.
"Then please, just pass along one thing. The 1st-level spell for connecting to Soul Net. Give her that. We'll speak through chat on Soul Net."
"You... can do that?"
"Soul Net supports a messenger function called Soul Talk as well. We'll converse through that. The 1st-level connection spell. Can you deliver it to Lady Orphea?"
The holy knight nodded.
After the spell was passed along, the Tower Master and I left the room and returned to the strategy meeting room.
We waited a short while on Soul Talk, and before long, a single account bearing the nickname Orphea timidly slipped into the group chat.
There we go.
"We've arranged this meeting to discuss the matter of tracking down a black magician who exploits a great many souls. I'm turning on the Face Chat function now—one moment, please."
One of the features I'd added to Soul Talk alongside the launch of Kraken Streaming: Face Chat, which allowed real-time, face-to-face communication. I brought up the screen.
And the moment the screen lit up—
"Saintess, can you hear my voice proper—"
"Waaah! KYAAAAAH! Aaahhh! A p-person! A person's face! AAAAAAAH!"
On the screen, a pretty teenage girl with her eyes hidden behind a thick black blindfold saw us and went into convulsions, rolling around on the floor.
"G-get away! Don't come closer! I said don't—huh?"
The saintess, who had been trembling and shaking, suddenly went quiet. She stared at my face for a long moment, then asked in a voice full of bewilderment:
"I-I can't feel your emotions or thoughts. Why?"
"Because you're looking at a Soul Net window, of course. The face you see before you isn't a person. It's nothing but a form of illusion magic—no emotions, no thoughts. An illusion faithfully mimicking my voice and my face."
"That's possible? No—good heavens! How is this—?!"
The trembling saintess carefully, carefully removed her blindfold.
And then—
"......Wow."
"Good heavens."
"Merciful gods."
Every single person in that room—the Tower Master and I, the Third Elder, and all the senior mages besides—was left with no choice but to gasp in awe.
It was a face for which the phrase beauty crafted by the gods themselves could not have been more fitting. A beauty that soothed my poor, withered spirit—ravaged as it had been by the heart-attack-inducing tea party with His Majesty the Emperor, all thanks to that genuinely cursed fusion of the Profanity Emperor and the real Randor.
"I really... can't feel anything? Your emotions, your thoughts—nothing? Goodness!"
She blankly felt her way around the Soul Net window, exploring this way and that.
Then, abruptly, she burst into tears and began to sob.
Hmm......
The tears of a beautiful girl. A corner of my heart did twinge, but I'm terribly sorry—we don't exactly have all day here.
"Saintess? My sincerest apologies, but we're in a bit of a rush. A black magician is currently using countless souls to wreak havoc across Soul Net. We need to pinpoint his location."
At my words, the sobbing saintess wiped her tears, sniffled once, and then turned her gaze toward me.
"Is that the task you need me for?"
"Yes. Precisely. The creation and operation of Soul Net fall under magical territory, which the Black Magic Tower can control—but techniques that make use of souls themselves fall into the magically forbidden category."
"Yes. The Goddess says the same. Any magical technique that handles souls, aside from those of gods and demons, is strictly taboo."
Was she talking to the Goddess directly right now?
A saintess really is a saintess, I thought.
"Soul Net itself is an artificial dimension. Every action taken within it mirrors the communication between the divine realm and the mortal realm. When a person pays the price of a 1st-level spell, they connect to Soul Net and receive the boon of illusion magic, images, and text—just as you, Saintess, receive divine power and grace from the Goddess."
"I understand. But you cannot pinpoint the location of this wicked black magician?"
"His activity volume alone is absurd, and yet his location is completely untraceable. Whenever we try to determine where he received images or text from Soul Net, the signal blurs and spreads across the entire Wirod Dimension. We can't pin him down anywhere."
"That is the basic craft of those who borrow the powers of hell or wield forbidden magic. They excel at concealing the true form of their souls. The Goddess says they are highly practiced in such obfuscation, for the moment their true name is revealed or their soul's true nature laid bare, they will face divine punishment."
There it was! Bingo.
"I'm glad we consulted the Order. Could you identify a being whose soul is concealed by that kind of cloaking technique? Fair warning—this black magician possesses multiple souls. Even when we banned his soul itself from connecting to Soul Net, he just kept coming back."
"Then those must be other people's souls. How vile a creature he is! The Goddess rages. I will find him, without fail."
Suddenly, an eerie white light began to swirl in Orphea's eyes within the screen.
"I have cast upon myself the miracle that pierces concealment and reveals the true form of the soul. Show me this black magician in action. Do so, and I shall pinpoint his location."
The Tower Master, I, and every mage in the room let out a cheer.
There we go!
We could finally catch him! That bastard, the Profanity Emperor!
"He's active right now. I'll show you the gallery pages he's running wild on in real time."
With my administrator privileges, I displayed before Orphea the galleries where the Profanity Emperor was throwing his tantrum.
Today's victim was the Age of War 2 Gallery.
As Orphea stared intently at the gallery screen being buried under an endless flood of vulgar posts, she soon began to smile, slow and cold.
"I have the Goddess on my side. You don't even have that, do you? Where do you think you're running, huh? Answer me, you wicked brat!"
The saintess roared with laughter and bellowed at the screen.
I'd been told she was someone who cowered in a room, unable to even look at a human face, but this—
"I'm going to catch you! Catch you if it's the last thing I do, you hear me?! You extort people's souls—and all you do with them is Soul Net terrorism? You pathetic, useless loser! Black magicians like you are all trash! TRASH! I'm going to catch you and make this dimension a more beautiful, cleaner world! Scum like you needs to taste the Goddess's wrath! I'll make you regret the day you were born into this world!"
Yep.
My experience never fails me. An introvert, once online, becomes an unstoppable war god.
And the saintess was exactly that case.
It was hard to believe this was the same person who, minutes ago, couldn't even bear to look at a face—bellowing so gloriously, glaring at the screen with mad intensity as she unleashed her divine authority.
"Found him! You wicked wretch! You wrapped yourself in every concealment and protection spell in existence—but you can't escape the Goddess's authority! Location confirmed! He's inside a small dungeon deep within the Kaldkarim Great Marsh! Got you, Elsy!"
Before long, she delivered the jackpot.
I whipped my head around toward the Tower Master, and he smiled broadly and placed a call to someone.
"High Inquisitor Akram? We'd like to commission one exorcism ritual. We'll see that your fee is more than adequate. There's a black magician cursing Soul Net—please, take care of him. We're counting on you."
Got you, you bastard.