A Body on the Brink
Kyle Berwen straightened his posture and sat down on the floor, turning his gaze inward to examine his body. He had taken a quick look right after possessing this vessel, back inside the carriage, but there hadn't been enough time then. He'd only skimmed the surface without examining every corner in detail. Now that he finally had a moment of peace, he took another look inside.
“...Wow.”
The exclamation slipped out before he could stop it. Unfortunately, it wasn't one of admiration. Quite the opposite. The state of his body was dire. He'd once called it a walking corpse, but that description felt too generous now. This was simply a corpse.
His organs, his energy, his life force—everything was barely clinging to existence. For a moment, he wondered, Can this even be fixed?
…No, it could be fixed. It just wouldn't be easy. Not by a long shot.
If it were merely a matter of poor physical condition, things would have been simpler. Even a body on the verge of death could recover with consistent treatment and care, given enough time. But this body demanded more than that. The traces left behind were the real problem.
Whether they were curses or some kind of drug, these remnants had driven the final nail into an already garbage body. Even if he tried to nourish it with good food and medicine, those traces would refuse to let the body heal properly. And even if he somehow overcame them and recovered, the condition would deteriorate again unless those traces were eradicated at their root.
“...Sigh.”
A heavy breath escaped him involuntarily. If only he had enough money, the situation might have been a little better. But the state of this body's finances meant he had to worry about tomorrow before anything else. It was a total disaster in every sense of the word.
“...Tsk.”
His freshly kindled motivation was rapidly fading, but he couldn't just give up and accept death. There were things he still needed to do. He shook his head to clear away the distracting thoughts and decided to focus on what he could do right now.
He closed his eyes and felt for the mana inside his body. Then, with sheer will, he began to move it.
It kept catching and stumbling. First, the catastrophic state of his body interfered. Second, the unidentified traces spread throughout his entire system obstructed the flow. Still, he didn't let it bother him. It would be a lie to say it wasn't annoying, but it wasn't enough to stop him from moving his mana. It might be impossible for an ordinary person, but for him, it was manageable.
Two years had passed since he reincarnated into Gunter's body. Even while taking care of the three girls, he had never neglected his training. It was only natural. With the Dark Cult's forces liable to appear at any moment, he couldn't afford to slack off. He had devoted every second of his given time to increasing his strength as much as possible.
In just three months after possessing Gunter's body, he had nearly perfectly recreated Gunter's level of skill. And now he had been given two full years. During that time, he had grown at an astonishing pace. By the end of those two years, he had become incomparably stronger than when he first met the girls—so strong that he could walk with his head held high even in a world overflowing with superhumans.
In the battle eight years ago, he had been overpowered by Roderick and ultimately lost an arm. But that was only because the man was an outlier. Among the paladins of the Dark Cult—a group composed entirely of superhumans—Roderick was an undisputed monster of unparalleled talent. Besides, to be fair, he had been at a severe disadvantage from the start. He had let one enemy slip through during the fight, and because that foe had gone after the children, he couldn't focus entirely on the battle. On top of that, while he had prepared as best he could, his equipment couldn't compare to what Roderick wore. It had been a fight he was bound to lose.
Of course, even in a fair fight he probably would have lost, but the gap wouldn't have been as overwhelming as it seemed. …Somehow his words had turned into excuses, but the point was that his skills had improved dramatically. And that naturally included a massive leap in his ability to manipulate mana.
In fact, controlling mana might have been the area where he had improved the most. From the beginning, his talent for handling mana had been extraordinary. Even with Gunter's complete body and memories, replicating that level of martial prowess in just three months should have been nearly impossible. Yet he had done it. And he had accomplished it despite being born and raised on Earth, where he had never even encountered mana before.
If he had reached that height in three months, what could he achieve with two whole years? There was no need to explain. With ample time, his mana control had grown without limit, eventually reaching a transcendent level. Against that level of skill, this degree of interference was merely annoying—it wasn't enough to pose a real problem.
He began circulating the mana within his body. Naturally, he wasn't doing it for fun. Every movement had purpose. Circulating mana was a familiar practice for any warrior who wielded it. It formed the foundation of mana training and physical conditioning. But his goal right now wasn't training.
What he sought to achieve by circulating his mana was to clean the inside of his body. More precisely, to purge the accumulated waste within him.
Humans inevitably build up all kinds of impurities as they live. There are exceptions, but that's usually the case. Simply eating and drinking causes waste to accumulate. Of course, the amount varies from person to person depending on what they consume and how they live. Someone who eats well and maintains good habits will have relatively little waste in their body.
Then what about a man who had spent nearly his entire life drowning in alcohol and neglecting his health? There was no need to spell it out. If an ordinary person's waste was like jagged pebbles, the waste piled up in this body was like stone pillars. Even expelling a normal amount of impurities with mana wasn't easy, but this was several times worse. Most skilled practitioners would probably just shake their heads in defeat.
But he could do it. His mana control far surpassed the ordinary.
Soon, he gathered the mana he had been circulating and slammed it straight into the pillar of waste.
“Ugh…!”
Pain tore through his entire body. It was only natural. A body that would writhe in agony from a mere breeze was now being torn apart from the inside. The excruciating pain tried to shatter his concentration, but he endured. Again and again, he drove his mana into the pillars of waste.
After a long while…
“...Hoo.”
With a deep exhale, he opened his eyes. His whole body was drenched. Sweat poured down like rain, mixed with the impurities his body had expelled. A foul stench filled the air—so vile that anyone would immediately wrinkle their nose in disgust. But he paid it no mind. The sense of accomplishment was far greater.
One step forward.
This was just one step. No matter how confident he was in his mana manipulation, he couldn't purge all the waste in a single session. From now on, he would have to steadily repeat this process every single day. Besides, this method couldn't erase the traces. So this was truly only the first step.
“For the time being, I'll have to quietly focus on fixing this body.”
He couldn't even train right now. His condition was simply too poor. He would need to rest like the dead for at least a few days to recover. Even after that, it would take quite some time to bring his body back to a functional state.
…If only a saintess were here right now.
The thought suddenly crossed his mind. A saintess. More precisely, a saintess of the Goddess Church. According to the setting, they were chosen directly by the goddesses themselves and possessed holy power far surpassing anyone of their generation.
When he had played the game, he had interacted with the saintesses quite often. It was inevitable. As the story progressed into the later stages, the scale of events grew larger and larger, eventually forcing the saintesses to step forward. Because of their incredible abilities, they were classified as essential companion characters, and naturally, they were very familiar to him.
If a saintess were by his side right now and could treat him, this garbage body would recover in no time. Perhaps even the traces left within it could be healed. Of course, it was a ridiculous assumption. The saintess was someone even the head of the Berwen family would struggle to meet. There was no way a disowned troublemaker like him could possibly encounter her, let alone receive treatment. Even in the realm of hypotheticals, it was impossible. The current him couldn't even step on the shadow of a saintess.
Ah, that's right. There isn't a saintess right now anyway.
Come to think of it, that was true. At this point in time, no saintess existed. Or to be more precise, one did not yet exist. A saintess did not appear easily. Throughout the long history of the Goddess Church, they had only emerged a handful of times. And at this moment, the position of saintess should still be vacant. In the game as well, a saintess was only appointed after the story had progressed to the point where chaos had grown beyond control.
And there was only one of them.
Although people often lumped them together as the Goddess Church, in reality it was a union of three separate churches. The three goddesses they worshipped were triplets born together, so they were closely related, but they did not share the same administration. Perhaps because of that, in the game only one church ever appointed a saintess. No matter the route—even at the moment the world stood on the brink of destruction—that fact never changed. It would probably be the same here. Only a single saintess would be appointed.
Thinking about the future, the more saintesses there were, the better. But that was something beyond his control. The goddesses appointed the saintesses, and even he could not interfere with divine will.
…What am I thinking about?
He suddenly let out a small chuckle. Whether it was a saintess or anything else, it was pointless talk for now. The future saintess was probably still running errands as a low-ranking priestess in the church. There was zero chance of meeting her. Since worrying about it wouldn't change anything, he pushed the distracting thoughts aside and focused on the task before him.
What he needed most right now was—
“...Let's wash up first.”
A shower. His body was covered in sweat and filth. It was definitely time to clean himself.
Deep within a forest somewhere on the continent.
It wasn't quite worthy of being called a scenic wonder, but the lush vegetation created a rather beautiful sight. Because it was so remote, the area would normally be untouched by human feet, filled only with the peaceful silence of nature. Today, however, was different.
A fairly large number of people were moving about in a forest that would normally show no sign of human presence. One peculiar detail was that they were all dressed almost identically—in white-based garments that gave off an old-fashioned, solemn atmosphere.
And through that strange, bustling scene created by the group…
Tap tap tap!
A young girl was running. Dressed in the same clothes as everyone else around her, the girl moved through the forest with quick, busy steps that didn't quite match her small, adorable face. If not for her clothing, she would have looked like any ordinary girl from a back alley. But her expression was deadly serious.
As she ran through the forest, her head moved just as busily as her legs. She kept glancing around in every direction, as if searching for something.
After a while, her face suddenly brightened. She must have found what she was looking for.
“Saintess!”
The girl called out. Her gaze was fixed on a woman standing there. The woman, having heard the girl's voice, slowly turned around. Hair the color of roses fluttered in the wind like flower petals. When she finally completed her turn and looked at the girl, her eyes burned a vivid red, like flickering flames.