Auto-Hunting Is Pure Bliss
The abbess leading the vanguard carried a long battle staff, and she looked absolutely ferocious—so much so that I could hardly believe she was one of the same nuns who had bathed me, fed me, and tucked me in just last night.
Clack, clack—
On top of that, new nuns had arrived at the monastery. Maces and longswords at their hips, shields strapped to their backs emblazoned with a white wing emblem. A mounted force in silver armor worn over their habits. They were the star maidens of the Silver Maiden Order, sworn to Saintess Alicia.
Alicia walked out before the assembled ranks of nuns. This was no ordinary habit—over a form-fitting suit of chainmail she wore plate armor, and even a longsword hung at her waist.
"We depart."
Her order was short and crisp.
"We march! For the Saintess—shatter the skull of that abominable traitor!"
At the abbess's thunderous roar, the White-Winged Maiden Circle and the Silver Maiden Order mounted their warhorses as one.
Alicia strode right up to me.
"Now then, Angel, come this way."
"Huh?"
While I was still tilting my head, Alicia grabbed me and hauled me over to a white horse draped in barding.
"Relax your body."
With that quiet murmur, I was scooped up and placed atop the saddle. Um, I can't actually ride? I had no chance to say it—Alicia swung up behind me and took the reins.
Du-du-dum—
The snow-white cavalry shook the earth as they burst through the monastery's front gates. It was quite the spectacle, like a wave of pure white.
Bishop Casimir's seat of power lay about half a day's ride from the monastery. Its official name was the Baltic Bishopric of the Holy Radiance Empire's Northeastern Diocese. Fitting for the continent's largest theocracy, the Empire's bishoprics dwarfed the territories of its hereditary nobility—and the Baltic Bishopric was, for all intents and purposes, Bishop Casimir's personal kingdom.
A city of high walls and clustered spires, with immaculately kept roads. From a distance it looked beautiful and peaceful—except not a single soul traveled the roads around it, and the main gates stood sealed shut.
"They knew we were coming," the abbess murmured darkly.
As we drew closer, holy knights in crimson cloaks lined the top of the gate walls. I gave them a discreet once-over. The words floating above their heads were all but identical.
Ohh. Well, that saves me the trouble of looking closer.
Apparently the sight of an all-female force had stirred their lust, because this showed up too—quite frequently, in fact:
"Halt!"
A deep voice boomed from atop the gate. A middle-aged knight with ornate golden epaulettes stepped forward. Sure enough, [Alignment: EVIL] hung over his head as well.
Back when all I had was the game, I'd assumed the Holy Radiance Church had rotted from the inside out because of the Corrupted Saintess Alicia route. Turns out they'd never been a sane organization to begin with.
"Sir Jonas—commander of the knights sworn to the entire Northeastern Diocese, and you would side with Bishop Casimir's atrocities? Have you no shame at all?"
Alicia's voice cracked across the field like a whip. Jonas looked down at her, the corner of his mouth curling.
"Saintess Alicia was beguiled by a wicked heretic and betrayed the Church! By command of His Excellency Bishop Casimir, the Saintess's rank is hereby revoked!"
Furious gasps erupted among the nuns.
"The audacity!"
"A mere bishop, revoking the Saintess's rank?"
"Not even a cardinal could do such a thing!"
Alicia's expression didn't change by so much as a hair.
"Sir Jonas."
Her clear voice carried all the way to the ramparts.
"Open the gates."
"Refused!"
"I am the Saintess of the Holy Radiance Church."
"That was the past!"
Jonas raised his hand.
"Lay down your arms and surrender! Otherwise you will be treated as traitors!"
Every crossbow on the wall swung to aim at Alicia.
"Then a final warning."
Drawing the longsword at her hip, Alicia spoke.
"Open the gates."
A brief silence fell.
"Fire!"
Jonas dropped his hand with a contemptuous snort. Hundreds of bolts darkened the sky. Golden light bloomed in Alicia's blue eyes.
"O Heavenly Ram."
She lifted her sword skyward, and a constellation rose into the heavens. Sacred script interlocked and spun, and a radiant brilliance swallowed the sky whole. A colossal ram's horn—woven from a sacred array—descended upon the earth.
Oh. Yeah, this one's over.
KWAAAAAAANG—!
A deafening roar and a shockwave swept the surroundings—not over us, but over them. The incoming arrows, naturally, were blasted into powder without a trace, and where the gate had stood, only a deep, smoldering crater remained.
Highest-tier sacred art: Aries Star Horn.
Seeing it in person made my chest swell. Alicia was a boss who lived by the motto "if you don't know how to fight, you deserve to die" better than anyone—she'd spammed every variety of Saintess-exclusive ultimate in the game.
So, hiding behind your walls like that? Doesn't work on our Saintess, buddy.
"Are you all right, Angel?"
Alicia smiled at me, the architect of the carnage before us.
"That was so cool."
The honest impression just slipped out.
"I-is that so?"
She flushed crimson with delight.
...We're kind of in the middle of a battle right now.
Before I knew it, the Silver Maiden Order was charging through what used to be the gates and into the city proper. White warhorses surged forward, white cloaks billowing like waves.
Wham! Crack! Crunch!
Between the Silver Maidens swinging maces from horseback, the bishopric's interior was promptly plunged into chaos. They really could fight, these girls.
Alicia pulled her reins taut as well.
"Hold on tight, Angel!"
Du-du-dum—!
Her white horse kicked off across the ground.
"O Heavenly Crab."
As we tore through the streets, her lips moved in quiet incantation.
"Guh!"
"M-my body won't move!"
"What in the—?!"
Pincers of pure light erupted from the ground and bound the limbs of every soldier defending the bishopric.
Highest-tier sacred art: Cancer's Forbidden Binding.
Compared to Sir Jonas, formerly of the gate guard, who'd been vaporized without a trace by Aries Star Horn, this was practically merciful restraint. I mean, I could see why it would tick off whoever was on the receiving end.
Alicia's force reached the Baltic Grand Cathedral, where Bishop Casimir resided, in what felt like no time at all.
Tap.
Alicia dismounted first and lifted me down to the ground.
"Please guard the Angel."
The White-Winged Maiden Circle and a portion of the Silver Maiden Order encircled me.
Rumble—
The doors of the Baltic Grand Cathedral swung open. From between the massive doors oozed a sickly, morbid crimson glow. Beyond the thick haze of incense stood a middle-aged man in resplendent vestments: Casimir.
[Traits: DEPRAVED / LUST / LASCIVIOUS]
Truly the textbook stat spread of an eroge villain.
Alicia drew a long, deep breath and stepped into the nave.
"Bishop Casimir."
Her voice was glacial.
"O—Saintess! What on earth has happened? Why have you led armed nuns to this place—"
"You. You drugged me. If it hadn't been for the Angel—"
Casimir's mouth went stiff. Then his face twisted into a look of grief-stricken outrage.
"Saintess, whatever are you saying? An Angel? How could an angel of heaven dwell upon the earth? Could it be that someone has beguiled you?"
His gaze slid toward me.
"That child, is it? You were taken in by a pretty face? Or has that child worked some sorcery upon you—"
"Silence, Bishop Casimir. I will not forgive disrespect toward the Angel."
Um, you're both kind of fighting over me right now.
"The very fact that you speak this way proves how wickedly you have been—"
"You watched over me since I was a child. You taught me my prayers, told me of a Saintess's duties. That is why I trusted you."
Alicia's voice dropped low.
"And the one who defiled that trust was not the Angel. It was you, Bishop Casimir."
"...So you are corrupted beyond all salvation. Alicia!"
Casimir suddenly slammed his crozier—the symbol of the Baltic bishop-primate—down against the floor. Black energy swirled around him in a vortex.
"Behold! I, and I alone, am the one chosen by the Holy Grail!"
From within his robes, he drew out a pitch-black grail.
"Huh?"
I tilted my head. Why does he have that? The Sunken Star Grail was an item that didn't appear until well into the late game. Showing up in the tutorial town felt a wee bit ahead of schedule, no?
The grail's power coiled around Casimir—
Crack, creak—
A hideous sound of twisting bone echoed through the cathedral. His ornate vestments ballooned outward from within—
RIIIIP—!
—and through the torn fabric burst grotesquely twisted mounds of flesh, crowned with writhing tentacles slicked in dark-red mucus.
"KWAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Even his face was buried beneath the mass of tentacles. An absolutely nightmarish silhouette.
"Ahh, the power overflowing through me! Alicia! I'm going to snap that arrogant little pride of yours and break you in properly!"
Casimir whooped with glee, spouting lines that would embarrass a third-rate eroge villain.
"I want to erase even the memory that I ever once thought of you as a father."
Deep contempt settled over Alicia's face.
"It was you, Alicia, YOU who sinned! That vulgar little body of yours—those breasts—I held back! I held back for so long!"
THWIP-THWIP-THWIP-THWIP!
The tentacle horde surged at Alicia and the nuns.
Shff—
Golden blade-light flashed again and again, slicing the tentacles away with surgical ease.
"Futile! This is the true divine authority of what lies beyond the stars! It stands on a plane far above such false starlight!"
Cut one tentacle, and three grew back in its place. A textbook regenerating boss, then.
"Hmm."
I crossed my arms and spectated. Yeah, definitely not an easy fight. The Sunken Star Grail borrowed the power of the final boss, the Abyssal Monster God. Even among boss-tier beings, Alicia sat in the mid-game boss slot.
That said, the Monster God wasn't actually descending in person—there was no way it could beat her.
As if to prove exactly that, Alicia raised her longsword vertically. The tip pointed skyward, and stars began to be etched across the cathedral's ceiling. Like the silhouette of a woman trailing a long gown, silver lines connected star to star.
Virgo.
The sixth sacred house of the Zodiac, and the constellation that symbolized Alicia herself. Her golden hair whipped through torrents of divine astral power—
CRUMBLE-RUMBLE—!
—and stakes several meters in diameter punched straight through the cathedral ceiling, driving down at Casimir.
He tried to block them with a flood of hundreds of tentacles. You're supposed to dodge those, not block them, buddy.
And sure enough—the moment his tentacles touched the stakes, they burst into flame and evaporated.
"GWAAAAAAACK!"
The summoned stakes then pierced Casimir clean through, from head downward. A single-target, instant-death-grade technique that had smashed in countless players' heads back in the Corrupted Saintess route—the sacred signature that defined her.
Highest-tier sacred art: Virgo's Star Nail.
Casimir was reduced to shimmering silver particles without so much as a corpse left behind.
Clink—
Where he had stood, the black grail clattered to the floor.
[Traits: DEPRAVED / MADNESS]
Oh. So it shows up on items too.
Rolling up my sleeves, I walked toward the Sunken Star Grail. No way that thing could be purified at this point in the story.
"Angel, you mustn't—!"
I nimbly maneuvered my tiny body around the nuns and drove my fist straight into the grail.
POW!
A satisfyingly solid impact rang out.
Buddha Punch
Bonus Strike Damage: +1,080,000%!
-1,080,000% DMG
KABOOOOOOM—!
A strange shockwave rocked the entire cathedral. The Sunken Star Grail burst into black powder and scattered on the wind.
And that's that.
Alicia and the nuns stared at me, dumbfounded. I brushed the black residue off my fist and pulled up my status window. Auto-hunting's over, so time to settle the bill.
And there it was:
✦ Vow Power:25 / 108
Exactly enough Vow Power banked to run one enhancement.
