Chapter 1
Chapter 1
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: The Saintess Has Arrived in Exile
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The Saintess has been exiled here.
The era of ten million reincarnators.
I, an ordinary college student, ended up joining their ranks too.
All under the pretext of being a reincarnator.
Honestly, I still couldn't wrap my head around why I had reincarnated.
I hadn't left a 5,700-character essay of a comment anywhere.
I hadn't clicked on some community post titled "Absolutely Do Not Click!"
I hadn't even gotten into a car accident.
One moment, I just opened my eyes, and there I was in a fantasy world with magic.
Reborn as the adorable young son of the Baron of Daven.
As is typical in your standard hellish medieval world, I couldn't adapt at first.
Starting with the fragrant stench of cow dung wafting in when I opened the window.
Even for a noble house that prided itself on maintenance, the hygiene was utterly abysmal.
But they say humans are creatures of adaptation, right?
Before I knew it, I was adjusting splendidly to this hellish medieval world.
I gradually got my palate used to the disgustingly bland otherworld food.
I didn't completely abandon my previous life's mindset, but I came to accept this world's way of thinking too.
And just like that, I smoothly inherited the barony.
Up to this point, it would've been a pretty decent life, no doubt.
The Barony of Daven was so far out in the sticks that it never got dragged into noble power struggles.
There weren't any threatening monster hordes nearby either.
[Your barony has been selected as the place of exile for the excommunicated Saintess.]
[Handle it yourself.]
[-The Pope-]
That is, until one day, a fancy letter arrived at my residence.
***
The Saintess.
In this day and age, with the Church of the Goddess as the empire's state religion, it's the position given to the woman with the highest divine power—and one that commands the respect of all.
Divine power generally correlates with the depth of one's faith in the Goddess, so every Saintess selected thus far is said to have been compassionate and warm-hearted.
However, this latest Grand Saintess was a different story altogether.
Rainy.
Unlike previous Saintesses who had walked the elite path from novice nun upward, this Grand Saintess—whose name simply meant "rain"—had been a girl scraping by as a back-alley pickpocket.
A lowly thief who stole people's wallets, now the most exalted Saintess on the continent?
It was such a contradictory situation that everyone was shocked at first, but they eventually came around, rubbing their bleary eyes.
After all, it was pickpocketing out of necessity.
She hadn't used the money for luxuries; she'd fed the street kids with it.
The Church of the Goddess must have put in a ton of effort to shape that public opinion.
A Saintess of the Church who was a pickpocket? Leaving rumors like that unchecked could've tanked the Church's reputation.
Word was, Rainy had actually done her job diligently once she became Saintess.
She'd gathered the orphans abandoned in the capital and founded an orphanage.
And with the most powerful divine power in history, she'd performed countless miracles.
But at some point...
Strange rumors began spreading across the continent.
Starting with "The Saintess has gone mad."
Then "The Saintess is actually a demon."
"The Saintess is a spy sent from the demon realm."
There were even whispers that she believed in the Demon God Church, not the Goddess Church.
Normally, the Church would've cracked down on such rumors, but they didn't lift a finger—which only fueled people's suspicions about the Saintess.
And then, one day, word came that she'd committed a grave sin, been deposed.
And was facing a witch trial.
That was the extent of what I knew.
But for such a Saintess to be exiled to our territory?
A witch trial usually meant a 99% chance of burning at the stake.
The fact that it was excommunication instead of execution suggested they'd toned it down to exile out of consideration for her former status as Saintess.
Fine, up to here.
I wouldn't have been thrilled hearing rumors of a former Saintess being burned alive either.
The issue was, why our territory of all places?
Objectively speaking, though, nowhere was as suitable for an exile spot as ours.
Located at the ragged edge of the empire's frontier, our land had zero outside contact except for the one merchant caravan that visited monthly.
It was such a remote backwater that it fell outside any other noble's sphere of influence.
Still, we were just a barony.
A tiny one at that, with fewer than two thousand souls including everyone.
We were barely scraping by, living hand to mouth, and now we had to take in a former Saintess?
It was a burden.
Even an excommunicated Saintess deserved basic treatment.
Matching the living standards she'd known as Saintess would require serious money and manpower.
Our finances were already so tight that we'd minimized the staff and military to the bare essentials.
Diverting budget to her lifestyle would grind the barony to a halt.
"Haa..."
Part of me wanted to just leave her to fend for herself, Saintess or not.
But that wasn't an option, was it?
She'd been the continent's most divinely powerful woman, beloved and revered by all.
Even excommunicated, if we mistreated her and pissed off someone who still revered the Saintess, a pissant little barony like ours could vanish without a trace.
"Haa..."
If the exile lasted four or five years, we might scrape by selling off family assets.
But the letter hadn't specified a term.
We might be stuck with the former Saintess for life.
Staring gloomily out the window, I spotted Hans, the gate guard, sprinting toward the manor in a panic.
'What the hell?'
Sweat pouring off him, it didn't look like a minor issue, so I got up and headed down from the manor.
If it was something big like a monster wave, we couldn't afford delays.
The manor wasn't large, so I reached the first floor quickly.
Hans was talking with the head butler at the entrance.
I approached deliberately making noise so they'd notice.
Spotting me, the two retainers turned simultaneously.
"We greet the Family Head."
Confirming it was me, they bowed their heads.
"Yeah."
I nodded lightly and positioned myself between them.
Seeing the ever-calm head butler so flustered suggested it was serious.
'Just how bad is it?'
My head was already pounding from the Saintess incoming.
Hoping it wasn't as dire as I feared, I asked cautiously.
"What exactly happened?"
Hans and the head butler exchanged glances, and the head butler spoke up.
"A person has requested entry to our territory."
"A person?"
Our land was so remote that aside from the monthly caravan, no one ever came.
And now a visitor out of the blue?
"What, some criminal fleeing the capital or something?"
"Er... something like that, sort of..."
"Just chase 'em off with a few arrows."
"The woman requesting entry claims to be the former Saintess. We figured it was nonsense and ignored her, but apparently she demonstrated actual divine power."
My face went pale.
The letter announcing the Saintess's arrival had just come.
Even delivered by messenger bird, it'd arrived fast—and she was already here?
We hadn't made a single preparation for her...
'Haa...'
I rubbed my forehead with a sigh and said,
"It's the real Saintess."
"Pardon?"
The two men jolted at my words.
I showed them the Pope's letter I'd unconsciously grabbed on the way down.
"Looks like the excommunicated Saintess has arrived."
"Good heavens..."
I rounded up every retainer I could find milling about and headed to the gate.
Whatever else, she was a former Saintess.
We needed to welcome her as grandly as possible.
"Head butler, do we have any fancy guest food left?"
He thought for a moment, then shook his head.
"We have a few ingredients that'd count as high-end for commoners, but nothing fit for the Saintess."
"Yeah... figures."
Scratching my head, I opened the gate and stepped out.
Sure enough, beyond the gate sat a stunning silver-haired beauty—hallmark of a Saintess—with dark circles under her eyes, clutching a liquor bottle as she perched on a rock.
Her face was faintly flushed like she was drunk, and as I approached, the heavy reek of booze hit me.
'Haa...'
My head was already starting to throb, but I kept my expression neutral and bowed.
"We greet the Saintess."
The Saintess chugged straight from the bottle, glanced at me, and smirked.
"You're the guy who's gonna feed me from now on? Nice to meet ya. Enter the Excommunicated Saintess."
"..."
Introducing herself as the excommunicated one left me at a loss for words.
Deny it? She had been excommunicated, fact.
"Why the silence? Cat got your tongue around girls? Eh, I am pretty hot. Heh heh."
"..."
"Come on, say something, you virgin! Big sis dragged her heavy ass all the way here for you."
Suddenly, it all made sense why the Church had tried so hard to cover for her.
This woman was no different from a back-alley drunk.