Side Story — The Saintesses of Revelatio (1)
Saintess.
The great devotees granted the power and mercy of the Goddess Revelatio, benevolent angels who watch over humanity.
Each one unfailingly beautiful, they work miracles in a pure white radiance that draws every eye.
Miracles restored arms to those who had none, and gave bodies back to those who stood at death's very door.
Their existence was, quite literally, a miracle in itself.
“...So I just do it like this? Is that right?”
“That's right.”
“Then why can't you do this one?”
Five years have passed since I found myself in this body.
“Wow, that's completely unhinged.”
This is the story of when I first became a Saintess.
Chirp, chirp.
Sunlight brightens the world.
An alarm for everyone starting their early morning—and a signal that wakes me, who never needs to sleep at all.
Sprang!
I sat up with sleepy eyes and, before anything else, tidied my bedding.
Under my hands, the blankets folded themselves into perfect order.
I'm the village's one and only 'Saintess', treated like everyone's beloved princess—but honestly, it's a burden. If I leave things alone, Lily's mother or one of the other women will come and do it for me, guaranteed. So I have to move fast.
Lily~? Are you awake?
Mother's voice drifting in from outside.
She said she'd wait quietly, but apparently she heard signs of movement.
“Yes. I'm up!”
I slipped out of my nightclothes and put on one of the finely made dresses that were so rare here in the Small Village.
Today was a special day, after all.
Knock, knock, knock.
Mother always knocks before entering my room.
I finished dressing, smoothed my clothes into place, and opened the door.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Of course. Did you sleep well too, Lily?”
“Oh yes.”
Lily, for the record, does not sleep.
I merely force myself to lie still.
...Come to think of it now, Mother must have worn herself out caring for a child who never slept.
An infant that never sleeps... I don't even want to imagine it.
“The village chief isn't coming today?”
“How could he not? He's already waiting over at Charles's house, I hear.”
“Why Charles?”
“Our Lily is going to the Holy Kingdom. We can't send you off empty-handed, can we? Everyone's chipping in—ten thousand hands, one goal.”
“Mother, no.”
Why is everyone pooling together anything?
The Pope of the Holy Kingdom himself said everything was already prepared—all I had to do was come with my own two hands.
I tried to stop them, telling them not to do anything silly, but Mother was stubborn.
“The Holy Kingdom has tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of times more money than we do.”
“The heart matters more than money, dear.”
“The local specialty here—they'd have plenty of it over there too, you know.”
“Then it would just be a specialty, wouldn't it? It wouldn't carry any of your heart with it.”
“...Honestly, there's no talking you out of anything.”
She's always been like this.
Five years ago, when I first woke up in Lily's body.
She was the one who believed in me when I shut myself in my room, lost and helpless, and waited patiently for me to open my heart.
The one who held me tight and told me it was okay, even when I was trembling like a leaf, unable to catch a single goblin that had strayed into the village.
And now, that same woman—
“Come here. Give your mother a hug.”
—was preparing to send me away.
“Yes...”
Mother embraced me.
The Lily Mother remembers is not standing here.
In her place is a ghost who drifted in from beyond some strange dimensional veil, wearing her daughter's face.
And yet, why is it—
somehow, it feels as though Mother truly knows this strange version of me.
“...I'll come back to visit often.”
Is that just wishful thinking on my part?
Or is it part of the process of me becoming Lily?
My appointment as Saintess had been pure coincidence.
I was a rare existence in the Small Village.
Blue hair and blue eyes.
Even at the tender age of ten, a face and voice beautiful enough to captivate anyone who saw me.
Lily had been the center of everyone's attention from the moment she was born, and by the time I possessed her at age ten, she was already being treated like a princess.
Which made it all the more disorienting.
I mean, what are the odds? I'd transmigrated into what should have been an extra in a one-a-day throwaway game, and somehow ended up treated like royalty?
The one silver lining was that this position kept me sheltered from any genuinely ugly malice. It didn't make my situation any less bleak, though.
To return to your original world, you must bring the war to an end.
Because this 'System' had slapped down a condition that was pure nonsense.
“I can barely take down an ogre, and you want me to stop a war between angels and demons? How?”
[It is possible.]
“That's not an answer. HOW would that even work?”
[If you do well, it is possible.]
“Are you insane?”
The thing simply couldn't hold a conversation.
It did hand out skills and abilities now and then, and it beat talking to a wall, so I engaged with it on occasion—but still...
[You can do it.]
This lunatic genuinely seemed to believe I could.
In any case, leaving the madman behind, I carried on with my life as 'Lily'.
By day I helped with village chores, and every so often I'd hold the line against monsters that strayed too close.
At first, the very idea of attacking anything terrified me, but these days I could subdue the occasional ogre.
The level the System had assigned me crept up by a mouse's drop of experience at a time, but what could I do? It refused to send me home. This was the hand I had to play.
Maybe it's because I can't bring myself to kill.
“The next village over?”
“That's right. A great trading caravan's arrived there. I need to do some market shopping anyway.”
Five years after arriving here, in the year I turned fifteen, Mother took me to the neighboring village.
She didn't go alone, of course—the village chief came along, along with a few other villagers to carry our goods.
When we reached the next village, we finally laid eyes on the great trading caravan.
It really was on another scale entirely—this was a major caravan from the Kingdom, and it showed.
Just the guy-ropes of a single merchant's tent ran longer than our whole village.
“Are you doing all right, dear?”
“I'm fine. Don't worry about me.”
I'd wrapped myself in a robe that hid most of my body.
This hair and this face were impossible not to notice, so the robe was non-negotiable.
Unlike the villagers who treated me so kindly, I couldn't trust strangers.
The village chief pressed a few copper coins into my hand.
“Lady Lily. Please, buy yourself something delicious with this.”
“I told you, you can speak casually with me.”
“Certainly not. How could I speak so loosely with the one chosen by the Goddess to become a Saintess?”
“...Saintesses aren't just handed out to anyone, you know.”
From what I'd heard, Saintesses were supposed to be impossibly noble and strong. Me? I could barely wrestle down an ogre.
Too much of a coward to finish anything off, always needing the village men to lend a hand.
How exactly was someone like me supposed to become a Saintess?
The chief shook his head.
“You will become a Saintess, Lady Lily. I'm certain of it.”
“Fine, fine. I hear you—so let's finish our shopping. Everyone's waiting on us.”
“As you say.”
The chief and the villagers approached the merchants, paid fair prices, and made their purchases.
Meanwhile, Mother and I bought some food with the money the chief had given me.
“Doesn't this look tasty?”
“Oho? So it does. That's my clever girl.”
“...Yes.”
Mother ruffled my hair.
A feeling I couldn't quite put a name to rose in my chest, and I simply nodded.
Five years in, and I'm still not used to this, huh.
-Hey, hey! Where do you think you're going?!
-What? I already paid for it, didn't I?
“?”
An argument broke out in the distance.
My hearing was sharp enough to catch it, but the market was loud in every direction by now, so I tried to tune it out.
“Chief?”
—if the voice answering behind me hadn't sounded so very familiar.
“Hmm? What is it?”
“I think there's trouble over where the chief went.”
Mother and I hurried toward the source of the commotion.
A crowd had gathered, and at its center stood a rough-looking man and the village chief, the villagers hovering helplessly around them.
“I said twenty coppers for one apple. When did I ever say one copper for the whole crate?”
“What?! Then I'm not buying it!”
“You've already handled the goods. Hand over twenty coppers for those apples, right now!”
“What in the—! What kind of racket is this?!”
One look made it obvious: the man was playing games with his prices.
Twenty coppers for a single apple?
The going rate was one or two at most.
He'd clearly written us off as country bumpkins who wouldn't know a fair price from a hole in the ground.
...But would a great trading caravan really pull a scam this cheap?
A caravan that size would have a reputation to maintain. It didn't feel like something they'd do so brazenly.
Suspicious, I took a closer look at the tent he was selling from.
Now that I looked properly, the emblem was subtly different from the great caravan's crest I'd seen earlier.
The real caravan flew a red banner bearing a golden quill and gold coins. This one's quill and coins were slightly the wrong shade.
It's a fake.
They were trading on the caravan's size and fame, posing as its merchants to fleece people at inflated prices.
“Oh dear, what do we do? If it really is the great caravan, this is serious...”
“Mother.”
“Yes, dear?”
“That man's a fraud.”
I quietly passed along what I'd discovered.
When she heard the whole story, Mother was livid.
“What absolutely wicked people.”
“Yes. My first thought is to notify the real caravan. Once they learn someone's been operating a counterfeit, they'll hold him accountable for sure.”
A caravan that big would care deeply about its image. The moment they heard of his activities, they'd act on it immediately.
“Then I'll go tell them. You stay here and keep an eye on the villagers.”
“What? No, I should come with—”
“If you go, you'll draw every eye in the square. There's no telling how those men might react, either.”
It was true that 'this body' was a bit risky to bring along...
but sending Mother off alone didn't sit right with me either.
“I'll be right back, then.”
“Mother!”
She vanished into the crowd before I could stop her.
I debated forcing my way after her, then let my gaze drift back instead.
-Ow! You hit me? You just struck a merchant of the Crimson Sand!
-I didn't hit you, I told you to move out of the way!
-You struck me, you little punk!
The chief and the fake merchant were already at each other's throats.
Wham!
The chief took the hit.
A thin line of blood trickled down from his scalp.
Before I'd even finished thinking, my legs were carrying me forward and my hand closed around the man's wrist.
Heavier than I'd expected.
Far heavier than the goblins and ogres I usually subdued.
And yet somehow, I felt like I could squeeze even harder.
“What's with you, you little brat?”
“Don't.”
“Are you deaf? Move, before you get hit too.”
“I said, don't.”
“This brat's out of her mind—”
Crunch...!
“GAAAAAH!!”
“I told you not to.”