Side Story — The Saintesses of Revelatio (2)
A man twice my size came crashing down with a scream.
Startled by how much more force I was putting in than usual, I still pressed down on his wrist as hard as I could.
"You little brat!"
"...!"
A fist the size of my face came flying at me from the other side. I had to dodge.
Whoosh!
The fist grazed past my hair by a hair's breadth.
"You're quick, but─ urk!"
As payment for dodging his punch, I squeezed down on his wrist even harder. By now my hand could wrap entirely around it.
The man, flushed red and bulging with rage, kicked straight at me.
"Lady Lily!"
Thwack!
The village chief, who had been clutching her head, hastily grabbed an apple crate, shoved me aside while I was still gripping the man's hand, and blocked the kick herself.
Apples scattered into the sky, and the chief went flying, slamming into the ground.
"...!"
"Now you really want to die, don't you!"
Hiding his battered hand, the man stomped over to the tent and pulled out a knife.
Not so much a proper sword as a slightly dulled blade used for butchering livestock.
'...A knife?'
Yet the moment I saw that blade, my body began to tremble, little by little.
It wasn't that I'd never faced blades before. Plenty of goblins carried all manner of tools, and orcs sometimes swung greatswords or axes around.
But I had always fought them together with the villagers. Someone wielding a knife — that was a first.
No, come to think of it, facing a person like this was a first too.
I backed away without even realizing it.
"Rampaging like a madman all this time, and only now you're scared?"
"......"
"One look tells me that old man's from the village. You, though — you'd better start getting ready to be sold off."
"Not like you've got the money to pay for her anyway!"
The knife came at me.
No one can face an armed opponent barehanded. That was the common sense I knew, and it wasn't wrong here either.
So I needed a weapon too.
But what could I use?
What on earth...
"...!"
"I'll just take that insolent right arm of yours!"
An apple.
"...An apple?"
THWACK!
An apple far harder than any ordinary apple struck the man square on the head.
And he collapsed.
"...Huh?"
"Lily! Are you alright?"
"I'm fine."
Mother, who had come running with the merchants, pulled me into her arms the moment she saw me, checking me over. Not a single scratch on me.
"What about the chief?"
"She'll live, thank goodness."
The merchant caravan checked on the man who had been knocked out cold by the apple, trussed him up with rope, and hauled him away. Then they led me, Mother, and the chief to one of their tents, saying they would treat her wounds.
I was a little nervous, but inside the tent there was only a priest in pure white robes with a kind face.
"A pleasure to meet you. I am Ekir, a 3rd Class Priest of the Holy Kingdom."
"I'm Lily."
"I've heard the story. You subdued a criminal who caused a disturbance while impersonating the Red Yellow Sands caravan."
"Ah... yes."
That was... something else entirely. No — actually, it wasn't, really.
Even now, just thinking back on it made my hands shake.
I had faced someone with a knife. A person, no less.
'If I hadn't had a ranged weapon like an apple... could I actually have beaten that man?'
Third Class Priest Ekir looked at my trembling hands, smiled gently, and turned his head toward the sickbed. The chief lay there, and the moment the priest's warm hands touched her, her condition visibly improved.
"There we go. If she takes it easy for the next few days, she'll recover in no time."
"Thank you."
"Thank you so much, Priest."
Mother and I bowed our heads again and again. Then, as the robe that had been hiding my face shifted, Ekir looked straight at me.
"Your hair is quite unusual, isn't it? Blue, of all colors."
"Um... y-yes, it is."
Blue hair was certainly rare here. This was a fantasy world, after all — though it was also, apparently, the mark of a Child of Heaven.
"Hmm... yet the revelation has not descended. How curious..."
"...Revelation?"
"Yes. The revelation of the great Goddess."
According to Ekir, this world had a great Goddess named Revelatio, omniscient and omnipotent, who knew every future that could come to pass.
"And she occasionally cleaves a portion of her own greatness to bestow upon her little lambs. Those are the great Saintesses of the Holy Court."
"Oh..."
Well, that sounded plausible enough. So did that mean, just like the chief had said, this body's original owner was destined to become a Saintess?
I glanced back at Mother for a moment. She showed no reaction at all. No — she seemed a little uncomfortable, if anything.
"...Mother?"
"Hmm? What is it?"
"Are you feeling unwell somewhere?"
I looked at her anxiously, but she only shook her head with a generous smile.
"How could I be? All I did was run a bit."
"Perhaps you two should receive treatment as well, while you're here. Even without any ailment, the blessing of 'Healing' can ward off minor illnesses."
"Oh, really?"
"Of course. Now, come — take my hand."
Ekir extended his hand, a soft light gathering around it. Mother closed her eyes as if deliberating for a moment, then nodded.
I clasped hands with Ekir.
"...!!!"
CRASH!
The chair Ekir had been sitting on toppled over, and he collapsed with it.
"Wh-what did you...!"
"What's going on here!"
"Priest!"
At the commotion, the mercenaries guarding the tent came charging in. Seeing the priest sprawled helplessly on the floor, they leveled their weapons at us.
"What did you do to him!"
"How dare you lay hands on the Priest—"
"The audacity!"
"I didn't do anything—"
"STOP! What do you think you're doing before a great Saintess!"
Ekir scrambled to his feet and threw himself between me and the mercenaries. Doubt crept into their expressions.
"A Saintess...?"
"Did you say... Saintess?"
"I did."
Joy flooded Ekir's face. And at the same moment, Mother's expression grew just a little more still.
"The Goddess has bestowed upon this land its fourth Saintess."
After that, I was spirited off to the Holy Kingdom through a teleportation portal called, of all things, the Gate of the Goddess — my head still spinning from it all.
Upon arrival, I was taken straight to meet the man called the Pope of the Holy Court, received the baptismal rite, and had my qualifications as a Saintess formally recognized.
'But there was no revelation, was there?'
'Well? The baptism says otherwise, so what can anyone do?'
'Just look at her hair and eyes. She's a Saintess, no question.'
'But then why did no revelation descend?'
'She clearly possesses great power — surely that's proof enough...'
People had their doubts about a Saintess who had simply dropped out of nowhere one day, no revelation attached. But no one could actually refute it.
Because I really did have the makings of a Saintess.
Jolt. Jolt.
I poked my head out of the carriage window. Blue skies, and wide open fields crisscrossed with modest roads. After a fairly grand farewell with the villagers, I was on my way to the far-off Holy Kingdom by carriage.
It would no doubt look modest by the Holy Kingdom's standards, but by our village's, it had been the grandest send-off imaginable.
I'd half expected to use the Gate of the Goddess again like before, but apparently that was reserved for truly critical moments.
'So I'm a fish already caught, huh?'
The treatment was frankly underwhelming. But oh well — a rookie shouldn't expect too much, I supposed. From what I'd heard, there was even a most-senior Saintess, and two more ahead of me in line.
Nothing to be done about it...
"That is not so. The Gate of the Goddess is a portion of the great Goddess herself. It cannot be used without limit."
A pretty maid sitting primly upright across from me shook her head. She was, apparently, to assist me with everything from now on — but honestly, after being treated like a princess back in the village, I was used to this sort of thing by now. Even the pretty face barely registered.
'If this were still my original body, my heart would've been pounding.'
These days, looking at a beautiful woman didn't stir much of anything in me.
"Is that so?"
"It is. You may not yet know this, Lady Lily, but the Saintesses devote their strength to the stability and peace of the world. The Gate exists to serve them."
"It seems pretty peaceful right now, though?"
As far as I knew, this world was supposed to be set against a war between the Children of Heaven and the Demonkin. Yet in the five years since I'd possessed this body, I'd never once heard of a war breaking out or a nation falling.
The worst of it was someone getting hurt or killed by rampaging monsters, at most.
The maid nodded.
"That's correct. This is an age of peace. More precisely, it is a candle burning before the wind."
"A candle?"
"Until a mere sixty years ago, the world suffered destruction at a truly dreadful pace. Kingdoms vanishing overnight, tens of thousands dying — such things happened constantly."
By contrast, the world was peaceful now — peaceful enough for great merchant caravans to wander freely from village to village.
"But the crisis has not ended. One day the world will be thrown into turmoil again, and when that time comes, your strength will be desperately needed, Lady Lily."
"...So the senior Saintesses are dealing with the aftermath of the past, then?"
"They are."
I see...
Part of me felt relieved, but another part grew uneasy. My goal was to end the war completely. What if it flared up again? What if, when it did, I couldn't even survive it?
"...Phew."
"Please don't worry. You are one chosen by the great Goddess herself. Powerful strength will come to you soon enough."
"You think so?"
"Of course. Trust in the Goddess."
The maid's expression was unwavering. She truly, completely believed in this Goddess.
I turned my head to the window.
'I doubt that.'
The 'gods' I had known went by very different names.