Side Story — The Saintesses of Revelatio (6)
'Angela.'
The third Saintess born of revelation, and the youngest of them all.
She was two years older than Saintess Lily, who was fifteen at the time.
And yet she was a senior who had already served as a Saintess for more than five years.
Her skill went without saying — she wielded power on roughly the same level as Saintess Marenia.
Her temper ran a little hot, though, so plenty of people misunderstood her at times…
"Give me your hand if you want it healed."
In truth, she had a tender heart.
'...Tender?'
Then why did she handle a severed hand like it was nothing?
Angela took the knight's severed hand and pressed it back onto the stump the way one might mold clay into place. The knight howled in agony, but Angela, seemingly well accustomed to this, simply carried on with the treatment. Light seeped into the wound, and the hand knit itself back together completely.
"There. Don't push yourself and you'll be good as new within three days."
"Th-thank you."
"Thank me by not throwing your body around like that. Honestly, what a pain!"
Hmph! Angela turned away as if brushing off the finished chore. And standing before her now was me.
"What do you wa— oh?"
"Hello, senpai."
Blue hair and blue eyes. A beautiful face and figure — features we all shared as common ground — but Angela was a little unusual all the same.
For one, she was quite short for her age, and she wore her hair in twin ringlet buns. Above all, that impish, rascal-like expression of hers was truly memorable.
She's kind of cute.
"Ah! You're the new girl, aren't you?"
"That's right."
"Your name is…"
"Lily."
"Lily. Great. Follow me!"
"Huh?"
Just like that?
I still had a sparring match to attend and a fair amount of my schedule left, but Angela simply tossed out those words and vanished beyond the training grounds. What was I supposed to do?
"Go on ahead."
"And my sparring match?"
"Something's come up, so the mood for it is spoiled anyway. It would serve you better to go and deepen your knowledge as a Saintess."
So said the knight commander, who genuinely seemed fine with it. He was happy enough, it seemed, just to have someone attend his training sessions at all.
"...Mm. Understood."
And so Miya and I set off after Angela.
Following Angela into her room, we were greeted by lavish surroundings. Whether she had decorated it herself or not, it looked unmistakably luxurious compared to my own room at a single glance.
She flopped down onto her bed and beckoned me over. I sat in the chair right beside it, and Miya took her place standing at my side.
"Good to finally meet you. You've heard about me, right?"
"That you're the third Saintess."
"That's me. Angela, third Saintess of the Holy Kingdom. That's my name."
Angela launched into this story and that, practically buzzing with excitement — how remarkable she was, all the great feats she'd accomplished, and even that I should come find her anytime I needed something or was curious about anything.
It didn't look so much like she wanted to seem impressive as that she was genuinely delighted to have gained a junior. I found it endearing, and nodded along, letting her talk.
"By the way, what did you learn during those fourteen days?"
"Just magic, and various other things."
"Like what?"
"Um… Fireball, and Lightning, things like that…"
I demonstrated, in the same breath, the two spells that had made the magic instructor gasp in awe and fall clean over backward.
Three magic circles each, spread simultaneously through both hands in different configurations. The instructor had been startled that a student who'd only just begun was using spells he'd never even taught — but surely, if it were a fellow Saintess, this much wouldn't surprise anyone…
Crash!
"......."
"......What are you?"
Hm. She was surprised, huh.
What's the big deal?
When I shattered the teacup of sweet choco tea, the maids — who must have been waiting on standby the whole time — rushed over and saw to Angela. They cleared away the broken glass and wiped up every last sticky drop of tea.
For the record, all of it was done with magic. Angela, without so much as twitching a finger while the maids attended her, stared at me with the strangest expression.
"...And that's what you learned in a mere fourteen days? No lies?"
"No lies."
"You're even linking three magic circles together. Two different spells, no less, each in a different configuration."
"That's right?"
It just… worked when I did it?
Everyone kept going on about how hard it was, but for me it just came naturally. It was like being asked, "How do you walk?" and answering, "I move my legs and walk."
As I said as much, Angela's expression grew even more bizarre.
"Do you, like, use multiple brains or something?"
"...I'm pretty sure I use one."
"No, there's no other way you could manifest that through both hands at the same time."
"Hmm…"
I tilted my head. Angela looked at me, let out a long hrrmm, wore a sulky pout — and then shook her head.
"Ugh, forget it! Talking to you makes me feel like I'm the stupid one."
"Casting this is actually a different matter, though. I'm terribly short on mana."
"? Why? Aren't you a Saintess?"
"I am."
"Then use divinity for your magic."
Shwashak.
A pure white light burst from Angela's hand, and waves of brilliant white began to ripple and surge. So that was the Water Orb the instructor had mentioned.
I shook my head.
"I can't use divine magic. I don't even understand what it is yet."
"...? Now that makes even less sense. You can manifest two spells at once in the blink of an eye, but you can't use divine magic?"
"Correct."
"Why not?"
"Because I can't."
A brief silence fell.
I couldn't understand Angela, and Angela couldn't understand me. She made all sorts of gestures, trying to teach me the 'method of Manifestation' for divine magic, but I understood none of it.
"No, why would you do that there? You're supposed to draw on the divinity inside your body!"
"I can't. That's…"
"Argh! You! Have you read 'Divine Magic and Understanding' or not?!"
"I have."
"Then why don't you get it!"
Angela looked utterly exasperated. But that book — I genuinely couldn't make heads or tails of it.
I mean, how is 'Manifest the divinity inherent within your body' supposed to be a method of Manifestation? Isn't that like writing 'tilt the bucket and the water pours out' and calling it instructions?
"You don't know how I cast two spells at once either, Angela."
"......Fair point."
Angela, who had been spitting fire, cooled down a little. Then, as if rationalizing it to herself, she muttered something and nodded along.
"...Right. You can excel in some areas and fall short in others… that makes sense. For keeping Marenia in check, that's…"
"?"
"Nothing, nothing. Anyway — have you eaten yet?"
"I was about to eat after my sparring match."
"Then let's go together!"
Angela, the third Saintess, was an enormously talkative sort.
Bright and cheerful in a way that suited her seventeen years, she chattered on like any girl her age, and thanks to that, I gathered a great deal of information.
First, about the second Saintess, 'Marenia' — arguably the most important figure of all. She was over thirty, but thanks to the Goddess's blessing, she kept the face of a woman in her early twenties. Considering that the first Saintess was hardly ever at the Holy Court, Marenia was, in practical terms, the face of the entire institution.
"Marenia unnie flies off the handle at the drop of a hat, you know? Like, excuse me, you're the one who gets dragged all over the place and wears yourself out — why take it out on me?~ It's so ridiculous."
And so, Angela seemed to dislike Marenia quite a bit. Not quite to the level of sworn enemies, but more of a political antipathy, maybe?
It sounded like your classic workplace faction squabble, and my head spun a little at the thought.
'If I pick the wrong side here, am I in serious trouble?'
"It sounds like quite a hard lot."
"Don't even get me started. Slay monsters, heal the sick, go stand around as a symbol of faith. We're slaves. Slaves. So much for being apostles of the Goddess."
"...Isn't that the kind of remark that gets people in trouble?"
"Why? Was I wrong? Tell me I was wrong!"
When Angela shrieked, the holy knights and priests in the dining hall flinched in unison.
...Come to think of it, she could have just eaten in her room. She went out of her way to come to the dining hall. Maybe she'd done it on purpose to let people see this side of her.
"They treat the apostles of our great Goddess like this. I'm seriously writing my resignation one of these days!"
"......."
"You. You just thought something weird, didn't you."
"I didn't."
"You did! If the Cardinal or His Holiness the Pope hears me going on like this, things get awkward for me, don't they?"
Ouch.
She had a point. That stung a little.
Why did she look so young, yet know exactly how these things worked?
'Is this also a power of the Saintess?'
Angela spun one of her ringlet buns around her finger and smirked.
"Don't worry. That old man and that grandpa can't say a word to me."
"...Is that so?"
"Yep. You've met Bonesri, right? I bet he was all stiff and bossy with you."
He was.
He'd demanded 'proof,' and when I responded, he'd sworn it would never happen again.
...Still. Calling a Cardinal 'old man' and His Holiness the Pope 'grandpa.'
What on earth was going on inside this girl's head… no, this Saintess's head?
"That's just how it is here. We're the Goddess's apostles, right? And where are we? At the Holy Court, which serves her."
Stab!
A perfectly cooked piece of meat rose on Angela's fork.
Nom. The meat vanished into her mouth just like that.
"We're the Goddess's proxies, her living incarnations. What could they possibly say to us? At most, they'd just pile more work on us."
"...There's something I'm curious about."
"Mm~ Ogre really is a terrible cuisine. What is it?"
"Then why don't you quit?"
From the way she talked, I got the feeling that even if she did announce her resignation, no one would bother coming to stop her.
Besides, Angela didn't look 'devout' the way other priests did, or the way Saintesses were so often portrayed in countless stories.
And yet she kept performing her duties, kept saving countless people, and had remained here for more than five years.
Clink. Angela set down her cutlery.
"You're right. Why don't I quit?"
"...?"
"I don't know. Partly because I want to save people. Partly because I've been here so long it's grown on me."
Angela tipped her head back. Then, as if recalling something, she closed her eyes for a moment — and soon a little heh escaped her.
"It's fun, isn't it? Being a Saintess."