Side Story — The Saintesses of Revelatio (End)
"...Are you in your right mind?"
"Yes."
The training grounds stretched out before us, the two of us facing each other across the dueling ring. Barely thirty minutes had passed since word of our match spread, and yet the arena was already packed with onlookers who'd come running from who knows where.
It wasn't just the holy knights and attendants, either — far off at the edge of the crowd, I could even see Cardinal Bonesri waving his hand.
Clang!!
And resting on my shoulder was a hammer at least three times my size.
"You really are a lunatic, aren't you?"
"I like it, actually."
"You can at least lift it, I'll give you that. But swing it?"
Marenia shook her head in flat refusal. To be fair, my body looked like that of a girl who'd only just started her first year of high school. Saintesses weren't exactly known for physical prowess — swinging the thing was out of the question; whether I could even carry it was the real question.
Excuse me? A high school girl is worth a tank, thank you very much.
Three high school girls = one tank. That's just common knowledge.
All right, technically that was otherworld logic — but this was the otherworld. A girl's body combined with a saintess's divine power meant I could put out the force of a tank. No, more than a tank.
Thud.
Vmmm!
The massive hammer swung from my hand. And strangely enough, it didn't feel heavy at all.
─Good heavens!
─The hammer...!
─Can you even wield a thing like that?
─...Is she insane? How is anyone supposed to swing that? Shouldn't that be the Knight Commander's job?
A murmur rippled through the crowd. Fair enough — it had to be an odd sight. They'd assumed I was a saintess specialized in rear-line support, and here I was out of nowhere swinging around a warhammer.
But I hadn't wanted to do something this bizarre either. With rumors about my qualifications already spreading everywhere, a stunt like this would only make them worse. If Marenia hadn't picked a fight with me, I would have just let it slide.
"...You lunatic."
"Shall we begin, senior?"
"Gladly. Let me fix that attitude of yours."
─All right! Competitors, take your positions!
Tension hung over the arena as every eye turned to us. The magic professor acting as our referee — was it an amplification spell? — boomed out across the ring.
─Begin!
Brilliant white light erupted. A white shield-like barrier formed around Marenia, and from her fingertips two beams of light shot straight at me. She was underestimating me, firing off casually, barely a fraction of her strength.
Tak!
I stepped back with my rear foot and slipped out of the beams' trajectories at blistering speed — far too fast for someone supposedly hauling around a giant hammer. Gasps of awe rolled across the arena.
"Hah!"
KRUMM!!!
The hammer slammed down where Marenia had been standing. The arena floor buckled inward, and the force drained right out of my arms. Well — first time using the thing; I wasn't used to it yet.
Grunting, I heaved the hammer back up, and on pure reflex raised it to block an incoming attack. Ssssaaa... light blazed to life across the hammer's surface, searing like fire. I gave it a single swing to snuff the flames out, then looked up at the sky.
"Wow."
Marenia was flying. Around her, arrows of light wheeled in lazy circles, primed and ready to loose at any moment.
"You're supposed to block that?"
"...And how exactly am I supposed to attack you up there?"
"That's for you to figure out, isn't it?"
FWOOSH-FOOSSH!!
The arrows of light came flying.
■
Saintess against saintess, and the two were colliding.
─This is exactly what I warned you about! Stop throwing your body around like a brute!
One was Marenia, the great apostle who had received the Goddess's revelation.
─Ugh...! If only she'd stop flying!
The other was Lily — the one who had appeared without any revelation at all.
Ordinarily, a battle between saintesses would be a duel of magic against magic, but this fight was something else entirely.
KRUMM!
"A hammer... and one many times larger than her own body, no less."
What Lily held was a hammer. So enormous it raised questions not just of how she used it, but where she'd even gotten it. A weapon fit for some northern warlord general — and Lily was wielding it with practiced ease.
Cardinal Bonesri let out a hollow laugh at a sight he had never once witnessed in all his decades of service.
So this, too, is part of the Goddess's design.
"What do you make of it?"
"...Honestly, I have no idea."
The Knight Commander seated beside him shook his head.
"You've been watching her, haven't you? I heard the two of them have dueled plenty by now."
"That's... Saintess Lily is simply impossible to pin down."
"In what way?"
"Just when you think she's skilled with a sword, it turns out she's skilled with a spear. Just when you think it's the spear, it turns out she's skilled with the axe."
KWAGAGANG!!!
─Wh—!
─Come down here!
─You're one to talk, stop blocking me!
"...And now she's skilled with a hammer too, it seems. I never in my wildest dreams imagined a saintess possessed such talent."
"So saintesses are actually good with weapons?"
"I wouldn't go that far. The other saintesses never took up arms at all — and of the few sparring matches Saintess Angela did go through with, honestly, she fought at a rank beginner's level."
Which meant Lily was the only one who displayed such uncanny weapon mastery.
"Hah..."
"Could it be connected to her not receiving the revelation?"
"Perhaps so."
Lily was an apostle who had received no revelation. She was a being who had shattered the common understanding that a saintess could only be born through the Goddess's revelation and grace. Naturally, differences like this existed — but he had still assumed her abilities themselves wouldn't diverge all that much.
"A foolish thought, I suppose."
Lily was different from the other saintesses. Different — no, special.
Wooom!
Looking at that scene, who could honestly call either of them a saintess? A saintess devoted to healing, a saintess who tended to countless people and worked magic to save the world —
Swinging a hammer around like some battle demon? Does that make any sense at all?
Once this fight ended, the rumors about Lily — already spreading fast enough — would only grow stranger. He was certain of it.
The duel continued. Part of it was that Marenia was clearly holding back, but Lily, too, was fighting remarkably well for someone still picking things up one at a time. The spectators watching would never believe it, but there had been a time when even a random street thug had given Lily a genuinely hard fight.
And now, in the span of a single month, people were saying she'd grown strong enough to challenge a true saintess.
"But even that ends here."
Lily had grown stronger, yes — but that was all. Marenia was a powerhouse capable of slaying an Ogre single-handedly. If she ever exerted her full strength, Lily wouldn't stand a chance.
FWOOOM!
"...!"
A searing beam of light punched clean through Lily's shoulder.
■
It hurts. It feels like my whole body is burning away.
A scream tore through my mind, and my body arched backward on its own. Scary. I'm scared. I want out — right now.
"Nngh..."
But I didn't let go.
"Give it up already. You don't want to die, do you?"
"......"
KWAAAAAH...!
I clenched the hammer with everything I had. I reached for that sensation from before — the one I'd felt when Marenia called me a mongrel. The sensation of something unknown bursting up from somewhere deep inside me. After a month of endlessly watching and studying Manifestation, the first glimmer of its thread was finally coming into view.
It fired. Fired like a bullet. I poured whatever was surging inside me into the hammer and —
"Huh...?"
— slammed it straight into Marenia.
KWAAAAAANG!!!
The barrier wrapping her shattered, and Marenia went flying off into the distance.
"Whoa."
─?
─??
─What the—!
"S-somebody catch Lady Marenia!"
The holy knights bolted out of the arena. KRUMM! I set the hammer down and collapsed right where I stood.
...My head hurts.
─Saintess!
■
"...Where am I?"
"You're awake, then."
"...Cardinal Bonesri."
I opened my eyes. Sitting up, I found the cardinal seated before me, Miya at his side, and the maids lined up behind them. How long had I been out?
"How long was I asleep?"
"Three days, my lady."
"Three... days?"
That long? I had felt like something inside me had been thoroughly drained, but I never imagined it would knock me out for that long. I nodded along blankly, then suddenly jolted upright.
"Wait — does that mean you've been keeping vigil at my bedside for three whole days?"
"I have. ...Though I'm sure that would be a touching story, the truth is I came because there were signs you were about to wake. Miya here has been working quite hard on your behalf."
"Ah."
So that was it. I scratched my head, feeling a little sheepish. Maybe I had gone a bit overboard, honestly. Getting worked up because my senior taunted me, and actually deciding to throw down with her — even thinking about it now, it sounded a little insane.
"Um... Lady Marenia, is she..."
"She's perfectly safe. Her recovery is already complete — you needn't worry about a thing."
"That's a relief."
I had attacked someone mid-duel before, and subdued people before, but I'd never flattened anyone with a hammer. Back then my vision had gone red and my body just moved — but thinking about it now, my hand trembled on its own.
"...Would everyone give us the room, please? There is something I would discuss with the saintess in private."
"Of course."
"Yes."
The attendants and maids filed out. The cardinal and I, alone together in the quiet room. He held his silence for a moment before speaking.
"I apologize. I should have taken steps to prevent this beforehand."
"No, it's all right."
"You may find this unpleasant to hear, but Saintess Marenia's faith in the Goddess is unwavering. She has taken a firmly negative stance toward you, Saintess Lily — the apostle who received no revelation."
"...Am I the problem here?"
Was I nothing more than an odd stone in their midst, stirring up trouble where I didn't belong? My heart grew heavy.
"Not at all. I would call this simply a time of adjustment — one all of us must bear."
"The world is slowly stirring, and the age of peace may one day draw to a close. When that day comes, even a single pair of tender young hands may prove a precious thing."
The cardinal rose from his seat — and knelt on one knee before me. I jolted in shock and waved my hands in protest, but he held his posture firm.
"Saintess Lily, you are different from the other saintesses. But it is precisely that difference which makes you greater."
"......"
"I believe this, too, is part of the Goddess's design. That you were born without revelation, that you excel not in magic but in the art of the blade — I firmly believe there is a reason behind it all."
Such earnest, steadfast faith. There were still people who doubted me, who sought to cast me out — but there were others who believed in me, too. In just one short month, Miya had believed, and the magic professor, and the Knight Commander, and Angela as well.
And more than anything — reactions like this were nothing new to me.
"...I will repay that faith."
Because I was the outlier, after all.
.
.
.
.
"So that's why you went and caused all that commotion? Honestly, you're unbelievable."
"...I was just angry, you know? I never wanted to end up like this any more than you did."
"Exactly. None of us chose to become this. They really shouldn't give you such a hard time."
"...Anyway. They said the Divinity of Healing magic works like this — is that right?"
"That's right."
"Then why can't I do this part?"
This conversation took place five years after I'd transmigrated into this world.
"Man, you're a total Crazy Bitch."
This is the story of when I had only just become a saintess.