Do You Know How to Use Resurrection?
Deep beneath the heart of the Empire, in the capital of Imperidium.
Sacred light flooded a temple overflowing with brilliant gems, and from it a living being soon took shape.
"Hah…"
Her name was Nea.
One of the Empire's Six Swords—now dwindled in number—and the one and only Imperial Saintess.
As always, Saintess Nea dressed herself with a servant's help, then put on the round glasses she never went without.
"Shall we head back?"
"Y-yes… the descent ritual is finished, after all…"
Nea walked slowly along the corridor inside the temple, her attendants bowing their heads and following reverently behind her.
She stopped.
"?"
Nea had frozen in place. The moment their mistress halted, the servants behind her stopped as well.
"Is something the matter?"
"S-something's strange… the energy is definitely different…"
Light glinted off Nea's glasses as if reflecting something unseen. As the Imperial Saintess, she was exquisitely sensitive to divine power, and no matter how deep underground she was, she could sense an anomaly.
"It seems someone impure has intruded… What happened here…?"
"We will investigate."
"No. I'll look into it myself…"
Fwoosh!
White light enveloped Nea's body, and in an instant she was back at the mansion where she resided above the underground chamber.
Descent—an authority only the Imperial Saintess could wield. Able to use divine power, Nea could relocate her body at any time, so long as a special divine stone like those in the temple was nearby.
However.
"Ah, my clothes, again…"
The only thing she could transport was Nea herself.
Once more stripped bare, Nea deliberated. She could walk out just like this, of course, but the other servants and the Duke would surely throw a fit.
Maintain your dignity.
You are the one and only Imperial Saintess.
What does pretense even matter.
Clothes, body—what difference did any of it make? As Nea, the saintess who served a great god, such meaningless gazes and thoughts simply did not make sense to her.
Sighing, she summoned whichever servant happened to be on standby in the mansion and changed her clothes. He wasn't the servant who usually attended her, so he trembled violently as he dared lay hands upon her body—but fortunately, she showed no particular reaction.
After all, beneath the position and speech of a saintess, she was one of the Grand Dukes, possessed of a cruel streak.
Case in point: when Saintess Nea had first revealed herself to the public, she had been very young. An extremely childish face, a voice that stammered and trembled, a hunched, cowering posture. So some of the subjects who saw her for the first time in the plaza picked at her flaws and mocked her—according to the survivors' accounts, they were burst apart by her white light.
They had been whispering quietly among themselves, but she had heard every word, and she had killed them all.
The sole mercy was that Nea did not kill the servants, who were property of the Empire—but the moment anyone crossed even the slightest line, she dealt with them without hesitation, whenever it suited her.
"F-finished."
"It really is strange, isn't it… isn't it?"
"Pardon? Y-yes, it is."
"…"
Finally, with the glasses placed on her face by the servant's hands, Nea brushed past him and rose lightly into the sky.
An unmistakably heretical energy.
As I thought.
The heretic who had insulted her and her god—Lily Elbrit—was on this land.
Nea drew out her pure white staff. Her target was a wicked heretic who had dared invade the Empire.
Hoo.
Light gathered into a single point, and Nea's eyes fixed upon it. Everything Nea believed in and followed—everything that formed her foundation.
I borrow power from God.
"The p-price is punishment. You shall burn in eternal, holy fire."
Fwoooosh!!
The power newly obtained through the descent ritual. The Fire of Punishment used Nea's light as fuel to manifest the will of God.
The flame embedded in her staff soon traced out an enormous magic circle, evocative of God Himself, and hurtled toward its target.
The fire would burn the sinner where she stood—
Tss.
—or rather, it was blocked by a golden sword.
The golden blade that had deflected Nea's fire now hovered before her, humming with light. Seeing a sword of light greater than her own, Nea furrowed her brow once more.
"Wh-why do you block me again…"
—My apologies. Eradicating heretics is your job, Saintess.
"Th-then you know to step aside. The sinner is on this land, is she not…"
Nea glared at the sword. Glaring was all she could do—a childish act of pique—but there was no help for it.
Her counterpart stood at the very apex of the Empire, and from the moment Nea was appointed saintess, she had lived as the Duke of Yellow Embers' ally, as his sword. Her faith in God was ironclad and her temperament willful, but when the Duke gave an order, she was bound to obey without fail.
"The G-god who granted me the Fire of Punishment demands her execution. Did you not declare it righteous as well, Your Grace…"
—Punishment. Yes, that is the great will. You are not wrong, Saintess.
"…Then?"
The sword hummed and trembled. It was merely a blade, and yet it seemed almost to be smiling.
—It is the great path, certainly. But there is no need to take the difficult road. The Empire must set its sights higher.
"…Higher?"
—The wheels are already in motion. Lily Elbrit is far too valuable to burn with the Fire of Punishment. With her, we can reach the perfect utopia.
A great empire that no one could covet or approach. And the key to its beginning was Lily Elbrit, who would become its new shield.
"…"
—Do you understand what I'm telling you?
"I-I understand…"
—Good. Then handle it well. I have faith in you.
"You… you are not coming yourself?"
—I'm still busy on this end. The Alteration concerning Karia isn't finished yet either. The barrier commander is buying us time, so it will work out.
"…Understood."
Hoo.
The sword, blazing with golden divinity, lost its strength and scattered into nothing. Saintess Nea stared at the spot where it had vanished, and thought:
'…Y-you want me to simply leave the heretic alone?'
She could not do that.
Even if she could not burn her with the Fire of Punishment, she would not stand by and watch a wicked heretic run rampant within the Empire's capital.
Before moving, Nea cast one last look at the place where the Duke of Yellow Embers' power had lingered.
The perfect utopia. She had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but this was surely the moment to act.
'It is what God desires as well…!'
As long as she did not defy the Duke's will, what was the harm?
So thinking, Nea set off toward where Lily was.
And the puppets, even in this very moment, were moving steadily forward.
Urgh.
Pweeee… pop!
"…She sleeps well, doesn't she."
"Eat when full, sleep when tired, wake up and eat again. The textbook newborn, really."
"Yes… true enough."
Having devoured a staggering thirty-seven plates, Sre flopped down onto the red carpet and demanded her midday nap.
Sre was of dragonkind, a race whose lives stretched toward eternity. Her exact age was impossible to pin down, but dragons had tremendously long growth periods, so she was still, for all intents and purposes, a newborn. Intelligent enough to speak, yet her behavior remained firmly at the level of an infant.
Every time a bubble formed on her nose and popped, it was utterly adorable—but Esther and the servants, who had already taken a catastrophic financial hit, did not look amused.
Esther managed his expression as best he could and continued. "So, to resume what I was saying—you have come to see His Grace the Duke of Yellow Embers… is that correct?"
"That's right. He's in the capital, isn't he?"
"His Grace is indeed in the capital, but he is terribly occupied with official duties. I'm afraid today will be difficult."
"Hmm."
Well, that's inconvenient.
That would mean coming back again tomorrow, but I had a stream tomorrow, which made the timing awkward. Besides, rather than genuinely pressed for time, everyone here seemed frantic about nothing but stalling for it.
Had they truly been so busy, they wouldn't have waited this long for word from above.
"Then I'll simply go to him myself."
"Pardon? N-no, please, if you could just return tomorrow—"
"If I come back tomorrow, something tells me you'll tell me to come back the day after that."
"You are hardly someone who—"
Esther cut himself off mid-sentence and turned his head.
A powerful force and unmistakable hostility were approaching—strong enough that anyone with even moderate mana sensitivity could feel it plainly. That familiar yet deeply unpleasant power I had felt before.
The saintess.
Nea, the Imperial Saintess. She was bearing down on us, seething with hostility.
Esther's expression shifted to outright shock.
"I was about to go find her, and instead she's come out to greet us personally."
"…Why?"
"Who's to say?"
Had she had a sudden change of heart? Or was this, too, one of the Duke of Yellow Embers' designs?
BANG!
The doors of the reception room burst open, and the saintess in her pure white vestments strode proudly into view. Her outfit resembled mine, yet was different all the same.
"Ah, Saintess Nea, I presume."
"Heretic."
Nea glared at me, her face twisted with displeasure. Suffused with pure white light, she radiated a brilliance even more intense than before—she had grown stronger in the interim.
Had something happened in the meantime?
"H-how dare you… do you have any idea where you are, heretic?!"
"Where did I come to? The Empire, of course."
"Is this somewhere I'm not allowed, then?"
I said it with a teasing tilt of my head as I regarded her playfully, and Nea ground her teeth.
Just as I'd expected, Nea absolutely would not attack me. Given everything I'd seen of her personality, it would have been entirely in character for her to hit the heretic who dared invade the Empire with a nice buff of holy light. But the Duke of Yellow Embers' influence—his wish that I not be harmed—seemed to be weighing on her heavily.
"Actually, this works out nicely. I need to see the Duke of Yellow Embers, but apparently he's busy. How about you deliver my message for me, Saintess Nea?"
"Wh-why would I carry a message for the likes of a heretic…?"
"Because if you don't, I'll be heading to the imperial palace myself."
I was not joking.
If the Duke wouldn't come out, my plan was to punch straight through the palace to reach him. In the past, there had been no way through the Empire's depths without a key—but that was no longer the case.
My fourth-advancement state still had plenty of time left. And once I entered the fourth stage, even if I couldn't kill her, she wouldn't so much as graze a fingertip of mine.
Nea's brow creased deeper.
"…Heretic. Heretic, heretic, HERETIC!!! H-how utterly disrespectful of you! Disrespectful!"
"You keep calling me a heretic."
By the way—do you know how to use Resurrection?