A Lesson in Resurrection
...Buh-ah?
Among the many powers a Saintess possesses, the most fundamental of all is Resurrection.
Magic that revives the body of a soul whose flesh has died.
At a glance it might seem extraordinary, but in truth it's nothing all that impressive. Resurrection is merely a form of magic, after all—if the soul is the one that died, no power under heaven can bring it back. It can only ever save the body. Every Saintess granted the power of Revelatio had been capable of using resurrection magic.
And the one most skilled at it among them was the First Saintess.
I'd learned most of the basic knowledge a Saintess needs from a Saintess named Angela, but resurrection was the one thing I studied under her. The impression I got while learning it was that it wasn't really all that different from other divine spells. If anything, the formulas and the manipulation of power were far easier than other high-tier magic.
But once my resurrection surpassed hers, she began to resent me for it...
...Yeah. That's how it went.
Long story short: a Saintess ought to be able to use resurrection without much difficulty.
Nea's glasses trembled violently.
"R-Resurrection?"
"Yes. A Saintess can obviously use resurrection, can't she? Unless she's a heretic, that is..."
"Ha, ha! Resurrection! Of course I can use it...!"
"Really?"
"O-Of course. I-I'm on a completely different level from a heretic like you..."
Nea forced out a hollow laugh and approached one of the servants. The servant stared back at her with a look of dawning dread, but Nea's hand moved without a shred of hesitation.
"I'll wake him right up, so—kkaak?!"
THUD!
The hand Nea had raised to cast a 'buff' on the servant was seized by an invisible force, and she toppled over where she stood. Nea straightened her crooked glasses, shrieked, and glared at me.
"Wh-What is the meaning of this?!"
"That's a bit much, don't you think?"
What kind of person kills someone to prove she can resurrect them?
Even the First Saintess, whose temper was on the rough side, never did anything like this.
She just dug them up out of their graves.
"Th-Then shall I kill that stupid lizard instead?!"
"Piii-yuuuu..."
"Don't. Try resurrecting that instead."
I pointed at one of the decorations in the reception room—a mounted deer head. It was taxidermy, sure, but it looked like the thing had been dead for quite a while.
"...That?"
"Why? Can't manage it?"
"Wh-What possible use could you have for resurrecting some insignificant beast..."
"That's exactly why."
Something insignificant, in the most literal sense, would be that much easier to bring back. The greater a creature's intellect or strength, the more it costs to resurrect it.
Scowling, Nea eventually conceded with a reluctant nod and drew out her staff. The beginning was an authority borrowed from God. A blinding white light surged along her heart, trembling and swirling. The light soon traced out a pure white circle, stacking itself into an altar.
The rite upon the altar had begun.
The circular formula that formed the foundation of resurrection rose into the empty air, and a colossal trumpet of life showered down brilliant radiance. The light descended.
"Oooooh..."
"So that's the Saintess's resurrection?"
"It's beautiful..."
The descent did not stop. While Nea, drenched head to toe in the pouring light, sweated buckets, the true form of the resurrection was barely thirty percent complete. The deeper the light piled upon the altar, the more profound the change became. Along with a gorgeously blazing flame, a pulse was pressed into the soul of the deer that had wandered the world for so long. Soul and body—two existences interlocked into one, sketching out a single authority.
That brought it to sixty percent.
Gripping her staff white-knuckled, Nea exhaled a long breath and thought.
Not enough.
To show that heretic a perfect resurrection, she needed something more decisive. And as it happened, she had just received a magnificent new authority.
"Ugh!"
"Her eyes...!"
A distant radiance erupted from Nea's body. Draping herself in that ethereal light, she poured it into the formula of authority with every last ounce of her strength. At last, the formula—bearing the name of Resurrection—pierced through the deer.
"Meeeh...!"
"Ooooh!"
The deer came back to life.
It took one look at its own resurrected body and immediately bolted out the door. Nea, as if she couldn't care less that the deer had fled, slumped into a chair the servants had prepared and gasped for breath.
"Hah... hah... W-Well? Even now, do you still doubt me...?"
"Hmm..."
"An authority... that a heretic like you... could never hope to reach. Understand—"
White divinity erupted from my fingertip.
Nea reflexively dragged her exhausted body up and threw out a barrier, but the divinity never even touched it, gliding right past her side.
Rrrrip!
The target was the second deer head sitting beside the one Nea had just resurrected.
"Meeh?"
The deer came back to life.
"...Wh-What."
No complicated process like before—just a single instant. The result was the same, a deer resurrected, but the method was entirely different. On one side, someone who had strained every fiber of her being to barely manage a resurrection and then collapsed, leaving the deer to bolt. On the other, someone who had resurrected a deer casually, in under three seconds.
"Meeeh..."
"There you go. Good girl."
It didn't even run away—it just kept circling around me. Nea's face crumpled.
"A tr-trick! What sorcery have you pulled here?!"
"Sorcery? You saw it yourself, didn't you?"
"Th-That's impossible..."
Of course she wanted to deny it. Anyone else watching might think, didn't she just summon a deer instead of resurrecting one? But Nea knew better than anyone else in this room. What I had just done was absolutely not some trick.
It was simply that a complex, difficult resurrection spell had been streamlined into something convenient. It might have looked effortless, but I had reworked what I learned from the First Saintess in my own way—it was by no means a simple spell. The difference was that Nea painstakingly unfolded that tangled formula, while I had condensed it down to its minimum and used it more efficiently.
And I did the calculations faster, too.
"Still, you're not a complete heretic, I suppose. At this level? I'd say about six months' worth of training."
"D-Don't speak so carelessly! Y-You... you...!"
"You?"
"Y-Y-YOOOU...!"
HERETIC!!!
Kthugha! Fire kindled at Nea's fingertips. At the sight of that gorgeously flaring white flame, I instinctively grimaced. That fire—I knew it very, very well.
'Punishment.'
"Are you seriously thinking of attacking me?"
"Sh-Shut up...! How dare you m-mock me...!"
"I only told you the truth."
The power she held might rival a Saintess of the past, but her actual skill and knowledge fell far short. A Saintess who needed to work that hard just to cast resurrection—the Empire's future looked bleak indeed.
"Put that away. This is a warning."
"I'm the one who gives warnings here...!"
"Keep it up and I might have to do something about you."
That fire I recognized was one of the more dangerous authorities. I had no idea how she'd obtained it, but this world was scattered with the legacies of higher beings, so it wouldn't be strange for Nea, Saintess of the Imperium, to have her hands on one.
Not that I had any intention of politely taking it on the chin.
Nea, flames coiling around her fist, launched herself into the air—and just as I moved to respond—
"Buh-ah!"
"Kyaaak?!"
SHAAAAAA—!!
She froze solid on the spot. The newly minted ice statue that had been Nea dropped to the floor and rolled head over heels. While everyone looked on in horror, Sre, having fired off her ice breath, let out a small burp and flopped over flat on the ground.
"Yawwwwn... gonna sleep now."
Kuuuu...
"......"
"...We should treat her injuries."
"Yes..."
Well, the reception room's an ice kingdom now.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"Nnngh... nnngh..."
"...What exactly happened? She isn't waking up."
"She took the Deep Frost head-on. Her soul's unharmed, though, so she'll come around soon enough."
Nea—who had gone from ice statue back to plain statue—lay groaning on a sickbed. The room was one of the many overflowing the enormous mansion that housed the reception room, and it too was papered wall to wall with terribly expensive things.
Not that the room was the problem.
Technically speaking, I was a criminal who had frozen one of the Empire's Grand Dukes solid in the middle of the imperial capital. And yet, whether it was the Duke of Yellow Embers' influence at work or something else, far from reprimanding me, no one refused to let me treat her.
It wasn't as if the Empire lacked healers of its own.
"Uuuu..."
Though it helps that the Empire's finest healer is the one lying in that bed.
I lifted Nea's left wrist. It was so cold it could have belonged to a corpse, but her heart was beating just fine. No real damage to her soul, either. As a Saintess carrying divine power within her, she was practically immune to any ordinary temperature difference.
So why was she still like this?
"Did she eat too much? Open up, let me see your mouth."
"Buh-ah?"
Sre, who had scrambled upright the moment she spotted the fire of Punishment, had instinctively drawn on the power of the Fragment of Deep Frost. It was a power she should never have been able to use—and never should use. That fragment held the might of the Demon King of Deep Frost, and the Demon King of Deep Frost stood on equal footing with the Six Demon Kings and the Eight Seats of the heavenly tribe.
Originally, only her claws could channel that power, and only as a weapon. This was the first time she had ever poured the Deep Frost into a breath attack. I had Sre shrink herself down to fit in my arms and asked her to open her mouth, but it was spotlessly clean inside.
Did Sgaredo ever cross paths with Punishment? Or was there some issue with the Demon King of Deep Frost himself?
I couldn't say for certain what the problem was or why it had happened... but one thing was sure: we'd gained a tremendous asset. Being able to wield the power of Deep Frost meant even the Kraken could be frozen solid.
That said, what Sre produced was far too weak to truly be called the power of Deep Frost—and Sre herself had no idea what she'd even done. I called her over separately and had her try the breath again, but the same attack never came out.
"So the condition is a full stomach?"
Grrrgle...
"Hungwy."
"You just ate."
"Wuuu..."
Sre shook her head with the most pitiful expression imaginable. Well, nothing to be done about that. I turned around—and the color drained from Esther's face as he'd been listening to our entire conversation.
"Um. Don't tell me, again—"
"Could we get some meat, please?"
"Ah."