Tutorial: Interlude
Aria had become a Saint.
While battling the ogre, the moment Danas realized she had taken an arrow meant for him, he had instinctively glanced in her direction—only to be brutally mauled by the beast. Having barely clawed his way back from the threshold of death thanks to her, he couldn't help but realize the truth: a novice nun's healing consumed her own vitality, and pushing it too far could cost her life.
Novice nuns rarely accompanied dangerous commissions, so all he had known before was the simple fact that they could cast healing spells. But having witnessed with his own eyes a girl who sacrificed her very self to bring him back from the brink of death, he could no longer remain ignorant of the price her grace exacted.
Which was why the sight before him filled Danas with profound bewilderment.
A flash of light had bathed the room in gentle warmth, and then, without warning, Aria coughed up blood.
The priest had explicitly assured them that Aria's condition was fully restored. So why had she suddenly vomited blood again?
It wasn't that she had done nothing. One glance at the radiant divine power gathering in her hands was enough to discern what was taking place. It was just that the cost she paid was entirely different from what he had witnessed before.
When she healed him, it hadn't appeared as though she were sustaining physical wounds; rather, it felt as if she were pouring out her very life force to fill his own. The more her sacred power flowed, the more haggard she had grown, her fragile life fading before his eyes. Even without understanding the mechanics, he had known back then that she had to be stopped.
Yet the healing Aria displayed just now was something entirely different.
It looked as though... she took the wound directly onto herself.
He could clearly see that Mirna's injuries were gone. The moment the divine power settled over the mage, Mirna's complexion flushed back with healthy color, and a look of genuine disbelief washed across her face. It was unmistakable.
And in that very instant, Aria's face had drained of color as she coughed up dark crimson.
It had all happened in the blink of an eye. Bathed in the residual radiance and with Aria promptly wiping away the blood, most people in the room had failed to notice. But Danas had seen it. Having watched her without blinking from the very moment her divine power stirred, there was no way he could have missed it.
Something was terribly wrong.
Danas turned his gaze back to Aria. She was chatting with a tranquil, gentle smile, looking so peaceful that it was impossible to imagine she had just been coughing up blood from a failing body. For reasons beyond his comprehension, her physical state seemed to have miraculously stabilized once more.
His eyes, laden with suspicion, drifted toward the door, then back to his comrades.
"Haa..."
Danas let out a low breath and pushed himself up from his chair. His decision didn't take long.
Leaving Aria behind, Danas stepped out of the infirmary to seek out the Pope, who had departed only moments earlier. The supreme pontiff had not gone far.
"Your Holiness."
At Danas's call, the Pope and the priest beside him paused and turned around. Antonio was the priest's name, if Danas remembered correctly—the very clergyman who had examined Aria upon her arrival at the cathedral and assured everyone that her life was out of danger.
"Ah, the adventurer whose life was saved by the Saintess. What brings you?"
"I wish to ask you something directly."
At Danas's blunt and borderline insolent tone, Priest Antonio's brow twitched. But catching that faint shift in demeanor, the Pope raised a hand to quietly restrain him.
"...I already had a feeling what you might ask."
Having sensed the subtle anomaly that occurred in the room moments ago, the pontiff had already deduced his intention. Cold sweat trickled down Danas's back. He had felt an underlying wrongness from the very beginning.
In the Holy Kingdom of Varkan, a Saint held an exalted station rivaling that of the Pope himself. Unless there was a grave and sorrowful reason, there would be no cause for the Pope to wear such a mournful expression when Aria declared her desire to walk that path. Yet he had spoken those words with his own lips—warning her that a path of thorns lay ahead, that it would be immensely agonizing, and that at times she would wish to give up.
Had the role of Saint been a mere position of high nobility, the leader of the church would never have spoken with such profound grief. Moreover, a Saint was someone chosen directly by the Goddess. Which meant, conversely, that a Saint never appeared without a desperate necessity. A full century had passed since the last Saint walked the continent.
And finally, the way Aria's body had momentarily shattered the instant she healed Mirna.
Danas was certain of it.
"Has the... Demon King appeared?"
The calamity had awakened.
"So... you noticed after all."
The Pope closed his eyes with an expression of profound pity, then turned his back toward the hallway.
"Come with me."
"..."
"This will be a long conversation."
Danas gave a firm nod, steeled with an unyielding resolve to uncover the whole truth.
Arriving at a secluded reception room deep within the Great Cathedral, they spoke for a long time. In truth, it was mostly the Pope who talked.
He revealed the oracle handed down by the Goddess: the Demon King would soon invade the mortal world, and as a divine safeguard, the Holy Sword would select a Hero, while the Goddess would choose a Saint. The Hero chosen by the Holy Sword had already been determined, but the Saint had yet to reveal herself.
While scouring the land for candidates, the church had stumbled upon Aria by chance. They brought her to the cathedral and provided her with the means to dimly perceive and hear the world around her. Then, one day, as though guided by divine revelation, Aria had requested permission to embark on an ascetic penance, which the church granted.
Danas realized that this was how he and Aria had crossed paths. And then...
"By sacrificing herself to save you, she became the Saintess."
Her selfless sacrifice to pull him back from death had summoned the Goddess's grace, reviving her as the Saint. Danas listened to every word, his chest tightening with every breath.
"...Then that path of thorns you spoke of..."
"The advent of a Saint heralds the arrival of an age of chaos. It is a sign that the Demon King marches to bring about the end of this world."
"Haah..."
Aria being chosen as the Saint meant she was shackled to the fate of subjugating the calamity threatening to extinguish humanity.
"Then, the way her body broke down for a moment when she healed Mirna earlier..."
"That is... the authority bestowed by the Goddess to stand against the Demon King."
To vanquish the Demon King, a Saint was granted an absolute authority. An authority capable of mending any wound in an instant. Bestowed with sacred power to protect the world, her reserves were virtually infinite. No matter how numerous the wounded, no matter how catastrophic their injuries, she even held the terrifying miracle to resurrect those who had only recently crossed death's threshold.
Yet precisely because of that—because it was a divine power far too immense for a mortal vessel to bear—an inescapable curse accompanied it.
"Does she... suffer the exact wounds she heals?"
"She does."
A Saint's body was maintained in peak condition by divine grace. Having received divine authority, her vessel had effectively reached the realm of a demigod. Unless corroded by the Demon King's demonic energy, she could never perish from mere wounds or the backlash of her miracles. But the soul was a different matter. No matter how demigod-like her flesh had become, her spirit remained that of an ordinary mortal girl.
"Every time the Saintess heals someone, she must endure the exact agony they suffered."
Even if fleeting, even if only for a few moments, she literally sustained the very same trauma. With every heal she bestowed, she had to endure an equivalent measure of torment. In the looming war against the demon realm, every shred of agony felt by countless thousands would be heaped entirely upon the frail shoulders of that young girl.
"Ha."
Danas couldn't muster another word, shattered by the weight of the Pope's confession. For Aria—a girl burdened with disabilities who could barely look after herself—it was a destiny far too cruel and suffocating to bear.
Yet the Pope had been unable to stop her. The girl's will was unshakeable, and in the end, she was the Saint chosen directly by his Goddess. As a humble servant of the divine, forbidding her was an impossibility.
"..."
Danas sat in silence for a long time. Nearly ten minutes slipped away in absolute stillness before he finally lowered the hands covering his face, looking toward the Pope with a low, trembling voice.
"Even if I pressed for answers, this hardly seems like something you would disclose to an outsider... Why did you tell me all this?"
His words were choked with raw grief and indignation. He had wanted to know, yet at the same time, he wished he had never learned the truth. That chaos would consume the realm, that the world would scream in agony, and that this pitiable girl would bear every last drop of that torment alone. It was simply too cruel.
"...Do you not already know the answer best, Brother Danas?"
"..."
It was true. When had the Pope realized? Perhaps from the moment he saw the fierce, desperate resolve burning in Danas's eyes, looking as though he were ready to storm out and tear down the world for her sake. No... his tone was far too certain for mere conjecture.
I've been dancing in the palm of his hand from the very start.
Just as the Pope had predicted, Danas's decision had not taken long at all. For from the moment his life was saved by that fragile girl, his heart and his blade had already been pledged.
"I entrust the Saintess to your care, Brother Danas."
Instead of answering, Danas closed his eyes and bowed his head in solemn reverence.