The Treasure of Arhen (1)
A full day had passed since we conquered the Trial of Strength.
The medical staff had suffered a collective nervous breakdown upon seeing me return battered and drenched in blood the exact instant they believed I was finished recovering. Leaving their frantic, wailing voices behind, I quietly discharged myself. It wasn't as though I were in any lingering agony, and loitering in an infirmary bed was hardly productive. Naturally, after witnessing the horrific state I had arrived in, their instincts warned them that letting me go would only guarantee my swift return, and they desperately pleaded with me to stay just a little longer.
I refused without hesitation.
What was the point of enrolling in the Academy if I spent the entire term languishing in a hospital bed over petty scrapes like that? My wounds regenerated almost immediately anyway, so what purpose did idling about serve? Above all, lingering in the ward would only place an unnecessary emotional strain on the attendants tending to me. Feeling perfectly hale and hearty, I took my leave at top speed.
Besides, even if my overarching purpose in this world was to roleplay as a saint, indulge in all the exquisite agony my body could endure, slay the Demon King, and return home, I had still nurtured a romantic nostalgia for the academy life depicted in the original game. Rotting in an infirmary cot from morning to night was simply too dull.
Granted... my daily classes mostly consisted of offering devout prayers to the Goddess and performing quiet purification rituals.
As I've mentioned before, things hadn't been quite so suffocating when I held court as an active Saintess. But now that my official status was merely that of an ordinary Academy student, I was forced to follow the exact same rigid routine as every other novice nun. It was tedious to the point of madness. Yet whining that I didn't want to pray was an absolute conceptual impossibility for a Saintess, so I had no choice but to bear it. Just thinking about enduring this until the upcoming examinations already gave me a throbbing headache.
Good grief...
Oh, and my plan to inspect the magic Stella had been secretly researching by reading the residual thought waves on her grimoire had fallen completely flat. For some baffling reason, not a single trace of thought waves remained upon the pages. Much as I longed to read it, I couldn't glean a thing.
Meticulous little thing, isn't she...
Had Stella always been so obsessive? Based on her personality in the game, she had never exhibited such fastidious traits, nor had I noticed anything of the sort in person. But a mage's thought waves were ultimately traces of mana; if a spellcaster took deliberate care to scrub their magical residue clean, those traces vanished entirely. In the end, time had slipped by without yielding the slightest clue. Hoping she might slip up just once, I checked her desk every single day, yet she wiped away her thought traces with terrifying discipline. I hadn't found so much as a stray whisper.
If only I weren't illiterate, I could have focused my senses to read the physical letters. Ink laid down by a pen was tricky to differentiate, but with focused Divine Power Detection, it wasn't outright impossible to trace the minute indentations pressed into the parchment. The problem was that my ability to 'hear' speech relied purely on intercepting incoming thought waves carried through mana. Being blind and deaf by character design, I was inevitably illiterate in practice. Even if I could reconstruct the physical shapes of the letters, I had no reference point for what those shapes actually meant.
To make matters worse, this wasn't ordinary prose—it was advanced arcane research. Even if I could miraculously decipher the characters, grasping the underlying theory without accompanying telepathic intent would be practically impossible. I never imagined my illiteracy would come back to bite me like this.
"Ngh..."
A faint shiver rippled through me at the sharp prickle of pain, quickly giving way to a subtle, blissful smile as waves of sweet pleasure washed through my core. I projected my voice to the student kneeling before me.
"[The treatment is complete.]"
"Ah..."
Come to think of it, today was practical sparring day. Unlike the Magic Department, where academic theory carried significant weight, the Swordsmanship Department prioritized real combat above all else. Whenever practical testing rolled around, injured students flooded the clinic in droves. Most suffered minor cuts and bruises that the other sisters handled with ease, but a handful sustained severe injuries—and those students were invariably escorted straight to me.
Because of that, practical combat day—held just once a week—was a blooming oasis in the barren desert of my daily prayer routines. Given the violent nature of martial dueling, the influx of casualties was immense. Treating them one by one rewarded me with a deeply satisfying harvest of delicious suffering.
There was just one problem.
My patient queue feels a lot shorter than usual...
The number of students seeking my healing had noticeably dwindled. Between all the chaos lately, this was only my third time attending clinic duties, yet the turnout was pitiful compared to my earlier sessions. Suspecting something was amiss, I had asked what kind of training they were subjected to today, and they confirmed it was high-intensity dueling—the kind that practically guaranteed bloody gashes and broken bones. Yet this was all that showed up?
Unless they were on death's doorstep, students seemed actively determined to avoid my care. It was genuinely tragic.
Did someone go around spreading rumors?
Looking into the matter, it seemed a rumor had indeed been making the rounds among the student body: whenever the Saintess healed someone, she absorbed their exact wounds onto her own flesh. On top of that, word had spread of how I had stepped forward to repel the demon that infiltrated the Academy grounds, sustaining horrific injuries in the process. As a result, the students were overwhelmed by suffocating guilt at the thought that receiving my divine grace meant forcing their own agony onto me, breeding a deep reluctance to approach.
Once such rumors took root, there was little I could do to stem the tide. As divine as I was, I couldn't prevent my flesh from tearing or blood from spilling. Furthermore, while my tolerance for agony was astronomical, that didn't mean minor pains registered as nothing; breathless whimpers still escaped my throat now and then.
...
Of course, those whimpers were born of pure, unadulterated ecstacy. But when you let out breathless moans while covered in open wounds, normal people can't tell whether you're climaxing from bliss or weeping from agony. Naturally, every student assumed I was crying out in torment. Still, it felt rather unfair. I hadn't made any theatrical show of it—just the occasional involuntary twitch! How on earth did they even pick up on that? Especially when I went out of my way to drape my vestments and hide the wounded areas from view!
"I-I'm so sorry...!"
The student I had just healed bowed his head in utter, suffocating guilt, turning on his heel and bolting from the room. A reaction that treated receiving my treatment as a mortal sin... I had wanted to tell him there was no need to apologize, but he vanished before I could even project my thought waves, leaving me empty-handed.
"Saintess."
As I stared wistfully in the direction of his departure, someone approached my side.
Ugh...
Professor Victorica... Though titled a professor, she was in reality a High Sister tasked with supervising the education of all the novice nuns enrolled in the Academy.
"Once again, you grace these students with your boundless, pious devotion. However, it has been barely a day since you discharged yourself. Are you not pushing yourself far too hard...?"
Having watched me sit here practically all day mending students' wounds, Victorica's eyes brimmed with overwhelming concern. To me, her words were utter nonsense. What on earth was this woman talking about? In this dreadfully dull world where there was practically nothing entertaining to do, this was one of the few delightful hobbies I possessed! How could she expect me to abstain?
Treating as many injured students as humanly possible brought me infinitely more joy than sitting still and mumbling empty prayers to some aloof deity! Watching the students oscillate between heartfelt gratitude and crushing guilt, all while soaking in waves of euphoric pain—it was killing two birds with one stone! I could happily do this all day without breaking a sweat!
"[I am perfectly fine. How fares Sister Victorica? Perhaps I could examine you for any ailments...]"
"N-No, I am truly in good health!"
Darn it.
"[May I ask what brings you to me?]"
"Ah... I came to deliver a message on another's behalf."
"[A message, you say...?]"
"His Holiness, Pope Euster, has summoned Saintess Aria."
"[...!]"
Asselina was calling for me? Why now?
The only possible reason she would summon me at this point... No matter how much I pondered it, it had to be regarding the recent events. Did she have questions about what transpired?
Or...
I channeled a sliver of Divine Power downward toward my chest. The Red Stone of Radiant Sunlight rested against my collarbone, radiating a faint scarlet warmth.
While I couldn't be certain of her exact intent, from the Pope's perspective, I was practically her beloved granddaughter; she might simply wish to discuss the string of incidents that had rocked the Academy. Or...
It's probably this.
The Red Stone of Radiant Sunlight. Though I had never openly flaunted it before Asselina, she had personally visited the Academy. She had almost certainly noticed it hanging around my neck. If so, the chances were high that she wished to speak about this very relic. Even if that wasn't the exact reason...
"[I shall attend at once.]"
Well, what choice did I have? When summoned, one must answer. Besides, I'd already prepared a dozen ironclad excuses, so I had nothing to fear.
For now...
It's been a while since I last saw her.
Though I would much prefer seeing her true form as big sister Asselina rather than that wrinkled old grandfather guise. Still, it was about time I acted my age and leaned on her for a little pampering.