Wasn't the Saintess Just Supposed to Defeat the Demon King?
"Ugh..."
It was late evening. One of the capital's most famous landmarks — and one of its proudest sights — was the temple's vast lily garden. On a bench overlooking the whole of it, a girl with ash-colored hair sat cross-legged, slouched like she hadn't a care in the world.
"I'm not a kid... If you count my previous life, I'm in my forties..."
Maybe she just had no sense of when to quit. Isabella's lecture had dragged on until the sun was sinking and the sky had gone gold with dusk. Grace had only managed to escape after swearing, in no uncertain terms, that she would not so much as think about causing trouble until the High Priestess gave her permission.
"...At this rate, when am I even supposed to go home? If Kyle or Alec saw me like this, they'd laugh themselves sick."
She had stormed out of the party loudly declaring she would hunt down the Demon King herself. Carry on like this and she would just be a Saintess on unauthorized leave — dereliction of duty, currently slacking off.
"I can hear you sighing from all the way over here."
At the familiar voice behind her, Grace turned her head.
"Did the High Priestess chew you out again?"
"Chew me out? Nobody chewed me out."
"I can tell just by looking at your face. Let me guess — she had you for hours again."
Tap.
"Ow."
Raphael flicked her lightly on the forehead.
"You're a Saintess, for crying out loud. What are you doing sitting cross-legged like that?"
"So becoming a Saintess means I can't even sit how I want?"
"There's such a thing as dignity. What do you think the citizens would make of the Saintess's name if they saw you like that?"
A thick, heavy hand settled over her slumped shoulders. It was not a hand that belonged on a priest — a hand mapped with old wounds and scars of every kind.
"And honestly, you went too far this time. I understand why you did it, but if someone who holds the title of Saintess suddenly quits the Hero's party over a little friction, what do you think happens to the world? It turns upside down. That's what."
"Wasn't the Saintess just supposed to take down the Demon King?"
"That's part of it, sure. But the name Saintess is not a light one. Wherever you came from out there, whatever you used to be, whatever gender you used to have — receiving the name of Saintess in this world means you are someone precious. Someone important. And that someone just announced she was going to walk into certain death with nothing but a single gun. You think the High Priestess was going to take that well?"
Raphael dropped onto the empty space beside her, crossed one leg over the other, and lit a cigarette.
"You're still smoking those?"
Priests were strictly forbidden from drinking and smoking, but Raphael was the exception — the one man even the High Priestess couldn't push around.
"What's with the staring? You want one?"
"...I'll pass."
"Heh. Back when you were little, you used to go hunting for cigarettes insisting you were originally an adult so it was fine. Look at you. All grown up."
"Would you stop treating me like a kid already...!"
Raphael's large, thick hand settled on her ash-colored hair and began to stroke it. At first Grace squirmed, twisting this way and that in embarrassment — but after a moment she gave up and sat still, letting the touch land.
"Don't worry. And don't get ahead of yourself, either. This teacher of yours is going to get you back to your original world. I promise."
"And how exactly are you planning to do that?"
"Well. If it ever really gets to the point where you can't take it anymore... hunting the Demon King once, as a final achievement before I die, wouldn't be the worst way to go out."
"..."
Grace fixed him with a look he had never seen from her before — a glare as sharp and frightening as a cat's. Meeting those eyes, Raphael ran a hand over his neatly trimmed beard and withdrew the hand that had been stroking her hair.
"It's a joke. A joke. Come on. The kid who used to say she only ever thought about her family, getting this serious over one little joke."
"Don't say things like that, even as a joke. Raphael. You have to stay alive at least until I can say my last goodbye."
"Alright."
The two of them turned their eyes out over the garden. The sun was going down. The last of the light spilled across the white lilies and stained them a deep vermilion, sharing a final warmth with the two of them before the cold night arrived.
After a brief silence, Raphael heaved himself to his feet with a grunt.
"I should get going. Spent too long chatting with a disciple who just became unemployed."
"Unemployed? I'm the Hero who's about to go hunt the Demon King."
"...Grace."
Raphael turned back toward her, the sunset at his back.
"I know perfectly well you're not the type to sit still just because the High Priestess told you to. I know better than anyone how badly you want to go home. You'll end up causing trouble in the kingdom again — that's a given. But listen. Grace..."
He pressed on without a gap, then stopped — just for a breath — as he spoke her name.
"...Yes, Raphael."
"That's all I needed. You really are the disciple who never listens. But you're someone I can trust."
Grace watched in silence until Raphael's receding back had disappeared from sight.
"Honestly."
The girl's voice was gruff — but a faint, unaccountable smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
A small village in the western reaches of the kingdom. Kyle, Alisa, and Alec had just returned from dealing with a pack of fishmen — monsters that were half fish and half human — that had suddenly overrun their habitat and invaded the settlement.
"Man... it's seriously miserable without that brat around."
Alec, the red-haired, thickly muscled warrior from the North, grumbled as he dropped into a seat.
"Her heals didn't just close wounds — they burned the fatigue right out of you. Never noticed when she was here, but now that she's gone, I actually miss it."
"Don't worry too much, Alec. They said the next village has a small chapel, so we can just hire a skilled priest, can't we?"
Alisa, the purple-haired mage sitting across from him and sipping her drink, offered the suggestion with a measure of agreement. Even so, Alec's mood stayed thoroughly sour.
"You've spent your whole life studying magic in the Magic Tower, so maybe your brain doesn't work. You really think some random priest's heal is the same as a Saintess who got her power straight from the Goddess?"
"I-is that so?"
"She complained every single day, but that one thing she had down cold. Tch..."
Alec looked ready to keep venting — then caught the eye of the blond man beside him and reined himself in.
"..."
Kyle. The man chosen by the Goddess alongside the Saintess, marked as the Hero who would save the world. He worked himself harder than Alec and Alisa combined, which meant he felt the Saintess's absence more keenly than anyone — the basic wound and fatigue recovery, the buffs that strengthened allies, the debuffs that weakened monsters. She had been the best supporter they could have asked for.
But he said nothing. He simply cut down monsters the way he always did. He saved villagers from the danger those monsters posed. That was all.
"...Alisa's right."
"Hm?"
"The next village has a chapel, so we can ask if a priest will travel with us. They won't be able to fill Grace's role, but basic wounds and fatigue shouldn't be a problem."
The face that said those words was worn down by a fatigue Alec's couldn't begin to match. Unlike the mage who looked like she hadn't had a serious thought in her life and was already halfway into her cups, Alec had been watching Kyle's condition from closer than anyone.
"...You're ruthless. Really ruthless."
"Hm? Alec, what'd you say?"
"Nothing. Just that you're something else."
Watching Kyle hide his exhaustion without so much as a flicker of expression, Alec clicked his tongue as if he couldn't quite believe it.
If you asked for the kingdom's religious symbol, most people would point to the Temple of the Goddess standing at the heart of the capital. But if you asked for its national symbols, anyone would name two: the Academy, which trained the soldiers and technicians of the future, and the Magic Tower, which trained its mages.
That was how high the Magic Tower stood in the kingdom. It was the place every mage dreamed of entering — a building on a scale that rivaled the Temple of the Goddess or the royal palace itself. Standing before it, Grace felt an overwhelm she couldn't quite name.
"So this is the Magic Tower..."
The first day after her noisy return to the capital had passed. Before she went looking for traces of the Demon King, she meant to take care of the favor she'd been entrusted with — so she had come to the Magic Tower with the purple crystal Alisa had given her.
"She said to deliver this to her master. She drinks herself stupid every night after work — when did she even make this?"
After ten years of living at close quarters, the image that came to mind when Grace thought of Alisa was, inevitably, a drunk. The moment a request was finished, she headed for a tavern and drank — not a little, but enough to get thoroughly wrecked. The fact that she never turned into a sloppy, rambling mess was about the only mercy. And yet every morning she would show up perfectly sober, without so much as a hangover cure. Some kind of detoxification magic, probably.
"How does someone like that end up getting called 'the greatest talent of her generation' and 'the mage who will lead the next age'..."
Grace knew the truth, even if she talked like that. Alisa's talent was the real thing. Even Grace, a complete layman when it came to magic, felt a jolt of awe watching her work — the same awe you'd feel watching a math prodigy glance at a tangle of equations and solve them in her head like it was nothing. The type who casually cracked problems no one else could even touch, then wondered, Why couldn't you just get this on the first try? A genius, in other words.
"Excuse me — are you a guest of the Magic Tower?"
Perhaps she had looked strange, lingering out front for so long. A woman in a black robe and a pointed hat — the kind of outfit that screamed mage to anyone who saw it — approached from behind and spoke.
"Ah, yes. I have something I need to deliver to someone inside."
"Hmm."
The woman's gaze traveled slowly over Grace, taking her in from head to toe. It was the look of someone trying to read her intentions — someone who clearly had not considered, even for a second, that the Saintess might be standing here right now.
Then her eyes locked onto the purple crystal Grace had been fidgeting with in her hand.
"W-wait a second!"
"Pardon?"
The reaction was so sudden that even Grace, who had been standing there doing nothing, jumped.
"That crystal. That... where did you get it?"
Her eyes shone like an adventurer who had just stumbled onto a priceless treasure, and they showed no sign of leaving the crystal Alisa had given her.