The Only Necromancer Wielder of Divinity
Anna had become the Saintess of Purification.
The moment he heard those words, Simon felt the blood drain cold from every corner of his body. He still hadn't fully escaped the nightmare of Flema — and now his own mother had become that kind of being? The shock left his mouth hanging open, unable to close.
“……And yet, Teacher Anna looked like she was in agony every time she used the Saintess's power.”
Lethe shot the words out from beside him. Richard gave a calm nod and spoke.
“It's impossible for a human body to accept two kinds of Essence of Saintess at once. Anna was originally the Saintess of Miracles — we extracted her essence, but traces of it still remain in her body. Then a new essence forced its way in, and the two began to react against each other.”
Anna had become the youngest Saintess in history at the tender age of eleven, born with extraordinary talent and an exceptionally high compatibility with divine essences. It was hardly surprising that the Essence of Purification, searching for its next host, had chosen the woman who was now an ordinary civilian.
In the end, the two essences clashed violently inside Anna's body, and she was dying — unable to fully awaken as either Saintess.
“Then what happens to my mother now?” Simon asked anxiously as the explanation wound down.
“…….”
Richard's lips twitched. He, too, was straining with everything he had to keep his composure in front of the children.
“If this goes on, her body won't hold. Even suppressing the power this way, she won't last past two months at the very most.”
Simon's head dropped at that cruel reality. He could not lose her like this.
“But there is one option left.”
Both their heads snapped up at Richard's words.
“The Essence Removal Surgery that Anna underwent when she returned to being an ordinary person. We simply do it again. If we can somehow remove the Saintess of Purification's essence, the leftover traces alone won't trigger a serious backlash.”
Simon shot to his feet.
“Who could perform it?”
“The distinguished figure who operated on Anna has already passed away — but I watched that surgery from beginning to end with my own two eyes. I still remember it with one hundred percent certainty.”
Richard tapped his own forehead and continued.
“I can perform the surgery. But we need a material that cannot be obtained in the Dark Alliance.”
“Is it in the Holy Federation?”
“It is. A sacred relic of the Federation — the Tree of Life.”
Richard let his eyes slide, just slightly, toward Lethe.
“The white leaf that blooms from that tree alone. That's what we need.”
Whoosh!
Before Richard had even finished, Lethe kicked back her chair and bolted out of the room. Richard stared blankly after her, then quietly let out a sigh.
Some time later, Lethe came rushing back.
“Two weeks!”
She spoke between ragged breaths.
“The broker says he'll rearrange the schedule so we can cross into the Holy Federation in two weeks. I'll go myself and get that material.”
Richard shook his head.
“No — this is our family's matter. I can't impose on you any further than I already…….”
“You told me all this expecting me to hear it, and now you're putting on this act?”
Lethe strode into the inner room. There she stood silently, gazing down at Anna, who lay wrapped in jet-black bandages, her breathing fragile and labored.
“…….”
Deep resolve filled her eyes.
“I don't care what any of you say. I'm going for the teacher's sake and no one else's.”
“I'm coming too, Lethe.”
Simon declared, springing to his feet. Lethe made a face of pure disbelief.
“Huh? Are you insane? A necromancer, going to the Holy Federation?”
“And you're in the Dark Alliance right now, aren't you? What's the difference?”
With that, Simon clenched his fist.
“My mother's life is on the line. I can't just sit here doing nothing.”
Lethe crossed her arms.
“Your filial devotion is admirable, I'll grant you — but do you have any idea what things are like in the Federation right now? Thanks to this whole Witch of Death incident, they're on maximum alert, and heretics are burning villages and killing people across the Federation. Because of them, heresy inquisitors with bloodshot eyes are watching every corner of the Federation. If they catch you, a necromancer gets executed on the spot. And me, the one who brought you in? They'd hang me first and sort out the Efnel questions later.”
She pointed a fingertip straight at Simon.
“When an inquisitor shows up, how exactly are you going to prove you're not a necromancer?”
Richard nodded in agreement.
“She's right. Your heart's in the right place, but the situation in the Holy Federation is dire. I hear the security there is far tighter than it is here.”
“I'm confident I won't get caught.”
Simon opened his palm.
“It's a bit late to mention this, but.”
“?”
And at the next thing that stirred to life in Simon's palm, both Lethe and Richard recoiled backward with sounds of utter shock.
The white light blooming in Simon's left hand was, unmistakably, that.
“Turns out I can use Divinity.”
The whole house erupted into chaos.
Lethe contacted the broker again through her communication crystal and asked whether he could procure one forged identity — a male in his teens or early twenties. If the answer was no, she was fully prepared to go alone without a second thought. But the broker happened to have exactly one apprentice priest identity for a teenage boy left in stock. An Apprentice Priest — a novice who had only just unlocked his divinity, barely more than a trainee priest.
And the most decisive voice of all was Anna's.
When Anna briefly regained consciousness, Simon confessed to her that he could use divinity, and told her he was going to the Holy Federation.
At the news that Simon was headed to the Holy Federation, worry and unease clouded her face — but at the news that he could wield divinity, she rejoiced.
“Half of you is made of me, Simon. I'd love it if you took an interest in the place where your mother was born and raised, too.”
After much agonizing, Lethe had no choice but to allow Simon to come along.
'Forgive me, Goddess.'
However noble the cause — saving her beloved benefactor — she was about to bring an impure being onto holy ground. Three additional months of fasting awaited her when she returned to Efnel.
And so, to play the part of his forged identity as an apprentice priest, Simon spent the next two weeks taking lessons from Lethe.
The two of them climbed a low, rolling hill behind the burned-down house Simon often visited. Few people ever came this way, and the open ground made it a perfect spot for lessons.
'Hmm.'
Lethe paused, quietly impressed by the natural scenery around them. Lush green fields were scattered with wildflowers in every color, and the cool breeze carried their fragrance through the air.
She had been taught that all the lands of the Dark Alliance were cursed — that not a single blade of grass could grow there, and that the air reeked of rot. But the scene before her was rather different from what they'd described back at Efnel.
Even in the Holy Federation, there were few places that preserved natural beauty like this.
“Looking forward to working with you.”
Simon said with a smile. Lethe glared at him with pure disdain, then heaved a deep sigh. Teaching white magic to a necromancer — how on earth had it come to this?
“Fine. Let's begin.”
Lethe knelt respectfully at Simon's feet.
'?'
Simon stood there, dumbfounded, until she scrunched her face up in exasperation and jabbed a finger downward.
“What are you, a spectator? Kneel, you idiot!”
At her bark, Simon clumsily dropped to his knees. She swept the hair back behind her ear with an irritated flick.
“Ugh, explaining every single thing is such a pain. This is how it works for all training you do with me from now on. A reverent body gives rise to a reverent heart.”
“Does a reverent heart have something to do with summoning divinity?”
“Of course it does! Divinity flows from faith in the Goddess. No more chatter — let's start. The mutual greeting.”
Kneeling, she placed her folded hands atop her navel and bowed her head in solemn reverence.
She was usually rough-mannered and brash, but in that posture there radiated a nobility and dignity that seemed to belong to someone else entirely.
Simon, slightly taken aback, read her movements and carefully mirrored them.
Then Lethe recited a prayer. Simon pressed his palms together as she did, and listened in silence to the words of the prayer.
And with that, all the rituals preceding the lesson were complete. Lethe opened her eyes with a satisfied expression.
“And? Feeling a bit more reverent before our glorious Goddess now?”
“Nope. Not at all.”
His legs just felt like they were about to cramp. As Simon shifted his aching legs, she shrieked at him.
“Don't move! Before I crack your skull open! At Efnel, if so much as a single toe twitches during prayer, they drop a boulder on your kneecaps on the spot. You do not move. Are we clear?”
“O-okay.”
Good grief, this was exhausting.
To Simon, born and raised in the Dark Alliance, it was all hollow ceremony he couldn't begin to understand — but it was their culture over there, so he resolved to respect it.
“Good.”
She crossed her arms.
“Show me that divinity you used before.”
Simon nodded and spread his left hand. He hardened his gaze and drew up his concentration.
'Come out. Come out. Come out.'
But with Lethe watching him from mere inches away, perhaps he'd gotten nervous — the divinity simply refused to appear.
“Well, of course it's not working.”
She let out a scornful laugh.
“I can't control divinity at will yet. What's the problem?”
“Faith.”
She answered instantly.
“Faith in the glorious Goddess alone is the wellspring of divinity.”
“But I summoned divinity without any faith in the Goddess, didn't I?”
“Ugh! That was just luck, apparently! Clearly it's not working now!”
She snapped, then thrust up her index finger.
“From now on, stop relying on luck and do it the Efnel way. This is the official method, the foundation, the truth.”
Lethe pulled a scripture from her backpack and, declaring that faith in the Goddess came first above all else, launched into a long lecture.
In the beginning, when there was only chaos, the glorious Goddess existed. She created light and darkness. She made the continent, and the beasts to live upon it. And last of all, she made humans.
The humans flourished. But those who held no faith in the Goddess suffered cruel punishment, and only those who believed in her were granted salvation.
Stories more or less like that.
After more than two hours of kneeling while Lethe droned through the opening chapters of the scripture, she looked over at Simon with a grin.
“And now? Do you feel the Goddess's magnificence deep in your heart?”
“…….”
Not at all.
He couldn't feel it at all.
No matter how many days he listened to passages like these, none of it would ever land. It didn't feel magnificent — it just sounded like a saga, a myth from a storybook.
When Simon tried to summon a thought of the Goddess, only a single phrase ever came to mind.
Because the glorious Goddess so commanded it.
Flema's justification for unleashing terror on Kizen.
All it stirred in him was a strange, quiet hostility.
“Sorry. I just can't feel any of that.”
“Haaaah.”
Lethe pressed a hand to her forehead and let out a sigh that seemed to sink the very ground beneath her.
What am I even doing right now? This is like reading scripture to a cow's ear.
Sitting a necromancer down and reading him the holy word — the sheer absurdity of her own position washed over her.
“Let me make one thing clear.”
Her voice dropped to a frost-bitten growl.
“If you don't produce the results I want within two weeks, I'm going to the Holy Federation alone. I refuse — refuse — to suffer for your sake.”
“I know.”
Simon gazed down at his own palm, sinking into calm reflection.
“……Divinity flows from faith in the Goddess.”
“That's right.”
“Faith.”
Come to think of it, will was everything in handling Jet-Black.
Faith and will — weren't they, in the end, different by only a single brushstroke?
Simon focused every nerve he had.
Faith.
'I—'
Not faith in any Goddess.
'I will save my mother. I will summon divinity. I will cross into the Holy Federation. And I—'
Absolute, unwavering faith in himself.
'—can do ANYTHING!'
FWOOSH!
Lethe shrieked in alarm. She who was so scrupulous about proper posture even lost her kneeling position and toppled backward.
From Simon's left hand, a vast and brilliant radiance of divinity was blazing skyward.
“There. That work for you?”
Simon said with a grin.
Unique in all the continent.
A necromancer who wielded divinity had arrived.