The Saintess of Sin
His mother had burned to death.
White flames surged upward, and through them he could see his mother's arms raking down the walls, nails shredded from the agony of it.
Figaro, a child at the time, had no idea why such a thing had happened.
So he asked the adults for a reason.
"Your mother was gloriously chosen by the 'Essence of the Saintess.'"
"But her faith and devotion were lacking, you see. Her body simply couldn't withstand it."
"It's tragic, but there was nothing to be done."
The adults' words were impossible to accept.
He wanted to reach an understanding he could arrive at himself.
So Figaro worked, and worked, until at last he gained entry to the Essence research institute under the purview of Israfil, the Saintess of the Divine Sea.
Israfil was secretly researching—without the Pope's knowledge—how to remove a Saintess's Essence from a human body, and how to block an Essence from entering one in the first place.
He never learned why.
But their goals aligned, and so Figaro devoted himself to studying the Essence of the Saintess there.
As his research deepened, the rage and resentment inside him melted away like spring snow, and before he knew it, a new emotion had blossomed in their place.
Awe.
He became entranced by the power known as the 'Essence of the Saintess,' of which only seven existed in all the world.
He researched like a madman to unravel the secrets bound up in that power.
No researcher at the institute could surpass his achievements. And yet—
"You have crossed the line, Figaro."
He was fired.
The cause: Israfil had caught him pressing forward with reckless live experiments.
He found new work. Managing a monastery—ordinary priest's labor—but even then his fascination with the Essence of the Saintess had not faded, and he continued his research.
People came to pray. People came to unburden their hearts, and to them he doled out small doses of what he called 'holy water'—in truth, drugs.
Whenever time allowed, he ran experiment after experiment on monsters.
"Brother Figaro! Wh-what is all of this?"
The secret didn't last long before a senior priest discovered it, and once again he endured a venomous reprimand.
Efnel despises science.
People do not wonder how the 'Essence of the Saintess' works.
To be chosen by an Essence is simply to have been chosen by the great Goddess Deva, nothing more. To die because your body rejected an Essence is simply to have died for want of faith and devotion, nothing more.
They close their minds and call it understanding.
Because this is the Goddess's power.
One must not dare to question it. One must not dare to doubt it.
One must simply accept it as it is.
That is the iron law of Efnel.
But Figaro could not comprehend such a culture.
Why.
Why did no one else wonder?
Why were there only seven Essences?
Why could only women become Saintesses?
By what standard did an Essence choose its human?
Could a man become a Saintess too?
His thirst for the Essence, his obsession with it, grew darker and deeper by the day—until he lost his second job as well.
A few months later, he found work in the Neutral Zone.
An unmistakable exile, but not an unpleasant one. Beyond the reach of the Federation's eyes, he could experiment all the more freely.
Then, one day as he was living out his days in the Neutral Zone—
He met 'that girl.'
"Kyaaaaaah!"
An entire house was burning in white flame.
A little girl's agonized screams rang out.
It was, precisely, the scene of his mother's death, replayed before his eyes.
The villagers hauled bucket after bucket of water and threw it on the blaze, but something like the Pure White Flame could never be quenched by that.
Figaro plunged into the house.
And there, within the white flames, he saw a six-year-old girl burning.
What Figaro felt as he watched the dying girl—
It was not pity. Not sympathy. Not sorrow.
He envied her.
He resented her.
Figaro believed himself strong.
In this village at least, stronger than anyone.
He had passed just as many nights here as she had—so why had the Saintess's power never come to him, and why had it gone to some snot-nosed brat instead?
But that question could wait. Figaro marshaled every scrap of his accumulated research and pulled Sasha out of the flames. Then he achieved what he proudly believed no one else on this continent could: he sealed the Essence of Purification into the magic circle inscribed upon her body.
He had, at most, two months.
Within that time, he would claim this Essence for himself and become the Saintess—that was the plan.
How does a man become a Saintess?
Simple.
First, make this girl, Sasha, into a vessel that can accept the Essence of Purification.
Then, take her body for yourself.
Her body would be both tool and vessel, the container that held the Essence.
And he, the one who moved her, would be the Saintess.
Knowing nothing, the girl followed Figaro—her savior, her godfather. To forge her into a body capable of withstanding the Essence of Purification, he created drugs that would send her ability spiraling out of control.
Then, in the middle of his smoothly progressing research, the unexpected happened.
The Holy Federation, growing anxious that no new Saintess of Purification had appeared, dispatched agents to the Neutral Zone to retrieve the individuals it had marked as 'Saintess Candidates.'
Somehow, Sasha had to be kept out of Efnel's hands.
Figaro pulled every connection he had to appoint himself expedition leader, and resolved to stall for time by receiving the students Efnel sent. In the meantime, he bribed gangs to take Sasha and flee.
Under his authority as leader, he planned to dump the students in some appropriately wretched spot, then leave this place behind with Sasha in tow.
But then Kizen barged in.
They crushed the gangs and seized Sasha, so Figaro changed the plan.
He brought the Efnel priests forward to fight Kizen head-on. He hoped the two sides would annihilate each other.
While they tore into one another, Figaro snatched Sasha away and fled.
There was no time left.
Both Efnel and Kizen now knew the potential Sasha carried. Once the students failed, they would send real monsters next.
Sooner than he'd planned—but he had made up his mind.
He would become the Saintess.
'……What is that?'
Simon doubted his own eyes, over and over.
He had been in this very village with his team just yesterday, and he had never seen a tree that enormous.
[Boy.]
Pier's voice rang out.
[Hold. Allow me to show you the top of that tree.]
Within the right eye socket of Pier's skull that Simon was wearing, jet-black mana rippled and shifted, turning the socket into a mirror. A kind of telescopic effect.
Simon shut his left eye and looked up through the right, toward the crown of the tree.
"……!"
Simon's expression froze solid.
At the top of the tree was Figaro—the orange-haired man who called himself Sasha's godfather.
His lower half had fused with the tree; only his torso emerged from it. Patches of his skin had turned wood-like as well.
And directly beneath him, he could see a face.
'Sasha……!'
Sasha was half-swallowed by the tree, nothing but her face left exposed, eyes closed as though unconscious.
A shock ran through Simon like electricity.
'Then this entire tree—is Sasha?'
[Who goes there.]
At that moment, a colossal voice reverberated through the entire barrier.
It was Figaro's.
[I sense an intruder. To force your way through my barrier—who are you?]
Simon's whole body shuddered. He could feel it—a power of the overwhelming kind.
The exact same oppressive pressure he'd felt facing Flema, the Saintess of Purification.
'Don't tell me he knows exactly where I am?'
Simon looked up through his magnified vision at the top of the tree. Figaro's eyes were wide open, staring unerringly in his direction.
Well, he'd been spotted anyway—so Simon answered back through Pier's voice.
[If you wish to know who I am, isn't it proper courtesy for you to identify yourself first?]
[Very well. I have nothing to hide.]
Figaro split his mouth into a grin and raised both arms high.
[I am the new Saintess of Purification—Figaro Mertens!]
Simon's face went rigid.
'……A S-Saintess? A man?'
[Ah, yes.]
Figaro continued, wearing a twisted smile.
[When a Saintess changes, a new epithet follows! The old 'Saintess of Purification' is a relic of the past—so what shall it be? Hmm—yes, yes. That one will do nicely.]
Vuuuuuuuuuum!
The tree trunks suddenly surged upward, swelling until they blanketed the entire ceiling of the vast barrier. And beneath them, countless fruits began to bud.
[Saintess of Sin.]
They were pure white fruit.
Tuk.
Tok.
The white apples dropped from the trunks and came hammering down toward the ground with the force of an artillery barrage.
The moment they struck—
BOOOOOOOOOM!
Enormous pillars of divinity erupted from where the apples had landed, swallowing everything in their path.
Across the whole city, these pillars of light were rising one after another.
Simon grimaced and swung the Doom Greatsword at a white apple descending toward his head.
Sheeerk!
The apple split in two and detonated on the spot, birthing two pillars of light instead of one. Caught between them, Simon let out a grunt and dropped low.
'Definitely……!'
It carried divinity comparable to what he'd felt the first time he faced the Saintess of Purification.
Though its nature had changed. Where the previous Saintess's Pure White Flame had raged as a torrent of pure sacred fire, this technique packed a broad, devastating physical force on top of it.
Caught in its blast, even Simon—with his immunity to divinity—would have taken a hit.
[Astonishing, isn't it!]
Figaro's voice brimmed with intoxication.
[The Fruit of the White Flame! This is the power I gained the moment I became a Saintess!]
[Speak plainly.]
Simon's voice was ice.
[That is not your power. It is Sasha's.]
[Sasha and I have become one. And—]
Figaro curled the corners of his mouth upward.
[She is a vegetable now, in mind as in body. Her consciousness no longer exists in this world—only I remain!]
Grkk-grkk-grrk!
Crunch!
[Kneel and worship!]
Beneath Figaro's tree roots, an army of plant-type monsters great and small took shape and advanced toward Simon.
And that wasn't all.
'Even the people—!'
Humans with tree-trunk veins bulging across their bodies were shambling forward, their eyes devoid of focus.
They looked exactly like zombies.
[Boy! Those ones are as good as dead already!]
'Right.'
Kukukukuku-BOOM!
KWA-KOOM!
Even amid all this, the vines and tree roots spreading through the village kept growing ever wilder, toppling buildings, while white apples rained from the sky above.
[Now then—it is your turn! Reveal yourself, nameless necromancer!]
Gripping the Doom Greatsword, Simon gave it a lazy, whistling spin.
SHREEEEENG!
KUGUGUGUGUNG!
The advancing plant-monsters were cleaved apart, a building split down the middle, and the falling white apples detonated midair.
[Ohhh……!]
[I am—]
The village had been wiped out. Inside this barrier, there was no reason left to hide.
Simon swept his free hand behind his back and ripped open a subspace gate.
Tta-dak!
Skreeeeee!
Legionified skeleton knights wreathed in dark blue flames, along with Corpse Spiders, came pouring out.
Simon threw back his hood and declared:
[Legion Commander of the Dark Alliance.]
The dead howled, forming a vast Legion at Simon's back.
SHWAAAAAAAAAH!
Then the countless branches overhead swayed as though whipped by a gale.
[What twist of fate is this!]
Figaro was overjoyed.
[A Legion Commander—the first necromancer I face as a Saintess! Magnificent! Simply magnificent!]
The glory of felling a Legion Commander on top of surpassing the strongest of Saintesses. In Figaro's mind, no debut could have been more perfect.
[Stay exactly where you are.]
Simon raised the Doom Greatsword and leveled its tip at Figaro.
[I'm coming up right now to take that head of yours.]
[How entertaining! Then by all means—try!]
Simon strode forward, greatsword in hand.
[Follow me.]
The dead shrieked and surged after him.
[I will show you the difference in our power! I am a being who has surpassed even the Saintesses themselves!]
Plant-monsters emerging from the tree roots and the infected humans came charging in a rush.
Inside a barrier no one could enter, a great war began—one that would never be written into any history book.