Chapter 2. Encounters and Opportunities (12)
Chapter 2. Encounters and Opportunities (12)
In the original work, I was someone who denied the position the Saintess had held, so strictly speaking, I was a different person from the Saintess Anna in that original story.
But at the very least, the Being Above seemed to want me to play the same role as that Saintess.
Because, just as the Saintess had, I too could wield Holy Power so immense it was hard to compare with anyone else's.
And if it wanted the same role from me, didn't that mean I could use that Holy Power in accordance with the role from the original work?
Even after coming to this world, I hadn't had a particularly good impression of the Being Above, but there was one thing I knew for certain.
That being, at the very least, had no intention of abandoning people.
Whatever it was thinking when it placed me in this role, it wasn't just trying to screw me over.
Because when I sat before the injured and asked for help, it let me use that Holy Power.
......Right, if I'd been reincarnated into another world anyway, wasn't I supposed to follow the clichés of that reincarnation story to some degree?
Kneeling before the wounded, I clasped my hands together.
And as if receiving something from the heavens, I raised those two hands.
Toward the white light falling onto my face, carefully.
The wounds on the injured people gathered around me were already slowly fading. Some of the wounded were staring at their own hands with bewildered expressions, and a few had sat up from where they lay.
There were, of course, eyes on me as well.
Though I didn't have the time to care about that right now.
Whenever the Holy Power shone on my face, I brushed it away with my hand. That power, which at a glance looked like mere light, would scatter like smoke when swept aside by hand.
The point was simple. Holy Power couldn't simply be called a force; it was better understood as a kind of natural phenomenon.
Light appears to be merely a phenomenon, but in reality it possesses both particle and wave properties, and therefore bends under strong magnetism.
Air molecules are too faint to see with the naked eye, but if you swing your hand, you can feel that they exist there.
If Holy Power existed in this world as a phenomenon, then it could be accepted the same way.
Just as the Saintess had been able to do in the original work.
My head felt a little hazy. As if I'd sprinted several kilometers at full speed without a single break, my legs wouldn't take strength properly, and my shoulders ached. My clasped hands were trembling.
The Holy Power that had been light at first now flowed over my hands like water.
Just as dry ice freezes the moisture around it and makes it flow like smoke, the Holy Power that overflowed and ran down my hands also became smoke and scattered into the ground.
People were getting up.
There were still many with expressions that showed they hadn't properly grasped what had happened, but seeing them each gripping weapons in their hands, they all looked ready to fight again at any moment.
"Anna."
Ria said, looking at me with a slightly dazed expression.
"———!"
Thud.
The ground shook. It hadn't fully emerged from the Gate yet, but the monkey Monstrous Beast wearing that tiger's skin was shrieking as it tried to force its way out. Blood sprayed from beyond the Gate. Perhaps the high-ranking Hunters still inside were holding the Monstrous Beast back.
I staggered to my feet and lowered my hands.
Over my clasped hands, a glittering light had gathered. Like a small cut gemstone.
Holy Power affects 'all' living things equally.
Unless the opponent is a being that moves specifically by Mana, attempting an 'attack' with Holy Power is meaningless.
That thing from beyond was probably the same. Though it bothered me that it was far too different from Earth's creatures.
In that case, should I just focus solely on treating the wounded from behind?
I could do that.
But I didn't want to just do that.
"Anna!"
As I staggered forward, Ria grabbed my arm and supported me.
"Ria."
I held out those two hands toward Ria.
In my hand, a single small gem-like thing was glittering.
It was transparent, and its shape was uneven like iron sand melted and fused together in a hot fire, but it sparkled more than any gemstone.
Seeing me hold out my hand in front of her, Ria reflexively placed her own hand on top of it.
I gently wrapped my hand around Ria's.
And closed my eyes as if in prayer.
I agonized over what to do to save more people. Ria was said to rise to the position of Hero in the future, but for now she was still only a candidate.
I couldn't make her risk her life.
Not because she was a character in a novel and an important figure for the story's development. Because she was in front of me, because she was my friend.
Though, even if she weren't my friend, if she was in front of me, I would have tried to save and protect her anyway.
I closed my eyes.
I drew our clasped hands toward me.
The Crystallized Holy Power that had been resting on my hand melted and seeped evenly into both our bodies.
Right. If the Holy Power I could use affected the target we had to face, then I just needed to internalize that power within the body.
"......."
When I opened my eyes, Ria was staring at me with her mouth hanging open.
Of all the expressions I'd seen on Ria so far, it was the most dazed.
The fatigue I'd felt just moments ago was almost entirely gone. Though I couldn't know what would happen once I used up all the Holy Power in my body.
I bent down and picked up the shield.
"Let's go."
When I said that, Ria's eyes blinked. As if she'd only then come to her senses.
I turned my gaze. Far away, there were still people on the ground groaning. The monster hadn't come out of the Gate, but it was reaching its hand toward those people.
Clearly, it saw people as prey.
The Hunters were pulling those people back as far as they could, but it looked far too precarious. One wrong move and there could be more victims.
But if I recklessly scattered Holy Power near the monster, the wounds they'd managed to inflict might just heal.
I didn't think we had the ability to deal with something like that when the main story hadn't even begun yet.
Leave that thing to the Hunters, and if Ria and I focused on support, maybe we could save at least one more person—
—was what I was thinking.
*
In this world, there are almost no people who deny God.
Because when Gates sprang up like mushrooms after rain, when enemies appeared that couldn't be killed with bullets and shells, if God hadn't revealed its existence, everything would have ended.
Perhaps a countermeasure could have been found someday, but no one knows how many would have died before then.
And so nearly everyone in this world had faith in that God. They acknowledged its existence, and the more they believed, the more things they could accomplish with God's power.
But, if that's the case.
What did that light mean?
"......Ah."
Someone murmured that.
There were those who saw the light descending from the sky. There were also those who saw it save someone who was dying with light. But not a single one of them had seen a crystal of that light.
Not the Hunters, of course, and not any clergy.
Not even a Saintess Candidate.
Some may have thought they should pray.
There were certainly those who thought they should kneel right then and there and bow their heads toward that light.
But that light soon seeped into the bodies of two people.
Into the body of one Saintess Candidate who was far too famous in many ways, and the body of the knight escorting her.
The light vanished in an instant. The light that had been bright enough to sear itself into the retina even in broad daylight died down in a flash. For just a moment, it flowed down like smoke, and then even the remnants of Holy Power left on the ground disappeared.
But traces of it remained.
"Let's go."
The woman holding the shield was the one who spoke.
People didn't know what to call her.
Only after the two began to run did the people who had belatedly grasped the situation start to follow behind them.
"———!"
The monster screamed at the sight of the two running toward it.
Thud.
At last, the monster's arm burst out of the Gate. Blood sprayed again from behind, but the giant monkey was already raising one hand high above its head.
"No!"
Someone shouted that.
The monster's upper body burst out of the Gate, and the reach of its arm grew even longer.
That hand fell precisely over the heads of the two people who had approached the person collapsed on the ground.
The ground shook. Someone groaned at the sight. Everyone thought no one could survive being crushed under that—and that even if they did, they couldn't possibly come out unscathed.
But.
Immediately, blood sprayed from that arm. A wound appeared as if cut by something sharp, split open, and blood flowed. The monster flinched in shock and pulled its hand back.
Beneath it was a nun holding a shield raised as high as she could above her head.
The shield had been completely crumpled, unable to withstand the impact, but it had clearly protected the people beneath it.
And in front of her stood the knight, flicking the blood from her blade.
The nun who healed the dying, then rose again holding her shield—people still couldn't find the words to describe her.
If they were to describe her, there could only be one word.
Though she herself would hate to hear it.
*
Holy Power is fundamentally a power of healing. It also happened to have the function of driving out beings that possessed a power opposed to that healing power.
Then, could it really only be used for 'healing'?
No, the Saintess in the original work had utilized her power beyond that.
If the power to heal infinitely could be transferred to another person, that could be called a kind of physical enhancement.
Beyond that, the ability to recover from fatigue could also be used to alleviate pain, and such power would allow the recipient to always maintain peak condition.
"......You went out way too far ahead."
Ria said with a horrified expression.
"That's why no one got hurt."
I said as I stood up, holding the shield.
The person who had been collapsed on the ground was just staring up at the two of us blankly, unable to grasp the situation.
"————!"
A howl of pain rang out. It was the shriek of the Monstrous Beast whose flesh had been carved out by Ria's sword.
"......From now on, stay behind me. I'm telling you not to step out in front of the person protecting you."
"Got it."
Right, well.
It would be a problem if I interfered with her work as a knight. And, hmm.
I thought as I looked at the completely crumpled shield.
......No matter how high the healing power, if it just gets crushed flat, there won't even be time for it to heal.
Let's be careful, yeah.