The Sword Saint Reincarnates
Under the hill where the gentle breeze rests stands a humble convent. Edel Convent. It is a place where unmarried women devoted to the Heavenly God gather to live, and it also functions as an orphanage caring for girls abandoned by their parents. This is where I reincarnated—as Elia. With no family name I could recall. Without ever seeing my parents’ faces. Simply as a young girl who possessed nothing but a name.
At first I couldn’t distinguish reality from illusion and believed it was a dream that followed death. But this was no dream. A day passed. A month passed. As time flowed on, I gradually awakened to the truth. I don’t know why it happened. What I do know is that I had been living as a girl at the convent when the memories of my previous life suddenly returned.
“Huuuaaaam……”
I sat in the very back row of the chapel during the service, covering my mouth with both hands as I yawned.
…It’s peaceful. Peace is certainly a good thing, but for a knight who had spent his entire life on battlefields drenched in the stench of blood, a tranquil afternoon was a difficult thing to grow accustomed to.
I wonder if the front lines are holding…….
The Imperial Army had been pushed back by the Demon King’s forces. They had expanded the front all the way to the southern deserts of the Demon Realm, yet the tide turned the moment the Demon King entered the fray himself. I was curious about the situation following the defeat at the Black Sand Battle. But hearing news from the battlefield was no easy task in a place like this. And since I spent all my time inside the convent, my sources of information were even more restricted.
The only method I had for gathering intelligence was to pick up discarded newspapers from the streets whenever I went out to volunteer in the village a short distance from the convent.
“Elia!”
I was about to return to my room after the afternoon service when a woman’s voice, thick with irritation, stopped me. I turned around. A woman with deep wrinkles etched around her eyes stood there. It was Sister Bertina, my guardian.
“You fell asleep during the service again, didn’t you?”
Judging by her expression, I was looking at a solid hour and a half of scolding.
“No, Sister.”
I smiled brightly like a child and neatly clasped both hands together.
“I was praying to God so devoutly with my hands folded like this, and—ow!”
She flicked my forehead. Giving the Sword Saint a forehead flick. If my adjutant had seen this scene, he would have been horrified.
This insane woman! I’ll rip her throat out!
The image of my adjutant growling like a wild dog was vivid. I had talked that hot-blooded fool down more times than I could count. Just remembering it almost made me chuckle.
“I told you that if you fell asleep during service again, you’d be cleaning the toilets, didn’t I?”
I rubbed my head. This body was far too fragile. In my previous life I had been fine even after taking a spear clean through the abdomen, yet now my scalp tingled from a single blow from a woman’s fist. A few tears even welled up.
“I studied too hard this morning… so I must have dozed off without realizing it.”
I rubbed my eyes as if exhausted.
“I heard from Sister Ziana. You slipped out in the middle of class and only returned near the end, is that correct?”
I’d been caught. I had crawled away on all fours, moving as stealthily as possible, and had never been discovered before. It seemed someone had tattled.
Tsk. It was true I had skipped class, but it wasn’t a lie that I had been training hard. I had gone into the forest beside the convent and practiced swordsmanship, swinging thick tree branches with a fierce whoosh. I was engraving every movement from my past life into this body, one by one. I needed to adapt to this new flesh.
Though it was still a child’s body, a female physique differed from a male one in countless ways—the skeleton, the muscles, everything. A single small error in movement could decide victory or defeat in battle. Therefore, I had to become intimately familiar with this body. After all, I intended to return to the battlefield.
There were still things I had not accomplished. Beheading the Demon King. For that purpose, I would take up the sword once more.
“Elia, if you wish to become a nun, you must study diligently.”
Sister Bertina spoke while earnestly comforting me. The girls here all aimed to become nuns. More precisely, to become official clergy of the Heavenly God Church. One had to become independent upon reaching adulthood. Therefore, it was necessary to develop the strength to survive alone until that time. Among the options, the easiest path was to attend classes at the convent and become a nun.
Of course, other paths existed. One could go into business, learn a trade, or enter the academy.
The Imperial Academy. The prestigious institution where geniuses from all five kingdoms, including the Empire, gathered. The Swordsmanship Department. The Magic Department. The Theology Department.
If these girls harbored one great dream, it would be to enter the Theology Department at the Imperial Academy. After all, simply graduating would allow them to join the Grand Cathedral immediately. Their futures would be bright and open.
The academy, huh…….
Entering the academy was also a way to reach the battlefield. I could enroll in the Swordsmanship or Magic Department and enlist as an Imperial Army officer after graduation.
But I planned to apply directly to the Imperial Army the moment I became an adult. It didn’t matter if I wasn’t an officer. As long as I could reach the battlefield. In fact, starting from the lowest rank would be better. That way I could freely slaughter the Demon King’s army on the front lines.
The higher the rank, the more one remained in the rear. Command required it. But I was far better suited to using my body than my head. That was why I would leave command to my adjutant and charge forward, only to be summoned by the Emperor multiple times for a scolding.
‘Adrean! If you’re the head of the staff, then act like the head of the staff and take responsibility!’
‘Isn’t it fine as long as we win?’
‘Victory is important, but I’ve told you countless times that victory is not the only thing that matters!’
That was how it had been back then.
“You will surely become a wonderful nun.”
Sister Bertina gently stroked my soft, plump cheek. I laughed inwardly.
I wondered what sort of appearance made her say such things. It was nothing more than an adult’s ordinary hope that a child would grow up well. I didn’t tell her I’m going to become a knight. There was no particular need. Still, courtesy demanded an answer.
“Yes.”
“You’ll listen attentively in class from now on, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And concentrate properly during services?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then go clean the toilets now.”
“Huh?”
Sister Bertina placed the cleaning tools in my hands. I blinked and stared at the small scrub brush gripped in my tiny fingers. I had thought the atmosphere would let the matter slide naturally.
“To become a wonderful nun, you must first learn to care for yourself before caring for others. If you have done wrong, acknowledging your fault and reflecting upon it is also part of caring for yourself.”
It had begun. Sister Bertina’s one-hour-and-thirty-minute lecture on what a nun was, what qualities a nun must possess, and so forth.
“I’m off to clean the toilets!”
I fled to the bathroom. Listening to that entire lecture would leave me utterly drained. She probably didn’t intend it as torment, but it was torment all the same.
My age was seventy-one. I had eaten my fill and aged as much as any man could, yet here I was scrubbing toilet bowls.
Twice a month, I volunteered in the village beyond the forest.
The Village Where the Gentle Breeze Dances. It was a small settlement where people who lived by farming gathered. A faint floral fragrance drifted throughout the entire village. Children ran about, laughing merrily. It was truly peaceful.
“Grandfather, does your shoulder feel refreshed?”
“Ohhh, it feels wonderful.”
Volunteering did not involve anything grand. The nuns provided free medical care while the girls offered free massages. Naturally, I was on massage duty.
I was already working on my ninth pair of shoulders. It seemed a rumor had spread among the elders that I gave particularly good shoulder massages.
This was… heh heh… troublesome. Quite troublesome indeed.
Knowing the ailments of the elderly from experience, I would locate the painful spots and knead them accordingly. As a result, I had gained regular customers.
“Could you give mine a rub as well?”
A middle-aged man approached, patting his shoulder. He was the village chief. He, too, was one of my regular customers.
“Of course.”
I nodded with an innocent smile.
Let me rest! Get lost! This is child labor exploitation! I wanted to say, but I could not.
I moved my small hands diligently, massaging the village chief’s shoulders.
“Ah, that feels so refreshing.”
His shoulders were heavily knotted. It was the weight of responsibility—not only from farming but from handling all the various affairs of the village.
He was the most difficult regular to massage, but also my favorite. Because every once in a while I could hear stories about the state of the world from him.
“Chief, do you have any interesting stories today?”
“I do!”
The chief’s eyes sparkled. It seemed he had been waiting for me to ask exactly that.
…I knew that feeling well. As one grew older, sharing stories with others became more enjoyable. One might call it becoming a chatterbox. I used to have a blunt personality in my youth, but as my hair lightened with age I found joy in telling my subordinates tales from my younger days.
The chief began telling various stories. Most of them concerned his youth. But what I wanted to hear was not old tales.
“Is there anything happening these days?”
Just as he was about to launch into “When I was doing business in the eastern kingdom,” I quickly changed the subject.
“These days?”
The chief hummed and stroked his chin.
“Ah! There is one thing!”
He lifted his chin as if a thought had occurred to him.
“Recently, someone said they saw a magical beast in the forest.”
“A magical beast?”
I showed immediate interest. While peace was pleasant, this was welcome news for someone like me who needed an opponent on which to test her swordsmanship.
“A wolf-type magical beast with incredibly sharp fangs is hiding in the forest and attacking people… Grrr!”
The chief raised both hands like wolf claws and whirled around. The other girls who had been listening from the sides let out shrill screams.
“And then? Is there really a magical beast in the forest?”
I asked with sparkling eyes. Perhaps he had wanted a scream from me as well? The chief continued with a slightly disappointed expression.
“I confirmed the footprints. There were prints the size of a human palm pressed into the ground.”
Frightened sounds came from the girls on either side. The chief nodded, satisfied by their reaction.
“But there’s no need to worry too much. It seems the creature only appears at night and not during the day. We’ve also placed a request with the Adventurers’ Guild. It should be resolved in four days, or within a week at the latest.”
“When did you make the request?”
“The day before yesterday.”
That meant at least two more days remained. I chuckled to myself. My heart raced with anticipation at the thought that I might finally encounter a magical beast after so long.