Waking Up (2)
Honestly, just looking at the room where I’d opened my eyes, I wondered if this church even needed a revival or resurrection. Every single piece of furniture radiated luxury, and the bed could easily compete with the high-end models from my original world. Even the golden cross I’d been clutching was real gold. It was small—half a span tall and about the width of a thumb—but if the entire thing was solid gold, that changed the conversation completely.
That illusion shattered the moment I left the room.
“It’s magnificent, I mean… it is magnificent, but it has preserved the traces of time rather well, hasn’t it?”
I felt a surge of self-satisfaction at how tactfully I’d worded it to avoid causing offense, but the interior was a disaster. Cracks ran everywhere, plaster had peeled away, and broken sections left the place in complete disarray. The building itself was clearly enormous, yet in this state, I had to worry whether proper believers would ever appear without the benefit of this so-called divine power. The popular churches back in my world didn’t build impressive structures for nothing. Even educated people who understood that religion originally existed to help and serve others would still be drawn to the ones with grand, imposing buildings.
“We are acutely aware of the need for repairs, but the summoning ritual consumed so many resources that interior work has been postponed indefinitely. You arrived at the very last possible moment…”
“Ah, I’m sorry about that. It would have been better if I’d come a little sooner, but I don’t remember anything, and it doesn’t seem like I had any control over the timing…”
“Not at all. Your arrival alone is a great blessing for the church.”
The claim that interior repairs had been delayed probably meant exterior work was still underway. When I went outside, even with my expectations lowered, the result was still somewhat disappointing. It wasn’t quite at the level of a slum, but while there were no cracks or gouges like inside, the colors were uniformly dull and lifeless. The only thing preserving any dignity was the life-sized marble cross above the main entrance of the temple and, framed within it, a golden cross about half that size.
“Are you really out of money? Like, seriously?”
“Yes. That cross you see there—the royal family is pressuring us to sell even that to them. Saintess, please…”
“Even if I wanted to do something right now, I don’t know anything yet, do I? Bring me history books, philosophy texts, merchants you know, nobles with pro-church leanings, members of the royal family even if they’re from a collateral line, capitalists with lots of land or significant capital even if they aren’t nobles, knights, soldiers—gather one of each. Oh, can you do that?”
“If we announce that the Saintess has finally appeared, they will eagerly request an audience.”
Still, it seemed the church’s authority itself hadn’t completely collapsed. The fact that they had the means to make people come to them voluntarily was a rather reassuring foundation.
One more thing: it appeared I was currently the only Saintess in this church. The way they spoke of the Saintess finally appearing suggested there hadn’t been one until now.
“Then delay the official announcement by exactly one month—no, two weeks. Just two weeks. Inform the key figures I mentioned first and bring them to me. In the meantime, give me intensive etiquette training as well. After all, a position like Saintess will involve an audience with the king, won’t it?”
“Will that be sufficient?”
“If you can delay it longer than that, it would be fine, but is that possible? Wouldn’t it be better to move as quickly as possible? I understand the situation is urgent.”
“…Thank you, Saintess.”
Of course, this was all bluffing. There was no way I could magically produce results in two weeks. If I could have, I would have achieved something truly spectacular in my previous life. The reason I could make such bold claims was to show proactive engagement and secure basic goodwill. That way, even if I failed later, the next opportunity would come more easily.
Since we’d decided to delay the Saintess announcement, I had to stay hidden inside again. As I turned to head back in, I noticed a full-length mirror I hadn’t seen on the way out. Inside it stood a breathtakingly beautiful woman with brilliant golden hair and blue eyes, wearing a robe accented with blue. She stared at me with wide eyes.
This… this could actually work.
“Just a moment, please.”
“Yes, Saintess.”
At least the priests here—especially the high-ranking one who had attached himself to my side—had completely joined my camp after witnessing the light I’d emitted. He gladly followed as I hurried to the mirror.
Right, I need to figure out the factions within the church later too. Even in the history of my world’s church, how many factions had it splintered into? Catholicism, Protestantism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy—it had shattered into pieces, and then splintered further into denominations within each. This world might not have reached quite that level of chaos thanks to the existence of divine power, but wherever humans gathered, power existed, and where there was power, conflict inevitably followed.
Anyway, now was the time to examine myself in the mirror.
“Hmm, not bad. A bit pale, though.”
If this had been a standard gender-swap story, I probably would have stood there alone muttering, “Huh? This… is me?” But instead I turned this way and that, pressing down on the somewhat loose-fitting clothes with my hands to check my silhouette.
Even so, this body was undeniably stunning—worthy of genuine admiration. Men would obviously stare, but even women passing by would do a double take. Their heads would turn whether they wanted them to or not. And unless I was mistaken, the voice was quite pleasant too.
“You are truly beautiful, but in front of others with discerning eyes, such behavior might be slightly…”
“Ah, I’m sorry. I still haven’t fully adjusted to the fact that this is my body. But this… this could really work, couldn’t it?”
“What exactly do you mean by ‘work’?”
What else? An idol, of course. Not the dancing-and-singing kind. More in the traditional sense—closer to an embodiment of the divine. The kind of presence that, like a voice representing an era, like the Emperor of Ecstasy, like Frank Sinatra for American women in the ’40s and ’50s, made people willing to pay money just to look.
But that was a plan for later. It was something I could only properly pursue after the announcement of my appearance as Saintess. I had no intention of selling my body, but there were more ways to utilize this absurdly beautiful face and figure than just that.
“No, that’s for later. For now, let’s focus on what’s been decided. What should I call you?”
“Rondel Brios. Please call me Cardinal Rondel, Saintess.”
Does a Saintess outrank a Cardinal in the church hierarchy? No, probably not. The reason for this attitude was likely because the god who had entered this body wasn’t some insignificant deity in this world. Expecting the same treatment from others would be naively optimistic.
“Cardinal Rondel, be honest with me. Did everyone in this church want to summon me? Or will they all gladly accept my existence?”
“Not exactly.”
The answer came surprisingly readily. Maybe my earlier display had left a strong impression? No, I still couldn’t trust this man completely. After all, whenever people form groups, politics inevitably begins.
“Is the number of people I can reveal my ‘true identity’ to more than half? If not, roughly how many?”
“…Among the seven cardinals, there is no one I can tell. The same goes for His Holiness the Pope and the Antipope. I can only inform a few high priests, but that would bring roughly twenty percent of the church to our side.”
Ah, Antipope. Right. This was a complete mess. Still, with the papacy split in two and seven cardinals, if revealing it to just one cardinal could secure twenty percent of the church, then Cardinal Rondel’s faction wasn’t insignificant. That was at least somewhat positive. The problem was that everything else was negative.
“Then what about those among the faithful who can use divine power? Can people who aren’t priests use it? Or do all priests use divine power? What’s the average level of divine power by rank? And how does the divine power I just showed compare?”
“Yes. I will answer one by one…”
As I returned to my room, I organized the answers I’d received. This world’s human religion was singular. Only a very small portion of people could use divine power. Most of them were ordained clergy, and even among ordinary people, those who manifested divine power would walk the path of priesthood. The lowest rank, deacons, could heal slight cuts from blades or stop minor bleeding. Above them, bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, cardinals, and the pope could heal deep wounds and scars, reattach severed fingers, reattach limbs, regenerate them entirely, and even bring back those who were nearly dead.
“Is that true? You mentioned there’s an Antipope. Can that Antipope also bring back the nearly dead?”
“…However, the reality is slightly different. Everyone falls a little short of those ideals.”
Yeah, I got it. I understood their level now. Still, the fact that even deacons—who weren’t full priests—could use divine power was encouraging. With that alone, this church was a group that simply couldn’t go bankrupt. Even religions in my world without divine power had gained people’s faith by describing all sorts of miracles. How could a single-religion church here, where they could prove the existence of God right before people’s eyes, possibly fail?
Yet it was failing.
“Then for now, I’ll look through these while I wait, so bring me everything you can, Cardinal Rondel.”
“Yes, Saintess.”
I started with the church’s basic history books and doctrinal texts. I wasn’t some study genius, but I was the guy who had once locked himself in a boarding academy for nearly a full year—just one week short—to retake the entrance exams and somehow succeeded. The sad aftermath was that after that one hellish experience, I could never study that intensely again and nearly received academic warnings. But this time, it was an existential crisis that could erase my very being. With such desperate motivation, my concentration produced overwhelmingly effective learning power—enough that if I’d studied this hard before, I could have chosen any department at Korea’s top university.
Not that I memorized everything at a glance, of course.
“What name should we announce for the Saintess?”
By that night, when it came time to choose a name to invite influential figures, I had accumulated enough knowledge to easily select one that fit my current situation. It wasn’t enough to say I possessed basic education even as a joke, but it was something.
“Lucia. Let’s go with Lucia.”
“The name of the Saintess who protected His Holiness Alexius VII and raised the beacon of counterattack against the Demon King.”
“The opponent may not be the Demon King, but I will raise that beacon of counterattack for you.”
A benevolent Saintess? Not necessary. A battle-ready Saintess? Not necessary. A politically shrewd Saintess? It was tempting, but in the current situation it would invite unnecessary suspicion. A Saintess who enthroned a king? Was I crazy?
What the church urgently needed right now was money. There had never been a Saintess of Money, so I had no choice but to borrow—regrettably—the name of the Saintess who had overcome a critical crisis for the church and become the starting point of its resurgence.
“What form will it take? Will the divine power of the congregation shine even brighter? Or will the rulers voluntarily become more devout?”
In the middle of this, Cardinal Rondel was acting surprisingly naive for someone who could seize twenty percent of the church if he set his mind to it. From the perspective of the church’s reason for existence, that expectation made sense, but still.
“Divine power is sufficient as it is now. No, it would actually be bad if it became any more common. The rarer it is, the more valuable it becomes.”
“That’s a rather unusual line of logic, Saintess.”
Just like that famous—not really—quote from an athlete who said signing too many autographs diminishes their rarity, the more people who could use divine power, the more the church’s prestige would decline. It seemed this wasn’t the traditional view of the church, however. Perhaps because divine power existed, they had never needed business acumen—money had simply come on its own?
“The opponents are secular lords and monsters, correct? That means there’s no major problem with the lay believers’ faith?”
“That is correct. No other faiths exist outside our church.”
Well, that was something I’d have to investigate later. The higher you stood, the less clearly you could see what was below.
“Then for now, I suppose we should start by pressuring the nearby secular lords.”