The Advent of the Saint
Milos Pensler was a young guard from Zelewald, a quiet rural village on the border of the Orphen Empire. His only real worry was hoping today’s lunch wouldn’t be nothing but vegetable sides. He was an ordinary guard who loved the peaceful little hamlet with all his heart.
Right now, he crouched in a dark corner, waiting for the shadow of death that had drawn close enough to touch him.
“How the hell did it come to this…?”
While the heart of the empire drowned in endless chaos from political strife, purges, and factional warfare, the Demon King had managed to partially break the seal that the empire’s hero had placed on him five hundred years earlier. What followed was a full-scale invasion by the Demon King’s army. Under the command of their resurrected lord, the demons smashed through the empire’s borders—borders softened by five centuries of peace—and tore across the front lines like a wildfire.
In the midst of that catastrophe, a single order had come down to the Zelewald garrison.
Hold the position for one week until reinforcements arrive.
That single short line was the entirety of the instructions given to a garrison of barely twenty men.
“Hey, fuck this—let’s run right now.”
“Wouldn’t that make us deserters? If they catch us, it’s summary execution.”
“You idiot, we’re not deserting! We’re just evacuating for a bit because a goddamn avalanche of disaster is about to bury the village.”
“Oh. That actually sounds reasonable.”
Led by Captain Igor, the guards and the rest of Zelewald’s residents fled together. But like any rural village, Zelewald had far too many elderly and infirm. Their pace was anything but fast. The Demon King’s army noticed the fugitives hadn’t gone far and immediately sent pursuers. In the end, the refugees were caught at an unnamed ruin roughly a day’s march from their destination, the fortress city of Silenia.
“Everyone inside the ruins! Guards, gather the gunpowder and barricade the entrance!”
When the casualties began to mount despite the guards’ desperate resistance, Igor chose to make a stand inside the narrow entrance of the ruin. He ushered as many civilians as possible inside, then used the collected gunpowder to collapse the entrance behind them. A fair number of people hadn’t made it in before the passage was sealed, but no one blamed Igor. They couldn’t. The captain who had thrown himself into the fight until the very last moment to protect the citizens had been sent flying by a massive ogre’s club just before the entrance was completely blocked.
Those left behind could only hurry deeper into the darkness, carrying heavy hearts and the fierce will to survive. And so they arrived at a place with a high ceiling and rows of long benches. Candle wax had melted and hardened on the candlesticks, and religious symbols of every kind lined the walls. It was an underground chapel that looked as though many worshippers had once sat here in neat rows to pray.
Everyone, including Milos, wondered why a chapel of this size was hidden in a place like this. But no one had the luxury of wasting time on such questions. They were simply grateful to have found a space large enough for everyone to rest.
Only after Milos had helped treat his wounded comrades and calmed the frightened citizens did he finally drag himself to a corner and collapse.
“How the hell did it come to this?”
The young guard who had returned from what felt like a nightmare muttered to himself, then began to cry in stifled sobs.
“Hic… sob… hasn’t enough shit happened already…?”
He was terrified of having to flee helplessly from death as it approached with clear malice. He was disappointed in himself for failing to protect the people he was supposed to guard and compromising with reality. But more than anything, he felt it was unbearably unfair that his own small dream had been betrayed like this.
“My tiny little dream of leaving my family and hometown behind to live quietly in the countryside, just sucking on honey… hic… was that so wrong? Damn it…”
Yet the cruel reality refused to let the young guard give up. It kept charging toward him without pause.
Thud— Thud— Thud—
The chairs and desks piled against the chapel entrance shook with ominous rumbling. A guard with a puncture wound in one shoulder shouted hoarsely.
“Hey, Pensler! Stop sniveling in the corner and get over here! Stack anything you can!”
“Ugh— Y-yes, sir!”
At his comrade’s call, Milos’s body reflexively staggered upright. But the crushing weight of despair made it almost impossible to lift his head.
“Hic… sob…”
All around him, people with the same ashen faces and dead eyes were weeping. To shake off even a little of that despair, Milos turned his gaze toward the one place that might still hold hope. Or rather, toward what might be hope.
There stood a coffin.
A massive stone sarcophagus had been placed openly on the central altar from the very beginning.
Saint Lucie Riccioli. May she rest in eternal peace within time preserved.
The first part of the inscription had been worn away, but the remaining text made the occupant’s identity clear. Neither old Joseph, the eldest among the refugees, nor Tomas, who had always bragged that schoolwork was easiest for him, had ever heard of “Lucie Riccioli.” Yet the single word Saint was enough. The people clung to that one short word like a lifeline, using it to keep their minds from shattering. Even the elderly, the children, the young adults, and a few guards who had claimed they didn’t believe in religion all prayed before the sarcophagus, begging for salvation.
Boom— Boom—
The sound of the barricade shaking grew louder and louder. In response, the voices of those praying before the coffin rose in both volume and speed.
“Great gods above, O Saint who sleeps here, please send us hope. Please, please…”
“I don’t want to die like this… I don’t want to die like this…”
“If I’d known I would die after spending my whole life just farming, I wouldn’t have tried so hard…”
Voices thick with fear and despair filled the chapel’s wide empty space like a swamp. Milos’s own steps grew heavier as he sank deeper into that swamp.
I have to help the others reinforce the entrance.
Even as reason screamed at him, instinct kept whispering that he should hand all his worries over to the coffin before him and just rest. Of course, he didn’t have much time to listen to that temptation.
“Milos Pensler!!”
The angry glare from his comrade finally forced Milos to move his feet that had seemed glued to the floor.
“I-I’m coming!”
He picked up two scattered chairs, one in each hand, and headed toward the others. At the last moment he glanced back at the civilians and the altar where the sarcophagus rested. And then something exploded.
KWAAAAANG——!!
A tremendous roar suddenly filled the entire chapel. Despair washed over every face as they instinctively realized the barricaded entrance had been breached. But in that brief instant, only Milos witnessed the truth.
“W-why did that suddenly…?”
The sound hadn’t come from the entrance.
Whoosh—
It was the sound of that massive coffin lid launching into the air.
“Everyone, get back!!!”
Milos grabbed the clothes of the civilians standing at the predicted landing spot and yanked them aside while the lid hovered for a moment at the apex of its arc.
BOOOOM——!
The lid slammed into the ground, sending clouds of dust billowing in every direction.
“Cough, cough… I-is everyone all right?”
There was no answer to Milos’s worried question.
“…Everyone?”
Only after he repeated the empty question did Milos finally realize where all the citizens’ eyes were fixed.
On the now-open sarcophagus.
And on the thin, pale white arm that had risen from within it—like the arm of a corpse.
“Uh… eh…?”
While Milos stared in blank confusion, a mixture of bewilderment and fear on his face, the citizens began approaching the altar one by one.
“S-S-S-Saint… Lady…?”
Someone dared to speak the word with a trembling voice.
Rustle—
In response, the girl’s upper body shot upright from the colorless stone coffin, creating a stark contrast. Her golden hair, uncombed for who knew how long, stuck out in every direction, tangled and stiffened into a wild mess. She wore an ancient robe so faded that parts of it had begun to disintegrate. Though her amber eyes were still hazy, as if she had just woken from a long sleep, her small face possessed a noble beauty so profound it felt almost divine.
Milos stared at that face, completely spellbound, unable to utter a sound.
“……Ugh?”
At least until that somewhat dazed noise slipped from the girl’s lips.
Yet for the citizens, the mere fact that the girl was alive was enough to ignite countless emotions.
“Th-the Saint has resurrected!!!”
“The Saint has risen to save us!!!”
“Uwaaaaaah!!!”
Shouts of gratitude and cheers erupted around the sarcophagus. The despair that had filled the chapel melted away like snow. Their faces now held nothing but a manic hope, as if every problem had already been solved.
But Milos could not share their joy.
While everyone else focused on the event of the Saint’s resurrection, he focused solely on the girl presumed to be Saint Lucie Riccioli. That was why only he noticed the change.
The hazy eyes of the girl everyone believed without doubt to be the Saint were gradually clearing, beginning to gleam with a sharp, predatory light. And as strength returned to the hand that had been gripping the edge of the sarcophagus to steady herself, fine cracks began to spiderweb across the stone beneath her fingers.