The Saintess (Away)
The Saintess (Away)
The moment I opened my eyes, I realized it.
No matter how I looked at it, this body was busted.
"...I can't believe I came down with body aches."
I'd expected it, to a certain extent.
I'd moved several times more than usual yesterday, after all.
I'd figured I might get muscle pain or something like exhaustion.
Because the old Rosaria had an activity radius of zero and zero initiative.
But I'd still thought I'd be fine after a good night's sleep.
That had been arrogance.
This cursed body wasn't that sturdy.
A glass body that came down with full-body aches just from moving a little.
"...This is so irritating."
The very day after we'd agreed to date, and I had to show her this pathetic sight.
It was the kind of situation where you'd want to crawl into a mouse hole and hide.
"...Should I just bite my tongue and die."
I was brooding with those kinds of dark thoughts when it happened.
The head maid knocked on the door.
She said a guest had arrived urgently,
and was asking whether she should show them in.
"...I don't mind."
I had no idea who'd come,
but it wasn't exactly polite to leave a guest stranded outside.
I couldn't go running out in my stocking feet, but letting them in wasn't hard.
The guest I let in was, unsurprisingly, a familiar face.
The moment I saw her, I first covered my face with the blanket.
Because I didn't want her to see me looking like this.
"...Rosaria."
So the guest was the Saintess?
And why had she come so early today?
Her face looked like she'd heard something terrifying,
and there were even tears welling up in her eyes.
"You mustn't die, Rosaria."
What was she talking about?
"Hngh... don't die... you can't die, Rosaria."
There seemed to be some colossal misunderstanding at work.
Had she heard me talking to myself?
Divine power was seriously, insanely cool.
I'd have to watch what I muttered to myself from now on.
One wrong move and I'd get forcibly summoned, made to leave my home and live in the Holy Kingdom.
"...That won't happen."
The Saintess flung herself at me and clung to me in an instant.
I thought I wouldn't be able to make any kind of joke, I was so startled.
"...That lie you told me yesterday—it wasn't actually the truth, was it?"
Sniffling, the Saintess asked in a voice that was sinking low.
The day after she'd been told they'd date, she'd heard me say I wanted to die. So she'd asked, worried that she might be the cause, and that the lie from that day might have been the real truth.
"...If you dislike me that much, Rosaria, I will accept it."
The Saintess was even thinking strange things.
"...How could that be. That was a lie."
I said that, and turned yesterday's lie back into the truth.
"...I like you so much, Saintess. I like you more than anyone in the world. So I won't so much as glance at anyone else."
Maybe because it was first thing in the morning and I was saying such embarrassing things, my heart started beating at a distinctly unpleasant rhythm. But I wasn't so lacking that I couldn't say even this much to someone who was sincerely worried about me.
"...How could I ever die, when I have a Saintess like you?"
I said that, and stroked the head of the Saintess, who was still crying as she clung to me.
"...But you said you wanted to die."
"...I'm not sure how you heard it, but that was a joke. My body aches were weighing on my mind and I was feeling down, so I just said it on a whim. So you don't need to take it too much to heart."
The moment Rosaria's official certification dropped, the Saintess straightened up.
"...Please refrain from such cruel jokes from now on."
She said that and delivered punishment to the nape of my neck.
"...You really did come down with body aches, it seems. You're a little hotter than yesterday, Rosaria."
Having finished meting out punishment, the Saintess pressed a hand to my forehead to check my temperature.
"...It seems to be quite serious. You're terribly hot—are you really alright?"
I thought it was genuinely fortunate that I'd come down with body aches.
Because right now, she'd mistaken this heat for that.
"...So it seems, Saintess."
In any case, I hadn't told a lie.
Because I did have a different disease in a serious condition.
*
And with that, the Saintess wrapped up the Rosaria suicide commotion.
She'd even healed my body aches with her divine power so they'd subsided.
Thanks to that, it seemed I'd be able to get through today in good health, too.
"You seem to have a constitution that doesn't let heat subside easily."
Though the Saintess, having figured out that my fever wasn't caused by body aches alone, gave me a faintly fishy smile as she looked at me.
...Anyway, that wasn't what was important right now.
"...You said ten days' pilgrimage?"
The fact that the Saintess would be away for ten days.
That was actually what her visit today was supposed to be about.
Since the Saintess came here to heal Rosaria, her being absent for a full ten days was a considerably troubling issue.
"Don't worry. I've made medicine to keep your symptoms down, you see. And this is a present for you, Rosaria."
The Saintess brought out a lump of red pills and a plush doll modeled after her.
"Take the medicine thirty minutes after eating, together with holy water. Holy water can be made just by leaving a holy relic in water, so you should be able to make it easily using the ring you're wearing."
The ring had a function I'd never even imagined.
To think it even possessed the ability of a holy water maker.
It might even have more abilities than Rosaria's original body.
"...And the plush doll—I made it myself last night, in case you missed me so much it hurt. Does it look like me?"
I'd assumed it was the kind of limited-edition merch sold in the Holy Kingdom, but it turned out to be a handmade doll made by the Saintess herself.
As expected of the perfectly flawless Saintess, her sewing skills were top-notch, too. If I were to lay on the flattery a bit, it was on par with a plush doll made by an expert.
"Yes, it's a very cute doll that looks just like you, Saintess..."
My mouth ran away with me.
I was just startled by the unbidden flattery that came out.
But if I stopped here,
I'd just get pushed around by the Saintess who'd grabbed the opening.
I executed the strategy of walking confidently through any situation.
"...is what I meant."
I really hated the mismatch between my body and my head.
Even though I'd clearly issued a command to be confident, my body had rejected it, saying it was an unacceptable command.
I could feel my cheeks burning.
Anyway, I let it go, deciding it was just the aftereffects of the body aches.
"And actually, the most important question still remains."
"What question could it be, that you hesitate so?"
The Saintess couldn't finish her sentence, twisting her body around.
It was a Menhera move I hadn't seen in a while, and I tensed up for a moment.
"...It's about how we address each other—I wanted to ask."
"What do you mean by that..."
That was the moment I answered back in formal speech as I always did.
"That! Rosaria, don't you think that kind of formal speech is too stiff between lovers?"
The Saintess clenched her fist as if giving a speech.
"It doesn't matter if you speak that way outside. I'm the Saintess in public, so it's not a problem for you to use formal language. But when it's just the two of us like this... couldn't you speak a little more softly? Because at times like this, I'm not the Saintess—I'm your lover."
Blushing, the Saintess said all this without taking a breath.
But what she wanted to convey, and the diction she used to express it, were excellent, so I wanted to hang a pass necklace around her neck.
In short, she was asking me not to use extreme formal speech.
"A... and as a bonus... um... call me... by my name."
She was even showing dictatorial tendencies, forbidding me from addressing her by her title.
"...I'll try, Canaria."
It wasn't that big a request, was it.
There was no reason not to grant it, so I accepted right away.
"...It's just that habits are really hard to break, so I might not do well, Saintess... no, Canaria."
This was what happened when I wasn't careful.
But the important thing was the message, as they say.
She looked satisfied that I'd shown her I intended to fix it.
"Then, I'll see you in ten days, Rosaria."
The Saintess opened her arms wide in farewell.
"...Do you want something?"
But for some reason, she didn't leave gracefully.
She just stood solidly in place and didn't go.
Her eyes even looked like she wanted something.
...Could it be, the thing I was thinking.
"...What are you doing, not hugging me. My arms hurt, Rosaria. Do you want to become a heretic who broke the Saintess's arms?"
The Saintess used Pester.
Naturally, on Rosaria, it was super effective.
"...I'm sorry I didn't catch on."
I'd never imagined the Saintess would make a request like that.
Whenever she wanted something, she'd always just come up and hug me first herself.
For some reason, the Saintess had switched from automatic to manual.
Rosaria had always just been on the receiving end.
Maybe because of that, I'd never done this kind of approach before.
The moment I went to her first and hugged her, a reaction came.
My cheeks had gone red again from awkwardness.
I could see the Saintess enjoying my embarrassment.
In that state, the Saintess delivered the finishing touch.
"...You're late, so it's a punishment. Give me a goodbye kiss, too."
The Saintess whispered kindly in my ear.
I even heard the faint sound of her licking her lips.
The images flashing through my head flowed in shades of pink.
"Th... that's... that..."
Because of that, my equipment shut down.
My overheated brain just stopped.
Just when I had no intelligence left to finish the sentence.
I heard the Saintess's soft laughter.
"What a cute reaction, Rosaria."
She said that and lightly bit my earlobe.
My shoulders trembled as I stifled a moan from the sudden stimulus.
"...Then I'll let you off with one on the cheek today."
The Saintess, laughing as if delighted, ended the embrace and turned her head slightly, showing me the cheek she wanted to receive the kiss on.
"......Excuse me, then."
I really wasn't used to this sort of thing.
But I couldn't back out here.
I just left it to my future self and acted.
*
Riding in the carriage, the Saintess stroked her cheek.
Because it was the first kiss she'd ever received from Rosaria.
She didn't want to forget the lingering sensation, so she kept replaying the memory.
Then she closed her eyes briefly and exercised her divine power.
The voice she could hear through the ring alone hadn't been enough to fill the void.
So she'd instilled her divine power into the obsidian eyes of the doll she'd gifted Rosaria. It was the divine power commonly known as the Eye of God.
In short, she could see Rosaria's room.
-Aaagh... nngh... uugh...
She could see Rosaria kicking her blankets.
The Saintess was deeply satisfied to see this novel side of Rosaria, who'd pretended to be so composed on the outside.
'I'll manage to endure it somehow, Rosaria.'
She had finished preparing to withstand the ten-day hell without Rosaria.
Because she could hear her voice and see her face, as if she were always by her side. Moreover, even after the pilgrimage ended, even on ordinary nights in the Holy Kingdom when Rosaria wasn't there, she'd be able to feel as though they were together.
She trembled with a sense of happiness, as if her life had become two times richer.
If they got married and lived together, wasn't that saying she'd feel a happiness even greater than this every single day?
The Saintess felt she might just go mad with happiness, to the point she worried she might simply die of joy.
Of course, she hadn't given Rosaria these devices solely to satisfy the Saintess's own sinister desires.
There was also a part of her that was simply worried.
Of course, desire made up ninety percent of it, but the ten percent of worry trailing behind that vast, ocean-deep desire was by no means small.
Ordinarily, she was by her side every day healing her, so there was no need to worry about variables caused by her curse.
But she couldn't do that now, so she'd given the presents out of concern that side effects might arise, or that some problem might occur for her.
'The medicine can't be guaranteed, after all.'
The Saint's blood could contain divine power.
So she'd processed blood imbued with the authority of healing and given it to Rosaria, but... its efficacy naturally couldn't match the divine power she wielded directly, could it.
Not a single hair on Rosaria's head should be harmed.
So just in case, in that one-in-a-million chance a problem arose, she'd given the doll eyes so she could throw aside even a pilgrimage and come right back.
Because at the very least this second time, she wanted to protect her.
Unlike that time she'd been powerless to protect her, now she held power in overflowing abundance.
...And lastly, it was also so she could see for herself the vermin that might approach Rosaria, and rain down heavenly punishment on them.
There was no way a thief wouldn't target a castle whose watchman had disappeared.
Wasn't there a lack of guarantee that there were no insolent wretches out there who would take advantage of her absence to approach Rosaria?
It was a necessary measure even just to monitor the insects who would target the gentle, weak, beautiful Rosaria.
"I will surely protect you, Rosaria."
The Saintess pressed a kiss to her ring finger, where the mark had long since healed and vanished.
She began applying a continuous self-suggestion, telling herself that the important thing from now on was to keep herself together.
After all, ten days without Rosaria was simply too long.
For now, the first thing to do was put out the fire blazing in her own house.