[The Saintess Awakens - 11]
[The Saintess Awakens - 11]
Infinite Cult.
Simply put, it was one of the religions that desired immortality.
Basically, there was only one religion recognized in this world, the 'Goddess Religion', and the rest were not official religions.
In the world I originally lived in, there was what you'd commonly call freedom of religion, but that didn't exist here.
Of course, it was fine not to worship the Goddess Religion.
In other words, they didn't care if you were irreligious, but they didn't forgive the worship of anyone other than the Goddess.
Since there was plenty of evidence proving the existence of the Goddess-nim, and it was said that she had saved humanity time and time again, and the Awakening of a Saintess was also considered to be bestowed by the Goddess, that tendency seemed even stronger.
There was even talk that the Pope-nim, who was just a nice grandmother usually, would turn into a somewhat cold and indifferent person in front of heretics.
Anyway, the problem wasn't that, but that they caused all sorts of trouble for people around them while aiming for immortality, and above all, because they performed human experiments, an extermination order was issued, and it is said they were completely torn apart.
One of the fanatical groups of that Infinite Cult was the Red Rose Mercenary Corps.
This old man was branded with the emblem of that Red Rose Mercenary Corps.
"W-what! You are......!"
"Should I take that as, 'there is no surrender'?"
"Hey! Kill that guy!"
The old man ordered the man wearing a hat.
He has quite a bit of skill.
Just looking at his appearance, I could tell he was someone who had been through hell, and his mana was extremely stable.
There are two types of people whose mana is stable right before a battle: the type that doesn't get nervous at all, or the type that has fought so much they've learned how to stabilize their mana.
The man smoking a cigarette pressed down on his hat and said.
"You. I feel like I know who you are for some reason. Could it be someone I know? Yeah, if it's someone I know, I feel like running away right now."
"......."
I stood in front of the Saintess-nim, standing as if to protect her, and said.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"A blade like a shadow, and a man who uses a jet-black sword with black hair....... Adrian Valtus, right?"
"Adrian Valtus?!"
The old man also looked up at me with a surprised face.
The Saintess-nim was looking at me from behind with a face that said, 'You, you're really famous.'
Whether you like it or not, the fact that you've achieved feats, killed enemies, and survived is recognized just by that fact alone.
If you survived for more than a few years in the war against monsters that I participated in, that alone was enough to be called a legend.
I had been on such battlefields for several years, and I thought I had played a proper role.
It was a war against monsters, but the enemies weren't always just monsters; I had also faced humans who moved for their own selfish interests.
As a result, my name value naturally rose, and the number of people who knew me gradually increased.
There were people who annoyingly tried to attack my abilities, and there were battles where my life was actually in danger.
Ironically, my name seemed to be more famous, threatening, and meaningful to people living in the shadows than to those living peacefully in the light.
I had wished for that to some extent myself, but now that even the underlings of the shadows knew my name, it felt strange.
"A feeling of wanting to run away, huh."
I thought for a moment and then looked at the man.
"Liar."
"......."
Tu-ung!!
The man sprang up and aimed precisely for my head with his sword.
Kka-ang!! A sound rang out, and one of the shadow blades moved quickly, blocking the attack.
"On this side, just killing you is enough to move up."
"I have a hard time understanding what kind of meaning there is in climbing up that way, but if that's a valuable thing for you, I won't deny it."
Swa-ang!!
As the shadow blades moved quickly, the man moved backward, trying to avoid the attack.
"Shadows, in other words, this should work!!"
The man threw a magic stone.
Is that a light magic stone?
A magic stone is a tool activated by injecting mana; it's disposable, but it has many convenient aspects.
Conversely, regular mana stones can be used over and over, so they are usually put into Mana Cars, and the things adventurers or mercenaries use are often magic stones.
You might ask, why not just use a regular mana stone? But retrieving them is quite a hassle, and above all, regular mana stones are much more expensive than magic stones.
As the light flickered and cleared the darkness around, the man took advantage of the gap and rushed at me.
"Die, Adrian Valtus!!"
Just as he approached right in front of my nose, the light around disappeared, and the shadow blades surrounded the man.
"What."
"You get fooled often. There are quite a few people who seriously believe that since it's a shadow, you can deal with it with light."
"......."
"This is a fake made of mana, so it's not really a 'shadow'. It just moves like a shadow."
"You, crazy bastard."
Kwajik!!
A loud sound rang out, and the shadow blades pierced through the man.
The reason I used this ability was simply because it was convenient in many ways.
One of those conveniences was when the opponent mistook this for just a 'shadow' and believed they could attack me using light.
If it were a real shadow, that ability might have worked, but these shadow blades of mine were, at the end of the day, nothing more than 'lumps of mana' that just looked like shadows.
So, most people who used this strategy were defeated at this point.
Because they would approach me without knowing anything, only to be surrounded by shadows and stabbed right there.
Truly unfortunately, people who can dodge all the shadow blades at this close range or deal with them somehow don't even think about using something like a light magic stone.
This side is the scariest; they just crush you with power, so it gave me a headache.
It's like, 'my body feels bad, so my head suffers,' they just smash everything.
It's not a joke, it's scary, and since the Saintess-nim behind me was also that type, the future was scary.
Thud, the man collapsed without resistance.
'I won easily because he tried to use a strategy.'
If he had been wary and attacked with proper swordsmanship, that would have been more troublesome.
Because he had quite a bit of skill.
This is why you can get into big trouble if you try to use a strategy without knowing the information properly.
"Y-you damn it!!"
Seeing the man collapse, the old man rushed toward the Saintess-nim.
I was about to step in, but I saw the Saintess-nim's rope coming undone.
No, the rope was torn.
'Don't tell me she broke the mana-sealing rope with force just now?'
The rope that seals mana is a work with truly excellent sealing efficiency that is often used by the Knights Templar, and there were almost no reports of it being broken by force.
In my case, even if I pulled up all my mana, it was impossible to dismantle the mana seal by force.
Moreover, it doesn't look like a cheap mana-sealing rope either, so it's surprising.
"You must not kill."
Fwoosh, light flickered at the tip of the Saintess-nim's finger.
Only then did the old man seem to feel a sense of incongruity.
"W-what is this. Ellyn Frendisiv shouldn't have an aptitude for light magic, shouldn't, have......."
"My name is Anastasia Frendisiv. No."
"Anastasia? That name is......."
"Anastasia Lacroix."
I could see the old man's expression, having fully grasped the situation, turn stark white.
"First shot."
Twa-ang!!
The light magic condensed at the tip of her finger flew straight and hit the old man. A roar rang out in the forest; it was a sound that truly felt like it would tear your ears off, and I almost clapped without realizing it.
The fact that the old man, who was rolling on the ground, still had a human form showed how hard the Saintess-nim tried to control her strength.
And she stepped strongly on the old man's face just like that.
"With this, two shots, phew......."
Light flickered around her mouth and abdomen, and the wounds that existed on the Saintess-nim were disappearing rapidly.
"That feels a bit refreshing."
"That was reckless."
"I thought I was strong, that even if a crisis came, I could do something about it on my own. However, the world is more thoroughly prepared for those stronger than oneself than I thought. That rope too, and that thing called a light magic stone or whatever from earlier."
"......."
"I learned that the weak also prepare various things to bite the throat of the strong."
That might be meaningful to the Saintess-nim. A person who placed no value on anything other than herself, starting to properly be wary of and move regarding how others move, meant that she was finally starting to pay attention to the value of others.
Being wary might not look like a good thing, but if she truly didn't have others in her gaze, she wouldn't even be wary of others.
Something was slowly filling those empty eyes.
And that light that filled them slowly, albeit very slightly, had started to shine on others.
In the world of the Saintess-nim, who had existed all alone.
It's a good thing.
It's a good thing, but there was also something I was worried about.
"Are you worried? That I'll become too strong like this and no one will be able to stop me. Well, after getting beaten up like this, it's not threatening at all."
"You've become good at joking. You could have killed them if you wanted to."
If she could break that rope like that, she could have broken it by just pulling up her power and exploding the surroundings.
But the reason she didn't was because if she did that, the lives of these two kidnappers around her would be in danger.
It probably wasn't a moral judgment.
The Saintess-nim must have also understood that it would be troublesome if she killed them.
"You know, I was imagining you coming to save me just a moment ago. And yet....... You really came to save me."
"Saintess-nim?"
"I have a dream. No, a purpose? I'm super excited right now. Yeah, I feel good. Yes....... I feel good."
The Saintess-nim's slightly uplifted voice was a voice and face I had never heard or seen in the half year we had spent together.
At her appearance, which looked somehow excited, I stared at the Saintess-nim blankly without realizing it, and the Saintess-nim quietly turned her head to look at me.
"I want to be a good person to you. Yeah, that's fine for now. ......Haha, I've never felt like this in my life. Okay, let's go back. We should also hear about these guys' purpose and such. Because there might be someone else behind them."
"Ah, yes."
"Oh, and....... Thanks for saving me, Ed. Good work."
"It's nothing."
For some reason.
It felt like honey was dripping from her voice, a stickiness.