The Saintess's Dreams Are Precognitive
The dreams of a Saintess are precognitive dreams.
This is important, so I'll say it twice.
The dreams a Saintess has are special. That's because the Goddess grants the authority of the Precognitive Dream—the power to glimpse the future—to her Saintesses alone.
Of course, for all its grandiose title, most of what these dreams show is utterly trivial. Take tonight's dinner being flavorless oatmeal, or some passing priest tripping over a rock and skinning his knee—that kind of tedious nonsense.
But on very rare occasions, a precognitive dream has warned of a grave crisis capable of turning the tide of history itself. In fact, a few centuries back, one Saintess's dream is said to have pulled the Sectia Holy Empire back from the brink of destruction.
That's precisely why such a strict principle was established: every single dream a Saintess has, no matter how insignificant, must be recorded and preserved in full.
There were exceptions to that rule, of course. A Saintess may be a Saintess, but before anything else she's a human being. Recording every last trifle was a waste of time, and putting into words things too shameful to even whisper aloud was a stain on the Saintess's honor—besides being something she herself would balk at doing.
And if you pushed her too hard and she flatly refused to speak of her dreams ever again, the church could suffer a loss it couldn't afford. Which is to say, the church was willing to turn a blind eye when a Saintess omitted the trivial or glossed over the embarrassing—a kind of unspoken agreement, struck to protect her honor and keep her happy.
A single prophecy could change the fate of a nation, and that overwhelming value meant, paradoxically, that omissions and concealment were tolerated in the name of flexibility. A truly bizarre irony, when you think about it.
Anyway, my point is this: a Saintess's life is the very definition of a free ride—hand her one precognitive dream and she can coast straight into the number-two seat in the entire church.
So what does a Saintess actually do, besides dreaming these mighty dreams?
Well, nothing all that impressive. She does some charity work to keep the public goodwill flowing, spreads a little doctrine on the side, and at ceremonies she plays the dazzlingly dressed doll, smiling down at the faithful.
Once in a great while she accompanies a campaign into the Demon Realm, but even then she stays in the rear under heavy guard, treating the wounded or sprinkling around a few buffs. Hardly dangerous at all.
And since even these side activities were optional rather than mandatory, there was never any reason to go looking for suffering. Hers was the kind of life where you simply luxuriated in privilege within the church, dreamed your dreams, and lived out your days in comfort.
But I couldn't live like that.
Because the world I'd been dropped into just happened to be the world of a webtoon, and the body I'd landed in belonged to Beatrice, Saintess of the Church of Eris—a side character destined to be dragged through every conceivable misery and broken down piece by piece.
The original Beatrice was a timid, fragile hothouse flower. And that fragility made her the perfect prey for the hyenas circling her—most notably Cassian, a hero of the Church of Eris and a villain who hid his vile true nature, who would eventually trample her body and heart into the dirt.
The moment I decided to sit back and coast, my future would collapse just as cruelly as the original Beatrice's had. That much was obvious.
My one stroke of luck was that I'd possessed Beatrice's body while she was still young. I had all the time in the world to prepare for the disasters still waiting down the road.
So instead of cultivating the gifts of a Saintess, I chose to grow strong as a warrior—one who could smash every threat with her own two hands. I raised the roar of battle instead of quiet prayers, and took up a spear instead of the holy scriptures.
Rather than sheltering behind a safe rear line, I led the holy knights from the blood-soaked front lines, cleaving the heads from monsters.
Fortunately, this body carried a prodigious talent for combat, and desperate, relentless effort on top of it let me rack up achievement after achievement in the Demon Realm.
The epithet I earned was the Silver Holy Spear.
By now, even if I stripped away the title of Saintess entirely, my name carried enough weight that no one would dare look down on me. Add the authority of being the Saintess of the Church of Eris—one of the seven great holy churches—and even a king couldn't treat me carelessly.
But even someone like me had one worry I couldn't put into words.
The vicious dreams that had been hounding me relentlessly lately.
This one began with a peaceful scene.
Afternoon sunlight falling soft and warm. I was rolling lazily in the embrace of plush, cozy sheets when I felt the bed dip as someone sat down beside me, felt a gentle hand stroking my hair—and slowly lifted my eyelids.
"Did I wake you, Saintess?"
A low, honeyed voice. I turned my head, and there he was—a black-haired man sitting at the head of the bed, looking down at me.
A gaze sweet as smeared honey trailed slowly across my face. And I, like a girl drunk on love, smiled shyly, threw back the covers, and welcomed him warmly.
"No. I wanted to see you."
The aegyo-laced voice spilling from my own lips was unsettlingly, creepily foreign.
"...Saintess? What is that around your neck? Why on earth would you...?"
His eyes fell on the leather strap wrapped around my throat, and he flinched back in alarm.
Blushing a little, as if embarrassed, I carefully picked up the end of the metal chain attached to that strap and offered it to him.
"Because... you're my master, that's why...."
A confession of submission I had never once uttered in my entire life slid off my tongue.
He took the chain from my hand in a daze. His face was hard to make out against the backlight, but he looked faintly stunned.
"Saintess. Are you aware of what you're doing right now? This is... a collar, the kind you'd put on a beast, is it not?"
"S-so what? It's something I only show you..."
At my answer, he gave a low laugh.
"Is that so? Then I suppose I'll have to live up to your expectations. Won't I?"
All traces of tenderness gone, he yanked the chain I'd handed him with a rough tug, his voice dropping low and cold.
Clack—!
A sharp metallic sound, and my vision was forced upward. As I choked and gagged under the rough treatment, his face slowly drew closer.
And when we were close enough that I could hear each other's breath—
"Eeeek!"
With a crashing clatter, I rolled off the bed and jolted awake.
I was drenched head to toe in cold sweat, and my sweat-soaked silver hair clung to my face like a spiderweb, slick and revolting. Even awake, the afterimage of the dream clung to me tenaciously, churning my stomach.
"Ugh... hah."
Rising nausea made me clap a hand over my mouth on reflex. I pulled up my holy power to settle my churning gut, then felt along my neck. What my fingers found wasn't the texture of leather, just smooth, soft skin.
Only then did a thin sigh of relief escape me.
"...Shit's been completely fucked up lately, for real."
I didn't even have the strength to climb back into bed, so I just sprawled on the floor and spat curses at the ceiling.
It's true I'd had dreams before now—dreams where I went on sweet little dates with some man.
Fine. Whatever.
God, I hated it too, but this body of mine was a woman now, and human beings are basically slaves to their hormones. A date? I could concede that. A hundred times—no, fine, a thousand times—I could let it slide.
"But what in the actual hell was THAT dream?!"
It felt like my brain was boiling over with pure rage.
The most horrifying part was the setting: that dream had taken place in my own room at the church.
In that familiar scenery, I had been lying on the bed without a single stitch of clothing. The body glimpsed from above was covered in vivid, mottled marks of abuse. There was no other way to explain them.
Part of me wondered—could I really have lain there and let something like that happen? But what was even harder to believe was my own reaction to the man who'd clearly been the one to do it. I'd fastened the collar around my own neck, hadn't I? And then reverently offered him the end of the chain.
"B-because you're my master...."
Remembering that nightmarishly sweet, breathy voice that had poured out of my mouth made gooseflesh race across my entire body.
"Huurgh... fucking disgusting."
My eyes were clearly rotted straight through. I must have been snorting drugs, or been tortured so badly my mind had broken. Something. Anything.
"And that at the end—I was clearly trying to... t-to kiss him. Wasn't I."
What is a kiss between a man and a woman?
It's a sacred, final rite—partners who have sworn to share their lives exchanging it before a hall full of guests, beneath the blessing of God.
And yet I'd not only handed my own bed over to some man whose name I didn't even know, I'd been about to offer up my lips on top of it.
Thank the Goddess I woke before our mouths touched. Otherwise my soul would have borne a wound nothing could ever wash clean.
Yes. That was no ordinary nightmare.
It was a foul dream that shook my identity as a man—and my morality as a human being—down to its very foundations.
But at that moment, one fact I desperately never wanted to remember flashed through my head.
The dreams of a Saintess are precognitive.
The power to foresee a future that will one day come to pass—granted to Saintesses alone.
"...Oh, fuck right off."
I shook my head and shoved the thought away. Precognitive dreams showed possibilities, not fixed futures—and they could be twisted as much as I liked. I'd bent plenty of them already.
Keeping that particular future from coming to pass was simple. If any bastard tried anything with me, whoever he was, I'd split his skull down the middle and be done with it.
Short of me going insane and offering up my own body on a silver platter, there was no way that prophecy would ever come true.
Thinking it through like that, I actually felt a little lighter.
The real problem right now was that, thanks to this goddamn dream, I hadn't slept properly in over a week.
The moment I so much as dozed off, that bastard's dream came creeping back. Screaming myself awake had long since stopped being an occasional horror and become a routine.
A week of forced insomnia left my body heavy as if wading through a swamp, my mind hazy as if still wandering that dreamscape. Even suppressing the fatigue with holy power was starting to hit its limit.
I was staring blankly at the ceiling, blinking slow and stupid, when the commotion outside grew louder—and I slowly pushed myself upright.
"We're under attack! A monster attack! Everyone, form up on the encampment and prepare!"
A monster attack?
We were at the far outer edge of the Demon Realm. This was terrain where only a handful of low-grade monsters ever crawled out. Hardly the kind of thing a unit of holy knights should be raising this much fuss over.
Just as I was about to lie back down, the composition of the expedition flickered through my head.
...Right. We came out here to the outer edge to give the squire knights some field experience.
How had I not remembered that immediately? Was sleep deprivation really scrambling me this badly?
To fully-fledged holy knights, the monsters roaming the Demon Realm's outskirts were barely more than toys—but to squires, they were a genuine threat.
Vice-Commander Leonid was on hand, but I figured me lending a hand would settle things faster.
"...No need for the Holy Robe, I suppose."
I had zero desire to put on the Holy Robe just to deal with gutter trash at the Demon Realm's edge. Forget performance—the robe's design was a scrap of cloth so steeped in our Goddess's perverted tastes that calling it clothing was generous.
...And I had absolutely no intention of parading around in front of the squires as their morning eyecandy.
Letting out a light sigh, I threw a knight's coat over the simple clothes I'd slept in, then picked up the divine spear Astra, standing beside the bed.
The cold weight of the steel met my palm, and the foggy haze clouding my mind seemed to clear just a little.
I threw back the tent flap. Along with the faint dawn light, the uniquely foul stench of monsters hit the tip of my nose like a slap.
"Situation report."
I snagged the back of a squire knight's collar as he sprinted past, frantically shouting the alarm, and murmured the words low.
"S-Saintess? Th-that is...! What happened was... I was, I was standing watch, and suddenly there was fog, no, this sound, and—"
Words spilling out with no order to them. A face drained pale blue.
Had the monster attack actually sent him into a panic?
As if. Squire or not, these weren't the kind of men who'd panic over monsters from the outskirts.
Only then did I realize that my week of sleeplessness was leaking killing intent off my body like smoke.
I quickly reined it in, then fed a thread of holy power into the squire's body to force him calm.
"Hey. Sorry. Scared you, huh? You're fine now. Give me the situation, short version."
"Ghh... a massive horde of monsters attacked out of nowhere. The knights on watch responded immediately, and the ones resting in camp are joining them now."
"Good. That's all I need."
The moment I moved to leave, the squire stepped in front of me.
"Saintess! You look terrible, and with all due respect, this is a matter for us—please, rest, and—"
The squire barring my path had nothing but genuine worry written across his face. The unexpected consideration wrung a hollow laugh out of me.
...A green little squire is worried about ME? Do I really look that much of a wreck?
Well, fair enough. A week without proper sleep would do that.
But there was more layered into his concern than that.
The Silver Holy Spear.
The epithet the world knew me by was the product of three things braided together: my battlefield record in the Demon Realm, my genuine martial prowess, and a very careful publicity strategy from the church's upper echelons.
The image of a noble, unyielding Saintess fighting at the very front was tailor-made for inflaming the faithful's devotion and wringing donations out of them.
People in the know understood the church's strategy well enough, which was why more than a few outsiders—and even some fresh squires—dismissed my epithet as mere image-making.
If they'd seen me fight monsters even once, or watched me pound fully-fledged holy knights into dust on the training field, not a single one of them would've said that.
I gave the divine spear Astra a lazy twirl and rested it across my shoulder. The squire flinched at the sight of a weapon that heavy treated like a toy.
"Hey."
"...Yes?"
"...Yeees? Oh? What's your name, kid?"
"E-Eric, ma'am."
Eric, huh. What a distinctive name. Once you make full knight, I'm going to lavish all kinds of tender care on you in sparring. A big frame like that means plenty of places to hit, too. The thought pulled a grin out of me all on its own.
"Right then. E-Eric. Don't go worrying about things that aren't your problem. If there are any lazy bastards still sprawled asleep out there, kick their asses awake."
He'd read some indescribable menace in my smile—his face went bone white. I gave his shoulder a pat and bolted straight for the battlefield.
Once I'd butchered a few dozen monsters, maybe my sunken mood would lift a little.
Sorry, boys. You're about to become my stress relief.
Gripping the divine spear Astra tight, I stepped toward the stench of filth rolling off the monsters.