Chapter 11
Chapter 11
The Hero Candidate, Cassian
My brief trip to the divine realm had been beneficial, but it also left behind a small dissatisfaction in the corner of my heart.
Sure, the unknown curse Lilith had planted on my body was removed, but in exchange, I had learned the uncomfortable truth behind the sacred vestments.
The Goddess herself wrapped up her body tightly because she was embarrassed, yet insisted on forcing me to wear this humiliating design, huh?
Would it be blasphemous to say she reminded me of gamers grinning like idiots while dressing female characters in outrageous outfits?
…But honestly, the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t come up with a better comparison.
“Seriously, would it hurt if I punched her just once?”
Of course, if I actually did that, instead of seeing shooting stars, I’d probably witness the entire Milky Way exploding before my eyes, so I decided against it.
Anyway, if I had to describe how I felt right now…
It was like my faith had taken critical damage.
‘Wait… my divine power didn’t decrease or anything, right?’
Divine power was based on faith. Slightly anxious, I inspected my condition, but thankfully the total amount of divine power inside me hadn’t decreased.
Right as I let out a sigh of relief—
A brutal chill suddenly stabbed through my skin.
“Ughhh… ah-choo!”
Only after sneezing did I realize I was submerged in freezing cold water.
“Water? Not holy water?”
This bath had definitely been filled with holy water. Had it all turned into regular water or something?
Holy water was made by high-ranking priests blessing clean water over a long period of time.
I wasn’t completely sure, but perhaps if the divine power was extracted from holy water, it simply reverted back into ordinary water again. Just like how the Goddess described curse removal as reverse calculation.
If all the divine power within the holy water had been consumed while removing the curse after my visit to the divine realm…
Then it explained why I was currently sitting in plain water.
“Ughhh… s-so cold…”
And not just any water. Horribly clean, horribly freezing water.
Turning my stiff neck, I noticed the incense burner had already gone out.
Grandpa had told me to stay submerged until the incense finished burning, so I could leave now, right?
Shiver shiver shiver—
Trembling hard enough to remind me of unpleasant memories from my days as a street punk, I forced myself upright.
But after being left in freezing water while practically in suspended animation, my body refused to move properly.
My knees buckled helplessly, and the soles of my feet slid across the slick floor as my body launched backward into the air.
“Uh?”
Losing my balance completely, I flailed desperately for something to grab, but my hand only sliced through empty air.
Splash!
I plunged right back into the freezing water.
The bath wasn’t even that deep. The water only reached around my waist.
But in my weakened state, it might as well have been the open ocean.
I desperately thrashed around, but between my lack of strength and the freezing water draining what little remained, I couldn’t lift myself back up.
‘W-wait… if this keeps up, I’m actually gonna die…!’
Right as I was experiencing a life-threatening crisis inside a bathhouse instead of the demon realm—
Creeeak—
The tightly shut door slowly opened.
The one peeking through the gap was Mary.
‘I’m saved!’
Internally cheering, I frantically waved my arms.
Our eyes met.
But instead of alarm, her eyes were filled with warm affection, like she was watching an adorable puppy.
“Saintess? Are you playing in the water? I guess I interrupted you.”
No! I’m drowning! Save me!
“Sa-brrbl-glub-gweh!”
I tried to say that, but water kept pouring into my mouth, so only horrifying nonsense noises escaped instead.
Apparently, my desperate clawing at the floor looked to Mary like playful splashing.
Instead of panicking, she leaned against the doorway with a fond smile.
“Hehe, so you do have a cute side too, Saintess. Are you having fun?”
I’m not having fun! I’m dying!
Using the last of my strength, I stretched one arm toward the surface in a desperate rescue signal.
Mary interpreted it as a cheerful greeting.
With a shy smile, she waved back.
“I’m happy seeing you enjoy yourself too! Are you going to play a little longer?”
No. I absolutely refused to die here and have Mary’s warm smile become my last memory.
I tried to do something—anything—but strength rapidly drained from my body.
In the end, blowing out a final stream of bubbles, I slowly sank toward the bottom of the bath.
Goddess.
I’m coming to see you now.
Right as consciousness faded away—
“Saintess!”
Mary grabbed me and hauled my body out of the freezing water.
“Gah! Cough! Ptui! Haa… haa…”
Dragged outside the bath, I collapsed onto the floor and coughed water out violently.
“A-are you okay?!”
“Blegh… cough… I-I’m fine. Though I think I would’ve been even finer if you rescued me a bit earlier.”
I grumbled reflexively.
Then, instinctively seeking warmth, I buried myself against Mary.
“I’m sorry. I thought you were joking around.”
“Huaaah… i-it’s fine. If you hadn’t saved me, they’d have found my corpse floating in the bathhouse.”
Cold.
My entire body shook uncontrollably, my head burned with fever, and I couldn’t gather any strength.
Was this the side effect the Goddess mentioned from visiting the divine realm?
In my current state, I felt like I’d struggle to beat an ant in a fight.
My win rate would probably be… fifty-fifty.
More importantly—
I was freezing.
“S-so cold… I feel like I’m gonna freeze to death…”
Mary quickly brought towels, dried me off thoroughly, then wrapped me in a huge blanket.
“Honestly, if someone said there was an earthquake, I’d believe them.”
Watching me shiver violently, Mary looked genuinely worried and hugged me tighter.
“Your body feels like ice.”
“Y-you should’ve warmed the water… it’s still February…”
“I wanted to, but they told me absolutely not to enter the inner chamber. The door was sealed anyway, so I couldn’t even get inside.”
“R-right…? Y-yeah… probably better you didn’t come in. That’s good.”
The Goddess said they had removed the unknown curse while my soul visited the divine realm.
Sealing the room so nobody could enter was probably for both my safety and everyone else’s.
Then, suddenly, I remembered something I’d completely forgotten.
The hero candidate had arrived at the Order.
“Hnghh… right… the h-hero candidate… that bastard… came… right…?”
I’d basically vanished for an entire week.
If he’d done anything during that time, it’d be a problem.
Sure, with Grandpa, Archbishop Bartolomew, the Commander, and Leonid around, it was hard to imagine him pulling anything off…
But still. You never knew.
“Oh, that? I only heard about it secondhand, but apparently the Order arranged lodging outside the temple and told him to wait until preparations were complete. Since welcoming the hero candidate without the Saintess present wouldn’t really work.”
“S-seriously…? Good. Then bring him here right now… I’ll split his skull open…”
“Honestly, what are you even planning to do when you can barely walk? I think you’d lose even against me right now.”
“I-I can…! Look! Astra…!”
Trying to prove I was still healthy and powerful, I attempted to summon Astra.
But instead of the spear appearing, only crackling sparks burst from my fingertips.
“Hnghh… w-what’s wrong with it? A-Astra! Astra!”
The divine power inside my body refused to move properly.
Getting stubborn, I forcibly drove my divine power harder.
“Astra!”
The moment I shouted—
The previously sluggish divine power exploded through my body like a violent storm.
A flash of agony tore through me.
And then I blacked out.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back in my bed.
Apparently, the Goddess hadn’t been exaggerating about the aftereffects.
I spent days suffering from horrific fever and body aches.
The unprecedented incident of the Saintess collapsing from illness threw the entire Eris Order into chaos.
Technically it wasn’t a cold, but the aftereffects of a human soul visiting the divine realm.
Still, we obviously couldn’t announce that publicly, so it was officially explained away as sickness.
I lay sprawled across my bed, breathing raggedly while enduring hell under Mary’s care.
And as a bonus, I got endlessly scolded for recklessly using divine power in such terrible condition.
Maybe because my reputation in the Order was decent.
Or because of my position.
Or both.
But a lot of people came to visit me.
“The sight of the Saintess bedridden pains my heart.”
The first visitor was Grandpa Pope.
“Huaah… Grandpa… I think I’m dying…”
Between the aftereffects of visiting the divine realm and the internal damage from forcibly using divine power in terrible condition, I genuinely felt close to death.
“Hahaha, since these are aftereffects from visiting the divine realm, there’s no need to worry. Once you recover, your body will become incomparably stronger than before. All the impure energy inside you is being purged, making your body far more suitable for channeling divine power.”
Ah. So basically some martial arts novel rebirth-through-suffering thing.
Still, that didn’t make me feel any better right now.
“Sounds nice and all… but Grandpa, you really could’ve warned me that this ‘bath’ would launch my soul straight into the divine realm.”
“Hahaha, if I had told you beforehand, wouldn’t you have refused?”
“……”
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Grandpa really knew me too well.
“And if I told you there was a chance you’d become brain-dead, then suffer like you were dying afterward, where would the fun be?”
“…Grandpa?”
You were this kind of person?
I stared at him in disbelief.
“For reference, my predecessor never told me either.”
“……”
What a rotten tradition.
This is injustice!
I’m definitely abolishing this once I’m in charge!
…Thoughts any Korean military veteran would probably have at least once.
Grandpa Pope left shortly afterward.
He was already busy to begin with, and the arrival of the hero candidate made things even busier.
The next visitor was Leonid.
“Woooow~ So even you can catch a cold, huh, noona? Learned something new today.”
“……”
“But seriously, seeing you this sick kinda hurts to watch. Get better soon.”
“Thanks, Leonid.”
He was a bit of a punk, but Leonid had always been like that.
And despite his tone, his concern felt sincere, so I thanked him.
“Still, seeing you lying here quietly really makes you look like a proper Saintess for once.”
“…So I didn’t before?”
“Think about it. You beat the knights senseless at the training grounds, butcher demonic beasts like meat with your spear, and grin happily while drenched in blood. Who’d look at that and think ‘Saintess’? ‘Blood-crazed witch’ fits better.”
“Hey. Once I recover, meet me at the training grounds.”
Leonid, who’d been cackling while teasing my bedridden self, instantly turned pale.
Then after thinking for a moment…
“How about we spar right now? Even I could probably beat you in your current cond—”
“What exactly are you saying to a sick patient, Leonid?!”
“Gah! Ow! That hurts! Mary! It hurts!”
“You’re supposed to be hurting!”
After getting smacked repeatedly by Mary for talking nonsense, he was chased out.
Then came old man Bartolomew.
“Excellent.”
After silently examining my pale complexion while slicing an apple with crisp scraping sounds, he suddenly spoke.
“It sounds like you’re saying me being bedridden is excellent, old man.”
“That is correct.”
“?”
Excuse me?
“Though you’re probably too delirious to realize it, please remember this exact posture.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I mean you should always behave like this.”
“……”
“The frail appearance. The calm attitude. The soft voice. Since the day I met you, this is the first time you’ve actually resembled a Saintess.”
“……”
After giving me another lecture about my conduct, the old man wished for my recovery and left.
Still, compared to usual, his lecture had been much shorter.
So maybe he really was worried about me.
…Probably.
Finally, Commander Vargas visited.
“…Unbelievable.”
“Hm? What is?”
“I never imagined a quiet version of the Saintess could actually exist.”
“……”
The stoic, rigid Commander Vargas only said that much before silently helping care for me and leaving.
And after he departed, I found myself seriously wondering:
What exactly was my reputation inside this Order?
I thought I’d lived pretty well.
Anyway, after nearly a full week of suffering in bed, I finally recovered enough to stand again.
“Waaah, you’re really okay now?”
Seeing me get out of bed for the first time in a week, Mary clasped her hands together emotionally.
“Yeah, I’m finally feeling human again. Seriously thought I was gonna die.”
I answered while staring at my reflection in the mirror.
After barely eating for a week, I’d lost a little weight and looked noticeably haggard.
I still felt weak and feverish, and my stomach could only handle thin soup, but at least I could move again.
“It’s tomorrow, right? The examination ceremony for that hero candidate.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Apparently they couldn’t delay the examination any longer, so it had been scheduled for tomorrow.
Outside the window, darkness had already fallen.
There wasn’t even a full day left before the ceremony.
I needed to restore my condition as much as possible before then.
And while I was at it, gather information about him too.
“Mary.”
“Yes?”
“Do you know anything about that guy? Like where he’s from, what his name is… stuff like that.”
“Ahh, I guess you wouldn’t know, Saintess?”
I silently nodded.
There was a chance it might not be Cassian after all.
The Order’s actions had already changed significantly from the original story, so the hero candidate could’ve changed too.
“Black hair, red eyes, apparently a former mercenary… and they say he’s unbelievably handsome!”
“…Leave out the useless information at the end. Name and birthplace.”
“His name’s Cassian, and he’s from Kinosa, the capital of the orphan kingdom. He’s a commoner, so he doesn’t have a surname.”
“I see.”
Yeah.
So that part hadn’t changed after all.
Still, it didn’t matter.
To prevent the future where demons destroyed everything like in the original story—
This was simply one mountain I needed to overcome.
“For now, I should stop doing pointless things and just sleep.”
My body itched to move, but I endured it and flopped back onto the bed.
Recovering my condition came first.
More important than nervously staying awake all night or swinging my spear around once or twice.
“I’m going to sleep. Wake me up on time tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, Saintess.”
Listening to Mary’s reply, I closed my eyes.
Thankfully, I didn’t have any nightmares tonight.