Chapter 15
Chapter 15
“Pick up your weapon. Let’s fight.”
It had already been three days since I smashed Kassion’s head into the marble floor.
The aftereffects from visiting the Divine Realm had completely faded by now.
Maybe because all the murky energy and impurities inside my body had been flushed out, my body felt far lighter than before.
On top of that, the curse Lilith had placed on me was gone, meaning I was free from one more possible threat. Just the thought that I probably wouldn’t suffer those damned nightmares anymore even if I went into the Demonic Realm made my heart feel light as a feather.
And while the total amount of divine power I possessed hadn’t increased, there was a noticeable improvement in efficiency and output.
That alone was satisfying enough, yet I had even managed to half-cave in the face of Kassion, the first major obstacle I was supposed to overcome.
Truly, these were peaceful and beautiful days.
Well, they would have been, if not for one piece of infuriating news that made me want to clutch the back of my neck.
“No, old man! Why? Why the hell?!”
The moment I heard the terrible news, I rushed straight to the archbishop’s office and slammed both hands onto the desk while glaring at old man Bartholomew.
The teacup on the desk rattled loudly from the impact, spilling freshly brewed tea all over the surface.
“Saintess, please mind your dignity. The matter has already been decided.”
The old man frowned like his ears hurt and calmly wiped the spilled tea away with a handkerchief as he spoke.
“I told you that bastard isn’t a Hero Candidate, he’s someone colluding with demons! Then why aren’t you throwing him out?! Didn’t you see the demonic energy leaking out of him? Huh? The moment I shoved divine power into him to check, he reacted in pain!”
“I admit the scene was suspicious enough. However, a decision once made cannot be changed so easily.”
Even with me practically shouting in frustration, the old man remained firm.
“Did you investigate him?”
“Yes. I personally examined him this morning. There was a small amount of residual demonic energy left behind. But in the end, we concluded it could simply be contamination from prolonged exposure to the Demonic Realm.”
“Isn’t that way too much for simple contamination? I mean the demonic energy pouring out of him during the combat test.”
Right. If even the old man, who specialized in purification and curse removal, said that, then it was probably true.
Still, if that much demonic energy had really accumulated inside his body, it was a miracle he was even alive, Hero body or not.
There had to be something the old man couldn’t detect. Like how Lilith had messed with my body, maybe she had done something to Kassion too.
“You are correct. It was an abnormal amount of demonic energy. It is entirely possible he received power through dealings with demons, or that a curse caused the demonic energy to accumulate within him. Your suspicions are perfectly reasonable.”
“Right?! See, old man? Now you’re finally making sense.”
Looks like the old man’s thoughts weren’t that different from mine after all.
...Hm?
Wait, didn’t he phrase that strangely just now?
“Huh? Old man, did you just say ‘could have accumulated’?”
“Yes. That is correct.”
“Then that means you’re not certain.”
“That is also correct.”
The old man took a sip of tea before answering.
“Why?”
“Because you quite literally pulverized the Hero Candidate, Saintess. Curse or evidence of collusion alike, if you smash someone that thoroughly, naturally there won’t be any traces left behind.”
According to him, I had personally destroyed the evidence like the biggest idiot in existence.
I opened and closed my mouth a few times, unable to say anything.
“If you were suspicious, you should have acted more carefully. You erased every trace yourself, then demanded evidence afterward.”
“...Fine. Let’s say you’re right about that. But did you not see his attitude? You didn’t like the little shi— I mean, that guy either, did you?”
After thinking hard, the only thing I could bring up was his attitude. No matter how you looked at it, he was rotten to the core from the start. Completely unfit for the position of Hero.
“Of course I disliked him. He was utterly lacking in manners.”
“Exactly! That delinquent, vulgar, shallow idiot who spits out nonsense and talks like trash and—”
That was when it happened.
As I happily continued roasting Kassion, the old man’s gaze gradually became stranger and stranger.
“Why are you looking at me like that, old man?”
I tilted my head and looked back at him.
“...Nothing. Though now that I think about it, perhaps he is the perfect Hero for you after all.”
“What? Even you saying something like that is crossing the line. Explain yourself immediately.”
“Birds of a feather flock together, do they not? Perhaps you should reflect upon your own behavior for a moment.”
Excuse me? What did I ever do?
An alarming number of memories flashed through my mind for a moment, but I immediately shoved them deep into the corner of my consciousness.
“His conduct is undeniably problematic. However, His Holiness has decided to observe him a little longer.”
“...Damn it.”
“And Hero Candidates are not so easily discarded. You know this as well, do you not?”
“Well... yeah.”
Just like Saintesses with prophetic dream powers, Heroes born with overwhelming physical talent and power were irreplaceable resources.
Heroes were destined to fight monsters and demons, and eventually slay Archdemons themselves.
As symbols of strength and hope, Heroes often held even greater influence among the people than Saintesses.
No matter how terrible Kassion was as a human being, from the Church’s perspective, it made sense to try and salvage him somehow.
And on top of that, Grandfather Pope himself had granted Kassion a probationary period.
Realistically, there was nothing I could do.
...But Kassion was dangerous.
Thinking about what that bastard did in the original story, symbolism and public image didn’t matter at all. If I stormed into the recovery room right now and cut his head off, I’d still be justified.
“A word of warning, Saintess. Do not entertain strange thoughts.”
“...I’m not.”
“You have the exact expression you always make before causing trouble.”
“I said I’m not. I can think things through too, you know.”
At this point, I couldn’t personally harm Kassion anymore.
If I did, it would basically mean the Saintess openly rebelling against the Pope.
In other words, the second highest authority in the Church rebelling against the highest authority. Over a matter as significant as the Hero Candidate, no less.
And then our Church would probably fall apart in a completely different way. Causing internal chaos while Kassion remained inside the Church was absolutely not a good choice.
The best I could realistically do was maybe shove him into dangerous situations and hope he got himself killed, or bully him until he left voluntarily.
But honestly, those methods really weren’t my style.
...Hm?
Wait a second.
That means there actually is a method, isn’t there?
A trump card only a Saintess could use.
“Old man. I had a dream.”
The moment I began, the old man slowly set his teacup down and stared at me.
“You mean a prophetic dream?”
“Yeah. And in that dream, this bastard destroys our Church... Um, because of him, the Church gets completely fu— I mean, utterly ruined.”
“How many times must I tell you to stop using vulgar language? And your lies are painfully obvious.”
I flinched at the old man’s firm tone.
No, but it’s true. Sure, I didn’t literally dream it myself, but I knew the future through the ‘original story,’ so didn’t that basically count as prophecy?
“And if you truly had such a prophetic dream, Saintess, you would have spoken of it immediately.”
“...I had the dream today.”
At my awkward excuse, the old man’s gaze drifted toward the clock hanging on the wall.
“And what time is it now? Ah, three in the afternoon. Your coughing fit occurred at six in the morning, meaning you spent nine entire hours without mentioning this dream. Furthermore, given your personality, you would have stormed into the healing ward and caused havoc the instant you woke up.”
“......”
Damn it. Sharp and terrifying as always.
I didn’t have anything left to say, and pretending I’d seen a prophetic dream was honestly starting to stab at my conscience, so I ended up sulking my way out of the archbishop’s office.
“Ugh, this is so annoying.”
I clicked my tongue as I walked down the hallway.
Just moments ago I’d felt like I was soaring through the heavens, and now I felt dumped straight into the gutter.
Still, maybe this was actually for the best.
I know I’ve repeated this enough to wear holes in everyone’s ears, but Kassion is a dangerous bastard with no telling what he might do.
Rather than expelling him and letting him scheme freely outside, it might actually be safer to keep him inside where we could watch him.
And I was still keeping my guard up around him, after all.
But what if Kassion tried something while inside the Church? What if I had no way to counter it?
“...Eh, whatever.”
These kinds of headaches didn’t suit me anyway.
I’d just deal with things as they came.
For today, making the old man more cautious was enough.
I’d go talk to Grandfather Pope later too.
Besides, Kassion would need time to recover, so there was still plenty of time left.
Shaking off my foul mood, I headed toward the training grounds with light steps once more.
I’d promised to spar with Leonid today.
And judging by how excited he’d looked about fighting me, maybe he’d already arrived and was waiting.
With that hopeful thought in mind, I reached the training grounds.
But Leonid was nowhere to be seen.
“Hey! Leonid! You remember saying we’d meet in the training grounds once I recovered, right? Get your ass out here while I’m still asking nicely.”
After casually returning greetings from a few Holy Knights, I strode to the center of the arena and shouted at the top of my lungs.
The peaceful atmosphere instantly froze solid at my words.
The Holy Knights practicing with their weapons stopped mid-motion like statues, and a chilling silence descended over the entire training ground.
Leonid still didn’t appear.
The knights only glanced nervously at one another while keeping their mouths tightly shut.
“Oh? Well now. This is interesting.”
Watching their reactions, I slowly curled my lips into a grin.
Then I leisurely walked through the stiffly frozen knights.
At the edge of the arena sat a rack of training weapons, and from it I picked up a wooden staff.
In the dead silence, I could clearly hear several knights swallowing nervously.
“Where’s Leonid?”
I deliberately lowered my voice into a cold, ominous tone.
“S-Saintess. The vice-captain is... not feeling well right now, so he’s resting.”
“That’s right. He said he absolutely needed to rest today.”
They answered like badly programmed machines, voices stiff and awkward. The way they darted their eyes around while sweating buckets made it painfully obvious they were lying.
I chuckled softly and tapped the wooden staff against the ground.
“Heeeh... really? So that’s how it is? I never knew the knights of our Church were this loyal.”
I clapped slowly in mock admiration, and their faces turned even paler than paper.
Still, nobody answered.
Despite sweating like waterfalls and looking ready to faint, they were still trying to protect Leonid.
Honestly, it was touching.
In that case, shouldn’t I reward such admirable loyalty?
“Fine. We can’t drag out someone who’s sick. I’m not that unreasonable, right boys?”
“......”
“Answer me?”
At my icy prompting, a chaotic chorus of “That’s right!” and “Exactly!” burst out alongside frantic nodding.
“Good. Then you lot can spar with me instead of Leonid today. One at a time. Get over here.”
As I spun the wooden staff once and rested it on my shoulder while crooking my finger, the grim atmosphere instantly turned from a battlefield into a funeral hall.
The knights exchanged terrified glances before several of them suddenly broke formation with determined expressions and sprinted away.
Really, there’s nothing better than fear when it comes to controlling people.
Guessing exactly what was about to happen, I hummed cheerfully while stretching my body.
A short while later—
Accompanied by miserable screams, someone was dragged across the dirt floor of the training grounds.
“You traitorous bastards! Let go of me! This is mutiny!”
Naturally, the one being dragged through the dirt was Leonid.
The knights tossed him at my feet like fanatics offering up a sacrifice before immediately retreating.
“Y-you faithless cowards...!”
Leonid glared at the knights with eyes full of betrayal, but they were already looking at distant mountains or studying the dirt with absolute dedication.
“Maybe you should’ve built up some goodwill beforehand.”
“Urgh... how humiliating.”
Leonid trembled in rage.
I smiled brightly at him.
“Pick up your weapon. Let’s fight.”
To get accustomed to my newly strengthened body, there wasn’t a better sparring partner than Leonid.
Now then.
Time to test out this new body of mine.