Ta-da~ There Is No Absolute in This World (1)
Ta-da~ There really is no such thing as absolute in this world.
SHOCKING! Magi Erupts in the Adventurers’ Union Territory of Minoris!
Cause: Dungeon Rampage. Saintess Candidate on Pilgrimage Saves Minoris!
Who Is the Youngest Saintess Candidate in History, Levia Leviathan…?
Clues to Dungeon Creation Revealed…
“What the actual fuck!”
I hurled the newspapers I’d been reading onto the floor. Why? Just why did they have to drop this bomb on me out of nowhere? The plan had been perfect. But reality is always incomplete.
The grave keeper’s disappearance was supposed to trigger a dungeon rampage, but that never happened. Everything ran perfectly fine. If anything, once the supply of magi that had been provided for purification purposes was cut off, the dungeons began absorbing mana on their own to survive. As a result, they started spitting out new byproducts, kicking off a second golden age. The Alchemy Hero Eric’s follow-up measures had shone brightly. He had prepared for the day when the grave keeper was destroyed or successfully completed its duty and purified all the magi. It really drove home the fact that becoming a Hero wasn’t for nothing, and that the people of this world didn’t worship Heroes for no reason.
And I should have realized one more thing. The moment I learned the dungeons hadn’t gone on a rampage, I should have run.
“Goddammit.”
“Please watch your language, Levia.”
“Shut up, Dad.”
“Hehe.”
“Don’t laugh.”
“But I’m so very happy. According to the original plan, I thought the pilgrimage would take about a year, yet it ended in only six months. This was truly unexpected.”
“When did I ever go on a pilgrimage!”
That’s right. Thanks to my adoptive father Benedict’s information manipulation and media control, my running away had been rewritten into a secret pilgrimage. Because of that, in Minoris I had become the hero who had foreseen the near-destruction of the land, lain in wait, and then popped out at the critical moment with a ta-da! to save the day.
While the other Saintess candidates went to poor regions with difficult living conditions, putting on shows of healing and handshakes like politicians, people had begun to praise me for operating on a completely different scale. They claimed I was the one who truly deserved to be the Saintess.
No! Stop calling it a show! The other candidates must have been sincere too! Don’t you dare belittle their sincerity!
“F-fate…! Ehehe… ehehehe…”
Mint, sweetie, don’t look so happy when my father-in-law(?) says something like that. You’re going to cause misunderstandings. Like the misunderstanding that he sees me as a potential romantic partner or something.
…Wait, does he?
I sighed as I watched Benedict gaze at Mint with warm affection.
“You knew everything, didn’t you?”
“Whatever do you mean, Levia?”
“That both I and this kid are reincarnators.”
“Yes.”
He answered more readily than I expected.
“Did ‘that man’ tell you?”
“I think I know who you’re referring to, but it wasn’t him.”
“Sigh… Then did you already know about my current appearance through some other method?”
After the battle that day, my body had grown at an explosive rate. It was as if all the growth that had been suppressed until now was being released at once. My body changed noticeably by the day. Though I still seemed a little short in height, the curves of my figure had fully developed. I now had the body of someone who had completely finished puberty.
Benedict had come to retrieve me under the pretext of wanting to congratulate me for resolving the incident in Minoris. Under normal circumstances, he should have greeted me with something like “You’ve grown so tall” or “What triggered such rapid growth?” But when he saw me, the atmosphere around him was one of relief, and the way he looked at me… I couldn’t quite understand it.
If I had to put the feeling into words, it was like… This is truly your real appearance…? You’ve finally found yourself? That kind of vibe.
“It was difficult to lie to you before, but now it’s even harder to do so in front of the current Levia. Yes, I already knew.”
Once again, Benedict answered without hesitation.
“Even about the ‘thing’ deep inside you.”
“This might be sudden, but what exactly are you, Father? You’re incredibly suspicious.”
What Benedict meant was that he knew about the magi inside me.
…Now that I thought about it, maybe he wasn’t in his right mind? To nominate me as a Saintess candidate while knowing I harbored magi…?
“Hmm… You will learn about me sooner than you think. And…”
Benedict wore an incredibly bright smile, as if he felt refreshed from opening up some of the secrets he had kept tightly locked away, or perhaps because he was happy to see my grown appearance. However, the words that came out of his mouth were anything but bright.
“The reason you, Gu Gyumyung, were reincarnated as well.”
“Are you really going to do this?” Mint asked me worriedly.
“Yeah.”
“After hating it so much?”
“It’s not officially decided yet, right?”
“Looking at the current situation, isn’t it basically decided?”
“I have a plan.”
“Have any of your plans ever succeeded before?”
“…”
H-hey! Stop unfairly stabbing me with facts like that, Mint Wind von Chocola!!
“But listen to this, Lady Chocola.”
“Don’t call me by my last name, it’s cringey.”
“Then, My Lady.”
“Officially, I’m the groom, remember?”
That statement is pretty dangerous and bold, Mint. Weren’t you the one who hated this engagement? Why have you been acting like this lately? With that “it can’t be helped” or “since we’ve come this far, maybe we should just go through with it” kind of accepting attitude.
“Anyway, just listen.”
“Okay.”
“The Saintess candidates are nominated by the cardinals.”
“I just heard about that recently.”
“But the ones who play the decisive role in becoming the actual Saintess aren’t the Pope or the cardinals.”
“Oh?”
“This is the key point. To become the Saintess, the Hero has to choose me. So I just need to make sure I don’t get chosen!”
“And that… is your plan to stop running away, stop trying to escape, and remain as a Saintess candidate?”
“Exactly!”
“No matter how I look at it, Levia, it seems like when your body became that of a child, your brain did too. That’s an incredibly sloppy plan.”
“Child?! That’s harsh! We’re both reincarnators!”
“Your body might have grown, but you’re still only thirteen! You were a little kid until recently!”
“Ha?! You’re the one with the smaller chest, yet you’re acting all high and mighty?”
“Kyaaak! What did you just say?! I’m still growing, you know!”
“By the time you finish, I’ll be even bigger.”
“Come here! Let’s settle this today!”
“Bring it! Bring it on! I’ll teach you who’s on top once and for all!”
Mint and I pressed our foreheads together and grabbed each other’s collars. In this world or on Earth, when women fight, they usually go for the hair. But we were different. My body was female but my soul was male, while Mint’s soul was female but her flat chest made her no different from a guy. Above all, superior women(?) don’t grab hair. They grab collars. The evidence is me. If you refute this, it proves my point.
“You two, the carriage is shaking, so please stop… ugh…”
“Huk…! Master! Please grab my collar too!”
Noah, who was suffering from motion sickness, and Skadi, whose face was flushed with excitement, tried to stop us as we bickered.
In the end, I had been dragged back by Benedict to resume my position as a Saintess candidate. Half of it was against my will, and half was my own choice. After Benedict had finished untying the last bundle of secrets by revealing that he knew my previous life’s name, he wouldn’t say anything more. So when he said I would find out “sooner than I think,” I decided to return and see for myself exactly when that would be.
Several other factors had influenced my decision. The biggest one was that I could no longer use magic tools for disguise. Because traveling with Mint had drawn even more attention, I hadn’t just dyed my hair; I had also asked Noah to cast a recognition-dampening spell. However, after my body grew, neither magic tools nor magic worked on me anymore. According to Noah’s analysis, my body itself had gained magic resistance. He said that except for magic that involved physical force, most spells didn’t work on me.
As he explained this, Noah’s eyes sparkled with such excitement that a cold sweat ran down my back. Despite his timid and frail appearance, at his core he was a mage. I finally understood what it meant to be obsessively fixated on research.
At first glance our party seemed well-balanced, but in reality we had two tanks. We were currently heading toward the Pope’s palace in the heart of the Holy Empire of Eliac’s capital.
The Entat Parish no longer existed. At the moment Benedict had come to capture me, Eliac had made an official announcement.
With the distinguished service of the 13th Saintess Candidate, Levia Leviathan, the threat of the magic beasts has been completely eliminated.
Therefore, His Holiness the Pope is greatly pleased and hereby announces the official dissolution of the Entat Parish, which had been established as a blemish upon the previous Pope’s record.
It wasn’t a false statement, but it left a bitter aftertaste. It was true that by releasing Behemoth, I had essentially eliminated the threat of the magic beasts entirely. But the Saint Front Knights had also been disbanded. Carlo wouldn’t have any problems since he was an archbishop, but what would happen to the knights?
The order they had belonged to for years had been dissolved overnight by order from above. Maybe I should ask the Pope to look after them. Since he had summoned me to praise my contributions, he would probably grant at least that much. Those uncles had joined the Saint Front Knights due to various unfortunate circumstances. If they were scattered to different orders, it wouldn’t end well. Since Carlo and I had personally trained them, they probably wouldn’t get beaten up anywhere, but violence isn’t a word used only for physical attacks.
I couldn’t bear to see or hear about them in such a state. Even if I had to tear the entire Pope’s palace apart, if the Pope or whoever refused my request, that day would become the Pope’s memorial day.
…There was a time when I thought that way.
The Pope’s memorial day? How preposterous! I never thought anything like that! I swear I never had such thoughts!
“…Say that again. What did you just say?”
After arriving at the Pope’s palace after more than a month of travel, the Pope I finally had an audience with asked me that question.
Black hair and black eyes. The previous Saintess. The one who came from Earth. The woman who had smashed the previous Pope’s head and seized the papal throne by force. It was our first meeting, yet it wasn’t. To be precise, it was the first meeting in this body, but this soul knew exactly who she was. She looked much younger than I remembered, but there was no mistake. The memories engraved in my soul screamed that it was her. Even the sensors that had been lazily doing nothing for so long were excitedly confirming the answer.
The woman called the Pope was someone incredibly precious to me. She was one of the people who had raised me in my previous life. And… she was someone who had gone missing.
“You heard me. Mom.”
She was my mother from my previous life.
“Why are you here, Mom?”