Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Hero Candidate, Cassian

My brief visit to the divine realm had been useful, but it had also left a small seed of dissatisfaction in my heart.

The mysterious curse Lilith had placed on my body was gone, but I'd learned an uncomfortable truth about the Sacred Vestments.

The Goddess herself was too embarrassed to show skin and wrapped herself up from head to toe, yet insisted on this humiliating design for my Sacred Vestments?

Would it be blasphemous to say she reminded me of a gamer who puts some ridiculously revealing outfit on their character and then grins like an idiot?

...But no matter how much I think about it, I can't come up with a better comparison.

“Seriously, would it really be that bad if I punched her just once?”

Of course, if I did that, next time I wouldn't just see stars. I'd probably see the entire Milky Way, so I decided against it.

Anyway, if I had to describe my current mood, I'd say my faith had taken a serious hit.

‘My divine power hasn't decreased or anything, right?’

Divine power was based on faith. Just in case, I checked my body, but fortunately, the total amount of divine power I possessed hadn't decreased.

I was letting out a sigh of relief when an intense cold suddenly bit into my skin.

“Brrr... Achoo!”

Only after sneezing did I realize I was currently submerged in incredibly cold water.

“Water? Not holy water?”

This bath had definitely been filled with holy water. Had all of it somehow turned back into regular water?

Holy water was made by filling bottles with clean water, then having a high-ranking priest spend a long time consecrating it.

I wasn't certain, but if you extracted all the divine power from holy water, wouldn't it simply return to ordinary water? Kind of like how the Goddess said dispelling a curse was reverse calculation.

If all the divine power inside the holy water had been consumed during my visit to the divine realm and the process of breaking the curse, that would explain why I was sitting in plain water now.

“Ughhh... c-cold...”

And in disgustingly clean, freezing water at that.

I stiffly turned my head and saw that the incense burner had gone out.

Grandpa told me to remain in the bath until the incense completely burned away, so I should be allowed to get out now, right?

Sh-sh-sh-shiver-

Trembling hard enough to bring back unpleasant memories of my street-urchin days, I tried to stand up.

But after being left in cold water in a state of suspended animation, my body didn't move the way I wanted. My trembling knees gave out, and the moment my feet slipped across the slick floor, my legs shot into the air.

“Huh?”

Losing my balance, I toppled backward.

My hands flailed for something to grab but caught only empty air, and with a splash, I plunged back into the freezing water.

The water was only waist-deep, but with no strength in my legs, it might as well have been the open sea.

I desperately thrashed around, but I was already weak, and falling back into the cold water had drained what little strength remained. I couldn't get myself upright.

‘W-Wait... If this goes wrong, I'm actually going to die...!’

Just as I found myself facing mortal danger in a bathhouse rather than the Demon Realm, the firmly closed door creaked open.

Marie cautiously poked her head through the gap.

‘I'm saved!’

I rejoiced internally and desperately waved my hand.

Our eyes met.

But rather than shock, Marie's eyes filled with warm affection, like she was looking at an adorable puppy.

“Saintess? Are you playing in the water? It seems I've interrupted you.”

No! I'm not playing! I'm drowning! Hurry up and save me!

“Sharbeyebebuhbluhgh!”

I tried to say that, but water kept pouring into my mouth, so bizarre noises entirely unrelated to my intentions came out instead.

Apparently my desperate flailing against the bottom looked like joyful splashing to Marie. She leaned against the doorway and smiled warmly.

“Hehe, even you have a surprisingly cute side, Saintess. Are you enjoying yourself that much?”

I'm not enjoying this! I'm dying! I'm dying!

With the last of my strength, I stretched a hand above the surface and desperately signaled for rescue.

But Marie apparently mistook it for a cheerful wave, because she shyly waved back.

“I'm happy to see you having fun too, Saintess! Are you going to play a little longer before coming out?”

No. I refuse to drown here with Marie's delighted smile as the final thing I see.

I tried to do something else, but strength kept draining out of my body.

In the end, I released one last stream of bubbles and sank toward the bottom of the bath.

Goddess.

I'm coming to see you now.

And just as my consciousness began fading...

“Saintess!”

Marie pulled my body out of the freezing water.

“Pwah! Cough! Ptoo! Haa, haa...”

After being dragged out of the bath, I sprawled on the floor and spat out water.

“A-Are you all right?”

“Blech... cough... Y-Yeah, I'm okay. I'd probably be a little more okay if you'd saved me sooner.”

I couldn't resist grumbling once.

Then I burrowed into Marie's arms in search of warmth.

“I'm sorry. I thought you were playing.”

“Huuu... N-No need to apologize. I would've been found as a corpse in the bath if you hadn't saved me.”

Cold.

My entire body was trembling, my head was burning, and I had absolutely no strength.

Was this the aftereffect the Goddess had warned me about from visiting the divine realm?

In my current state, I felt like even a fight against an ant would be competitive.

My odds of winning were probably... fifty-fifty?

More than anything, I was freezing.

“C-C-C-Cold... I feel like I'm going to freeze to death.”

Marie quickly brought a towel, dried me off, then wrapped my body in a large blanket.

“Goodness, I'd believe you if you said there was an earthquake.”

Marie looked at me with pity as I trembled uncontrollably, then hugged me tightly.

“Your body's cold as ice.”

“Y-You could've heated the water a little... It's still February...”

“I wanted to, but they told me under no circumstances to enter. The door was sealed anyway, so I couldn't have gotten inside.”

“R-Really...? Y-Yeah, maybe it was better that nobody came in. That's a relief.”

The Goddess had said that while my soul was in the divine realm, they removed the mysterious curse from my body.

Isolating me so nobody could enter had probably been safer both for me and for whoever might've come inside.

“I was really worried because there wasn't a single sound from inside for an entire week.”

“A... week?”

A whole week had passed?

I'd spent at most a little over an hour in the divine realm.

Apparently time flowed differently between the divine realm and the human world.

Or maybe I'd simply spent a long time completely unconscious.

“Did you wait outside the door for the entire week?”

“Yes.”

“Hnghh... Thank you...”

“Goodness, at times like this you're completely like a child. Come on, let's go back to your room. You need to warm up and get some proper sleep.”

“O-Okay...”

I could barely control my body, so I leaned on Marie while we headed back toward my room.

I'd apparently spent an entire week submerged in cold water in a deathlike state. If I weren't the Saintess, couldn't I have died from hypothermia?

Would it really have been that hard to cast some sacred art to maintain the water temperature?

I was grumbling internally when a fact I'd completely forgotten suddenly returned to me.

A Hero candidate had come to the Order.

“Huuuu... R-Right. The... Hero candidate... bastard... came, right...?”

I'd effectively been gone for a whole week. It would be a disaster if that bastard had done something in the meantime.

Grandpa Pope, the High Priest old man, Captain Vargas, Leonid, and everyone else were here, so what could he possibly have done? Still, there was always a chance.

“Oh, that? I only heard about it secondhand, but apparently the Order arranged lodgings for him outside the temple and told him to wait until preparations were complete. Since the Saintess has to be present to receive the Hero candidate.”

“R-Really...? Good... Then bring him right now... I'll split that bastard's head open...”

“Goodness, you can barely walk. What are you planning to do? I think you'd lose even if you fought me right now.”

“I-I can do it... Look. Astra...!”

Just to prove how healthy and perfectly fine I was, I tried to summon Astra.

But all that happened were a few crackling sparks. Astra didn't appear.

“Huuuu... W-What's wrong with this? A-Astra! Astra!”

The divine power inside my body wouldn't move properly.

Getting stubborn, I forced the divine power inside me to respond.

“Astra!”

At my shout, the previously dormant divine power churned through my body like a storm and...

A flash of agonizing pain struck me, and I blacked out.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in my own bed. Apparently the Goddess hadn't lied about the aftereffects. I had to endure a vicious fever and full-body aches.

The unprecedented event of the Saintess catching what appeared to be the flu and becoming bedridden sent the entire Eris Order into an uproar.

In reality, it wasn't a cold but the aftereffects of a human soul visiting the divine realm. But that couldn't exactly be announced publicly, so officially it was treated as a cold.

I spent hellish days lying in bed while Marie cared for me, panting with fever.

As a bonus, I got lectured for being insane enough to use divine power in that condition.

Maybe because my reputation within the Order was good, or because my position was high.

Or perhaps both.

A lot of people came to visit me.

“It pains me to see you bedridden, Saintess.”

Grandpa Pope was the first to visit.

“Huuu... Grandpa. I feel like I'm dying.”

Between the aftereffects of visiting the divine realm and the internal injuries I'd inflicted by forcing divine power through my body in the worst possible condition, I genuinely felt like I might die.

“Hoho. These are merely the aftereffects of visiting the divine realm, so do not worry. Once you recover, your condition will become incomparably better than before. All the impurities accumulated in your body will have been expelled, leaving it better suited to circulating divine power.”

Ah. Like the body reconstruction you see in martial arts novels? Something like that?

Still, that didn't exactly help me right now, so I groaned and complained.

“That's nice to hear and all... but Grandpa, couldn't you have told me that the bath was going to launch my soul straight into the divine realm?”

“Hoho. If I had told you beforehand, wouldn't you have refused?”

“...”

He was right.

I definitely would've refused.

Grandpa really did know me well.

“And if I told you beforehand that visiting the divine realm carries the risk of leaving you an idiot and that afterward you'll suffer enough to feel as though you're dying, it wouldn't be any fun.”

“...Grandpa?”

You were this kind of person?

I stared at him in disbelief.

“For reference, the previous Pope did not tell me either.”

“...”

This is hazing.

This is absolutely hazing!

I'll definitely put an end to it in my generation!

...It was the sort of thought any Korean man who'd served in the military had probably had at least once.

Grandpa Pope left not long afterward. He was normally extremely busy, and the Hero candidate's visit had made him even busier.

The next visitor was Leonid.

“Wow~ Even you can catch a cold, Sis? That's something new.”

“...”

“Still, seeing you this sick doesn't feel good. Get well soon.”

“Thanks, Leonid.”

He was a little rough around the edges, but Leonid was always like that, and I could tell his concern was genuine, so I thanked him.

“Still, lying quietly like this makes you look like a real Saintess.”

“...Are you saying I didn't before?”

“Think about it. Who would see someone beating knights like dogs in the sparring hall, carving up demonic beasts like meat with a spear, then smiling happily while drenched in blood and think, Ah yes, what a Saintess? Maybe a blood-crazed witch.”

“Hey. You. Once I'm better, meet me in the sparring hall.”

Leonid, who'd been cackling while teasing me as I lay sick in bed, went as pale as a sheet at my threat.

Then after thinking for a moment...

“How about we spar right now? Even I might be able to beat you in your current condi—”

“What are you saying?! The Saintess is sick, Lord Leonid!”

“Ah! Ow! That hurts! Marie, that hurts!”

“It's supposed to hurt!”

He got chased out while Marie smacked him across the back for talking nonsense.

Next came old Bartolomew.

“Good.”

While examining my pale face and carefully peeling an apple, he suddenly said that one word.

“Old man, it sounds like you're saying you're glad I'm bedridden.”

“That is correct.”

“?”

Excuse me, old man?

“You may be delirious while sick, but please make sure you remember your current posture.”

“I don't understand what you're talking about.”

“I am telling you to remain this quiet and speak in this soft voice even under normal circumstances.”

“...”

“That sorrowful expression, restrained manner, and gentle voice. This is the first time since I met you that you have behaved like a proper Saintess.”

“...”

The old man lectured me about my behavior for a while, then wished for my recovery and left.

Still, considering the lecture had been shorter than usual, he must have been worried about my health.

...Right?

The last person to visit was Captain Vargas.

“...Unbelievable.”

“Huh? What is?”

“To think such a quiet version of the Saintess could truly exist. Remarkable.”

“...”

The stoic and rigid Captain Vargas said only that, then silently tended to me for a while before leaving.

And after he left, I seriously began to wonder.

Just what kind of reputation did I have inside the Order?

I'd definitely lived a respectable life, hadn't I?

Anyway, only after spending nearly a full week groaning in bed did I finally regain enough strength to get up.

“Wow! Are you feeling better now?”

Marie clasped her hands together emotionally when she saw me out of bed for the first time in a week.

“Yeah. I finally feel somewhat alive again. I seriously thought I was going to die.”

I answered while looking at myself in the mirror.

After spending a week sick and barely eating, I'd lost a little weight and looked considerably haggard.

I still felt somewhat chilled, strength didn't enter my limbs properly, and my digestion was weak enough that I had to live on bland white soup, but at least I could move around now.

“The verification ceremony for that Hero candidate is tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, that's right.”

We couldn't keep postponing the Hero candidate's verification any longer, so I'd heard it had been scheduled for tomorrow.

I looked outside and saw that darkness had already fallen. Less than a day remained before the ceremony.

I needed to recover as much as possible before then and, while I was at it, gather information about him.

“Marie.”

“Yes?”

“Do you know anything about him? Where he's from, his name, things like that.”

“Ah, of course. You wouldn't know yet, Saintess.”

I silently nodded.

There was still a chance it wasn't Cassian.

Our Order's path had diverged greatly from the original story, so the Hero candidate could've changed too.

“Black hair and red eyes. I heard he used to be a mercenary... and apparently he's incredibly handsome!”

“...Leave out useless information like that last part. Name and birthplace.”

“His name is Cassian. He was born in Kinosa, the capital of the Orphan Kingdom, and he's a commoner, so he doesn't have a family name.”

“I see.”

Right.

So this part hadn't changed after all.

But it didn't matter.

To prevent the future where demons destroyed everything like in the original, I merely had to overcome one more mountain.

“For now, I should stop doing stupid things and get some proper sleep.”

My body itched to move, but I restrained myself and flopped back onto the bed.

Recovering my condition came first.

There was no point spending the night awake from nerves or trying to swing my spear once when what I really needed was rest.

“I'm going to sleep. Wake me up at the right time tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, Saintess.”

Listening to Marie's answer, I closed my eyes.

Fortunately, I didn't have a nightmare that night.