â
â¦I miss you.â§
Tesilid couldn't understand why such a simple phrase made his heart ache so much. No matter how long he stared at the sheet of paper, the pain in his chest persisted, so he neatly folded up the page and placed it in his jacket. As Tesilid stared into the night sky, the words he did not dare write down suddenly escaped his mouth.
"I miss you too."
He missed her. There were many things he wanted to say to her face to face, so he decided to hold off on their message exchange so that he could tell her what he needed to say in person.
I As he scanned his surroundings, the love-struck look on his face disappeared. The environment he was in was truly unpleasantâthe floor was littered with debris from structures that came from all different dungeons, as well as the corpses of demonic monsters. In the middle of it all flowed a repulsive, oozing river made of dark spirits.
All around him, debris continued to pour in from the sky through opened gates, as if this place was a mixture of a dumpster and a sewage treatment plant. The landfill was so vast that all the eye could see was an ocean of trash that stretched out to the horizon.
"Gahhh!"
Meanwhile, piles of refuse clumped together to form disgusting monsters, which immediately lunged for Tesilid the moment they gained the ability to move. Unfortunately, to complicate matters further, it was impossible to leave the Demon Realm dumpster directly to the human world. The only way out was to pass through the demarcation line that was way off on the horizon, and then to enter the Demon Realm. His situation wasn't all that different from Allie's pilgrimage, although the circumstances in the landfill were harsher, since he couldn't leave after forty days of suffering or take breaks inside safe zones.
I think this is going to take two to three months. Worse still, the trash on the ground that Tesilid was stepping on was slowly drifting, pulling him further from his destination. The center of the dumpster was similar to a black hole, slowly swirling and sucking in the trash to disintegrate itâTesilid would get sucked in as well if he didn't move. It was a region where not even a demon would be able to survive for long.
I better hurry up if I'm going to leave this place. His holy sword slashed the space behind him, creating a quick blast of light before a trash monster fell down with a loud thud.
He hurriedly walked away without looking back, moving in the opposite direction from which the trash was flowing. Pace steady, the knight dressed in white disappeared beyond a hill of garbage.
â
It had been fifteen days since I began my pilgrimage, and I was currently standing in front of the fifth gate.
"Whew."
As expected, the gatekeepers after Balkus Odrek were saints of Order and Goodnessâall of whom also called me the heretic saintess and tried to provoke me with their scornful insults.
"I'm here today to serve the duty of eliminating a heretic saintess on her pilgrimage!"
"Take the punishment of condemnation willingly, heretic saintess!"
"You wicked heretic."
Ugh, this is really starting to get annoying. I was wondering which saint of Order and Goodness would be summoned to fight me this time when the image of a woman appeared.
"Nice to meet you, Divine Emissary of another religion. My name is Lucretia Deloard."
"Huh?"
This time, instead of immediately hurling insults, the saintess, who looked to be in her fifties, welcomed me politely. Her accepting attitude toward another religion was surprising enough, but what really shocked me was the face I saw when she removed the veil that had been covering it.
Saintess Lucretia looked strikingly similar to someone I knew, especially with her platinum blond hair that was pinned up and her gentle eyes.
Before I could say anything, she remarked, "Thank you for taking my Hilde in."
That's who it was. Saintess Lucretia looked like a middle-aged version of Hilde, my vice-bishop of Church Agnes. And she had said, "My Hilde."
"Umm... I'm Ailette Rodeline of the religion Voiceism. If you don't mind, may I ask how you are related to my Hilde?"
I spoke defensively, emphasizing the "my" in my question. Saintess Lucretia gave a quiet chuckle and revealed an astonishing truth.
"Hilde is my granddaughter."
"What? Really?!"
"Yes. It's a bit of a long story, but..."
In an unexpected turn of events, Saintess Lucretia and I ended up sitting across from each other and even shared a cup of tea as we continued our discussion. In order to understand how Hilde was the eighth descendant of Lucretia's family, we had to first go over what happened two hundred years ago.
It was Saintess Lucretia who was famously kidnapped in the past, which became the seed of conflict between the holy kingdom and the Republic of Magic. The records state that she took her last breath in captivity while being held in a luxurious palace, but this was far from the truth. In fact, Saintess Lucretia told me that she happily dated the men from the three most influential families of Ragneif, enjoying her youth, then willingly decided to remain living in the republic.
There was a look of satisfaction on Saintess Lucretia's face as she reminisced about the past and remarked, "What was I supposed to do? Three handsome men were obsessed with me. As a saintess, I had no choice but to practice philanthropy and date them all."
"Oh... of course."
"It is a pity that others thought the three lovely men in my life were believed to have kept me in captivity, but we simply preferred having dates in our room. All four of us were young, you see, and very full of energy at the time."
"Ahem."
It just so happened that the men Saintess Lucretia was involved with two hundred years ago all hailed from a long line of white wizards, one of them being from the House of Duke Marcellion.
â¬The Scale that Judges Souls agrees that a saintess is a specialized job for an R-rated reverse-harem romantic fantasy story.â
That's a very narrow-minded point of view about the job, Lord Scale.
That was when Saintess Lucretia sighed deeply, seemingly recalling an unpleasant memory among the nostalgic ones. "Frankly, the whole kidnapping and captivity issue would never have surfaced if Order and Goodness allowed me to leave the church. They wanted so much from me, yet I had no rights! I couldn't get married, or even date. Do you know how frustrating it was? By the way... What is that on your left ring finger?" Lucretia said, abruptly changing the subject. "What? A matching rosary ring?! The world sure has changed. I couldn't even imagine wearing something like that in my day! Ugh, seriously! I may have converted if Voiceism existed back then." Lucretia must have caught a strange look on my face because she paused and asked, "What? Voiceism practices monogamy?" I nodded. "That's a pity. Then I take it back on converting. Please forget I said that."
She was an extremely friendly and energetic person, so much so that I hoped Hilde took after her a little bit.
At that moment, Saintess Lucretia snapped back to reality and stood up. "Oh, my... I think I took away too much of your time. Now, then... I shall serve my duty to the fullest," she said formally. Her duty was obviously to execute her role as the gatekeeper. "All right, Your Holiness."
Realizing that the battle was finally about to start, I put some distance between us and drew Serpens. Pointing the sharp end toward Saintess Lucretia, I said, "I'm ready when you are."
"Let me get ready as well. Hold on."
I don't know what I was expecting, but what she did next caught me off guard.
Rip!
She tore open the side of her dress! Shocked by the unexpected reveal of her thigh, the tip of my sword trembled in the air as I stuttered, "U-Umm... Your Holiness?"
"Oh, it's much easier to fight this way."
Crack.
Soon, the sound of all ten of her knuckles cracking filled the air as she clenched her fist.
"I will make the first move!" she shouted.
With that, her legs kicked off from the ground to charge toward me at incredible speed.
Boom!
"Huh...?"
Her attack missed my face and slammed into the cross, the gush of wind and noise enough to make my brain throb. I had no time to waste, though, as I could see Lucretia raising one of her legs up high, her movements as smooth as flowing water. I barely managed to dodge her attack, leashed within the boundaries of what the chains allowed, when her heel slammed into the place I was standing just a second ago. A small crater was created as dust flew in all directions, caused by a force that was equivalent to a small explosion.
Feeling a little cheated, I asked, "Y-You're a deacon?"
"Yes, although I use martial arts leveraging divine power instead of aura."
No wonder Hilde had such a strong frame. It was genetic.
"I'm not sure if you should be thinking about something else right now." She approached me in the blink of an eye, her fists glowing with holy light swinging for my face. I didn't even have time to infuse my sword with aura as I desperately blocked her moves.
She's fast! Every time her fist met with Serpens, sparks flew in the air along with the sound of ringing metal.
I have to get away. But, chained as I was, this was a nearly impossible task. To make matters worse, Lucretia was one of the fastest enemies I had ever battledâeven had I not been held in place, dodging her would have been a challenge. Her transitions between moves were both smooth and rapid, as she used her body to fight instead of a weapon. It felt like her fists were the only things I could see.
Blocking all of her attacks, I twisted Serpens to push her away, even though I could overpower her via strength using the Force of a Queen. The reason was because of a certain threat a deacon posed.
"Good effort, but it won't help you anymore."
"No!"
Her clenched fist swung toward my stomach. I flipped Serpens upside down and managed to block her blow with the sword. Despite deflecting her, I still groaned with the impact of Lucretia's blow.
"Ugh!"
A powerful shockwave ran through my body as I skidded back. This was the price I had to pay for failing to avoid any impact, for deacons had the unique ability to penetrate the opponent's defense to cause damage.
"I'm impressed," Lucretia said. "You seem to have battled a deacon before."
"My grandfather... whew, is a deacon."
Swallowing some blood, I healed myself, my broken bones cracking back into place and my twisted organs returning to their original spots. Upon collecting myself, I took a deep breath and glared at Saintess Lucretia.
So this is how she uses divine power, huh? Despite her inability to use aura, she was a target to approach with great caution because the martial arts leveraging divine power she'd practiced over countless years had long surpassed the efficiency of an aura user. She also lived up to her rank as Tier 8, meaning her body, covered in a thick layer of divine power, was a more formidable weapon than even a legendary sword.
In awe, I confessed honestly, "I have no choice."
"Huh? Are you giving up? No... There's too much fight in your eyes for that."
She was right.
"I think the fourth gatekeeper was the last battle I could get away with using only aura." Noticing Saintess Lucretia's eyebrows furrow, I added with a grin, "I will make an exception and use divine power as well since you're Hilde's ancestor."
"Wonderful!" She was kind enough to accept my provocation with a smile of her own. "So you're finally going to fight at my level?"
Unfortunately, Lucretia still didn't seem to grasp my intentions.
"At your level? No. I'll easily overpower you."