“No… this doesn’t make any sense. This can’t be happening…”
The grotesqueness writhing on the floor continuously muttered such things.
Not just that monstrosity, but considering the surrounding situation, anyone would agree that it wasn’t a ‘good’ one. Aurora was limping on one leg, while Linea had a gash on one shoulder. The flowers in the courtyard were all trampled and broken, and black, sticky substances were dribbling down from places on the floor and walls.
And both Linea and Aurora were bleeding from their hands.
“Hah… hah…”
But, there was no despair in the exhausted expressions of Linea and Aurora.
The one in worse condition was the opponent.
Chunks of meat, from an unknown part of its body, rolled about. Parts that should be inside a living creature were scattered everywhere, and the thought that all of this came from a single being—had anyone not seen the state of the demons before all this happened, no one would have believed it.
The once immaculate courtyard was stained with demon blood, flesh, and entrails, but the only ones who were injured were Linea and Aurora. In fact, compared to the demon, they were looking much better. They just had tired and exhausted expressions.
The white light flowing from Linea’s hand gradually diminished, then disappeared. Blood once again dripped down from her hand. Although it was less than when Clara had called upon her holy power, there were clearly broken marks and holes left on her hand. The same went for Aurora.
“……”
Holding her sword, Linea slowly moved forward. While she hadn’t been slammed into the wall by a demon like Aurora had while protecting the nuns with her shield, Linea was also limping.
If the opponent hadn’t been a demon, but rather a demon or a beast, Linea and Aurora wouldn’t have sustained injuries. Miracles are that powerful.
If Clara had been here instead of Linea and Aurora, she wouldn’t have been hurt either. Clara’s miracles weren’t on this level. Both had followed her into battle countless times. They had a rough idea of how strong Clara’s powers were.
But despite that, they didn’t feel shame.
No, more than that, could they even dare to compare?
This very power was Clara’s power, after all.
“Stop! Don’t come closer!”
The snake with only its head left shouted that. It was desperately opening and closing its jaw to try and get away from the scene.
“Seems like you can’t even produce poison anymore, huh?”
It was a little too late to think that such a phrase wasn’t fitting given that the ‘body’ had been severed, but Linea didn’t bother to voice it.
“I messed up! If I had known that the opponent was a goddess, I wouldn’t have done such a thing! I didn’t know! I had no idea!”
“If Clara wasn’t such a being, it would mean she would’ve killed all of us,” Linea replied.
“Things would have been much worse,” Aurora interjected.
While still holding her sword, Linea noticed Aurora also carried a shield in one hand, but her shield arm was drooping toward the floor. She was limping on her right leg, clutching her side, wincing.
“But I had no choice! If I hadn’t tried to escape like that, your goddess would have killed me!”
“Your death would be the price for your sins until now. And to try and save your own life by taking another’s is downright trashy, isn’t it? Well, you’ve been doing that for the past 500 years, so it’s obvious your thinking is this way. How many of your kin did you devour while escaping?”
Line raised her sword with one hand. The blade now seemed like it would fall on the demon at any moment, causing it to hurryily reply.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I won’t do such a thing from now on! I was wrong! I’ll promise to believe in the real goddess, no, the goddess, Clara—”
“With that filthy mouth of yours,”
Line could no longer hold it in and interrupted the demon’s words.
“Don’t say Clara’s name.”
“……”
The demon shut its mouth at Linea’s command.
“Ha, haha…”
As if she’d heard a rather boring joke, Aurora let out a hollow laugh.
“If Clara heard that, she’d probably run away screaming.”
At those words of Aurora, Linea unwittingly recalled Clara’s face— and it genuinely seemed like she would act that way.
No, such things would happen a lot in the future.
Just the people who witnessed today were mostly nuns living in the same convent as Clara.
And Father Nguyen wouldn’t be one to just hide things after seeing such events. He was a devout believer and very proud that Clara resided in the cathedral where he worked.
Turning around slightly, she could see him on the floor, sobbing.
“Come to think of it, this isn’t the time to be so relaxed.”
At Linea’s words, Aurora also turned to look back.
There were nuns who seemed to be praying, sitting with their hands clasped together, and looking at both Linea and Aurora.
Their eyes sparkled.
“I feel like we’ll soon be able to experience exactly what Clara felt,” Linea said.
“Hmm.”
Just as the two, a little relieved, were having such a conversation—
“Hey, wait a second, this isn’t right.”
Suddenly, someone interrupted.
Reflexively, Linea and Aurora turned toward the source of the sound, and saw Rina leaping high into the air.
Rina had jumped powerfully into the air, then brought her feet together to fall down.
“Guh!”
And where she landed was the severed head of the demon. With a crack, the demon’s skull caved in.
“Attacking suddenly in the middle of all this is just rude, don’t you think?”
Rina asked while crunching down on the demon’s head.
“Grrr…”
Somewhere in the demon’s head, possibly because of the serious damage, a grotesque sound came from its massive snake head.
“…We shouldn’t kill it. There have been too many demons that have died because of this one.”
“Whether it can answer properly if we let it live is questionable.”
“Well, does it even matter? It doesn’t seem like it’s completely out of magic either. If we give it time, it’ll recover from this level. Probably only once at this rate, though.”
Saying that, Rina removed her feet from its head. She frowned and wiped the sticky, dark red substance on her shoe against the ground.
“Well… in any case.”
Then, Rina looked back and forth between Linea and Aurora, smiling widely.
“Two saintesses have emerged. This is a tremendously good thing from the church’s perspective.”
“……”
“……”
Faced with Rina’s rare bright smile, Aurora and Linea exchanged glances. They knew exactly why Rina was making such a face.
Of course, even if the two here became saintesses, it wouldn’t block Rina’s path upward. If one were to categorize it in terms of gods, Rina was a disciple of Baal, while Linea and Aurora could be classified as disciples of Clara… Their ways of ‘believing’ in Clara were extremely different from a typical churchgoer’s belief in a god.
But saying such things was too much for Rina, who was smiling so happily, so they merely sighed softly and shook their heads.
*
“…”
When I opened my eyes, I saw a familiar ceiling. Although the frequency of seeing it has been increasing lately, it was still something I saw every morning when nothing unusual happened.
The ceiling of the old convent.
How long had I been unconscious?
I passed out right there and fell into a strange dream, where I was trapped in a bizarre place, only to suddenly see Linea and Aurora as the faint light in front of me brightened.
To be precise, it felt like I was seeing the two of them through their eyes.
No, to be a bit more precise, I seemed to have viewed their appearances from numerous angles. Although it was dimmer than the view through Linea or Aurora’s eyes, I felt like I saw their backs from a fair number of different points.
Rather than the feeling of cameras being installed in various places, it felt like I was looking through the perspective of an audience behind them.
“…”
Using the memories left in my head as much as possible, I tried to piece together a conclusion.
So… was I seeing that situation through the eyes of everyone in the church?
…Can such magic exist? Could holy power or miracles do something like that…?
“Ugh…”
I have no idea. My head just throbbed like crazy. Unconsciously, I touched my head and realized that my hands were wrapped in bandages. Did I also faint after using some miracle? But the demons were not there anymore.
I sat up on the bed. One hand was clutching my head while the other gripped the bed for support. After a moment of sitting on the edge of the bed, I gathered all my strength and stood up.
“…”
Strangely, after getting up, the dizziness seemed to subside a bit. My body felt a bit strange. Standing felt easier than sitting, oddly enough. Did the laws of physics reverse in my body?
The pounding pain inside my skull still lingered, but I could still walk.
“Linea…? Aurora…?”
I called out in a cracked voice, but there was no response. I staggered a bit and made my way toward the door.
The door was slightly ajar. I could hear some hushed voices from the hallway. I heard something sliding across the floor, along with occasional laughter and chatter. They were the voices of girls.
…Was the cathedral safe?
Was the dream I had just a dream after all?
I grabbed the doorknob and slowly pushed it open.
I squinted against the sunlight streaming in through the hallway window. Come to think of it, it felt like there had been curtains drawn in the room.
“…”
As my eyes adjusted to the brightness, I turned my head to survey the surroundings.
“…”
Countless gazes were directed at me.
An eerie calmness.
The moment I stepped into view, everyone in the hallway stopped talking. No, they didn’t just stop speaking. They halted all movements and stared at me. Nuns with brooms, mops, and dusters stood frozen, all looking directly at me.
Honestly, I worried if they had forgotten how to breathe.
“Umm…?”
Was I supposed to say something?
For a brief moment, I seriously considered what to say, then I spoke to the closest young nun.
“Um, do you know where Aurora and Linea are?”
“Ah, yes, yes…”
The slightly flustered nun quickly regained her composure and pointed down one hallway. That hallway led to the inner courtyard.
“Thank you.”
As I lightly nodded, the nun hurriedly bowed.
As if treating someone of tremendous importance.
…Huh?
While I was a saintess and did receive respectful treatment from most believers, the nuns in this convent hadn’t treated me with such excessive respect. They knew I found such treatment very awkward. In fact, there had been quite a few nuns who had spoken to me directly lately.
Thud, I heard something hit the wall.
One of the nuns leaned her broom against the wall and began to bow exactly the same way as that nun.
Thud, thud, more falling sounds and various items being leaned against the wall echoed, and soon, every nun in that hallway was bowing deeply towards me.
…Huh?
Wait, what is happening right now?
What is this? What has occurred? Did I handle some matter in my sleep? Did I perhaps slay a demon during somnambulism or something?
In truth, there was a way to ask why all this was happening right now.
However, in that moment, what I chose was to run at full speed toward the direction the young nun pointed, thoroughly embarrassed.
*
After sprinting down the hallway from one end to the other, I finally caught my breath when I reached a place where the cathedral courtyard was visible. The nuns who were diligently cleaning the hallway all greeted me in the same manner.
No, what is going on right now?
“…Phew.”
I let out a long sigh, then pulled my hands away from my knees and straightened my back. …I was so shocked that I didn’t even feel the headache anymore.
Well, there was no reason for such a headache to last long enough to break through Baal’s power.
…More importantly, what on earth had happened to give me such a headache?
Did I end up colliding with something terribly serious?
Anyway, regardless, I had reached my destination.
Now, if I could just find Linea and Aurora and hear what had happened—
As I turned my gaze, I froze in place.
The ground was stained with something black and red. Small shards of flesh that hadn’t been cleaned up were still splattered about, and I noticed deep cuts that looked like they had been made by something sharp. There were tracks of many-legged insects, as well as feathers from unknown birds and white bone fragments, along with legs and bodies of insects scattered everywhere.
…What is this…?
So then, what I saw in my dream that time was actually something that had happened…?
No, wait.
Let’s stay calm. When I inquired where Linea and Aurora were, the nun answered me without hesitation. If something serious had happened to the two, she wouldn’t have been able to respond so calmly.
Right. That’s how it is.
I took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. Placing my hand over my chest and repeating that action a few times, my pounding heart gradually settled.
“Phew, okay, good.”
Muttering that to myself, I nodded several times and moved forward.
…Not too far away, over there in the flowerbed, I could see people.
“Ah, Clara! You’re awake!”
“Hope you’re feeling a little better. You’ve been asleep for the whole day yesterday.”
The two people squatting down doing something in the flowerbed, upon hearing my footsteps, stood up and said that. When I saw their faces, it felt like the strength would almost leave my legs again, just like the first time I faced the owl demon, but I forced myself to hold my footing. My vision was foggy and moist. I rubbed my sleeves over my eyes repeatedly, but only my sleeves got damp, while my sight remained blurred.
“Yes, your health is important… I think your fainting directly might be because of us.”
“Right. If it wasn’t for that power—”
However, Linea’s statement did not reach its conclusion.
I had thrown myself at the two of them, hugging both tightly with my arms.
Their bodies were warm.
I could feel very vividly that both of them were alive.
“Linea, Aurora, I…”
I was going to say I was worried, but something tight seemed to block my voice from below my neck. In the end, what came out of my mouth was a strange sound, like “Auh-Auh,” questioning whether it was indeed human language.
“Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay. We’re fine.”
Linea said that and patted my back.
“Yeah. We’re all safe, so there’s no need to worry.”
Aurora chimed in, hugging me tighter.
Tears kept flowing from my eyes, obstructing my vision. But fortunately, listening to their voices made it seem that the statement of being safe wasn’t wrong.
After a while of silence, I finally settled down and noticed that I had embraced the two without even realizing it.
…No, of course, I didn’t hug them with any impure intentions, and now, there wasn’t even a chance to have impure intentions.
I cautiously pulled my body back. If I were to pull back too suddenly, it would seem like I was startled. Fortunately, both Linea and Aurora didn’t seem to find it strange in the least.
“What happened here? Is it possible that…?”
I cautiously asked, and both nodded their heads.
“Right, a demon appeared here.”
“But it’s fine. Thanks to Clara, we were all safe.”
“…Me? Because of me?”
When I asked Aurora back, the two exchanged glances for a moment before looking back at me.
“Clara, did you feel anything while you were unconscious? Do you remember anything?”
“At that time, we could perform miracles based on our faith in you, not just the two gods.”
Saying this, Linea showed me her hand, which had a clear scar on it.
It looked very similar to the scar I had on my hand.
…No, wait.
Could it be?
Was what I heard in the dream… the sound of them praying for me?
Not just a nightmare?
When I gaped, Aurora and Linea’s expressions shifted in incredulity.
“…Looks like we’re going to need quite the long conversation,”
Linea sighed heavily and murmured.
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