Chapter 78: The Enchanting Young Saintess (03)
"It's been a while, Sir Knight."
"It's good to see you again, Saintess."
The young Saintess I met today had grown much taller than before.
At this point, I wondered if she was too tall to still be called a 'young Saintess'...
'Well, looking at her chest, she could still pass for a young Saintess.'
Compared to her height, her chest seemed quite unimpressive, and I thought I would have to wait a few more years, but the moment I looked down at her chest, the knight assumed a posture as if about to launch an attack, so I had to deliberately avert my gaze and face the Saintess instead.
"You've become even more beautiful."
"Oh, I haven't changed much?"
She said that, but the joy was evident as she cupped her cheeks.
Even as a Saintess, she seemed to retain the sensibilities of a girl her age.
Seeing her grow up radiant, beloved by everyone here without a hint of darkness, warmed my heart and made me smile like a proud brother.
"Isn't the statue of the goddess beautiful?"
As I said this, it was embarrassing to talk about the young Saintess's face, and the words wouldn't easily come out.
"Were you praying to the goddess statue, Sir Knight?"
"Yes. Something like that."
It would have been wrong to say that I had blasphemous and disrespectful thoughts about the goddess statue, so I had to show agreement in a suitable manner.
"It's good to pray. I've heard that many knights nowadays have forgotten the heart of prayer, but our knight is indeed faithful."
Me, faithful? Rather, I felt the others who didn't believe were probably better.
"And this is a secret..."
The young Saintess leaned in close to whisper to me.
"Actually, during the Holy Week, the goddess herself listens to the prayers directly. So if you pray a lot now, the goddess will listen more attentively than usual."
Or just a bit of a joke to highlight the specialness of the Holy Week?
Either way, since it was spoken by a chosen Saintess, it sparked a bit more trust than other clerics' words.
"We don't have much time, Saintess. You must return soon."
As usual, unlike last year when she had ample time, this year her schedule seemed busy, and the female knight beside her was hurrying her along.
Maybe they were just hurrying to keep her away from me.
"Just a moment. I have something to give to you..."
With no one else watching, the young Saintess reached into her sleeve and handed me a cookie wrapped in thin paper.
"Are you going to eat it alone?"
I smiled as I listened to her whispered voice and sent her on her way.
Of course, the escorting knight was glaring at me unpleasantly, but I let it slide, considering he had saved me from a potential crisis in front of the Saintess earlier when I almost blurted out how the goddess statue was arousing.
Looking at the brightly shining cookie inside the paper, I quietly placed the cookie envelope in my pocket.
'I shouldn't eat it...'
From what I saw, eating it wouldn't kill me, but it would definitely cause unbearable pain, so I decided to keep it quietly in my pocket.
'But to think she hears the prayers directly? Does that mean she also heard all my blasphemous thoughts?'
Honestly, if that were true, I wouldn't be surprised if divine lightning struck me.
'So, the goddess might overlook certain naughty thoughts?'
After all, if she possesses the powers of a pure goddess of love and marriage, she would naturally dislike being viewed with lustful eyes. However, thinking about it, a goddess of love and marriage should be shown in all her beauty and result in the fruits of a man and woman's union.
'If that's the case, is it alright to see her with naughty thoughts?'
Considering the goddess of love and marriage, if love continues to maintain its marriage and relevance...
'Then maybe the goddess of love and marriage could also be seen as the goddess of desirable newlyweds?'
Thinking about it, it makes sense that she became a wife because she was beautiful and alluring, and her charm peaked not before marriage but after becoming another man's wife. That’s when people around her started to re-evaluate her and regret that she was someone else’s, at least that’s what Jake read in a novel.
I'm not particularly interested in stories about married women, but maybe it's plausible up to the point of newlyweds...
"It’s only because she's a true goddess that I overlook it. Even if she's a newlywed, the goddess grants her grace."
I felt as if the giant goddess statue was glaring at me, but it must have been a delusion born from my fundamental respect for the divine and a guilty conscience.
"The eyes of the goddess statue moved!"
"My goodness, such a miracle during Holy Week!"
Ah, it was just an optical illusion. This is why religious folks...
As I returned to my room, hugging Mollang and Shuru, there was no one else around.
Since many people from the training center took time off during Holy Week, the entire place was empty, except for people like Instructor Pandel, the lonely old bachelor.
"From now on, more nobles will be arriving, so the young Saintess will be busy... and if there’s nothing else, senior knights like me can go alone."
Returning from the temple, or perhaps because I was carrying a cookie full of the Saintess's blessing in my pocket, my body seemed to glow faintly.
Shuru came close and rubbed against my face, while Mollang seemed to hide in a corner, watching me warily.
'Slimes are monsters too, so maybe they're affected by the sacred power?'
I laid down on the bed, waiting for the natural dissipation of the sacred power from my body.
"What should I do with the cookie..."
As night fell and darkness deepened, the cookie given by the young Saintess shone even more brilliantly. No matter how I looked at it, it seemed like a dangerous object, so simply burying it in the ground or throwing it in the trash seemed like it would cause problems.
'I could dispose of it by eating it... It won't kill me to eat it...'
The cookie was so powerfully enchanted that when I hit it against the wall, it sounded like striking iron, yet when I grabbed it with my hand, it easily bent, indicating that I could eat it without it breaking from external effects.
At this rate, it looked like it wouldn't spoil even if left uneaten for about 10 years, so I was thinking of giving it time when there was a knock at the door.
The senior knight who had entered the temple with me today was knocking on the door.
I quickly hid Shuru and Mollang under the blanket and opened the door, and my senior simply gestured for me to follow him without entering the barracks.
As soon as we entered the office, the senior closed the door and set up a partition to prevent sound from leaking outside.
"Isn't it just the two of us?"
"Even so, we need to be cautious. It’s easy to let your guard down thinking it's just us, or that person has been around long enough to be trustworthy... That's how big mistakes happen."
With just the two of us remaining, my senior invited me to sit down and pulled out a letter sealed with the insignia of a noble family.
"I was planning to hand this over before asking."
"Do you have any fear or revulsion towards corpses?"
"Wouldn't anyone naturally have that? It would be stranger to like dead bodies, right?"
"What I mean is not just aversion that anyone might feel, but whether you’d faint or foam at the mouth and convulse at the sight of a corpse."
"No, I don’t have that issue."
I had dealt with monster corpses before, after all.
"Good, then that's settled."
Only then did my senior hand me the letter, which had several seals on it to keep its confidential contents secure without breaking them.
"Is it something important?"
I broke the seal on the letter and read the content inside.
"Unlicensed necromancer sighted near the capital’s outskirts, currently using an old estate turned graveyard. Damage escalating. Location is currently producing undead from the graves..."
"This is a serious issue. Normally, this would be a task for the Order of Knights, but they can't move during Holy Week."
It was Holy Week, so many nobles would be visiting the temple.
Moreover, although the Saintess had been replaced last year, she hadn’t been active for long since her inauguration, and this year was her first official public appearance, which naturally attracted more people.
With so many people gathered, issues were bound to arise, and if we didn’t manage the interactions between the feuding nobles and their knights in the temple, the Order would need to intervene or enforce discipline. But with so many visitors during Holy Week, they were stretched too thin to spare even one knight.
"You’d think they could just deal with it afterward, but..."
'The authority of the temple would plummet to the ground if people found out that undead were being generated despite the temple’s claim that not even demons could enter under the goddess' protection. They'd want to handle it as quickly as possible.'
Even if we managed to get a knight out, their armor would be too conspicuous and draw people’s eyes the moment they moved.
"This is essentially an unofficial request for help. The temple will vouch that you were here. In reality, you'll be gone from the capital for a few days."
"What about compensation?"
"The blessing and favor of the goddess..."
I already had enough of that with the cookie from the Saintess.
"Just kidding, the high priests agreed to provide some support."
My senior then threw me a small, palm-sized bundle made of ornate cloth, filled with silver coins.
'Wow, look at how much money these temple folks have...'
That’s why there's a saying about making money through religion.
"Take this. Accepting it puts you in the Order's debt."
Before running off on the mission, I planned to ask Instructor Pandel to look after Shuru and Mollang again, but it just so happened that on the day I was to leave, Instructor Pandel had posted a note about being away for a few days and was nowhere to be found.
"Damn, the one who always sticks to the infirmary reading musty medical books is never around when you need him?"
With no one at the training center to leave them with, I had no choice but to take Shuru and Mollang with me.
'Well, what could possibly go wrong?'