A Regressor's Bucket List

Chapter 212 : The Saintess (3)

"The Saintess?"

"Yes. Do you know of her?"

"Isn't she the one who was executed by the Order?"

To be honest, I didn't know much about the Saintess.

In a way, it was natural.

Not only had I never met her, but at the time of her execution, I was a rookie Hero struggling to tackle the tasks at hand.

I had heard the word 'Saintess' mentioned in passing, but I wasn't particularly interested in who she was.

I was never given the time to spare for it in the first place.

It was only long after she died that I learned a little about the Saintess.

To be precise.

It was when the Order's Allied Forces had effectively disbanded and the Suicide Squad was formed.

"...Yes. Well... I have much to say about that description, but for now, that's correct."

"Why the Saintess all of a sudden? I'm used to talking about the dead, but I don't have much to say about her."

The one who told me the specifics about the Saintess was, of course, Louis.

"It's just... I once served her."

"......."

"So, I was curious how much you knew, Mr. Seo U-jin."

Louis, who had once served as the Saintess's guardian priest, suddenly brought her up while we were taking a breather from our guerrilla warfare.

I learned this later, but it was his way of opening up to me.

He had never brought up the Saintess to anyone else but me.

A few people who knew he had served her had tried to talk to him about it, but he had always politely declined the conversation, remaining silent on any matter related to her.

Besides, the other Exorcists who came with him never breathed a word about the Saintess, as if they knew something.

He was the first person within the Suicide Squad to bring up the Saintess to me.

"Well... I don't know much, I guess. Just that she was a pretty important figure and had many followers?"

Pfft-

"Is that so."

Perhaps my answer sounded quite absurd from his perspective.

Louis's lips curled into a smile.

And then.

"She was more than just important."

"Then?"

"The Order Alliance actually began to fall apart not when His Holiness the Pope passed away, but after the Saintess ascended."

He emphasized the significance the Saintess held.

At the time, I thought he was just exaggerating because he had once served her.

He was the Pope, after all.

To say she was more important than the man known to command numerous agencies under the Order and the office of Cardinals, wielding the most powerful influence throughout the Order Territory.

It was an unbelievable story.

Pfft-

"Alright. Your Saintess was great. Happy now?"

"...It's the truth, without a shred of falsehood."

"I get it."

Perhaps giving up on me, who was treating his words as a joke.

Shaking his head once, he sighed at the floor and muttered.

"...She was right after all. We should have stopped the execution, no matter what."

At the time, I didn't understand what he meant by 'she was right' at all.

Later, after my Regression was confirmed.

That is, once I began to seriously investigate the Saintess.

I was able to grasp, at least vaguely, what he had been talking about.

***

"...My throat is a little dry."

It was something I could tell without even hearing her say it.

The Saintess's voice, known for its beauty, was a dry, metallic rasp.

Her lips were parched and cracked.

That wasn't the only thing different from the rumors.

Although I couldn't see her face because it was covered by a black cloth, her white hair, said to be lustrous, was matted with soot and filth.

Her skin, said to exude nobility, was so pale and gaunt that even her fine blood vessels were visible.

Of course, despite all this, I had no doubt that she was the Saintess.

The elegance within her dry, metallic voice, and the dignity revealed even in the slight upward curl of her lips.

Compared to the rumors, she was certainly lacking, but she herself was clearly proving that she was the Saintess.

"......."

The Saintess.

The one said to be the most noble person since the founding of the Guardian Cross Order.

The hidden contributor who wove the crudely patched-together Order's Allied Forces into one under the pretext of slaying the Demon King.

At the same time.

The greatest reactionary since the founding.

A blasphemer who insulted the 'Messiah', the savior of humanity.

...an ironic human being treated as such.

"We meet for the first time, Saintess."

At my casual greeting, the lower half of her face colored with bewilderment.

"...Who are you? Are you not sent from the Order?"

"Uh......."

How should I explain my current identity?

Even I thought it was a bit ambiguous.

Officially, I was a Hero belonging to the Order, but that didn't explain everything.

And the things I held within my body weren't exactly things I could be proud of.

After some thought, I picked out a suitable word and explained it to her.

"Well, for now, I think I can be described as a half-demon."

"...?"

"And for your reference, this one here is a Demon."

Was it that she couldn't understand the explanation I'd come up with after much thought?

Or did she understand but couldn't accept it?

The Saintess's head tilted to the side.

The cloth covered her face from the nose up, but I suspected she was probably frowning.

Zing-

Activating my mana, I extended a mana chain.

It exquisitely brushed past her, removing only the black cloth.

Rustle-

"......."

Just as I expected, her furrowed brow and large eyes were revealed.

Although her appearance gave off a strong sense of exhaustion, the face revealed from under the black cloth retained its original noble feeling.

"...If you don't belong to the Order, then how on earth did you get in here?"

No matter how she thought about it, she couldn't seem to understand the current situation.

Rather than being surprised that her cloth was removed, the Saintess still seemed puzzled by our identities.

"...The defenses here shouldn't have been lax."

Of course, from the perspective of those guarding the prison, that would be a natural thought, seeing as the prison was helplessly breached by two blank-faced individuals.

'.......'

‘Is that something the prisoner is supposed to be concerned about?’

A sudden question popped into my head.

Anyway.

Seeing the wary expression on the Saintess's face, it seemed she regarded us as minions of the Demon King.

Well.

It wasn't a completely strange assumption.

No, it was probably natural.

I had, after all, introduced myself with the absurd titles of half-demon and Demon, and if we weren't from the Order, it was only natural to think of the Demon King's Army.

The idea of a Neutral Zone had long since become an empty phrase, and aside from the Demon King's Army and the Order's forces, there were no other existing factions.

Remnants, perhaps, but any independent faction with the skill and guts to infiltrate a secret prison managed by the Order in top secrecy to find the Saintess had long since vanished.

From the Saintess's perspective, a half-demon and Demon duo who had secretly entered an Order prison could only be seen as members of the Demon King's Army.

Shrug-

"We got in one way or another. It's too long a story to explain the details."

"......."

After a moment of silence, the Saintess seemed to have organized her thoughts and muttered.

"...I suppose. If you are ones who have inherited the blood of demons, you could ignore the Order's magic... But even so, finding this place couldn't have been easy."

"There are two options."

It wouldn't have been difficult to tell a story the Saintess could accept if I explained everything from beginning to end.

Unfortunately, time was not infinite.

No matter how rugged this underground prison was or how twisted the space was with numerous spells.

A jailer still came and went periodically to check on the Saintess.

"One is we get to the point. The other is we start rambling from the beginning, the jailer shows up, we don't get to have a proper conversation, and we both get caught."

"......."

Shrug-

"Which will it be?"

"...Let's get to the point."

It was more of a rhetorical choice, as the answer was already decided.

In any case, she seemed to have chosen the former.

"Unfortunately, I didn't come here to persuade you to join the Demon King's Army or to assassinate you."

"......."

"I'm not part of the Demon King's Army in the first place, but if they were to use your Authority of Purification on their forces, it would actually be a good thing for the Order."

"...!"

The Saintess's eyes widened.

"How did you...?"

The Authority of Purification.

Given that the Saintess was known for destroying a great number of Demonic Species, one might hear this and simply accept it.

But that was, in fact, one of the Saintess's secrets.

Everyone who had experienced the Saintess's power, just like every Priest belonging to the Order, thought that the Saintess also used Divine Magic, just that its intensity was far more overwhelming than that of other Priests.

Even the Priests who used Divine Magic themselves, not just ordinary people, believed the Saintess's power was a form of Divine Magic.

However.

The powers and miracles the Saintess used while acting as God's representative were not based on Divine Magic.

It was on a completely different level.

An innate power that, among the many Priests of the Order, only the Saintess could use.

The moment the word 'Authority' was attached, it meant it was on the same level as the extraordinary power wielded by the Constellations.

'.......'

And, as was obvious from the Saintess's surprise, she had never spoken of this power to anyone.

So she couldn't help but react that way to the words 'Authority of Purification' that came out of my mouth.

Shrug-

"Just listen. Didn't we agree to get to the point?"

"......."

I cut her off as she was about to interrupt and continued speaking.

"Anyway, the reason I came to find you, Saintess, is in a similar context."

"......."

"The foundation upon which you've walked a path no one has ever walked, overcoming miraculous feats no one has ever manifested, is that 'Authority of Purification' you possess."

"......."

"And focusing on the fact that among the many Constellations who have exercised their Authority since the founding of the Order, not a single one has ever wielded an Authority related to 'Purification', an idea came to my mind."

Smirk-

Judging by her expression, the Saintess already seemed to know what words would come out of my mouth next.

She wore a look of utter astonishment.

So astonished that, for that brief moment, her characteristic dignity vanished without a trace.

"Are you the reincarnation of the 'Messiah'?"