Chapter 728
Clatter, clatter—
Through the pouring rain, the sound of carriage wheels rolling echoed.
Simon and Lete were sitting together on the coachman’s seat outside. Simon, still looking somewhat bewildered as if he couldn’t believe it, turned his head to the side.
A straw hat with tufts of hay poking out as though bought from a market, leather clothes that oddly carried the scent of boot polish, anyone could tell it was the typical attire of coachmen, yet the wearer was a beautiful girl with flowing white hair.
And she could handle the carriage surprisingly well. She skillfully avoided uneven roots and muddy patches with ease.
“Ah, that was fun.”
Her voice reached him.
When Simon glanced sideways, he saw Lete smiling mischievously, having cast a soundproofing magic circle so those inside the carriage wouldn’t hear.
“Before you met me, you were fussing over your hair, doing all sorts of things just to look good, weren’t you?”
Simon’s face flushed red with embarrassment, and she chuckled softly.
Simon cleared his throat, trying to change the subject.
“What’s with that outfit? And this carriage? And those elderly folks riding in the back?”
“Ah, you mean those people.”
Lete twisted a lock of her pure white hair with her other hand as she explained.
After crossing the border and taking a series of teleportation circles, they arrived in Hove, a neighboring fiefdom of Leshill.
From Hove, they needed to take a carriage into the mountainous Leshill, but—
—Right now, Leshill is flooded, you can’t go.
The roads were blocked. No matter how much money Lete offered, the coachmen shook their heads. In weather like this, it was impossible to cross the mountains by carriage.
But, as it happened, there were others besides Lete trying to get back to Leshill: the elderly couple now seated in the back.
They lived in Leshill, but had come down to Hove to buy daily necessities. With the flood, they found themselves stranded in town.
They hadn’t brought enough travel funds to extend their stay at an inn. Starting the next night, they would have no choice but to sleep outside, yet the night air was cold, and the rain was still falling.
Hearing their plight, Lete simply said,
“I just bought a carriage.”
Simon’s eyes widened.
“You bought a carriage? The whole thing?”
“Believe it or not, being a Saint does pay well. I was worried about Teacher Anna, and I felt bad for those folks, so I decided to drive us myself.”
She grabbed the brim of her straw hat and twisted around in her seat.
“I even bought the outfit for the mood. Looks good, right?”
The coachman’s leather outfit was a snug design, clinging close to her figure. Simon awkwardly averted his gaze, nodding half-heartedly.
“A-anyway. More importantly, are you even allowed to come to the Dark Alliance like this? Aren’t Saints supposed to be ridiculously busy even during breaks?”
“Hehe.”
Lete’s eyes curved into crescents.
“I ran away from home. Put me up, Simon.”
“???”
* * *
At that same time.
Holy Federation.
“The Saint has vanished!”
“Search everywhere she could be hiding!”
The Paladins of the Holy Federation spread out across the district, combing through the area as though hunting rats.
“Have you seen a girl with white hair and golden eyes? She should have been wearing a hooded robe.”
“N-no, I haven’t.”
“We’ll need to search your house.”
There was a chance someone had taken her in under the Saint’s authority, so the Paladins began barging into homes indiscriminately.
‘Did someone under inquisition manage to escape?’
‘I don’t know.’
The residents, faces frozen with fear, cooperated as best they could. Watching the scene unfold from a little distance was a woman.
“Search thoroughly enough, then withdraw.”
A woman with sea-colored hair, eyes gently closed.
It was Lady Israfil, the Saint of the Divine Sea.
A Paladin dropped to one knee with precise movement.
“B-but, if we fail to find Saint Lete like this…!”
“I have a good idea of where she might be.”
Israfil answered with a gentle smile. The Paladin’s head shot up.
“Please tell us! We’ll go at once—!”
“Now isn’t the time to press her so hard. Better to give that child a little more time. She hasn’t even been a Saint for a full year yet, has she?”
She quietly lifted her gaze toward the heavens.
“Just come back safely, Lete.”
* * *
A rainy afternoon.
Simon was listening to Lete as she spoke beside him.
“A Saint meets countless people, and experiences every kind of human nature.”
With a flick of the reins, Lete spoke, her voice tinged with heat.
“The only ones who truly respect the name of ‘Saint’ are the common folk, the simple people. But the ones I mostly deal with aren’t commoners, but the high clergy.”
Her expression twisted with anger.
“The way they treat a Saint can be divided into just two kinds. A precious, obedient, pretty doll—or a cheap outlet for their filthy desires.”
“A cheap… what?”
“F***. The kind of lunatics I’ve seen, you wouldn’t believe. Ugh, it still makes my skin crawl. What’s the point of kneeling in front of me, when the way they look at me is the gaze of a deranged pervert?”
For a moment, Lete’s words turned foul, like she was biting down on a rag.
‘…That must be rough.’
There was even one man, she said, who claimed that embracing the “closest daughter”, the Saint, was the same as embracing Goddess Dave herself, and released bursts of holiness while believing it.
Because the source of holiness, faith, manifested differently in every human, such things did happen. Though hidden within the Holy Federation, it was a frequent cause of social scandal.
“Truly f***ing disgusting bastards!”
She stomped hard on the carriage floor. Simon gave a bitter smile.
“But no matter how high a bishop is, aren’t you still different? You’re a Saint, half-divine. Can they really treat you that way?”
“That’s the most despicable thing about those pigs.”
She furrowed her brows.
“With experienced Saints, ones with a great career—especially Lady Israfil—they don’t dare say a word, don’t even meet their eyes. Yet with me, the greenhorn, they pull that kind of shit. What, because I haven’t even got three years of experience? Because I can be replaced anytime? They think I can’t resist, so they get bolder!”
Unable to contain her anger, Lete shook her legs furiously. Then, suddenly, the curtain of the carriage was pulled aside, and the old man inside poked out his head.
“Miss, is something wrong?”
The voices were blocked, but apparently the stomping had carried through.
Startled, Lete immediately froze, then shyly lowered her head.
“Sorry for the noise. The road is just a little bumpy.”
Then, as if nothing had happened, she put on an innocent, angelic expression.
The old man went back inside, and Lete sighed as she reactivated the soundproofing magic circle. Simon smiled and said,
“You actually seem like you’d be good at being a Saint, that’s unexpected.”
“You’re dead.”
Her brows narrowed as she growled, and Simon quickly shut his mouth.
“Anyway, it wasn’t just once or twice. Even if those old men looked at me with perverted eyes, it’s not like they could actually touch me. The stress kept piling up, sure, but I decided to let it go and move on.”
“Mm.”
“But then.”
Her voice turned cold.
“There was an incident, when all that stress exploded at once.”
It happened during one of the routine visits to a provincial temple, while greeting the bishops.
Exhausted, all Lete wanted was to get it over with quickly. She held out her hand, and the elderly bishop knelt at her feet, kissing the back of it.
But then—
“Tongue.”
At that one word, Simon felt a chill crawl down his spine.
“My hand was wet. I wondered what it was, so I looked down, and that insane old bastard was sticking out his filthy tongue, grinning creepily.”
Lete handed the reins over to Simon and shot to her feet. Startled, Simon grabbed them and steered the carriage in her place.
“F***, in that moment everything just blew up. I smashed my elbow right into the bastard’s philtrum.”
She reenacted the motion, driving her elbow down.
“Like this. Then stomped his hand with my heel, kicked his face until it caved in, and after that, grabbed his jaw and—”
She slashed her finger downward in a swift motion.
“Pulled out his tongue and cut it off.”
“…Ah.”
It was exactly the kind of incident he’d feared.
“The way he scrambled to save himself, trying to cast holy spells, was hilarious. I stomped the severed tongue into bits so it couldn’t regenerate, then escaped the temple. Paladins and guards chased me, but I outran them and crossed the border.”
Lete shrugged as she sat back down.
“And that’s how I ended up here, beyond the border in Leshill.”
“…You’ve really been through a lot.”
She plopped back into her seat, snatched the reins back from Simon, and held them again.
“So here I am, ta-da, a runaway girl. Now I’m unwelcome in both the Holy Federation and the Dark Alliance.”
“When the break’s over, do you plan to go back?”
Lete rested her chin in her hand.
“I don’t know.”
“You hurt a bishop, sure, but he was the one guilty of blasphemy first. Since you’re a Saint, I doubt they’ll punish you too harshly.”
“They’ll punish me. Because I am a Saint, Her Holiness the Pontifex will deliver judgment herself. What’s certain is that, unlike when I was a student, I won’t be forgiven just by reciting a thousand prayers.”
She tilted her head back.
“Honestly, I’m tired. I want to give up the Saint’s position like Teacher Anna did, ah, just the thought of it all makes me sick.”
Lete had never held a grand ambition to become a Saint.
For nearly half the girls born in the Holy Federation, it was the dream, and she was just one of them.
She even had talent in white magic, and confidence in her faith. Once she became Efnelle’s top student, she set her sights higher and worked toward sainthood, and so, she truly became a Saint.
But Lete never imagined it would be this painful, this miserable. People only ever told her that a Saint was noble and glorious, no one warned her she’d be harassed by bishops.
“Let’s just go home and rest first.”
Simon decided to keep his words short.
“Spend the break in Leshill, rest, and calmly think about what to do.”
“Yes.”
Lete closed her eyes.
“More than anything, I just miss Teacher Anna so much.”
While they talked, before they knew it, they had arrived at their destination.
The northern mountain refuge.
Simon and Lete stepped down from the carriage and helped the old couple down as well.
“Father, Mother!”
“Grandma!”
People from the refuge came running. As Simon watched with satisfaction at the family’s reunion, Lete walked forward and patted the side of the carriage’s luggage compartment.
“With all this rain, I figured you’d be short on food supplies, so I brought some. Hope it helps.”
“Oh my goodness, we can’t thank you enough!”
“You’ve saved us!”
People hurried over and began unloading the provisions. Simon’s eyes widened in surprise, while Lete winked at him.
“Good sense, right?”
“…Ah, yeah. Thanks.”
With her hands behind her back, Lete wandered, looking around, until children ran up to her.
“Big sis! Thank you for bringing Grandma back!”
“Thanks!”
“Bye~”
Lete smiled kindly, crouching to pat their heads.
But from here on, the ground was too broken for the carriage to continue. They decided to leave it with the locals and head down on foot.
“Before seeing Teacher Anna, let’s climb a bit first.”
“Where to?”
“The highest point in Leshill.”
She pointed upward with her fingertip.
“I’ll make the rain stop.”
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