Chapter 20 - Personal Request to the Saintess

I guide Celestine into an empty office. This room is usually used to have private chats with VIP guests. Either a high-rank hunter, a high-rank buyer (a person who buys hunter’s service via quest), or a noble. And the saintess is naturally also included in the VIP list. So here I am, personally helping the VIP to register herself.

After Jane served tea to us, she left the two of us in the office.

Let's start with registering her as a hunter first.

"Do you have the ability to read and write?"

"I do"

"Okay, then fill out this form"

"Do I have to?"

"Well, not really. You are someone with high social status after all so you can enjoy even more benefits than the hunter guild's normal member. But the hunter guild hasn't been existing for long so there might be changes in the future. So why not join us when we are just starting? You can get the honor of becoming an early member of the guild"

"Is there any benefit of becoming a member?"

"First of all, you get less cut from your quest reward. Non-members would get a 20% cut and members would get a 10% cut. Of course, as your rank goes higher, the cut will become less and less"

"There's a cut?"

"Of course, there's a cut. How do you think the guild pays its operation cost? Who will pay those girls working as receptionists?"

"But didn't you get income from selling monster loot and other stuff?"

"Well, if you want to get paid with leathers, ores, or herbs then be my guest. The hunter shop is more about helping our members first and profit second. We have a low-profit margin from there. Also, if the demand for certain items is low then the goods would be lying in our warehouse for a long time and it will generate a loss for us. For example, the situation with meat and leather in the capital lately"

"Ah, that's true. The price of meat in the capital has been really cheap lately. I can eat meat until I am full. That is bliss… Wait, doesn't that mean you are the cause for that?"

"As expected of the saintess. You managed to notice it right away"

"Why did I feel thorns in your words?"

"It's nothing, your holiness. Now, would you fill out the form?"

"Let me ask you one question first, can I revoke my membership later?"

"I want to ask why would you do that but that is your private matter so please ignore that. For your question, yes, of course you can. In fact, hunter guild would also revoke people's membership if they committed a crime and other frowned upon acts"

"Because I want to quit if your guild turns out to be an evil organization, that's why"

Celestine then starts filling out the form after that remark. Well, to be fair, that is a good question to ask. There's no actual limit to what magic can do in this world after all and signing a dubious contract could turn your life into a literal living hell.

But then again, I am kinda doubtful about her name. She has a cool name, Celestine. Most commoners in this world are illiterate and have narrow vision because of their way of living. Because of that, they will give their children a very generic name.

Most girls will be named after flowers or other beautiful things in the surrounding area. While boys will be named almost half-heartedly. There are even people who named their boys with animal names. Monkey, bear, rabbit, mouse, anything as long as it is good enough to call them.

And in the case of orphans, most of them do not even have a name. I give most of my friends in Goldcastle's orphanage names myself.

So the name Celestine is a rarity. Either her parents are wealthy merchants that could afford a degree of education or… she is a noble's hidden child.

She came from Greencastle? That's from the kingdom's western border area close to the great killer jungle. Just as far as Goldcastle from the capital. Yeah, I am peeking at her information, I will read it later anyway, let me take a little peek.

“What do you mean by special skill?"

Celestine suddenly asked when I was focused on peeking at her form.

“Any special skill that can help you in doing your job. Be it battle skills or ancillary skills. Examples of battle skills are sword, spear, bow, elemental magic, etc. For ancillary skills, the examples are tracking, sneaking, medical, cooking, crafting, etc. Don't think that the skill is only related to battle. Even the mundane everyday skills could also be included. But you don't have to write anything if you don't feel like sharing it. We respect our hunters' privacy. As long as they don't break the law, that is”

"Okay”

Well, I guess I can just wait for her to finish. I will be reading it after she's done anyway.

Not long after, she handed me the filled form.

In the list of family, she only wrote mother. My suspicion about her lineage grows but well, that is ultimately her business. Let's ask her about the important one.

“There are only healing magic and cooking in your special skill form. Do you have other combat skills?"

“I am still training my combat skills and my instructor at the church still didn't approve it so I didn't write it down"

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Then you can join the guild’s regular daily training at dawn and afternoon to check your aptitude. We will only let you take hunting quest if the instructor at the daily training gives you a pass”

"Can't I just stand in the rear to support my teammates with my healing magic?”

"Well, you can. But don't blame the guild if you get an ambush and get attacked from behind”

"... I will join the training”

"A wise choice. Now, your membership to the guild has been approved. Welcome to the guild, Miss Celestine”

"Thank you”

"Now, as you are already a member, I can give you my personal quest”

"I'm listening”

"One of my men got a broken arm during his last mission. I want you to heal him. I see that you can use intermediate-level healing magic so I assume that you have no problem with healing broken bones, right?”

"I think I can do that. But I never had an experience in healing broken bones so I'm not so sure. Theoretically, I should be able to heal broken bones with intermediate healing magic. But you can just go to the church for healing, right? Or do you want to pay less than the market price by hiring me?”

“I will pay you the full price. 10 gold coins right? But you might need to cast it a few times more than you think”

"... Why giving all that amount to me? If you ask for healing from the church, most of that amount will be used for charity. It should be more beneficial for everyone if you choose to use the church’s service"

“Well, let's just say that because you joined the hunter guild, and as you are also a VIP, I want to give my support to you so you can become the face of the guild. Well, even if you don't want to, people will still look at you anyway so I hope that you can use this reward to buy yourself some good equipment. Don't use it all on charity, okay? Use the money to strengthen yourself first so you can earn more. At that time, you are free to give to charity”

"I see. That is indeed true. I need equipment if I want to go on a hunt”

"Besides that, I also want to learn about healing magic from you”

"You want to learn healing magic? You have darkness affinity, right? How can you cast healing spells?”

“I managed to learn fleshmancy from the fleshmancer demon that I defeated before. Fleshmancer demon should be able to use its own version of healing magic but as my understanding of healing magic is basically zero, I could not grasp the feeling yet"

“I see. So what do you want me to do?"

“Simple. I will wound myself and you will heal me. I could not fully immerse myself in the intermediate healing before as we were still in public. Do you want an extra payment for this?”

"I should just obediently accept your money here, right?”

"Attagirl. 5 gold extra for the payment”

" Wow, I never thought I would get this much money in a short time. Mom would be surprised”

"I'm sorry if you think my question is too personal, but is your mother still living in Greencastle or did she follow you here?"

"My mother follows me here. It would be safer for her with the church's protection here"

"I see"

It sounds like her mother is being treated like a hostage to me. But well, ignorance is bliss. Let's try to give her some hints. I don't really like the church because of its bad image in most of the isekai novels I read on Earth so I can't help but be suspicious of them.

"If your mother wants to work, she can apply to work at the orphanage. Or if she has reading writing skills, she can also become a receptionist of the hunter… "

"No!"

"Okay. Just act like I never say anything"

"No, I'm sorry, that's not what I meant. I'm afraid that if Mother becomes a receptionist here then she will nag at me if I take a dangerous quest”

"Well, it's good that you still have someone who will nag at you if you do something stupid. I never experienced that before”

"So the rumors are true?”

"What rumor? That my family is cursed and forced to have a child with some unknown woman who is willing to get paid with money? That is true but don't rub it in my face”

"Okay"

“Then what about you? You wrote that you only have your mother as your family"

“My dad went to battle when I was still a kid and never returned. I guess he fought his best to protect me and my mom”

So she is not a hidden child of a noble? Huh, I guess there will be rare cultured commoners even in this isekai. But it is hard to imagine a cultured military man.

“Really? Is your father a member of the territory’s army?”

"No, he was a templar knight. That's why I feel happy that I can also follow in my dad's footsteps by being acknowledged by the church as a saintess. He used to tell me stories about heroes so I want to be one. But as the church won't let me train, then I'll be depending on your guild for that”

Oh, so that's where she got her heroic temperament. I should say, good job daddy. Your daughter is a bonafide heroine worth material.

"Shall we start with my lesson? Do you have any other important things to do after this?”

"Yes. I don't have anything important to do. What should we do?”

"First is this”

I roll the sleeve on my left arm, swiftly take my knife out, and slash a wide wound across my left arm.

Blood should be gushing out from the slash wound but as a tier 2 knight, I can control my body to not bleed too much.

The blood that did drip from my wound got devoured via my shadow so it wouldn't make a mess.

“Now please heal me with a slow and steady healing spell if you have one”

Celestine agreed and she cast a spell that slowly healed the wound in my left arm. I concentrate on my wound. Trying to understand anything from the experience. Something started to form in my head but it is still fuzzy.

My wound finished healing but I still couldn't fully understand. I feel that I just need a bit more to understand something so I unhesitatingly put another wound in my left arm. I put two wounds at once now in the hope of getting more time to comprehend the healing process.

I ask Celestine to heal me again and I put my full attention to my wound.

I can feel my cells divide, I can feel my cells turning into skin and flesh… and also blood. Yes, I'm not only damaging my flesh and skin but also reducing the amount of my blood so the healing should also target that. I can also feel my cells exerting their strength and my blood transports energy to replenish the spent strength.

No, the cells do not only receive energy from blood. The cells also receive energy from mana. Magic energy also works as nutrients?

At that time, I finally felt something click. I understand now. I can turn the flesh in flesh stock into mana and feed it to the wounded part to heal them. Mana is the bridge between my flesh stock and my real body. That's how the nigh-invincible fleshmancer demons heal themselves.

I cut my left arm again, just a little this time. When Celestine raises her hand up, I tell her to not heal me as I want to test out my new understanding.

And I managed to heal my wound by sacrificing a bit of flesh in my flesh stock.

“You managed to learn it in just 2 tries?”

“I have a solid foundation"

Finally, I managed to learn the healing magic. Or, more accurately, flesh mend magic as my magic is under the study of fleshmancy.

“Now, let's get to our next agenda. Healing broken bones"

“Okay. What should I do?"

“Well, I need to see your skill in healing broken bones. As you said before, you don't have any experience in this right? Then let's learn it by actually doing it"

“Don't tell me you are going to break your own bone for me to heal?"

"Oh please, I am not THAT perverted to let myself be testing rabbits. We are gonna find some, well, volunteers for that”

" Volunteers? Will there be anyone brave enough to let people break their bones?“

“Oh, you will be surprised by what people can do for money. But it might be hard to find. So let's go lay some trap to bait people”

Naturally, I can't say fish as in fishing. There's no such thing in this isekai. Open water areas are the most dangerous with monsters teeming in large hordes. Not to mention, the fish itself is also a monster.

“Let's go then. We will go to the orphanage first and we will start baiting"

“... You are not going to break a child’s bone, right?"

“Milady, can you stop being so suspicious of me?"

“I still haven't checked your claims so I put my decision on pending"

“Fair enough, let's go then"

Well, let's go fish… bait some ‘good samaritans’ to volunteer to become teaching material for the saintess.

I can't help but let out an evil smirk.

“If you want me to stop being suspicious of you, you should stop yourself from making that kind of expression. Well, I'm just saying”

Whoops, that's my bad, tee hee.