As I ended up returning to the inn a bit before dinner, I headed to my room to wait. Huh, Rapunzel is still here. Well, I guess I wouldn’t know if she had left or not. At least she doesn’t seem to be questioning life anymore. She’s currently reading, so I’ll leave her be as I lay down on the bed next to where she is sitting.
As I lay there, I can’t help but think about the various reactions everyone had to me being the saintess. Everyone had suddenly become super respectful. They would apologize for their disrespect and for questioning my abilities or intent. Some of them, I noticed, were super nervous. Even the priests at the church did, especially after Jesica acted like that. I hope she wasn’t punished for how she acted. But yeah, everyone's reactions were really strange. It was like I had revealed that I was a noble or something.
Wait! That’s exactly how it was, I realized as I sat up. I had forgotten because I never really cared about becoming the saintess in the first place, but the saintess position itself is a noble title.
So, I’m a noble then? Their reactions would make sense in that case. Suddenly a noble shows up and asks to see some spells. You, not realizing that they are a noble, tell them that these spells aren’t for just anyone to learn, and that they need to prove their qualifications. You (probably) don’t mean any offense, but giving these spells to anyone not properly prepared could hurt people. Then, they reveal that not only are they a noble, but they are the saintess, a position well known for their mastery of support magic. Anyone would be worried that they just offended someone powerful. Especially in a church. Saintesses weren't given authority by any country, but by the church itself.
I guess that’s how a normal church would react to me, huh. I never realized because my church mostly treated me the same. At least everyone that I usually interacted with did, the higher ups had acted differently, but as I almost never interacted with them, I never paid it any mind.
Haa, how did I become a noble? I mean I obviously know how, but it just doesn’t feel real. I mean, what does that even mean for me?
Wait! What does that mean? I know that I am a noble, but nobles have a hierarchy, right? Where do I stand? Do I have any authority? Responsibilities? Well, I know I need to protect the Hero, but other than that? I mean, I don’t even know my rank in the church, and they gave me the position!
“I don’t even know my rank in the church.” I subconsciously mumble, shocked at the realization. I’m a part of the church, likely an important part, but I didn’t even realize. Man, I must really be a bit slow.
“What are you mumbling about?” Rapunzel asks.
“I-I’m a noble, right?” I ask, lacking confidence in that fact.
“Yeah, the title of saintess effectively makes you a noble.” She responds, a bit stunned at my question.
“What does that mean?”
Rapunzel pauses, contemplating my question. After a bit, she says. “I don’t quite know what you are asking. Are you asking what a noble is?”
“No! I just, nobles have a hierarchy, right? So I was wondering where I stand.”
“You don’t know?” She asks in shock. “Do-Don’t they at least teach you what a saintess is before training you to be one?”
“Maybe.” I answered hesitantly.
“You don’t even know if you've been taught!” She almost shouts. This has got to be the most confused I’ve ever seen Rapunzel.
“I-I don’t know. I didn’t pay attention.” She goes wide eyed at my confession. “I mean, I never really planned to actually become the saintess in the first place.”
“You what!” She says, actually shouting now. “How!? Why!? How did you even become a Saintess in the first place!?”
“It was an accident.”
“HOW DO YOU ACCIDENTLY BECOME A SAINTESS!?” She shouts before sitting on the bed with her head in her hands, having decided to take a break from this conversation.
I feel bad now, poor Rapunzel just finished questioning life, but now she’s questioning it again.
As I was silently apologizing to her, I heard a knock on the door.
“Miss Rapunzel, is everything alright, I heard you shouting. Do you require assistance?” Gregory asks.
“Everything’s fine. Well, not really. She’s not fine.”
“Miss Elizabeth? May I ask what has transpired? Did you have a fight with Miss Rapunzel?”
“Maybe?”
“That response does not inspire confidence. May I enter your room?”
I look over at Rapunzel. Seeing no response, I give Gregory permission.
“May I ask what caused Miss Rapunzel to start shouting?”
“I asked her what it means to be the saintess.”
“So, a philosophical question that ended in an argument, then?”
“No, in the literal sense, what is the saintess, what’s my rank, etc.”
Gregory turns to look at Rapunzel, who nods in agreement. “I-I see. I understand why Miss Rapunzel would become so frustrated. While I would like to question your lack of information, dinner is about finished, so we should continue this conversation afterwards.” He says before heading downstairs.
As I slowly follow, I wonder what he means by questioning my lack of info? Does he mean that he will fill in the gaps of my knowledge?
While I was contemplating, Gregory seems to have said something to everyone, as they were giving me odd stares throughout our meal.
After we finished, everyone entered my room, surrounding me. “It feels like I’m being interrogated.” I joked.
“In a sense, you are.” Melly responds, having been chosen as the one to primarily question me.
“I-I see. Why?” I ask nervously.
“Haa, that’s what we want to know. How did you manage to become the saintess without knowing what the saintess does?”
“Full story?” I ask.
“Full story.” She confirms.
“Haa, okay. So, I became a saint candidate because the priests were excited about the candidacy trials and were trying to get qualified people to attempt them. Feeling that taking the tests would make everyone happy, I, along with two others, agreed. I then happened to pass.”
“You just happened to pass?” Melly questions.
“Yeah, I hadn’t exactly prepared for the trials, I didn’t even know that it was a thing until the priests asked me to attempt it.” I shrug, to everyone’s disbelief. “So, after somehow passing, I was sent to the main temple to continue my education. There, I was told that I could just bring some textbooks with me back to my church for training, so I did just that. They tried to persuade me not to, but I only took the test for everyone at my church, so having to stay at the temple wasn’t a desirable option for me. I would have sooner dropped my candidacy.” I say with a smile. Everyone else didn’t seem to agree with my sentiments, though, considering their shocked gasps. Well, everyone but the Hero, who nods in understanding. More evidence for the Hero’s suspected goal.
“You would have given up your position if you weren’t allowed to return to your church? Why would you be willing to give up such an honorable position?”
“Because my church was more important to me than some useless position.” Everyone flinched at my declaration. “As I said, I only got the position for the priests back at the church. While it was mildly annoying to have to return to the temple every month to be tested, it at least seemed to make everyone happy. Especially the higher ups that I’d almost never interacted with, they seemed ecstatic. Not that I really cared though.” I shrugged.
“Okay, so you accidentally became a saint candidate, how did you become the saintess then? It’s not like you can just stumble upon the power. Also, why don’t you know anything about the position?” Melly asked.
“Well.” I say in embarrassment. “I never even considered actually becoming the saintess, and basically no one thought I would either, so in the end, I never really bothered to really learn about it.” I say, avoiding their disappointed stares.
“That… mostly explains your ignorance, at least. So what did you even do as a candidate?”
“I just kept on studying magic as usual, only with more resources than before. And, since I was in charge of my own education, I basically just ignored anything that I wasn’t interested in.”
“Which just so happened to include basically everything about being the saintess itself.” I nod as everyone sighs.
“I have a new appreciation for my parents for forcing me to study things other than magic now. If they were not as strict with me, I might have been in the same situation as Miss Elizabeth.” Gregory commented. Hey! I’m not that bad! Probably…
“So, how did you end up becoming the saintess then? You couldn’t have just chanced upon the position.”
“I did.”
“What?” She asks in confusion
“I did just chance upon the position.” I confirm.
“HUH!? How!? How do you just chance upon becoming the saintess!?” Melly yells.
“Well, one day, during my usual morning prayers, I suddenly felt like someone had healed me. At the time I thought one of the younger kids had just pranked me, but a week later, when every candidate was called and tested, it turned out that that was the Gods choosing and blessing me as the saintess.” I calmly explain.
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“The Gods just chose you to be the saintess!? AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE! HOW!?” Melly screamed.
Rapunzel had her face in her hands. “It was an accident.” I heard her mumble. I could barely pick up what everyone else was saying as they argued with each other. I did notice the Hero hunched over with his hands over his stomach laughing so hard that it looked like it hurt.
I must admit, I did find everyone’s reactions pretty funny. Their panicked arguments were a stark difference to the Pope and others’ stunned silence. I couldn't help but laugh until everyone finally calmed down.
“Haa.” Melly sighs. “You really just stumbled upon sainthood, didn’t you. I guess it kinda makes sense for someone that never intended to become the saintess to not bother learning about the position, but you should have at least skimmed it!”
“Maybe, but all of that stuff felt so far away from the little orphan girl I was. It still feels far away, but I’m getting used to it! Even if it’s a slow process.”
“Haa, I can’t say anything when you put it that way.” Melly sighs. “So, what do you know about the saintess?”
“I know that I am some sort of noble, I have some position in the church, and my current job is to assist the Hero in our journey to slay the demon lord.”
Everyone sighs at that. “That’s all stuff that even a child would know just from reading stories!”
“I mean, that’s basically what I am. Besides, I probably only became an adult a few months ago.”
“Right, you are the youngest one here.” Melly sighs. She then suddenly jolts and turns towards me. “Wait, probably? I think I know what that means, but…” She hesitates, as everyone else realizes what that means.
“That’s right. I don’t know when my birthday is. I am an adult though, I’ve lived in the church long enough to know that much. We are fairly certain that I was born in the past few months, but we can’t pin it down further.” I confirm their suspicions.
“Eli, I.” Melly starts.
“Don’t worry about it. My first memories were of the church. I’ve lived there effectively my entire life. I’ve long since come to terms with my situation. So before you ask: I do not care who my original parents are or why I ended up at the church, I don’t need you to hold your tongue about me being an orphan or anything related to it, and I neither know when my birthday is, nor do I care. If you want to know something, just ask, worst-case scenario, I’ll just refuse to answer. I’ve been dealing with this for so long that I’ve become numb to any issues I might have had.” I explained.
“...Okay.” Melly responds.
“What actually bothers me is when people ‘pity’ me, not the aggressive questioning I’ve gotten from kids that really should hold back a little. I’ve seen some kids cry because of that.” I sighed. “So if you want to say something, just say it. If I don’t like it, I’ll tell you. Besides, you can’t possibly be worse than a horde of curious seven year olds, even if you tried.” I weakly laughed. Ah, those kids can be brutal.
“I understand. I will keep that in mind.” She relents.
“Good.” I smile. “Actually, why did the Gods choose that day in particular to bless me?” I wonder. “Eh, guess I’ll never know.” I shrugged.
That's when the Hero joins into the conversation. “Maybe that is when your birthday is. I mean, you know it’s around that point, maybe the Gods were just informing you, as a sort of birthday present, one that took you a week to even notice.”
“Huh, makes sense.” I shrug. “ Either way, I guess it’s good enough for a placeholder even if it isn’t. Now I just need to remember when that was.”
Everyone sighed at that. “Let’s just get to what the saintess’ position is before we get more frustrated.” Rapunzel suggests, to everyone’s approval, even the Hero’s.
“Okay. First, the saintess is a sort of spiritual leader of the church. They are the representation of the Gods’ power, being the symbol of the church. While you don’t have as much authority as the pope, you are the second most important person in the church. You usually are seen as a powerful cardinal, and can usually use the authority of one, being able to occasionally even give direct commands to bishops.”
“HOLY S- ehem” I cut myself off. That’s a lot of power!
After giving me a look, Melly continues. “Second, you don’t have any official rank among nobles, as you aren’t aligned with any specific country. But, because of how influential the church is, while you don’t wield any actual authority, you are usually considered an equal to any king, being treated like a visiting king wherever you go.”
“A king?” I ask in shock.
“As I said though, you don’t actually have any power, you are just respected as such. So, you don’t need to obey any summons or bow to anyone, and such.”
“I don’t need to bow? But…” Did I do something wrong when I kneeled to the king, should I have just stood there? But that would have been so awkward.
Noticing my look, Melly explained. “Don’t worry, you weren’t kneeling to the king, you were kneeling to the Gods. The king was just the messenger giving us our task.”
“Okay.” I sigh in relief. At least I didn’t start some political drama.
“Finally.” Melly continues. “You are correct about your current task. Accompanying the Hero has overshadowed any other responsibility you would have, so you don’t need to worry about that, at least, for now.”
“I see, that’s good, I don’t want to have to deal with anything else while adventuring, this journey has been tough enough as it is.”
“Yeah… it really has been.” Melly responds with a sigh.
“So… what’s everyone else like?” I wonder before panicking. “I-If you don’t mind me asking.”
“That’s fine, it makes sense that you’re curious. Besides, leaving only you and the Hero in the dark is a bit rude.” She answers. “So, let’s start with the highest, before working our way down. You are at the top, only matched by royalty.”
“I am Gregory Magus, the second son and current heir of the Count Magus family.”
“I’m next. I am a knight from the Stonehart family. We are considered closer to Barons than knights in authority though.” Melly follows.
“I come from a family of summoners, we are about as influential as a moderate merchant company, but lack any real political power.” Hansen stated.
“Then there’s me. While I come from a line of scouts and hunters, I was the highest ranked anyone in my family has ever gotten, as a scout leader, before losing my job. Now being chosen as a companion is our peak.” Rapunzel finished.
Before I could respond the Hero interjected. “I was just a commoner in my world, hailing from a normal family, being a hero is by far the highest anyone in my family has ever gotten.” He laughs.
“So, now that you know how high your position is, especially compared to everyone else, what are you going to do?” Melly asks, a little nervous.
“I’m gonna see if I can get an ID with a lower position to use.”
“What?”
“Introducing myself as the saintess seems to get people nervous, so I’d rather be seen as a wandering priestess or something. Maybe have one claiming me as a deacon for moments where I need more authority? Nah, being an investigator would probably cause far more problems than being the saintess.” I considered.
“Okay, but other than that?”
“I don’t have any plans. Why, am I missing something?” I asked in worry.
“Haha.” Melly laughs. “No, no you’re not. As long as you are fine with that. I just thought you would act differently now that you know how high your position is.”
I see. “What do you mean? I’ve always been the second most influential person in the party. I’m the healer, no one just ignores your healer. I’m only second to the Hero, as he’s effectively the party leader.” I responded. “What, did you really think rank would change anything?” I smirked. “Paying attention to stuff like that is how parties die. We are all comrades, friends even, rank won’t change that.”
“I see. You’re right. Thanks for reminding me, oh great healer.” Melly smiled.
“Any time.” I say as if I was actually teaching her something.
“Well, at least that's done with. So, what are everyone’s plans for tomorrow?”
“I’m heading to the church.” I responded. “Oh yeah, Gregory, are you busy tomorrow?”
“I currently lack any plans, do you require my assistance?” He asks.
“I was wondering if you could use some earth magic to remove some rocks.”
“That would be fine, may I ask why?”
“The field that the church orphans play at has a few rocks that they sometimes trip over or fall onto, causing them to get hurt. So I was wanting you to remove them so that they would suffer less injuries.” I explained. “Please, I’ll owe you one.” I offer.
“I see. Quite a noble request, I would be more than happy to be of assistance. While I would normally refuse the debt, I dread being unprepared for our future mountain adventures, so I request your assistance in becoming more proficient at climbing.”
“Sounds good.” I say as I go to shake his hand. “Good exchange.”
“I agree.”
“So, what are you doing at the church, other than removing some hazardous rocks?” Rapunzel asks.
“I’m going to play with the kids there.” I say. “Oh yeah, I also promised to tell them about the troll fight.”
“I see, that sounds… fun.” She responds.
“It can be, but it’s surprisingly difficult.”
“How so?” She asks, curious as to how difficult it could actually be.
I laughed. “Playing is easy, what’s difficult is playing in a way that makes sure everyone is having fun.” I answer.
“How so?” Melly asks.
“Well, for example, when you are playing ‘soccer,’ you need to hold back enough to not overpower the kids, but still make it a bit of a challenge for them to beat you. You also need to make sure the ball is passed around mostly equally so that it’s not only the same few kids hogging the ball. You also ideally do that without letting the kids realize that’s what you are doing.” I explained. “While there's more to it than just that, making sure everyone is having fun is a challenging yet rewarding experience.” I smiled.
“I see, that does sound more difficult than I thought.” Melly says as she thinks. “That might actually be decent training as well.”
What? “I see… I guess it might?” I don’t get why that was her first though, but, good job, I guess?
“Eli, would it be fine for me to join you?” Melly asks.
“Of course! I’m sure the kids would love to have more people play with them. If anyone else wants to join, you can. The more, the merrier.” I offered.
“How long do you think we will be here for, Hero?” Rapunzel asked.
“Two or three days.” He responds. “Longer should anyone need more time.”
“I see, I would like to join you too, Eli.”
“Sure, what about you, Hansen?” I ask.
“I’m busy trying to tame a new summon. I’ll join you if I finish early.”
“Understood. We should be heading out a few hours after breakfast.”
“Why so late?” Melly asks.
“If it’s like my church, they should have to do their chores in the morning, so they wouldn’t be allowed to play with us until after they finished anyway.” I explained.
“Ah, that makes sense. We’ll follow your lead.”
“I shall take my leave. I shall be looking forward to tomorrow morning.” Gregory said as he left. He was followed by Hansen and the Hero.
“Shall we get ready for bed?” Melly asks.
“Yeah. I never realized how nice sleepwear actually was until I had to go without it for over a week.” I sighed. You have to always be ready for combat when you are traveling, after all. Though, I guess that doesn’t matter as much for me. Not like I would do that though, as that’d just be mean.
“Yeah, it’s definitely nice. But you shouldn’t be the one complaining, your robes are easier to sleep in than my gambison or Rapunzel’s leather tunic.” Melly complains.
“Still better than sleeping in full plate though.” I argue.
“Only sleeping on rocks is worse than that though.”
“Except when you are wearing full plate though, then rocks aren’t so bad.” I joke.
“Doesn’t make the plate any more comfortable to sleep in though, no matter how comfortable it is to fight in.” Melly sighs.
“Hey, at least we can sleep on a bed for the next few days.”
“I’m glad for that.” Melly says. “It would be even better if I wasn’t hanging off of the bed though.” She teased.
“Whatever.” I shrug. I won’t get into that argument, even if I definitely feel bad about that. But, we agreed to this before we entered the town, so there’s no changing things now. “Goodnight.” I say.
“Yeah, Goodnight guys.” Melly follows.
“Goodnight, Eli, Melly. Sleep well.”