Part 1: Saintess Candidate Arc

6. The Saintess’s Work (1)

Translated by: S3

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Tomorrow, Lily would finally report to the castle as a Saint Candidate. Since she was worried and couldn't shake off her anxiety, she was reviewing the handed-out documents with Noah.

「Hey, Lily. Is this work assignment for the Saint Candidates correct? I heard it was supposed to be a rotation, but this doesn't look like a rotation, does it?」

Lily tilted her head at Noah’s slightly irritated voice. She herself didn’t feel there was an issue with this arrangement, but it seemed to be unexpected for him.

「Could you tell me a bit about what happened?」

「Um—」

Flipping through the documents, Lily recalled the contents of the briefing.

The extremely lengthy briefing began with the mindset expected of a Saint, followed by the achievements of the founding Saint, and the succeeding Saints who inherited her role.

They were told how highly necessary it was for the Saints to continue protecting the country by utilizing Light Magic. However, as time passed and the bloodline thinned, women to fill the role of Saint stopped appearing. The Holy Aurum Kingdom then embarked on the construction of the Protective Barrier: Protect Wall1.

When the Protective Barrier: Protect Wall was completed about two hundred years ago, the role of 'Saint, which was exclusively for women, was abolished, and instead, male and female Light Mages were hired to maintain the Protective Barrier: Protect Wall.

Then why was the role of 'Saint' being revived in the current generation?

The jobs for Light Mages still existed, but the number of people who could use the ability remained very small.

Aside from their regular work, quite a few problems requiring Light Magic had reportedly accumulated, which led to the decision to broadly recruit new Light Magic users.

She was told that since some of those various problems were exclusive to women, they chose to recruit for the 'Saint.'

「Wait a minute! What is that? 'Saint recruitment' because there are problems exclusive to women? Those people~~」

This time, Noah was more than just slightly angry at Lily’s explanation; he clenched his fist in rage.

「Just to correct the record, the initial policy was to recruit regardless of gender. And unfortunately, it coincided with His Highness’s broken engagement, and some ambitious nobles apparently pulled strings. Before anyone realized it, the recruitment was switched to 'Saint and Crown Princess Candidate'—for women only.」

They only realized it after the announcement had already spread throughout the entire country.

There were protests from other nobles against the obvious machinations of the nobles whose daughters possessed Light Magic, but the rumor had already spread too widely, both domestically and internationally, to be retracted.

Seeing this, the ringleaders got carried away and loudly voiced their opinions.

『The citizens are distressed about the matter with the Auro Empire. This provides good publicity, so there’s no problem!』

Though it was a reckless argument, there was no suitable counter-proposal strong enough to retract a topic that had already gained momentum. The troubled opposition sought advice from Arthur, who was the party concerned.

—Proceed with it as is. If no Saint appears, switch the recruitment to Light Mages.

Due to this judgment, the 'Saint' recruitment proceeded as planned, leading to the current situation where three Saint Candidates were reporting to the castle.

「Oh, I see. That sounds difficult.」

「Well, it's too late now. The real problem is the content of the work assigned to you, Lily.」

The first tasks assigned to the Saint Candidates were three:

—Performing a healing spell twice a day to slow the progression of the Queen’s illness.

—Providing daily relief through healing magic to the populace due to the herb shortage caused by the import suspension from the Eastern Continent.

—Decursing cursed equipment, weapons, and accessories brought into the castle.

The Queen was suffering from Magic Affliction Disease, a sickness where the balance between the body's magic power and its physical stamina, immunity, and hormones collapses, leading to hardened skin or extremely weakened muscles supporting the body. Since an antidote existed and the disease could be completely cured with a certain period of medication, it was not designated as an intractable disease. It was also a relatively common disease that developed with age, so there should have been no cause for concern. However, the current shortage of medicinal herbs made continuous treatment difficult, necessitating procedures to halt the disease's progression until a sufficient amount of medicine could be secured.

For the same reason, Saints were dispatched to the church to administer symptomatic treatment due to the shortage of the specific cure, providing treatment free of charge.

The decursing task was an issue that had been postponed, and they decided to seriously address it on this occasion.

These three tasks needed to be addressed immediately, and the Queen’s matter was also a confidential and important mission. There were other minor one-off tasks, which would be individually requested once they had settled in, they were told.

「I heard those three tasks were supposed to be rotated among the three of you, so why was it decided that each of you would be fixed to one assignment?」

「Um—」

She was indeed told during the explanation that it would be rotated among the three. But upon hearing that, two people firmly objected: Olivia and Poppy.

The two first argued over who would take the task of 'Healing Magic for the Queen.'

「Poppy-san is a commoner with questionable manners. Lily-san is out of the question. A rotation for the Healing Magic for the Queen is impossible. It is simply common sense that I should take on all of it.」

「Ehh. I can perform healing magic, too. Besides, I want to talk to the Queen as well! I want to do it!」

「Just your current choice of words is full of problems. Person in charge. Do you think it’s alright to bring her before the Queen?」

「Well… Indeed…」

The person in charge, having witnessed the flippancy of Poppy’s speech, could not deny Olivia’s point and gave an ambiguous answer.

「Mmm. Well, then I guess I’ll help out at the church. It would be wonderful to be useful to many people.」

「In that case, I will handle the Healing Magic for the Queen. Poppy-san will take charge of the assistance at the church. And Lily-san will be responsible for the decursing. Is that acceptable?」

At this point, the person in charge disappeared, and the room became Olivia's stage.

「No problem!」

Since it was the job she chose, Poppy enthusiastically agreed.

「There are no issues.」

Lily could handle this work content, so there was no problem. She avoided contradiction and agreed.

「…. Then, I will report to the higher-ups that this was the fervent wish of the candidates themselves.」

The person in charge quickly left after concluding the briefing.

「—And that’s how it happened. I replied that it was not a problem because I could do it.」

「Everyone is so selfish. Lily, I’m sorry.」

Noah apologized, pitying his cousin who had been saddled with the most tedious and unremarkable task of all.

「It’s fine. I’ve done decursing before. And I really welcome a job I can perform at my own pace without standing out.」

In the first place, standing out would risk being chosen as the Saint, which was the very thing Lily needed to avoid.

—Raise achievements without standing out, and transfer to the Eastern Fortress as a viable fighting force.

That was Lily’s current goal.

After finishing preparations, an exhausted Noah and a relieved Lily retired to their respective rooms to prepare for the coming day.

The next day, Lily was guided by Noah to a warehouse located at the northern edge of the castle grounds. It was a damp, sunless location. The atmosphere was somehow gloomy and eerie.

When Noah unlocked the warehouse door with a key he carried, a mountain of weapons, armor, and accessories, piled up to eye level, blocked the entrance.

「It’s piled so high you can’t even step inside.」

「Ah. They must have just tossed it all in.」

Strangely, it wasn't collapsing, but that height looked like it would be difficult to retrieve anything from.

「The warehouse next door is empty, so we can store the decursed items there, but this quantity is truly—」

「Cousin Noah! We should try it first! If they say it’s taking too long for one person, we can ask for reinforcements.」

Lily, who was used to working at the Western Fortress with perpetually insufficient manpower, was optimistic, assuming that someone would help her out if they had free time.

「I’ll submit a report on my end just in case. Tell me immediately if you encounter any difficulties or danger.」

「Yes.」

It was reassuring to have a trustworthy family member who understood her. And the fact that they saw each other every day meant she could consult him immediately if she ran into trouble, which was a blessing.

Once Noah had left, Lily began preparations for the decursing.

Decursing.

It was actually one of Lily’s daily routines that she performed at the Western Fortress whenever she had spare time.

Adventurers and travelers would bring in weapons and armor acquired abroad to exchange for money, but the Holy Aurum Kingdom would not purchase cursed items. Better items were in circulation, so no one needed used, cursed goods.

When the owners who brought them in, hoping for some small coin, realized they couldn’t make money, they would try to dispose of them.

However, disposal cost money because of the curses. In the past, churches would take them, but recently, the volume had increased, and the church started demanding donations.

Realizing this, owners would abandon them in the street where they wouldn't be discovered.

And then, sad incidents would occur where children accidentally picked them up and were cursed.

The Western Fortress even prepared collection boxes for good measure at the entry points, but abandonment still didn't stop. Unable to do anything else, Lily collected them during her walks, decursed them, and sold them off to earn small change.

「Cursed weapons and armor usually use high-quality metal, so they fetch a pretty good price.」

Highly pure gold and beautiful gems seemed to retain curses easily, and most weapons and armor had them.

The mountain of curses before her was a mountain of gold, if valued as precious metals.

「Well, well~ ♪ Let's turn this mountain of curses into a mountain of gold ♪」

Humming a song she made up, Lily drew a circle on the ground. Next, she drew two triangles inside the circle, creating the Seal of Solomon, a hexagrammatic array.

Magic used in the Holy Aurum Kingdom is activated using incantations. However, there were various ways to use magic across the continent, and the method of using arrays was passed down in some of the Western Nations. Lily was fortunate enough to learn this when she happened to assist a traveling array user. This was all she had been taught, but she made use of it by suitably combining it with her own country’s magic.

By pouring purification magic into the array drawn on the ground, the 'Purification Magic Array' was complete.

Then, she took a cursed crown from the warehouse and used the Release spell to remove the curse. The plan was for the released curse to fall onto the magic array and be purified. However—

「Eh! EEEEHH—」

The released curse slipped off the crown as a black, fog-like mass, and then floated gently into the air.

「It's not the same as usual!」

Ignoring Lily’s scream, the Impure Mist drifted for a while before slowly ascending.

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