A Powerful Martial Artist Reincarnates as a Nun Knight

“Good heavens, Sophia? Is that really you, Lady Sophia de Chagelle?”
At the suddenly heard familiar accent and voice, Sophia unwittingly turned her head toward the source of the sound. In the direction of her gaze stood the figure of a nun priestess she recognized.
“Well, I’ll be. If it isn’t Priestess Clermant?”
Sophia approached the nun priestess with a delighted expression.
“I had heard you were on a medical pilgrimage, but to encounter you here. I nearly forgot your face.”
“Hahaha, you haven’t changed at all, from your appearance to your manner of speech.”
The smiling, welcoming nun priestess was none other than Jeanne Clermant.
Nun Priestess Jeanne Clermant – she was the very person who had saved the young Sophia from a plague-stricken village during her childhood. Afterwards, Sophia lived at the Sainte-Magne Abbey under Clermant’s guidance and eventually became a nun knight at the abbess’s recommendation. In other words, Priestess Clermant was Sophia’s benefactor and the starting point of her present life.
“Heh, I’m not that old yet, am I? It would be rather inconvenient if I changed too readily.”
“I suppose that’s one way to look at it.”
“Hmm. But if it’s possible, could you please drop the honorifics? It’s been so long since we last met, yet maintaining such formalities between us feels rather uncomfortable.”
Unlike when she was a nun before becoming a knight, Sophia felt uneasy with Clermant addressing her using formal honorifics. While she understood the reason, as one born with the free spirit of an eccentric, Sophia could not easily tolerate her cherished relationship becoming stiff due to mere professional titles in an informal, personal setting.
“But how can I? You are a nun knight, a position to be accorded the same respect as a bishop.”
“It is precisely that which makes me uncomfortable. In a private setting rather than an official one, addressing each other by our titles feels awkward. Please, treat me as you did before.”
“Haa… If you insist, I have no choice.”
Yielding to Sophia’s stubbornness, Clermant sighed and reverted to her former manner of speech. Yet even with the sigh, a clear smile naturally graced her lips, as if she too found the stiff honorifics uncomfortable.
As they casually conversed, Sophia turned her attention to the nun standing beside Clermant and remarked, “By the way, who is your companion here?”
“Ah, I nearly forgot in my delight.”
Clermant tapped her forehead in an embarrassed gesture, as if just remembering.
“Sophia, this is Sister Agnès Aublij, a disciple I took on while traveling on my medical pilgrimage after you became a nun knight. Agnès, this is Lady Sophia de Chagelle, a member of the Church’s Paladin Order. To you, she would be considered a senior from the Sainte-Magne Abbey.”
At Clermant’s introduction, the composed, dark-eyed nun standing a step behind gave a slight bow in greeting.
“I am Agnès Aublij. I look forward to your guidance.”
“I’m Sophia de Chagelle. Since you seem to be a junior from Sainte-Magne, just call me ‘senior’ instead of the stiff ‘lady.'”
“Yes, Senior.”
As they exchanged greetings, Sophia scrutinized the bowing Agnès before suddenly asking Clermant, “By any chance, is this junior from Luxembourg?”
“Hm? Yes, but how did you know?”
“This friend was born under Chalcedonia’s blessing. Such a constitution rarely manifests outside of Luxembourg’s druid lineages.”
Clermant expressed her surprise at Sophia’s words.
“To discern it at a glance. You’re correct. Agnès hails from the Aublij family, one of Luxembourg’s most prestigious druid lineages.”
At Clermant’s confirmation, Sophia cast a fresh look at her still youthful junior with a renewed perspective.
“The druid lineages have inherited the quality of communing with nature spirits through their bloodlines since ancient times. And the spirits have tended to favor purity and chastity.”
This concept of purity and chastity differed slightly from the common understanding.
To give an example, the spirits favored untamed, uncharted wildernesses over civilized lands, and innocent maidens and youths over those who had experienced intimacy.
This tendency was evident in the famous existence of the horned unicorn spirit.
Bluntly put, unicorns were essentially taboo for men. Unicorns would attempt to let any innocent, regardless of gender, mount them. Thus, if a man were witnessed being approached by a unicorn, he could not endure the humiliation of having his chastity certified in such a manner.
Of course, women would become equally incensed if a unicorn approached them past a certain age.
“Chalcedonia’s blessing is the constitution that most prominently manifests such spiritual tendencies.”
Chalcedonia was the virgin spirit presiding over thunder, lightning, gemstones, and steel. Bearing her name, this blessing carried extraordinary properties.
“A constitution that maintains physical and mental inviolability and incorruptibility, provided one’s chastity is preserved. Truly a blessing, is it not?”
‘And also, a curse, one could say.’
A blessing that ensured one’s mind and body would grow flawlessly, never suffering injury or corruption, so long as one’s virginity remained intact.
At a glance, it seemed a blessing, but conversely, it could be said to risk fostering an inhumanly perfect personality. The condition of losing the blessing upon losing one’s chastity almost seemed merciful in comparison.
The issue lay in the outward manifestation of the blessing’s abilities being too useful a tool for enhancing the lineage’s prosperity. Due to this utility, druid lineages began taking extreme measures to manage the personal relationships of descendants born with Chalcedonia’s blessing, preventing them from losing their chastity outside the family’s control.
Aware of this, Sophia gave Clermant a doubtful look.
“I cannot fathom how a child of a druid lineage became a nun, let alone your disciple.”
“Hahaha, well, it’s quite a long story.”
Clermant laughed awkwardly, trailing off. But unable to withstand Sophia’s pressing gaze, she eventually relayed the full story.
“You know I was originally on a medical pilgrimage, right?”
“Indeed.”
Among the clergy, there were cases where specific pilgrimage routes were passed down according to their respective specialties. Just as the Path of Purity followed the trails of the Grand Progenitor and his disciples, the Divine Path traced the mythic footsteps of ancient heroic and nature spirits.
The Path of Refining had various pilgrimage routes depending on their focus, and Clermant’s medical pilgrimage was one such Path of Refining route. In essence, she would visit and provide medical treatment to impoverished patients encountered along her pilgrimage, learning any worthwhile healing techniques.
“One of the regions my medical pilgrimage passed through was Luxembourg.”
“Certainly, Luxembourg is the land where Saint Hieronymus achieved sainthood.”
The first to attain the art of spirit healing, Saint Hieronymus was renowned for curing hundreds of plague victims within a week before passing away in Luxembourg. And Luxembourg was the land where Saint Hieronymus’s spirit healing arts had been passed down for generations.
“So when I arrived in Luxembourg…”
According to Clermant, a ritual competition between Luxembourg’s spirit-venerating druid lineages was underway at the time. Agnès had participated as the representative druid of the Aublij family.
However, the situation within and around the Aublij family was quite complex. Typically, a lineage’s representative druid would be one who had received a spirit’s blessing, but until Agnès’s birth, another druid had held that position.
Then one day, Agnès was born bearing Chalcedonia’s blessing – the highest rank among spirit blessings. By the elders’ decision, the position of representative druid was abruptly passed to the young Agnès.
Naturally, this power transfer bred internal resentment within the family. Externally, the Aublij’s sudden ascension with the highest blessing drew wariness from rival lineages apprehensive about their rising prospects.
These internal and external conflicts and grievances germinated amidst the ritual competition, eventually ensnaring Clermant in a complicated situation where she ended up protecting Agnès from a crisis.
“The reason I even abandoned my medical pilgrimage and came to Bordeaux is probably related to that incident, isn’t it?”
During her pilgrimage of ministering to the impoverished, Clermant discovered traces of an illegal human trafficking organization active in Luxembourg – a malicious group procuring people through purchase, abduction, or kidnapping from impoverished families across the region.
As a humanitarian cleric focused on medical aid, Clermant lacked the skills to uncover such an organization herself. Had there been no fortuitous connection, she would not have abandoned her pilgrimage midway to pursue them.
But that connection did arise when she witnessed the organization’s members luring people under the pretext of treating their illnesses, only to abduct them.
It did not take long for Clermant to resolve to abandon her pilgrimage and track the organization. That very day, she reported the matter to the Church and began moving with their support. Her encounter with the girl Agnès Aublij was one of the many small and large incidents during that pursuit.
“After that, continuously tracking them eventually led me back to this land of Aquitaine, didn’t it?”
As Clermant recounted her story, Sophia could not help but admire her inwardly. While Clermant had indeed acquired some self-defense skills as a nun from the abbey, compared to those who walked the professional martial path, her abilities were hardly exceptional. Yet she had courageously decided to pursue such a dangerous organization.
That she had managed to continue the pursuit unscathed thus far was equally remarkable. No doubt, her disciple Agnès’s assistance had played a significant role, for with Chalcedonia’s blessing rendering her impervious to blades, Agnès would have been capable of aiding her mentor in crisis.

“So what are your plans from here?”
“It seems the hideout of the organization we’ve been tracking has been discovered right here in Bordeaux. This time, it may be difficult for just the two of us to handle, so I was thinking of seeking help from adventurer guilds or the like.”
Sophia remained silent for a moment after Clermant’s reply, sensing an elusive causality beginning to take shape in her mind.
The attempted theft of the Replica of the King’s Chalice by the Sapphygons, the illegal human trafficking organization’s hideout said to exist in Bordeaux, and the conflict between the druid lineages that had erupted in Luxembourg – she sensed a potential connection between them all.
However, without proper evidence, any such notions would be rife with logical leaps and vague assumptions, doomed to remain mere fanciful conjectures. This made her hesitate.
‘But then, when did I start overthinking and calculating my every move?’
Soon, she addressed Clermant, “I have a better idea.”
A sly smile slowly spread across Sophia’s lips.
“Rather than hiring a bunch of strangers, don’t you think it would be better if I accompany you instead? What do you say?”
With a mischievous grin plastered across her face, Sophia smiled at her.