Escape From a Deserted Island With Enemy Female Soldiers

17 – The Saintess of Purification (2)

The military chaplain, who introduced herself as Tyria Casten, pulled a staff out in front of me. An object with gold embellishments popped into existence from seemingly nowhere.

“Baculums. One of the holy relics. It’s a thing the Goddess bestows only upon the highest-ranking clergy.”

What the hell? Is she going to attack me right away?

I was on edge when the saintess added,

“This shows it. That I am a Saintess.”

“That’s what it is?”

“Yes.”

Well, since she says she’s a Saintess, I guess I should call her that.

Actually, it might be more beneficial if this woman is a Saintess. If I can butter up someone who belongs to the highest echelons of the Church, after the Valkyrie, then I’d be set even if I get captured later.

“Baculums only purify or judge the dead. Brandishing it at you, a living person, won’t do much. You can hardly expect more than its physical force.”

The saintess waved her hand, and the staff vanished again. Only luminous grains remained, lingering like an afterimage where the relic had been.

“I am one of only six Saintesses in the Holy Spirit Nation, and also a military chaplain. I possess both the authority and the capability to execute a magician on the spot.”

Sounds like she’s saying she’ll kill me immediately if I rub her the wrong way.

I swallowed. Just because she’s pretty doesn’t mean she’s got a kind heart. Of course, being a Saintess, her personality is probably decent, but it’s different when it comes to mages.

Because the doctrines of the Holy Spirit Church still see mages as minions of evil. And talking about the history of it would be an endless story.

The Saintess spoke haltingly,

“I have come. Living person. Looking. Tatankuru. Strange cause? Currently will exist. This island.”

[‘Interpretation: I have been dispatched to the Tatankuru waters to rescue the missing. It seems there is an unusual cause on this island.’]

“A strange cause, huh.”

“Could you possibly mean… the fog?”

“Fog!”

The Saintess nodded.

“You know about it? That’s suspicious!”

“What’s suspicious about it?”

“Because you’re a Class 1 mage. I hear Class 1 mages are treated as the most vital personnel in the Magic Kingdom. Just being here is enough to raise suspicion. Did your nation send you?”

“Colonel.”

Just then, Valkyrie cut in, whispering to the Saintess.

“The mage has been with me every moment for the past month. I haven’t gotten the sense they were deceiving me.”

The Saintess nodded slowly, continuing.

“I’m thinking… confining. Confining?”

“A prison? A cage? A barrier?”

“That’s right! A barrier! And a taboo!”

“A taboo, as in, a prohibition?”

“Exactly. I was also sent to investigate if the Magic Kingdom is committing taboos for large-scale magic. Surely you’re not planning some excessive tactic to win the war, are you? Mage.”

“Absolutely not. In my country, that would at least carry a prison sentence, and at most, death.”

It was also included in Jeriem’s oath. Since the founding of the Magic Kingdom, the vast majority of mages have kept to that oath. I, at least, am.

The Saintess shook her head.

“The law is only as good as the people who uphold it. It changes based on necessity, and that’s the very contradiction of you all. Because you’re mages.”

“No. It’s different.”

“Different how?”

“We’re mages. Not sorcerers.”

“I don’t appreciate wordplay.”

“Then I’ll be more direct. Even if the Magic Kingdom is creating some horrific magic here, I’ll desert.”

“Desert?”

“I’ll escape from the unit.”

“Why?”

“Would a country that wins a war by abandoning humanity govern justly?”

The Saintess’s eyes, which had been perpetually ash-grey, changed for the first time. To orange.

But they soon reverted to grey.

“You…are you different, somehow?”

“If they were mages, everyone would say the same thing.”

“You made them. Murder-stones.”

The moment I heard those words, I had nothing to say.

Military magic stones aren’t exactly forbidden. But just because they aren’t forbidden doesn’t absolve you from killing people.

“It’s not just because of you, but you’re also responsible. You made our people, and me, suffer.”

The Saintess mumbled. I barely heard the rest. All I could see was the red and blue light swirling in her eyes.

Lumina.

Classified as a subspecies of half-elf, they were famous for having irises that changed color with their emotions.

I could easily tell that the Saint was now greatly resenting me, and grieving as she recalled the past.

My conscience pricked, but I had to stop the situation from escalating further.

“Let’s dry ourselves off by the fire first.”

*

Saint Tyria had lived her childhood locked away in the church.

She only communicated with the outside world through the church. Whenever she went out, she was always accompanied by half a dozen guards, and any letters she needed to send had to go through her assigned handmaiden or another clergyman.

It was stifling.

But as she became an adult, opportunities opened up for Tyria.

She learned that if she served as a chaplain, she could go out into the world freely. It was the only chance for her to leave the temple of cleansing fire and get a glimpse of the world, even for a while.

It was also a time when tensions were high with the Magic Kingdom, so Tyria left the church where she had been confined for 15 years without much difficulty and became a military chaplain. Chaplains followed the ranks of their clerical positions, so she was commissioned as a colonel.

And the first battlefield she faced was utterly horrific.

Humans killing humans. Soldiers of the Holy Spirit Kingdom and soldiers of the Magic Kingdom tangled together as corpses. The bodies were mangled and sunk into the sea, with only the unredeemed souls remaining to wander in that place.

Tyria’s role was to save those souls.

Rest for those who had believed in the Holy Spirit Church during their lives.

An opportunity for atonement for those who hadn’t, and if they refused, a cold judgment.

For the evil spirits who had learned even a little magic and sold their souls to demons after death, she offered merciless destruction.

How exhausting and grueling that process was.

Most of the evil spirits were soldiers of the Magic Kingdom. Every time they encountered Tyria, they were exorcised while spewing curses at her.

[-You narrow-minded, filthy b*tch. This is a saint? If you’re going to perform a memorial like this, you might as well become a whore and comfort men’s bodies instead!]

[-Get captured by our soldiers and get fucked like a dog to your death!]

[-Your nation will fall, and you, too, shall writhe in agony before being buried in the earth. Hahaha!]

The wraith’s curse pulsed with potent mana. Mana was the antithesis of priests, and their weakness besides.

Though she warded off most curses with divine power, it left Tilia’s eyes perpetually shadowed. Insomnia had taken root. A chronic condition, at that.

But wraiths weren’t the sole cause of her sleeplessness.

-Mages stole not only my brother, but my very life. It’s so agonizing, so unfair, that I can’t return to the Goddess’s embrace.

-Holy Saint, please, avenge me. *Sob, sob.*

Even among those faithful to the Holy Spirit Church, there were souls who couldn’t find peace, so consumed by their grief. As she listened to their tales and eased their grudges, all that stress fell upon Tilia.

She hadn’t met a living mage, but she’d witnessed thousands of their corrupted souls. She’d heard countless tragic stories, as numerous as grains of sand on a beach.

Thus, she’d assumed a real mage would be no different from what she’d gleaned through hearsay.

But then.

-Then I’ll be more direct. If the Magic Kingdom is creating some horrific magic here, I’ll desert.

-Will a nation that abandoned its humanity to win a war really govern justly?

She wasn’t well-versed in the language of the Magic Kingdom, didn’t know many words. But the first mage she met, he was so different from her preconceived notions.

Erich Ronstein.

A name she’d seen on documents. The very one who’d developed so many military mana stones, leading to the deaths of innocent youths from the Holy Spirit Kingdom.

The man was infamous in the Church. In the worst way. His papers on mana and the sephiron’s circulation had long been banned in the Kingdom.

The first emotion she felt seeing him in the flesh was… complex.

She’d spoken with intent, implying he’d used mana stones to kill Holy Spirit youths, purposely trying to anger him. But instead of defending himself, the man looked troubled.

It shocked Tilia.

The Holy Spirit Church taught that all mages were brazen, self-serving, and devious, souls who’d sold themselves to demons, making them inherently evil. She’d completely internalized that teaching.

“I lived on that island for about a month.”

Tyria kept her mouth shut, warming herself by the fire. It was the man who was doing all the talking.

“I don’t know why the monsters that disappeared are showing up again. I nearly died myself fighting one of their Valkyries. I blacked out in the storm and woke up here.”

The man spoke slowly and deliberately, mindful of Tyria. His vocabulary was simple and clear. So, understanding him wasn’t difficult.

Tyria took in the man’s appearance. He had about a month’s worth of beard growth. His officer’s uniform was more tattered than shabby, and his hair and face were slick with grease. He was a mess.

The command had told her to consider the immediate execution of a mage, and a clean-looking one at that.

She finally understood why the higher-ups had set “clean-looking” as a criteria. If he looked like this, the chance of him being directly involved with the island’s barrier was low.

After a long deliberation, Tyria decided not to draw her gun.

She still didn’t know where she was. She couldn’t know what kind of danger lay in wait.

Even if there were no threats, she had to consider the possibility of a Magocracy rescue ship arriving first. If she could gain this man’s favor, maybe she could get better treatment if they were the ones to rescue her.

Rachel quietly said,

“He seems to have some basic decency. At least, he has so far. If he changes, I’ll deal with him immediately.”

There was no need to rush to a decision about the man.

Tyria organized her thoughts by offering a prayer to the Goddess of Healing.

*

Maybe because the Valkyrie was with her, the Saint was quieter than she expected. But she still looked at me with a sharp gaze.

A murky red.

A mix of hatred and suspicion was plainly visible in her irises.

Honestly, this wasn’t how I wanted things to be, but I guess I’ll have to play nice with the Saint for a while.

“So… you said you were searching for soldiers who disappeared in combat when you were caught in a storm and your ship capsized. Is there any chance of another rescue ship coming?”

“There are. A lot. The Holy Kingdom values the lives of high-ranking clerics very highly. As soon as news of my ship sinking reaches headquarters, they’ll immediately assemble a new rescue team. Just wait a bit.”

The Saint sighed and continued,

“But I don’t know. If they can make it. They said the weather was good. Because of the storm…”

A storm with me and the Valkyrie too.

And a storm with the Saint too.

It’s too ambiguous to call it fate just yet.

“Colonel, survival is the priority now.”

“I suppose so. Let’s scout around this area first.”

“There’s one more mouth to feed, we’ll have to move diligently.”

“Hmph, if only that man wasn’t here.”

The Valkyrie said something and the Saint nodded. The two of them stood up at the same time. Their conversation continued after that.

Soon the Saint said,

“Mage, you stay here.”