When Neme woke up, she was met with the sight of a simple wooden ceiling she didn’t recognize. Puzzled by this, she tried to sit up...but found herself unable to move. She craned her neck to get a look at herself and discovered that her arms and legs were bound by chains of light.
“What is this...?”
Was she having a nightmare? That was Neme’s first thought. She’d had one before her nap too. She’d dreamed of lazing about at HQ on her day off when, all of a sudden, there was a commotion coming from downstairs. She opened her door out of curiosity and was greeted by a familiar face. Then—
“Are you finally awake?” someone asked, snapping Neme back to her present predicament with a flinch. She knew that voice.
She turned to look in the direction it was coming from and nearly did a double take. “Cardinal Fuge...”
Was the nightmare still ongoing? Or could it be that none of this was a dream at all? She’d only just come to, so she was still trying to process the situation. Before she knew it, her mouth was opening of its own accord.
“Why...?” she whispered.
“Hmm? Why what?” the man before her replied.
“Why...are you here?”
“Is it that surprising?” he said, bowing slowly. “I simply came to pick you up so that you may guide the lost believers as the current Saint Cecina.”
Cardinal Fuge’s shameless answer made Neme clench her fists. What right did he have to say that? She felt like giving him a piece of her mind.
“Why Neme?!” she shouted.
“Shouldn’t you know that answer best of all?”
“Because of my skill?! Even so, Neme isn’t cut out to be the saint!”
“Say what you will, but God has already made the decision. You possess the qualities of the saint.”
Cardinal Fuge didn’t actually need Neme. He was only after her skill, Saint’s Authority. Neme had never asked for it. She felt its bestowal on her was a mistake—one that had changed her life dramatically.
“I told you I didn’t want to be the saint! That’s why I wrote that note and left—”
“We couldn’t accept that scrap of paper, I’m afraid. Besides, becoming the saint is the greatest honor of all Cecinaism. Why does it displease you so?”
“You should know that I’m not cut out for it! That’s what everyone always told me!”
“That was before you obtained your skill. A mere failing of judgment on our part.”
“Still, there are lots of people who are better suited than me! Like the current saint—”
“Arcia? She’s doing well as acting saint, but she’s nothing more than that. You know that as well as I do. Only the holder of Saint’s Authority may assume the title of Saint Cecina.”
“I don’t care! Neme has no intention of becoming the saint! Arcia should just do it!”
“In defiance of God’s wishes?”
“That’s right! No matter what God says, Neme won’t become the saint!”
“Is that so? You haven’t changed, I see. No matter what anyone says to you, you never relent.” Cardinal Fuge sighed heavily in disappointment. Neme cheered in her heart. She felt like she’d won the argument...until the cardinal retrieved a silver object from his breast pocket. “This leaves me with no choice but to kill you.”
“Huh?! Is that a gun?! Wait!” Neme shrieked.
“What’s the matter?”
“How did things suddenly turn to killing?! Isn’t that a little sudden?!”
“Surely you saw this coming. No two people can have the same EX-rarity skill at the same time. As long as you possess Saint’s Authority, no other follower can inherit it.”
“That doesn’t mean you can kill me for it! What if there’s still a chance I could be persuaded into becoming the saint?!”
“You just said otherwise yourself. That you wouldn’t become the saint even if God ordered you to.”
“Maybe Neme just misspoke! Maybe I’ll consider becoming the saint after all!”
“Will you?”
“No way! Neme has no intention of becoming the saint!”
“So there’s no chance after all. Then—”
“Don’t point that gun at me! It was just a slip of the tongue!”
“I’ll consider it a confession, then. This part of you hasn’t changed either, always spouting whatever is most convenient for you...”
“Wait! Neme was wrong!”
The tiny priestess broke out into a cold sweat, but her pleading was interrupted when the door in the back of the room opened. The person who appeared through it was none other than the familiar face she’d seen right before losing consciousness at HQ.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Cardinal Fuge, I believe it’s still too early to resort to that,” the woman said.
“Arcia?!” Neme’s voice squeaked when she saw her. “What are you doing here?!”
“I participated in the operation to bring you back, obviously,” Arcia replied.
“Please save me, Arcia! I wanna go back home to the Arrivers!”
“Were you not listening? I just said I was cooperating with Cardinal Fuge. I am your enemy.”
“That isn’t true! You’re so nice, and you’ve always been on Neme’s side! Even back when we were in Aifan—”
“That’s all in the past. Things are different now,” Arcia said coldly.
When Neme stopped to think about it, Arcia’s tone and expression were completely different from what she remembered. Arcia had always worn a friendly smile around Neme, but the fake grin on her face now felt more like a mask.
“What did you do to Arcia?!” Neme demanded of the cardinal. “Did you brainwash her?!”
“Nothing of the sort. I’m doing this of my own free will.”
“That’s what all brainwashed people say! Isn’t that right, Cardinal Fuge?!”
“No, she’s not brainwashed...”
“That’s what all brainwashers say!”
“It seems there’s no way we’re going to get through to her...” Cardinal Fuge looked exasperated. He cleared his throat with a cough and turned to Arcia. “That aside, why are you suddenly against killing her? You’re not thinking of betraying me now, are you?”
“Of course not. I just believe it’s too early to give up on plans A and B while moving straight to our last resort.”
“Plan A was to make Neme Pargin the saint, and that’s already off the table, no? Plan B requires someone with Miracle Usurper to steal her skill, but we’ve yet to find anyone with it. So wouldn’t it be most pragmatic to move on to our final measure?”
“Killing Neme won’t make Saint’s Authority appear in someone else immediately. Neme here is the first to inherit it in decades. Rather than gambling on a new saint candidate getting it, it’d be far easier to convince Neme to take up the mantle of sainthood.”
“I don’t see that being easier.”
“Allow me to convince her. We know each other.”
“You’re not just getting sympathetic because you were friends during your training days as saint candidates, are you?”
“If I had any sympathy for Neme, I wouldn’t have participated in the operation to retrieve her.”
“Fair point.” Cardinal Fuge nodded, convinced.
Neme, however, could scarcely keep up at this point. Seeing Arcia, how she’d changed, and the threat she now posed overwhelmed the tiny priestess. Her head was spinning. The only thing she could process was the most obvious of all—these people weren’t going to help her.
“You two might be up to no good,” she shouted defiantly, “but just you wait! Note and the others are going to come save me like they did with Leyfa!”
“Note Athlon, hmm?” Arcia muttered, covering one eye with the palm of her hand. “He certainly poses the greatest threat to us, but we planned around that. His Mapping and Enemy Search combination is only useful in the dungeon where the rules of this world do not apply. We timed our operation so that he wouldn’t be there when we struck, and the mission was a success. By the time he returned, we were long out of his range. I can see much further with Greater Far Sight than he can with his skill and arts. In fact, I can track the Arrivers even now.” Arcia lowered her hand and looked down at Neme. “So don’t expect anyone to rescue you. We’ll depart from this inn at dawn and head for Aifan by carriage. If you put up resistance during that time, we’ll have to resort to Cardinal Fuge’s plan instead.”
“Arcia...”
“If you don’t want to die, behave yourself.”
Neme could only respond with a gulp. She could hardly believe this was the same girl she’d known.