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HOLY woman. Priestess. Saint. So many different words, and all for the same being. Unlike magic, which could be acquired later in life, one’s nature as a holy woman and the unusual powers such a status conferred were present from the very moment a child was born.
Broadly speaking, a holy woman was gifted with two particular powers. The first power gave her the ability to rejuvenate the life force of others; the regenerating of flesh and the healing of wounds served as pertinent examples. The second power gave her the ability to amplify her own magic, and thereby activate tremendous magical power.
In normal circumstances, magic such as mine was considered second class, but once I activated the enhancement ability conferred upon me by my sainthood, my magic rose to first class. This level of advancement was only possible because of the strength of my saintly abilities, which I’d been told were exceptionally powerful. Though specific technical provisions existed to describe the might of my overall talents, they could be explained using simple terms as well. When called upon to give an approximation, most would describe me as, “The only saint in history whose abilities are so strong that they are able to provide divine protection to an entire military base.”
Even going without such enhancement, my magic was quite powerful. It was at so high a level, in fact, that I was considered to be just as strong as the noblemen who were eligible to declare themselves as candidates to become high priests within the Great Church. It was a comparison I’d found useful, since it allowed me to explain my strength in a way most people grasped nearly instantly.
My saintly nature had been discovered upon my tenth birthday. At that point, I had left the orphanage in which I had been housed hitherto to attend the Holy Woman’s Academy of Learning, a school both founded and operated by the government. It was there that I had received my training as a priestess.
I had finished my education at the age of thirteen, and had soon after been sent off to the forest of Mayga Cieux. Just like that, I had been plunged into the Kingdom of Kophe’s specially designated disaster zone, where I had been called to step into my role as a holy woman who battled on the front lines.
As the sole priestess assigned to the base, I’d had to learn how to deal with all manner of different tasks, day in and day out. Often I could be found splattered with entrails and monster blood as I wove amongst the fighting, providing medical care and support to the knights immersed in combat. In times like those, I would make use of both my healing ability, which was impressive in its own right, and my enhancement ability, which I referred to affectionately as my saintly superpower. When the latter was activated, I was able to invigorate a person’s life force so intensely that I could perform incredible feats of healing.
Unfortunately, this uniquely powerful form of healing had its drawbacks—the main one being that it induced a heightened state of sexual arousal in both the recipient and myself. But as long as I could suppress the heat my ability caused, I could undertake the responsibilities of more than ten top-ranked holy women all on my own.
And so, I had strived to do just that for the many years that had passed since I had first been assigned to Mayga Cieux, the Kingdom of Kophe’s deadly forest of monsters.
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“TO think that I would be denounced as a lascivious priestess…” I muttered, staring listlessly out my bedroom window.
A week had passed since my dignity had been so brutally trampled at the ball, but I was still currently being detained in the annex that housed my room at the royal palace.
The myriad of procedures accompanying the end of my engagement to Prince Medaikonar were taking some time, and I’d heard there had been delays in rescinding one of my titles. The appellation of Esteemed Holy Woman came along with an honorary position, and had been bestowed upon me by the Great Church of Kophe when I had been chosen as His Royal Highness’s fiancée. Even though the title came with little actual weight, it was still necessary to revoke it now that we were no longer betrothed.
“Well, three meals a day, endless naps, and a positively lovely tub certainly make for a peaceful existence…” I said softly, pressing my forehead against the pane of my window.
Outside, the sky was cloudless and blue, stretching endlessly above the verdant, carefully tended garden below. It was a commanding view; truly, the picture of tranquility.
Meanwhile, my life is falling apart after being branded an unholy woman, I thought wryly.
To be frank, the emotional wounds that I had incurred during the prince’s excruciatingly public disavowal had already healed. In the end, it had always been impossible for a commoner like me, whose feet were set firmly upon the ground, to coexist peacefully with the likes of royalty and nobility, whose station lifted them high above the clouds. This knowledge had sapped me of my ability to care about their slandering of me; I no longer minded if they thought me debauched or unholy.
This left me with only one problem—the question of what would become of my future. Now that I had lost the support that came with being the prince’s fiancée, I wasn’t sure if I could continue living in this kingdom as I had once before. Especially since I was now a so-called “indecent holy woman.”
I had to ask myself honestly, Will I still be able to protect my chastity, now that I’ve lost the security that came with my position as the prince’s betrothed?
The degree of arousal my saintly superpower instigated in a patient directly corresponded to the amount of effort I had to expend to heal them—in other words, it was entirely out of my control. The majority of the knights were well-mannered, no matter how much power I used, but there were of course a number who were not. I could not definitively state that I had never found myself in danger during my time among them, and that had been before His Royal Highness had decided to declare me a “lascivious priestess.”
This was exactly why I had always taken such great pains to protect myself, and had adopted numerous measures throughout my life that made me feel safe and secure. I had surrounded myself with allies I could trust, and continually tried to improve the effectiveness of the special defense mechanism I’d sewn into my priestess attire, among other things.
But, in the end, the metaphorical shield provided by being His Royal Highness’s betrothed had proven to be far more effective than any of my other efforts. It had made things quite simple: all I had to do was say I was affianced to the prince, and the other party easily understood that they should keep their distance. With that nigh-invincible cloak, I had been able to repel both strangers and the occasional reckless, morbidly curious, would-be rapist.
It was not lost on me that the prince’s smearing of my name might result in the attraction of more of these unsavory characters to the front line. There would certainly be those curious enough to want to test the truth of his words. I shook my head vehemently to dispel that terrible thought, but I couldn’t ignore the horrendous chill that still rushed down my spine.
“I have no choice except to forge ahead,” I told myself, trying to bolster my courage. “I have survived thus far, and so I must continue to do the same.”
Beyond the front line, I had nowhere else to go. Some time ago, my hometown had been destroyed in a monster attack, of which I had been the only survivor. The memory only solidified my determination.
Society might call me an unholy woman, but that does not change the fact that I have been blessed with the powers of a saint. I will not forsake that gift—instead, I’ll do everything in my power to prevent that sort of tragedy from befalling any other village and its people.
I smiled grimly. “Back to the front line I go.”