“You holding up okay, Koharu?”
She gave a hollow little laugh, trying to steady herself under the weight. “Do I look okay to you?”
She was small, physically speaking, and the twenty-kilogram pack looked like it could fold her in half. Her center of gravity wobbled dangerously with every step. I frowned, the concern showing despite myself.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, more to herself than to me. “I just have to do it. There’s no other option.”
“Alright. Just go as far as you can on your own strength. Don’t push yourself past what’s possible.”
And with that, our hell march began.
As expected and, to be honest, inevitably, her pace started to falter barely two kilometers in. By the five-kilometer mark, Koharu collapsed to her knees, breathing ragged and face pale, the pack dragging her down like it was filled with lead.
“Student Koharu Saegusa,” the instructor said, stepping toward her with dispassion. “If you give up here, you’ll be choosing to withdraw. Are you prepared for that?”
Before she could answer, I stepped in.
“I’ll take responsibility for her,” I said. “The rest of the group can go ahead. I’ll assess the situation and let you know whether she needs to withdraw. Just give me ten minutes.”
The instructor gave a subtle nod and gestured to the adventurer escorts. Two of them approached silently, keeping a watchful eye. After all, we were in the Forest of Confusion, a place where monsters weren’t exactly rare. The guards were there for both supervision and protection.
I crouched beside Koharu, watching her shoulders tremble with exhaustion. “Koharu,” I said gently, “what’s going on? Are you really at your limit already?”
She sat hunched over on the forest floor, quietly pulling off one of her shoes. Her fingers prodded gently at the sole of her foot, and then she looked up at me with teary eyes, her voice trembling with a mix of pain and shame. “I… I got a blood blister,” she said, barely above a whisper.
Without a word, I stepped toward her and reached for the straps of her heavy backpack. “Give it here,” I said, already shifting the weight onto my own shoulders. “I’ll carry it.”
She blinked in surprise. “But… won’t that make it harder for you?”
I let out a low sigh. “You’re already a pain just by existing. Don’t make it worse. Just hand it over.”
She hesitated, lips parting as if to protest, but then a small, embarrassed smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. It wasn’t just relief in her expression but plain, unfiltered gratitude.
“Thank you, Ryuto-kun.”
“Let me see it,” I said, kneeling beside her. “The blister.”
Her brow knit in confusion. “Huh?”
“I can use basic healing magic. Nothing too fancy, but it should take care of something like this.”
Understanding dawned on her face, and she exhaled slowly, the tension in her shoulders easing just a little. But then, as I gently cast the spell, she looked down and murmured with heartbreaking sincerity, “I’ve always been a failure. Even as a kid. I’m really sorry for dragging you into this…”
There was no self-pity in her voice, just honest regret. And maybe that was what made it sting the most.
As I finished the spell, I looked her in the eye and decided it was time to ask the question that had been lingering in the back of my mind since the beginning of all this.
“Hey, Koharu,” I said, keeping my tone even. “Why are you in a class like this? Someone like you… You’re A-rank adventurer material. You’re on the same level as Cordelia, the Hero of the North. What the hell are you doing at the bottom?”
She froze. The words clearly hit harder than she expected.
A few seconds passed. Then she gave a strange little smile, tight and twitching at the corners. Her eyes drifted upward, toward the distant eastern sky, and something inside her seemed to give way. She didn’t answer immediately, but the look on her face said enough.
I tilted my head, watching her quietly. “The Saegusa Shrine Maidens,” I said at last. “Your clan from the East. You’ve been the keepers of rites since the age of the gods. Entering pacts with ancient deities, wielding powers passed down through generations. Am I wrong?”
Her voice was soft, almost distant. “It’s not something openly discussed, even in Yamato. But yes. That’s who we are. The Saegusa maidens possess a rare spiritual ability, a type of channeling. We can open gateways into the spirit world. Summon the dead. Call on divine echoes. It’s a bloodline skill that only manifests in our clan.”
She wasn’t boasting. In fact, she sounded more like someone confessing a burden. And just like that, the quiet girl who’d seemed so out of place among us suddenly made perfect, terrifying sense.
“Channeling,” I said, frowning slightly. “That’s the technique where you offer your own body as a vessel to summon the soul of someone who’s passed, right? Let them speak through you so their family can ask questions? Something like that?”
Saegusa nodded. “That’s exactly right. The main work at the Saegusa Shrine is helping with inheritance disputes. Sometimes we get called in to assist with murder investigations, like helping find the culprit by contacting the victim.”
It was all surprisingly down-to-earth. What sounded like sacred spiritual art had been reduced to practical, maybe even bureaucratic work. The skills of the Saegusa line weren’t treated as divine; they were used like tools.
Then she looked at me, puzzled. “But why do you think I’m anything like Cordelia? She’s the Hero of the North. A monster in human form. Our family just performs spiritual rites. We’re mediums. That’s all.”
“Your relatives might be,” I said, my tone quiet but firm. “But you’re not.”
Her expression shifted, cautious now.
“Your village is buried deep in the mountains, protected by checkpoints and strict isolation. It’s a designated sealed region. That doesn’t happen for ordinary mediums. So, why the seclusion?”
She didn’t answer, but her silence said plenty.
“You enrolled here as a simple channeler,” I continued, watching her carefully. “But that was only part of it, wasn’t it? You’re something much rarer.”
Still no response, just the tightening of her shoulders.
“You’re a Divine Vessel Priestess,” I said at last. “You don’t just call forth the dead. You open channels to the higher spiritual realms, including the divine. And when it’s needed, you become a vessel. The god descends into your body. You fight as its avatar. That’s your true strength.”
Her eyes widened. She stared at me as if I’d just spoken her deepest secret aloud.
“If all I could do was basic channeling,” she whispered, “I could understand you knowing. But this… How could anyone out here, in the far west, know what a Divine Vessel Priestess is, let alone that I’m one?”
I gave her a faint shrug. “There’s a book in the Dragon King’s Library, Compendium of Rare Bloodlines. I was digging for ways to get stronger and happened across your name. Ranked near the top.”
I let that hang a moment, then added, “If we go by adventurer guild classifications, once you invoke divine descent, you’d be rated around A-rank. Easily.”
What she possessed wasn’t just powerful; it was a weapon of national significance. A Divine Vessel Priestess wasn’t some quaint spiritualist. She was a tactical asset, the kind of force that could single-handedly turn the tide of a localized war. Her existence, in terms of sheer military potential, was a balancing act, barely containable even with state-level oversight.
In other words, she was a monster. And that was putting it gently.
“It’s a bloodline trait,” I said, glancing at her. “Passed down through generations. In your family, only one person can inherit the divine descent ability. The direct daughter of the main line. Probably because if every member of your clan could summon a god into their body, world domination would stop being a fantasy and start looking like a scheduling issue.”
She tilted her head, a puzzled look flickering across her face. “But how did you know I was the eldest daughter of the main line?”
I laughed and gave her a light pat on the shoulder. “We’re surrounded by baby chicks, rookies who barely count as adventurers. But then there’s you. A kaiju in disguise. It’s hard not to notice.”
She fell silent, staring at me. Then her brows furrowed, not in confusion this time, but in mild frustration. “You know, I’m not stupid. I can tell you’ve got power. Ridiculous power.”
I said nothing. Just let her keep going.
“But I can’t see the bottom of it. I can’t even glimpse the shape of what you’re really capable of. I’ve never met anyone like that before. If I’m a kaiju…” She looked me square in the eyes. “Then what are you, Ryuto-kun?”
I smirked. “I’m just a Villager.”
She stared for a beat and then burst into laughter. “What kind of world has Villagers like you?”
This one, I thought, but didn’t say it out loud. Instead, I let it slide.
“Anyway,” I said, shifting the conversation, “back to the real question. Why are you here? What’s someone like you doing in the bottom class of a magic academy?”
Koharu placed a thoughtful hand on her chin, straightening up as she pulled her expression taut with mock seriousness. “If I had to summarize it clearly,” she said, tone suddenly theatrical.