Chapter 29 - Compassionate Catherine
I returned to my room in the adult wing of the orphanage and lay down on the bed, thinking I might take a short nap. However, I ended up sleeping much more soundly than expected, and to my shame, I committed the blunder of being woken up by none other than Beatrix.
When I came to, I found the sheets stripped away and a wet cloth pressed over my face. I was on the verge of suffocating and jumped up in a panic.
"How was that? Do you understand a bit better how it feels to be the one woken up now?"
Looking at Beatrix's triumphant face wasn't a particularly pleasant feeling. But this was a seed I had sown myself. It couldn't be helped. I had done the exact same thing to her.
"A lot of things happened while you were sleeping, you know."
Apparently, a messenger had arrived from the Engrio army.
The messenger must have been quite shocked. The main gate was half-destroyed, and moreover, the slope leading to the second gate had been blown away without a trace. Axes and arrows used by the Revenants were scattered everywhere. No matter how you looked at it, it was clearly the aftermath of a battle.
I wonder how they explained it?
"Supposedly, they told them the whole town had turned out to exterminate a massive infestation of rats in the basement."
I accidentally sprayed out the soup I had just put in my mouth.
"How filthy. Eat properly."
"Sorry, sorry, but you just said something so strange out of nowhere..."
The messenger was reportedly skeptical, but perhaps he flinched upon seeing Adolf-san—who received him in his dirty commoner's clothes—and the exhausted expressions and bloodshot eyes of the armed guards and vigilantes behind him, because he left just like that.
The moment Adolf-san gave that bizarre excuse, everyone apparently looked down at once to hide their faces from bursting out laughing.
I'm surprised he didn't notice.
And then, the Headmistress returned.
This was good news. If it's the Headmistress, she'll surely be able to do something about the Revenants. After all, there are rumors that she uses magic exceeding high-level holy magic. She might be able to purify a considerable number of them with a single spell.
"The Headmistress is going to face off against four thousand Revenants led by the Revenant-users alone in the fields of the old town district," she said— "!"
As a result of Adolf-san's direct interrogation, it was revealed that the Revenant-users were priests from the Ruined Town. However, they had apparently been manipulated by a Charm or some other magic and had no memory of the incident. Lies do not work on a high-level mage like Adolf-san. It must be the truth.
The individuals themselves were reportedly shocked beyond measure, insisting they would never do something as audacious as attacking a town with a vast army of Revenants.
However, the fact that they could actually control the Revenants in the basement became irrefutable evidence. It seems that Revenant-users and Revenants are employed through a type of contract. Once a Revenant begins to be controlled, it can apparently only be controlled by the same human. They likely had no choice but to accept it.
Conversely, it was Adolf-san who was troubled, as the issue became how to handle them going forward. They had attacked the town and caused two deaths. It was a crime deserving of death, but the individuals themselves had been manipulated by someone. Above all, even they didn't know what should be done with the Revenants in the basement. In the end, the matter was about to settle on the plan of having them control the creatures once more to bring them out of the basement little by little for purification, with their punishment to be decided afterward. That was when 'Catherine the Apostate' called a halt.
The proposal the Headmistress brought to the Revenant-users was an extraordinary condition: if the Headmistress won, they would cooperate with the town's corpse management; if she lost, they would be acquitted and released. Furthermore, even if the Revenant-users lost, they would be treated strictly as cooperative criminals, so they wouldn't even have to return to secular life. She even added the bonus that she would eventually build a shrine for them. In the future, they would seal their Forbidden Magic and be placed in a position like monitored gravekeepers.
The match was to take place in the old town district to the east. As a reward for participating in the battle, we were apparently allowed to watch from a special viewing area. There was no reason not to go. I quickly tidied myself up and headed outside.
The eastern town walls were already packed with a crowd of people. It likely served as both a precaution against escape and for spectating. Several boats were floating in the river.
The combat-oriented members of the guards and the vigilantes were stationed to the east of the old town. I was with the teachers from the orphanage, Paul-san, the Marcelo couple, and Adolf-san.
The Headmistress was almost directly in front of us. She was closer than I expected.
The Revenant-users were near the main gate, guiding the Revenants that had been in the basement.
Everyone watched with bated breath. Despite the large number of people gathered, there was an unnaturally total absence of human voices.
The Headmistress wore white priestly robes and held a silver-white shakujo (T/N: A ringed staff used by Buddhist and sometimes fantasy Shinto/Christian-analogue priests) in her hand.
On the other side, the Revenant-users seemed to have finished their guidance, as the swarm of Revenants no longer emerged from the main gate. On the contrary, those at the front had already begun walking toward the Headmistress.
The Headmistress did not move an inch. She simply looked straight at the Revenants. She didn't glare; her expression remained serene.
The Revenants, drawing closer and closer, pressed right up to the Headmistress's side. Eventually, she would be completely surrounded.
Then, without a word, the Headmistress spun around once and drew a circle around herself on the ground with her shakujo. The Revenants approached it, but they could not move forward, as if blocked by an invisible wall. She had cast a barrier with just that small movement.
The following Revenants continued to gather, and it looked as if a hole had suddenly opened in the middle of the mass of Revenants, with the Headmistress standing right there.
The Headmistress looked around as if to confirm that the Revenants had gathered around her, then placed her shakujo on the ground, knelt on the spot, and clasped both hands in front of her chest as if offering a prayer.
"You know Bishop Catherine's aliases, don't you?"
Suddenly, Adolf-san spoke to me.
"Yes. Catherine the Apostate and Catherine the Compassionate, right?"
I replied without taking my eyes off the Headmistress.
"Watch closely, and listen well. So that you may understand why she is called Catherine the Compassionate."
Adolf-san did not use the word 'Apostate.' He likely did so intentionally.
The Headmistress's chant began. It was a gentle voice, loud enough to resonate clearly through the surroundings.
"O Glorious Mother in the heavens who watches over us,
I here offer my wholehearted prayer.
Purify the earth born of the Heavenly Queen.
Protect the established laws.
Forgive and have mercy upon the sins of Thy children.
Protect them and show them Thy love.
Grant them the grace of eternal rest.
Grant them the light of guidance.
I offer my very self and beseech Thee."
Rather than a magical incantation, those were words of prayer asking the Goddess for the repose of the deceased and for their souls to reach heaven.
"[Ascension]!"
A massive orb of light appeared above the Headmistress's head, illuminating the area.
The Revenants bathed in the light stopped moving, slowly sat down, and then began to lie down as if falling asleep on the spot.
One after another, small lights floated up from the bodies of the Revenants that had become still. Those lights drifted for a short while above the bodies they had emerged from, but eventually, as if drawn to the light above the Headmistress's head, they drew near and were absorbed into it.
Orbs of light appeared from all the Revenants in the same way, becoming one with the great light. It was an impossible sight, and before I knew it, I was kneeling and offering words of prayer for the repose of the departed.
Eventually, after absorbing the light of all the Revenants, the great light headed straight into the sky and vanished from sight.
As if it had guided the fragments of the souls of the dead, which had been forcibly pulled back by Forbidden Magic, toward heaven.
I might be witnessing a miracle. Tears were falling before I realized it.
A priest is a being meant to stay close to people's deaths, and must fulfill the role of liberating them from that mental anguish and guiding them to heaven. The Headmistress's magic was the embodiment of one of the reasons for a priest's existence.
Yes, the reason I aspired to be a priest...
I heard that my mother deeply regretted leaving me behind when she died.
As long as war does not vanish from this world—no, even in eras without war—there will be no end to people who pass away leaving behind lingering attachments. At the very least, if only for the people I can be present for... I want to help those people feel at peace in their final moments...
Suddenly, the Headmistress collapsed on the spot!
Screams rose from the surroundings.
"Emily-sensei, Katherine-sensei, please help!"
The one who started running was Jennifer-sensei.
Emily-sensei and Katherine-sensei followed after her.
"Emily-sensei, you can use [Resurrection], right?"
"Yes. I'll be fine."
Hearing the exchange between Jennifer-sensei and Emily-sensei, I also started running after the teachers. This was because the [Resurrection] spell is magic used to restart bodily functions that have stopped, such as the heart.
At this rate, the Headmistress might die.
The first to arrive was Katherine-sensei. She knelt beside the Headmistress and began taking her pulse.
I followed behind Emily-sensei, who was running while chanting. When I reached their side, I called out desperately.
"There's a pulse!"
Thank goodness. She was alive.
Jennifer-sensei arrived as well. Beowulf and Beatrix were running up from behind.
"Headmistress! Headmistress!"
Katherine-sensei called out, but there was no response.
Could she have more than just lost consciousness?
"Could you give us a little space?"
It was Jennifer-sensei.
When Katherine-sensei and I shifted our bodies to make room, Jennifer-sensei sat in the vacant spot and took a hand towel from her pocket.
She moistened the towel with water from a canteen.
Wait, could this be...
"This is the best way to wake a sleeping child, after all."
While everyone else was recoiling in shock, Jennifer-sensei, with a nonchalant face, tried to place the wet towel on the Headmistress's face.<
It was then.
Suddenly, the Headmistress's eyes snapped wide open.
"Oh, Headmistress. Are you awake?"
"Good morning, Jennifer."
Wait, what? They're just having a normal conversation.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah. I feel a bit sluggish. I might not be able to get up."
Jennifer-sensei, as if saying 'good grief,' put her arm behind the Headmistress's neck and, with a 'heave-ho,' pulled her upper body up.
"You probably realized immediately and were just pretending to be unconscious, weren't you?"
"Well, it's not often that everyone worries about me like that... I'm sorry."
The Headmistress bowed her head honestly.
To think a person called one of the Seven Heroes would be happy to have people worry about her after she was the one who challenged them to a duel—she's not a child. What a troublemaker.
"It's because you used a super-high-level spell with all your might, even though you spent all last night returning Revenants to the heavens without any sleep at all."
"But if I wanted to settle it in one go, that was the best way."
"You didn't have to settle it in one go. You faced nearly four thousand opponents. If you had purified them little by little, you wouldn't have exhausted yourself this much."
"I hate purification. It looks too terrible. They might not be able to return to heaven like that."
"That may be so, but please think of yourself once in a while."
Beside the sighing Jennifer-sensei, Katherine-sensei silently turned her back. It likely meant for her to get on.
The Headmistress said "thank you" and clung to her back.
The Headmistress was taller than Katherine-sensei, but having fought in chainmail, Katherine-sensei picked her up easily and began walking.
When we returned to the others amidst cheers, Adolf-san came to meet us.
"You mustn't be so reckless."
He immediately started lecturing.
"I don't want to hear that from the person who was about to charge into the enemy camp alone."
She argued back while still being carried.
That was certainly true, but I think they were both as bad as each other. I wish they would both think a little more about their own positions and ages.
"I would have been facing a few dozen at most. I wouldn't face four thousand."
"Oh, battle isn't about numbers. It's about guts and spirit. Right, Katherine?"
The Headmistress patted Katherine-sensei's head.
"Ain't that the truth."
Katherine-sensei, who had been quiet with her head down until then, looked up and laughed boisterously.
Her face was a mess from tears, but it seemed everyone decided to pretend they hadn't noticed.