Chapter 6: Saintess

After leaving the royal capital, the trip through the Relwo region went smoothly without any trouble.

This region counted among the richest parts of the Nosbaro Kingdom, so except for a few out-of-the-way areas near the borders, most cities were peaceful and prosperous. Once they left Relwo, however, the scenery changed completely.

The Nosbaro Kingdom was divided into six regions. They were merely called regions; no administrative offices had been set up over them. Inside each lay hundreds of densely packed noble fiefs… large fiefs containing smaller fiefs in turn. Just looking at the maps of this era gave one a headache.

People of this world had long since grown used to it. Farra, however, really could not stand it. At first glance he almost triggered his trypophobia. Every region had its own language with bizarre characters, and units of measure differed everywhere. One major reason Farra had invested so many points in Spirit Power was that once he left the village, language immediately became a barrier. To memorize the accents of several places he had to rely on brute-force memorization.

After leaving the Relwo region he headed east, passed through Bried, Laquiura, and Briwo, and only then would he reach East Mead. The farther the journey took him from a central region like Relwo, the poorer the local economy grew. Aside from the nobility, whose living standards always occupied the top tier, everyone else’s life could be summed up in one saying: “While wine and meat rot behind vermilion gates, bones freeze to death by the roadside.”

Crossing all of Bried took Farra nearly half a month, during which he ran into bandits seventeen times. Even though he resupplied in every major city along the way and always chose the main roads, the result was still the same.

The first encounter occurred right on the highway. A dense crowd immediately surrounded Farra’s lone carriage… at least thirty to fifty bandits.

“Show me what you can do,” Farra said, turning to Freya in the back.

“It will blow my cover…!” Freya whispered anxiously.

“Hurry up.” Farra ignored her misgivings and repeated the order.

“…If this brings trouble on us, don’t blame me for not warning you!” Freya conceded with a fretful reply.

Then, in Farra’s perception, the air around the carriage quickly turned viscous.

“Hand over everything valuable…” the bandit chief shouted as he strode forward, brandishing a nicked blade.

The next instant, an invisible, massive force slammed him face-down to the ground.

“Aaah… !” The sudden turn of events left the nearby bandits utterly stupefied.

“Boss! What happened to you?” one cried.

“What is this thing?!” another demanded.

“I-Is it a ghost?” yet another stammered.

Before they could react, invisible giant hands fell one after another, pinning the circle of men closest to the carriage to the ground. The rest were struck dumb, then spun around and ran.

“A m-monster, aaaaaah!”

Farra frowned, grabbed the iron sword he had left beside him, and dashed out. He moved so fast that he closed in before the bandits could scatter, then brought the sharp blade down, chaining kill after kill without looking back.

A few minutes later, the last bandit who tried to escape fell to Farra’s sword, which pierced straight through his back. After confirming that no one had gotten away, Farra let out a small breath, returned to the carriage, and finished off the wounded one by one.

“Is that all a witch can do?” Farra complained to Freya as he climbed back in. “You managed to restrain only a dozen people? That’s useless.”

“Huh? Are you kidding me? I alone controlled more than a dozen men! Didn’t you see them run away in terror?” Freya shot back in surprise.

“And you just watched them run?”

“W-What else was I supposed to do…?” Her voice weakened; she had no confidence left. Blood still dripped from Farra’s iron sword.

Farra stared at her for a moment, said nothing, then walked another circle, making sure everyone he had cut down was dead. He then went to the bandits Freya had pinned, reversed his sword, and stabbed downward.

“Splurt…”

“Wait, spare me, I… I was wrong, I was wrong… !! Don’t kill me!” The terrified bandits begged frantically. Two even fainted on the spot, but Farra finished each with one stroke. After ensuring that not a single one of the thirty-odd bandits escaped alive, he climbed back onto the carriage and flicked the reins.

“Hyah.”

The carriage wobbled forward again. Freya sat in the back, her face full of words she dared not speak. Before she could decide whether to open her mouth, Farra asked, “You’ve actually never killed anyone, have you?”

“…No…” Freya replied, head bowed.

Indeed, she had not. But that was all she had not done. She had done plenty of other things… like maiming people severely. In her mind that was little different from killing them outright.

“Heh… To have avoided being caught and burned by the church until today, you’re really lucky.”

“I did cripple the people who came after me, okay? With injuries like that there’s no way they could survive!” Freya shot back.

“True enough.” Farra did not argue the point. The level of medical care in this world was terribly low… break an arm and infection might easily kill you. The odds of living were slim.

“R-Right? I’m a witch…! So don’t, don’t…”

“Don’t what?” Farra asked.

Freya kept her head down, her expression extremely complicated. Without even looking back, Farra could tell her state of mind from her protests alone. After all, she was still just a kid, wasn’t she? The impression she had given at their first meeting now seemed not quite accurate.

“You want me to see you not as an ordinary person but as a terrifying monster who has killed countless people, right?”

“…I’m not a monster…!” Freya snapped.

“Oh? Then what are you defending?” Farra challenged.

“I…” Her voice sank again. What exactly was she defending? Everyone had called her a monster… so why not simply become a complete, true monster? Why not!?

Freya clenched the fabric over her chest as questions she had long ignored surged up again. Farra still did not look back; he dissected the matter as if it were none of his business, only to pass the long, dull time on the road.

“You’re just an ordinary brat born with power beyond common folk, so everyone called you a monster. When the church learned of it, they slaughtered your village and tried to burn you. Your parents begged for mercy but were branded ‘original sinners’ for birthing a monster… right? So you kept running. At first you hated that power, but you had to use it to shake off pursuit. You kept crippling those who chased you, yet never had the resolve to kill them outright. Because you knew that once you crossed that line there would be no going back. You would change from a monster in others’ mouths into a true, thorough monster soaked in blood, never again understood by anyone, cut off from the whole world, your future pitch-black. Correct?”

That story-like speech left Freya momentarily dumbfounded. How could he sound so accurate…? The latter half, at least, matched her experience exactly. It felt as if he were reading it straight from her mind. Freya suddenly felt as if she were naked before him. She forced out, “…My parents didn’t plead for me…”

At least on that point Farra was wrong. “It’s not important…”

“It is important!” Freya insisted.

“Fine, it’s important…” Farra snapped the reins. “In that case, you’re so kind you could apply to the church to be a Saintess.”

“Kind? Who, me? Are you making fun of me?” Freya pulled a twisted smile, on the verge of tears. “I’m an unforgivable witch, the worst of the worst…”

“If I were you, those dozens of bandits would be dead without any noble lord lifting a finger,” Farra said.

“I, that was just…”

“You actually thought that since they were running away you could let them go? I really misjudged you; I thought you were the sort of witch who carved a bloody path. Turns out you let people off all the way and got chased like some bleeding-heart saint.”

“I…! I told you, I crippled them, they won’t survive, I’m not stupid, I…!”

Halfway through her defense, Freya remembered why she had hidden in the slave-trading black market and fell silent. “…Indeed, if I’d been a little more ruthless… I wouldn’t have ended up so pathetic…”

“…But wait…! However you look at it… why can this guy talk about taking lives as if it’s nothing?”

“Do I feel any psychological burden?” Suddenly she realized how different Farra’s train of thought was.

“People who died of their wounds after I crippled them… there must be at least a hundred, maybe two hundred… Am I really too kind?? That’s no different from killing them myself… they just didn’t die on the spot…”

“What does ‘bleeding-heart saint’ mean?” Freya finally asked.

“A bleeding-heart saint is someone so reluctant to kill that even if someone craps on their head, they’ll smile and open their mouth to catch it; they show boundless mercy to enemies and are cruel only to their own.”

“That’s disgusting…! I never did anything like that!”

“Good. Then next time we run into highway bandits, will you do it or shall I?”

“…I, I’ll do it, okay!”

Not long after, Farra ran into another group of bandits blocking the road… about twenty of them. He looked at Freya. Receiving the signal, she inhaled lightly; her eyes hardened with resolve and purple light flashed within them.

“Invisible Hand!”

“Hand over everything on the wagon… aaaargh!!”

Before the words left her mouth, the bandits on both sides of the carriage were slammed to the ground. Amid successive screams, every bandit’s legs cracked and shattered on the spot. Of the twenty-odd men, not one got away.

“Invisible Hand? The power is decent but the number it can control is limited… a bit lacking,” Farra observed silently.

When Freya activated her power, the air around them became extremely viscous… that was the fabled magical essence. Currently there were two theories about magic. One said that magical essence naturally existed between Heaven and Earth, and once guided into the body it condensed into Mana. The other claimed there was no distinction; Mana was simply Mana. Which view was more accurate, Farra did not know. He was only sure that what flowed inside the human body was indeed Mana.

After crippling every bandit, Freya stopped and went no further. Farra stared at her, silently applying pressure.

After several seconds of silence, Freya still did not act. In her heart an intense tug-of-war was raging… hesitation, wavering. She could not understand why she hesitated so much. She was a witch, a monster; everyone said she was a damned abomination that should go to Hell. If so, what was there to hesitate about? Why not take the next step? Before she went to Hell, she could send those bastards there first…

“So it still won’t work?” Farra spoke lazily.

Freya kept silent, head down, unable to make up her mind, her face full of struggle. Farra felt as if he were seeing himself many years ago… when he first crossed into this world, shifting from a modern civilized society into a barbaric serf system and even becoming a serf himself. Had he not adapted quickly, whether he could live to this day would be in doubt. Not that it was anything to celebrate; put nicely you called it adaptation, put bluntly it was merely turning from human into livestock.

Farra gripped the sword hilt, leaving Freya no time for further hesitation. “You really are kind, little witch. No, starting today you’re a Saintess. Truly kind, Saintess.”

“I…”

“Enough; you don’t need to do it anymore. By the time you decide, the flowers will have withered.”

Farra stepped off the carriage with sword in hand and tossed back, “From today on, whenever we meet bandits you don’t have to lift a finger, Saintess.”

Freya stared blankly at Farra’s departing back. All she had ever heard from others were the vilest curses and loathing; she had thought herself bad enough. Until she met Farra. For the first time she heard someone call her “kind,” even address her as “Saintess.” If the church knew Farra casually used the title “Saintess” for a witch, they would mobilize everyone to drag him back, tie him to a cross, and burn him alive…