WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 571: Saintess Seiki

= = =

"You were born with the qualities of a Holy Maiden."

"...Who, me?"

What? A Holy Maiden?

Suspicion came first.

Hidden inside her clothes was a hunting dagger, its blade kept sharp, about a hand's length long.

If some clumsy little con artist tried to pull something, she was fully prepared to relieve him of a few fingers. And if he thought her looks were an invitation, she was more than willing to take something other than fingers.

That was simply how she lived.

From the outside, she was a small, slight girl. Which meant she looked easy to rob or beat to death, and an appearance like that had never done her any favors as a hunter.

Had a Demon Creature ever hesitated when it saw her? If anything, they came at her harder for thinking she was easy prey.

Was this that kind of situation?

But what could she possibly have that would make someone try to hook her with a line like that?

Was this the same as that storyteller who had tried his luck on her last year?

That man had come after her body, running his little schemes, so Seiki had separated one of his attachments from him and made sure he would never try the same thing again.

Experience had taught her that showing a little force when things went sideways made everything run smoother.

'Given what I look like right now, I doubt this is about my face.'

Seiki assessed herself coldly. She did not need a mirror to have a rough sense of her current state.

She had not washed in a while, and grime was caked black on her face. A fur hat pulled low covered her ears.

The man who had spoken to her claimed to be a priest from some temple. His platinum-blond hair was neatly combed, and in his hand he held something like a golden grape cluster with seven beads. It looked like a symbolic object, fairly solid and heavy.

Seiki did not know it, but what the priest carried was indeed a symbol of his god, which also represented his own standing and his sect.

'A weapon?'

It did not look like one.

Nothing about it seemed particularly dangerous.

Between his priest's robes and the impression he gave off, and beyond that, this was not some empty field or mountain road with no one passing by. It was a corner of a market in a small city.

Would any idiot really try something here?

One more reason on top of that: at the instinctive level, she felt no threat from him.

If anything, the man in front of her seemed to be showing her nothing but goodwill.

She had just sold some hides and by-products and was picking up salt and a few other seasonings when they crossed paths. It was not a planned meeting by any means.

He had simply appeared on the street in front of her, walked right up, said he had something to tell her, and stopped her in her tracks. The word he whispered was that one: Holy Maiden.

After that, the man kept speaking kindly.

Things like, please come by the temple, you are a daughter of god, you have been blessed.

Any other day she would have ignored it and walked on, but things were a bit different right now, so Seiki kept her mouth shut for a moment and let herself think.

'Are you going to spend your whole life eating the guts of animals? Broaden your eyes and see the world.'

The grandfather who had said that to her had been away for more than three months now.

Honestly, she was not drawn to it. Her first thought was: why bother?

Holy Maiden or not, she had no interest in gods or any of that.

Dying to a Demon Creature or a Magic Beast was not bad luck and it was not being abandoned by a god. It was poor preparation and insufficient training.

But her grandfather was right about most things. So that piece of advice probably was not wrong either.

"If I become a Holy Maiden, what exactly happens?"

Even to such a vague question, the priest smiled and answered.

"You will be able to have everything you desire, everything the sect can offer. Saint Child."

The sect had a habit of calling their Holy Maidens and Holy Men by that name: children of god.

"My name is Seiki, not Saint whatever."

Thirteen-year-old Seiki knew something of the world, but she had not mastered it.

In other words, she was deceived.

Everyone makes mistakes, and Seiki came to see her judgment then as one of those.

Was that priest a bad person?

No. He was not.

The man had genuinely rejoiced when he saw her, had sincerely blessed her, and had truly believed that her happiness lay within the sect, and that everything she had ever dreamed of lay there too.

Even if she had brushed that friendly-looking priest off and walked past him, even if she had refused to let him accompany her, the moment the Holy State learned a Holy Maiden existed, they would not have left her alone.

After that, Seiki was taken to some monastery the sect had built.

It sat on the outskirts of a mountain ridge, not even near a city. She entered it, and the one who had guided her wept, offered his blessing, and left.

"Oh, the Lord has proven that He watches over us. All fallen fruit belongs to the Lord, and abundance is the gift the Lord bestows."

Seiki let most of that go in one ear and out the other, stepped into the monastery, and within two days realized she was trapped.

"And where are you going?"

Someone was always at the door.

After that, the one who called himself a priest of the Sect of Abundance told her he was teaching her conduct and doctrine as a Holy Maiden, and watched her every move throughout the day.

On the surface she was free to walk around, but any outside activity she actually wanted was forbidden.

That was the same as being imprisoned.

Body and mind alike felt caged.

A cage. She had been locked up for three days once, when she was twelve.

The charge had been drawing a blade inside city limits.

Her grandfather had sold a precious hide to get her out, she recalled.

This was no different from that.

Was that a problem?

It was.

Seiki sensed the mood drifting in a strange direction. Using one excuse after another, she walked every corner of the monastery on foot and swept it with her eyes.

The more she looked, the more she found.

"What is that place over there?"

There was a cave-like chamber beneath the monastery, underground, and she could see that people had passed in and out of it.

She did not bother going down to look. She had neither the time nor the opportunity.

"That is the chapel for fasting prayer."

They said people were taken there to pray without food, but passing by, Seiki had caught something faint, something almost like the smell of food.

She had also noticed crumbs of bread scattered along the path, and the traces of small animals, rats perhaps.

What did that suggest?

'Someone is locked down there.'

"What kind of work can a Holy Maiden do?"

After that she played the naive girl, asking questions as if she knew nothing.

Some of the answers were useless, but some were not.

There was enough to piece the fragments together.

"You can make holy water and potions. The divine power of a Holy Maiden or Holy Man is very different from that of an ordinary follower. It is a power that knows how to give. In that sense, Holy Maiden Seiki is still untrained, so you will need to develop further."

Those were the words of Shilma, the monastery's head.

'Underground. Food. Confinement.'

A Holy Maiden could make potions.

So what was her value to them right now?

She had no sense yet of how to draw out the divine nature within her.

Once she learned to use it, what would she be made to do?

Everything she heard pointed to one thing: she would be making potions. Otherwise there was no reason to keep her locked up like this.

Seiki had things she wanted. She had chosen to experience being a Holy Maiden and see what the sect had to offer.

She had not chosen to be caged here.

But saying "I want to stop being a Holy Maiden and go home" was not going to get her released.

From that point on, Seiki watched the people around her. She studied the buildings and memorized the layout.

It was not difficult. Since she was small she had mapped trap locations just by reading the shape of a forest.

She had to, or she would have died long ago.

Compared to where she had grown up, the shapes of the buildings here, the shaded spots where moss had taken hold, the walls where ivy had climbed, every feature was strikingly clear. A structural map formed itself inside her head.

It was not just terrain. People moving through, weapons, everything went into that mental map.

Even those who moved in real time ended up inside her head.

It was one of the skills her grandfather had taught her. That was the wealth she carried, the ability she owned.

She sorted it all out without anyone in the monastery noticing.

After drawing out that three-dimensional map, the conclusion she reached was this.

'I cannot get out without help.'

Seiki's escape attempt succeeded on the first try. It began in the middle of a theology lesson, when she pressed a knife to her teacher's throat.

The knife was from a meal tray. Of course, what the knife was meant for did not matter when it was at someone's throat, it was threatening enough.

She had been playing the quiet, helpless girl all this time, so no one could have seen this coming.

The lesson was in a small room, and there were only the two of them.

Seiki had spent her time learning the patterns of this place, so she moved using everything she had learned.

The position of the windows, the underground storage rooms that came with the monastery's structure, the routes people used and the ones they did not, the clusters of people who would clearly knock her out with one punch if she faced them directly, the paths they would likely take.

She made it look as though she was fleeing in one direction and scattered traces in every corner, then hid in the room of a young monk who had taken pity on her.

"Thank you."

"...Lord Father, please judge and correct the wrongs of this sect."

The young monk's prayer was an admission that he understood the injustice of the situation.

There was nothing he could do about it.

He could only help this poor child.

She had asked only to be hidden for a short while.

That was enough. Or else she asked him to give her a reason she was supposed to spend her life caged here.

There was no reason to be caged. So there was nothing to say.

It was not an argument, but there was nothing wrong with what she had said.

So the monk granted her wish.

It was the best he could do right then.

Why? Because if he stood up and pointed at the injustice aloud, he would face a trial by burning.

He was the last conscience left in a rotting sect.

Seiki had read that in him.

When hunting or tracking Demon Creatures, you use everything around you. That was how it worked.

She had simply done the same.

This place called itself a monastery, but it was closer to a fortress, and every person inside was a follower or a monk.

Not everyone here was rotten.

Half a day hiding in the monk's room.

Right around the time the ones chasing her would realize they had been fooled, or begin to wonder, she pulled on the young monk's clothes and walked outside.

She had a plausible excuse ready, and she walked out alongside the priest who had watched over her like a nanny.

Two helpers. Without them, even Seiki could not have broken out of that fortress monastery.

She left behind the colonnaded walkways, the statues of the seven martyrs standing in the center, and the separate sculpture symbolizing god through seven grape beads. She walked out of the prison they called a monastery.

"Thank you."

She said it as she stepped outside, and the middle-aged woman who had acted like her nanny answered. The smile that reached her eyes when they curved at the corners was a genuinely warm sight.

"Please live however you wish."

"Won't it be dangerous for you once I'm gone?"

"You are not the kind of child who would stop over a worry like that, are you, Seiki?"

The woman was generous and kind.

If there was a god, or if god had a face in the world, then that face should look like hers.

Seiki turned over the theology she had skimmed through and gave a rough nod.

"Sorry. I have things I want, and I'm going to live for them."

She could not stop here because she felt sorry for this woman.

She left the temple that way, and after that she ran and walked through cities and open country alike.

She had to watch for traces of Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts and avoid them, and halfway through she noticed she had picked up a tail and had to start pulling off some real tricks.

She had pushed straight through a swamp crawling with dozens of Lizardmen, barehanded.

She had taken a path no one would think of, and believed she had shaken them off.

After forcing her way through, she had no choice but to enter a city.

Naturally, the ones tracking her followed her there.

Was it a mistake?

No. Without stopping in a city to prepare and buy supplies, the escape that followed would have been impossible.

So she did it. She sold a small silver candlestick she had taken from the temple on her way out and bought everything she needed.

'That dagger is going to cost me.'

Her hunting dagger had been confiscated long ago, so she had no weapon.

She bought one dagger, and with the remaining Krona she bought boots with thick soles, a cloak, and spare clothes.

All of that happened before the pursuers arrived. If it had not, she would already have been caught by the guards.

When she said she was a scruffy little hunter kid joining a hunting group outside the city that included her parents, they opened the gate without fuss. After that, she walked hard, as a matter of course.

Disguising herself to hide her identity would have been convenient, but it was not her strength.

Instead, the skills she had learned and drilled since childhood guided her.

'Grandfather.'

It was only natural to think of the person who had raised and trained her.

Early mornings carried a cold bite. The sun would rise, and by afternoon it could be warm enough to sweat.

She kept to open ground whenever she could.

Not quite to the horizon, but she stayed clear of rises, caves, and mountain ridges.

She walked with her gaze wide open, using her senses to scan everything around her.

She crossed several close calls that way, and the place she finally reached was Pelheim.

Her plan there was to shake every last pursuer.

'Tenacious.'

She had slipped into the city and was trying to get out again when the number of people on her trail suddenly jumped.

Before, she had guessed fewer than ten. Now it was more than dozens.

A wide net had spread around her, closing in from every direction.

Knowing you are being chased means you do not walk yourself into a dead end. That is common sense. But she did exactly that. She headed into the forest and cut off her own escape route.

Why? Because it was the best path out.

'Not the worst situation.'

She had taken some injuries along the way, but she was a Holy Maiden the sect had recognized.

Which meant she had a natural divine quality.

She had no idea how to express it outwardly, so she had no idea how to use it.

In place of that, though, Seiki healed fast from any wound.

Poison did not hold against her, and a leg injury that nearly cost her the limb somehow mended itself too.

"Are you a half-elf or a half-Frog?"

"Frogs lay eggs. Did you pull me out of an egg? Grandfather would know that, not me."

"Your mother is my daughter. You little brat."

It had been surprising enough for her grandfather to say something like that. It had been that way since she was small.

A cross between a human and a Frog was supposed to be impossible, so at the time she had just figured it was a strange thing and moved on.

How was she supposed to know it was because of divine power?

Anyway, Seiki's plan was to sprint north and shake every last pursuer.

Get clear in the forest, then run north. Simple, but no small amount of effort had gone into making it possible.

Half a day passed.

Whether the sun rose or the moon rose, she carved into her sleeping hours and kept moving.

She had long since learned how to sleep without catching the eye of Demon Creatures or Magic Beasts.

Fatigue had piled up until her arms and legs felt like someone had tied stones to them.

Skirting around the city and climbing northward, she reached the edge of a mountain range.

It was part of what spread out from the Gigant Mountain Range, and people called this area North Pelheim.

It was quite dangerous. Extremely dangerous.

This was territory claimed by a fire-breathing Demon Creature.

Seiki had been about to try pushing through that range again.

That was her original plan, right up until she saw the people blocking her path.

"Saint Child."

A woman with a gentle smile standing at the center opened her mouth.

"My name is Seiki."

Seiki stated clearly who she was. She was not a sacred child. She was Seiki.

And the woman in front of her was the same one who had congratulated her on becoming a Holy Maiden, inside that prison monastery.

= = =

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried