Idle Life of a Saintess

Lina spoke as if she was telling a wonderful thing, but the burden Noah felt was beyond words.

“That, that, since, since His Eminence is there……”

When Noah’s hand trembled, Lina quickly reversed her words again.

“Yes it is. I leave everything up to you. Noah-nim can just eat the things she wanted to eat as a Saintess and go enjoy the subjugation!”

“It’s a demon dragon subjugation, but it’s…… fun?”

Lina hurriedly spoke in a loud voice.

“And, and! And…… that’s right! His Eminence hasn’t told you what you’ll get if you participate in the subjugation, right?”

“What do you get?”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to go subjugating that terrifying dragon for free?”

Lina gave a meaningful smile.

“Noah-nim, just tell me. You’ll find it inconvenient to speak in person, so I’ll tell His Eminence.”

“Uh……”

“Honestly, it’s too much to go to the subjugation as a  Saintess and not receive anything.”

Noah’s eyes twinkled at Lina’s words.

Noah carefully pulled out a small wish.

“Then…… If I go and come back from this subjugation. Can I ask them to allow me to take a special exam for the professorship at the Divine Power Training Center?”

“Huh? Noah-nim, is your dream to become a professor at a Divine Power Training Center?”

“Yes. There is also a teacher who is like a mother to me.”

As Noah blushed with embarrassment, Lina realized that this was a sure factor that would make Noah cry out to be a Saintess herself.

“Oh my, Noah-nim! Is the special recruitment test a big deal? When you’re going to subjugate a dragon? Taking the lead as the Saintess, too!”

Lina shouted out loud.

“If you become a Saintess, all of that is a pass! Think about it. A professor who used to be a Saintess! Wow…… The Church will unconditionally welcome you!”

Hearing that, Noah also became motivated.

“Is that so? Actually, I was the only one who had the ability to recite the prayers, so I thought I should take the first step.”

“Right? Noah-nim is the only one!”

Lina gave Noah a lot of praise.

The ensuing conversation was a pleasant chatter of the young ladies.

Gabriel and the Paladins will catch the dragon anyway, so they should just stay quiet and act as if they didn’t exist and just get along well.

Clearly, Lina was a bright and pleasant priestess.

Noah’s smile didn’t leave her mouth until she saw Lina off.

After hearing Lina’s words, she thought that a Saintess might not have much to do. It looked like it could come after a while. She thought she could stick with it for a while and then come back.

Plus, she can get a free pass to become a professor at the Divine Power Training Center!

Yay!

* * *

“Why are you……. No, why did His Eminence come? Wasn’t I not supposed to meet His Eminence today?”

Dina looked at Gabriel with a forced smile.

She had been brought to the Vatican—Noah was the same from Dina’s point of view—and was here to meet the poor disciple Noah.

She was brought to the Vatican— from Dina’s point of view, Noah was almost dragged— and she was here to meet her poor disciple, Noah.

She was waiting for Noah in a rented prayer room, so why did Gabriel Schliemann come in?

“Not everyone can see the Saintess.”

“…… Isn’t it not because His Eminence is stopping us from meeting each other?”

Dina’s eyebrows rose.

Gabriel said after letting the escort return.

“What are you up to?”

Dina looked dumbfounded at Gabriel’s words.

“What do you want me to say? What are you up to? Why is Noah a Saintess? Does it make sense that a young priestess who didn’t know anything until recently became a Saintess overnight?”

“You asked His Holiness to remove Noah Kaplan, didn’t you?”

“Really, I wonder if the old man’s mouth has become lighter as he gets older.”

Dina didn’t hide her annoyed expression.

“Right. I asked him to take her out. Is there any difference if you don’t know when you’re a stubborn kid who doesn’t even listen to your mother’s words?”

The story of Dina picking up and raising Gabriel, a newborn, was famous.

The only surviving baby after losing his parents in the Demon Dragon’s disaster.

That was Gabriel.

A person who has Dina Ehrenberg as a godmother and Pope Benie as a godfather, and is said to have held power in the Church from birth.

Of course, even under those conditions, Gabriel was different from other powerful people.

Whether it’s because he went to the lower classes with Dina to serve them from a young age, or if it was because of the position of his godfather Benie, but Gabriel was quite humble.

To be exact, he was not a person who wielded his power recklessly.

One time, he dreamed of world peace and solving starvation.

When he was young, he had a cute taste, but……

“I am always grateful for the grace you have given me, but in a national emergency, there are things that take precedence over my mother’s story. Don’t force me to do this.”

…… Now, he has become a guy who says crazy things like that.

According to Dina’s standards, it would be an example of “raising children is useless.”

“It doesn’t matter if you curse at me, but as a professor at the Divine Power Training Center, you shouldn’t just think about yourself.”

“In terms of age, I have to listen to the old man, but there is no one who can match a Kkondae[1] like you just by looking at you.”

“You can swear to your heart’s content. Even so, Noah Kaplan will participate as a Saintess in this subjugation of Urvas.”

“No, why is that girl with no powers a Saintess!”

“What do you mean she doesn’t have the power?”

When Gabriel smiled, Dina was pricked and trembled.

“My mother made a mistake.”

“Did I make a mistake?”

“I did some further research on Noah Kaplan. No matter how unruly my mother may be to anyone, even to His Holiness……”

“…… You don’t have to talk about that for a long time.”

“But that doesn’t mean you’re not always on the move.”

At that, Dina shut her mouth.

Gabriel leaned towards Dina.

“My mother made me look at the appearance of a certain person and now asked me to exclude her from the Demon Dragon subjugation, and then nothing else? Isn’t that strange.”

Gabriel grew up under Dina as a child. So he knew very well about Dinah Ehrenberg.

Before becoming a priest of the Vatican, during the training period at the Divine Power Training Center, he often spent the weekend and vacation with Dina.

Dina often acted out of the ordinary, but it was different only for subjugating the Demon Dragon. Because she also lost her family to the Demon Dragon when she was young.

For that reason, Dina Ehrenberg was adamant on subjugating the Demon Dragon.

It was natural to save even one more person, and he thought that a priest should do anything to kill the Demon Dragon.

The first reason Dina asked to remove Gabriel was because he was her family.

For Dina, Gabriel was not just a godchild, but her only son.

Gabriel knew it well.

But Noah is different.

Noah Kaplan was a priestess who studied at the Divine Power Training Center for only two years and worked as a teacher in an unknown rural area.

A humble priestess who had no ability until she came here.

Why does Dina want to take such a priestess out like this?

Not just anything else, but at the Demon Dragon subjugation?

Gabriel has already sensed something suspicious here.

“Noah Kaplan manifested the power of a controller when she was 17, and at that time, a village was annihilated by the demon dragon Ixas[2].”

“…….”

“Cardinal Sassone Griffiths rose to his present position because of his execution of Ixas back then. Cardinal Griffiths, who is talkative and gets in a lot of trouble.”

Sassone Griffiths was not originally a man with great divine power, but while he was slaying the Demon Dragon Ixas, his divine power suddenly emerged through Elohim’s grace.

But oddly enough, he stayed in the Central Church after that and focused on writing the Bible, but was never mobilized to subdue the Demon Dragon.

“How much do you know?”

“The extent to which there was something tangled up with Cardinal Sassone Griffiths, Noah Kaplan, and, coincidentally, my godmother, Professor Dina Ehrenberg?”

“Haaa……”

Dina sighed deeply.

“I’m pretty sure Cardinal Griffiths didn’t deal with Ixas.”

“The Griffiths is an old noble family and His Holiness needed them to take the seat of Pope from being a cardinal.”

Dina’s words are as good as an acknowledgement.

Gabriel smiled.

He must have chosen Griffiths in search of a family that could empower Benie, who was then a cardinal, to take the position of pope.

He promised the family a cardinal position, and accordingly, the Demon Dragon was handled by Sassone Griffiths.

“Then did mother originally deal with Ixas?”

Dina Ehrenberg was a controller. A highly exceptional one.

Since there were only four demon dragons Dina caught when she was young, it is more convincing that she dealt with Ixas.

Gabriel believed in Dina Ehrenberg’s abilities rather than Sassone Griffiths, who was known to have suddenly manifested his divine power and then disappeared.

Thinking about it some more.

Dina may have projected herself upon seeing the 17-year-old Noah, who lost her parents there at the time, when she went to kill Ixas. That must be why she is someone precious to her.

Gabriel had thought about this in the first place and asked.

“No, it’s not me.”

“Hmmm, you know I’m smart…….”

“Noah Kaplan laid it to rest[3].”

“…….”

Gabriel thought he had heard it wrong.

“She laid the dragon to rest? A 17-year-old girl who just manifested her divine power?”

“I also laid dragons to rest when I was fifteen. It’s nothing special.”

A moment of silence covered the place.

Gabriel moved closer to Dina and asked again.

“Priestess Noah didn’t know about that at all?”

“It’s top secret. She doesn’t know either.”

“What?”

“Noah passed out immediately after the manifestation of her abilities, so I, who arrived first…… Yes. To make Sassone Griffiths a cardinal, I decided to declare that he killed Ixas.”

“What a wretched thing to do! Are you saying that you even took the credit of a girl who was heartbroken by the loss of her parents!”

Gabriel’s voice rose. It’s a good thing there was no one around.

“Do you know how Noah’s parents died?”

In response to Dina’s calm question, Gabriel tried to pull himself together and straightened his posture. There was nothing good about being excited.

“I heard that they were burned to death by the breath shot by the Demon Dragon.”

“What happened before that?”

When Gabriel shut his mouth, Dina continued.

TL Notes:

           [1] Kkondae as defined by outsiders (i.e., the BBC and The Economist, respectively), is “an older person who believes they are always right and you are always wrong,” or a “condescending old geezer”.

           [2] Iksas is changed to Ixas.

           [3] Not much is said here because it only says ‘putting them to rest’. So I used ‘laying it to rest’ because it can also mean killing it.