Elvin glanced at it in surprise. Dawn's line of Holy Light Magic? Someone still used it, and with such purity of faith. That was rare.
"Um, that big guy chasing us," the white-haired girl said, "I have a way to deal with him." Elvin looked at her skeptically. She held up three fingers and calmly explained that in three minutes, the man would roar, bleed all over, and be helpless for about half a minute, at which point a strike to the back of the neck would finish it.
Elvin did not say it out loud, but her eyes clearly showed disbelief. The white-haired girl could tell, yet after dying so many times, this was the only method she had found. She could only feel helpless about it.
Elvin did not know why this accompanying believer had ended up so far away. Seeing that she did not seem very sharp, Elvin decided to take her along for now rather than let her die. Exactly three minutes later, a roar sounded from behind.
Elvin turned and saw the pursuing scar cultist bleeding violently and collapsing in place, his body rotting into a useless heap. The white-haired girl quietly sighed in relief. At least it had worked, and all those deaths in the simulator had not been wasted.
Elvin really drove her sword into the back of the fallen Scar Cultists's head, and after truly killing the monster, she still looked a little dazed. Everything felt wrong, because she had casually saved someone on the road who could then casually describe how people would die, in what state, and at the exact time. That was far too strange, no matter how she thought about it.
Still, she did not ask more questions. Everyone had their own secrets, didn't they? What bothered her more was the brief display of Holy Light Magic earlier, which carried a feeling unlike even the few true Dawn Cultists she had met who could wield Holy Light.
That feeling almost resembled the pressure she once felt when facing that existence. The thought barely surfaced before she crushed it herself, because it was impossible. That had been an unquestionable sign of a true Orthodox God, and comparing it to a small use of Holy Light was simply ridiculous.
"What is going on here?"
When Elvin quietly glanced toward the convoy location at Jade Creek with the White-Haired Girl behind her, she immediately noticed something shocking. After reaching a certain stage, Black Iron Rapid Training made one's eyesight sharper than a hawk's, with high clarity that allowed her to see what had happened in the camp at a glance.
First were guards and accompanying priests lying in pools of blood, a real blockbuster scene. That did not matter much, since most of them were already dead before Elvin escaped. What truly mattered were the Scar Cultists.
One by one, they had died in the same strange way, collapsed on the ground with bodies torn into several pieces, too gruesome to look at. The sight made Elvin recall her days dealing with Demonkind. That was when she first learned how many ways a person could die, and how many shapes death could take.
"All right, come help me carry some things. We will leave soon, and once we find the person, we will head to the nearest Cathedral City."
Elvin pulled essential rations and valuables from an overturned wagon. She glanced at the White-Haired Girl standing beside her and asked casually, "By the way, what is your name? Which group of nuns are you from?"
"Uh…"
The White-Haired Girl pinched the hem of her skirt, looking a little embarrassed. After confirming something internally, she let out a small breath and spoke nervously. "I am Alba. Ah… you can call me Alba or Alba."
"All right, then I will call you Alba for now. You look like a newcomer." "Uh… more or less."
Hearing that, Alba began to sweat faintly, but Elvin did not notice. Or rather, in this situation, being nervous was normal.
After gathering what was needed from the bodies and the wagon, Elvin bundled everything into two packs. She turned and called out to Alba. "We are almost done. Be careful, those lunatics might send another wave."
"Before that, we need to find the one who ran away earlier, that so-called saintess candidate."
As she spoke, Elvin hoisted the packs and turned to leave. Behind her, Alba rubbed her head and said with an awkward smile, "Um, actually… there is no need."
"I am the one."
"What?"
Elvin spun around like a beast, nearly frightening Alba. Her gaze turned sharp, and Alba felt chills all over, as if countless blades were aimed at her.
Elvin examined her closely. At first glance, her skin was fair and soft, with almost no signs of training. That kind of appearance came from natural growth in a comfortable environment, which fit the conditions, and her eyes then moved to the clothing.
The white outer robe was clean and of fine quality, with no loose threads at all, while the inner layer was a nun's outfit. Everything matched, and there was also that earlier use of Holy Light Magic. Elvin suddenly felt a sharp ache in her teeth.
Alba felt uneasy as she watched the expressions on Elvin's face change. After being scanned up and down with a look that seemed ready to skin her alive, Elvin clenched her fist. She even sliced a nearby boulder into five parts with her sword before calming down, though her expression became colder and more blank.
"Then let's go, Saintess."
"For now, I am your guardian knight. It is best if you do not leave my five-meter range, or if you die, it will be troublesome for me."
"Yes!"
Catching the pack that was tossed over, Alba smiled and followed Elvin. However, after walking for a short while, Elvin had no choice but to take the pack back. It was not because she worried about tricks, but because this saintess's stamina was unbelievably poor.
After walking a bit, she looked as if she were about to die, with her legs close to cramping. At this pace, it might take days to reach their destination. Strangely, her endurance was worse than that of an ordinary underage civilian.
Given that she could use a bit of Holy Light Magic and clearly had some Magic, her physical condition should not have been this bad. The pack weighed only about fifty kilograms, and they had not walked that far.
Elvin considered the possibility that she was pretending. But when she almost drew her sword, Alba collapsed like a corpse and said nothing, which instead made Elvin feel oddly drained. It was the kind of situation where even a warning display meant nothing if the other party was already completely exhausted.
Alba truly felt like she was about to die from exhaustion. Her throat felt dry as if it were burning, and carrying fifty kilograms through forest terrain without dying was already a miracle. Although she had spent a long time in simulations, less than a day ago she had only been an ordinary medical student from an ancient Terra era.
She vaguely remembered an unremarkable night. At an intersection, a large truck suddenly caused a horrific accident, hitting a woman who had just gotten off work. Someone nearby called an ambulance and shouted to see if there were any doctors, and Alba, seeing how far the victim had been thrown, thought survival was unlikely but still went to check.
The moment she turned her head, the bystander who had made the call was struck by a steel coil flung from the truck, dying instantly. She had no time to react. Then she felt something rushing toward her from above and looked up.
It was a traffic light pole snapped by the truck. Everything went black, and the next moment she appeared in this forest. By now, she was almost certain she had transmigrated.
Seriously, truck driver, are your performance targets that tight? Taking out three people in one go?
As she complained internally, she leaned against a tree. When she looked up again, a light screen that only Alba could see appeared. "Welcome to the simulator."
"Stage one completed. Available simulation attempts are refreshing… unknown." "For the next stage, participate in selection as a saintess and obtain the true saintess position. You must reveal yourself during the process or leave the current area with a three-thousand-kilometer diameter."
"Mission reward: unknown."
A simple interface with a chibi dragon logo appeared, like a text-based adventure game. This was Alba's only support, a simulator of unknown origin. It had appeared when she first woke up, and because of it, she had not died immediately in the harsh Otherworld, since she had already died too many times before.
She had died from stepping on grass in the jungle, from being eaten by monsters, from consuming the wrong things, from touching the wrong objects, and from being randomly selected by passing cultists. After too many deaths, the simulator finally gave Alba a hint. She was told to go to a certain place and strip the clothes from a woman who had already died, dressed like a nun.
Only then did she learn that the dead woman was actually a saintess of one of the local Church of Holy Light factions in the Otherworld. That made things serious, because she now had to impersonate a saintess. Whether it would work was another matter.