The room wasn't that big, and some might even call it claustrophobic. But in the apocalyptic, grim future of humanity, where most of the world had been destroyed by the abominations, conserving space had become the norm for decades now. The room was just two and a half meters in each direction, barely fitting Dante's bed, a small cabinet, and the chair beside his head where a stranger sat reading a book.
He opened his eyes, feeling much better than the last time he was awake, getting mauled by those Scarred Beasts. He stared at the white ceiling for a second before opening his lips to speak, addressing the stranger sitting on the chair beside his head.
"Where are my Crystal cores?" He threw a sharp glare at the man and made him chuckle. "Thinking about those in this situation? Probably isn't wise." He closed the book he was reading and then smiled. "Touched Miguel. I was the temporary commander of the knight squad."
Dante sat up, growled as he could feel a sharp pain in his stomach, like a hole, as he hadn't eaten anything for a while, and then glared at the man, still wanting to know what happened to his Crystal cores, as he needed those to get food.
"Was? I guess you aren't a commander anymore. That was a real mess." He stared at Miguel with a sharp grin, and Miguel sighed. "Absolutely, I failed to predict the abominations' attack, got several of my men killed, and failed to save half of the merchants. I got suspended from active duty, and I was ordered to sit here and guard you until further notice."
"Does that include stealing my cores?" At this moment, while hungry, Dante had very little patience, and Miguel not answering his question was slowly chipping away at what little calmness he had. "I didn't steal them. You can withdraw them later from the church's treasury. Alexander harvested and deposited them."
Dante finally smiled. "Alexander did? I knew I could count on him." He stood, stumbled for a few steps, and supported himself by leaning on the wall. "Damn it, I really need something to eat." He could barely feel his legs, and his vision had gone dark for a brief moment as he stood.
"You've been asleep for a whole week and have been declared dead twice." Miguel stood and offered him his shoulder to lean on. "Let's go downstairs to grab something to eat. I'll pay this time. Think of it as an apology for the mess you've been through."
"Free food? Can't say no." Dante and Miguel walked out of the room, and on their way, Miguel asked in a worried voice. "You won't ask about your injuries? I just told you that you've been declared dead twice."
Dante almost forgets that only he knows that he was immortal. It is probably best to keep that a secret for now, so he pretended not to care. "I'm alive now. Why should that matter now?" Miguel immediately stared at him. "Because you ended up humiliating the strongest Blessed in this entire city, and it could cost your life. Death is better than pissing off a Saint."
"What? I just woke up…" Dante gasped, and Miguel explained how his heart stopped while they were in the armored tank rushing back to the city, so they declared him dead after failing to resuscitate him. But when they reached the city, the group responsible for transporting corpses noticed that he was still warm, only to find him breathing and his heart still beating.
"That was our fault, to think that your heart would start beating again after we failed to resuscitate you… What's worse, we left you half-bandaged since we thought you died and had limited supplies, so it's a miracle you stayed alive." Miguel looked really guilty about it. He didn't just fail his mission and got many of his men killed; he even failed to make sure someone was really dead before throwing them into the pile of corpses.
Dante looked at him. "Still no word about this so-called Saint. Get to the point." The numbness in his legs was already fading, so he pushed Miguel aside so he could walk on his own. That made Miguel feel a bit sad. "Come on… you don't have to hate me for it… even though I deserve it."
"I can walk on my own. What about the Saint?" He glared at him, and Miguel waved his hands. "Your body, since we didn't treat it well, was half rotten. Your wounds got infected, swollen, and you were hanging by a thread." He looked down. "The Great Saint was in the city, and when she heard of our gruesome failure… she spared some of her time to treat your wounds as compensation for what we made you go through."
"Is she angry at me for that? It's your people's fault, not mine." Dante growled, and Miguel shook his head in panic. "No, she isn't angry about that. Our Saint isn't like the other two." Miguel looked around to make sure no one was listening, since now this was a topic that everyone would rather not spread.
"She tried to heal you, but you were already far too gone, and your heart stopped for several minutes, and she eventually declared you dead." Miguel scratched his chin. "After being declared dead by the Saint, you were sent to the morgue… only for you to come back to life right when they were about to incinerate your corpse."
Dante stared at the ceiling, holding his own face in disbelief. "So that messed up her reputation a lot. She could've just killed me to save face."
"If it were any of the other two Saints, they would have done that. She was in the middle of lecturing us about how we failed to provide you with necessary life support and mistakenly declared you dead when the courier rushed in with the news that you were still alive." Miguel smiled, "To be honest, it was quite the sight to see her embarrassed and flustered."
"I bet that would've been nice… but anyway. What is a Saint? You made it sound scary, and you even said there are only two more." As Dante asked, Miguel stared at him in shock for a second before taking a deep breath. "You have amnesia; I almost forgot. A Saint is what we call a Celestial-rank Blessed." He walked beside Dante. "Need a rundown?"
"Probably…" Dante then pushed Miguel to keep walking. "As we eat. I'm starving." Miguel smiled and took Dante down to the church's canteen to grab some food, and as they sat down to eat, he took the chance to give him a quick rundown of everything that he might need to know.
"Mundane, Touched, Blessed, Ascended, Celestial, Holy, Heavenly, and lastly Divine. We only have nicknames for the first five since no one had achieved the higher ranks yet, and those would be Commoner, Adventurer, Veteran, Master, and lastly Saint for the Celestial-rank." Looking down at the food, Miguel could only sigh. Bland soup, white bread, very few vegetables or meat, but a load of grains.
On the other side of the table, Dante was already wolfing his portion without any manners at all; he didn't even use the spoon and just drank his entire bowl of soup in a single go.
"You were really hungry…" Miguel stared at him with a worried smile, and then kept explaining. "There are only three saints in the entire world: The Holy Saint who healed you, the Sword Saint, and the Magic Saint. There are a few tens of Masters on the other hand, and we even got three of them in this city, and they are usually guarding the Holy Saint."
"Why guard a Saint? Shouldn't she be powerful enough?" Dante asked with a frown as he looked down at his bowl, sad that it was already empty.
"She is the weakest of the three Saints since her power focuses more on healing and support, not pure destruction like the other two. A swordsman that can split mountains, and a tactical nuke. For a while, we only thought such horrifying powers existed in movies or comics."
"Then what about the abominations? I guess knowing about them is just as important as knowing our own ranks, right?" Dante counted what he could remember from Alexander. "Mundane, Scarred, and then Cursed. Those are the first three ranks that Alexander told me about."
"Above the Cursed rank you'll find Fallen, Abyssal, Primordial, Hellish, and lastly Eldritch." He leaned toward Dante. "Those wolves we faced were nothing more than infected animals, nowhere as powerful as the real deal."
At first, Dante wanted nothing to do with the abominations if he could help it, but since he was a Blessed… or in his case, a Cursed, he needed to fight them to grow stronger. "Well, well… doesn't that sound like some fun?" Dante smiled as he stretched his arms. "I gotta find whoever, or whatever, caused me this memory loss, and I got a hunch it isn't something I can handle right now."
"Come on, you still want to fight after what you've…" Miguel suddenly fell silent mid-sentence, and he looked as pale as ash. Right in his eyes, Dante could see the reflection of a tall woman standing right behind his back, so he slowly turned around.
The woman behind him was tall and clad in pure white papal regalia, staring down at him with two burning golden eyes. Even though she was human and beautiful, her stare made Dante feel like ten of that Cursed Alien he saw at the river were all glaring at him at once. Inside her chest, he could see two massive, burning pure souls that dwarfed anything he had ever seen before.
This woman was a Celestial Monster, challenging the very notion that Alexander made Dante believe: that only abominations could rise in class and gain more souls. But at least those two souls had no trace of the disgusting darkness Dante could see in the abominations' souls.
"Aren't you a real Monster, with those two big…" But before he could finish, she smacked him in the face hard enough to send him rolling to the corner of the canteen. "If you've got anything to complain about your treatment, come to my office. And if I find you staring at my chest again, I'll have you crucified."
As the entire canteen fell silent and Miguel stared in horror, the woman waved her hand, ordering her guards to pick Dante's limp body up. "Take him to my office." She then threw a sharp glare at Miguel. "I believe I told you to report to me immediately if he wakes up. Expect more disciplinary actions coming toward you."