“Please, be seated.”

The Pope’s voice met me the moment I arrived at the grand cathedral. He gestured toward a solitary chair placed before the high altar.

This was the Trial of a Saint.

It was a crucible every cleric of the Holy Kingdom was expected to face.

With the next saint’s identity unknown, the trial remained a necessary but dreaded practice.

The problem was its legendary difficulty… and its danger. It was no wonder most priests were said to fail the first stage intentionally.

The Trial of Endurance, if I recall correctly.

I didn’t know the precise details, but the name stuck in my mind.

“The first ordeal tests your endurance,” the Pope confirmed, his voice echoing in the cavernous space. “You must simply withstand a period of profound pain.”

“So I was right,” I murmured.

“Pardon?” the Pope asked, his brow furrowed in gentle confusion.

“It’s nothing.” I gave a slight, dismissive wave and fell silent.

He blinked at my response before resuming his explanation.

“The pain will manifest in three forms: first of the body, then of the heart, and finally, of the mind. Furthermore—”

These people are insane.

As the Pope elaborated, the full scope of the Holy Kingdom’s fanaticism became terrifyingly clear.

I had assumed “endurance” meant resisting worldly temptations like greed or lust. But his description was not of a test of faith; it was a test of enduring systematic torture.

What else could one expect from a nation of zealots? Even their path to sainthood was certifiably mad.

So that’s why the other clerics fled.

I clicked my tongue and gave a short nod.

Whatever the case, I couldn’t stop now. A man who draws his sword must see the swing through.

“Let’s begin.”

I met the Pope’s gaze, my resolve hardening.

He must have sensed it, as he nodded in return and drew a thin, metallic object from the folds of his robes.

“Very well. Please, put this on.”

It was a simple loop of wire, something one might mistake for a crude bracelet at a glance.

A bracelet?

I stared at it, my expression full of questions.

The Pope offered a knowing look, as if he’d anticipated my thought. “This is the Mirror of Trials, a holy artifact of the Kingdom. It may appear simple, but its nature is anything but.”

It barely even looks like a bracelet.

I summoned my patience and listened.

“The Mirror shows its wearer an ordeal,” he explained. “As I said, it begins with the pain of the body, then the heart, and finally, the mind.”

“Are there any permanent aftereffects?” I asked.

“None. This is but the first gate. Nothing it inflicts will leave a lasting mark.”

The very existence of such a device is a mark on your sanity.

I shot the Pope a withering look before reaching out and fastening the Mirror of Trials to my wrist.

It snapped shut with a crisp click, and the Pope smiled benevolently. “Then we shall await your awakening. I pray you survive the trial.”

Survive? You just said there were no—

The protest died on my lips as the world dissolved into blackness.

The first trial had begun.

* * *

“It has begun,” the Pope murmured, turning to the cardinals assembled at his side.

To ensure its sanctity, the Trial of a Saint was always conducted in the presence of the full council of cardinals. This, naturally, meant it was also a stage for endless disputes.

“An outsider, undertaking the sacred trial… The Goddess will surely show Her wrath.”

“Heh heh… Are you truly unaware that Baron Louis is a devout follower? The Goddess would rejoice to see such a man become Her saint. Cardinal Chou, your vision is far too narrow.”

“What?! Have you finished, you old goat?”

“My, my. Look at you losing your temper in this holy place. Are you volunteering for a pilgrimage to Hell?”

“You madman!”

The scene was more suited to a back-alley tavern than the Holy Kingdom’s central cathedral. No outsider would ever guess this was a gathering of the nation’s highest clergy.

“Do you want to settle this now?”

“Yes, let’s! Let’s see what your fists have to say for you!”

Into the chaotic hall, a new voice cut through the noise, low and sharp as grinding stone.

“Silence.”

The speaker was a man with long hair and a face crosshatched with scars. Unlike the other cardinals in their fine robes, he had the hardened physique of a career soldier.

The bickering clergy fell quiet, like mice freezing in the shadow of a hawk.

“...S-Sir Pain. You’ve arrived?” one stammered.

“I have.” The man called Sir Pain answered curtly and clicked his tongue.

Pain Atriker.

Former Inquisitor-General and commander of the Templar Knights. He was the architect of the modern Holy Kingdom and, by all accounts, its strongest warrior.

He strode past the others and took the seat of highest honor at the Pope’s left hand.

“I could hear your squabbling from the building lobby. You might as well have announced a public brawl to the flock.”

“Ah… our apologies, Sir Pain. We were thoughtless,” a cardinal said, bowing his head with an obsequious smile.

Pain clicked his tongue again, his contempt for them a palpable force.

He believed wretches like these were why the Holy Kingdom had grown so weak, why it served as a willing lackey to the Empire. A pathetic state of affairs.

If he had his way, he would burn it all down and start again.

Patience.

Pain exhaled slowly and leaned back in his chair.

The First Prince of the Empire had promised an alliance once he ascended the throne. With the title “Ally of the Empire,” no one could stop them from rebuilding their strength from within.

And when that day comes, he thought, a predatory glint in his eye, I will devour the Empire whole.

He reined in his ambition and scanned the room.

“Has Cardinal Key not yet arrived?”

Key Dupron, his great rival, was nowhere to be seen.

The man was a serpent; his presence was infuriating, but his absence was unnerving. One never knew what venomous plot he was hatching in the shadows.

Where is he, and what is he scheming?

As Pain scowled in thought, a voice he loathed drifted from the cathedral entrance, smooth and cloying.

“Ah, Sir Pain. Did you miss me that much? I am pained to be searched for with such fervor.”

That sickening man.

Pain turned his glare upon the newcomer.

Cardinal Key Dupron. The man touted as his rival for the papacy had arrived.

“You’re late,” Pain growled. “The trial has already begun.”

“I was delayed by my prayers to the Goddess,” Key said with a serene smile. “Surely you aren’t suggesting anything is more important than prayer?”

“...You viper.”

That sanctimonious tone, that razor-thin sarcasm. For a man with such a slender frame, he had an immense talent for getting under one’s skin.

“One day,” Pain bit out, “that silver tongue will be rolling on the floor with your head.”

“How wonderful,” Key replied, his grin widening. “Then I, too, shall be by the Goddess’s side. Unlike some, of course.”

Pain looked away with a grunt of undisguised contempt. “I’m wasting my breath.”

“As you wish.”

The other cardinals watched the exchange, swallowing nervously.

Key took his seat at the Pope’s right hand and spoke, his voice now low and serious. “So, you went through with it.”

Though his gaze flickered toward Pain, everyone present knew he was addressing the Pope.

“I made a promise,” the Pope said simply.

“That you made such a promise is the problem, Your Holiness. You still fail to see that.”

“How can it be a mistake? It is the work of the Goddess’s will. My only regret is that I took so long to guide him to Her.”

“Ha! You truly believe Baron Louis will be the one.”

“And why would he not be? He is a man who has heard the Goddess’s call.”

“You are mad,” Cardinal Key stated, looking at the Pope with an expression of pure disbelief.

Normally, Pain would have leapt to contradict him, but this time, he remained silent. It was a tacit agreement.

In Pain’s eyes, the current Pope only amounted to an indecisive fool.

Facing them both, the Pope merely offered a faint, weary smile and turned his gaze to Louis Berg.

The man’s face, now under the trial’s influence, was still peaceful.

I pray you pass, the Pope prayed, closing his eyes.

He dearly hoped that the hero of the battlefield would soon be known as a saint of the faith.

* * *

Meanwhile, in that very moment…

“…So this is the trial of the body.”

A mirthless laugh escaped me as I took in the scene of torture unfolding in my mind’s eye. The trial was a full-scale assault on the five senses.

Grotesque souls of the dead, twisted into impossible forms, writhed and stared from a hand’s breadth away.

Unearthly shrieks tore through the pitch-black void, vibrating through my bones. 

The nauseating stench of rot and seared meat clogged my throat.

I could taste my own flesh being chewed from the bone, and all over my bound limbs, I could feel the skittering touch of insects devouring me alive.

It was an illusion designed to shatter the strongest mind.

Yet, as the torment intensified, a cold certainty settled within me.

This is an illusion. It has to be. The method is the same… an invasion of the mind, just like demonic energy.

This artifact operated on the same principles. And I knew how to fight that.

With a silent boom that resonated in my soul, I slammed down upon my own consciousness, crushing the holy artifact’s influence.

The hellscape vanished.

In its place was a new landscape: an endless white void, occupied by a single, small child with long, flowing hair.

The child stared at me, then tilted its head.

[Who are you, mister?]

It wasn’t my ears that registered the voice—it was imprinted directly onto my brain.

The moment it spoke, I clapped my hands over my head and fell to one knee.

“Ugh!”

It felt as if my skull would crack apart from the pressure.

“What… are you?” I forced out, biting my lip against the pain.

The child blinked, as if it didn’t understand the question.

“I am El—”

The instant the child began to speak its name, a tremendous light detonated in my vision, and I was back.

Back in the cathedral.

The trial was over.

…Did I fail?

It had ended far too quickly. I must have been found unworthy.

I clicked my tongue. On to Plan B, then.

I began to push myself up, my mind already shifting to the contingency I had prepared.

Just then, a cardinal’s trembling voice broke the silence.

“…I-impossible.”

Why is everyone staring at me like that?

Confused, I looked to the Pope. “Did something happen?”

“…Something has indeed happened,” the Pope replied, wearing a face of utter disbelief.

I was about to ask what he meant when I felt something warm on my face.

A drop of blood trickled from my brow.

“...Hm?”

Simultaneously, a collective gasp swept through the cardinals.

“…A stigmata. It’s a stigmata.”

Apparently, I had passed after all… and caused an incident in the process.

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