"Uwaa..."
I buried my head in my hands. If a badly damaged hero arriving through a transfer usually registers as physical damage, this one was pure mental trauma.
On the altar's floor lay a woman painted head to toe in artificial pastels. Her name was Rielle.
Her outfit was so garish you'd doubt she'd ever really been adventuring, yet her skill was no lie.
Now, though, that pale pink dress was soaked crimson, and her belly had a wide, fatal hole.
"Tch... can't help it."
I cut a pair of scissors into the frilled hem of the dress. I tore open the dress to expose the wound, then shut it again.
"..."
I steadied my breathing and cleared my head.
Had I misseen it?
Yes. It must be a mistake.
I opened the dress again. Then closed it.
After repeating the pointless motion a few times, I gave up and forced myself to look.
A fatal-sized hole gaped in her white, soft skin. That was fine. Expected, even. It's rarer for a hero to be sent to the church with no obvious injuries.
The problem was the less-than-fatal wound carved into her stomach.
'DAISUKI! I PRESENT TO YOU'
What the hell was that...? Had someone carved it with a knife? If that wasn't grotesque enough, someone had even tied a blue ribbon in an intricate lattice around it. What a disgusting wrapping job. Even the gods must be weeping.
* * *
By the way, I met Rielle a few months back.
Back then, the party she was traveling with came in as neat, minimally-damaged corpses, and were laid on my church floor as if nothing was wrong. As custom demanded, I began repairs: first on Rielle, who had been at the front, then on the rest. Looking back, that decision was a serious mistake.
"Would you like me to revive the others as well?" I asked, as I always do.
Rielle simply shook her head.
She swung open a coffin and worked some magic on the dead inside. Red hair, blue hair, yellow hair — the heroes crawled out of their coffins and stood up as if nothing had happened.
At the time I thought she'd used resurrection magic. Though delicate skill and great mental power are required, resurrection isn't only for clerics.
But the ones who came out of those coffins had been clearly dead.
Later I learned Rielle was a tamer. She'd thrown everything she had at it and simply commanded the corpses to serve her.
A hero who dabbles in necromancy is bad news. Worse, she performed such blasphemous acts right before a cleric.
I don't like sticking my nose into trouble, but if I ignored this I'd be finished as a cleric... no, as a human being.
So I spoke up.
"T-that's not allowed. People passing by would be shocked. Besides, it's... unsanitary."
When someone runs into an unprecedented problem, they sometimes come out with the dumbest lines.
"I understand."
Still, to my surprise, she dismantled the magic fairly easily after my pitiful pleading.
"You bastards!!"
The poor heroes I'd hurriedly revived then spat at Rielle as they left the coffins, furious.
I started to think, of course they'd be angry to have their bodies used... and then I stopped. Bodies that had been dead wouldn't remember being assaulted.
I calmed the men who were about to grab her and asked them a question.
"Stop fighting among yourselves before the gods. What happened?"
The red-haired hero spat out his answer.
"She did this! She killed us!"
Young heroes, all heat and little temper, are quick to blame and condemn.
"She summoned an antlion pit in front of the inn where we were staying. We all fell in and died."
What a pit from hell.
All of a sudden those hotheaded heroes looked saintly.
If it were me, I'd shut her back in the coffin and bury it without a word.
No—no, a cleric must not view things from only one angle. Multiple perspectives matter.
Perhaps there was a deeper reason behind what looked like madness. Maybe she'd been assaulted by her companions, or one of them was an enemy of her family, or maybe she'd sacrificed them to escape a far worse, more evil foe.
If there was an unavoidable reason, let them take it outside to a tavern and talk. If it was selfish violence, send them to a forest outside the church to fight—just don't bring them back to my altar. I don't need more work.
"Why did you do such a thing?" I asked Rielle, trying to soothe the situation.
She looked at me without changing expression and said simply:
"Because they were all kind, and I wanted to keep them close."
Calm didn't come, but at least the room quieted.
* * *
The party broke up, of course. I don't know if they officially disbanded, but I never saw the colorful-haired companions again.
After that sad incident, Rielle kept being transferred to the church. Each time she arrived, she poured out her whole-body love calls.
Did I trigger some flag?
No. I only had dry, procedural conversations with her. Better the gods leave me alone. I guarded my words.
But sometimes misfortune seeks you out.
Heroes can cut off contact when they choose; a cleric cannot. I'm a bird in a cage. I can only accept the corpses that arrive. Whether they're dismembered bodies, or a crazy woman who carves sick messages into her belly.
Still, a cleric gets to resist in his own way.
I left a bill for the resurrection fee on the altar. There's a short lag between resurrection and the return of consciousness. So, I used that window to hide.
As for the healing of the carved message in her belly—consider that a free service.
So, See ya!!
But when I try ran, I collapsed onto the blood-stained carpet a few meters from her, the smell of blood soaking into the fibers.
I won't deny I'm out of shape, but I'm not going to play the clumsy cleric who trips for no reason.
I looked down at my legs and blurted out without thinking:
"Fluffy..."
Entwined around my legs were three grotesque pastel furballs — red, blue, and yellow.
A plushie?
No—spirits!
Damn it, she'd gotten me. Before she'd even regained consciousness, she'd ordered her spirits to stop me.
Those wide-eyed, cute stuffed things looked like devils now.
Whoa! One was crawling up my leg! What are you trying to do, you terrible beast!
'...Help me...'
What?
'Help me, help me...'
'Bring me back... bring me back...'
'Turn me back into a human...'
Their tiny beseeching eyes looked up at me.
That voice, that garish coloring...
"No way."
Gooseflesh rose over my whole body.
But before thought could reach its depths the coffin creaked and I snapped back.
Something grabbed my hand.
When I turned, my view was washed in pastels.
"Got you."
Notes:
• Rielle - A female hero dressed in garish pastel colors, hopelessly in love with Julius and persistently pestering him, known for her necromantic abilities and erratic behavior..