"Sister Fiene. I hear your Saint's power has dried up for good?"
Morning in the Grand Cathedral. My junior, Mireille, tilted her head ever so slightly and smiled.
Behind her, High Priest Baldo gave a solemn nod.
"An oracle has been handed down. The radiance of your purification has faded. Mireille is the Saint of the next generation."
Still standing where they had put me before the altar, I gazed blankly up at the ceiling.
Faded? No.
My power had simply never been flashy to look at, not from the very start.
Mireille's purification did give off a dazzling light. The crowds would roar. Applause would break out.
Mine was plain. It seeped into the soil, dissolved into the water, and worked slowly.
The High Priest couldn't see that.
"You will be sent to the Margraviate of Kreuz. That place is—a cursed land. Go and pray there, for all the good it will do."
Mireille leaned in and whispered in my ear.
"Sister, that place is a ruined, cursed village where not even crops will grow. You poor thing."
A giggle.
That was how she had always stolen the credit for my unassuming work.
Healing the sick, bringing withered fields back to life—it had really been me.
But Mireille was good at adding a little glow at the very end and claiming in front of everyone that she had "healed" them.
It was fine, honestly.
I had never used my power to show it off to people.
As I packed my things, deep down I was—just a little—excited.
A cursed land. Where crops won't grow. Where the water and the soil are "tainted" by something.
—Is that really a curse, though?
Three days of rattling and jolting along in a carriage.
What awaited me when I reached Kreuz was a gray sky and a damp wind.
The villagers watched me from a distance. No one came near.
"Lady Saint... our land is beyond saving," the old village chief said in a hoarse voice.
"Even the well water's gone salty, somehow. Some sort of black bean-looking things sprout in the fields on their own, and the wheat withers. Dig in the soil and you turn up strange lumps of salt. So—they say it's cursed."
I took a lick of the well water.
Salty. And deep within it, a faint hint of umami.
I picked up one of the black beans.
—This is a soybean.
I pinched one of the white lumps of salt from the soil between my fingers and touched it to my tongue.
Nigari. Magnesium chloride.
At my feet grew a grass bearing plump ears. That wasn't wheat—it was something else, something like wheat. But the grains looked like they could be milled.
Deep in my chest, a memory from my past life clicked into place with a snap.
Salt. Soybeans. A wheat-like grain. Water that wasn't pure, but full of minerals.
This isn't a curse.
It's a treasure trove of soy sauce.
"Village Chief."
I slowly got to my feet, turned toward the gray sky, and grinned.
"This land isn't cursed at all. If anything, there's an incredible feast sleeping here."
The village chief's mouth fell open.
Just then, the sky darkened.
Whoosh—the shadow of enormous wings.
Landing in the square was a jet-black dragon, and a giant of a man riding on its back.
Steel armor. A scar-covered cheek. Deep furrows carved between his brows.
A fearsome dragon knight who looked like he could make a child burst into tears just by glaring.
"So you're the new Saint."
His low voice rumbled, as if crawling along the ground.
"I'm Wolf Glanz, lord of this land. I hold this frontier by direct charge of the royal family. Let me make one thing clear: there is no salvation here. Don't expect any."
The villagers shook with fear.
But my eyes had been stolen by something at the feet of the dragon behind him.
A tiny baby dragon, small enough to fit in my palm, was toddling toward me.
It was a pitch-black little dragon, but its eyes were big and watery.
Sniff, sniff. It snuffled at my luggage—
"Kyuu," it cried forlornly.
Its tummy was rumbling.
That luggage held what little food I'd been able to bring from the capital, and a single bottle of oil.
I crouched down and stroked the baby dragon's head.
"Hehe. You've got a good nose, don't you?"
Then I looked up at the lord and made my declaration.
"My lord. Give me just one week. Here, in this cursed land—I'll leave you speechless."