A Powerful Martial Artist Reincarnates as a Nun Knight

The battle was over. There were no demons left that had evaded or withstood the torrent of light Hildegard had unleashed with the resolve to utterly shatter the Pantheon domain. Hildegard’s assault had vaporized the demons without leaving a single trace.

Originally, battles against demons would typically leave various tasks to handle in the aftermath. The demonic presences and miasmas permeating the surroundings would need to be purged, and the defiled demonic remains, which could contaminate the local principles and mana flows, would require consecrated flames to eradicate them.

“But look at this. It’s spotless.”

Sophia surveyed the area with a fresh expression, remarking on its cleanliness. As she said, the vacant lot where the battle had taken place was indeed spotless.

The Pantheon barrier had already expelled all impurities from the area upon its manifestation. Hildegard’s final strike carried such an excess of divine aura and hallowed clarity that it seemed to have blown everything away like a hurricane, leaving behind the serene tranquility of a clear sky after a storm. Thanks to that strike, the area required no further effort to cleanse.

It was while Sophia was idly appreciating this that it happened.

“Ugh.”

Having maintained her stance from delivering the final halberd strike, Hildegard suddenly faltered mid-motion, her legs giving out as she slumped to the ground. She didn’t even have the strength to hold her halberd, which clattered nearby.

Sitting slumped on the ground, Hildegard spoke, “Uuhhh, h-haah, I’m exhausted.”

As if she had fully discharged all her energy, she conveyed an extreme sense of lassitude.

And she had reason to feel that way. Divine auras were inherently incompatible with the secular world. And she had compounded multiple blessings to an excessive degree within her body before unleashing them. It would have been outrageous to expect her stamina to remain intact.

Thus, Sophia clicked her tongue and chided Hildegard, “Tch, tch. To think you’d immediately put an untested technique into actual combat… You’ve suffered the consequences of your recklessness.”

“Wah, is that how you speak to someone who narrowly escaped a life-or-death ordeal? Sophia, shouldn’t you be more considerate toward me?”

“Hearing you prattle on, you seem well enough. Shall I forgo assisting you?”

“Wait, you’re not going to just abandon me here, are you?!”

As Sophia turned to leave, feigning abandonment, Hildegard’s voice rose in a panicked shriek. The muscular, scantily-clad priest Ezio approached Hildegard with his peculiar poses and said, “Worry not, Lady Wolfstein. If Lady Chagelle declines to lend a hand, this unworthy one shall assist you instead.”

At Ezio’s words, Hildegard briefly wore a conflicted expression, seemingly torn. However, her predicament did not last long. The moment Sophia took a step forward, she truly vanished from the scene, likely having returned to the ship through her heart technique.

“Ugh, I suppose I have no choice. Then I shall rely on you, Father Emmanuele.”

Realizing she had no other option, Hildegard accepted Ezio’s proffered hand. However, one minor issue still awaited her.

“Now, let me carry you on my back.”
“Ah, huh? Oh, no need. Just supporting me is fine.”
“Do you have the strength to walk on your own?”
“O-Of course! Look, I can… Uh, oh?”

Thus, having fully depleted her energy to the point of being unable to stand, Hildegard had no choice but to return borne on Ezio’s back. And though tales would circulate among the drunken patrons of a scantily-clad woman carried on the back of a near-naked muscular man through the night streets, none of those accounts reached Ezio or Hildegard’s ears.

+++++

When one experiences extreme exhaustion, illness inevitably follows. Sometimes manifesting as a cold or nausea, the only remedy was to eat well and rest thoroughly. While luminous power could aid vitality and healing, it did not work in Hildegard’s case. Her exhaustion was a side effect of wielding powerful mysteries within a human body, so actions like accelerating recovery through luminous power would only further burden her body and mind.

“You understand, Hilde? For that reason, you’re temporarily forbidden from drinking alcohol.”
“You can’t be serious! That’s unacceptable!”

At Sophia’s firm declaration, Hildegard cried out in dismay. Faced with this unbelievable reality, countless emotions flickered across Hildegard’s gaze in an instant.

First was denial – the sense that such a situation could not possibly befall her, a period of evasive confusion. When she could no longer evade the truth, her emotions transitioned to intense vexation and anger. ‘Why me?’ – that indignant sentiment weighed heavily upon her heart, fully reflected in her eyes.

“If it’s a drinking ban, then for how long?”
“Hmm. Until your strength returns and your body fully recovers. At least ten days, I’d wager.”
“Ten days… Ten whole days!?”

And the next moment, shock and terror gripped her heart at the prospect of going ten days without alcohol. Eventually, to escape that dread, Hildegard began attempting to negotiate with Sophia.

“Ten days is too long. Let’s shorten it a bit. How about four days?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Ten days.”
“Damn it, if four days is too short, then five? Or at least one week?”
“Enough nonsense. You’ll abstain for ten days.”

However, as the saying goes, negotiating with a doctor is ultimately futile. Unable to reduce the abstinence period, Hildegard’s emotions finally reached resignation and self-compromise.

‘Yes, that’s right. This is for my health, after all. Come to think of it, restoring my body to its peak condition would be better for truly enjoying alcohol. And who knows, maybe I can manage ten days of abstinence. The first drink after such a long wait is sure to be extraordinary.’

A hopeful expectation that she might be able to manage took root within her. However, no matter how much she tried to convince herself, having an unwanted situation forced upon oneself was deeply vexing.

As frustration and melancholy compounded her physical debilitation, countless gloomy, formless negative thoughts began swirling through Hildegard’s mind like eddies. Unable to channel luminous power or the Immovable Bright King Method, this situation backed her into an inescapable corner.

One day, then two passed in this manner. During that time, under Sophia’s watchful eye, Hildegard maintained an extremely healthy diet and routine without a single drop of alcohol passing her lips.

Yet she ultimately failed to accept her reality. As is often the case with addictions, she eventually moved to actively defy it, evading watchful eyes.

Three days after the ship had departed Cadiz, it docked at the port of Lisbon. It was then that Hildegard secretly procured a bottle of liquor from Lisbon’s port and smuggled it aboard, having had all her previous stashes confiscated by Sophia upon the drinking ban’s imposition.

And in a moment when no one else was looking, deep within her cabin quarters, the instant she removed the bottle’s cork:

“Tch, tch. Old habits die hard, don’t they? Listen, Hilde. It’s only been three days. What do you think you’re doing? Hand it over.”
“Hick, no! I can’t give this up, you wench!”
“This is all for the sake of your recovery. Can’t you even abstain for a mere ten days?”
“I’ll die like this! If I drink, if I can drink, I’ll be healthy again!”
“Utterly delusional logic. I’ll be taking this.”

Through a process along those lines, her defiance was quashed.

And this pattern repeated four days later upon their arrival in Porto.

In truth, Hildegard’s defiant acts had already been anticipated and calculated by Sophia. From the very moment Hildegard smuggled liquor aboard, it could only have been through Sophia’s tacit permission, for otherwise, it would have been impossible to conceal her actions from Sophia’s scrutiny.

Prohibited from using not only luminous power but all forms of mysteries and spiritual abilities to aid her recovery, there was no way for Hildegard’s movements to escape Sophia’s notice.

Thus, Hildegard could indulge in fleeting moments of happiness as she succumbed to temptation, disembarking at ports to secretly procure alcohol before smuggling it back aboard. Of course, that liquor never moistened Hildegard’s throat.

Regardless, these periodic incidents helped preserve Hildegard’s mental state during the abstinence period, so one could argue it ultimately worked in her favor.

+++++

While Hildegard waged her personal life-or-death struggle, the voyage itself proceeded peacefully in stark contrast. Passing through several ports like Lisbon, Porto, El Musel, and Bilbao, the journey continued without major incident.

There were occurrences like having to plug their ears with cotton and secure themselves to masts with ropes for half a day to resist the enthralling songs of sirens as they passed through their territory. Or having to circumvent the conflict zone between the embattled Sapphygon Empire and the mermaid warriors known as the pinnacle of the Undine race.

But overall, it was a relatively peaceful voyage.

And from the day after successfully enduring her ten-day abstinence period, even Hildegard, who had been unable to appreciate that peace amidst her own ordeal, could finally enjoy it.

“Ahh, what great weather~!”

Standing on the deck, her short hair whipping in the sea breeze, Hildegard could not hide her delight at the clear skies.

In her hand was a bottle of Port wine from the Douro region, which she had smuggled aboard in Porto only for Sophia to promptly confiscate it. Having uncorked and aerated it at daybreak the moment her abstinence period ended, the fully breathed Port aroma was more than enough to bring happiness to Hildegard after her haggard ten days of deprivation.

Her companions watched her with resigned expressions.

“Lady Wolfstein truly loves her drink…”

Conra, following Sophia’s instructions, sighed with a jaded look. Even Sophia, who had been assisting Conra’s training by periodically disrupting his flow with imperceptible fluctuations of intent and vitality, nodded and let out a faint sigh.

“While it’s common for clergy of the Divine Path to be drinkers, Hilde seems particularly excessive.”

While Sophia herself enjoyed drinking and could match Hildegard’s capacity without using inner techniques to dispel hangovers, she still struggled to comprehend the mindset of alcoholics.

From the side, Maria diligently performed her weighted spin and sphere training per Sophia’s instructions, moving through the routines suitable for a rocking ship’s motions to exercise her upper and lower body muscles. Ezio, too, looked at Hildegard with a similar expression as he flexed his pronounced musculature.

After the incident ten days prior, Ezio thought he understood Hildegard’s troubles to some degree. Hadn’t she mentioned feeling left out? So absorbed in his muscle training, he had failed to consider that his comrade might feel lonely. Since then, he had tried to be more attentive, but…

“It seems it will be difficult, after all.”

As the saying goes, the devout and the drunkard can never truly understand each other. Even if they did not deliberately maintain that separation, it was only natural. Especially between the exhibitionist monk Ezio and the true alcoholic Hildegard.

In any case, enjoying the pleasant sea breeze, the ship was gradually approaching the port of Bordeaux.

“Come to think of it, Lady Chagelle. Bordeaux is a port belonging to the Frankish Kingdom, is it not?”
“Indeed. To be precise, it is a port city situated within the Duchy of Aquitaine, a Frankish vassal state.”

Responding to Ezio’s query, Sophia’s expression became wistful, lost in reminiscence. The Duchy of Aquitaine was the very region where she had spent her childhood. She was born in the village of Chagelle within Aquitaine and lived as a nun at the Sainte-Magne Abbey until becoming a nun knight. And Sainte-Magne Abbey was also located in the Duchy of Aquitaine.

‘Come to think of it, Sainte-Magne is not too far from Bordeaux.’

A faint pang of homesickness tugged at her heart. She had thought meeting acquaintances from Sainte-Magne at the Torreonto Bishopric had sated her nostalgia, but it seemed memories of places reacted through a separate mechanism.

As they gradually approached Bordeaux, close enough for those with keen eyesight to make out the port, sudden commotion erupted on the foredecks.

“Bordeaux… sea monster… attacking…!”
“Kraken… port… danger…!”

Amidst the clamor from the crew and passengers, suspicious words could be heard intermingled. While haphazardly mixed amidst the din, it was no difficulty for Sophia’s group, with their sharp eyes and ears, to discern what people were saying.

Even catching mere sounds, they could easily distinguish the words with their ventriloquism abilities to read lip movements and larynx vibrations. And interpreting those discerned words in context, the result was:

“Bordeaux is under attack by a sea monster? A kraken is rampaging at the port?”
“Since when do krakens come ashore to attack ports?”

Grasping the situation, the group frowned, as the details did not quite match their knowledge of such monsters. Ultimately deciding to directly confirm the circumstances, they hurried up to the foredecks.

Soon, straining their vision toward the distant Bordeaux, the group let out a collective sigh, as if by agreement.

“It’s true. A kraken is rampaging at the port.”

The sight that met their eyes: enormous tentacles had risen from the surface, smashing and thrashing among the docked ships and port facilities.