Seraphina, now in her spare white priestess robe, wiped the tears off her face and forced herself to stop crying as it was unbecoming of a High Priestess.
When no one was around to look, Seraphina summoned her long and golden kakkhara out of thin air.
It appeared in her hands with the soft chime of the rings colliding against each other.
Seraphina already knew what she had to do—what was expected of her, because she had already done the same thing countless times over.
With her khakkhara in hand, Seraphina went out from the church, ready to fulfill her duties.
...
Behind the church stood a modest looking building affiliated with Seraphina's church, this building was a shelter—a place where supplicants and believers were given food, beds and a roof at the condition of showing faith for the Supreme and sole Deity of Fosanthropisme.
This shelter was a show of care and kindness by both the Church and the Lord of Alequessa, as it was run by both the High Priestess and the donations from the Lord of Alequessa.
Seraphina thought that, there, she would be at peace without Beatrice to bother her.
However,
Just when Seraphina was about to step into the shelter, she was immediately spotted and called out to.
"Miss Saintess, there you are—"
"Saintess, please save my child—"
"Saintess can you please look after my kids—"
"Saintess, my husband is dying please—"
"Saintess—"
"S—"
Dozens of voice overlapped over each other, each begging for a so-called Saintess's attention.
Ignorant people would probably call any church member a Saint, as long as they had received help from the member.
However, a Saint and a Saintess were actual ranks in the Church, ranks far above a simple High Priestess. These people calling Seraphina a Saintess did certainly not know that their address could be seen as a severe form of insubordination.
'Am I going to get punished for this... ' thought Seraphina, resigning herself for what awaited her.
She really wanted her day to end and go home already... Her home was not the Church where she would not be at peace, but wherever her big sister Coralie was.
But these people each had something to say to her and she could not just discard her duties like that. She had someone to make proud, to show the others that Gabriel had made the right choice choosing her.
"Everyone! Quiet please! Let me inside first, then form a line with the sick and injured first!" Seraphina cried out, pushing herself a little harder
...
Inside the shelter, there were already a few priestesses tending to the supplicants, those priestess immediately smiled in relief when they saw her arriving figure.
Seraphina quickly greeted them before getting to her usual spot with a long line of people following her.
One by one, they each told her what they wanted from her, starting from the woman who had asked her to save her child.
"Please save my child!" the woman repeated herself like a broken record.
"Okay, so what's wrong with him? Can you bring him here first?" asked Seraphina.
The woman brought her child to her, he was young boy who looked slightly pale with tired eyes. He was coughing a bit, Seraphina touched his forehead and it was slightly hot.
She waved her khakkhara at him and... nothing happened.
"Mom! I feel better now!" the boy cheerfully jumped up, full of pent-up energy.
"That's awesome sonny" said the woman as relief washed over her.
"Thank you, Mom! You're the best!" exclaimed the boy while hugging her mother.
"It's not me you should thank, son. It's her." the woman said pointing at Seraphina.
"But why should I thank her, mom? She didn't do anything." the boy asked, puzzled.
When the other priestesses present saw this scene, they narrowed their eyes in suspicion. To ignorant people who did not know any better, what Seraphina did could be considered 'healing'.
But to priestesses of the Church who were highly knowledgeable about light magic—Seraphina's affinity, this scene was too strange. First of all, 'healing' magic did not even exist, what the common people considered 'healing' magic was actually regeneration magic.
Regeneration magic used someone's life force as a blueprint, using this blueprint, mana would convert mana into life force essentially regenerating someone's life force and even capable of regenerating limbs.
But this magic possessed many drawbacks, regeneration magic used someone's life force as a blueprint— it meant that if someone was on the brink of death with insufficient life force, they would not be able to form this blueprint and would fail in casting regeneration magic.
It was not all, because regeneration magic used a god awful amount of mana, it used someone's mana to convert mana into life force... Essentially, regeneration magic could consume anywhere from two times upto the square of mana consumed in casting a normal spell of the same rank!
It still did not end there! Regeneration magic was called regeneration and not healing for a reason, if regular regeneration magic already used this much mana, could you imagine how much more mana it would take if the life force and the mana were of two different origins?
The caster of the 'healing' magic would have to convert their own mana into their patient's life force or nothing would happen at all.
The conversion rate between caster's mana and patient's life force was infinitesimal! Totally unusable!
And even if the talented Seraphina still managed to somehow invent a new way of healing magic, it still did not explain why nothing happened at all!
Light magic always, always and always made a phenomenon visible to the eye, this was a fundamental law of magic!
There were only two possibilities left inside the priestesses' mind, either the boy was lying and was not truly sick, or, Seraphina was actually a fraud!
Right after 'healing' the boy, the silver-haired girl broke into a cold sweat—