The next day.

“Paulen, Quivery can glow, too.”

“What?”

After morning prayers, Amelia explained the slime’s newly discovered ability to Paulen. Last night, she had been unable to sleep and was reading the scriptures when her lantern went out. The slime had emitted light from its body to help her keep reading.

“Were you dreaming, perhaps?”

“No!”

Paulen did not immediately believe her. This was an entirely different sort of claim. He could understand a slime moving faster or jumping higher. He would even have believed it could produce poison, since a variety called the Poison Slime actually existed.

But emitting light?

That went against everything he knew, so he could not help being skeptical.

Of course, those doubts vanished completely when the slime acted.

“Quivery! Try glowing!”

'Okay!'

The slime quivered vigorously.

HUMMMMM!

“Wait, it really is glowing?!”

“That’s what I told you.”

Once the slime stopped glowing, Paulen lifted it and stared at it.

“What kind of slime are you, anyway?”

▶Ugh, a close-up of a human’s face. Gross.

▶Get it out of here.

▶Hmm, looking closely, he might taste good?

▶As if.

As Paulen studied the slime, Amelia spoke with newfound resolve.

“Today! Let’s go out. With Quivery.”

“Are you serious?”

Paulen whipped his head around to look at her. What change of heart could have prompted the ever-unconfident Amelia to take the slime out with her?

“Yes. We can’t just stay inside forever. I’m a Saintess, too.”

'And it wouldn’t be fair to Quivery to keep it in the Church all the time.'

+++

“That’s Saintess Amelia, isn’t it?”

“Yes. There’s no mistaking that orange hair and that chest.”

“Sir Paulen, the Paladin, is beside her, too.”

“But what Lady Amelia is holding... isn’t that a slime?”

“I heard she had a slime with her when she returned last time. So that was true?”

“They say Count Rudendion’s daughter carries a slime around, too.”

“Are slimes the latest fashion in high society?”

Normally, the slime would have ridden on Paulen’s shoulder. But Amelia had mustered the courage to carry it herself as they walked through the streets.

The next Saintess rarely showed herself, spending practically all her time inside the Church. Naturally, her appearance outside drew everyone’s attention—all the more so because she was holding a slime.

'It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.'

Amelia soothed herself by repeating those words over and over in her mind. With her low self-esteem, she carefully watched people’s reactions. They looked puzzled and intrigued, but not hostile. Perhaps because the slime looked soft and harmless, they did not seem frightened, either. Above all, since a Saintess was carrying it, no one reacted dramatically.

Their reactions weren’t bad. All she needed to do now was act as a Saintess, just like Saintess Fresia, whom she so admired.

First, Amelia stopped at a street stall and offered a simple greeting.

“Hello.”

“Oh! Good day, Saintess.”

“Is everything well?”

“Of course. It’s all thanks to God’s grace.”

True to the Holy City’s name, all its stallholders were believers who served God. Even if she was carrying a slime, having the Saintess come over to greet them personally was a joy.

“Could I have an apple?”

“Just a moment, please! I’ll give you the very freshest one!”

Amelia accepted an apple and immediately handed over the money.

“Oh, Saintess! Please, take it for free!”

“No. I can’t simply accept every kindness just because I’m a Saintess.”

“What a beautiful heart you have.”

“...”

She was doing her best to follow the example of Fresia, whom she respected, but praise still felt awkward. Part of her worried whether she deserved to hear such things at all, but more than anything, embarrassment made her face grow warm.

“Q-Quivery. Here, an apple. You can eat it, can’t you?”

To keep the heat rising in her face at bay, Amelia brought the apple she had just bought over to the slime.

'An apple!'

Delighted, the slime absorbed the apple she held out. The stallholder watched in fascination as it ate the apple he had sold right before his eyes.

“Saintess, is that slime safe?”

“Y-yes! Of course. It’s a very gentle, sweet slime. Its name is Quivery.”

“Quivery?”

“It quivers a lot when it’s happy. Don’t you, Quivery?”

The slime quivered vigorously.

“Oh, it really does.”

The sight of the Saintess speaking kindly to the soft little slime, and the slime responding to her, eased people’s wariness even further.

Amelia continued walking through the streets, and the slime was delighted to get a close look at the sights of a new city.

After they had explored the streets to their satisfaction, Amelia stopped at one more place before returning to the Great Church: a clinic run by the Great Church itself.

The clinics were broadly divided into three types. One offered free care to young children, the elderly, and the infirm. Another charged a set fee to those who could afford it. The last treated people with serious injuries, such as adventurers and paladins.

Amelia headed to the third clinic.

“U-ughhh! My arm...!”

“Please bring some bandages over here!”

“Bear with it a little longer. You’ll feel better soon.”

“Thank you for treating me again today, Sister. Would you happen to be free later—”

“No.”

“Damn it! If I hadn’t made that mistake...!”

“No foul language in the clinic!”

“S-sorry.”

The third clinic was always busy. There were monsters near the Holy City, of course, and devout paladins and adventurers from the city were frequently dispatched to places in need, even far from home.

After looking around the clinic, Amelia approached the patient whose wounds looked the worst.

“U-ughhh!”

Blood was seeping through the bandages around the patient’s abdomen. Beside the bed, a nun held her hands together and treated the wound with holy arts, but it was too severe for a single application to suffice.

Amelia gently rested a hand on the nun’s shoulder. In the clinic, this was a signal that someone wished to help or needed something. Without unclasping her praying hands, the nun turned to look at her.

“Saintess!”

“I’ll help, too.”

“Please do.”

The nun did not stop treating the patient to observe formalities just because the Saintess had arrived, nor did Amelia mind. In this place, worrying about such things would itself have been a dereliction of duty.

Amelia placed her hand over the patient’s wound and used her holy arts.

HUMMMM!

A soft yellow light enveloped the patient. A Saintess could use powerful holy arts without even assuming a prayer posture. That was proof of the depth of her devotion and God’s love for her.

The blood spread through the bandages more and more slowly until it finally stopped altogether. The patient’s face, previously contorted with pain and slick with cold sweat, gradually relaxed as well.

Amelia’s low self-esteem had led her to practice her holy arts every day instead of meeting people. That practice now allowed her to heal those in pain more quickly.

“Incredible...”

The nun watched in awe. With a single use of her holy arts, Amelia was completely healing the wound the nun had struggled to mend little by little.

Amelia withdrew her hand and looked at the patient.

“You’ll be all right now.”

“Th-thank you, Saintess... ma’am.”

“Please rest comfortably.”

Smiling at the now-healed patient, Amelia moved on to the next one.

'She really doesn’t have enough confidence in herself.'

Paulen chuckled as he watched. No matter how much Amelia insisted she was unworthy of being a Saintess, anyone who had seen her just now would have recognized a dignified, compassionate Saintess.

Amelia sought out patients with severe-looking wounds and used her holy arts on them. Thanks to her, the clinic’s nuns and priests could immediately attend to the next patients in need. More and more patients were healed.

But there were some whom even Saintess Amelia could not easily cure.

“This patient...”

Large tooth marks marred the patient’s calf.

“He’s been poisoned by a stone snake.”

“Gah! Hah! Ugh...! S-save me!”

The stone snake was a snake monster with scales as hard as stone, roughly twice the size of an adult’s forearm. Its venom was not potent enough to kill, but it paralyzed the body and inflicted constant pain for as long as it lasted.

That was one weakness of holy arts. They could heal physical wounds easily, but had little effect on poison.

“Is there no antidote?”

“They say the antidote for stone snake venom is difficult to make. We’ve placed a request with the alchemists’ guild, but they say it will take at least three days.”

Stone snake venom did gradually begin to leave the body after five days. But the pain suffered during that time was beyond imagination.

Though holy arts had little effect on poison, someone with as much holy power as Amelia could force a cure through sheer power. Yet in her judgment, quite a few patients in the clinic still needed her holy arts.

“U-ughhh...!”

She wanted to heal the patient before her, but if she spent too much holy power here, she would no longer be able to extend a healing hand to the others.

As Amelia agonized over the decision, Paulen spoke.

“Saintess, neutralizing poison consumes a great deal of holy power. It would be best to see to the others first.”

“I suppose so.”

As Amelia started to leave, the patient cried out.

“W-wait! Wait! Saintess! Please! Please heal me! It... it hurts so much!”

“Ah.”

The voice of the patient lying in bed, pleading in pain, stopped Amelia in her tracks. The priest who had been attending him spoke.

“The alchemists’ guild is making the medicine, so please bear with it. Don’t worry. The venom isn’t fatal.”

“Ughhh! But it hurts! I’m telling you, it hurts!”

The priest looked at him with a pained expression.

“I’ll apply my holy arts again. That should ease the pain a little.”

Seeing this, Amelia lowered her head.

“If only my holy arts could neutralize poison...”

It was then that the slime reacted.

'Neutralize poison?'

The slime had been perched on Paulen’s shoulder while Amelia treated the patients. Hearing the familiar term repeated reminded it of two things: its own Detoxification skill, and a skill it had seen in the shop—Antidote Production.

It opened the shop and read the description for Antidote Production.

[Antidote Production: Produces a substance that can neutralize absorbed poisons.]

'This is it!'

The slime thought Antidote Production was a skill that could help Amelia right now. Defeating the two lesser trolls had earned it fifteen coins each, for a total of thirty. It now had one hundred coins.

'I’ll buy it!'

Without hesitation, it purchased Antidote Production. The moment it did, it understood how to use the skill.

BOING!

“Huh? Hey!”

The slime jumped from Paulen’s shoulder and landed on the patient’s calf.

“Ughhh!”

Because of the venom, even the soft slime’s landing caused the patient intense pain.

“Wh-what is this slime?”

“Quivery! No! Get off!”

Flustered, Amelia tried to pull the slime away.

Just then, it began to quiver vigorously.

“Ugh!”