The Saint’s Manual for Redemption - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 1
What is a temple in a Romance Fantasy Novel?
It is, quite simply, a hotbed of corruption and depravity.
In Romance Fantasy Novels, an uncorrupted temple was as rare a specimen as a story with a living mother figure in a parenting narrative.
Whenever a plot twist revealed the temple as the hidden mastermind, readers would react not with shock but with “I knew it,” or “It would have been more of a twist if the temple had been innocent,” and so on—which says everything you need to know.
And the temple where I served as Saint happened to belong to that rare breed of the uncorrupted.
Why do I say “happened to”? One might think: isn’t an upright temple a good thing? Well, it is—for the other citizens of the empire who bask in the temple’s generous grace without reservation.
But for those of us—the Saint and the priests—who had to grind ourselves to dust in the front lines, dispensing charity with both hands while somehow scraping together funds for the temple’s upkeep through every legal means imaginable, it was anything but good.
There was a complicated story to how I came to play the role of Saint in this world—something about a soul accidentally launched into another dimension through divine mishap, making a comeback—but that hardly matters, so I’ll spare you the details.
In any case, the temples in Romance Fantasy Novels wielded such formidable Divine Authority that even emperors trembled before them. Our temple, by contrast, was too busy watching the emperor’s and nobles’ faces carefully, just to squeeze out whatever meager donations and sponsorships we could.
Whenever the emperor’s shoulders ached or a prince or princess coughed a time or two, or even when a noble suffered a wound no larger than a fingernail, I’d be summoned to the Imperial Palace to serve as a heal-slave. In those moments, I would fantasize desperately about the Humiliation of Canossa.
What I mean is: I wanted to drag those wretched royal bastards out into a blizzard for days on end and make them grovel beneath my feet.
As for the nobles—the insolent way they’d summon me to their territories on a whim—I don’t even have the energy to speak of them.
From chopping firewood in place of the necks of the royal family and nobility, my skill with the Mace grew sharper by the day.
In a world where people used Magical Tools to conjure flame, was it reasonable for a temple to be so poor it had to burn firewood?
Was it reasonable to chop sacred relics—gifts from the Divine to bless this land—into mere kindling?
As I was hauled off to the Imperial Palace once more to cure the emperor’s liver cirrhosis with Purification, dreaming my version of the Humiliation of Canossa under the Caritas Church, a bolt of lightning suddenly struck my mind—an obvious truth that crystallized like divine revelation.
With money and land and power, one becomes the superior.
And I possessed Holy Power. I knew the geographical advantage: the Arkenous Empire was built directly above the Demon Realm. I knew how religion had seized and climbed to the position of “Divine Authority higher than Imperial Authority.”
“So this is why you appointed me Saint, Caritas!”
Weeping at my own stupidity for having overlooked the Divine’s grand design all this time, I locked myself in my room for several days and drew up an ambitious, magnificent plan for the revival of the Caritas Church.
The heroines in Romance Fantasy Novels reincarnate or possess themselves in this world and build enterprises around soap or modern goods inspired by Magical Tools. I, reincarnated into this world, was manufacturing Indulgences.
My guiding principle was simple.
If you’re going to extort money, don’t bleed the commoners dry—go big. Target the wealthy: the nobility and the imperial family. Squeeze them hard.
And I executed that principle quite brilliantly.
I gathered intelligence from noblemen confessing sins so serious they’d squeeze out their grandfather’s grandfather’s misconduct just to obtain an Indulgence, then I’d broker deals for money or leak information to the imperial court to collect a cut of the extorted taxes.
In exchange for curing the emperor’s hemorrhoids, I had the temple designated as a tax-exempt zone.
I leveraged administration, education, and welfare to steadily build the temple’s power and influence.
Geography also worked in my favor. The Arkenous Empire sat directly above the Demon Realm underground.
Thanks to that, whenever I performed a little showmanship with Holy Power—purifying places tainted by Demonic Energy—the number of believers swelled dramatically.
Occasionally, demons would seep through cracks and emerge into the empire, and each time, I’d wield the Sacred Mace sent by the Divine to protect our precious patrons—I mean, the citizens of the empire.
Thanks to that, the Mace finally shed its ignoble purpose of chopping firewood and reclaimed its place as a sacred relic, the true symbol of the Saint.
When some Demon King suddenly revived, I participated in a hero party raid against the Demon King’s Castle as a healer, alongside the Hero blessed by the Divine.
I went along chiefly because watching the Hero in action made me uneasy—afraid he couldn’t even get near the Demon King’s Castle—though in truth, I probably used the Mace more than healing magic in that party, and I may have slain more demons than the Hero himself.
Regardless, I leveraged the fact that the Saint had not turned a blind eye to the empire’s suffering and had personally participated in the Hero party’s assault on the Demon King as a healer, using it as a catchphrase to elevate the temple’s prestige even further.
“If you lot have a shred of conscience, you’ll make my death day a holy festival.”
I spent a lifetime dedicated to the temple’s revival and closed my eyes without regret. The only lingering attachment I could squeeze out was my messy breakup with my ex, the former Hero.
And when I opened my eyes, five hundred years had passed.
I was able to witness with my own eyes the Golden Age of the temple that I had inaugurated. And my impression upon beholding that brilliant Golden Age, which was essentially my own creation, was…
“What in the nine hells!”
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The Caritas Church is currently the state religion of the Arkenous Empire.
To be recognized as a believer of the Caritas Church, one must undergo Baptism upon reaching the age of eighteen, one’s Coming of Age. Naturally, the Baptism fee—disguised as a donation—is separate.
Of course, I have no memory of enacting such a law in my past life, so it must be a regulation my successors invented on their own.
When I first heard about the mandatory Baptism ceremony, I couldn’t even manage a bitter laugh—I was so dumbfounded.
Since when was Baptism a requirement for acknowledging believers? I could have sworn that in my previous life, I clearly stated that people could be recognized as believers simply by coming to the temple and praying.
I thought they would do absolutely anything to scrape together money.
Watching them transform into the textbook corrupt temple I’d read about in countless Romance Fantasy Novels from my past-past-life, I could only sigh.
In this life, at eighteen years old, I had reached the age when I was obligated to receive Baptism.
“Could that Holy Water actually cure illness?”
“Is there a reason the Baptism fee is so expensive?”
“Maybe if I receive the Divine’s blessing, I could rise to a high position in the temple despite my commoner status.”
A cluster of girls waiting for Baptism alongside me in the Holy Sanctuary—where the Baptism ceremony was held only once a year—whispered to one another in hushed voices.
If Holy Water had been so miraculous, I wouldn’t have spent my past life running around on my feet—I would have just holed up in the temple and manufactured Holy Water to sell.
That Holy Water was only effective against demons and defiled land; for humans, it was merely water that induced a placebo effect. Just water.
I couldn’t bear to believe that people actually surrendered two months’ worth of carefully saved wages just to receive the touch of this worthless Holy Water.
I was supposed to leave the Orphanage this very year upon coming of age, and I was already drowning in uncertainty about how to survive. Yet I’d been working three jobs a day to scrape together the Baptism fee, exhausting myself to the bone.
My hatred for these future generations who had squeezed my life’s blood dry for such nonsense only grew.
At last, after the long wait, my turn arrived.
In the moment the Priest standing before me, kneeling at the foot of the altar, mechanically rubbed his thumb—dipped in Holy Water—across my forehead, my vision flashed white and an overwhelming, blinding light surged through me, as though the world itself had turned upside down.
Ding—
A clear bell toll rang in my ears. The room had no open windows, yet a wind stirred.
At the same moment, a burning sensation bloomed where the Holy Water touched my skin, spreading outward in waves.
A coolness so intense it burned, a brightness so overwhelming it dazzled.
In the breath-stealing instant that followed, a pure white aura blazed around me. My golden hair—the very color I’d worn in my past life—was shifting to a silvery white.
The Holy Chalice slipped from the Priest’s trembling hands, rolling across the floor as he stood before me, vacant-eyed.
No one moved to pick it up.
Everyone was staring at me as though entranced.
Even the flickering candlelight seemed to freeze mid-dance—a silence so complete it was almost physical.
And then—
Thump.
A heartbeat. No—
Not my heart. This was the world’s pulse itself.
Even in my past life, I had never possessed Holy Power strong enough to move the world. Then the owner of this Holy Power that the very world responds to—
A bell toll, declaring itself to everyone, ringing as if from beyond this realm.
A brilliant shaft of golden light pierced through the Holy Sanctuary’s ceiling and poured down upon the divine statue behind the altar.
The Priests pressed their hands together in urgent prayer, one by one collapsing to their knees.
Just as in my past life, the mark inscribed upon my forehead burned hot once more, flaring with renewed intensity.
A single revelation that no language in this world could describe.
“A Divine Revelation…!”
“No… no, it can’t be. The Saint, she couldn’t—!”
One Priest, stammering incoherently in shock, was silenced by a Holy Knight’s hand clamped over his mouth and dragged out of the chapel.
Watching that scene, I finally understood why God had taken the troublesome step of reincarnating me now and re-appointing me as the Saint.
Caritas, I understand your intention perfectly!
You left behind instructions thick as a book on what I must guard and uphold, but these wretched later generations ignored every last word and busied themselves only with fattening their own coffers, reducing my efforts to nothing and ultimately creating that textbook Romance Fantasy Novel temple—and you’ve given me the grounds to legally punish these vile fools, haven’t you?
If that was your intent, I could return most gladly indeed.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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