AN: Meant to put this one out yesterday and then completely forgot to publish it lol, sorry~ ><

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“Finally… We’ve made it back.”

 

“It’s just as large as I remember it... Your Holiness! Come look!”

 

I wriggled through the wagon up to the two much brighter and more animated than usual paladins, peeking my head through like the guy paladin had asked for me to.

 

And the sight that greeted me was much more than I’d expected.

 

The capital city of the country of Kardia, Portif, sprawled out magnificently before us. It had been our goal for so long, and yet I’d never even once dared to picture it. Honestly, even seeing it now, I’m sure that whatever I’d pictured would still be very much lacking.

 

Large, thick, imperial looking, almost bleak seeming walls stretched off incredibly far to either side, making the city look impossibly big as it spread into the horizon. And yet, despite the largeness and bleakness of the walls, I could still make out several huge, colorful buildings peeking out from behind it in several places, each looking very very important. A few lesser, more plain looking buildings also managed to be visible past the wall, but they didn’t hold a single candle to how eye-catching the others were.

 

There were two buildings that stood out the most, however, even from how far away we still were. The first one, colored in brilliant ivories, golds, and reds, seemed to scream the word ‘palace’, even with the small amount of it that I could see. Clearly it must have been where the King was, which must have meant that it was quite far into the city. Just the fact that I could see such a presumably far off building from here spoke volumes about how crazy big it must have really been.

 

Still, for some reason I couldn’t help but find the second building much more incredible, somehow.

 

Unlike any building I’d ever seen before, this one was a bright, shining, almost sparkling shade of vivid blue. If I didn’t think it was impossible, I would have completely believed that they’d built it all out of lapis lazuli, or some other priceless gem. Even just thinking that they’d painted the building to look that way felt impossible, considering how big it must have been. Add on the golden accents that were here and there, and it was obvious to tell that the place must have been horrendously expensive.

 

It was only natural that I asked about the place.

 

“Uh hey, what’s that big blue thing- ah, building?”

 

Though it was probably completely unnecessary, I still pointed my finger past the two paladins, earning a glare from the lady paladin. The guy paladin just simply laughed in an awkward way and gently pressed my finger back, as if he were stopping me from committing some kind of faux pas.

 

“That, Your Holiness, is our destination. The main church’s cathedral.”

 

“Oh… I see.”

 

Now that he’d mentioned it, I guess it did kind of have a cathedral-y look, at least for how most of the churches I’ve seen in this fantasy world so far go. Still, all the past ones have just been made of plain stone, without any kind of fancy blue-ness added to them; I don’t think it’s odd at all of me to not guess that such a fancy, gaudy building was actually a cathedral. Sure, I’d seen pictures of plenty of fancy looking churches back in my previous world, but never had I heard of them being painted in anything but white.

 

“Um, then… Why did they color it blue?”

 

Both of the paladin’s heads whipped over to look at me like I’d said something crazy. Even Kale, who’d silently come up next to me to try and sneak a few peeks at the landscape turned to look at me in surprise, although his face was much more subtle about it.

 

Thankfully he was the one to answer me; I have no clue what the other two mega-devout paladins would have had to say to me about it.

 

“...The color of the Goddess Israthel is blue.”

 

“Huh?”

 

I blinked my eyes a bunch of times in confusion.

 

Blue? For the Goddess? Sure, I think I remember hearing that somewhere before, but like why? Why blue? Having seen her in person, I can confidently say that literally nothing on the Goddess had even been a little bit blue, past maybe the cosmic constellations that made up her arms, which would be a stretch. Maybe the gold that they had here and there around the building makes sense, considering the way that her head and hair was basically a literal sun, but that’s really about it. I can’t possibly understand where blue came from!

 

Eh, well, if it bothers me so much then I guess I’ve got literally nothing to lose from asking about it, right? I mean, everyone’s already looking at me like I’m freaking stupid anyways.

 

“So why is the Goddess blue, then? Nothing on her is even blue.”

 

This time the three of them looked even more shocked, although there was a bit of something else that was starting to form on the lady paladin’s face this time. I wasn’t the only one to notice it however, and this time it was the guy paladin who stepped in to offer me a lucky save.

 

“Ah, you see, Your Holiness, it is believed that the Goddess is represented by the all seeing sky that surrounds us. She’s often depicted wearing blue in some way, or having blue hair or eyes.”

 

Oh, so it’s because of myths or whatever then, I see… Makes it all too obvious that no one who ever wrote any of those myths has ever actually seen the Goddess, or they’d know that she hasn’t got a single speck of blue on her… Or that she doesn’t seem to wear any clothes, or anything else for that matter.

 

No, if I was going to say she wears anything-

 

“It was one of the reasons why the previous saintess, Saintess Seria, was so immediately popular both in and out of the church. If the paintings and records are accurate, then she had brilliant blue hair, only a shade darker than the sky.”

 

Wow. Seria again, huh? I feel like her name hasn’t stopped popping up left and right since I came to this world. Is it just because she was the super beloved saintess before me… or is it because everyone’s just comparing me to her?

 

Honestly, I’m not looking forward to how much I’m gonna be compared to her once everyone knows I’m the new saintess.

That’s just an inevitability.

 

Not like every beloved saintess was born with blue hair or anything. In fact, from what I’ve read, there’s only been about 3 of them that had anything near the color blue in their hair, so it’s not like it was the standard issue for a saintess or whatever. But still, I can’t help but feel like I was a little shafted in the creation process, you know? Giving me this crappy hard to deal with hair and this completely ordinary peasant-girl face… It’s like the Goddess set me up to fail or something.

 

It almost makes me afraid of the reception I’m gonna get once we make it to that big blue church.