In My Previous Life I Was a Saint, but Now I Want to Cut Corners - Chapter 1

Everyone who lives in this country gets tested at the church when they reach the age of ten. They do this to determine what magical talent the child may have.

Renaria, who is now at the age of ten, heads towards the church with her parents. Naturally, she is filled with anxiety and excitement.

“I hope I get the undine guardian just like mama!”

Renaria looked at her mother, Elizabeth, as they walk down the church halls towards the altar so they can wait for the priest to arrive.

Elizabeth is a young mother with glamorous long blonde hair, smooth porcelain skin, and intense noble purple eyes. She is considered the flower in the Social circles of the nobles. They can’t believe that such a beautiful woman has had two children. Renaria was incredibly proud to have such a beautiful mother.

While Renaria was thinking about her mother, the thought of fire magic that her father and brother carry filled her thoughts with curiosity. She looks up at Chrisford, who is currently holding her right hand.

Marquis Chrisford Sheridan, Renaria’s father, has also been known to be a beautiful man since he was at a tender age.. Rumour has it that many women have fainted because they fell in love with him at first sight.

Elizabeth, a princess in the royal family with commoner blood, was raised in confinement at a monastery and tamed the playboy Chrisford with her charms.
At one point, Chrisford had been severely wounded during a battle with demons. He was sent to that very same monastery to receive treatment, which caused him to have their fateful encounter. The two met, and Elizabeth nursed Chrisford back to health.

Being able to obtain the right to marry Elizabeth was a long and challenging task, as she was the daughter of the king’s former favorite maid, which made things rather tricky. The queen who sentenced Elizabeth’s mother to death over jealousy also opposed the idea of marriage between Chrisford and Elizabeth.

However, this didn’t stop the couple… Their love overcame all odds, and in the end, they got their wish and married.

Renaria thought very lovingly towards her parents.

“I wonder which spirit I’ll get today…”

When a child is tested for magical abilities, spirits appear and make a pact with the child. With the help of spirits, people can use magic without sacrificing their own life force.

Renaria’s mother had the protection of the water spirit Undine. Her father and brother both were protected by the salamander spirit, which was the fire spirit.

“Renaria is the cutest of them all! So I’m sure you’ll be chosen by the cutest of them all!” proclaimed Elizabeth as she lovingly gazed at her daughter.

“Y-yeah!” giggled Renaria in excitement.

Both Renaria’s parent’s eyes are filled with compassion as they dote on their daughter. Filling Renaria with so much joy, she can’t help but laugh.

Once they arrived at the church, the ceremony began with Renaria being the first to be called. She stood up and tottered over towards the altar in order to meet the priest

Renaria touches the round ball. It starts to shimmer little by little while making a calming humming sound.

“Hmm. I see… It seems you have been given the protection of Aerial. ”

Upon hearing the news, Renaria opens her eyes excitedly. The Wind spirit Aerial controls the air, and just like how you cannot see the air, you cannot see the wind spirit. It is widely unpopular in the aesthetics department. Another issue is that you cannot prove you have a spirit as it is invisible, so trying to convince people is a rather daunting task
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Renaria was so shocked that her eyes began to tear up. The tears caused her vision to go blurry, so she closed her eyes. Suddenly all the memories of her previous life filled her ten-year-old mind.

Renaria’s previous life was born in a rural area as a commoner. However, when she turned five, during a baptism ceremony, the church found out she had holy magic that allowed her to heal other people’s wounds. Because of this, they separated her from her parents and raised her in the church itself. At that time, no such things as guardian spirits existed, and those with magical powers had to use their own bodies in order to use magic.

Therefore all magic users had extremely short lives. However, as short as they were, they were highly respected by everyone, from commoners to royalty.
With healing magic, depending on the severity of the damage from a small cut to near-death, the mage must use their own life force to recover the damage. Essentially meaning to heal someone who was dying meant a death sentence to the mage.

Because of this, there were no aristocratic children in the church. They used poor children from families similar to Renaria’s. These children would be prepared as saints and saints to be sacrificed to people of high power.

Renaria would cry herself to sleep because she was lonely. However, because she lived with so many other children who were roughly the same age, eventually, she overcame loneliness. From then on, she spent her days learning the ways of being a saint.

At the age of ten, they would teach the children how to perform healing magic. However, this was only for the aristocrats who made large donations towards the church. Which nearly made it impossible for commoners to receive any healing from the church.

At the age of thirteen, most children would become ill and were taken back to the church to be never heard from again.

At the age of fifteen, all the remaining children would be engaged to people who belonged in the aristocratic world. At sixteen, they reach the end of their duties and are married off to whom they are engaged. This meant the surviving children had extremely high magical power levels, which were sought after for power to bear children with high magical potential. However, this rarely happened, and most children died before ever reaching this point.

The church taught the children that all the saints were beloved by God, so he would call them back to his side early to help him with his sacred duties. Renaria knew that all of this was a lie.

During her days as a saint, a good friend of hers was taken back to the church without notice, so she decided to investigate. While sneaking around the church, she found her friend’s hollow shell of a corpse, which had all lifeforce sucked right out of it.

“One day, I’m going to die like her…” She thought at the time.

Only thoughts of her fiancée could ease her broken heart. Prince Marius, who was considered one of the most beautiful men in the world, treated her with gentle love. However, Renaria didn’t know what love from another human was… She only knew God’s “love.” But this didn’t stop her from dreaming about marrying the prince as she yearned for more of the affection he gave her. She was the last saint surviving in her year, so she pushed harder to make sure she got her happy ending.

However, the day before her sixteenth birthday, Renaria was tasked with treating the princess. The princess, who was the daughter of the current duke, was laying pale face down. She had drunk poison because of her jealousy over the saint fiancée and wanted to switch. To save a human’s life on the edge of death, the gods chosen must sacrifice their lives with no exception.

Renaria could only think about her soon-to-be wedding with the prince Marius as she gave her life to save the princess’s life. Thoughts rushed through her mind, of the gentle prince who had shown her nothing but love and compassion, as she slowly drained her own lifeforce to save the princess.

Successfully sacrificing herself for the princess, she collapsed. Starting to fade into the darkness, she could hear the princess snickering at her in rejoice as she watched Renaria lose consciousness.

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