I Became a Witch and Started an Industrial Revolution

At seven in the morning, Miwei—who had prayed until midnight—woke up bleary-eyed, stifled the urge to yawn, quickly got out of bed to wash and tidy her appearance, and put on her veil and rosary.

Finally, together with the other nuns she entered the convent to begin cleaning and tidying; they were to welcome the Goddess in a state of perfect, spotless purity.

“Goddess who rules life, we thank and praise you! When dawn pierces the darkness, all things awaken by the Lord’s grace. The new day is your gift; all life belongs to you. We cannot seize every second.”

“At the start of a new day, we all remember your mercy and raise the voice of praise in our hearts. By the morning the Lord has given, our hearts were refreshed, our spirits were renewed, and everything was made new.”

“......”

After the prayers she went to the refectory for a plain breakfast.

At eight o’clock she gathered under the Mother Superior’s arrangement, and the Mother Superior assigned the nuns their tasks for the day.

Some were sent to prune branches, others to sweep the courtyards.

There was almost no verbal exchange during this time, for silence was the greatest virtue.

Miwei’s task was relatively easy: she was to concentrate on studying the Goddess’s scriptures and meditating on the teachings.

Her aptitude for light magic was excellent, and her mind was simple and kind; she was the Church of Memlotorh’s carefully chosen Saint-in-waiting for the Goddess’s cult.

The other nuns studied the scriptures after the ten o’clock midday meal, then continued unfinished morning chores; they prayed before supper and held evening prayers again after eight.

Thus the days passed, day after day, year after year.

Miwei had thought her life would pass that way until the High Church sent an order to carry out a judgment against the Astal Family; only then were her calm, monotonous days broken.

War inevitably brought casualties, and the nuns and clerics who could heal were naturally an important support force.

In the end the clerics were ordered to remain, and the larger number of nuns departed with the Church army.

It was under these circumstances that Miwei received her “enlistment notice.”

She was very happy.

Although the Mother Superior had said she could remain, Miwei refused.

To serve the Goddess was the meaning of her existence, but to save the dying and heal the wounded was her ideal.

Of course, deep inside she had another motive: ever since the Mother Superior had found her and brought her to the convent as a child, the longer she lived there the more curious she had grown about the outside world.

Private outings were strictly forbidden by the Church; those discovered were lightly punished with confinement and fasting, and in severe cases were expelled from the Church and forever barred from being devout believers, for they had abandoned the most basic obedience.

The obedient Miwei would not do anything to anger the Mother Superior, and now that she had a legitimate chance to go out, she naturally did not want to miss it.

In the end she persuaded the Mother Superior, and she was allowed into the battlefield nun training camp, where the nuns were rigorously trained by veteran clerics.

Personal mana and faith-powered strength eventually ran out, so they had to learn to coordinate with external methods to maximize and efficiently use their abilities.

Months later, their training finally ended; they were formally ready to depart and join the assembled faithful troops to rendezvous with the main force.

On the last night before departure the Mother Superior called Miwei into her room.

She took out the Church’s emblem necklace and looked at Miwei:

“Reality is not as simple as you imagine. Even when danger and difficulty are great, you cannot avoid them. Are you mentally prepared?”

Miwei’s eyes shone as she looked at her and nodded: “Mm!”

The Mother Superior hesitated for a moment, but in the end she fastened the necklace onto Miwei’s neck with her own hands.

Then she drew from her sleeve a silver bracelet.

Her wrinkled hand took Miwei’s small hand and put the bracelet on her wrist, and holding her hand she asked:

【Human life is precious all the same, isn’t it?】

“Mm!”

The Mother Superior—usually stern and rigid—looked very kindly now.

She gazed closely at the child she had raised since childhood, and finally she left Miwei with a remark the girl did not quite understand before sending her away.

When Miwei set out to join and merge with the Church’s main forces and embarked on the journey amid the Archbishop’s cries of encouragement, she had envisioned bringing light to the Astals.

She witnessed with her own eyes what the irregular faithful militia did to the villages along the way after entering Ovinia’s lands.

She felt the jolts as the carriage she rode occasionally rolled over corpses, and the moans that surrounded her at every moment.

She felt the terror when villagers who had played dead sprang up with hoes and shouted “You are all demons,” splattering her face with blood.

Miwei suddenly remembered the Mother Superior’s final words.

【But on the battlefield, grand principles did not hold.】

【Heaven and hell—you had no right to choose; you only had a fate chosen for you.】

For the first time she felt that she seemed to know nothing about war or about what she was about to do...

She had no time to probe further.

After arriving at their destination, Hendak, the sheer number of wounded stunned her, and she and the other accompanying nuns immediately began rescue work under the local clerics’ arrangements.

Many of the wounds before them were injuries Miwei had never seen: iron beads embedded deep in flesh that required cutting the wound open to extract, half a body blown into a bloody ruin.

Some had been struck by many metal fragments or high-speed stones that pierced the body, leaving countless wounds difficult to eradicate.

As fighting at the front intensified, beds in the local convent multiplied; all the nuns could rest only in shifts.

Many of the severely wounded brought in were beyond healing; some had lost legs or arms, and even if the healing rites sealed the bleeding, they still died within five days.

“Goddess, I thank you; you promised me that when I praised you you would grant satisfying peace and joy before you, remove all disease, and grant a sound body, mind, and spirit~”

As Miwei chanted, a large amount of golden-white holy light spread across the bed in front of her; the man on the bed showed a brief look of relaxation, but in less than a moment his expression began to contort again.

Miwei lowered her hands, her pale face full of puzzled reluctance; she could not understand why she could not heal him.

Clearly the iron bead in the man’s arm had already been removed by them, and the wound had been completely repaired by the holy light to look as if it had never happened, yet he exhibited strange symptoms like those of the dead she could not comprehend.

“Bang!”

The convent doors were broken open.

A man in ornate magic armor led a team carrying stretchers into the hall.

His cyan eyes flicked and landed on the few nuns who had frozen in place.

He drew his handsome brows together and said, “Why aren’t you coming? What are you standing there for?”

Seeing the timid reactions of several companions beside her, Miwei replied helplessly, “Honored Lord Fast, there are still patients here who have not been healed.”

As a Saint-in-waiting of the Church, she was not afraid of these nobles.

“Oh?”

Lord Fast raised an eyebrow and stepped forward to examine.

Seeing the familiar symptoms on the patient’s face he said, “Don’t waste resources saving him. He’s already dead.”

Saying that, he took out his custom short gun, aimed at the wounded man’s head, and fired.

“Bang!”

“Ah! Goddess above!”

Miwei, who was closest, was splattered on the cheek by flying blood, as if mixed with some grayish-white fluid.

Several nuns on the scene screamed in fright.

Lord Fast shouted, “Shut up! Go and treat the wounded I brought.”

Clatter.

From outside came a flood of footsteps as ranks of soldiers entered and occupied all exits.

Lord Fast continued:

“And now, be officially notified: all wounded who can walk to the ground, gather here. I will take them away soon.”

“Pain and unbearable suffering is irrelevant; wounds not yet healed is irrelevant. A true man should die on the battlefield and be loyal to Hendak!”

Miwei widened her eyes and looked at him angrily.

“No! They still need at least three to five days of convalescence to recover their bodies. Forcing them up now is sending them to die!”

Lord Fast glanced at her, raised a fist, and struck the newly arrived cleric in the face, knocking him down.

Amid the cleric’s screams he beat him mercilessly.

Then he looked up and fixed his gaze on Miwei, who trembled with anger, and said, “Orders must be carried out. Remember my words: if our Hendak territory falls, you will all be buried with it!”

“When the time comes, don’t mention you are a Saint-in-waiting. Even if you were a true Saint, I would blast your head with one shot!”