Scattered amongst the countless records within the monastery's library were clues so insignificant, anyone would have missed them.
Being the only permanent Adepta Sororitas presence in this fringe frontier of the Imperium, the Order of the Shining Beacon had been mobilised for offworld missions more than once since their founding a thousand years ago. The Order was involved one way or another with most major imperial operations around the sub-sector. Buried within an ancient chronicle ledger was a line thanking "the warriors in dark-grey plate" for returning a relic lost during a crusade.
No Chapter name accompanied the entry. No heraldry was described. The mentioned livery colour matched our mysterious Space Marines.
Then, on the casualty rolls from a forgotten campaign to quell a cult uprising, I found the name of a fallen Sororitas Sister followed by an unusual commendation. She had died shielding "Brother-Captain …" the rest of the name vanished beneath a thick band of black ink.
The pattern continued. A faded tapestry depicting the liberation of a strategic city showed power armoured giants descending from the heavens amidst burning drop pods. Then in the corner of a simple inventory record was an entry listing repair details to an older monastery's guest wing after accommodating "twenty-seven honoured warriors of the Emperor's chosen". The following page had been cut from the binding.
Not torn. Removed.
Fragments of events, colours and campaigns. None of the clues proved anything on their own. Yet when arranged together, they formed the outline of the presence of an Astartes Chapter operating around this part of the galaxy for at least a few centuries back. The Chapter had fought wars, defended shrines, slaughtered aliens, escorted pilgrims and shed blood beside the faithful. Then, at some point, someone had decided that every trace of them must disappear. Someone powerful. This was a feat only the Inquisition could achieve. So, another Soul Drinker or Celestial Lion incident?
Secrets, so many secrets.
Look who's talking. I thought as my hand slowly reached to the back of my own head and touched the place where the psychic seal was located. While caressing the spot, a sudden, scary idea came to mind. I hesitated at first, but after a while gritted my teeth before triggering my power.
[Analytica] Activated-
A line of text appeared in my vision.
Regalis Cognitive Protocol. Status: Active.
My hearts jumped at the displayed information.Active. That means I could turn it off?
I psychically powered up, and immediately otherworldly senses beyond the mundane world opened up to me. My fingers "touched" the mental seal, interacting with a thing that didn't exist in the physical realm. Instead of pulling it like last time, I instead attempted to twist it. Like last time it wouldn't budge, so I slowly increased power output. The seal seemed to loosen—until suddenly everything came crashing down.
My chest felt as though it was crushed by invisible hands, a sensation of wrongness with suffocating pressure enveloped me and my breath became short, ragged gasps. I released my trembling hand from the seal and everything quickly reverted to "normal".
I am still... just a normie inside.
Lying in bed, I sighed and readied myself for another day of playing the Holy Daughter. It was almost funny to imagine what the faithful would think if they discovered that their divine idol could feel like a complete wreck inside.
Morning could not arrive fast enough, so I got out of the bed before dawn, washed myself up and turned on the super high resolution television to get a glimpse of the outside world. As expected, after my first public appearance a media frenzy was sweeping across the planet like a runaway mega tsunami. The channels were flooded with programs documenting officially recognised accounts of what happened at the final battle of the civil war, now with my deeds glorified with the Church's official stamp of approval. Unfortunately, this was the Imperium and there was no such thing as a genuine report as every broadcast was half journalism and half propaganda.
There were celebrations being held across many cities. Streets were shown plastered with sanctioned imagery of me, while countless gigantic digital screens broadcasted the highlights of my debut. The Church had somehow managed to make every second of it look ten times more majestic than what I remembered. The footage was edited with orchestral hymns and they spammed enough slow-motion shots that I wondered whether I had actually spent the entire day walking at a snail's pace while the headlines tried to outdo one another in their sensationalism.
The Light Of Terra Shines Upon Nusquam
Miracles Of The Age
The Holy Daughter Walks Amongst Us
Etc, etc…
On one channel religious scholars discussed with one another about my miracles and the significance of my appearance. One of the guests even suggested that my debut combined with the luminous birds at the courtyard was sufficient to be counted as the third miracle, so I was already a full fledged living saint by right, lacking only formally canonisation by the Church. That opinion sparked a fierce round of debate with all the guests joining in, chatting energetically.
The most terrifying part was the merchants.
May the Golden Throne preserve me from the merchants.
Within a few hours after my debut, someone had already made miniature statues of me and begun selling them. Right behind their heels was the authority, warning citizens not to patronize these unsanctioned products. From what was shown I had the impression the crack down wasn't very effective.
All of this happened because I walked in front of a crowd for less than an hour. Some time ago, I was a random person sitting in front of a computer, arguing online about fictional wars waged on tabletop and struggling to paint my tiny plastic soldiers. Now an entire planet was arguing about what colour my ceremonial robes should be for future statues. Things had become profoundly, impossibly weird.
Morning arrived with Welminah reporting at my door, and I sensed a subtle change in her demeaneur. She carried herself taller and straighter, her posture radiating a quiet sense of pride. Even the starry-eyed admiration I had grown accustomed to seemed to shine with a newfound intensity.
Is it because I was now openly recognised by the rest of the world?
With her assistance, I created a routine that was stuffed to the brim with frequent weekly visits to the vault. I intended to use this to buffer myself from the Church's future demands. With that done I tried to probe information about the Space Marines from the scholar.
'Astartes Chapters that have contact with the Order?' Welminah asked, looking surprised.
'Yes, do you know anything?' I asked.
'I am sorry, My Lady. I have no impression on such information and will look it up,' Welminah replied.
That surprised me. Was that the limitation of human life span? Before I could discuss the matter further with Welminah, we were interrupted by Maylin turning up for the first time since she was recalled by the Church when the cardinal returned. The preacher appeared slightly shaken yet still beamed, it felt like she had an ordeal.
'My Lady, I am blessed to have returned by your side,' Maylin said with a deep bow, her emotions flaring.
I sensed Maylin's thoughts, she had survived an interview with the cardinal to keep her position. There was a subtle shift in the preacher's demeanour as well, a little more respect in her posture and tone than before. Apparently, being officially elevated from saint candidate to living saint-in-waiting carried considerable weight among the faithful.
'Did the Church mention anything about the timing for the cleansing ritual of the rebel troopers?' I asked.
'My Lady,' Maylin gave me a light bow before answering apologetically, 'I was not involved in the discussion of that issue.'
'Is that so?' I said, 'the case had been delayed enough with the affected troopers currently lingering in administrative limbo. Please convey my wish to the Church to resolve it as soon as possible.'
'As you wish.'
The day proceeded with Maylin and Welminah sticking to me like shadows. After putting on my power armour, I started the morning with martial training by first doing a round of shooting at the gun range. Not that I actually needed the practice, but shooting guns was fun and somewhat therapeutic.
After the short shooting session as warm up, the training moved towards special one on one tutoring that was arranged beforehand. I was introduced to Sister Superior Pharine and Sacresant Superior Ishoris, they were the best the Order could offer on learning to wield certain close combat weapons. I had intended to abuse my learning speed by mastering every melee option available in the Sororitas Order, from the basic combat knife to the chainsword, power sword, power mace, even the halberds used by the Celestian Sacresants. Amongst all the brutal instruments, the trickiest to handle by far was the signature weapon of the infamous Repentia unit: the eviscerator, a type of extra large chainsword that could normally only be wielded with both hands.
Once I locked in, my weapon skills improved at the usual absurd, now-familiar inhuman speed. It was one of the few things in my current life where the progress bar was observably moving, which was strangely comforting, a contrast to the increasingly obvious looks of awe on my new tutors' faces.
The hours flew by in a flash and afternoon arrived. I thanked my tutors and headed back to my room. After a quick shower and putting back on my plain robes, I had a simple lunch in my room before going to the library for a self-studying session. Yes, the library's content was already inside my head, but no one knew that and I intended to keep up the facade. Also, my sense of paranoia was ticking. What if the information imprinted inside my head was somehow incorrect? Better be safe than sorry and double check all that information.
Like before, after finding my spot to sit down I ordered the cherubs to fetch the study materials, this time it was a list of titles that provided the loose clues about the Astartes. Soon a pile of books and scrolls were collected before me. Looking at the titles alone made me feel like an ancient scholar.
Chronicon Bellorum Imperialis
Liber Triumphorum
Mortis Glorificata
Codex Rationum Monasterii
Inventarium Reliquiarum
Registrum Sacris Imaginibus
I grabbed the first tome and flipped to the pages shown in the vision, and found the reference lines exactly where they should be. As I was going through the material, Maylin approached me with a stash of exquisite-looking letters.
'I just received these from the Church,' the preacher said with a hint of sheepishness, her hands stretched out as she respectfully presented the letters to me. 'His Eminence wishes you to go through them, replying is up to your discretion.'
I nodded and accepted the letters from Maylin, simply touching the surface alone informed me of their premium material. So, some people were trying to get to me through their connection with the cardinal. I silently scoffed at the eternally privileged access granted by riches and power. It made me think about Tollian and the hereditary desk job he had lost, a misfortune that had cast him onto the streets.
The old Earth I came from was hardly a meritocracy, but according to my current understanding it seemed almost forgiving compared to this world. Here, the circumstances of one's birth were not merely an advantage or otherwise, they were binding conditions that seemed almost impossible to break without extreme talent and luck.
The best I could do under the circumstances was provide some balancing. I turned to Welminah before asking, 'are we still keeping the mails and letters I am receiving?'
Welminah went pale at that and quickly replied, 'yes, my lady. You did ask me to sort out the interesting ones, I sincerely apologise for the lack of progress on that…'
'That's fine,' I waved her concerns off, 'I know you are busy, serving me has already taken up most of your time. I intend to just randomly select a few to read…'
Welminah's personal communicator suddenly buzzed, prompting the scholar to look apologetically at me. I knew she had set her device to notify only the highest priority calls, so this must be important. I gave her a go for it signal by lifting my head slightly and she answered it.
'Yes, Welminah speaking…' a moment later she looked at me and said, 'a gift for you from Lady Governor Khatalina has arrived.'
Huh? A gift from Khatalina?
I recalled having a short talk with the Lady Governor yesterday during a meet up after my debut. I told her over our private conversation about the upcoming need to constantly move between the fortress monastery and the vault as per the mentioned "duty" without disclosing any further details.
Moments later I found myself with my retinue at one of the main underground parking bays, beholding an extremely engineered piece of machinery. I flinched a little inside upon laying my eyes on the monster of a speeder.
The machine looked like someone had taken a Lamborghini, crossed it with a Land Speeder, and then handed the design blueprint to a noble with a dangerous addiction to gold plating and Aquila motifs. It was all aggressive curves and polished dark turquoise finishing plus gilded golden edges, with glowing anti-grav vents and enough completely unnecessary decorative engravings to fund a small township.
Both its exterior and interior screamed obscene wealth, calling it luxurious would be a severe understatement. If the Emperor secretly kept a personal joyride for those rare moments when He wanted to cruise around the imperial palace, this thing would probably be it. The machine even boasted a few over the top safety features like an armoured cockpit, mini force field generator and a defensive flare discharger similar to the Infernum Halo Launchers found on Astartes craft.
This beast of a speeder of course had a swanky name, called the Dashing Aurora. According to the butler-looking man who delivered it, the machinewas a gift to Khatalina on her coming of age, but the lady was never really into speeders and thus this thing of a beauty was kept in stasis storage for most of the time, until now.
I voiced my concern that its maintenance and running cost might eclipse a small fleet of run-of-the-mill vehicles, but was assured by the man from the governor's house to not worry, as it would be House von Klaeus' honour to contribute.
Looking at the Dashing Aurora that had just been handed to me on a silver platter, I couldn't help but grimace at the cruelty of twisted fate. Perfect health, heavenly good looks, access to extreme wealth, god-like abilities, extremely high social standing with global fame, being constantly surrounded by pretty ladies, and now, a dream ride.
I had seemingly achieved every lofty goal my former self could have asked for and with full marks, no less—yet never imagined it would happen under such circumstances.