Until the Substitute Saintess is Loved: The Sister Sent to the Convent as the Villainess Heals Everyone's Hearts with Her Healing Powers - Chapter 2

“Not much of a healing power for a former saint, is it?”

“That’s why her engagement was called off.”

“Oh dear, I heard it was because her personality was too awful.”

While listening to the nuns’ malicious whispers and suppressed giggles, I rewrapped the patient’s bandages.

All the nuns wore robes that completely covered them from head to toe, with thick lace veils hiding their faces. Only their hair color was visible. So even if I turned around, I wouldn’t know who was gossiping.

I used my healing power to mend the patient’s complex fractures that medicine couldn’t fully treat, applied medicine to the smaller wounds that would respond to it, and wrapped the bandages.

Sister Lupina would have been able to completely heal them with just her healing power without doing all this. But I am not my sister.

Though I’m a common-born child, I inherited the healing power from the Avon bloodline.

Unlike my sister, I can’t neutralize poison nor instantly heal wounds completely.

Still, healing magic is precious. That’s why the Avon family forbade me from using it.

Sister Lupina wouldn’t allow it.

Only Count Avon, his wife, Sister Lupina, and the maid Bennett know that I can use healing magic.

Even having some healing ability would make me more useful as a pawn in political marriages, but Count Avon forbade its use solely to avoid displeasing my sister, who was the prince’s fiancée and a saint. So, no matter how severely I was whipped, I never used healing magic on my own body.

I heal many people suffering from injuries and illnesses with my healing power, but I don’t understand efficiency and my magical power isn’t limitless. The surrounding nuns, who believe I’m Sister Lupina who once held the saint title, look at me harshly for not being able to heal properly.

This royal capital monastery where I was placed as Sister Lupina’s replacement has an attached treatment center.

Lord Rolt of the borderlands apparently wanted to send me to a strict monastery in the north meant for sinners, but other nobles stopped him.

Because they valued my sister’s healing magic.

People come to the monastery daily to offer prayers.

The attached treatment center has healers and pharmacists. Most nuns here work as assistants or pharmacists, and various medicinal herbs are planted in the monastery garden.

There are treatments like ointments, oral medicines, and antidotes that don’t rely on healing magic, which are cheaper and more accessible to commoners compared to healing magic.

It’s already been two weeks since I entered the monastery.

Not being as skilled in healing magic as my sister, I’ve been learning how to make medicines, focusing on antidotes, and have become able to make ointments too.

But the surrounding gazes remain cold.

The name Lupina Ivor seems to be notorious even within this monastery.

I heard there’s a young lady from a lower nobility who attends this monastery, her mind broken from being tormented by my sister.

I am not Sister Lupina.

I am Rosalina.

But since I’m here with my face hidden as Sister Lupina, it’s probably natural that I receive everyone’s hatred meant for my sister.

My hair, which I had dyed brown, has now returned to its silver color.

Everyone believes I’m Sister Lupina.

I can’t return to the count’s family either.

Because Sister Lupina is living as Rosalina, as me.

I have nowhere else to go but here.

While listening to the endless whispers, I walked to the next patient.

There are still many patients who need the healing power I possess, even if it’s not as strong as my sister’s. I want to heal them with all my might.

I also have the knowledge of medicinal herbs my mother taught me when she was alive.

Though I’m learning at the monastery too, my mother’s knowledge as a pharmacist who made her living seems somewhat unique. Learning that mixing powdered fish scales into regular ointment makes scars much lighter was also from my mother’s knowledge.

There are also formulas for ointments that don’t sting as much.

In the monastery, work is assigned to each nun.

Sometimes daily, sometimes weekly.

With the pharmaceutical knowledge I learned here and what my mother taught me, I’m said to grasp things quickly and have been put in charge of compounding medicines.

(The stock of reserve ointment has decreased quite a bit…)

Partly because the number of patients has increased, but the harvest from the herb garden in the back has decreased. I should probably compound more soon.

As I was thinking this, the head nun called out to me.

“A visitor, you say?”

“Yes. Get ready.”

A visitor for me must mean someone related to Sister Lupina.

Even as Rosalina, I wouldn’t have visitors. I was always said to be sickly, with all social interactions restricted and no friends.

But I don’t know any acquaintances who would visit Sister Lupina either.

Since that incident at the party, my sister has been cut off from her close friends. Without even trying to find out, everything was exposed when my sister screamed hysterically.

(I hope they don’t discover we’ve switched…)

If found out, both the Ivor family and I would be finished. We’d likely receive death sentences for the crime of deceiving the royal family.

I let out a soft breath.

Following the head nun, I checked my reflection in the window.

Wrapped in a robe, my face invisible under the veil.

The only visible part is my hair, the same softly wavy silver hair as my sister’s. Mine is whiter than my sister’s, but unless we’re standing side by side for comparison, no one would know.

(It’s fine, it’s fine…)

Calming my nervous feelings, I entered the visiting room.

Instantly, an angry voice rang out.

“Lupina…!”