Saintess Irina (2)
Irina understood the moment she first faced the Hero.
Ah, she's the same as me.
The woman was wearing a mask of lies on her face, just as she herself was.
And it seemed she knew, somehow, of Irina's true nature.
Irina wondered how she'd figured it out, but as always, she performed kindness flawlessly. It was hardly difficult. This kindness was merely something she'd been forced to discard in the past — in truth, it wasn't acting at all, but something closer to remembrance.
And so she stayed at the Hero's side.
What she learned along the way was that the Hero was more cautious than she'd expected. With no backing of her own, she could hardly refuse support out of hand, so she had accepted only the aid of Irina — a Saintess — and one of the most distinguished organizations in the Empire.
That much acceptance would serve as a filter, she reasoned, to weed out the rabble who tried to force themselves onto her.
Irina knew all of this, but she didn't interfere. If the Hero behaved that way, it actually made things easier. Unless she was a fool, toppling the Demon King might not be such a far-fetched dream after all.
Ah, so that's what it is.
That was what she discovered as they journeyed together.
The Hero can read the surface thoughts of others.
It came to light when a High Demon approached them. A demon performing an elaborate act, pretending a village had been destroyed and she alone had survived.
Irina saw through the creature at once. With her divine power flowing through her, there was no way she could fail to recognize a demon.
And that ruined village — look closely, and you'd see it hadn't existed for more than a few days.
Which was to say, the village had never existed in the first place. But Irina chose not to point it out.
One look at the Hero's face told her everything.
The demon before them was a far more formidable enemy than expected. That was why the Hero, knowing full well, was letting herself be danced around in its palm.
And even through Irina's eyes, the demon who'd introduced herself as a mere burden lacked any true bearing.
Certainly no noble, no famous demon — if the Order committed its forces, she could easily be saved.
Best to watch and wait for now.
While keeping an eye on the Hero and Jim alike, Irina began, from that day on, to fabricate her own surface thoughts.
By the time the Hero first faced Irina, her true purpose had almost certainly already been laid bare. Even so, she hadn't been able to block her from joining — because the Hero had been weighing costs and benefits, calibrating the party's composition.
Perhaps...
Perhaps they really could bring down the Demon King. Ironically, it was at the very moment she decided to manipulate her own surface thoughts that Irina abandoned her hostility toward the Hero.
Of course, the Hero would never know of Irina's change.
But that didn't matter to her.
Even if her thoughts had shifted, whether the Hero succeeded or failed, the outcome would be exactly the same as it had been from the start.
What a nuisance.
That was Irina's assessment of her new companion, Jim.
More than once, she'd considered using the Order's forces to eliminate him outright.
But a spy, if handled well, could be turned — a means to extract information in reverse, or to bait into a trap.
The Hero likely shared that same reasoning, which was why she'd probably left him be.
Or perhaps she meant to raise the party's strength naturally first, then execute him with her own two hands.
Irina had no intention of obstructing the Hero's work. She knew the woman kept her guard up, but she planned to approach her with as much goodwill as she could muster.
However things turned out, Irina stood to profit either way, so she intended to bend to the Hero's will.
If the Hero had truly been an idiot, Irina would have been pulling strings from behind the scenes — but watching her agonize and struggle even now, Irina found herself wanting to cheer her on.
The Hero had changed her, yes, but the foundation buried deep within her remained intact, and that was why Irina chose to trust her.
That said...
"Haha, the sun is a little harsh today, wouldn't you say? So, well — it's a humble effort, but I went and made you a parasol."
Jim's nuisance was more than enough to grind on her nerves.
My, what skilled hands you have.
Irina accepted the parasol he offered, her smile strained at the edges.
For something made of wood, the handle was satisfyingly weighty — he'd clearly done some careful work on that part.
Even as she thought about taking it apart later for a closer look, Irina delivered her thanks with all the courtesy she could manage.
But honestly — can't even act properly, and this is his idea of winning favor?
The lunatic sometimes went and picked wildflowers from the field to hand to her, too.
Did he learn about the world from fairy tales?
Yes — he was earnestly putting into practice methods that belonged strictly in storybooks. Honestly, it was hard to even play along. Humoring him made Irina's own head feel like it was turning into a flower bed.
That said, Jim was useful.
He was diligent in his role as porter, and talented at all manner of odd jobs besides.
But in the end, he was still a demon, and still a spy.
No matter what he did, there was no way it would look good in Irina's eyes.
"Ah, Jim. Would you care to join me in prayer, then?"
"...Prayer?"
"Yes!"
This was the tiniest, most petty act of revenge.
Irina seized his hand with a smile in full, radiant bloom — and then, intending to show the bothersome demon brat exactly who he was dealing with, she let divine power smolder against the back of his hand.
"Ah, I, well, th... Kgh?!"
Her own particular form of a warning.
If he tried to come any closer to her, she intended to teach him what would happen — in the form of a burn scar on the back of that very hand.
For a while she watched Jim's face as he seemed to endure the pain, smiling with genuine sincerity, until she decided that would do and released his hand.
"Prayer builds bonds when it's shared, after all. Let's keep doing this from time to—"
Mid-sentence, drowning in false sweetness, Irina gave a violent start.
"I— I think I'm fine, actually. Yes, I don't particularly believe in any god, and I doubt your Heavenly God would be upset that someone who doesn't believe in him offered a prayer anyway. So, you see..."
Jim stammered and floundered under Irina's prayer offensive.
And Irina could only stare at the back of his hand with an expression of sheer disbelief.
Not a single wound.
She had already gauged his capabilities, and she was the stronger of the two now. On that judgment, she'd assumed a painful little lesson would land — that was why she'd done it.
And yet there was no injury. Which meant one of two things: she had misjudged his strength, or he possessed some special ability she knew nothing about.
Focusing on the latter, Irina resolved to observe Jim in painstaking detail.
The man who had once clung to her with suffocating persistence now found Irina clinging to him instead.
Even though Jim, thoroughly burned by his encounter with the Saintess, was doing his utmost to keep his distance.
Wait, why is he brushing me off so hard?
Reaping what he sowed.
Jim, who'd tried to win the Saintess's favor, and Irina, who was digging into his true identity — a situation had begun to unfold that held nothing good for either of them.
"Jim, won't you pray with me again today?"
"...Must we, really?"
"Yes!"
"I see, then..."
And so, for a good while, Irina repeated the ritual of seizing his hand and praying, again and again, all in pursuit of the truth behind Jim's mask.
There are no miracles in this world.
With the Heavenly God departed, all that remained were coincidences that merely looked like miracles.
Irina knew this, and it was why she kept the Order standing through every manner of scheme and sleight of hand. Regardless of whether the god existed, she wanted to save people.
But that didn't mean she had lost her faith.
She still believed in the Heavenly God.
She still searched for him, aching.
She still prayed that he might turn his gaze back to humanity, just once more —
Even if it meant divine punishment falling upon her.
She had wished for something — anything — that could become a ray of light for those who lived their weary days praying for tomorrow.
But she knew. Such a thing would never come.
Irina lived on carrying those contradictory thoughts inside her.
And she was wearing away because of it.
Until...
"Now, then."
Combining what she had investigated on her own with what the Order's power had uncovered, Irina finally compiled a dossier on Jim.
She had dug in earnest, yet the yield was astonishingly thin. She'd have gotten more on a Legion Commander or the Demon King himself — though that was admittedly because Jim simply hadn't done anything conspicuous enough to warrant records.
And even so, something did surface.
A half-blood — of demon and human? There are things in this world that simply cannot be...
He was, in the truest sense of the word, a miracle. Because no such being could ever have been born of mere coincidence.
It felt slightly strange for a woman of the Order to say, but demons stood on a plane of existence far above humans and the other races.
The only beings who could stand beside them were the dragons.
Which was precisely why a half-demon was something that could not, by nature, exist.
No matter which race they shared love with, the child born was always a demon. The demonic bloodline was simply too dominant for a hybrid to ever come into being.
The same held true for dragons.
A human-demon hybrid, a human-dragon hybrid — even a demon-dragon hybrid. None existed.
A child born between dragon and demon was simply a dragon, or a demon. A half-blood was never possible.
And yet a human-demon hybrid?
"One of three, then. Either this information is wrong, or it's a miracle. Or else..."
...the blood mingling within him belonged not to a human at all, but to something entirely new.
Whichever it was, it amounted to nothing short of miraculous.
There wasn't much information about him. Barely five years' worth.
And by pure coincidence, those five years aligned exactly with the period since the Heavenly God had vanished.
Irina felt her heart begin to race.
Hope and elation — the very things she had cast aside to keep the Order alive.
Please, let you be the miracle the Heavenly God sent down to us.
The words slipped out of her before she realized it — and only afterward did she understand what they revealed.
That even after she had chosen to dwell in malice, some part of her was still praying for a miracle to save her.
"Haha..."
She had grown weak. But she found herself grateful that a tender part of her still remained.
And so Irina prayed.
From that day forward, her loathing of Jim vanished entirely. He had begun to look like something that was neither insect nor human.
Yes — it was only on that day that Irina was finally able to see Jim, the person, clearly.
And the Jim she saw was...
"Looking back on it now, Jim really is... such a fascinating person, isn't he?"
A man who was an absolute delight to torment.