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What Van Helsing had arranged for me was neither a reeking cargo hauler nor some battered fishing boat.
It was a luxury passenger liner—the kind that dredged up memories of Christmas. The very same liner the Saintess was taking to Vellir.
"Move it, all of you! Everyone to your assigned positions—I want this place locked down tight!"
And the cover they'd handed me wasn't crew, and it wasn't passenger. I was a bodyguard for the Saintess herself. I already preferred to keep Hero City types at a distance; I couldn't fathom what they were thinking, saddling me with this. Granted, passenger and crew inspections were thorough at a time like this...
"You too—get to your post!"
"Ah... right."
Making me the Saintess's bodyguard felt like overkill. I'd protested to the Bartender, but the answer that came back was that it couldn't be helped.
On the strength of those three points, I had no choice but to smuggle myself aboard as the Saintess's bodyguard. There simply wasn't time to find another way.
"Today we are a protection team assembled specifically to escort the Saintess. As you already know, we are a C-Rank-and-below detail. There will be escort ships as far as Vellir. After that, you'd better keep your heads on a swivel."
A man who looked like the team leader had gathered the rest of the bodyguards and was laying it out. Last-minute briefing before the liner cast off, apparently.
Fine. Maybe this was for the better. Once we reached Vellir, chaos would break out soon enough, and one missing bodyguard wouldn't raise a single eyebrow. I'd keep my head down, wait for the right moment, and slip away.
"And you. Over there."
"Yes?"
Out of nowhere, the team leader pointed at me. I hadn't done anything suspicious. Had he figured out I'd snuck in among the real guards? The Bartender had been clear that this was a newly assembled team—nobody should have known faces well enough to clock a stranger...
"You'll be on close protection. Stay at the Saintess's side. She wants to travel quietly, so you'll be the only one with her."
"Excuse me?"
And just like that, the situation twisted sideways. Close protection—on me? If I had to stay glued to her alone, I'd be in everyone's line of sight. Slipping away quietly would get a lot harder.
"Orders came down from the Association. At the Saintess's request, she gets one personal bodyguard. And you're the only woman on this team, so that's that."
He wasn't wrong. The rest of the detail was nothing but hulking men.
"Besides, the Saintess said the whole team made her uncomfortable..."
Because of the treaty with the Vellir Federation, they couldn't bring anyone B-Rank or higher, so they'd done the best they could with C-Ranks. Every last one of them had a nasty scar across the face, or muscles that looked ready to split a suit at the seams. Add black sunglasses on top of that, and the effect was exquisite. She wouldn't look like a Saintess. She'd look like a yakuza boss's daughter. Honestly, just going by appearances, the protection team felt more like villains than she did.
"So we didn't have a choice. You're only D-Rank, but we pulled you in at the last minute because of her."
Refuse or hesitate here, and I'd only buy myself suspicion I didn't need.
"Understood."
I took the materials they handed me and headed for the cabin where the Saintess would be staying. If it came to it, flattening this entire team and running wouldn't have been difficult—but there was no reason to get myself stamped onto Hero City's radar. I'd watch for an opening along the way and get out.
"...I just hope nothing happens to Lena."
Standing on the liner, I looked up at the blue sky. I'd left her a revival necklace made from moon jewels, just in case, but worry was worry. At least Van Helsing had agreed to keep an eye on her. Without that, even coming here alone would have been a stretch.
"Haa."
A sigh slipped out as I walked the corridors. Things had gone spectacularly sideways from the first step, and my head already ached. Being here as a bodyguard wasn't even the real problem. An A-Rank awakener losing a few dozen C-Ranks was nothing—it barely qualified as a concern. What I couldn't understand was why I kept running into S-Rank Heroes I was supposed to see maybe once a year.
"Why do I keep crossing paths with S-Ranks?"
The Saintess had almost no combat ability. Even her physical specs were on par with the Golden Witch's—who had an ordinary person's body—or a little worse. She was still, without question, an S-Rank Hero. A lack of fighting skill was not the same as a power with no lethality. Anyone who'd seen the fallen Saintess, after the villains kidnapped her, would know that well enough.
"...There she is."
Pink hair showed beyond the corridor. She looked like she was waiting for someone. Don't tell me she'd come out here just to wait for her bodyguard. She was going to be a nightmare to protect.
"Ah—over here!"
The Saintess had spotted me and was waving. She didn't look that young, and yet it was hard to believe we were the same age. She was barely over a hundred and fifty centimeters. Then again, I'd heard that awakeners who awakened early—and at a high rank—grew more slowly. For someone who'd hit S-Rank as a child, it tracked.
"I'll be handling your protection starting today. Name's Bella. A pleasure to work with you."
I gave the name on the forged identity. Fortunately, she didn't slip, and she didn't seem suspicious.
"I-I'll be in your care as well."
We weren't going to see each other after we reached Vellir anyway. No point dragging out a greeting. Keep it short.
The liner would be at sea for two days. Hero City escort ships clung to either side, two apiece, but they were scheduled to withdraw once we entered Vellir's territorial waters.
So why was the Saintess—supposedly the most famous S-Rank Hero in the world—traveling by ship? That was entirely a matter of her personal history. She had acrophobia. The cause, as I understood it, was a childhood flight: she'd been evacuating with her family when the plane was shot down and went down with it. Even boarding an aircraft was enough to trigger a seizure, and she couldn't stand heights at all—couldn't even live in an apartment. She'd miraculously awakened in the crash and managed to protect herself and her family, but she'd only just awakened, and she hadn't been able to save anyone else. When she opened her eyes after the wreck, the ground around her had been littered with corpses in horrific condition. That was when the acrophobia set in. She'd been even younger than Lena when it happened.
"Um, Bella... was it?"
I'd been looking over the cabin when the Saintess called to me.
"I'm checking escape routes, and whether any listening devices have been installed. Just in case."
Escape routes for me, of course. Socially speaking, Van Helsing could fabricate a person from nothing, or make a perfectly ordinary one cease to exist—but a flawless fake ID was no guarantee my identity wouldn't come out. Unlike the other bodyguards, I didn't know the layout of the cabins, so the only thing to do was map it now, under the pretext of a safety check.
"That's not what I meant... haven't we met somewhere before?"
I had seen the Saintess often enough. Never in person—only in news articles.
"Not that I recall. You must have me confused with someone who looks similar."
As far as I knew, our paths had never crossed. The Saintess was, if anything, the busiest of the S-Rank Heroes, thanks to what she could do. Cancer, congenital defects—she could treat them as if they were nothing. Most other S-Ranks were specialized for combat; without monsters or villains, they weren't much use. The Golden Witch's versatility meant she could help from time to time. But a brute like Cheonma, who only knew how to smash things, was worthless the moment a fight wasn't on the table.
"I-I'm sorry. I must have been mistaken..."
Was this liner even safe? I didn't know much about the Saintess's current movements. All I knew about the kidnapping was that it had happened during a visit to the Vellir Federation. The exact timing, and whether this ship itself was secure, weren't things I could pin down without seeing them with my own eyes.
"Then... I know we've only just met, but may I ask you something?"
The Saintess kept stealing glances at me as she asked. She'd been doing it since we first met. Was there a weird note stuck to my back or something? The way she kept acting like she knew me, too—it felt like there was something she wanted to say.
"That's fine. What is it?"
"H-how did you end up as a bodyguard, Bella? Is it something you wanted to do?"
...How was I supposed to answer that? Telling the truth—that I was infiltrating Vellir for Ethylene's research files—was out of the question. This wasn't my first protection job, but it was the first time anyone had asked me that. Was she trying to interview me?
"It was the only thing I knew how to do. I looked for work wherever I could, just to get by, and this was what suited me best."
"I-I see..."
A plausible enough answer. And not untrue. After I'd scraped into Hero City with Lena, I'd looked for work of every kind, but there was nothing a child could do. The dangerous jobs, the underworld ones, would have meant leaving Lena alone, and these multi-day absences had only started relatively recently.
"Wasn't it hard?"
"Hard doesn't change anything. And it's not like I can just quit."
Looking back, I'd been through some ugly work. Strange organizations had dragged me off, and I'd barely wiped them out to get away. A face that was prettier than it needed to be had brought plenty of people with filthy intentions. Outside Hero City, I'd seen no end of people who tried to kidnap me without even knowing I was an awakener. Enough that I could almost understand why kids like Capella turned villain.
"I've got family to feed. So I endure it, and I keep going."
If Lena hadn't been there, I'd have gone to some quiet country and kept my head down. It wasn't as if I did work that left my life hanging by a thread because I enjoyed it.
"And you, Saintess? I heard you saved hundreds of critically wounded in a conflict zone just a few days ago."
A flicker of curiosity got the better of me. The only Saintess I knew was the one who'd lost her memories to the villains. Even if you rescued the fallen Saintess after the kidnapping, the missing memories never came back; you'd have had to start from a complete blank. Seeing her like this—intact—might not be a chance that came around easily.
Tap. Tap. This wall was relatively thin. If it came to it, I'd smash through here and get out.
"...Hnk."
"?"
Then, all of a sudden, a hitching, tearful sound started up. There were only two possible sources in the room. One was me. The other was the Saintess, sitting on the bed with her hands over her face. The sobbing, of course, was hers.
"Hnk, hic..."
Why was she crying all of a sudden? Watching the Saintess break down out of nowhere left me more than a little thrown. Elena was far younger than she was, and I'd never seen her cry in front of me. What was this about?
"Please calm down. Why are you crying all of a sudden?"
I was badly off-balance, but settling her down came first. I sat beside her and carefully patted her back.
"I'm sorry for bursting into tears like that..."
A full five minutes passed before the Saintess managed to open her mouth.