The Saint Descends (2)
D-does Lady Lilith love the Hero too, just like I do?
Staring at Serista, who had spouted the most absurd nonsense imaginable with a perfectly earnest face, I felt my brain briefly short-circuit. The girl had fallen so hard in love that her head had turned into an entire flower field. A full-blown meadow, I tell you.
It should go without saying, but I had never once felt so much as a flicker of romantic feeling toward Gehmajoshigi-gwat — hell, I'd never even registered him as a member of the opposite sex. Not a single time. The total amount of time I'd spent around the Hero wasn't all that long to begin with, and we'd only ever talked one-on-one twice, including yesterday afternoon. For those two conversations to make me fall in love, at least one of them would have had to involve him saving my life — no, scratch that, I'd have needed to save his at least twice over.
Granted, we came from the same hometown and had a fair bit of common ground, so he was a little easier to deal with than most other men. But as a romantic prospect? There were obstacles in every direction.
I-it's as I thought… Lady Lilith has carried a flame for the Hero all this time.
Meanwhile, Serista was taking my silence for an affirmative and running away with the whole conversation by herself, which meant I needed to deny it posthaste — if only to avoid becoming some bizarre piece of gossip fodder for that bastard Gehmajoshigi-gwat later on.
"That sound you're hearing is last night's dinner coming back up— no, wait. Please, please don't labor under some strange delusion, Saintess Serista. I have never once held feelings of that sort for the Hero."
Y-you don't have to be embarrassed, Lady Lilith. Anyone can see the Hero Gehmajoshigi-gwat is handsome and dependable. It's only natural that every woman would be drawn to him.
"I'm not embarrassed — it is genuinely a misunderstanding, Saintess Serista. I'm hardly fated to be close with the Hero, and I have even less reason to carry a flame for—"
You can be honest with me. I won't breathe a word to anyone. And it's not as though I would withhold the consecration from you over something like—
"I said no."
…I'm sorry, what?
"I said no. How many times do I have to repeat myself before it sinks in?"
I-I'm so sorry…
…Why is it that no matter how nicely I phrase things, she can't understand on the first pass? Watching Serista finally shut her mouth only after I'd gone completely stone-faced, I could feel a sigh rising of its own accord.
The whole premise — that I must have fallen for the Hero — was flawed from the ground up. Quite a lot of time had passed since I'd realized I'd been transmigrated into this world, sure, but that didn't mean I could simply throw away the memories of my previous life.
I had spent years playing Luminor Academy like a madman; it was the game of my life. Having entered the world of that game, the life I'd lived before was bound to stay lodged in my head for the foreseeable future.
Falling in love with a man overnight, for no reason other than gaining a woman's body, had been impossible from the very start — and Gehmajoshigi-gwat, with whom I had no deep connection anyway, was obviously never even a candidate.
Going purely by time spent together, the man I'd known longest wasn't the Hero at all. It was Edan. In fact, if you counted people rather than just men, Edan had probably spent more time at my side than anyone else alive. And it wasn't just the sheer length of that time — its density was nothing to sneeze at, either.
The King Serpent hunt at the masquerade, the bandit ambush on the road home, the battle against the demonkin we uncovered in Grainstone Village, and the great Kraken hunt on the Lake of Knowledge — when it came to moments of fighting for our lives with our backs entrusted to one another, my experiences with Edan outnumbered all the rest combined, and then some.
Of course, thinking ahead to the coming battle with Mac Hart, there would doubtless come a time when I had to fight back-to-back with the Hero as well. But Edan would be in exactly the same position, and one shared battle wasn't remotely enough to make me develop feelings for Gehmajoshigi-gwat. Edan, on the other hand, at least had years of built-up trust behind him — so in some unthinkable scenario, I might theoretically consider it…
…
-Thoom, thoom!
L-Lady Lilith?
My train of thought had nearly arrived at Edan yet again, so I shook my head to clear it, then supplemented what I'd just said with a low murmur for Serista's benefit.
"Let me state this one more time, as clearly as I can: I hold no romantic feelings whatsoever for that Hero of yours. So you really can rest easy."
…But surely there's at least a little?
"There isn't."
B-but the Hero and the Saintess are supposed to be drawn to one another, aren't they? You're the Saintess, Lady Lilith, and Lord Gehmajoshigi-gwat is the Hero, so for the two of you not to feel an instinctive pull would be—
"What kind of logic is that supposed to be? Kindly stop saying things that make no sense whatsoever."
B-but that's how it was for me…. Even though I know I'm a fabricated fake, I thought that because I carry the name of Saintess, that was why I felt drawn to the Hero…
"Isn't it just that you liked the Hero from the very beginning, Saintess Serista? Don't hide behind some strange excuse."
…!!
If this had been the game, a big POW! graphic would have popped up beside her head — Serista's face went scarlet in an instant.
"Besides, I have very little interest in men to begin with, so as far as the possibility of becoming your love rival goes, you can dismiss it entirely."
No interest in men…? Oh — oh no. Then, then could it be that it isn't the Hero at all, but that you and Miss Agnes have that sort of…
"…It isn't that either. Could you simply accept that I'm not interested in romance itself?"
Y-yes, of course…
That was the answer she gave out loud, but from that moment on, Serista watched me with uneasy, darting eyes, clearly suspecting I might swing the other way.
Well — Serista is cute, and the me of my past life probably would have had her well within defensive range. But that only applied when I'd had my old body. The idea of loving another woman with this body was something my common sense simply could not process, no matter how I turned it over.
Still, I had no desire to let strange misunderstandings pile up unchecked, so I did toss out one reasonably convincing detail for her to chew on.
"And one final thing. As of right now, I am courting Young Master Edan — so you can put your mind at ease."
Y-you are?!
"The Young Master does genuinely love me, so I do my best to respond to those feelings in earnest, as far as I'm able. Whether I'm actually fulfilling the role properly, given how clumsy I am at romance, I can't say."
I-I see…. I'm, I'm so sorry for misunderstanding…
Citing another person in your heart has been the effective way to reject a confession, yesterday or today. …No, wait — this world is set in a medieval fantasy, so I suppose it'd be more accurate to say today or tomorrow.
Granted, in Serista's case it was less a rejected confession than her having run wild speculating about my relationship with Gehmajoshigi-gwat in entirely the wrong direction.
And in truth, nothing I'd told Serista was a lie. As of now, I had zero intention of marrying anyone in this world — but if such a person ever did come along, the strongest candidate would almost certainly be Edan.
…Strongest candidate, mind you. That is not the same as actually intending to marry the man. It just means the possibility exists. That's all.
"Incidentally, the Hero you love already knows all of this as well. So I'd appreciate it if you'd stop harboring these strange misconceptions."
Th-then why did you try to join Lord Gehmajoshigi-gwat's party? If neither the Hero nor anyone else was your goal, then the reason you wanted to join…
"…As for that — I'm afraid I'll have to ask that you take it up with the Hero directly, sometime."
Since the whole business had sprung from her own fabricated status as the Saintess, explaining it myself risked piling misunderstandings atop misunderstandings.
He was the one who had set joining the Hero's party as a condition in the first place, so the explanation was his to give. If I really did end up joining the party, I'd have to account for the circumstances to the other members too — but knowing him, he'd already have a convenient excuse or two drafted up.
By the time our conversation had wound its way through all of that, Serista and I had at last arrived before the church's main sanctuary, empty of all worshipers. She pressed her ear carefully to the great door, then looked back at me and gave a quiet nod.
-Click. Creeeak.
"…"
"…"
Abusing her authority as a high-ranking priestess and the Saintess both, Serista unlocked the door to the vacant sanctuary and stepped inside.
Summer break had only just begun, which meant the Academy's clergy were taking their holidays in rotation — and thanks to that, the night-duty priest who would normally have been posted here was nowhere to be seen.
While no one's around, I'll finish this quickly. Lady Lilith, this way, please…
"…Yes."
Following Serista as she led me by the hand into the darkness, I walked to the far end of the sanctuary, and there, under her guidance, we carried out the consecration rite of the Aurelian faith.
She had me kneel on the stone floor while she read aloud from the church's doctrines, sprinkled holy water over my head as I stood draped in a white cloth, and fed me a single wafer of Communion bread and a sip of wine, sourced from who knows where, as the rite progressed.
When the long ceremony — nearly thirty minutes in full — finally concluded and I stepped back out of the sanctuary, I was, at long last, able to awaken under the name of the Saintess.
It was a certain day, more than six years after the day I first realized I had been reborn into this world.
Name: Lilith Rosewood
Title: Saint of Prophecy