The Qualifications of a Saintess (3)
When Ethan suddenly grabbed my arm, shoved me down onto the bed, and dove straight under my skirt, I felt no small amount of panic.
He'd been allowed up to my chest plenty of times before, but his hand had never once traveled any lower than that.
"W-Wait a moment, Young Master Ethan!"
"Quiet, Lilith. Isabel's sleeping."
"That's not the problem here… Mmph?!"
After casting a single sidelong glance toward the servants' room where Isabel slept, Ethan flat-out silenced my mouth with one hand. This time, I began to suspect it wasn't a prank but dead serious — and my heart started pounding with a very real sense of danger.
I told him I needed that power until I dealt with McHart! I definitely did!
Even though he must have heard that explanation, here he was charging at me as if he intended to take my virginity on the spot. Unable to make sense of it, I naturally had no choice but to thrash against the sudden threat to my chastity.
Not that it mattered. Pushing Ethan's body off me, with him already pinning me beneath him, was next to impossible through sheer brute strength — my resistance was purely symbolic.
My legs were locked in place by the lower half of his body straddling mine, and my left hand was seized by his right, bound so I couldn't so much as twitch. His other hand was clamped completely over my mouth, making it impossible to even call for help. In the span of a heartbeat, all four of my limbs and my voice had been fully subdued by him.
—Sqrrrm.
"……"
-Thud, thud!
"……"
I tried pushing at his body with my one free right hand, but he didn't budge an inch. I even landed several punches to his side, and still he didn't stir.
I only stuck to his flank because I felt a little guilty about hitting his head or face. Using magic to resist in this situation also seemed a bit risky, so I was holding off on that for now.
"Lilith."
"……"
—Nod.
My mouth was blocked, so I answered with a nod. As pointless as resisting seemed in a situation like this, I figured that if I could talk my way out, talking was the better option.
Fortunately, Ethan apparently hadn't been about to simply pounce on me after all. He quietly gazed down at me, speaking his confession with eyes that were remarkably earnest.
"Lilith, the truth is, every time I've looked at you — going back a very long time — I've always had the same thought."
"Mmph…?"
"You, who I can touch right now just by reaching out my hand — that someday, at some moment, you might leave my side."
"M-Mmph…"
"I've still tried my best to hold it in all this time. Because you've always been on my side, no matter the situation. Well… not always, but in all the things that mattered, you mostly valued my opinion over your own, and thanks to the little proofs of love you sometimes showed me, I managed to bear it."
"……"
For someone who had slammed me down onto the bed out of nowhere, his answer was surprisingly tame. I'd half expected him to steal my chastity in an instant, but Ethan simply kept his hand over my mouth and said what he needed to say.
Looking at him like this, he really didn't resemble a man attempting to assault me. At the very least, the current Ethan showed none of the brazen audacity that McHart had when he'd lunged at me a month ago.
That wasn't to say he was entirely free of it either — I could sense something like a spirit desperately playing tug-of-war with his own instincts.
"Do you know how furious I was when you told me you'd almost been taken by that bastard McHart?"
"……"
"For days after that, I honestly couldn't sleep. I kept waking up terrified that you'd vanished from the spot beside me overnight."
"……"
"And while my rage — the kind that wanted to tear that goddamn bastard limb from limb — is still there, what made me angriest back then was myself. The thought that in that moment, I hadn't protected you, and had instead thrown you into danger."
"……"
"If you were going to be taken from me so easily, so pointlessly, by someone else — I even thought I'd rather just make you mine right then and there, Lilith."
"…Mmph?!"
At that somewhat shocking confession falling from Ethan's lips, I couldn't help letting out another flustered sound.
It was a little touching, the way he laid his honest feelings bare without holding anything back — but put another way, he was essentially confessing that he'd been fully capable of pouncing on me at any moment.
Confronted with a side of Ethan completely unlike anything I'd imagined until now, my memories flickered one after another through my head, whether I liked it or not.
"Of course, I tried to hold back. And in fact, I have held back, all this time. I decided that rather than gaining everything else without winning your heart, I'd rather lose everything else if it meant someday winning your heart alone. That's what mattered most to me."
"Mmph… mmph…"
"But if you keep throwing me into turmoil like this, Lilith, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. It feels like not just your heart, but now your body too, keeps slipping further and further away from me."
"……"
"Lilith, you said it yourself, didn't you? That a man with the body of an unkempt pig who can't even manage basic manners, who gropes women at every opportunity — that kind of man is the worst."
—Nod.
"So after hearing you say that, I trained with the sword under Father and lost the weight. I kept up with the etiquette tutoring — four hours a day — three times a week right up until I entered the Academy. And even when you kept seducing me like you were testing me, I never once crossed that line you drew. Not once."
—…Nod.
"And now you're telling me you might join that man's party? The party of that womanizer who's laid hands on the so-called Saintess and even an elf? A few conversations between the two of you, and suddenly that hero matters more to you than I do?"
—Shake, shake. Shake, shake.
That last remark was the one thing I absolutely could not let stand, so I hurriedly rolled my eyes left and right to deny the misunderstanding.
…Fine. I'll admit it. My actions had invited the misunderstanding, and knowing that, it was entirely understandable how Ethan had grown this obsessive over me.
After all, it may well have been my mistake to decide I might join the hero's party without saying a single word to Ethan about it. I'd still had about a day of leeway before deciding whether or not to become the Saintess, so talking to Ethan first before accepting the offer would probably have been the right call.
Of course, I had no way of knowing whether, had I done that, Ethan would have reacted the same way he was now — flatly refusing — or whether he'd have nodded and accepted my honesty for what it was. But either way, things might have unraveled a little more smoothly instead of spiraling into this situation.
"Lilith, please."
"……"
"I truly don't want to do anything you'd hate. The thought of you coming to hate me will always scare me more than the thought of me hating you. I'm terrified that your eyes will change — that you'll look at me the way you looked at the child I used to be, cold and repulsed."
"……"
"So please, convince me. Tell me that if I keep trying, I'll be able to win your heart someday. If you can't say that to me, I might really make a terrible choice — the choice to take your body, if I can never have your heart."
…Okay. What do I do now.
Bursting out with "convince me" all of a sudden — there was no way I had any answer ready for that. In my past life and this one both, I'd lived a life about as far removed from psychology as it was possible to get.
But Ethan, knowing nothing of my inner struggle, quietly withdrew the hand resting over my lips — and now that my mouth was free, it simply hovered half-open, empty of anything to say.
"……"
"……"
Having pinned me down toward the foot of the bed, Ethan gazed at me quietly, as if waiting for my answer. His expression, his eyes — they were so overwhelming that I couldn't bring myself to meet them head-on.
For some reason, a scorching heat came rushing up into my face. Just like the day I'd received his confession and, for the first time, truly became aware that this boy liked me.
If what I'd felt from him back then had been simple affection, the emotion radiating off him now was obsession and desire. And not just any obsession — an incredibly fierce one, pointed squarely at me.
There was no way I could craft a convincing argument while staring dead-on into a wall of that kind of passion.
"Y-Young Master Ethan…"
"Yes?"
"F-First of all… couldn't you let go of my hand?"
"Why? So you can run off to the hero this time?"
"I-I would never…. I-If you get this close to my face and ask me things, I can't think straight at all…. S-So, could you pull back for just a moment…?"
"It's fine. I can wait as long as it takes. If you want, Lilith, I'll wait like this until tomorrow morning."
"……"
If I spent the night like this, there was no doubt my willpower would crumble long before dawn.
And yet under Ethan's gaze like this, I couldn't possibly summon the words to persuade him either.
I needed to get out of this situation, even just for a moment, if I wanted to think clearly —
Oh, right. The spirits.
The thought of my reinforcements — which I'd momentarily forgotten — came rushing back, and I sent a distress signal directly into Sei's mind, my wind spirit. Please, just for a second, pull me and Ethan apart.
'Sei, Sei!'
'Mm… Lilith…'
'Use your wind magic and separate me from Ethan for just a moment! Just a second is all I need!'
'Mmm… can't…'
'What?! Yes you can! Remember when I fought Agnes in the evaluation match, and you cushioned my body with wind magic like that…?'
'But… I contracted…. With Lilith…'
'Yes! You contracted with me, so of course you can grant my'
'That's why… can't…. Things Lilith hates…'
'……What?'
The moment bewilderment flooded my mind at whatever on earth she was talking about, Sally's voice — who had apparently been listening in on our conversation all along — abruptly cut in.
'She's right, Lilith. We're contracted to you, so we can't do anything you hate.'
'Wh-What are you two talking about?! All I did was ask you to pull Ethan off of me!'
'Right, and that's what we can't help with. Because you hate it.'
'What in the world are you…'
This wasn't working. Judging from all the nonsense they'd been spouting, these spirits were evidently going to be completely useless in this situation.
All I'd asked was for them to pull Ethan away from me for a moment — and they claimed that was something I hated? What kind of nonsense was that?
Just as I was sinking into the despair of trying to converse with spirits who spoke no common sense, Ethan, still holding my gaze, called my name yet again.
"What are you rolling your eyes around so hard for, Lilith?"
"……!!"
"Don't tell me you were talking to the spirits just now. Asking them to pull you away from me?"
"…W-Why on earth would I do that, Young Master Ethan. I-I was just thinking something through rather deeply, that's all it was."
"I see. Then tell me now. Convince me — tell me that someday I really can have your heart."
"……"
Seriously — how was I supposed to have an answer like that?
How could I possibly spout some absurd nonsense at Ethan like, well, depending on how you behave, I might actually fall for you, so mind your manners? A self-oblivious remark like that?
Thanks to Isabel and the head maid, I'd learned all the etiquette expected of a maid — but I had never once been taught anything resembling the art of delivering a persuasive argument with poise.
…Nothing for it, then. Here, I'd have to skip the long-winded speeches and go straight for the most certain method available.
As a former man, I knew better than anyone how a woman earns a man's trust — and the moment the very first method that surfaced in my mind was set into motion.
"…Young Master Ethan."
"Yes?"
"…I have something quiet to tell you, so could you lean in just a little closer?"
"Yes."
Ethan quietly lowered his head toward me, evidently thinking I meant to whisper something — and in the instant our faces drew near enough that barely a hand's width remained between them.
—…Mwah.
…The softest part of each of our faces met, once.