Hell Disguised as Paradise
The Hero spent the night wide awake, and felt a slight fatigue for it.
His body, drawing ever closer to the realm of the Superhuman, could keep itself in peak condition no matter how many days he went without sleep — but mental exhaustion was another matter entirely.
Tempering the human mind was extraordinarily hard work. Even a person of the most ironclad will, having gone without sleep every other day for over a month just to secretly watch over the Saintess, only to sleep and rise and skip sleep again — the fatigue piled up had to be staggering.
The qualities of a fine Hero did not include the knack for going without rest. Yet the fact that he could endure it through sheer force of spirit, sinking into sleep and lifting his head again through such long stretches, still marked him as an excellent Hero.
In an age this chaotic, a strong mind was an excellent tool for survival.
And with that iron will, the Hero poured every last nerve into avoiding contact with the Saintess.
When she first proposed they sleep together, his mind had locked up so completely he could barely form a reply.
He had done his best to act natural, but even if the Saintess was oblivious, there was no way she hadn't noticed how awkward he was being.
Even after lying down in bed, a great turmoil raged inside his head.
His purpose was clear — to save the woman he loved, and to save the good people he had failed to save in the previous cycle. But adding his age from before the regression to his current age, he had only just become an adult.
In short: he was a man.
Not only was he sharing a bed with the woman he loved — she had invited him to sleep with her directly. How many men could refuse that? No one knows.
But at least this much can be said: the number would not reach three digits.
The Hero's senses were a warrior's, razor-sharp — yet every last one of them was fixed on the Saintess's scent, which tickled the tip of his nose like flower perfume, and on the soft breathing from behind him as she seemed to sleep. He never noticed that someone was watching him.
He spent the night wide awake concentrating on conquering every desire with superhuman patience. He never once imagined that Autumn had appeared and was tailing him.
The urge to look behind him seized him from time to time, but he successfully endured that too through sheer patience.
And at last, when the morning sunlight filtered faintly through the window into the room, the Hero cheered inwardly.
Finally, he could escape this hell disguised as paradise.
It looked like paradise at a glance — but it was a poisoned apple dressed up as sweet fruit.
The reason was simple. The moment he laid a hand on her without permission, their relationship would plummet without bottom or end, never to see the light of recovery again.
He knew well that force, under any circumstances, could never — no matter what, even if consent came afterward — be justified.
It was the same as what his enemies had done.
Those who took his comrades' lives without consent, then asked what the problem was while spinning long tales of their tragic pasts. Or those who asked whether it counted as consent, since their victims had begged to be killed from the sheer agony.
And every last one of them died with a blade through the neck, the heart, or the gut.
He had told them:
Do to me exactly what you did to them—
I'll do to you exactly what was done to them—
And not a single one succeeded in doing the same to the Hero.
With an expressionless face that made it impossible to tell whether he was reminiscing about good times or bad memories from his past, he returned to being the Hero he originally was.
He moved his feet and went down to the first floor of the inn ahead of time, claiming a seat.
Jerome did not sleep.
Even after setting foot in the Superhuman realm, even after the transaction ended and he was forcibly expelled, his body retained the memory of what it had been as a Superhuman.
Sharp ki-sense and senses expanded beyond the ordinary still lingered as remnants, so he easily noticed that someone was watching him.
The reason he could notice what even the Hero struggled to detect was simple: he was always concentrating.
Having taken over the watch on Spring from the Saintess, the burden of surveilling an opponent of a higher tier than himself kept his ki-sense maximally expanded at all times. It was only natural.
In reality, her power was leaking away and she was currently weaker than Jerome — but the rigid Holy Knight had no way of knowing that. And even if he had known, he would not have let his guard down.
And so morning arrived.
His shining blond hair had lost its color and gone dry and brittle, like straw or hay, and dark circles had risen black beneath his eyes.
If he had been stood next to the Saintess, people would have unanimously said this pitiful Holy Knight would die before she did.
Jerome finally saw the sun rise through the window, announcing morning, and shook Spring awake where she lay sprawled out.
His movements were utterly mechanical.
He was a Holy Knight — a man who, aside from his younger sister under his care and the Saintess he served, had never known a single other woman.
So he acted carefully.
But gentle shaking showed no sign of waking her, so he gripped both her shoulders with hesitation and shook hard.
Her head rocked forward and back, and at last Spring opened bleary eyes and stretched.
The hollow sensation of missing one arm was there, but she didn't seem particularly bothered by it.
Was she used to it?
Even beasts, though — he had never heard of them regenerating body parts.
They followed their own bizarre laws, Superhuman or beyond Superhuman, but he had never seen a severed body part return.
There were fairy tales passed down from mages and swordsmen who claimed to have seen something very much like themselves return to life after being cut down — but that was all.
And Disasters had never come back to life.
The Disasters subjugated by the first Saintess and her companions in the distant past had vanished forever.
Jerome watched Spring finish her stretch — contorting her joints acrobatically with her bound hands — and once he confirmed she was fully up, said unkindly, "Follow me," then opened the door and went down the stairs.
Jerome, the Hero, and Spring.
The three gathered on the first floor of the inn in the early morning, but the Saintess woke later than expected.
Growing hungry, they carefully ordered two beers from the innkeeper and filled their empty stomachs with alcohol and snacks from midday.
Holy Knights lived lives of restraint — but restraint only went so far.
The Hero was not the sort to fuss over such things, and having spent long stretches with comrades on the front lines made the scene possible.
So as they drank while waiting for the Saintess—
Spring's eyes lit up as she spoke.
"What about me?"
The Hero and Jerome answered at the same time, almost by accident.
"None."
Spring pouted as if it were too much, and turned her head away.
And at last, the Saintess came down.
—Did you drink?
Jerome showed no surprise at the Saintess's voice piercing through his head, and spun his brain tight trying to invent an excuse.
"Well, that is—"
—No. It's fine.
The Saintess finished speaking with her usual blank expression, but that blankness seemed to carry a different meaning to the Hero and Jerome.
The two of them visibly panicked and began laying out various excuses, but the Saintess simply wanted to get to the carriage quickly.
They had grown familiar living together on the battlefield for a little over a month, yet a subtle distance still remained.
Spring watched them and laughed as if amused, thinking of the familiar gaze of the colleague who had observed her through the night.
Even having lost her power, her ki-sense had not vanished.
And so, each harboring different thoughts, holding different conversations, carrying different hearts, they boarded the carriage, and at last once more—
Set out for the Imperial Capital.
What was the Emperor thinking, summoning back to the Imperial Capital a Disaster that had attacked it — even if she was subdued?
No one knew the Emperor's purpose, but everyone knew he would protect the Empire forever.
The Saintess began preparing to meet the Emperor and argue just how versatile a tool Spring could be.