The Saintess and the Hero
Aria's voice trembled as she spoke. “Ashtain.”
The emotion filling her words was a complex blend of bewilderment, awkwardness, and the fresh flutter of budding excitement. With those intricate feelings swirling inside her, Aria looked at Ashtain.
“This… is my room.”
The syllables came out clipped and broken, like a breath she had been holding for a long time and finally released. It was just that this man had come to her room—why did it make her heart race with such restless urgency? She wasn’t unaware of the reason. She already knew it all too well.
Because she liked him. Because she liked this man named Ashtain. Even though it was an emotion she should never have permitted herself.
Ashtain swept his gaze once around Aria’s room. It contained only the bare necessities, with not a single personal item to be seen. The space was so stark that even he thought he would have decorated his own room more warmly. “Pretty bleak in here.”
“……Stop changing the subject. Why are you here?”
He gave her a mischievous smile. “Because I want to be here.”
It was an utterly self-centered remark, and so very like Ashtain. Aria felt troubled. She had neither the strength nor the eloquence to drive this man away. And calling for someone else would only tarnish his hard-earned reputation.
“This is difficult for me.”
Yes. It was difficult. Being near him made the filthy desires she had barely managed to suppress ignite all over again.
“Can’t we just sleep together? We’ve been doing it all this time.”
At his raw, unfiltered words, Aria’s face flushed bright red.
Did he know? Did he know there was a vulgar woman who touched herself while thinking of him? Did he know there was a woman who lay in his arms and dreamed of a future together?
He mustn’t know. Only then could she quietly fold away these feelings.
The emotions she had suppressed for so long felt as if they would burst through their dam and completely shatter her. Come to think of it, even back at the inns, there had been plenty of opportunities to take separate rooms. Inns weren’t always fully booked. Yet they had shared a room without either of them complaining.
But this was different. This could easily be twisted into scandal.
“I don’t know what rumors might spread because of me.”
“Let them say whatever they want.”
As if it didn’t concern him in the slightest, he lay down on the bed. Because Ashtain was quite large, Aria’s bed suddenly felt far too small.
“………Ashtain.”
“Call me Ashtain. We’ve spent enough time together for that, haven’t we?”
The gentle smile he wore as he told her to drop the honorific was utterly devastating to Aria. Her throat tightened. Her heartbeat surged wildly, as if her heart had broken down.
She let out a long breath, trying to calm the violently pounding organ in her chest. “……You’re being especially mischievous today.”
“It just pisses me off when my saintess calls me ‘Hero’ in that stiff, formal way.”
At the words my saintess, Aria quickly lowered her head. She barely registered anything else he said. All she could focus on was how the phrase “my saintess” tasted like sweet, thick honey when it left his lips.
She nearly drowned in the happiness that soaked her heart.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Her heartbeat rang out like someone knocking on a door. If she opened her mouth, she feared her heart might leap right out. With great effort, Aria spoke.
“Does it satisfy you to put me in such a difficult position?”
Ashtain studied Aria as she kept her head obediently bowed. Her ears had turned red; she must have been terribly embarrassed. He shook his head from side to side.
“No.”
“Then please stop with these jokes.”
His clear, pitch-black eyes turned toward her. There was nothing but straightforward sincerity in that gaze.
“Come here.”
Still lying on the bed, Ashtain spread both arms wide and beckoned with his hands. It was an invitation to come into his embrace.
It was stimulating. Far too stimulating. Far too erotic.
It was exactly the same scenario she had fantasized about so many times. No—because this was reality, it was even worse. An intense euphoria washed over her, as if her brain were melting. Her emotions ran so wild that she couldn’t even speak properly.
“W-what are you saying?”
“You said it yourself. You asked me to hold you tight.”
His provocative, teasing words pushed Aria’s mind to the brink of explosion. She had said something like that. But! To be precise, she had said it while she was out of her mind.
He wore a faint smile. “Don’t you want to?”
She agonized over it. Should she throw away what little pride she had left and fall into his arms? Or should she at least try to preserve some semblance of dignity?
The dilemma didn’t last long.
Ashtain suddenly grabbed the wrist of the dazed Aria and pulled her onto the bed. Caught off balance by the abrupt tug, she toppled forward and ended up sprawled on top of him.
It was an incredibly embarrassing position, yet Ashtain’s expression remained unchanged. That calm demeanor of his was infuriating. She was this shaken, her chest felt like it was being torn apart—why did he look so composed?
They were so close that the tips of their noses would touch if either of them moved even a little. Close enough to feel each other’s breath. Aria’s lustrous black hair swayed softly.
“Ah.”
The voice didn’t belong to either Aria or Ashtain. It was the clear tone of a boy.
Through the slightly open door, golden irises could be seen.
“I-I’m sorry, Saintess!”
It was Makarof. The boy quickly turned and fled.
Aria stared blankly at the boy’s retreating figure. The body and mind that had been burning with excitement and lust cooled faster than ever before.
“………Did you leave the door open?”
Her question came out in a dazed, absentminded voice. Ashtain found something inexplicably amusing about that foolish tone and decided to follow the feeling. He burst into loud laughter.
“That expression of yours is priceless, Aria.”
Aria clutched at her own hair in distress. “What am I supposed to do? What should I even say to that child?”
“You know him?”
“……Yes.”
“Then shall we make it an established fact so he doesn’t misunderstand?”
Established fact.
At those words, Aria felt as if the world was spinning. That was a roundabout way of suggesting it, wasn’t it? That she and Ashtain should… engage in intercourse?
Just as her mind fell into utter chaos, a memory surfaced.
“Then why don’t you take this opportunity to offer yourself to him?”
She remembered the words Bishop Ronin had once spoken to her. The heart that had been fluttering with uncontrollable excitement froze solid in an instant.
Why did I have to remember that? Why, of all times, did that man’s voice have to echo in her head right now?
Noticing how drastically her expression had darkened, Ashtain gently stroked her hair.
“It was a bad joke. I’m sorry.”
No. It’s not your fault at all. Aria wanted to say that.
“………If you’re truly sorry, then please leave.”
The words of rejection left her lips even though they were the last thing she wanted to say. Why did her mouth insist on speaking on its own?
Ashtain looked troubled. “That’s inconvenient. I actually have something I want to talk to you about.”
“Talk…?”
“Yeah. So come over here.”
Ashtain pulled Aria into his arms. Cradled against him like a bolster pillow, her heart pounded harder than it ever had in her life. At the same time, she felt a wave of utter misery.
Just as Bishop Ronin had said—she was nothing but a woman who easily sold her body. Did someone like her even deserve Ashtain’s affection?
Her throat and chest felt as if iron stakes had been driven through them. “……What is it you want to talk about?”
“Last time, you asked why I hunt monsters, remember?”
Ah, she had indeed said something like that. Ashtain’s words were something Aria usually remembered clearly.
“You said you wouldn’t tell me.”
“I’ll tell you now.”
“……Really?”
“Really.”
Winter is harsh for everyone, but it is especially cruel to the orphans left out on the streets.
The Ashtain siblings were among those unfortunate children.
Most of their daily routine consisted of begging. If they managed to get even one meal a day through begging, that day was considered lucky. The two siblings wandered the streets for days on end, pleading for scraps to fill their empty stomachs.
They might catch the eye of the local delinquents and suffer a group beating, but there were never any kind residents willing to share food. It was only natural. As the bitter cold of winter drew closer, people’s hearts grew harder. It was only human to prioritize feeding one’s own family over giving to complete strangers.
Even in such harsh conditions, Ashtain’s older sister, Amelia, never lost her smile.
Ashtain always thought his constantly grinning sister was a fool. What good could possibly come from smiling in an environment with nothing to smile about?
“It’s okay, Ashtain. We just had bad luck today. Tomorrow will be a little different, won’t it?”
She was foolishly optimistic. Tomorrow could just as easily be terrible, yet she clung to hope without reservation. Ashtain narrowed his eyes and sneered.
“Different how? We’re probably not even going to survive this winter anyway.”
This winter was particularly brutal. Several orphans had already frozen to death, including one of Ashtain’s friends. Amelia gently countered him.
“There’s no guarantee it will happen.”
It was a fact so obvious that even closing his eyes wouldn’t hide it—what did she mean there was no guarantee? Ashtain believed nothing was more futile than vague hope. That might have been why he spoke even more harshly to his sister.
“As if.”
“Ashtain.”
“What, sis?”
“Do you want to throw a tantrum at your big sister?”
Amelia pulled him into a hug. Young Ashtain hated his sister’s embraces. Her hair was matted, her skin was smeared with grime, and she smelled sour. What were a pair of beggar brats doing, acting like this? He pushed her away.
“Stop it. Seriously.”
She simply beamed at him. “Our Ashtain is such a shy boy.”
One day, a boy dressed in luxurious clothes appeared in the slums, flanked by knights on either side. The clearly out-of-place figure made the slum’s vagrants hesitant to approach. After all, countless beggars had met untimely deaths for offending the wrong noble.
The boy kept flipping a gold coin with his thumb, catching it again and again. His expression suggested he was looking for something amusing.
The Ashtain siblings caught the boy’s eye purely because they were unlucky that day.
“Hey, you beggar brats over there.”
When Amelia realized the boy was pointing at them, she forced an awkward smile. “Y-yes, young master? How can we help you?”
The boy spoke indifferently. “I lost something. Go find it for me.”
“Something…?”
“Yeah. Can you do it?”
He jerked his chin toward the knights accompanying him. The gesture clearly implied that refusal would lead to harm. Trembling, Amelia nodded.
“W-where should we look?”
“I dropped it outside the village. It’s a ring about this big with a huge ruby on it. You’ll know it when you see it.”
It was an unhelpful description. And outside the village? Wasn’t that the season when monsters were most active? Searching for such a tiny ring would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Don’t go. You shouldn’t go.
Ashtain hoped his sister would refuse the offer.
“If you find it, I’ll give you this gold coin.”
Amelia stared at the gold coin the boy flipped into the air. The gleaming yellow metal was far too tempting. With that coin, Ashtain wouldn’t have to go hungry. He wouldn’t have to sleep on the cold ground. As a sister who had rarely been able to do anything for him, she didn’t need long to decide.
“I’ll do it.”
“Really?”
With a sly smile, the boy told her where he was staying and then left without another word.
“Sister, have you lost your mind?”
Ashtain immediately pressed her. From the boy’s perspective, Amelia had accepted the proposal far too easily. There were countless problems. Finding that tiny ring outside the village was one. There was no guarantee the arrogant brat would actually keep his promise. And why would he ask beggars like them when he had capable mercenaries at his disposal? The whole thing reeked of ulterior motives.
“It’s fine. Just wait here. Your sister will bring back a fancy meal and a warm bed.”
“I said, have you lost your mind?!”
Ashtain felt like he was going crazy. The world wasn’t as convenient as his sister believed. It was harsh and merciless.
“Hehe, don’t worry and just wait for me.”
Amelia laughed. She paid no heed to his scolding.
On a day when the wind cut like blades, Amelia left the village to search for the ring.
She never came back.
Never again.