The Saintess, Uriel Crescent
The banquet hall was steeped in the hypocritical smiles and affected laughter of the nobility — nauseating enough on its own. What truly set my blood boiling, however, were the two voices drifting in from the balcony.
One belonged to my fiancée, the woman attending tonight as my partner: the flower of society, the darling of the entire empire, daughter of the Florence Count Family — Elysia Florence.
"...You saw it, didn't you? That look in Lord Kaelus's eyes... Even if I am from the South... I don't even know if he truly thinks of me as his fiancée..."
Elysia's voice trembled on the edge of tears. I could hear the rustle of her dress as she wiped them away.
Then came the other voice. The voice of a man who, fully aware she already had a fiancé, had wrapped his arm around her waist as if she were his. Zenon — the High Mage widely favored to become the next Tower Master. That arrogant voice of his.
"That northern barbarian simply doesn't understand your worth, and he's making a fool of himself. A family that would starve to death without Southern grain has no business putting on airs. In the end, even he'll be on his knees at your feet, wagging his tail like a dog."
What? Wagging his tail like a dog? That I'd grovel at her feet because we don't have food?
I was so stunned I couldn't even manage a hollow laugh.
Where do they think the Monster Waves are held back — the ones that would otherwise pour straight into the heart of the empire? Do they have any idea whose blood lets them sip wine in their warm studies?
Still, thank you, Zenon. Thanks to you, I've made up my mind to write the Notice of Broken Engagement.
Until now, even knowing the original story ended as a reverse-harem, I had believed I could twist the plot if I just tried hard enough. So I had made a genuine effort to improve things with Elysia.
But now I saw it clearly. It had all been a futile hope. Escaping the Elysia route was, without question, the smartest move I could make.
No matter how much time and money I poured into her, I would just end up as Male Lead Number One — the convenient fool who stuffed gold coins into the supporting leads' wallets, exactly as in the original.
And there was no point bursting in on them now. They would simply claim, as they had last time, that it had been nothing more than a conversation about inter-family business. Besides, the Grand Duchy's food stores were nearly empty with the spring famine approaching. They would pressure me to keep my mouth shut no matter what.
I no longer had a single scrap of attachment left to this engagement. Standing here listening to this garbage farce was nothing but a waste of time.
I turned as if I had never overheard a word and slipped out from behind the balcony curtain. Leaving Elysia's sobs behind me, I walked away in silence.
A bitter taste filled my mouth, but my mind had gone ice-cold. The reverse-harem route I had hoped to scrap had failed completely. Time to change my approach.
If the original story's central axis was a rotten rope, then I needed to rebuild the board around the people on its margins.
And right now, I had two tasks.
First: secure an airtight justification that would silence both families' objections, make the broken engagement stick, and completely cut off the South and the supporting male leads from sinking their straws into the North.
Second: prepare for the original story's greatest threat and main event — the catastrophic, once-in-a-millennium Monster Wave known as the Great Cataclysm.
The first problem I would have to solve after returning to the Academy, by winning over the key players. But the most decisive key to preparing for the second — the Great Cataclysm — was standing right here, in the middle of this banquet hall.
I turned my gaze toward the center of the hall. There, amid the nobles' false laughter, a woman stood out with a presence as alien as a flower blooming from the mud.
Hair like silver thread steeped in moonlight. Deep blue eyes that seemed to hold the frozen northern sky.
The Saintess of the Northern Temple: Uriel Crescent.
Uriel Crescent.
In the original, she had been a tragic supporting character, buried in Elysia's afterglow, never even given a fair appraisal — a woman who fought on the front lines during the Great Cataclysm until every last drop of her Divine Power ran dry, and died.
But her tragedy was not confined to the Great Cataclysm.
Revered as a living divinity, she was in truth a puppet sacrificed to the Temple's greed. Just days ago she had wrung out every last drop of her Divine Power to reinforce the North's barriers — and yet here she stood, smiling as if nothing were wrong, forced to listen to the nobles' outrageous demands.
"This dreadful headache... I simply cannot enjoy the banquet. Saintess, I beg you, grant me your blessing!"
"Saintess, this is a dagger passed down through my family for generations. Could you inscribe a blessing upon it to drive away beasts?"
Her Divine Power was already nearly gone from reinforcing the barriers, and now she was straining to draw on her Mana as well to meet their demands. I could see her fingertips and lips trembling, ever so slightly.
She was at her limit — on the verge of collapse — and not a single noble around her noticed. No. They simply didn't care. To them, a Saintess was a parlor trick that spat out miracles on demand, a sideshow to liven up a banquet.
And then, the moment Uriel staggered, unable to fight the dizziness any longer—
"Saintess. Might I have a moment of your time?"
My low, settled voice cut through the nobles' clamor. Every eye snapped toward me, but before they could protest I had already caught her, half-supporting her collapsing body.
"Y-Your Highness, Lord Kaelus...!"
A young nobleman's startled cry rang out at my sudden intrusion, but I merely looked at them with cold eyes. Faced with the iron gaze of the North's highest authority, the nobles held their breath and instinctively stepped back, as if they had come face to face with a predator.
"The Saintess has only just finished her prayers to reinforce the North's barriers. She is in a state of extreme exhaustion. Kindly cease this unconscionable business of treating her as entertainment."
Without hesitation I all but carried the Saintess out of the banquet hall. Not a single person dared stand in my way.
Creeeak—
Only after the banquet hall doors closed behind us, and we reached the manor garden steeped in cool, quiet night air, did Uriel's tension finally seem to break.
"Hah...! Haa, haa..."
Moonlight settled over Uriel as she released the breath she had been holding. Cold sweat beaded on her pale skin, and her chest rose and fell with each ragged breath. Just looking at that fragile, swaying figure, I could tell her entire body was screaming from the depletion of both Mana and Divine Power.
Without a moment's hesitation I drew from my coat a white vial containing Snow Lotus Flower Concentrate — a Northern specialty, and the finest Mana recovery elixir there was.
"Drink this. It will help restore your Mana."
"Ah, no, Your Highness... I am the Saintess. How could I possibly..."
"Don't refuse."
With a touch both firm and careful, I uncorked the vial and brought it to her lips.
"Forget the Temple's regulations. What I see in front of me is simply a person suffering from Mana depletion."
Simply a person.
Uriel stared at me, dazed, her eyes wide and trembling as if the words had struck her like a blow. No one had ever treated her as someone who was allowed to be in pain — not when she had spent her entire life locked in the heavy yoke of being the Saintess chosen by God, with nothing demanded of her but sacrifice.
"Your Highness..."
At the frail voice that slipped through her trembling lips, I tilted the vial a little further without delay. The Snow Lotus Flower Concentrate, carrying a sweet and cool fragrance, wet her soft lips and flowed into her mouth.
The concentrate rapidly restored her Mana, and a warm flush of pink began to bloom across cheeks that had gone deathly pale from depletion. As Uriel's breathing steadied against my chest, I shrugged off my banquet coat and draped it over her trembling shoulders without ceremony.
"...Why are you showing me such kindness, Your Highness?"
Uriel clutched the collar of my coat as if it were something precious, looking up at me with tear-bright blue eyes.
"Taking me out of the banquet hall... this Mana recovery elixir... is it because you need my Divine Power? Or the Temple's influence?"
I looked up at the night sky and answered in an indifferent voice.
"...I do need it. To save the people of the North in the Great Cataclysm that's coming, the Saintess's power will be essential."
A flicker of disappointment crossed her eyes — then my next words sent them trembling all over again.
"But that's only if you are alive. Only if you aren't bleeding out."
I met the eyes of Uriel, who was looking up at me from against my chest.
"Those rotten old men at the Temple will drive you to your death without a second thought, so long as they survive the Great Cataclysm themselves. But I don't sacrifice my people to save my own skin, and I don't stand by and let them die a dog's death."
"..."
The moment she was called by her own name — not by the title of Saintess — an unstoppable ripple spread through her eyes.
A life spent shouldering everyone else's pain. Miserable days of swallowing her tears alone, with no one to lean on. The brutal agony of Divine Power depletion. She had endured every last one of those tragedies under the name of Saintess.
And I was, in all likelihood, the first person in the entire empire to look at her and see a human being.
Uriel smiled — a genuine, heartfelt smile, as a woman, having cast off the Saintess's mask. As if she had found the salvation she had spent her whole life craving.
Leaving the night-cooled garden behind, I supported Uriel — who had by now recovered some of her strength — and headed back toward the banquet hall.
Creeeak—
The heavy doors opened. The music filling the hall and the nobles' chatter cut off at once, every gaze snapping toward the doorway.
"The Saintess is wearing His Highness's coat. What on earth happened in the garden..."
"His Highness has a fiancée. Surely he wouldn't..."
"Shh. Haven't you heard the rumors? About Lord Hartelion and Lady Florence..."
"He's from the North. It wouldn't be surprising..."
As the whispers spread, Elysia — just stepping out from the balcony — stopped dead in her tracks.
"...L-Lord Kaelus...?"
Her gaze was pulled as if by a magnet, locking instantly onto the banquet coat draped over Uriel's shoulders beside me. In her eyes, a primal shock and terror spread — the look of someone confronting a reality she had never even imagined.
And then Uriel slowly lifted her head.
In place of the sacred, gentle smile she always wore, she offered one aimed solely at Elysia — brief, secret, and ice-cold. A victor's smile, worn beneath the protection of the man named Kaelus Hartelion, wrapped in a coat still warm with his heat, directed at his fiancée.
It was unmistakably a smile laced with mockery and provocation, aimed squarely at her.
In that instant, Elysia's face twisted into something grotesquely cold.