Chapter 4
Chapter 4
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: The Saint's Inner Thoughts Are Audible
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"Wow, congratulations for real! Astal! Victoria, you too!"
After hearing our statements, the Hero, with a satisfied smile, went so far as to set up a drinking party. It's just a fake contract relationship—should we really be doing this in the middle of enemy territory?
"Even so, I don't think we need to be drinking and eating such fancy food."
Before me now was the well-roasted leg meat of a Gem Deer. The drink, of course, was water. Even though I said I wanted to drink too, Victoria had taken my share.
"What are you talking about, Astal? If you don't commemorate a day like this, people will talk about it for ages to come."
Kyle was now sitting next to me, putting his arm around my shoulder. Seeing him give advice like a life senior annoyed me for no reason.
"Couples misunderstand, get disappointed over trivial things, and their relationship sours. Have you forgotten I'm in a situation where I send a letter to my childhood friend back home every single day?"
From the first day of our journey until today, Kyle had never missed sending a letter to his childhood sweetheart.
Since it's a letter being sent from the Demon Realm to the continent, it was my job to apply several layers of protective magic so it wouldn't be intercepted or his identity discovered—so I could hardly forget.
"I could never be like you. I don't know where you get that kind of devotion…"
To be honest, I still didn't understand Kyle. If that letter were to fall into the hands of the Demon King's army, his childhood friend could be taken hostage. Why would he willingly take such a risk?
Is that what happens when you fall in love? Do you just go blind?
"Didn't you confess first? Then you should know. When you like someone, you can't help it. You want to do anything for that person."
At Kyle's words, I stared blankly at Victoria. Our eyes met, and I realized something was wrong.
This woman seemed to have been staring only at me, with no interest in the food or drink. I felt I was beginning to understand a little of what people meant when they said love is heavy.
- Our eyes met. What excuse should I make…? Ah, that'll do!
"…That's right. It seems Sir Astal had a secret crush on me. He was always grumbling but taking care of me, so I thought his true nature wasn't bad."
Victoria answered Kyle with a straight face. It seemed that in her mind, this wasn't a contract relationship anymore, but that I had genuinely confessed.
"……."
I didn't bother to retort to Victoria's words, simply narrowing my eyes and glaring at her. After all, this was all just a fake relationship.
"Why are you acting like this? You confessed to me so passionately, are you embarrassed now?"
- G-glaring at me like that isn't scary at all!
Contrary to her inner thoughts, Victoria looked at me and let out a faint, relaxed laugh. Honestly, even now, I couldn't believe she liked me.
To begin with, when you like someone, don't you treat them more gently? It wasn't like she was a pubescent boy; I couldn't fathom why she was hiding her true feelings like this.
"How did he confess? Tell me too. There's no way a ruffian like him would do it in a romantic place."
The Spirit Mage, Anima, was glued right next to Victoria, not taking her suspicious gaze off me. It seemed she didn't fully trust us, likely because Victoria had been too flustered.
"That's enough. A relationship isn't something to brag about to others in the first place."
I tried to stop Victoria before she could slip up. She was already quite drunk. If she said any more, the fact that this was a contract relationship might come to light.
Then they'd definitely tease me about this incident. Things like arbitrarily holding hands, or making up a story about me confessing first.
If they got a hold of my weakness this time, I didn't know how many years it would last, so I hoped this contract relationship would end as smoothly as possible, but…
"…That's not it, Anima. It was quite a romantic place. In front of a lakeside under the bright moonlight, he knelt on one knee towards me and asked if I would spend the rest of my life with him."
- T-this way, maybe he'll really confess to me later…? I'm a genius after all!
Victoria was already walking a path of no return. She was spewing out her hopes as if they were facts.
I wondered since when she had liked me; she showed no hesitation in this area.
"Victoria, stop drinking. You're very drunk."
I bit my lower lip slightly and gave Victoria a warning look. She was gulping down alcohol so visibly that it was clear she was drinking past her limit.
"I refuse. On such a happy day, why should I not get drunk?"
Victoria hiccupped and raised her voice at me. Her cheeks were flushed red, the tipsy feeling palpable.
"It's because I realized that a great mage like you actually liked me and was giving me a hard time."
"…Did I ever give you a hard time?"
No matter how much I thought back, I couldn't remember. Most of the time, Victoria started slandering me first, and I just retorted.
"If you think about it, my first impression of you was the worst. What kind of mage shows a person who's suffered from flowers all their life a magic that makes flower rain fall?"
Victoria clicked her tongue as if scolding me and began her story. Her slightly glaring eyes felt aggressive.
"……."
I had nothing to say even if I had ten mouths, so I downed the glass of cold water in front of me all at once.
As Victoria said, when I first met her, I had indeed cast Flower Rain, a magic that makes flower petals fall like rain.
"So that's the kind of man you are—you don't understand a woman's heart. How can you be so clueless?"
- Sir Astal is an idiot. An idiot who doesn't understand my feelings.
Victoria tilted her glass while inwardly calling me an idiot. It seemed she had held onto something that happened over a year ago.
Come to think of it, my relationship with Victoria had started going wrong from that moment.
"People can be a bit clueless sometimes."
I retorted to Victoria as if arguing. There had been a reason I couldn't help it back then.
'Actually, the first spell I cast was a Dispel Magic. Thankfully, she didn't seem to notice.'
The moment I saw Victoria, I could discern the structure of the flower parasitizing her body.
It was a type of curse. Too ominous to be called the Saint's Miracle—it was like a parasite gradually eating away at Victoria's body and mind.
'Because you had the eyes of someone who would soon die. I couldn't help it.'
Eyes so empty they seemed devoid of even hope for life, as if everything was meaningless. That's exactly how Victoria looked when I first met her.
So I fired every Dispel Magic I knew at Victoria, but none had any effect.
'Still, I shouldn't reveal the truth. Giving false hope is a terrible torture for a person. At the very least, I need to find a sure way to eliminate Victoria's side effects.'
I sighed deeply in my heart. If it were discovered I had recklessly used magic on a Saint, I could be branded a heretic by the Papal Court, so I had intentionally cast a different spell.
"…You were the first person my magic had no effect on. I was quite confident in it, you know."
Feeling slightly wronged, I muttered to myself.
I had willingly chosen to become a liar. Simply mentioning the possibility of removing the flower blooming on Victoria's body could have hurt her.
"No woman would fall for such an old-fashioned trick. Did you think I was an easy woman?"
Hearing my lie, Victoria chuckled and placed her chest on the table.
- I am an easy woman right now, though.
It was an act to deliberately seduce me. For me, who could hear her inner thoughts, I tried my best not to look in that direction and kept my eyes on her face.
"However, what you said afterwards was to my liking."
"What did I say?"
"Are you truly an idiot? How can a man called a genius mage not even remember what he said?"
- I still remember the warm words you said after that….
Victoria puffed out her cheeks slightly, wearing an offended expression. The tipsy feeling was palpable even here.
"You said, 'Living a life that could vanish if I closed and opened my eyes once, I really wanted to meet the Saint.' Ugh, how cheesy. How can a pickup line be like that?"
Anima, sitting next to me, poked my side with her elbow and mentioned that situation. Her deeply furrowed brow expressed how incomprehensible she found it.
"That's right. And then you firmly held my hand."
"I remember what happened next too. 'Do you want to hold a woman's hand even in a war situation? You're an irredeemable piece of trash,' you said, insulting me."
The expression on Victoria's face back then was so shocking that it's still etched in my memory.
"That's correct. At that time, I misunderstood that Sir Astal had ulterior motives towards me. It may be presumptuous of me to say, but I thought you were nothing but a horny bastard who couldn't control your lower half."
"So, you're saying that's not the case now?"
"Yes. Because even after seeing me naked, you showed no lust and instead worried first about my injuries and wounds."
The moment Victoria was talking about was clearly after she had suffered a major injury, when I used healing magic.
There was a huge hole in her body, her intestines were scattered outside—in that moment, I couldn't possibly harbor such lewd thoughts just from seeing that one thing.
"Isn't that natural? When someone is dying, how could anyone have such trashy thoughts?"
Hiding my trembling hands under the table, I spoke nonchalantly. No matter how much experience I had, I never wanted to witness someone dying before my eyes again.
"Weren't you trash? You almost got into a fight with Victoria because she wouldn't give you alcohol and cigarettes."
"…I may not be trash, but I at least think you're a eunuch. You're the first man like that I've met."
- I'm confident in my figure, you know. Could he really be impotent…? Or maybe erectile dysfunction…?
Hearing Victoria's inner thoughts, I couldn't help but let out a hollow laugh. There's absolutely no foolish man in this world who would spend a night with a woman like you.
"There was also that madman who pretended to be a blind patient and tried to touch Victoria's chest."
Taryon, looking angry, tilted his glass and spoke up. It was quite rare for him, with his usually gentle personality, to speak like this.
"Didn't Astal save her then too? It was clearly a man pretending to be blind using magic."
As Kyle mentioned, whenever such incidents occurred, it was my role to protect her. Demons or men drawn to Victoria's appearance swarming around was no small nuisance.
After all, magic, more than other disciplines, was free and versatile, which gave it an advantage in dealing with such unexpected situations.
"That's right. Precisely because of that, I accepted Sir Astal's confession. I thought, 'At the very least, this man wouldn't have the courage to harm me…' you see."
"Even so, I think you're too good for him."
"Is that so? To be honest, I also accepted partly because I wanted to understand what this emotion called love is like."
- Please notice. Please like me….
In response to Anima's words, Victoria answered with a straight face, but her hidden true feelings were in a state of restless anxiety.
"So, you two are sharing an inn room tonight, right?"
Then,
The Hero, Kyle, smiled brightly as if he'd had a great idea. He was side-eyeing us as if testing our reactions.
"What?"
"Huh?"
At that shocking statement, Victoria and I couldn't help but panic in unison.
"You're dating, aren't you? Surely you're not pretending like Anima said, right?"
The Hero Kyle even showed the leisure to ask back, as if something was strange. Anima and Taryon were also watching us from the side.
Come to think of it, I had forgotten that the couple Anima and Taryon shared a room.
"B-but… Today is the first day, isn't it? Something that stimulating is still too soon…"
"Right, I think this is too much even so."
Victoria blushed and hesitated, and I desperately began to act to prevent our contract relationship from being exposed.
"You two have already seen each other naked while treating injuries. Have you forgotten that if we want to stay in the Demon Realm as long as possible, we need to save money on things like this?"
However, Hero Kyle's stance didn't change.
In the Demon Realm, where human dreams, blood, and lifespan are currency, we had to do anything to save even a single penny.
"Hey, then we shouldn't have eaten all that earlier!"
"That and this are different, you clueless romantic eunuch."
Seeing me burst out in anger, Kyle grabbed my shoulder and let out a deep sigh. He even clicked his tongue, asking why I was so clueless.
"Here, the room key. You lovers should work out the feelings you've built up. The third wheels will tactfully step aside."
Before Victoria and I could say anything else, Kyle went so far as to hand over only one room key and then run away. The moment I tried to object, it just seemed like it would look even weirder.
"We have to head to the Village of Liars tomorrow. Don't stay up too late, okay?"
After mentioning tomorrow's schedule like that, Kyle disappeared. What on earth did he think we were going to do?
And then,
- Wh-what do I do? Did I wear pretty underwear today? I don't think I did…!
Hearing Victoria's inner thoughts imagining something strange, I couldn't help but feel dizzy.