The Saintess's Conjecture
I figured the Pope would be just another sleazy human anyway. I’d caught a distant glimpse of him once before, and that was enough. His eyes were practically dripping with lust. Even worse than Eugene.
“Well… I suppose that’s true.”
“This is a private meeting, after all. No need to be so formal. Let’s be honest with each other. There’s no point in dragging this out, is there?”
Everyone here already knew the score. Besides, I was the young lady of the Ashtar family. There was no reason to play mind games or hide our intentions. A straightforward transaction would be cleaner. After all, wasn’t that the classic relationship between the Empire’s nobility and the Church?
“Mm. You make a fair point.”
“Good. Then it’s settled. I become the Saintess and receive enormous wealth and prestige in return. You secure the legitimacy of the Empire’s Goddess Church by obtaining a Saintess. Everyone wins, don’t you think?”
It really was a win-win. If you can’t avoid it, you might as well enjoy it. So I planned to enjoy this to the fullest.
“Ah, yes. That does seem to be the case.”
“Don’t worry, Priest Raphael. Since I’ve decided to become the Saintess, I’ll make sure you receive a proper reward from the Pope.”
I flashed him a wicked grin as I spoke to the man, who still wore a rather uncomfortable expression.
“Right, then. Let’s wrap this up.”
“I look forward to seeing you at the appointment ceremony this weekend.”
Yes. This was exactly how it should be. We wouldn’t interfere with each other more than necessary. Of course, I fully intended to interfere with them as much as I wanted.
Once Priest Raphael, whose cheek still bore the faint red mark of my slap, finished his business and left, Claire approached me.
“My lady… I never imagined you would actually accept the position of Saintess.”
Then you should have done it yourself. Why the sudden change of tune? Still, since this was my own choice, I decided not to say anything.
Becoming the Saintess didn’t mean I couldn’t become an Archmage. I would simply be a Saintess who also wielded magic—a Magic Saintess. And later, I would naturally focus solely on magic, rising to become both an Archmage and a Great Sage! It was a flawless plan.
There would be all sorts of benefits that came with being the Saintess, too.
“They’ll keep pestering me if I don’t, and that’s annoying. Plus, getting paid a million lino a month while I laze around sounds like a pretty sweet deal.”
“Plus…?”
I smiled with such wicked glee that a child might have burst into tears at the sight.
“I get to crush the Church, obviously.”
Claire gasped at my words.
“You intend to overturn the Church entirely?”
“Using the position of Saintess while also plundering the Church? That’s killing two birds with one stone, isn’t it?”
The title of Saintess might be a bit inconvenient on my path to becoming an Archmage, but that didn’t mean it was useless. It gave me the authority to legitimately trample Lily. I could also reform the Church and ease the commoners’ discontent.
“Even so, my lady, how could you possibly…”
“You’re saying that to the daughter of Ashtar?”
“Ah… Yes, my lady.”
“My mother is an extraordinary woman who once led an entire assassination guild. Her daughter should be capable of at least this much.”
Claire fell silent at my words. She stared at me for a long moment before letting out a deep sigh.
Another sigh? I was seriously considering scolding her when she pulled several sheets of paper from her pocket.
“My lady. I have conducted an investigation into Lady Lily, as you requested.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Please take a look at this first.”
I read through the documents she handed me.
“Hmm.”
Lily had been born in a small village near the western border of the Empire. Her mother was apparently a prostitute in that region. Long ago, her father had led an expedition to the west. While there, he slept with a prostitute in a small village, and that woman became pregnant with Lily.
Right. A prostitute. A whore. Honestly, the fact that she had such a thick skull and rotten personality could probably be blamed on being raised by a prostitute mother. But wouldn’t a prostitute usually take pride in her figure? That must have been why even the distinguished head of the Ashtar family had taken her to bed.
“Have you ever seen Lily’s mother?”
“Before Lady Lily was brought into the Ashtar household, the Duchess ordered me to observe her briefly.”
Oh, that was interesting. Had Mother been jealous of that prostitute?
“Was she beautiful?”
If she had truly been stunning, that would be shocking in its own way.
“She had the body of an exceedingly ordinary prostitute. Sufficient to seduce men, I suppose.”
“Knowing Mother’s personality, I thought she would have killed her.”
Since she had once commanded an assassination guild, it seemed like something she would do. Or perhaps she really had sent someone to kill her?
Claire’s expression turned icy for a moment before she spoke carefully.
“There would be no reason for the Duchess to feel jealous over a mere prostitute who sells her body.”
Is that so? In other words, she wasn’t even worth killing? Well, if it had been a son, he might have threatened the position of heir. But a half-breed Ashtar carrying a prostitute’s blood? Katarina’s sons already held firm positions, so Lily could simply be used as a tool for a political marriage.
The real issue was this.
“You’re saying someone with a body like that gave birth to Lily with her pathetic figure?”
Could body type be subject to atavism?
From what the documents said, there had been no other notable events until she came into contact with the Ashtar family.
“There appears to have been no other contact.”
That seemed to be the case, but there was one contradiction in these records.
“No. There is.”
“Pardon?”
About halfway through the documents, I found something interesting.
“It says here that several years ago, she suddenly began gaining popularity among the villagers.”
At some point, Lily had become the village’s beloved figure. The report even noted that she did many good deeds and that simply seeing her brought joy to people.
“Couldn’t it simply be that she had a naturally good personality?”
Sure. There were always one or two people who were strangely likable for no clear reason. Or the opposite—people you instinctively disliked and wanted to avoid. Usually, those judgments were based on appearance.
But not in her case.
I shrugged.
“I have a hunch. It says she suddenly started gaining popularity at a certain point. With that personality, there’s no way she could win people’s hearts so easily, and her appearance isn’t the type that would make her popular either.”
No matter how rural the villagers were, if her mother had even an average figure, they wouldn’t have been charmed by a flat chest and a washboard stomach.
“Then…”
I pointed to a section of the document. It felt like something was missing. As if a chunk of information in the middle had been erased. The sudden shift where Lily became famous among the villagers. It was suspicious no matter how you looked at it.
I instinctively knew that something had happened to Lily at this point.
“From then on, rumors spread that Lily was kind, and her mother contacted the Ashtar family to help Lily find her real father.”
“Yes.”
Right. This was where the problem began.
“The assassination guild investigated this. There shouldn’t be any gaps, right?”
“Of course not.”
Katarina’s assassination guild possessed exceptional intelligence capabilities, so the information should be solid. If she was so confident, there was only one explanation.
“Then there’s no record of what Lily actually did?”
“Ah.”
There was absolutely nothing about how she had gained such popularity or what events had occurred. That was the biggest issue.
“Meeting with a monster would have been done in secret, so it’s unlikely she was caught. If she had been, she would have been accused of colluding with monsters and met her father in a very different way.”
“Indeed. Then at this exact point…”
Yes. That was exactly when she had encountered the succubus.
“She came into contact with a succubus.”
I was certain of it. My instincts were screaming. This wasn’t just a wild guess. I had spent years in a party with a hero whose brain was located in his dick. I had seen this kind of thing countless times in the Kingdom.
There had been women who wanted to become as beautiful as the prettiest girls and contracted with a succubus to bewitch the men of their village or win people’s hearts. There had also been women who simply wanted to become lustful succubi themselves, contracted with one, slept with countless men, and eventually turned into a succubus. In both cases, they had suddenly gained popularity at some point. Later, it was revealed that contact with a succubus had been the cause.
“But it’s already been several years. If that were the case, shouldn’t Lady Lily have become a succubus by now?”
Normally, yes. Even if the contractor resisted, continuously using a succubus’s powers would eventually cause them to fall and transform into one. That was the usual outcome.
“What do you think the conditions are for becoming a succubus?”
“To become a succubus, one must form a contract with a succubus and then use its powers to engage in sexual relations with men.”
Right. Everyone knew that much. The problem was that Lily couldn’t do that. She probably had no intention of doing so in the first place. There must have been some kind of deal with the succubus.
I neatly folded the documents and placed them in a drawer.
“Setting aside her appearance, if she had that ability, even Lily might have managed it. But her goal from the beginning was to enter the ducal household and steal my position.”
She got engaged to the Crown Prince, seduced the young noblemen and turned them into idiots, and used them to pressure me. For someone with her limited brain capacity, that was probably the best scheme she could come up with. Even a caterpillar knows how to roll.
In reality, Lily had essentially used a succubus that was desperately trapped within the Empire. She had turned the tables on it.
“Lily is using the succubus in reverse.”
“Is that even possible?”
Normally, no. But Lily’s stupidity, the succubus’s desperation, the Empire’s male population’s reaction during the state of war against the Demon King—all of it had combined to force the succubus to choose an idiot like Lily.
“That girl is too stupid to have done it on purpose. But the result is that she has. Either the succubus who granted her the power is also an idiot, or it had no other choice but Lily. That’s why it’s been sticking with her all this time.”
Since Lily was now in the Empire’s capital, Aetherina, the succubus was likely somewhere inside the capital or just on its outskirts. If we searched thoroughly, we should be able to find it. From the succubus’s perspective, Lily was probably its last hope. The fact that it had approved of Lily’s trip to Aetherina suggested that Lily now held the upper hand in their relationship.
“Then it’s confirmed that a succubus is involved.”
“Probably. If we release our people near the capital, we should catch one succubus.”
It was certain. We would definitely catch it.
“No way…”
“It’s true. Just thoroughly search the damp, shady areas on the outskirts.”
At the level of the assassination guild, they could probably crush a succubus that had been starving for essence for so long.
“What about the slums…?”
It wouldn’t be in the slums. If it were, those people wouldn’t have been quietly following me.
“I have connections in the slums, and there’s no succubus there.”
If a succubus had entered the slums, rumors would have spread long ago. A succubus that had been hiding inside the Empire for several years wouldn’t be that careless. Unless it was on the verge of death and had no choice but to act recklessly.
The succubus wouldn’t have dared to touch the men of the capital so brazenly.
“Search anyway.”
“Understood.”
Claire bowed her head politely and withdrew.
I stared out the window, lost in thought. When I really thought about it, the answer was surprisingly simple.
No matter how foolish and ignorant they were, there was no way the young noblemen would have followed a girl like that without thinking or openly antagonized me. Even if the young ladies lived in their own terrifying world, the young lords had their pride. While living this life, I had also studied up on the nobility.
No matter how much of a villainess someone was, unless they had committed actual treason against the Empire, the nobles couldn’t openly show such hostility. That was simply the reality of imperial noble society, which was obsessed with bloodlines and etiquette because their ancestors were nomadic tribes that the Empire once dismissed as barbarians.
The fact that they had mindlessly antagonized and attacked me meant something had already taken hold of them.
Only now did everything click into place. No matter how badly I had ruined my personal relationships in the past, the reason the young lords had acted so particularly stupidly was because Lily had been pulling the strings behind the scenes.
“In the end, I was too naive because I didn’t know enough about the nobility.”
Even now, she seemed intent on tormenting me. Lily. I have no intention of going easy on you. After all, I was never much of a good person to begin with.