You Thought You'd Be Fine?
You thought you'd be perfectly fine? Words cannot be taken back once spoken. And the whole time, even though she made that contract before she ever met me, she speaks as if she only contracted after seeing me. Well, that's it. Time to stop dragging this out.
“All right, then.” I snapped my fingers lightly. The church’s holy knights poured in. No matter how rotten the imperial church had become, its holy knights were still hand-picked elites. They would at least extend Lily a measure of courtesy.
“You called for us, Saintess?”
Their impeccable politeness pleased me. The position of Saintess really did carry weight.
“Right, then. Knights? Lily Lapa Ashtar has committed the grievous crime of contracting with a succubus in the imperial capital, corrupting Attelina Academy—the empire’s premier educational institution—and tarnishing the empire’s honor. Take her away. Claire, you handle Nora.”
“Yes, Saintess.”
Lily was hauled off by the holy knights while Nora was led away by Claire. Unlike Nora, who followed meekly while holding Claire’s hand, Lily thrashed and screamed until the very end.
“This is too much! It’s unfair! We’re both his daughters! Why does my sister get all the love while I have to live like this, ignored and discarded? Why did Father leave me in that place!”
That’s because you’re laboring under a serious misunderstanding. Father probably never even knew your mother was pregnant.
“If you’re that jealous, you should’ve been born from our mother instead.”
“I hate you, sister!”
Sorry, but the person you should hate has been dead a long time. Should I give Lily one last parting gift?
I stepped close and whispered softly into her ear.
“If your goal was to get rid of Olivia Lapa Ashtar, then you’ve succeeded.”
“What are you—”
Yes. What that means is—
“Do I still look like Olivia to you?”
I stared straight into her eyes.
“Wh-what are you talking about…”
“Thanks to you turning Olivia into a villainess obsessed with the crown prince and tormenting her little sister, the real Olivia killed herself.”
“!!”
She clearly hadn’t known. The way her face crumpled was deeply satisfying. On some instinctive level she must have realized it—the woman standing before her wasn’t the one she had wanted to destroy.
“Goodbye, then.”
“Everyone! That’s not my sister! She’s a demon! The thing inside that body is the real demon! Your Highness! Please save me! Your Highness!”
Lily pointed at me and shrieked. A demon, huh? If we’re talking about bloodlines, she’s not entirely wrong. People from the Land of Destruction are said to be descendants of god-slayers, after all.
“Lily. If you are innocent, you will be released.”
“Your Highness! You mustn’t believe her!”
I never expected trust from him anyway.
“Poor Lily. Still lying even now. I truly hope you reform someday.”
“Your Highness!”
With that final cry, Lily was dragged away by the holy knights. Poor Lily. That’s why people should know when to quit.
Professor Adran left with the holy knights as well, leaving the room in absolute silence. The fact that no one had tried to stop Lily’s condemnation proved the charm had been broken. A few of them kept stealing glances at me. The quiet grew oppressive, so I decided to break it.
“Have you all come to your senses now?”
“……You were affected too?”
Aslan was the first to respond. There was a high chance the original Olivia had been affected as well. It was unrealistic to think Lily hadn’t touched this body at all.
“Yes. I became the villainess obsessed with Your Highness and tormenting my little sister. That’s probably why Lily couldn’t charm the commoner students.”
The calculations made sense. Lily had borrowed power for years and had already become a master in that field.
“……I have no face to show you.”
Everyone except Yuria hung their heads.
“It would be a mistake to think this gathering is simply about condemning Lily.”
“What do you mean?”
What do I mean? It means every last one of you is about to get shredded. If I listed all your crimes, we’d be here forever. In other words, this is a place to judge all of you, not just Lily.
“At least Lily had the excuse that she deliberately used charm magic. But you are students of Attelina. Nobles who received private tutoring from a young age. How could none of you notice a succubus’s charm?”
“That’s—”
That’s nothing. This incident had laid the empire’s weakness bare. The nobles had proven their incompetence, while the commoner students—who had outwardly resisted the charm—would now rise in their place.
“If I hadn’t become the Saintess, what would have happened to Attelina? Think about it. The empire has long been supported by nobles who graduated from Attelina. Now imagine those same charmed individuals later entering the military or politics. If one of them even became empress, the entire country would dance in Lily’s palm. Many nobles who favored her would have turned against the empire.”
I’ve seen plenty of countries collapse because of women’s skirts. Long before the empire was founded, another nation had been devoured by that very weakness. That was how the Armenia imperial family came to exist in the first place.
“Olivia. That’s too much of an assumption!”
Ah, it was Railer. I gave a scornful laugh at his words.
“Can you swear it’s not true? You, who kept falling for Lily’s tricks? You, who joined other swordsmanship students to try to drive me out?”
“That’s not—”
The way his face twisted while he failed to deny it only proved I was right. The empire would split apart in an instant.
“Reflect on your actions. This isn’t an age of peace. The Demon King may be dead, but the Four Heavenly Kings’ offensives grow fiercer by the day. And yet in the imperial capital—in Attelina, no less—you fell to a succubus using half-baked powers. None of you deserve to be your family’s heirs or graduate and rise to prominence.”
Honestly, if these idiots were left to run the empire later, it would be a disaster. Just imagining it was horrifying.
“I’m sorry.”
“You shouldn’t be apologizing to me. You should be sincerely apologizing and reflecting to the commoners who broke their backs paying taxes for you. If these are the empire’s future leaders, how will the empire’s citizens and neighboring nations see us?”
There were many small countries around the empire. What would they think if they knew? They’d laugh at us.
“Your words go too far.”
The model student with the glasses had a face I’d seen often.
“Oh? The heir of the Prassion family, isn’t it? Do you really think you’re in any position to criticize me? The rumor has already spread among the commoner students. The eldest son of the Prassion family brought Lily flowers every single day.”
Rohas Prassion. Son of Roice Prassion, the current Minister of Administration. He had shown exceptional accounting talent from a young age and helped manage his father’s territory early on. Even someone like him had fallen to Lily’s charm.
“That’s—!”
“What? Are you going to claim the rumor is false?”
The eldest son of the Prassion family couldn’t offer a single rebuttal. Which meant the rumor wasn’t entirely baseless. Even if he had brought flowers out of goodwill, how would it look to others?
“We were all wrong. The student council will officially apologize to the commoner students as well.”
Ah, I’d gotten worked up again. My mind kept slipping into Olivia’s habits. I had decided to use this body and become Olivia, but I had no desire to inherit the grudges of a heartbroken young lady. I needed to pull myself together.
I calmed my emotions.
“Since Your Highness has spoken, I will not press the matter further.”
“You’re withdrawing faster than I expected.”
There was no reason to stay any longer. The more time I spent with them, the more it felt like I was mocking fellow victims simply because my revenge had succeeded.
“Of course. I am the Saintess now. Since you are already reflecting on your mistakes, I trust you will handle the rest appropriately without further words from me.”
The commoner students had witnessed the condemnation. I didn’t need to lift another finger. I was genuinely curious to see how they would react.
To calm my mind, I left the church and walked around the grounds for a while. My thoughts kept drifting toward Olivia’s, so I needed to regulate my emotions. The holy knights guarding the church bowed to me. What they saw wasn’t the great mage Noah, nor the dead Olivia. They saw only the empire’s first Saintess, Olivia, who had successfully exposed the Lily incident.
“You should have lived to see this outcome, Olivia.”
I still didn’t fully understand. Could a dead body truly accept another soul? Or had the living body received the dead Noah’s soul? If so, was I moving this body in place of the Olivia who must be somewhere else? Or perhaps she was still inside this body.
“Olivia.”
When I turned my head, the crown prince was there. His eyes looked clearer than before. It seemed he had followed me.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“I’m truly sorry for everything.”
He bowed his head and asked for forgiveness with genuine sincerity. Rolling around with the hero party had sharpened his ability to read people whether he liked it or not. The crown prince’s eyes showed true remorse. It was an apology from the heart.
But it wasn’t meant for me.
“Mm, it doesn’t really matter anymore.”
I felt nothing. Because this apology wasn’t mine to receive. The person who should have received it no longer existed.
“I see. It must still be difficult to forgive.”
“It’s not that it’s difficult. It simply has no meaning now.”
Olivia was already dead. Only someone wearing her shell remained. The original owner of this body was gone. Yet the body itself hadn’t died, so I couldn’t even visit a grave to pray.
“What will happen to Lily?”
“Don’t tell me you still have feelings for her?”
If so, that would truly be legendary. Love that sprouted from brainwashing?
“That’s not it. She’s still an Ashtar like you. Both of you were once my fiancées, so I’m simply asking.”
Right. As her former fiancé, he would be curious.
“Even as an Ashtar, the best outcome would be confinement in a monastery. The worst would be execution. My father is someone who clearly separates public and private matters. However, considering public opinion, he will likely choose the monastery.”
That was how noble society worked. I didn’t particularly want to kill Lily either. It was far more satisfying to let her live and suffer a lifetime of ridicule and misery. Why kill her when I could torment her forever?
“I see.”
“Do you have anything else to say?”
Why was he still standing here?
“I intend to relinquish my position as crown prince.”
“Pardon?”
Relinquish the crown prince position? After I went through all the trouble of dealing with the nobles, this madman was saying something like this? I hadn’t done it for him, but shouldn’t he be seizing this opportunity? He could kneel before the commoners, apologize, and resume leading Attelina.
“You once said it was a small empire. Yet while I loudly proclaimed I would govern for the common people, I only associated with nobles. I watched their moods. In the end, the nobles of Attelina will participate in the future council or support it, so I believed I needed close ties with them to achieve the politics I wanted. That was my judgment.”
“Since imperial authority is weak, that was probably the easiest method.”
To maintain a vast empire, the imperial family had abandoned centralized power. Thanks to that, the empire had survived under a feudal framework until now. Though that very framework was now shaking because Attelina’s nobles—the cornerstone of feudalism—had failed spectacularly.
If he had kept those nobles firmly in the palm of his hand, the crown prince’s approach wouldn’t have been bad. If he could manipulate foolish nobles at will, politics for the common people might have been possible. The problem was that the crown prince lacked that level of ability. In a way, it was partly my fault. Uprooting Lily had been unavoidable. Better for the nobles to shrink than for the empire to collapse.