The Hero's Party and Claire
The Hero Party had been ambushed by dark mages several times near the Great Forest. After countless battles, they had finally managed to slip into the elves' territory deep within the woods, where they could at last catch their breath.
“We’ve been through quite a lot lately, haven’t we?”
The Hero called his party members together. But today, there was one extra face. It was the person who had saved the Hero during the recent clash with the dark mages.
Ella and Cyria found it rather uncomfortable having some random human who wasn’t even a proper party member sitting in on this. It made sense—they might owe the stranger for pulling them out of danger, but they still had no idea who she was. The Hero’s Party was meant to be the chosen Hero and his trusted companions, saving the world. They couldn’t just let some mysterious figure in a hooded robe sit so close.
“Right. And it’s all thanks to someone even weaker than our old mage.”
Ella shot the remark straight at the Hero. If they hadn’t reached the Great Forest, who knew what kind of attack would have hit them next.
“Let’s drop that topic already. From the start, both you and Cyria only offered yourselves because you had your own goals, didn’t you? Thanks to that, you clouded my eyes and ears.”
Honestly, Eugene the Hero had always figured that Ella and Cyria followed him because they wanted something from him. He was the Hero, after all. There were women everywhere who wanted to cling to him. In some villages, wives had been offered up willingly, or women had betrayed their husbands just to escape poverty and throw themselves at him. Every single time, he’d had to listen to Noah’s nagging.
—Come on, if they’re throwing their bodies at me on their own, isn’t it only polite to accept?
—Do you have any idea how exhausting it is cleaning up after you every damn time?
Those were memories, in their own way. He’d worked the mage hard, sure, but Noah had been like a mother chasing after a walking disaster of a child. After Noah declared he was kicking the entire Hero Party out and vanished, those incidents had stopped completely.
Listening to all this had clearly pissed Ella off. She raised her voice.
“Why are you blaming us for that?”
Ella’s face twisted into a scowl. She was supposed to be of noble elven blood from the Great Forest, yet here she was being treated like some common whore by a completely incompetent Hero. It was ridiculous.
Eugene glanced at Cyria, silently asking her to calm Ella down, but Cyria had been ignoring him for a long time now. If that was how they wanted to play it, he had his own methods.
Eugene turned to the gloomy woman in the black robe who had been following them lately and had joined this meeting as well.
“Hmm. Then let’s ask the mage who will officially be joining the party this time. What do you think?”
At the Hero’s question, the woman opened her mouth as if she had been waiting for it.
“Honestly, as a fellow woman, I’d like to take your side if I could. But usually, when men fall apart, it’s because of women.”
The Hero nodded at the robed woman’s words. Yes. None of this was his fault. It was all because of these useless women who were only good for their bodies.
Ella and Cyria immediately shifted their hostility from the Hero to the gloomy woman.
“So you’re saying it’s our fault?”
“Honestly, how much have the two of you been covering the Hero’s eyes and ears?”
She drove the nail in without the slightest hesitation. Ella and Cyria’s faces flushed bright red.
“How dare you say that?”
“Exactly! That’s going way too far!”
Both women growled at the robed figure. Sure, even if every word was technically true, what right did this complete outsider have to butt in?
“Can you really say with confidence that it’s not?”
“That’s…”
“I’ve noticed you two are really good at shifting blame. It’s like you think the Hero should be able to do everything by himself.”
Ella and Cyria caught a strangely familiar scent coming from this robed person. The gloomy robe, the female voice, and that familiar way of speaking… it was almost like—
—You crazy bitches. The Hero’s useless, sure, but what the hell are you doing blocking his path?
—Why should we have to clean up things you could handle alone?
—Right. If he can’t do it, it’s the mage’s fault.
—Who the hell are you two sluts shifting blame onto?
Thinking about it, the current situation felt eerily similar. Maybe because she was a woman, but aside from defending the Hero, the way she blamed them was exactly the same. She even smelled like that gloomy mage.
Because of that, Ella and Cyria decided to put up a timid resistance.
“Isn’t that just obvious? Right, Cyria?”
“Y-yeah. After all, if he’s the chosen Hero…”
Just as Cyria was about to back Ella up, the gloomy woman in the robe shook her head. What they said wasn’t entirely wrong. The chosen Hero was supposed to be strong enough to stand alone. But according to ancient records, there was room to refute the two women.
“Looking at the records of Heroes left behind since ancient times, a true Hero is one who combines his strength with his companions. That attitude of dumping everything on others from the start is already completely rotten. At first you did it to the mage Noah, and then—”
“The Hero relied on the mage too!”
Of all things, she brought up the mage. The robed woman scoffed at the elf.
“When someone keeps wiggling her hips and tempting him right beside him, how do you expect a healthy man to react? In the end, men are only as good as the women around them.”
“Yes. Yes. Exactly that.”
The Hero nodded vigorously. She was right. How much had the elf and the saintess tempted him? As a man, holding back would make him a eunuch.
“The two people sent to help the Hero instead blocked his growth? Wow. There’s just no fixing this.”
This woman was clearly a professional when it came to mocking people.
“Ugh. Then what makes you so special? You’re just a Hero fan who followed after him, aren’t you?”
“Maybe my brother got tired of women like you and left the party.”
Brother? What the hell was that about? Did this robed woman’s brother have some connection to the Hero’s Party? If so, wasn’t this an openly malicious approach?
“Brother?”
“I am the Archmage Noel, younger sister of the mage Noah!”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Noah’s younger sister? They had never heard that Noah even had a sister. The two women, who had always been nagged by Noah, turned to the Hero with uneasy expressions.
“Hero. Is… is what she’s saying true?”
“It can’t be, right?”
If she really was Noah’s sister, how horrifying would that be?
“It’s true. Noel is Noah’s younger sister. Her clothing resembles that of the minority clan from the Land of Destruction, and so does her use of magic. And considering she’s the one who’s been saving us all this time, doesn’t it make sense?”
The nightmare of the mage was beginning again.
“Noel. Then what should we do now?”
“I believe it would be best to head to the Empire and seek help from a new saintess.”
“Let’s do that.”
Eugene the Hero didn’t particularly suspect his new companion. When you thought about it, the only ally they had right now was this mage. They had no choice if they wanted to keep the party going.
Claire was suspicious of my true identity. Well, after everything that happened, it was only natural she would be. Since she was from the assassination guild, she was bound to find out eventually anyway. There was no need to tell her the full truth, but mixing in half-truths wouldn’t hurt.
“Hmm. I don’t want to be suspected in Ashtar either, so to put it simply… side effects from five years ago?”
“Then the events from back then…”
“Everything before I was enchanted is true. The minority clan living in the Land of Destruction helped lift the dark magic, but because of the aftereffects, I became easily enchanted. By the time I came to my senses, I had already become like this.”
“I see.”
In short, it meant that Olivia had been out of her right mind from the moment she was rescued from the Land of Destruction until recently.
“There’s no reason for you to look so depressed, Claire. If anything, it’s thanks to that that the current Olivia exists.”
“I understand, roughly. However, you will need to speak with the Duchess later. She suffered greatly because of what happened back then.”
The head of that assassination guild? I didn’t think Katarina would go that far. If she truly loved her child, the first Olivia wouldn’t have died like that.
“Oh. That’s unexpected.”
“Pardon?”
“No, it’s just that I thought noble young ladies were usually treated as nothing more than tools.”
“Is that so?”
Claire wore a bitter expression. At least from what I knew, that was how it worked. Any nation where a monarchy and nobility existed ultimately prioritized their family lines above all else.
“To be honest, if I hadn’t become a saintess, and everything had gone according to Lily’s wishes and ended in a bad ending… would I have been okay?”
“My lady.”
“The one thrown into the river might have been me instead of Lily.”
“That’s…”
It would be hard to deny. If the original me hadn’t appeared and the first Olivia had continued on, it was obvious she would have been purged sooner or later.
“You can’t say with certainty that it wouldn’t have happened. Can you?”
“My lady, there seems to be a misunderstanding here.”
I could understand Claire’s position well enough. No servant would want to hear their master being criticized by her own daughter.
“Misunderstanding or not, it doesn’t matter. In the end, reality is what counts, isn’t it? Anyway, I am a saintess now, and I am cooperating with the family. That’s enough. Don’t say anything more.”
Regardless, I was a saintess. Moreover, I was gradually building influence within the church. I had resolved the Lily incident, and all the families that could have checked Ashtar had collapsed. In the current situation, Olivia the saintess would be an incredibly tempting card for House Ashtar.
“……Understood. Then, ultimately, what is it that you wish to achieve, my lady?”
What I ultimately wanted to do, huh.
“What do you think it is?”
Why was she suddenly asking something like this?
“You said you are cooperating with the family. That means it isn’t just for the family’s sake. There must be something you wish to gain, correct?”
“Ah, there is.”
She was quite sharp. As expected of someone from the assassination guild.
“Could you tell me what it is?”
“Even if I tell you, it’ll be hard for you to help.”
Ultimately, my goal was to suppress the Four Heavenly Kings who were running even more wild now that the Demon King was dead. In the long run, I wanted to leave my name as a Great Mage while living as Olivia.
“The Duchess might be able to help.”
Why was Claire being so persistent today? At this point, since the Demon King was completely gone, I had planned to quietly live as Olivia while slowly taking down the Four Heavenly Kings. But if I openly said I was going after them, she would definitely find it strange. It wasn’t as if the Empire’s forces were so pathetic that a duke’s daughter needed to step forward.
“If I had to say… finding Noah.”
I decided to give her an impossible task for now.
“Noah… the one who went missing after fighting the Demon King…”
“That’s right.”
As far as the public knew, Noah was dead. Or rather, opinions in academic circles were still quite divided. The reason no clear conclusion had been reached was because Noah had been the Sword Saint, Divine Archer, and High Priest. People wondered if someone like that could truly have died fighting the Demon King.
“So the rumors circulating in the world were true after all.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That Noah is the one Lady Olivia secretly admires.”
What the fuck?
“The source of the rumor is…”
“The puppet mage from the Magic Tower, Seria.”
That woman must really want to die.
“It’s not like that at all.”
“When I look at other young ladies around your age, they all talk about which family’s young master they like, or how wonderful the Crown Prince is. The fact that you show no interest in men at all—isn’t that the reason?”
Noah was me, and Olivia was also me. I wasn’t going to do something as insane as liking myself. I wasn’t a narcissist.
“Stop talking nonsense.”
“Then I shall look into information regarding Sir Noah.”
That damn Claire. She definitely thought I had feelings for Noah. This was exactly why women were so annoying. They always tried to tie everything back to romance.
But talking to men was impossible since I was a young lady, and all the friends I could have made from similar social circles had been wiped out. I had to act with proper noble etiquette. And of course, everyone around me would try to link it back to romance again.
“Is the Saintess present?”
Just as my conversation with Claire was ending, a holy knight came looking for me.
“What is it?”
“A messenger has arrived from the imperial palace. His Majesty wishes to see you, Saintess.”
The Emperor?