The Saintess on Display
Ceres frowned, her eyes narrowing. As Lilias’s naked body swam into view, Dain squeezed his eyes shut again.
Lilias grabbed his shoulder and spun him around, then strode straight to the bed and picked up the robe she had been wearing. The spot where her bare skin had touched the fabric was still warm.
“What are you…?”
Thanks to a warrior’s spatial awareness, Dain managed to drape the robe perfectly over Lilias’s shoulders even with his eyes closed.
“…You really are something else.”
Was she mocking him for being unable to eat what was offered? Dain cautiously opened his eyes. Instead of contempt, Lilias was smiling with faintly flushed cheeks.
“Yes, yes… Wait, today?”
“Ah…”
His head throbbed. If she came to him like this every single day, could he really endure it?
At Dain’s heavy sigh, Lilias let out a small laugh and began fastening the front of her robe.
“I… I have—”
“No, never mind.”
I have someone I love. The words died in his throat.
Lilias, now wrapped in her robe, grumbled. Even her petulant tone carried a strange sensuality.
“No, it’s not that… You were truly beautiful…”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Only after confirming the mage was fully dressed did Dain finally meet her eyes. Lilias flashed a mischievous grin, then tugged her robe open again, baring her breasts.
“Ah!”
“Your jokes go too far…”
At last Lilias left the room. Drained from the very start of the morning, Dain clutched his knees. He would rather deal with the loud, talkative Rillen. Handling a woman like this mage was far more difficult. The image of her naked body kept flashing through his mind, and he struggled to remember the tasks he had planned for the day.
Review the surrounding geography, check the patrol routes… confirm the number of guards on duty.
It was work Gardan should have handled, but with a shortage of high-ranking officers, Dain had gladly accepted the request. Even without being the Hero or the Saintess, it felt good to have a clear role at this outpost.
“All right. Let’s go.”
When Dain opened the door, a familiar pair of white boots caught his eye.
Huh? These are…
“Ceres?”
“Dain…”
The Saintess looking up at him had her lips pressed tightly together, trembling. Dain froze, unsure what to do at her obvious distress. Ceres turned her head and watched Lilias descend the stairs with quick, light steps.
“Did Lilias just… come out of your room?”
“No, that’s not—”
It was a misunderstanding. He could explain everything. But the moment he saw Ceres’s expression, his mouth sealed shut. Her eyes were filled with reproach—not directed at him, but at herself.
The previous night, after taking Zarco’s cock deep inside her and climaxing violently, Ceres had staggered back toward her own room. The soldiers’ barracks were below, and the upper levels of the still-unfinished outpost were empty of both people and light.
“Yes…”
Rillen had cheerfully attached herself to Ceres. Her face was bright and lively, as if she hadn’t just been moaning and writhing in ecstasy moments earlier.
“…Ugh…”
She couldn’t deny it. Ever since losing her virginity in Hargon, there hadn’t been a single night she hadn’t done it.
“…”
“…Haa. Um…”
Ceres’s mouth stopped moving. What she needed to say right now wasn’t an explanation about her Authority—it was to silence Rillen. She had brought the only woman in the unit along without much thought, but she had to prevent this from spreading through Rillen and reaching Dain’s ears.
“Haa, that’s a relief.”
Rillen looked at Ceres with a puzzled expression.
“…Did you enjoy it, Rillen?”
Watching Rillen speak such shameful words without a hint of embarrassment, Ceres instead glanced around to make sure no one was listening. Suddenly she was curious. How had this woman lived that she could accept such lust and express it so freely?
“Rillen…?”
“…Have you… done it a lot…?”
She worried her question might sound rude, but Rillen answered boldly.
At the blunt word, Ceres’s face turned bright red. She could only nod, unable to speak.
“No, that’s not… Rillen, you’re beautiful. Your body is so firm and…”
Ceres ran a hand over her own stomach. Compared to Rillen, who didn’t have an ounce of fat, she felt like a pig.
“I-I don’t really…”
Seeing Rillen’s bright smile, Ceres found herself smiling too.
Rillen clapped her hands together as if she had forgotten something.
“What is it?”
The Prayer of Purity was something female priests recited every night before sleep. It wasn’t purely for religious reasons. The Holy Church of the Kingdom demanded that priests keep both body and mind clean, but it did not forbid sexual relations. During the endless years of war, a pregnant priestess was a serious loss. The prayer had been created for that reason and had since become an old custom. The crude joke the old men used to call it was the “contraceptive prayer.”
“Ah…”
Her lower abdomen throbbed again. After finishing the prayer and sending Rillen away, Ceres could not fall asleep. She almost missed the time when she had lost her mind completely. Not only had she taken Zarco’s cock with her own hand while straddling his waist, she had clung to him and shaken her hips. The lingering warmth of that embrace still remained.
I only did it because I was thinking of Dain… That must be it.
She slapped her own cheeks, trying to pull herself together. As the Saintess, if sleeping with the Hero was unavoidable, at least her heart must not yield. It was only natural that she had thought of Dain. Enduring. That was Ceres’s true task—not as the Saintess, but as herself—until the Demon King was slain and peace returned. As long as Dain remained, she could endure. The promise that she would wait for him, the vow she held deep in her bones—if Dain also remembered it and stayed in that place, she could keep going.
Thank you, Dain.
Imagining Dain smiling at her eased her heavy heart a little, but sleep still would not come. In the end, Ceres spent the night with her eyes wide open until dawn. When she left her room to wash her face, she heard the faint rustling of Dain preparing inside his room and smiled. After washing up, she thought, all her worries would vanish the moment she saw him. Maybe she should knock on his door after getting cleaned up? With a light heart, she climbed the stairs.
And there she came face to face with Lilias stepping out of Dain’s room.
“Lilias…?”
Lilias approached with a smile. Her slightly flushed face and the strangely sensual sway of her hips filled Ceres with growing unease.
The top button of her robe had come loose, and the front fell open. Between the folds, Lilias’s pale, almost translucent naked body was revealed. Her beautiful breasts and bright red nipples were already erect.
Lilias slowly fastened her robe and brushed past her, but Ceres could not move.
Why was she dressed like that… Why… in Dain’s room…
Her feet, which had barely managed to move, stopped in front of Dain’s door. The door she couldn’t bring herself to knock on opened, and when Dain’s face appeared, her chest ached as if pierced by thorns. As she watched Lilias descend the stairs, the panic on Dain’s face was unmistakable. She wanted to snap at him right then and there, but the words wouldn’t come.
She had no right. Not when she herself mixed her body with the Hero every night and found comfort in his embrace. She felt sorry for using him as her crutch without permission, yet the sense of betrayal still burned with anger.
It’s not too late yet.
The precious hope she had been clutching shattered before her eyes. A single tear rolled down her cheek and fell to the floor. Ceres wiped her eyes and ran.
“Ceres! Wait!”
The usual Dain would never have done this, but startled by her tears, the warrior’s boot caught on the threshold and he stumbled.
“Ceres! Hold on! Ceres!”
All he could do was watch her retreating figure grow smaller.
Knock, knock. Someone rapped on the door to Lilias’s room.
It was the leader of the tailors. The seamstress entered with a subtle expression and bowed.
“Um, the Hero requested a new Saintess outfit. This is the design he asked for…”
She placed the sketch on the table and glanced around the room with an embarrassed look.
“…The Hero did?”
“I see.”
Lilias smiled at the intriguing design and tapped the table with interest.
The unexpected reply from the royal court mage left the seamstress speechless.
“U-understood…”
The seamstress bowed deeply and closed the door behind her. She scratched her head, still staring at the design and wondering if this was truly appropriate. Soon, Lilias’s laughter echoed from inside the room, and the woman hurried away.