The Iron Princess

"Th-that is... th-this place is... L-Lord Asmodeus's..."

Asmodeus...? A foreign god? For one who commands this much underworld energy, there is scarcely a name I do not know... Hmm. Just where has this creature landed itself?

The dark mage stammered and stumbled backward.

Yet deep in those gleaming eyes, greed still burned.

The phenomenon defied all reason, but that woman's body had surely reached its limit in the battle just now. This aura might be nothing more than an illusion—or a final, desperate thrash.

One clean hit. That was all it would take to claim that maddeningly beautiful, mysterious body for himself forever.

And the woman before him seemed distracted, lost in thought.

In the end, the dark mage made the worst decision of his life—one that would sever his own thread of fate.

"F-find out in hell, you monster!!!"

He wrung out every last scrap of dark energy and life force he possessed and hurled a colossal spear of black flame—hundreds of vengeful spirits fused into one—straight at her.

It was a strike so destructive the very air warped around it.

But Bari Gongju neither dodged nor flinched.

Instead, she clicked her tongue softly, as if the whole display were laughably absurd.

How dare a mere worm.

That was all she said.

She lifted one long, slender finger and flicked it lightly.

Snap—!

With a crisp crack of friction, the massive black-flame spear surging toward her like a tidal ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wave fractured midair as if it were a pane of glass, and vanished.

And the aftershock did not stop there—it slammed straight into the dark mage.

"Wha...?"

The moment the stupid sound left his mouth—

BOOOOOOM———!!!

There was not even a death scream.

A Preacher-rank dark mage who had commanded an entire regional temple was swept away by a wave of overwhelming divine power and erased so completely that not even dust remained.

Ting-ting-ti-di-di-ding—

On the floor, only the shattered remnants of his horned staff clattered down, ringing with a clear, almost cheerful sound.

An ending far too hollow.

How dare such vermin.

Having wiped him out, she looked down at her own trembling palm and furrowed her brow.

Tsk... Did I get a little too worked up?

The body of Dokyung, into which she had descended, was shuddering like an aspen in a storm.

I only came out to see a familiar face after so long, and yet this vessel is... Hm...?

Only then did Bari Gongju look properly at the body she possessed.

Wait...? This ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is not a woman's body, is it...?

The Dokyung she knew had been a sturdy man. Bari Gongju herself had no idea what to make of this.

Heavens. How wondrous. I am clearly possessing this form, and yet there is no dissonance between soul and spirit...

She would have liked to examine it further, but every bone and vessel in Dokyung's body was screaming.

Hmph. Nothing for it. I can hardly leave this life hanging by a thread in a place like this. I shall withdraw for today.

With those words, the vast power that had wrapped around Dokyung receded like a tide.

How much time had passed?

"Saintess!!!"

Through the haze of half-consciousness, someone's urgent cry reached me.

Wh-what? What happened? Did I pass out?

Nothing made sense. Into my blurred vision, the tear-streaked face of a brown-haired woman took shape on my retinas.

It was the same brown-haired woman I had forced to run earlier.

Thank goodness... she made it out...

But something was wrong. My mouth wouldn't open, and my body wouldn't move. I literally did not have the strength to twitch a single finger.

What the hell is...

As I tried to piece the situation together, dozens of ironclad guards poured into the ruined space with torches held high.

They called the guard!

And at their head stood a woman—cascading silver hair, a beauty so cold it could cut, clad in silver knight armor that shone like moonlight.

"Is that the one... the so-called Saintess of which you spoke?"

"Y-yes, Your Highness the Princess!! Please—please, save the Saintess!!"

Princess...?

What on earth was going on?

The eyes of the woman they called Princess swept carefully over me, then over the destroyed temple, and back again.

In a low, settled voice, she issued her order to the knights escorting her.

"Escort her. We will hear the tale upon our return."

Those were the last words I heard before consciousness slipped away again.

Second daughter of House Arthea, the ducal house that guarded the North, and commander of the house's Second Order—the Lupel Knights—Lucia Arthea.

She narrowed her brow as she looked down at the report on her office desk.

"Is every word of this report... true?"

"Yes, Commander. Our knights scoured the site thoroughly and conducted individual cross-examinations of all seven rescued women. Their testimonies align completely."

At her vice-commander's reply, Lucia stared out the window as if she could not believe it.

"...Have you contacted the Holy Theocracy? A Saintess of that appearance, working miracles of that caliber—the Church could not possibly be unaware of her."

"About that... We sent an emergency transmission to the Papal Office, but among the Saintesses currently registered with the Church, not a single one matches that description. The Church has instead reacted with alarm, asking whether she might be a heretic."

"Understood. You may go."

"Yes, ma'am!"

Last night, while on patrol of the outer districts, they had encountered seven half-naked, bloodied women.

The women claimed they had been abducted by dark mages of the Cult of Lust—followers of Asmodeus—and then rescued. Rescued by a single, mysterious "Saintess."

At first, Lucia had not believed a word of it.

To reduce a branch of the Asmodeus cult to rubble would require, at minimum, three high-ranking priests of the Church and a full elite platoon of holy knights.

But the devastation at the site had been beyond all common sense.

The underground prison had collapsed in an explosion of unknown origin. Powerful dark mages lay foaming at the mouth. And the chapel where she herself had arrived... the ceiling had been blown clean through to the open sky.

Worse still, the Preacher-rank dark mage who had overseen the branch was never found at the scene.

All that remained was a single staff presumed to have been his.

At first she had thought he might have fled—but a Preacher's staff was not something one simply left behind. She could not imagine a Preacher abandoning such an object and running.

And then there were the results of the forensic examination...

Evaporated by unimaginably high-grade dark energy. Does that even make sense?

Had the dark mage cast a spell and self-destructed?

That theory snagged on what the forensic examiner had said.

— Your Highness, this is... not dark energy that a mere Preacher-rank mage could wield.

— Then what?

— At minimum... Apostle-rank.

An Apostle was a devotee of the demon cult one rank below the Pope himself—a class known to commune directly with demons.

It doesn't make sense...

Not a dark ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mage, then.

Which left Lucia with no choice but to look at the other fact.

The single woman who had been lying unconscious at the heart of all that destruction.

Lucia could not forget the sensation from last night, when she had laid her hand on the nape of that collapsed woman's neck.

Snap—

Lucia threw down her quill.

This doesn't make sense either. That frail woman defeated a Preacher-rank demon follower?

The seven women had insisted that the slender black-haired girl had overcome the jailers. Barely. Gasping for breath.

And yet she had supposedly unleashed Apostle-rank dark magic?

Damn it all. I don't understand.

Lucia was, for all her private embarrassment at the moniker, a powerhouse who had reached the rank of Expert—and who bore the epithet Iron Princess.

Someone of her caliber was thoroughly practiced at reading another person's energy and physique.

But the body of that woman, as Lucia had examined it, was so pitifully weak one might as well say she had no talent for the sword at all.

Slender fingers that had never gripped a blade. Skin pure and white without a blemish. She did not even possess a mana circle in her dantian or heart with which to gather power.

Divine power might make it possible, but...

The problem was that there was no trace of divine power anywhere. Even the Church denied her.

No magic. No divine power. With a body so ordinary—no, weaker than an ordinary commoner woman's, a frame that looked ready to blow away in a stiff breeze—she had defeated the jailers and rescued those women?

Lucia's silver-grey eyes flashed sharply.

Moreover, according to the rescued women's testimonies, even in that hellish situation she had first evacuated the others and then faced the enemy leader alone.

I simply cannot make sense of it.

In the end, Lucia rose from her seat.

Thinking alone would yield no answers.

A short while later, she found the room where the black-haired woman was being kept.

"Has she woken?"

"Yes. She regained consciousness just moments ago."

"I will interrogate her myself. See that no one enters."

"......"

When I opened my eyes, I thought for a moment I had arrived in heaven.

No—if heaven was a place like this, I would gladly die for it.

What wrapped around my body was bedding of some material I couldn't name, soft and billowy as a cloud, the absolute finest. In place of musty mold, a faint, refined scent of lavender drifted at the tip of my nose.

"Hhk......!!"

I bolted upright in shock.

Then, by pure instinct, I flipped back the covers and looked down at my own chest.

There they were—two heavy, massive mounds blocking my line of sight.

"Haa... So it wasn't a dream."

This body of a carved-out beauty, this gender-bent reality, was still exactly as it had been.

The only good news was that the rags had been stripped away, I had been thoroughly washed, and I was now wearing an outrageously soft set of high-quality sleepwear.

Then a chilling thought hit me.

Shit...? Who washed me and changed my clothes?

If the bastard who scrubbed me down and saw me naked was a man, I was going to kill him. With that resolve, I looked around the room.

A lavish chandelier that looked obscenely expensive, antique furniture, a warm fire crackling in the hearth even though it was autumn...

Judging by my knowledge of Crimson Mirage, this was at least a marquisate or duchy-level noble estate. No question.

How did I know? Because I had looted plenty of them.

Looting them and knowing where I was were two different things, of course. Every noble mansion looked more or less the same. Who paid close attention to mansion interiors in a game, anyway?

Where the hell am I?

Ding—!

Then the system notifications that had been stacking up on my retinas began to flood in.

"Holy shit... jackpot......"

My jaw dropped the instant I saw the notifications.

A full eighteen thousand Merit!

With that much, I wouldn't just be printing low-grade talismans—I might be able to churn out mid-grade ones without a second thought. All that near-death suffering had actually been worth it.

But the joy didn't last long.

Knock-knock-knock—

Click—!

With a knock, the door opened, and a woman carrying a chill of cold air stepped into the room.

Wh-what!?

Long silver hair that spilled in a lavish cascade, and silver-grey eyes. She wore a deep navy uniform, but it did nothing to hide a figure that was anything but ordinary. That her face was beautiful went without saying.

Wh-who is she? The name is right on the tip of my tongue...

While I sat there staring blankly, trying to place her, a beautiful voice broke the silence.

"Forgive me. You are a woman, so I knocked before entering. It seems you have finally come to your senses."