chapter 2
Chapter 2:
Around age 17 after possessing the body, after a grueling day of training, I had once lain alone in my room and found myself sinking into thought.
Was this world I had possessed one where an original story existed? If so, what kind of person had Leon—the one I was possessing—originally been?
At the time, it was just a vague feeling I dwelled on briefly before letting it go.
Now, that question came back to me with a slightly different weight.
Leon, I don't know what kind of person you originally were—
'But now that I'm the one possessing you, I'll make sure the revenge is done right.'
***
"My name is Leon. You said your name was Airen?"
From the very first moment we met, Leon was always a Hero who looked like he had been painted straight out of a picture. I had spent my whole life in the Holy Kingdom like a bird locked in a cage, and he was the first peer I had ever truly met.
Perhaps "love at first sight" would have been the right way to describe it.
"Don't worry—you have no reason to be afraid. I'm here, aren't I?"
On nights when the dark moon rose, I would silently make my way to his room and burrow into his arms.
After becoming a Saint, I had grown sensitive to impure things—the malice of people, the aura of Magic Beasts, the whispers of wicked things.
When the moon—called the Mirror of the Goddess—lost its light, the only brilliant light I could lean on was him, and him alone.
"I'm sorry… for troubling you every time…."
"You don't have to say that. I feel like I sleep better with you around, anyway."
That was probably because I kept a Holy Art wrapped around my body that, however faintly, eased fatigue. If I could bear even a little of the responsibility for disturbing his precious sleep—if I could help him wake up feeling refreshed—I was willing to cast the Holy Art through the night even at the cost of my own rest.
Being beside him felt good. And so the moment we set off on our adventure together became a joy etched deep in my heart.
"I don't know how lucky I am to have you, Airen."
Whenever Leon was hurt and I helped him with Healing Holy Arts, he never once forgot to say thank you.
I knew. I wasn't the only one drawn to his warm light.
Even so—because I wanted to hear that gratitude more. Because I wanted to see the way a flush would creep into his cheeks whenever our bodies touched, unbidden and unavoidable.
In truth, I could heal from a distance with my Holy Arts, but I would pretend not to notice, draw close, and rest my hand against his.
'In fairy tales, the Hero always ended up with the princess or the Saint.'
Naturally, desire began to grow.
I knew that if he became a noble—or even without becoming one, if Leon became a man of great ability—he could very well come to have many women at his side.
But I wanted to be the first among them. Serin was there beside him, and so was Tei… yet when the time came for him to think of marriage, I wanted to be the name that came to him first.
I loved him. Leon.
And then—
"Damn it…! Over there! They're coming from over there! Don't leave the field, Airen—!!!"
The moment we joined the main Battlefront in earnest, I felt just how naive that tender feeling had truly been.
With ears and eyes sharpened to impure things, the screams of evil and the grief of dying lives came flooding in. That weight bored into my chest, seized my heart, pressed it down—and I wanted so badly to run.
"…Sorry for yelling earlier. We're the Hero's party—we can get through this."
But his gaze was always pointed in the opposite direction from the part of me that wanted to flee.
I saw it—his hands trembling every time he faced the Demon Race. Yet I also watched, and held in my eyes, the steps that pressed forward without ever retreating.
I prayed until I bled, and I deployed my Holy Arts until I coughed up blood.
The harder the pain and exhaustion, the more the Divine Power that accumulated in my body grew. And the more it grew, the more the love I held for Leon—who embodied what a true Hero looked like—grew alongside it.
…Of course, on the days when it became too much, I sometimes did slip away from the field.
'But Leon always understood. He always did.'
Even so, the warmth in his eyes whenever he looked at me never changed. Wanting to lean into that warmth, wanting to rest in the comfort of hiding behind him—I think I only let myself spend more and more time away from the Battlefront because of it.
Yet the sight of Leon working so hard not to abandon me caused my love to grow until it was very nearly overflowing.
My heart had swelled to the point where all it needed was one small spark to burst—and that was when the Demon Race pulled back from the Battlefront for a time, and an order arrived that could shatter at any moment.
When we returned to the Capital City, Serin, Tei, and I all sensed it instinctively.
Whoever spoke their feelings to him first would most likely be the one to remain closest to his side going forward.
And so I made up my mind. On the next night the dark moon rose, I would let myself be a little greedy.
"Saint Airen. It has been a while."
"…Archbishop Henvil?"
But the day before that. What came with the order was not happiness alone.
The one who knocked on the door of my room in the cathedral was Archbishop Henvil himself. …He was also the one who had treated me most cruelly during my time in the Holy Kingdom.
At the time he had only been a Bishop, but as the reputation of the Hero's party rose, so naturally did the standing of the man who had sent me to join it.
'How despicable…!'
All he had done was resent the existence of a Saint and arrange to have her driven out of the Holy Kingdom.
"I happened to hear you were in the Capital City, you see. Didn't I look after you like a father when you were young? I thought I'd at least ask after your health…."
"That's quite all right. I'm perfectly healthy, so please leave."
By then, my skill at reading the gaze of men with a woman's body had only grown with time. I could tell in an instant—his lewd desire beginning at my chest and trailing all the way down to my hips.
Unlike Leon, he had sagging wrinkles and a belly that jutted out like a pig's. Where Leon's skin was fair and fine, this man had a dark, greasy, filthy face.
I had no desire to spend any length of time talking with him. That was why I had meant to send him away immediately.
"Are you aware that the Levanheart Empire, for all its lax morals in other matters, has a peculiarly harsh condemnation for the licentiousness of minors?"
"It is the will of the Goddess. What of it? If you don't leave this instant, I will scre—"
"Ah, no, well—there is a certain story going around. A certain Archbishop—ah, he was a Bishop at the time, I suppose—full of concern for the Saint's life in the Empire, placed soldiers to report on her daily affairs. Out of worry, of course."
"…And?"
"Even he was shocked by what he was told, apparently. That from a very young age, the Saint had been slipping in and out of the Hero's bedchamber."
"……."
I froze at his words. I had never imagined that the moonless night rendezvous—those memories that shone so brilliantly within me—would come spilling from Archbishop Henvil's mouth.
"The truth of it is, the Hero has been performing so admirably of late that… there are a number of Archbishops who have begun to doubt such feats."
"What do you mean…."
"There are those who say a heresy inquisition may be in order. Well—if he hasn't grown strong through the power of the Goddess, but has instead been deceiving everyone with wicked tricks…?"
"That's absurd! His sincerity, his nobility, his righteousness—these are facts known to all the world!"
"Is that so? Yes, yes, you're right. The Hero as he stands now is a flawless paragon of a man."
"…So no one will believe it. Whether they hold a heresy inquisition or anything else!"
"I would have liked to say the same. I did want to argue as much—if only it weren't for the licentiousness of his younger years."
"……."
"In the Archbishop's council, the vote on the matter of the heresy inquisition is currently tied. Ah—I haven't cast my vote yet."
"……What is it you want?"
Archbishop Henvil's eyes traveled slowly downward, tracing the curves of my body from top to bottom. I know—no matter how great and righteous a Hero Leon may be, he is still only an individual.
No matter how much of a genius he is, no matter how strong…. The fact is, he is one man who would struggle against even a single kingdom right now.
The Holy Kingdom, the Empire. In the end, they are all cut from the same cloth….
"…Come in."
"Tonight looks like it may run long."
It was unavoidable, to protect you.
Please forgive me for this. Leon. My Hero.
That nightmare stretched on and on. It did not end in a single night, and even on the dark moon nights when I had meant to go to him, I lay with the Archbishop instead.
Shamefully, I had become completely conditioned to the Archbishop's body. The days were so harrowing, the hours spent in lust so numerous, that I could hardly keep count.
"It seems just a touch is enough to get a reaction now?"
"…Hnn."
Dragged without warning into a dim alley and caressed in a place of shame…. A sharp, tingling pleasure surged from my toes upward, making it impossible to keep my mouth shut.
My body had been branded as belonging to the Archbishop. But my heart was still… still turned toward you.
'Leon… hm?'
***
'If I'd known she'd grow up like this, I never would have sent her to the Empire!'
He had come to regret it. Sending Saint Airen to the Hero's party.
The sight he had happened to see on a visit to the Empire one day—how mature and beautiful she had become.
He'd had to hold himself back from wanting to pull her into his arms right then and there. And all the while, he burned with fury imagining what nights she might have spent with the Hero.
'But what a surprise! Ha, to think the so-called Saint had kept herself a virgin. What a stupid girl.'
Foolish Leon wouldn't know, would he. That being casually grabbed by the backside like this and immediately making the face of a female—this was a Saint's true nature.
'What a joyous day! The sky is so clear… hm?'
Into his eyes, drunk on delight, came a sudden meteor shower. The sunlight was briefly swallowed by clouds, and a brilliant, blazing meteor shower cut through the shadowed air.
Those streaks of light were already hurtling toward this very alley.
"Wh—what—!"
Thwoom!!
The meteor crashed down faster than anything he had ever seen before.
Right into this alley—close enough to reach with just a few steps. A tremor rang through the entire alley, and a thick cloud of dirt billowed up, blotting out everything before him.
"What?! What's happening!"
Shiver—
And then… 2 eyes gleaming through the dust.
When he met those irises glowing with radiant golden light, he couldn't hold back not just cold sweat, but even a trickle of something else.
He had honestly underestimated him. He hadn't believed the rumors that he'd reached the Sword Master level while grinding through the Battlefront.
In all the history of the entire continent, there had never been a genius who reached that level before the age of 30.
'He was wrong to think so lightly of this.'
What stood there was a destroyer—an agent of all vengeance. The embodiment of punishment more terrifying than any Demon King, the silhouette of a predator, gripped a sword within the dust.
Political maneuvering? Scheming? Such thoughts never even surfaced—primal, instinctive terror came crashing over him.
"W—wait, I was just about to fall—"
Shk—
A flash of light.
For just a moment, brilliance—
"GYAAAAAAAAAH—!!!!!!!"
He was made to watch his own right arm, severed, spinning through the air.
"—The arm first."
The Hero's murmur drove itself into his ears.