Uninvited Guest (6)
It was the unpleasant, sticky feeling of a deep sleep interrupted.
Ariel, who had been about to receive a real male organ with her heart pounding, looked at Van with a pouty face.
"I'm sure he was here…"
Van was moving stealthily through the darkness.
Even though it was too dark to make out what he was doing, the muttering under his breath, the soft rustle of fabric, and the careful sounds of him creeping this way and that made it easy enough to guess he was stealing.
"Found it…!"
Rummaging through a drawer, Van pocketed a jingling coin purse and slipped straight out.
"Huh…?!"
There was someone about to walk the wrong path.
She could believe theft had its reasons, but theft was still an evil deed and a sin, plain and simple.
Praying that he would realize his own mistakes and calling it regrettable was one-sided, but Ariel was not a Saintess who simply let time pass and looked the other way. She was the kind who, when someone set foot on the wrong road, would grab hold of them and guide them back to the right one.
Her legs still trembled from the afterglow of pleasure, but Ariel followed after Van.
"……"
An hour after Ariel left, Lowen — who had been swimming in the sea of sleep — tossed and turned and rose to the surface of consciousness.
"Yaaawn…"
It felt like the first proper deep sleep he had managed in a very long time.
His body was light, as if newly born, and the mind that had been so stifled was as calm as a lake at dawn.
It felt as though the stress that had accumulated and hardened had been washed clean away.
Because of the Prayer of Sleep, Lowen was supposed to remain asleep for at least five hours.
The reason he had woken early was the effect of the Second Saintess's Blessing dwelling in his rosary.
"Yaaawn…"
Lowen rubbed his eyes and leaned back against the sofa.
"Hmm?"
A sense of wrongness on the back of his hand.
His entire hand was faintly sticky, as if thin honey had run down the back of it and seeped between his fingers.
One sniff was enough to guess what the stickiness was.
What the hell did I do with my hand?
A warm, faintly sweet smell.
An unpleasant yet somehow addictive fishy scent.
It varied from person to person, but Lowen knew this was a woman's love juices.
He roughly wiped the stickiness away with a handkerchief, put on his glasses, and lifted his head to find the culprit.
The bed lay bathed in moonlight.
"Huh…?"
The moment he saw the rumpled covers, Lowen's mind — still loosely unraveled from sleep — snapped taut.
Ariel was gone.
He rubbed his eyes, cleaned his glasses, and put them back on, but the figure who should have been sleeping soundly had vanished.
Lowen rose calmly and searched the house.
Living room, kitchen, bathroom — Ariel was nowhere.
There were no signs of forced entry, no traces of anyone dragging her away.
If she had not been kidnapped, that meant she had walked out on her own two feet in the middle of the night.
"Hah… What a troublesome Saintess…"
Lowen raked a hand through his hair.
When she offered prayers for the villagers and comforted them with warm words, she was a woman worthy of respect. Aside from that, she was nothing but a stupid, clumsy burden.
He checked his wristwatch.
The time was 12:05 a.m., just past midnight.
"I can't keep spoiling her like this."
He craved a cigarette.
White smoke seemed to fill his head, and gray smog settled over it.
Was this how parents felt — their insides burning every time their child caused trouble?
Lowen went outside.
If the Saintess disappeared, he could live comfortably alone — but that was only wishful thinking. If the Saintess disappeared, the Holy See would erupt into chaos.
And that responsibility would naturally fall on Lowen, the one charged with her protection.
The peaceful life he had hoped for after abandoning his past would turn to foam, and he would spend days more wretched and blood-soaked than anything in his former life, locked in the Holy See's underground dungeon.
Lowen's eyes gleamed in the darkness like a predator eyeing its prey, catching the moonlight.
Ariel's short little legs were truly slow.
She had run as hard as she could after Van, but in the end she lost him.
"More than that… where am I…?"
A forest deep in the night.
Moonlight and starlight filtered down through the leaves.
The surroundings were blotched black over a navy-blue base.
She had no idea where Van had gone, and no idea which way led back to the village.
"Um… O Lord of Light, please show this little lamb the way with Your light…"
Ariel clasped her hands and prayed in the darkness.
She waited for God's voice, but God's voice was not something one could hear whenever one wished.
Speaking to God through prayer was the Saintess's freedom; answering was, naturally, God's. Even if she was a Saintess He Himself had chosen, He bore no unconditional duty to answer her questions.
A Saintess might seem to enjoy God's favoritism, but she was merely a woman chosen to convey His will — and in the end, just another equal human being to Him.
"Hiiing…"
Realizing she was lost, Ariel made a tearful face.
It was her first time wandering a forest alone.
And wandering a pitch-dark forest where she could barely see ahead, at that.
Her body had moved first, but rationally she should have told Lowen.
"But I can't just sit here sniffling…"
Should she find the road back to the village?
Or keep looking for Van?
Ariel's choice was, of course, the latter.
She toddled forward again.
How long had she walked?
The night grew deeper, the darkness denser.
Just when she had truly reached a point where she could do neither one thing nor the other, the bushes nearby rustled.
"Who's there!"
A loud voice shattered the night's silence.
Through the undergrowth appeared a man with a bushy beard like a bandit's.
In his hand was a lantern whose small light could barely illuminate what lay ahead, and a sword hung at his waist.
"What are you doing in a place like this?"
The man shone the lantern on Ariel and asked.
"?"
The man who saw her momentarily forgot to breathe.
He thought he might be enchanted by a beauty so lovely she could have been a forest fairy.
It was not only her face — her body was no joke either.
Large breasts swollen enough to make one want to squeeze them hard, childbearing hips that made breeding instincts slowly stir, a petite frame optimized for rough handling. All of it came together in harmony like a work of art. Without realizing it, the man swallowed hard and quickly shook his head.
"I… I lost my way…"
Before she could mind the lecherous gaze looking her over, Ariel felt greater joy at having met a person at all.
Looking down at her and thinking, I feel like I've seen her somewhere, the man smiled brightly at the girl pleading for help with earnest eyes.
"Hey, little clergy lady — wandering the forest alone at this late hour is dangerous."
He thumped his own chest.
"But you're lucky. I just finished my patrol and was about to head back to the village. I'll take you there."
Ariel's face, clouded with tears, brightened completely.
"Ah… but I can't go back to the village right now."
"Why?"
"I'm looking for someone."
Just in case, Ariel described the boy she was searching for.
"Ah!"
Hearing the description, the man brightened and clapped, saying he knew exactly who it was.
"From what you describe, that's our junior little brat. If it's that kid, he should be at the lodging right now."
Ariel breathed a sigh of relief.
She was hardly in a position to worry about others, but she had also fretted over what would happen if Van were wandering the forest too.
"The lodging is right nearby, and since it's late, shall we go there?"
She had a reason to meet Van before returning to the village.
She needed to teach him that stealing was wrong and guide him onto the right path. And she still had not soothed the anger he had been radiating. Wanting to hear the full story and heal his heart was what instinctively drove her on.
"Yes. Please guide me."
Ariel bowed her head politely.
"Alright. It's dark, so follow carefully."
The man took the lead, and Ariel followed right behind.
"But why is the lodging in a forest like this?"
A sudden curiosity rose as she walked, and she asked.
"Ah — it's the lodging for the forest guard unit. That's why it's deep in the woods, far from the village."
"So you're the forest guards!"
"Yeah. I was just on patrol. People might sneak in at night and damage the forest, after all."
"That's amazing. Guarding the forest without sleeping at this late hour!"
"Haha, it's not that amazing. We do it all because we love the forest."
She was praising him as amazing, but Ariel knew the man was lying.
If she needlessly grew wary or suspicious here, he might turn violent — so for now she went along with the atmosphere and played her part. More than anything, while the forest-guard story was a lie, the fact that he knew Van and that Van would be at the lodging was true, so she kept following.
"I may look like this, but I've got a pure heart. That's why I do this kind of work."
His insides were pitch black.
After following for a good while, a cave appeared.
"Here we are. The lodging is inside the cave."
Ariel quietly offered a prayer of protection to shield her body and followed him in.
Inside the cave was a hideout furnished like a mine.
Two other men guarded the entrance, and they too looked at Ariel with lecherous eyes.
One of them even smacked his lips like a beast that had not seen meat in a long time.
"That's not what you said!"
Going further in, she heard Van's angry voice.
"There he is."
Where the man pointed stood Van, yelling at a muscular man with blond hair and bronze skin.
"You said if I brought the money, you'd drive out those guys at the cathedral!"
"You think this pocket change would be enough?"
"Liar! You clearly said as long as I brought money — no matter how much!"
The blond man irritably threw the liquor bottle he was holding at Van.
Crash!
The bottle shattered to pieces at Van's feet.
"This little brat. I took him in as a member and taught him all sorts of skills, and now that he's gotten a bit bigger he tries to climb over me. Have you forgotten who's keeping your village alive? Did you forget that if I write just one letter, a priest hiding in the Holy See can come and spread a curse over the village?"
Van bit his lip hard.
"I know it's a lie! I also know you're hiding here because you're scared of getting caught by the Holy See!"
A vein bulged on the blond man's forehead.
"This bastard really runs his mouth well."
The blond man who had been perched on a chair stood up with his greatsword. And at that moment, a voice cutting across the angry atmosphere gathered every gaze.
"You're lying."
Where everyone's eyes turned, Ariel stood proudly.
"Everything you say is a lie."
"Who the hell are you?"
The blond man glared at Ariel, who was boldly glaring right back at him.
"I am Ariel Violet, the seventh Saintess of the Empire."