The Most Certain Way
Huh...?
"Wh-what on earth are you saying all of a sudden?"
"Hero, your voice sounds weird."
"Ahem, ahem! I must be tired."
Ciela, her mind gone blank for a moment as if her brain had simply shut off, quickly got it running again.
She was someone who wouldn't so much as blink with a sword pointed at her face—but she had never expected the Saintess to catch her off guard like this.
Who would have thought that the Saintess—who, aside from matters of the pilgrimage, had always seemed rather vacant and unremarkable—would see right through something Ciela had hidden so carefully until now?
But Ciela wasn't ready to give up yet.
One of the negotiation cards she'd been holding was about to fly away without her even getting a chance to play it.
It was closer to a weakness than a bargaining chip, but having it exposed so unilaterally like this had never been part of her plan.
Simply put, Ciela's own gender was something she could never change no matter how hard she tried—but that thing of the Saintess's... wouldn't it just disappear if she plucked it a few times?
This was the second pilgrimage, so maybe it would take two plucks?
Either way, she was at a severe disadvantage.
And so Ciela decided to play dumb. Where was the proof, exactly?!
"I don't understand why you would think that. There's no way I, the Hero, could be a woman, is there?"
The Saintess, for her part, seemed to have her doubts; she fretted her lips as if pondering. Objectively speaking, it was a rather cute sight.
The situation itself was anything but cute.
"Hero's body... was similar to mine."
"What do you mean, similar?"
"Hero, you're clearly big. But here... you're the same as me."
As she said this, the Saintess ran both hands over her own waist.
Despite her petite frame, her hands and the thin fabric of her clothes clung snugly to that deeply cinched waist.
...That's more logical than I expected.
Hearing it brought back the memory of the Saintess fondling her body.
Don't tell me.
I thought she was just pure and simple, but Saintess... you're a terrifying person.
Even so, that alone was thin grounds for calling her a man.
"I'm a bit taken aback that you felt that way. However... there are men like that too, aren't there? As the Hero, I only need to support you well, Saintess, so it's nothing of particular concern."
There's stuff like that in comics, right?
Ciela thought that to herself as she spoke without so much as wetting her lips.
Given the life she'd lived, this might as well have been the truth for her.
She didn't know why the Saintess was asking this now, but considering the Saintess's disposition so far, she figured she could just keep insisting and get away with it.
Maybe the Saintess was only asking out of simple curiosity.
Something had felt off when she'd felt around, that was all.
But then the situation began to take a strange turn.
"Hmm, Hero. Then show me."
"Pardon? Uh, um... You want me to show you my waist?"
Since she'd claimed there were men like that, she figured roughly showing the waist area would be enough to satisfy her.
She had no idea why the Saintess was so fixated on this, but it wouldn't be that hard.
It wasn't as if she had to strip naked—just lift it a little and show her.
But the Saintess shook her head.
"Hero, you're a man, so the thing I have right now... you have one too, right? Show me that."
"I-I'm sorry, I didn't catch that?"
"That's the most certain way."
"W-wait just a moment, please? ...Am I understanding this correctly?"
"Yeah. Show me your penis."
"S-Saintess, please...!"
A Saintess who just up and demanded to see a dick. Ciela felt cold sweat pouring down her.
It is the most certain method, sure.
But wasn't that... a little... much? No matter how you looked at it.
Regardless, the Saintess looked ready to yank Ciela's pants down and check right then and there.
When Ciela hemmed and hawed at the utterly shocking proposal, the Saintess issued a threat of sorts.
"Hero, you've seen plenty of mine, too."
"That was unavoidable..."
"It's not fair if only I have to show."
"..."
"That's not the issue here..."
What on earth is wrong with her?
Judging by the Saintess's attitude, it didn't seem like she was doing this out of any firm conviction that Ciela wasn't a man.
It looked more like curiosity.
At least it wasn't a Hero, you lied about your gender, so death kind of atmosphere.
Which only made it more baffling. What had the Saintess latched onto that made her demand proof by dick if Ciela was a man?
"I-I'll set aside the matter of showing you for a moment—but why... why do you want to see, no, confirm that?"
"I want to confirm."
"So why do you want to confirm it?"
"Once I've confirmed. I'll tell you."
It seemed like something she couldn't avoid.
Maybe it would be better to come clean now.
For reasons unknown, the Saintess was serious about confirming this. For someone who had only ever shown interest in the pilgrimage, it was downright unsettling.
Separate from that, if she was this earnest... it seemed best to go along with it one way or another.
There were still plenty of pilgrimage sites left, and considering what had happened at this one, making an enemy of the Saintess was as good as refusing the pilgrimage altogether.
As the Hero, Ciela had to complete the pilgrimage safely.
She hadn't originally possessed any particular sense of duty, but she had tasted what might happen if the pilgrimage wasn't carried out.
To live out the rest of her days in this world in peace, it had become something she absolutely had to do.
Even if she didn't devote herself to caring for Marcus—who had raised her like a son—for the remainder of his life, she at least had to make sure he could spend his remaining years with peace of mind.
But whether she could truly reveal that she had been lying about her gender... she still couldn't know.
What if the Saintess suddenly turned on her?
As Ciela fretted, a certain brilliant idea flashed through her mind.
Even she thought it was a really stupid idea, but...
With the Saintess, she might actually fall for it.
If it failed, she was no worse off, right?
Having made up her mind, Ciela looked at the Saintess and carefully spoke.
"...Then I'll show you. Absolutely do not make this kind of request of anyone else."
"Okay. Only for you, Hero. You're special."
"I'm glad to hear that, but..."
Then just believe me already.
Considering who was the one doing the deceiving, it was an awfully shameless thought.
The shameless Ciela took hold of her pants and slowly, very slowly, lowered them. Lasers looked ready to shoot from the Saintess's eyes.
And then Ciela... exposed something truly tiny and adorable, something closer to a bean, and declared with confidence:
"This is my penis."
In truth, she couldn't see it herself. Anatomically speaking, it was a part you couldn't see without a mirror. She only felt the sensation of having just barely exposed that and nothing more.
As a modern person, she knew that "bean" and the "glans" were originally the same thing.
So it wasn't a lie.
They were roughly similar, weren't they?
Still, the thought of exposing it herself made her head burn hot. She felt like she'd become some kind of pervert.
It made her newly appreciate how impressive the Saintess was—to bare that and act like it was nothing.
And sure enough, the Saintess seemed almost convinced.
"It's too small, though."
"...Have you ever heard the saying that small peppers are spicy?"
"First time."
Ciela felt a wave of self-loathing.
Living as a man while being a woman, she had endured countless crises and humiliations. But nothing like this. No one had ever pulled out a dick to compare, after all.
Who would ever propose a dick sword fight?
And yet the Saintess did it without batting an eye.
"Yeah, comparing them makes it clear. It's way too small."
Before Ciela knew it, the Saintess had exposed her half-erect penis and aimed it at Ciela's "tiny thing."
Soon the fully erect tip of her glans approached as if it meant to press down on Ciela's bean—what was commonly called a clitoris.
"Hero, does yours get bigger too?"
"I-if you touch it, a-a little...?"
She thought it probably did. Well... in the comics, it did.
Even so, Ciela could barely keep up with the situation.
What the hell is this?
As she squeezed her eyes shut in self-loathing—
The crouching Saintess stuck out her tongue and gave Ciela's clitoris a lick.
Feeling something soft and warm touch that place, Ciela recoiled in shock.
"Saintess, what in the world are you doing!?"
As she stumbled back in alarm, the Saintess stood up and tilted her head.
"You did it too, Hero."
She didn't seem to see any problem with it.
"Weird taste."
Ciela had no idea how to untangle this thoroughly knotted mess.
Maybe it would have been better to just confess she was a woman.
...Or would it?
Meanwhile, looking at the Saintess's thing, now fully erect and bobbing up and down, put her in a bizarre mood.
It wasn't strange that the Saintess would call hers small after looking at it—with something like that twitching around, who would look at a mere clitoris and call it big?
Just staring at it made her throat feel sticky.
At the same time, she faintly recalled the sense of fulfillment that sweet fruit at the tip had given her.
That pure joy she'd felt when she confirmed her Holy Power capacity had increased...
Her head was a mess.
In any case, she couldn't stay like this forever.
She pulled her pants back up and said quietly,
"Well then, you've confirmed that I'm a man. So would you please tell me now why you wanted to confirm it?"
"It still seems... different somehow."
"It's the same. It's j-just a little smaller."
"It's a lot smaller."
"Could you please stop saying it's small? That's extremely rude. In any case, it's your turn to speak now, Saintess."
"But it is small."
Muttering over and over that it was small, the Saintess fretted her lips and then said in a timid voice,
"I just... wanted to sleep in the same place as you, Hero."
"...Pardon?"
"Men and women sleep separately, right? I want to be with you, Hero."
"So that's why you wanted to... confirm?"
"Yeah. And also, I thought it might be nice if you helped me bathe, Hero."
No, the method of confirmation was a bit rough, don't you think?
She thought that, but part of it was also because the Saintess's brain was so pure and innocent.
It was frustrating, honestly. If that thing hadn't sprouted on the Saintess, everything would have gone properly.
And yet, hearing the reason she wanted to confirm whether Ciela was a man... left her heart thoroughly complicated.
The behavior hadn't been pure, but the reason itself was just so pure.
Especially when she thought about how she herself had been scheming about how to use the thing that had grown on the Saintess.
Her heart felt a little heavy.
The thought that she was deceiving someone like this made her conscience ache terribly.
Especially since the Saintess seemed ready to take her idiotic excuse at face value.
Whether she truly believed it or not was another matter...
Then, in Ciela's eyes, she saw the Saintess's thing standing straight up and beginning to slowly drool.
She felt a slight sense of defeat.
"...For now, I understand your feelings, Saintess. Helping you bathe may be a bit much, but sharing a room... that is, handling it like we do when we stay at an inn—I'll try to work something out."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"As expected of the Hero."
"..."
Whether she had successfully gotten past this or just piled on more karmic debt, Ciela couldn't tell.
Perhaps the Saintess had simply forced herself to accept Ciela's stubborn nonsense.
But either way, the option of blackmailing the Saintess to get something out of her no longer felt like something she could choose.
She had seen people in comics and games latch onto the weaknesses of pure souls and corrupt them, but she wasn't the kind of person who could actually do that.
If anything, she was the one protecting now.
So, first things first.
"For now, let's take care of that... and then think."
"You're going to help?"
"...Yes. Helping the Saintess is what a Hero is supposed to do."
Ciela checked that the door was locked and approached the Saintess.
This, too, was surely necessary for protecting the Saintess.
Yes. That had to be it.