Club Experience (3)
“And so, as a rebuttal to the First Hero Is a Woman theory, the debate spiraled into questions like how he could have married the Saintess and how they produced descendants, and then….”
Chatter, chatter, chatter.
Dorothea’s senior’s mouth never paused for even a second, pouring out everything she knew about the First Hero.
P-please stop….
“And that led into the theory that the Hero changed genders, the theory that he used magic, even the theory that the Saintess had an affair, and academia turned into one giant debate hall, and then the Liberitas Imperial Family, who are the Hero’s descendants—”
Stop!
She was going to drive her insane!
There was no telling how long Dorothea had been dying to unload all of this about the First Hero.
What would have happened if she hadn’t asked?
Watching her senior talk without the slightest concept of spacing or breathing was starting to make her anxious instead.
Wasn’t she going to suffocate like that?
And yet, even while keeping the lecture going, her hands never stopped sweeping the ruins, recovering anything connected to the Hero in a seamless, repeating cycle.
A total pro. An absolute professional.
Come to think of it, though—that thing was bothering her.
“But how does that even work?”
“And so lately among Hero maniacs—y-yes? Wh-what is it?”
“That pouch. No matter how I look at it, there’s no way all those things should fit, but they just keep going in.”
“Ah—ah…! Th-this…!”
Only then did Dorothea finally stop talking about the First Hero and stroke the pouch slung at her side.
Affection poured from that touch. Whatever it was, it was clearly precious to her.
Yeah. This is better. If I let that monologue run to the end, I might never get the information I actually want.
Let’s switch topics for a bit and build some favorability.
“Yes, that pouch. It’s no ordinary item, is it? Did you make it yourself?”
Of course, she really had been curious.
Dorothea had appeared in The Saintess Hero as well, but back then she had never carried a pouch like this.
Even through the Mind’s Eye, all she could see was that space itself was warped… Would checking with the Sword Saint show something different?
Portable size, yet it ignored weight and volume for storage….
It feels suspiciously like an inventory.
In The Saintess Hero, the only item with that kind of effect had been the inventory, hadn’t it?
And hers didn’t even hold that much—only five kinds of items at most!
Even for a genius, whipping up something like that out of nowhere was crossing a line, wasn’t it?
But Dorothea’s answer was unexpected.
“Th-this isn’t something I made….”
“?”
Then where had it come from?
“Th-this pouch is the first of the Hero’s relics I ever found….”
Her senior’s voice carried the unmistakable color of someone drifting back through old memories.
Wait—more importantly, what did she just say?
A relic of the First Hero???
Why is that popping up now? Wasn’t it supposed to end with the Hero’s Blood and the Holy Sword!?
This really was trash-game levels of worldbuilding—stop adding lore with zero prior setup!
Whether Gladia fretted or not, Dorothea kept explaining.
“A l-long time ago, right around when I’d just enrolled at Stella Academy. E-even then I respected the Hero so much that I was secretly digging through Hero-related records in the principal’s office….”
“The principal’s office?”
So Dorothea had been unhinged since her first year….
“A-and then I found the coordinates to a Hero’s ruin that the principal had hidden away privately….”
“…Excuse me?”
“So I snuck in alone and loo—I mean, relocated the ruins to a safer place, and at the deepest altar I found this pouch!”
Hold on. What had she just heard?
Not only had she raided Rustiel’s room, she had uncovered ruin coordinates there and successfully walked off with treasure from those ruins?
Shouldn’t she be a thief instead of a mage?
That was clearly her true calling no matter how you looked at it.
Well—setting aside Dorothea’s shocking past and natural aptitude—her story was interesting enough on its own.
At the very least, it seemed confirmed that the pouch was connected to the First Hero.
Even while Gladia sank into thought, Dorothea’s explanation rolled on.
“B-but actually, when I first picked it up, this pouch only held five kinds of items too.”
“What? Only five?”
“Y-yes! No matter how small something was, the moment you tried to put in a sixth type, it would spit it right back out. It was such a strange structure. So I set a condition—‘only items related to the Hero go in’—and—”
“W-wait. Wait a second.”
“Y-yes?”
Something in her senior’s explanation had flown past that she absolutely could not let slide.
A pouch that only held five kinds of items?
That was completely….
That’s an inventory…!
The inventory was a privilege granted only to players.
One of the reasons she had concluded she had possessed a player of The Saintess Hero was confirming that she herself had an inventory.
Space mages—even Rustiel—had never had inventories!
But the First Hero had possessed one?
Or had there been a player among the First Hero’s companions?
Or had the First Hero himself been…?
“Senior, isn’t it possible that pouch didn’t belong to the Hero? Maybe it was a companion who traveled with him, or something.”
“N-no! Relics of the Hero retain a unique mana wavelength. Th-this is, without any doubt, the Hero’s own belonging!”
Saying so, Dorothea clutched the pouch tightly to her chest.
If a Hero otaku of her caliber treasured it that much, it probably really was the First Hero’s….
No choice. Time to draw.
Deciding she needed to confirm it with her own eyes, she unhesitatingly eased the blade free from inside her staff.
Ching—!
Sword Saint
World's Trial has been nullified.
A clear ring of metal, and her vision brightened.
Savoring the rush of liberation, she turned her gaze toward Dorothea.
The first time she saw her senior in person, she looked exactly as she had in the game.
Gray hair tied in twin tails spilled all the way down to her waist, and her long bangs half-veiled her eyes, lending her a gloomy air.
A top long enough to nearly cover the backs of her hands contrasted sharply with shorts so short they barely qualified as more than hot pants.
Mm. Honestly speaking….
Kind of racy.
So even with a frame that small, she could still pull off that kind of look. Good proportions, maybe?
She was short, but she didn’t feel childish in the slightest.
And above all—smaller than Kruse, yes, but that presence of hers made it abundantly clear she was an adult!
The Saintess Hero dev team may have botched everything else, but character design? They always knocked it out of the park.
Her gaze, almost without meaning to, drifted toward slightly impure(?) territory—
“S-senior? Why the sudden sword…?”
Dorothea stared at her with the blade drawn, let out a terrified little squeak, and scrambled backward while clutching her pouch.
Did she think Gladia was trying to steal it?
Judging by that expression, she looked exactly like a pitiful victim about to get shaken down by a street thug….
Wmmmm—
The mana flowing from one of her hands looked anything but pitiful.
As expected of a third-year at Stella Academy. Not to be underestimated.
The moment Gladia tried anything stupid, Dorothea would strike—that much will was plain.
Still, the steel-hard composure she had forged living alongside her young lady did not so much as flicker.
If it had been her young lady, she would have attacked the second the sword came out.
Fortunately, Gladia hadn’t drawn the blade all the way, so Dorothea seemed to be holding at mere wariness.
“Easy, Senior. I’m not trying to take it.”
“Th-then…?”
“It’s a habit. Sometimes when my chest gets too full, this is how I calm myself down.”
“R-really…?”
“Of course, of course. Look into my eyes. Do these look like the eyes of someone eyeing her senior’s belongings?”
Dorothea still watched her with open suspicion, but Gladia met that gaze with eyes full of earnest sincerity.
Reach her—my true heart!
But Dorothea, it seemed, could not feel that sincerity.
Instead she hugged the pouch even tighter against herself and took another step back.
“…Th-that’s the same look Sara gets when she comes to collect my debts….”
Hey. That was going too far.
Where else would you find someone with eyes this pure?
Swallowing a hollow laugh, Gladia slid the blade fully back into her staff.
It didn’t matter. The moment she had drawn it, her goal was already complete.
She had only wanted to confirm whether the pouch was truly connected to the First Hero.
She had known the instant she looked.
Yep. It’s the First Hero’s, all right.
It carried the same thick presence she had felt facing the First Hero in the dungeon.
An aura, you could call it. Something like that.
If it really was his, the thing had to be about a thousand years old—and for that much of a trace to still linger, the First Hero really had been a monster.
The moment she sheathed the sword, Dorothea openly relaxed and canceled the magic she had been preparing.
An opening!
“Eek!”
The instant her senior’s guard dropped, Gladia closed the distance in a flash and seized Dorothea’s face in both hands.
Startled by the sudden palms, Dorothea flinched and thrashed, but that level of strength was never going to free her from the grip of a superhuman maid who had transcended ordinary humanity.
“Senior~”
“Y-yes?! P-please let g-go of—of me….”
“You misunderstood my sincerity earlier, and I was deeply hurt~”
How dare she fail to recognize the true heart of this super-perfect maid!
She was going to need to get a little closer with Senior Dorothea.
She had been bored with her young lady not around anyway. Perfect timing.
Honestly, from the moment I saw her earlier, those cheeks looked so soft I wanted to squish them.
She stretched Dorothea’s captured cheeks left and right and began slowly kneading them.
“S-Senior…! Mmph, mmphh!”
Just as expected—astonishingly soft.
This was the skin of someone older than her?
It felt exactly like kneading a perfectly made rice cake!
She could get addicted to this!
“W-wait! Mmph—let, let go of mwe…!”
Even when she tried to speak, her squashed cheeks reduced everything to muffled gibberish.
“Not recognizing her junior’s sincerity… I was so sad I almost went out and bought bread….”
“Wh-what does bwead have to do with—mmph.”
Ahem. Senior Dorothea, are you a T?
Just empathize already!