The Saintess Loved the Hero
The saintess loved the hero. Around the age of seventeen, after being possessed, there was a time after a grueling training session when she lay alone in her room, lost in thought. Was the world I had possessed one where an original story existed? If so, what kind of person had the original Leon been? At the time, she pondered it with a vague feeling before stopping. Now that question came to her differently.
Leon, no matter what kind of person you originally were—'Since I've possessed this body, I'll make sure to carry out your revenge properly.'
“My name is Leon. You’re Airen, right?”
From the very first meeting, Leon had always been like a hero painted on canvas. A life lived like a bird trapped in a cage in the Holy Kingdom since birth—the first person her own age she had ever met. Perhaps it truly had been love at first sight.
“Don’t worry. You have no reason to be afraid. After all, I’m here with you.”
On nights when the crescent moon rose, she would often slip silently into his room and burrow into his arms. After becoming the saintess, she had grown sensitive to human malice, the aura of monsters, and the whispers of evil things. When the moon—called the goddess’s mirror—lost its light, the only brilliant radiance she could rely on was him.
“I’m sorry… for always making you tired…”
“You don’t have to say that. Having you around actually helps me sleep better, you know.”
It was probably because she carried the holy art that could faintly relieve fatigue. If she could at least shoulder some of the burden for disturbing his precious rest, if she could help him wake refreshed in the morning, she could activate the holy art through the night even if it ruined her own sleep.
She loved being by his side. That was why the moment they set out on their journey together remained a deep joy buried in her heart.
“Airen, I can’t tell you how fortunate I am to have you.”
Whenever Leon was injured and she healed him with her holy arts, he never once forgot to thank her.
She knew. She wasn’t the only one drawn to his warm light. Even so, she wanted to hear those words of gratitude again and again. She wanted to see more of the way he couldn’t help but blush faintly whenever their bodies touched.
In truth she could have healed him from afar, but she pretended ignorance, approached, and pressed her hands to his while leaning close.
‘In fairy tales, the hero always ended up with a princess or a saintess.’
Naturally, greed took root. She knew that if he became a noble… no, even without nobility, if Leon became a capable man he could take many women. Yet she harbored the desire to be the first among them.
Serin and Tei stood at his side as well, but… even so, when she thought of marriage, she wanted to be the one who rose first in his mind.
She loved him. Leon. And—
“Goddammit…! That side! They’re coming from that side! Don’t abandon the position, Airen—!!!”
The moment they truly joined the front lines, she realized how frivolous that affectionate heart of hers had been.
With ears and eyes sharpened against impurity, the roars of evil and the laments of dying lives pierced her. The weight that clawed into her chest, crushing her heart, felt so heavy she wanted to flee.
“…Sorry for yelling earlier. We’re the hero’s party. We can overcome this.”
But his eyes always looked in the opposite direction of her desire to run. She saw the way his hands trembled each time he faced the demon race. Yet she also saw the steps that never retreated.
She prayed with desperate fervor, vomiting blood as she deployed her holy arts. The more painful and difficult it became, the greater the divine power that accumulated inside her. And the more it grew, the greater her love became for Leon, who showed the true form of a hero.
…Of course, on especially hard days she sometimes slipped away from the battlefield.
‘But Leon understands. He always does.’
Even so, the warm light in his eyes when he looked at her never changed. Because of that gaze she wanted to act even more spoiled, to lean into the comfort of hiding behind him. In the end it seemed she had only increased the time she spent away from the front lines.
Nevertheless, seeing Leon strive not to abandon her, her love swelled until it was on the verge of bursting. When her heart had grown so full that the slightest trigger would make it explode, the demon race temporarily withdrew from the front and an uncertain peace settled over the land—one that could shatter at any moment.
When they returned to the capital, Serin, Tei, and she instinctively understood. The one who first confessed their heart to him would have the greatest chance of remaining closest by his side.
So she made her decision. On the next night the crescent moon rose, she would allow herself a little greed.
“Saintess Airen, it has been a long time.”
“…Archbishop Henvil?”
And the day before that. What arrived alongside that fragile peace was not only happiness.
The one who knocked on the door of her room in the temple was none other than Archbishop Henvil.
…The one who had tormented her most viciously during her time in the Holy Kingdom was him.
At the time he had been a bishop, but as the hero party’s prestige rose, his own standing naturally soared for having sent her to them.
‘How vile…!’ To think he had viewed the very existence of a saintess as an eyesore and done everything to make her disappear from the Holy Kingdom.
“I heard you had come to the capital. Didn’t I care for you like a father when you were young? I thought I would at least inquire after your health…”
“That’s enough. I am healthy, so please leave.”
And her ability to read a man’s gaze with a woman’s body had grown sharper every day. She understood in an instant—his insidious desire sliding from her chest down to her hips.
Unlike Leon, he had sagging wrinkles and a belly that protruded like a pig’s. Unlike Leon’s fair skin, his face was dark, oily, and filthy. She had no desire to speak with him any longer.
That was why she had tried to send him away at once.
“The Revanhart Empire, you see, holds loose morals in many areas yet strangely condemns the lewdness of minors with particular severity. Are you aware of this?”
“It is the goddess’s will. What of it? If you do not leave immediately I will scream—”
“No, well, there is a reason for that. A certain archbishop—ah, he was a bishop at the time—who worried about the saintess’s life in the empire planted a soldier to report on her daily conduct out of concern.”
“…And?”
“I—ah, no. That bishop was shocked when he received the report, they say. To think the saintess had been sneaking in and out of the hero’s bedroom since she was a mere child.”
“……”
She froze at his words. She had never imagined that the secret meetings beneath the crescent moon, those memories that still shone brilliantly for her, would spill from Archbishop Henvil’s mouth.
“The truth is, the hero has been conducting himself far too exemplarily… and several archbishops have begun to question those feats.”
“What are you…”
“There is talk of whether a heresy inquiry should be held. Don’t you agree? If he did not grow stronger through the goddess’s power but has been deceiving everyone with wicked tricks…?”
“That is nonsense! His piety, nobility, and justice are facts known to all!”
“Is that so? Yes. Quite right. The current hero is a flawless superhuman, after all.”
“…So no one will believe it. Whether it is a heresy inquiry or anything else!”
“Exactly. I wished to argue the same—if not for the lewd conduct of her childhood.”
“……”
“The vote in the archbishop council regarding the heresy inquiry is currently tied. Ah, I have not yet cast my vote.”
“……What do you want?”
Archbishop Henvil’s eyes slowly traveled down the curves of her body from top to bottom.
She knew. No matter how remarkable and just the hero Leon was, he remained a single individual. No matter how much of a genius or how strong he might be… at present he was a man who would struggle to oppose an entire kingdom. Holy Kingdom or Empire—they were all in league in the end…
“…Come in.”
“Tonight will be rather long, I think.”
It could not be helped if it was to protect you. Please forgive this wretched version of me. Leon, my hero.
The nightmare continued without end. It did not finish in a single night, and even on the crescent-moon night when she had meant to go to him, she entwined her body with the archbishop’s instead.
Shamefully, she had become completely tamed by his flesh. The days were so grueling and the hours spent drunk on lust so many that it was difficult to count them.
“It seems you react now from a mere touch?”
“…Hngh.”
If she was suddenly summoned to a dark alley and her most shameful place was caressed…
A tingling ecstasy surged from her toes, making it nearly impossible to keep her mouth shut.
Her body had been branded as the archbishop’s. But her heart was still… still turned toward you.
‘Leon… huh?’
‘If I’d known she would grow this much, I never would have sent her to the empire!’
He regretted it—sending Saintess Airen to the hero party.
One day, visiting the empire by chance, he had seen her. She had become so mature, so breathtakingly beautiful that he had barely restrained himself from pulling her into his arms on the spot.
And he had burned with rage imagining what kind of nights she might be spending with the hero.
‘But what do you know! Puhaha, to think the so-called saintess had kept her virginity. What a stupid bitch.’
Stupid Leon would never know. That the true nature of the saintess was to make a bitch’s face the instant her ass was touched.
‘This is truly a joyous day! The sky is so clear too… Hm?’
What entered his pleasure-drunk eyes was an unexpected meteor shower.
Sunlight was briefly veiled by clouds, and a brilliant, dazzling meteor shower sliced through the shadowed sky. That streak of light was already hurtling straight toward this very alley.
“Wh-what—!”
Boom—!!
The meteor fell at a speed beyond comparison with anything he had ever seen. It struck the alley at a distance reachable in only a few steps.
A vibration that shook the entire alley spread outward. Thick dust billowed up, swallowing his vision.
“What the hell?! What is happening!”
Then… two eyes flashed beyond the dust. The moment those pupils glowing with brilliant gold met his own, he could not hold back either cold sweat or the sudden rush of urine.
Honestly, he had taken the rumors lightly. He had not believed the tales that the man had reached sword master while roaming the front lines. Throughout the continent’s entire history, no genius had ever attained that realm before the age of thirty.
‘I was wrong.’
What stood there was a destroyer, the agent of all vengeance. The living incarnation of punishment—more terrifying than the Demon King—took the form of a predator gripping a sword within the dust.
Political maneuvering? Schemes? Such thoughts never even surfaced beneath the instinctive terror that flooded him.
“W-wait, this is only because I almost fell—”
Slash— A flash of light. For the briefest instant, light flared and—
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh—!!!!!!!!”
He was forced to watch his right arm spin through the air after being severed.
“—First, the arm.”
The hero’s cold murmur carved itself into his ears.