The Mentally Unstable Saintess's Surprise Attack
The Mentally Unstable Saintess's Surprise Attack
I'd heard somewhere once that a truly expensive restaurant is the kind where the food arrives looking so elaborate you wouldn't even know how to eat it.
And the restaurant the Saintess had booked was exactly the sort of place that followed that rule.
'...This is insane.'
First of all, the exterior left me speechless.
It looked like a palace of the gods, built from marble.
And the interior was just as splendid.
'...How much did all that cost?'
Gold, silver, jewels — anything that looked expensive had been thrown at it. Yet the restaurant possessed an artistic harmony that felt beautiful rather than indulgent.
"Please don't feel burdened. A place like this, you see, is something I could book without a second thought if it's for your sake, Rosaria."
As expected of the greatest celebrity in this world.
She could do things others couldn't without a second thought. It was genuinely enough to make a person shiver in admiration.
But the food itself was the problem.
"...Does it suit your palate?"
The Saintess looked at me with worried eyes, as if something were troubling her.
Maybe it was because I'd been silently eating the food for a while now.
But there was a reason for that.
'Dignity, dignity, dignity.'
The words from this morning about being the face of the family came back to me.
The weight of being a second-generation chaebol had seized my body.
Having to pick at this insanely delicious food with a fork and knife was genuinely painful.
Think about it.
Would you find freezing or refrigeration in the Middle Ages?
Unless you hung things outside in the dead of a snowy winter, in early autumn like now, you just left them out raw and that was it.
Pickling? What insolent things to say in the gods' own restaurant. This was the kind of place where the artisan began planning the moment a reservation came in, and butchered the meat at the optimal moment so that it could be served at its freshest the instant the customer arrived.
They were meats of a freshness I'd never experienced before in my entire life.
And they met the hands of the Middle Ages' greatest artisan.
The result was the birth of a tyrant that trampled everything I'd ever eaten in my life.
It was a moment of dopamine detonating like crazy.
And yet I still had to act without being frivolous,
so I'd been spending every bit of reason I had just to control myself.
But from the Saintess's perspective, I was just silently eating.
I'd succeeded at maintaining my dignity, but from another angle it might have looked like, 'Well, you bought it for me... so I'll eat it, I suppose... but is it really worth talking about, too?'
"Ah... no, it's the most delicious thing I've ever eaten."
So the moment I heard that, I couldn't help but be startled, and I hurried to smile and reassure her before the Saintess could grow melancholy.
"I'm glad it suits your palate. You were so quiet, you see, that I worried it didn't."
Anyone who says this isn't good deserves to go to hell for blasphemy.
It was so delicious I'd forgotten to even talk and just kept eating.
A delicacy that even lowers your intelligence.
But for some reason, the Saintess wasn't eating. Amidst a mountain of delicacies arrayed like the Milky Way, she was only picking at salad.
"...Sain-, no, Lady Serena, won't you have some as well?"
Habit was a terrifying thing.
I'd almost called her Saintess by accident.
Of course, this was a private room with a barrier cast over it.
There wouldn't be any trouble with eyes on us, but if this hadn't been a private room, something tiresome might have occurred.
Maybe the Saintess had brought me here precisely to practice using her alias, I thought.
If so, then this Saintess wasn't a fool but a genius.
"I'm all right, Rosaria."
The Saintess said this while putting a tomato into her mouth.
She said she was all right, but it didn't sit well with me.
"...Is it because of priestly rules?"
The Saintess gave a slight nod of affirmation.
She was always going on about changing doctrine, but when it came time to actually follow it, she was thorough — she was the Saintess, after all.
"...Then allow me to feed you."
-Do not ignore the sincere goodwill of another. To spurn the kindness of a person who wishes to treat you well is evil. In that moment alone, it matters not whether you eat meat or drink wine.
A passage that sounded like the Saint had written it just because he wanted to eat meat and drink wine.
But to the priests, it was a doctrine like a single ray of light.
So I'd studied it and hoped an opportunity to use it would come someday, but I'd never imagined it would come this quickly.
It was a trivial gesture to repay the Saintess for having brought me to this living paradise on earth, but what else could I do?
Here, it took three years for an ordinary person to get a reservation.
Coming again to repay her would take far too long.
Three years — that was long enough for an illness to be cured and a coming-of-age ceremony to take place.
There was no other way to show my gratitude than to cut her food neatly for her.
"Ah... no. Rosaria, you don't need to concern yourself with..."
"I am simply giving back as much as I've received. Eating food this delicious all by myself weighs a little on my conscience, you see. Compared to the Saintess's grace, which is like the vast sea itself, this is nothing — so please don't feel burdened."
Well, it wasn't like I was the one paying.
She'd done everything from the reservation to the purchasing, so couldn't I at least slice the food nicely for her to eat? Besides, I had plenty of visual references to draw on. I'd lived a life of being fed by others nearly every day.
I was confident, at least, in cutting food into the most appropriate size.
So I speared the food I'd cut for the Saintess with a fork.
"...Ah, please do."
The moment she said it, I clamped my mouth shut.
"I... I apologize."
Without thinking, I'd reflexively said the thing I heard from the head maid every single day. The head maid had been attending me since childhood, so that was one thing — but I was the same age and, in terms of status, the subordinate here.
The Saintess in front of me was just too familiar — I'd made a mistake.
But for some reason, the Saintess didn't say a word.
"...Don't apologize."
If anything, her face looked like something else had caught fire.
What was this? What had I done wrong? Why had another fire started?
But as someone born as oil, I couldn't understand the mind of fire.
Anyway, she said it didn't matter, so all I had to do was feed her.
"...Ah."
The Saintess opened her mouth slightly.
With the heart of a mother bird, I slipped the meat inside.
Up to that point, it had been an undeniably beautiful scene. The number one and number two most beautiful girls in the world feeding each other was like a work of art itself.
But this Saintess was an unhinged yandere Saintess.
It didn't show on the surface,
but my senses, cultivated from living with her, could tell.
I could feel the Saintess secretly licking the fork ever so slightly.
A Saintess rejoicing in an indirect kiss (self-manufactured).
"...It's delicious."
I no longer knew what it was she found delicious.
"...Rosaria, you too — ah, please."
No, I could eat by myself.
Because I wasn't a priest.
I could eat meat every day and it wouldn't matter.
But this was an irresistible force I couldn't refuse.
On this nice day, in this nice place, I couldn't make the Saintess sulk.
"...Ah."
I would do as my master commanded.
So I opened my mouth, and what came in was the salad the Saintess had been eating.
If the person who'd put this salad in my mouth had been the head maid, I definitely would have sulked.
It was like feeding kryptonite to Superman.
But I couldn't do that to the Saintess in front of me.
And for some reason, it was delicious.
Greens are delicious? Why is there none of that peculiar earthy taste? This salad is sweet like a dessert.
So there really was a sweet taste in the world that makes you healthy. If every vegetable in the world were like this, Rosaria's second incurable illness — the curse of a picky palate — would have been cured on the spot.
I was still feeling that genuine amazement when it happened.
"...You have a little something by your mouth, Rosaria."
The Saintess gestured with her hand at the border between my right cheek and lip.
The moment I heard that, I was embarrassed and reached for a napkin.
Suddenly, my vision blacked out, and a familiar warmth touched my cheek.
"...There, now it's all right."
A surprise intake of Rosalium.
"Th...thank you."
The effect of that surprise attack was tremendous.
Because my heart started pounding like crazy and my face flushed red.
And at the same time, the Saintess's face began to turn red, too.
Had she embarrassed herself after doing it herself?
But for some reason, that look seemed insanely adorable.
Was it the atmosphere? Why was I acting so unlike myself?
In the end, it was oil that had become fire, and fire that had become oil.
"...I'll feed you again."
I desperately calmed my heart, which was about to burst.
Then, pretending to be composed, I offered the Saintess food again.
But this time, she showed a different reaction than a moment ago.
Whereas before she'd secretly licked it in her mouth to avoid being caught, this time she stuck out her tongue a little — just barely visible to my eyes — and licked it once.
"Sa...Saintess, no, Lady Serena?"
It was like I was going crazy.
That insane Saintess looked suggestive.
Was there something in here that messed with your head?
As I thought that and was crumbling under the second surprise attack,
the Saintess rose gently from her seat.
And immediately, while I was flustered, she came to my side.
"As I thought, for feeding each other, it's more comfortable to be side by side like this, isn't it?"
The Saintess leaned her head against my shoulder and looked up at me.
A faintly greasy smile played at her lips.
Just like that, she even linked arms with me and pressed her body close.
I had to stay calm.
Because if things went on like this, I was going to get 'carriaged.'
But regrettably, I had no strength.
"...Turn your head, Rosaria. I can't see your face. Are you trying to torment me again? Or are you trying to erase the value of this beautiful moment from my life?"
I'd turned my head trying not to look.
And I'd turned it because I didn't want to be seen.
But the Saintess, who had become a genius, issued a command.
"So please, just for now, look into my eyes, Rosaria."
A request that even felt pitiful.
But I didn't want to show her my expression right now.
"...I... I'm in a difficult position."
And so, for the first time, I tried something like defiance.
"...Rosaria... have you come to dislike me?"
The moment I heard that, my head turned reflexively.
But I'll say it again — at this moment, she was a genius Saintess.
"Th... there's no way..."
The Saintess had thrown out the bait,
and Rosaria had been spectacularly hooked.
The instant I turned my head, what I saw was the Saintess's hair.
And where her face was positioned was, of course, my left cheek.
But a different kind of attack from usual came.
A sensation of something alien and soft touching my cheek.
I wasn't ignorant of what it was.
I'd suffered it many times already in the carriage.
The sensation I'd felt on the nape of my neck had merely moved to my cheek.
With its doubled might, it began striking my tattered heart at full force.
The thread of reason I'd barely kept from snapping.
The image of the spider-hero stopping the train began to overlap it.
Maybe today was the day the Saintess had resolved herself.
Thinking that, I counted prime numbers and ate my food again.
"...As I thought, even your flustered face is beautiful, Rosaria."
I only hoped nothing would happen.
*
It was a restaurant date from which only memories overpainted in pink remained. It was heaven, but it had also felt like hell — when we came out and I checked the time, it was 11 a.m.
This date was only just beginning.
"Was the restaurant all right, Rosaria?"
"...It was a good experience, Serena."
To learn quickly, the senses had to be involved.
After that, every time I slipped up and didn't use the name Serena at the restaurant, the Saintess pointed out my mistake by stroking my thigh with a benevolent hand that was difficult to describe, and so by the time we got outside, I'd been trained not to get her alias wrong.
"There's another place I've looked into, so let's go there, Rosaria."
And so, unable to regain my senses with the offense and defense reversed like this, I was internally reciting a clumsy Lord's Prayer and praying that I could just get home in one piece, when it happened.
"Mademoiselle."
Suddenly, two idlers blocked our path.
Judging by their dress and looks, they were the sons of some noble family.
I was trying to figure out what was going on.
"Could I steal a moment of your time over a cup of tea?"
Oh, what the fuck.
Were they hitting on me right now?
The first time I'd ever been hit on in my life.
And it was by a man, at that.
No wait, this body is a woman — was this normal?
Well, whatever,
it was as disgusting as swallowing muddy water.
I was blankly forcing down the nausea I still hadn't adjusted to and trying to calm myself when it happened.
"Please, permit me."
The insane bastard actually took my hand.
Normally, don't you ask before making physical contact like that?
My displeasure at this backward medieval hunting was only momentary.
Because the moment I remembered who it was pulling my wheelchair right now, it felt like frost had bloomed behind my back.
"...Remove your hand first."
Where had the beaming Saintess disappeared to?
In her place was the Demon King, her face a mask of expressionless fury.
Should I file a missing persons report right now?
No matter how I looked at it, this didn't seem like the Saintess.
No matter how I looked at it, this was the Demon King who'd just crawled up from hell right this instant.