[Saintess, Anastasia Lacroix - 11]
[Saintess, Anastasia Lacroix - 11]
The girl does not know her parents.
At the very least, from her earliest memories, she had already been living in the slums, living as a person of the slums.
The girl thought she had likely been abandoned by her parents, and the people around her thought so too.
It wasn't that strange of a thing.
There were surprisingly many babies abandoned for various reasons—whether the parents couldn't afford to raise a child, or the child itself was something that shouldn't be discovered—and the girl was just one of those many children.
The only distinctive thing was that, unlike the other children, the girl had the blood of a Beastkin flowing through her, so she could do work in her own way.
There were many places where she could use her higher physical abilities than others, and she managed to survive day by day, whether by stealing or doing whatever else.
There was someone who raised her.
It wasn't her parent, but someone who took pity on the abandoned girl and saved her.
The girl called that person 'parent,' and they were already quite old when they took Eris in.
She thought of them as a grateful person who worried about the girl even in moments when they were weakened by aging.
The fact that she couldn't even hold a proper funeral and had to let them go like that was too painful.
She would just live like a beast at the bottom of the barrel and die.
If so, was there any meaning to living?
However, the last words of the person who was her parent, "Live," bound the girl's body like a curse, and she simply couldn't choose the option of ending this life herself.
She thought about it hundreds of times, but hundreds of times the face of her benefactor would come to mind, and she would end up unable to do it, with only days of shedding tears continuing.
Will it end someday?
If it ends, will it end by being killed by someone?
Perhaps deep down in her heart, she might be wishing for such ruin. If there is a place called the afterlife, and she could meet them once more, she would definitely be scolded.
Since it was a person who always saw through the girl's heart, they would have understood that the girl was trying to ruin herself on purpose.
"Ugh, ugh."
She slowly opened her eyes.
As she thought, 'What happened?', memories seemed to come back to her mind.
Two strange people had suddenly come, fought, and she had been defeated.
The fact that she was alive and not dead brought a sense of relief and disgust at the same time.
Disgustingly, there wasn't a single cloud in the blue sky, and it gave a strong impression of being peaceful.
As she was staring blankly up at the sky like that, someone's face came into view.
A woman wearing a hood.
Snow-white hair and black eyes.
She could immediately tell it was the person she had fought earlier, and the girl's eyes widened.
"You finally opened your eyes. Can we talk calmly now?"
She couldn't erase the feeling of an absolute powerhouse felt from those eyes.
How should she describe it?
A chill like a snake coiled up.
And a creepiness that felt as if her arms and legs were being bound.
"Name."
"What?"
"Name, don't you have one?"
I sat a little distance away and watched the Saintess-nim and the girl.
I don't discriminate against people from the slums, but there would definitely be people who do, and it was an undeniable fact that there would be complaints.
However, I didn't stop the Saintess-nim's actions. Because she wasn't the type of person to listen even if I did stop her.
To do anything about that bull-headed stubbornness, one needed logic and a just cause that matched it, and I couldn't persuade the Saintess-nim with just words like "it might turn out bad."
The things to teach were increasing, and the Saintess-nim was absorbing knowledge quickly, and every time that happened, the difficulty seemed to rise.
Once she becomes an adult, it might become difficult to persuade her from the path she wants to take without a truly proper justification.
"E, Eris."
"Yes, Eris. I am Anastasia Lacroix. And this is Adrian Valtus."
I bowed my head slightly and gave a short greeting.
Perhaps because she was defeated by the Saintess-nim once, it seemed a proper hierarchy had been established.
Or maybe it was because she had just woken up from being unconscious, so she was still in a daze, or perhaps she was excited earlier but was a bit calmer now.
Anyway, she was in a state where it seemed like we could communicate better than before.
The Saintess-nim was circling around Eris, checking her condition.
Blue hair like water.
Perhaps because it hadn't been properly cared for, it was matted, greasy, and an absolute mess; it was short hair, but it seemed she hadn't even been able to cut it properly, as the ends of her hair were literally torn to shreds.
She had probably sold her hair to cover even a little bit of her living expenses.
"W, what business does a noble have with me?"
In this world, commoners do not have surnames, and having a surname meant one was a noble.
It seemed she didn't know about the Saintess-nim's name or surname.
Well, it wasn't strange for someone living in this environment, risking their life for today and tomorrow, not to know the name or surname of a Saintess whom they had never met and would never have the occasion to meet.
Rather than that, she probably didn't even want to know.
"Since you don't seem to know, shall I introduce myself once more? I am a Saintess. A Saintess."
"A Saintess?"
Eris's eyes widened.
She might not know much about the Anastasia Lacroix in front of her, but at least she seemed to know what a 'Saintess' was.
"T, that gives you even less reason to have business with me. You said you didn't come because of the wallet I stole earlier, so then, a high-and-mighty person like you. Hmm, yeah. There's no way you'd have business with me."
"No, I have business."
"W, what is it?"
"You, do you have any thoughts of working under me?"
"......."
Eris's eyes widened.
It must be sudden.
Meeting that famous Saintess-nim who seems to be in such a high place, fighting, and then waking up after fainting only to receive a scout offer—it was understandable that she would be surprised.
Eris eventually looked at the Saintess-nim with guarded eyes for a moment, then stepped back a little.
She was like a cat with its guard raised to the extreme.
Even though she said she was a wolf.
"What's your motive?"
"If you're asking for my motive, I just told you. I came to make you my subordinate. No, is that a bad way of putting it? I came to get my hands on excellent talent... Yes, this sounds a bit better, doesn't it?"
"You, if you're really a Saintess-nim, you can bring in as many people as you want. A slum-dweller like me becoming your subordinate will only tarnish your reputation."
Is she smarter than I thought?
No, rather than that, it might be better to say she has good situational judgment.
She seemed to be a bit excellent at obtaining information with what's commonly called wild instinct, and reaching the truth based on that information.
Beastkin often leap over 'logic' and sometimes just state the 'conclusion' without deducing.
It's baffling, but I have been helped a few times by that habit of stating only the conclusion.
On the battlefield, if a comrade who was a Beastkin said, "Something is coming," I had to draw my sword immediately and be on guard.
Sometimes it wasn't the case, but most of the time when they said that, an ambush would come.
It wasn't that they felt magic power, nor that they felt a presence, nor that they felt killing intent.
It was a kind of intuition, as if a goddess had bestowed it.
A hunch.
A chill.
What it's called wasn't that important of an issue.
"Until recently, I couldn't even do proper work, so I don't have anything worth calling a reputation. I have to build the tower from now on. Shall I give you a snobbish answer? If I make you, a slum-dweller, my subordinate and have you perform well, I can gain a reputation for hiring without discrimination."
"The high-and-mighty ones won't like that."
"It's fine, because I don't like them either. I'm not exactly plotting anything big, but if something happens, I need a subordinate I can trust. I can't trust the guys the high-and-mighty ones prepared."
It seemed this Saintess-nim didn't remember that I also came prepared by those high-and-mighty ones.
I thought that perhaps in her head, our first meeting had already been distorted according to her own will.
"Whether it's the slums or whatever, it doesn't matter. If you have skill, that's enough."
"Skill? I lost to you one-sidedly."
"Potential is also skill. Let's see, shall we call it an investment? I think you'll get stronger. However, I don't really intend to force you. I counterattacked because you kept attacking me, but I told you from the beginning that I wanted to talk."
"Hmm......."
Perhaps unable to deny it, Eris let out a small groan.
"I won't force you, but I think it's not a bad proposal. ......Ed?"
"If you were to come under the Saintess-nim, you would receive a proper salary, food, clothing, and shelter would be basically guaranteed, and rest time would also be guaranteed. At the very least, you wouldn't need to worry about what to eat today or tomorrow like you do now, and every day, proper meals, a place to sleep, and clothes would be provided."
"What?"
Eris's eyes, shaking more than ever before, looked back and forth between me and the Saintess-nim.
The Saintess-nim smiled.
Ah, it might be rude to say this, but that's a truly villainous smile.
No matter who looks at it, it's not the face of a good person.
She has the face of a villain threatening a slum-dweller.
"I think it's a waste for someone like you to die in a place like this. Don't you think so yourself? Are you going to keep living miserably like that in a place like this, and die? If that's what you want, I won't stop you."
The Saintess-nim looked at Eris.
Eris was a little taller than the Saintess-nim, but perhaps because such physical size differences didn't have much meaning, Eris seemed to be being one-sidedly pushed back by the Saintess-nim.
In those eerily empty black eyes, only Eris was reflected, and it seemed as if Eris was seeing what kind of face she herself was making right now from those eyes.
"I will give you a more valuable meaning to life, how about it? Not a bad proposal, right?"
The Saintess-nim smiled and reached out her hand toward Eris.
"......."
Eris just stared blankly at the Saintess-nim.
"......."
I also kept silent.
This is absolutely not a scene of the Demon King of Evil corrupting a child.
It was a truly wholesome scene of asking her to come under the Saintess.
It would not be an exaggeration to say it was a scene giving her a chance to turn her life around.
Though the former seemed a bit more persuasive.