Otome Game no Heroine de Saikyou Survival [WN] - Chapter 147.2
“My lady, that sort of…”
“It’s okay.”
Clara replied curtly to the words of the attendant who was following her on the way to the carriage.
Clara used her [Gift], “Foresight,” and after some calculations, she decided that it was not a good idea to stay where they were.
If she stayed there, her position would become even worse. Even so, she felt that her heart would be torn if she did not say something.
Ervan was just being deceived by that woman…the Heroine. She thought that if she preached the assumption she had arrived at through calculations, the gentle Ervan would come back to her, but her persuasion was not working, as her sad emotions were on display.
If he came back to her, she would be happy, even if she could not be Queen. But the reality was that Ervan was the Crown Prince, and she had to be the Queen in order to be united with him.
If Ervan’s heart belonged to her, she could tolerate it. But if the heroine were to become a Queen, like in the Otome Game, Clara wondered if she would be able to endure it.
Clara’s aunt, the second queen, could not endure it and fell ill. Clara, too, realized that she could not endure it and began to wonder if she had become a “villainess” in order to get closer to these people.
“Where’s the item?”
“I’ve got it, but are you sure you want me to use it?”
At Clara’s words, the mid-twenties attendant hesitated, thinking of her master.
She was what they call an “Escort Maid”. However, she was not from the dark side, but from a destroyed assassin’s guild.
One day a few years ago, while she was away on business, the guild literally disappeared, along with all of its members.
She was a member of the assassin’s guild, but she simply handled poisons and supplied them to the guild, not directly in combat. When the guild disappeared, and she was distributing poisons to the underworld to survive, she was captured by Dandol’s guards.
Not all assassins were murderers. Many of them, like her, were selling drugs among the city’s residents to live rather than to kill. Five years ago, Clara, who found it difficult to obtain information on the heroine with Dandol’s Secret Service, rescued her by forceful means when she was about to be executed and extended a favor to her, even saving her poverty-stricken family, and thereby making her a subordinate.
She was now so fascinated with Clara that she not only played the role of a poison maker but also risked her life for Clara, and she was helpful in gathering information at the academy.
The object prepared by the attendant was an illegal poison made by a special process.
It was left behind by the Evil Race, who used to be in the assassin’s guild, and since it used human Magic Stone as a material. It was developed by the Evil Race, but when they established the production method of the poison to be inefficient, they discarded it all. However, one of the alchemists in the guild at that time stole the method and succeeded in producing it, albeit slightly.
The alchemist was also burnt to the ground along with the chapel when the guild disappeared, but his apprentice, the attendant, had found the poison, which was partially vulnerable to moisture, in a separate place where it had been kept.
“I’ll use it. If it puts an end to all this…”
“Understood, my Lady.”
***
“Licia, what’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry, Nathaniel. I just had to see you alone.”
The chapel in the school. It was a chapel on the campus, not as large as the chapel in the royal capital, but still medium class in size compared to other chapels in the region.
The chapel was managed by a priest dispatched from the church in the capital, but Nathaniel, the grandson of the temple’s head, was authorized to enter the chapel when it was not in use.
Even though they were still students of twelve to thirteen years old, it was not advisable for them to meet alone as they were nobles. But her butler, who should have admonished her for this, had left her side to report to the dark side about Clara and Carla at the tea party.
“Un. I wanted to meet Licia too.”
Nathaniel looked at the girl, Alicia’s beaming smile, and replied with a look of comfort on his face.
To Nathaniel, she was “special”. He would never have been so comfortable with her, even though she is rumored to have been raised as a commoner.
A few months ago, something happened that destroyed Nathaniel’s values.
The kidnapping of the first princess, Elena. Nathaniel was caught up in the incident, which some of the Knights were involved in, and was saved by a girl who was the princess’s bodyguard. She told Nathaniel, who tried to condemn her, not to mention the weight of life in the words of a “being” called God.
He could not approve of such a thing. What would they, God’s children and bearers of God’s word, do if they did not speak God’s word? At the same time, however, the girl’s words drove a wedge into Nathaniel’s heart, and just as his values were collapsing, and he was about to lose sight of himself, it was Alicia who saved his heart.
She told him, [You are not wrong. Life and God’s words are important. There are people who can be saved by them, so there is nothing wrong.]
The girl who called herself Alicia smiled at him, wrapped her hand in his and gave him a beaming smile.
[But relax your shoulders a little. You are free. Then you can walk around like this holding hands.]
The warmth of her hand… Nathaniel’s shaken heart regained its strength, and he fell in love for the first time in his life with her unconditional “affirmation” of everything about him.
“Actually…I want to help Carla…”
“What?”
Alicia told Nathaniel that the reason Carla was so violent was because she did not believe in God. For that reason, she said, she wanted the help of a certain person in the church in King’s Landing.
“I, Ursula-sama, think that you can save Carla-sama’s heart.”
“…”
Ursula. That name was known to Nathaniel as well.
She was originally an orphan abandoned in front of a church, but following the teachings of the Holy Church, she awakened to the magical power of light and saved many lives, and was even called a “Saint”.
But Nathaniel also knew her other side.
She directed the “Holy Church Order,” a unit that captured sinful people who did not follow God’s teachings and sent them to the church’s basement to correct their spirits.
Nathaniel did not know what happened to those who were sent underground. His grandfather, the temple head, said they had awakened to God’s teachings, but no one had seen them after that.
Something terrible is taking place. It’s not that I don’t believe my grandfather’s words, but I don’t want to be actively involved.
How could Alicia know such a top secret matter that only a few in the church knew about?
(…No, Licia is genuinely worried about Carla-sama…)
With Ursula, who was said to be as capable as a Rank 4 adventurer, and her teaching team, they might be able to capture even that fearsome Carla.
Even if Carla never came out of the church basement again… Nathaniel remembered the humiliation he had suffered at the tea party and nodded at her suggestion, without telling Alicia the truth.
Feeling as if he had sinned, Nathaniel knelt in the chapel in remorse and prayed to God, and a soft object wrapped around his head.
“Licia!”
“It’s okay, Nathaniel, there’s nothing wrong with you. You just have to believe in yourself more.”
Nathaniel’s voice was unnerving as Alicia hugged his head as she knelt in front of him.
After trying to pull away and being hugged even more, Nathaniel buried his face in the girl’s thin abdomen and gradually relaxed into her compassion as she gently caressed his head and held Alicia as if clinging to her.
“If it’s hard for you, I’ll comfort you.”
In the dimly lit chapel, the girl who was holding the boy’s head and stroking it like a Virgin was smiling a dark, distorted smile against the faintly shining Holy Seal.
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Also check out my other novels: Reincarnated into a Game as the Hero’s Friend, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, and A Girl Who Was Told “You Have No Talent” Turned Out To Be A Talented Monster