Chapter 7

Chapter 7

So You've Finally Come

The rich aroma of coffee and the savory scent of freshly baked bread tickled my nose.

The sky was cloudless and clear, and the warm spring breeze lightly tousled my silver hair as it passed.

[Saintess, I've brought the cake and coffee.]

The voice dripping with tenderness naturally lifted my mood. When I turned my head, a man stood there with the sunlight at his back.

[I told you not to call me something stiff like Saintess. Call me Trixie. If that's too much... then at least just call me by my name.]

I was sitting on a sunny café terrace.

The man carefully set my favorite sweet strawberry tart on the table and sat across from me.

[Would you like me to feed you?]

[Yeah.]

He picked up a small piece with his fork and brought it to my lips. Normally, I would've snapped, “Are you insane?” and stabbed his fingers with the fork, but the me in the dream was different.

As though I'd been waiting for it, I smiled shyly, parted my lips slightly, and ate the tart he offered me. The sweetness spreading through my mouth made me smile happily.

[You've got cream all over your mouth.]

He reached out and wiped the cream from the corner of my lips with his thumb. It was only a simple touch, but the spot he touched grew hot as though it had been burned.

[Yeah. It tastes even better because you're feeding me.]

I answered with a shy smile.

And then...

“Eeeek!”

Thud-

I rolled out of bed and woke up.

“Fucking hell, now I'm really losing my damn mind.”

I stared at the ceiling of my room and gave my concise impression of the dream.

Had it been a week since I returned from the expedition to the Demon Realm?

Things had been quiet all this time, so I'd let my guard down, only for it to suddenly sucker-punch me like this.

“Fuck this. What a goddamn nightmare.”

Whether the back of my head hurt because I'd hit the floor, or because the dream had blindsided me while I was off guard, I rubbed the throbbing spot, got up, and plopped down on the edge of the bed while grumbling.

And at that moment, an ominous fact passed through my mind like a ghost.

A Saintess's dreams are prophetic.

A power granted only to the Saintess, allowing her to foresee a future that will someday come to pass.

“Arghhh... fuck, knock it off already!”

Every time I had a prophetic dream, those words inexplicably popped into my head, making me rake my hands through my hair in frustration.

There was really nothing I could do about it. After all, they say that if someone tells you not to think about an elephant, you'll inevitably think about an elephant.

There was no way to stop those words from surfacing the moment I had a prophetic dream.

I shook my head vigorously, trying to cast away both the horrifying contents of the dream and the uncomfortable truth about prophetic dreams.

...The sticky, sinister dreams I'd mostly had in the Demon Realm pissed me off enough, but these dreams where I whispered sweet words of love with some man offered a whole different flavor of fucked-up.

“Hmm... There definitely is a difference, though.”

Groaning as I got up, I opened the window. The fresh dawn air flowed in, making me feel a little better.

The dreams I occasionally had at the temple were about going on dates with a man or acting lovey-dovey together.

If I were an ordinary woman, it would've been a perfectly plausible future to dream about, and something that could actually happen someday.

“Goddammit, get a grip, Beatrice. ‘A perfectly plausible future if I were an ordinary woman’? What kind of idiotic thought is that?”

Snapping back to my senses, I slapped both cheeks hard with my hands.

I'd hit myself hard enough to bring tears to my eyes, but at least I managed to clear my head and drive away that bizarre self-justification.

Anyway, there was a considerable difference between the dreams I had in the Demon Realm and the ones I had elsewhere.

First of all, the frequency was completely different. At the Order, it had taken a whole week, but in the Demon Realm, those fucked-up dreams came even if I only dozed off for a moment.

The contents were different too. The dreams I had in the Demon Realm felt far more sinister and obscene.

...What's the difference, you ask? For starters, in the dreams I had in the Demon Realm, there were hardly any where I was actually wearing clothes.

...Fuck.

“At this point, someone really must be screwing around with my dreams.”

Someone was clearly interfering with them. Following the advice Grandpa Pope gave me last week, I should go ask the Goddess.

Nothing could be more certain than that.

With that thought, I threw a robe over my pajamas and ran toward the prayer room.

As the saying goes, strike while the iron is hot. If I didn't act the moment I made up my mind, I'd probably keep putting it off over trivial excuses.

“SAINTESS!!! Please dress yourself properly!!”

Old Bartolomew's thunderous roar crashed down on me when he saw me running through the hallway in my pajamas.

“Ah, sorry, old man! I need to talk to the Goddess about something urgent!”

Meeting the Goddess was far more urgent than dressing properly, so I zipped past him and hurried into the prayer room.

“Heh.”

I slammed the door shut a split second before the furious Bartolomew could catch me, then wore a crooked, triumphant smile.

[...It isn't good to tease your elders too much.]

“I'm not teasing him.”

As soon as I prayed, the Goddess's scolding voice reached me. I promptly played innocent.

...I really wasn't teasing him.

That old man just took everything way too seriously.

[Bartolomew seems to be suffering quite a lot because of you, Trixie. He used to offer nothing but devout prayers, but after you came along, more and more of his prayers became, ‘Please let the Saintess grow into a modest lady,’ or ‘Please keep her from causing trouble.’ And lately...]

Flinch-

My conscience prickled sharply, and I instinctively shrank back.

...Especially after learning the cruel truth that even divine power couldn't heal his receding hairline.

[Lately, they aren't prayers at all. They're lamentations.]

“Yeeah... I'll try not to stress him out so much.”

There was nothing I could say, so I obediently nodded.

[Anyway, what brings you here? Seeing a fully grown young lady rush over in her pajamas like this makes me think it must be urgent.]

“I have some questions about the dreams I've been having lately.”

[Dreams? Prophetic dreams? What kind of dreams were they for you to come here in such a hurry?]

Apparently even the Goddess couldn't know what prophetic dreams contained.

She'd explained before that the power of prophetic dreams wasn't granted by a god, but by the world itself, which made it impossible for gods to interfere with them directly.

She'd explained more after that, but it was so complicated and headache-inducing that I couldn't remember any of it.

Anyway...

“Umm...”

I tried to explain the dreams, but the words refused to come out.

I dream about being affectionate with a man? And in the Demon Realm, those dreams become extremely strange and happen much more often?

...That wasn't exactly easy to say out loud.

After spending quite some time organizing my thoughts, I ultimately glossed over the details and explained the dreams roughly.

[...My.]

After silently listening to the words I'd barely managed to force out, the Goddess let out a small exclamation.

[I suppose our little one is finally old enough to fall in love.]

“?”

[Hehe, don't worry too much about it. There are rigid goddesses like Hestia who demand lifelong chastity, but our Order doesn't care whether you marry or have children.]

Ah, right.

Lady Eris is the Goddess of Love.

Because I'd carefully chosen my words, she must've thought I'd come for relationship advice.

“Goddess, that's not what I mean... Haaa... Fine. I'll just tell you honestly.”

I had a feeling we'd keep talking past each other if I continued dancing around the contents of the dreams. In the end, I told her everything honestly.

The Goddess silently listened as I blushed and stammered my way through the contents of the dreams.

...When I finally finished, silence followed.

“...Goddess?”

Unable to bear the heavy silence, I cautiously called out to her.

[Trixie, have you ever loved a man?]

“Absolutely not! And I never will!”

At the unexpected question that broke the silence, I reflexively shouted my answer.

“And I won't ever love a woman either!”

I cut off what I suspected would come out of the Goddess's mouth next.

She'd definitely say something about keeping an open mind, then tell me that whether it was a man or woman, wasn't love itself what mattered?

I planned to stay single for life. There was no chance I'd ever like men, but I couldn't exactly like women either. Maybe because my body was female, no matter how beautiful a woman was, I never felt anything beyond thinking, She's pretty.

My mind rejected men, and my body rejected women, so I was tragically destined to live as a lifelong bachelor—or rather, spinster.

Anyway, enough pointless thoughts. Let's get back to the conversation with the Goddess.

[Have you ever comforted yourself alone?]

“Comforted myself? About what?”

Unable to understand what she meant by the question, I had no choice but to tilt my head and ask back.

[Of course you wouldn't have any experience with men, nor with women...]

“What are you talking about?”

Once again, I tilted my head because I didn't understand. What in the world had she been talking about for the past few minutes?

Come to think of it, I'd lived more than twenty years as a man in my previous life and thirteen years as a woman now, so in a sense, I'd experienced both sides of life.

Of course, if I said that out loud, I'd only earn the Goddess's sincere concern that maybe her Saintess had gone insane, so I couldn't exactly mention it.

[Hehehe... You really don't understand at all. How innocent.]

“...That laugh is making me uncomfortable.”

The Goddess didn't answer my question and instead said something completely unrelated. The vaguely lecherous tone mixed into her laughter made me strangely uneasy.

[Ahem. Let us return to the matter at hand. The contents of the dreams Trixie has in the Demon Realm, and the fact that they occur with abnormal frequency. Looking at that, it certainly seems that something is interfering.]

“Yeah, that's what I thought too, so I came to you.”

After clearing her throat once, the Goddess spoke seriously without her usual playful tone. I nodded in agreement.

[Coming to me immediately was a wise choice. Could you tell me how your body has been feeling lately?]

“Hmm... Nothing seems particularly wrong, but sometimes I feel lethargic or find myself spacing out.”

Lately, I'd suddenly developed chronic fatigue.

Getting up in the morning had become considerably harder, and there were quite a few times when I found myself blankly spacing out without realizing it.

Ever since becoming the Order's Saintess, I'd lived a life far removed from illness or fatigue thanks to the divine power that always flowed within me like a clear spring.

Of course, if I went a week without sleep like this time, or fought upper-class demonic beasts or demons in the Demon Realm until I was half-dead, I'd still get tired.

But feeling this exhausted while simply living normally inside the Order was clearly strange.

At my answer, the Goddess fell silent again.

She seemed to be thinking something over, so I silently waited for her response.

[It's a little early, but you need to take a bath.]

“...A bath? I already washed this morning.”

After quite some time, the Goddess finally spoke, but her words were rather difficult to understand.

Did I smell? With that thought, I grabbed my hair and sniffed it, then smelled my forearm, but I couldn't detect anything unusual.

Well, I guess they say you can't smell your own body odor...

[Tell Bartolomew or Sylvester. They'll prepare everything for you.]

“You're telling me to go ask the old man or Grandpa Pope to help bathe me? I don't know about Grandpa, but I'll be lucky if the old man doesn't clutch his neck and collapse.”

[...]

“Goddess?”

[...]

“...Goddess?”

The conversation cut off.

...What was that? She'd never abruptly ended our conversation like this before. Did something urgent happen in the divine realm?

No matter how many times I called, the Goddess didn't answer, so I scratched the back of my head and left the prayer room.

Gods naturally enjoy throwing cryptic words at humans.

No, more accurately, they seem to enjoy watching humans agonize over trying to interpret them.

Goddess Eris was no different, so she occasionally said things that were difficult to understand.

But today, I couldn't understand almost anything she'd said.

The stuff about comforting myself and experience seemed like pointless teasing, so for now I should just tell old Bartolomew or Grandpa Pope, “The Goddess said I need to take a bath.”

Then surely I'd get some kind of answer.

“Saintess Beatrice.”

And speak of the devil. The moment I opened the prayer room door, I found myself face-to-face with old Bartolomew.

...Damn. I didn't think he'd still be waiting for me.

He was usually so busy that I'd assumed he'd have gone back to work by now, but he'd completely caught me off guard.

The old man stared silently at me.

I silently tried to close the prayer room door again, but failed when he caught it with his hand.

“Old man, I didn't do anything wrong.”

“Ho. That is generally the sort of line spoken by someone who has, in fact, done something wrong.”

“...”

The old man was a master at leaving people with nothing to say.

But I was a master at dealing with him.

“But I'm the Saintess, so you can't judge me by ordinary standards, can you?”

“...”

Ahem. Got you there, old man. With that thought, I straightened my back and wore a smug expression.

The old man merely stared at me, apparently speechless.

Ah, no. He wasn't speechless.

That was the face of someone desperately holding back his anger.

Time to run.

I was slowly backing away, searching for an opening, when the old man sighed, shook his head, and spoke.

“I have a great many things to say to you, but I will restrain myself because there is urgent news.”

“Urgent news? What is it?”

“A Hero candidate has arrived.”

At those words, a chill swept over me as though all the blood in my body had gone cold at once.

So you've finally come, Cassian. You son of a bitch.

Tick—

It felt as though I could hear the hands of the clock announcing the beginning of the original story start to move.