Wasn’t This Supposed To Be a Strategy Game? – Chapter 109

Author: B0ucha

At the voice so cold it bordered on contempt, Fernando’s face flushed.

“Y-Yes, of course I know that. I was only concerned…”

“You must also know that Saintess Eden has the ability to read information about monsters.”

Asmun cut Fernando off and continued. At his words, the thin-eared nobles began murmuring again.

“Right, that’s true.”

“Have you ever heard of such an ability?”

“No, it’s really remarkable. Thanks to it, the compendium is progressing quickly, they say.”

Fernando’s expression soured.

“…Yes, I had heard that.”

“And even if we’re talking about low-rank monsters, the Saintess’s power to annihilate them is unique. It has not appeared in two hundred years.”

“Y-Yes… that’s true. I’m aware of all that…”

“So are you saying that because it might not work on a high-rank monster right now, we should strip her of her office? You are questioning the Temple’s verification in public. Can you stand by those words here?”

At that, the eyes of the priests standing behind Eden sharpened as well.

“Ha-ha, Your Highness Asmun, that’s far too strong an interpretation. I only meant…”

“Thanks to the marquis, we’d have nothing to say if Hamyun took offense and never again granted a Saintess to the Hesmore Empire.”

At the voice so icy it raised goosebumps, Fernando’s expression shrank.

He flicked a look at Patrian, but Patrian watched him as if entirely unrelated to the affair.

In the end, Fernando bowed his head and apologized.

“…Of course, that must never happen. I was not insisting her office be revoked. If I was rude, I beg your pardon, Saintess.”

Eden looked upon the cowed marquis and smiled with mercy.

“It’s all right.”

Then, sweetly, she added,

“However, as you have doubted my very existence, I’m afraid I cannot bestow a blessing upon you. May Hamyun forgive you, my lord marquis.”

When Eden smiled, Fernando stared at her, utterly vacant.

“I thought you wouldn’t come.”

Taking advantage of the moment when attention dispersed and even giving the priests the slip, Eden escaped to the terrace—and, as expected, found Asmun following her. She greeted him with a bright smile.

If not for Asmun, she would have been shamed as Patrian intended, and her reputation as Saintess would have been in tatters.

It was both astonishing and grateful how Asmun always appeared at these decisive moments. She couldn’t hide her joy.

For all her pretense, standing alone all day truly had been lonely work.

Asmun looked at Eden and replied at length,

“I intended not to.”

Eden blinked.

“Then why did you come? You’re busy.”

His answer to her puzzled question was as simple as could be.

“Because I heard you would be here.”

The face of the man saying such words was far too composed.

“I found I couldn’t bear not seeing you.”

It was Eden whose cheeks burned.

How could he say that without so much as a blink?

Her ears turned as red as the marquis who’d just been humiliated.

“Your Highness, you know you’re too good at things you look like you couldn’t possibly say?”

“And how do I ‘look,’ exactly?”

“You really don’t know?”

Instead of answering, he simply looked at her—blankly. He truly didn’t seem to know.

Eden decided to enlighten this unthinking man with the truth.

“I’m sorry to say, but sometimes—no, honestly, quite often—you look so cold it’s scary. So scary that—Your Highness, do you know all the young ladies in the hall are sneaking glances at you?”

“…I wouldn’t know.”

He sounded as if he couldn’t care less whether they looked at him or ate him alive. The sheer him-ness of that indifference made Eden let out a breeze of a laugh.

“How can you not? It’s always been like that.”

At the Founding Festival, when she’d first met Asmun, she’d witnessed countless young ladies peeking at him.

“But they never dare speak. Because your eyes look so uninterested it’s almost cruel. If they spoke up without reading the room, they’d fear earning a humiliation remembered across imperial banquets.”

His eyes, listening quietly, still looked bored—wholly uninterested in stories of other women. Eden laughed inwardly.

“But I’ll admit—your looks are so good they don’t dare.”

Only then did those indifferent red eyes draw slowly together.

“…So do you like my face?”

“Huh?”

“I hope you do. If not, I’ll try to do something about it.”

Eden was momentarily at a loss, staring as Asmun looked at her without blinking. Far too mortifying a line for such a deadpan face.

With faint music drifting from the hall and a night breeze cool enough to be pleasant, her spirits kept wanting to lift.

“…Your jokes are getting better.”

“A joke?”

Asmun stepped a pace closer and looked straight at her.

“I am always sincere with you, Saintess.”

At the blunt confession, Eden’s heart dipped low.

A dreadfully sweet flutter ran up her throat, while a threatening sense of wrongness brushed the edge of her chest.

Asmun’s favor must not deepen. If his heart grew any deeper…

But Asmun had wiped away every trace of that earlier detachment. His eyes held a slow, tender warmth as he looked at her—something those young ladies inside would never know.

There was no way to quell the flutter.

“It’s nice to be alone without a nuisance.”

He murmured, looking at Eden.

She knew instantly who he meant by “nuisance.” He hadn’t forgotten what happened with Hegenti last time.

「Don’t let shallow pity feed a calamity. He is not someone the Saintess can shoulder anyway.」

The warning Asmun had given her that day brushed her ear.

Why did Asmun liken Hegenti to a calamity?

Only Eden knew about Hegenti’s rampages. Or perhaps Serman as well.

“Your Highness, about last time. With Hegenti…”

“I don’t want to hear about that man right now.”

Eden began carefully, but Asmun cut her off at once, voice firm. The gaze that had just been gentle enough to melt her heart turned cold in an instant.

“…All right, I won’t.”

When she shifted gears quickly, his expression finally eased a little. She tried to change the mood.

“Ah—have you learned anything about Silvestone?”

At that, Asmun recalled what he’d heard from Baron Baster.

「I truly know nothing beyond this: a mage heard the rumor, came and solved the matter, and took Silvestone as payment. The man claimed to be both a mage and an alchemist. He said he could change the gem’s terrible power.」

Silvestone’s trail ended with the alchemist; judging by the baron’s account, the near-legendary rumors about Silvestone’s whereabouts were largely true.

「Spinel. I believe his mage-name was Spinel.」

So they had to find Spinel—but he was a man from eighty years ago, and after taking up the study of Silvestone, he had vanished. Tracking him down would be difficult.

Still, if they could just find information about him, they could get a step closer to Silvestone than Patrian.

“I’m searching for the alchemist who studied Silvestone.”

“If we find him, can we track it down?”

“It will likely take time even then. But we will, in the end—so don’t worry.”

Eden nodded, face grave.

The night breeze swept the terrace and tousled her soft hair. Asmun watched, then slowly reached out and brushed back the brown strands that had fallen any which way across her face.

At that tender touch, Eden’s heart thumped again. For someone who looked like he couldn’t do such things, Asmun could be shamelessly good at them.

“…That day.”

Even after he had smoothed back her hair, Asmun’s hand didn’t readily fall away.

Eden, realizing he was now so close their breath might touch, held her own.

“Do you know how afraid I was when I received your letter?”

As he quietly recalled that day, a pang pricked Eden’s chest.

But Asmun wasn’t angry. He wasn’t scolding her. If anything, it was closer to an ardent confession.

Realizing that, something inside her belly fluttered and tickled.

“Your Highness can be afraid?”

Even now, he could not take his eyes off her, as if terrified she might vanish any moment.

“I wasn’t—before I met you.”

Ah…