Ch.20Saint Candidate – 1

Rosaria approached me, coming right up close. The scent of milk-like skin and subtle shampoo wafted over me. Her slightly folded arms pushed her large breasts together, as if inviting me to touch them.

I reached out. I crossed her wrists in front of her lower abdomen and gripped them firmly at the intersection. Rosaria didn’t even offer the slightest resistance, perhaps thinking I had succumbed to her seduction.

I lifted her crossed wrists above her head, changing our positions. Now it was Rosaria who was pressed firmly against the wall instead of me. As her back hit the wall with a soft thud, a seductive smile spread across her face.

It was a smile that matched her provocative attire.

“Hmm, so you prefer to be forceful? You’re rougher than you look.”

“No. I just have some questions of my own.”

“What about? My preferences? My erogenous zones? My cup size?”

“Why you’re doing this.”

The seductive smile vanished from her face. Our eyes met. Rosaria stared at me intently, and seeming to read the emotion in my gaze, she let out a sigh.

“You’re not going to continue after this?”

“If I had that intention, I wouldn’t be doing this. We’d already be overlapping somewhere by now.”

The woman before me was completely defenseless. Her arms were raised above her head, exposing her clean armpits; her chest was practically bare, and her private parts were similarly exposed.

In this situation, instead of exploring her body, I was just asking questions. She must have realized I had absolutely no such intentions.

“…Are you impotent or something? Or maybe you prefer men? How can you remain so calm when a woman like me is offering herself to you completely naked? Wow, there’s not even any reaction down there?”

“I’m neither, so stop talking nonsense.”

The memory of the Crown Prince giving me flirtatious looks flashed in my mind, making me feel disgusted. I tightened my grip on her wrists. Rosaria let out a faint groan and frowned. Her body twisted slightly.

As a man with normal sexual desires, I wasn’t completely unmoved by her appearance. But my wariness about the current situation was even greater. As for my lower half, that was something I could control.

“Alright. I won’t say anything more. So could you please let go? It’s starting to hurt.”

“Promise you won’t try anything stupid.”

“I won’t. I promise. Do you think I’d try again with a man who doesn’t even flinch when a woman seduces him dressed like this? I can tell when there’s no chance.”

I released her wrists. Rosaria frowned as she rubbed her wrists a few times, then brought her hands to her breasts, which were still exposing their pink tips.

White holy power emanated from her hands. The garment that had been cut in the middle and hanging loosely rose up and reattached itself. The drooping fabric reconnected horizontally.

A star formed in the middle of her cleavage, connecting the two pieces of cloth. The pink protrusions modestly disappeared behind the white fabric, though it seemed impossibly narrow to cover them.

“Now you need to answer me.”

“Fine, fine. So impatient. First, let’s sit down. This isn’t the kind of conversation to have standing.”

Exasperated by my urging, Rosaria plopped down on the bed. With just that simple movement, her still half-exposed large breasts bounced significantly.

Leaning back slightly as if to emphasize her chest, Rosaria gestured toward me.

“What are you doing? Aren’t you coming?”

“I’m fine standing. Just answer the question.”

“Ugh, how fussy. Hmm… where should I begin? Right, I have a secret.”

“A secret?”

“Yes. Actually, I have two personalities.”

This was something I’d never heard before. Seeing my surprised expression, Rosaria continued with her characteristic seductive smile.

“You must have heard rumors about me, right? How I pick on nuns and torture them, how I feel ecstasy and enjoy it. Those kinds of rumors.”

“I’ve heard them.”

Though my sources might be a bit different from most people’s.

“They’re all true, and they’re all done by my other personality. You saw it in the forest earlier. I was dragging a nun by her hair, then I saw you and let her go with a surprised look.”

That’s right. With a face full of ecstasy, she had been roughly dragging the nun, asking where to start, but as soon as our eyes met, she looked surprised and urged the nun to leave quickly.

“It’s sad to say, but I can’t control when my personality changes. Only after my other personality… ah, screw it. That crazy bitch has tortured someone to her satisfaction do I get released. That’s what happened then too. She was dragging someone away on some trumped-up charge when we ran into you.”

“I understand. And then?”

“She disappeared as soon as she saw you. And I emerged. Can you imagine how surprised I was? That bitch who always needed to see blood before retreating just went back in without any torture or anything. How could I not be shocked?”

“…She disappeared?”

This was the first I’d heard of having such an ability. Changing the personality of someone with dissociative identity disorder? That seemed impossible.

“Yes. She’s gone in and hasn’t come out at all. Even when I have control of my body, I usually feel like that crazy bitch might pop out at any moment—it’s like a constant tingling sensation here—but now I don’t feel that at all. This has never happened to me before.”

Rosaria placed her hand on her chest. She probably intended to indicate her heart, but because her breasts were so large, it just looked like she was resting her hand on them.

“So I wanted to bring you here, just in case. I thought you might have some special ability. I couldn’t talk about it there with others watching.”

“Then why did you throw yourself at me as soon as we got here?”

“Uh, well, that’s, um…”

Stammering, Rosaria floundered with a speechless expression. It wasn’t that she was too embarrassed to speak, but rather that she couldn’t find a suitable excuse.

It was suspicious. Extremely so.

‘There are too many things that don’t add up.’

For starters, Priscilla had never explained that Rosaria had a dual personality. She just called her a crazy bitch outright. If such a striking characteristic existed, she would have definitely mentioned it.

Rosaria was the person who became Aria’s slave after being branded a heretic in the middle of Part 1, and always accompanied her. Surely the evil personality couldn’t have been in control the entire time from the middle of Part 1 to the end of Part 2.

Even now, if what she said was true, she wouldn’t be desperately searching for an excuse like this.

There was clearly another reason, one she couldn’t tell me.

“So… so… Ah, right! I just personally liked you—”

“So you do this to every man you like? Then how many am I? About the hundredth?”

“Are you crazy?! I told you earlier we were both first-timers! What did you think I meant? Besides, to become a saint, you must be pure—oh.”

Rosaria suddenly closed her mouth, seemingly realizing the contradiction in her words, but it was too late. I approached her with a smirk.

“So to become a saint, you must be pure, yet you tried to do that with me? I wonder what’s going on here, hmm?”

“…”

“Your excuses need to be more believable for me to trust them. Honestly, I don’t believe you. I know someone who only gives 100% reliable information, and a lot of what you’re saying doesn’t match what they told me.”

Rosaria hung her head low, apparently realizing there was no way out.

“I’m going to give you one chance now. This will be the first and last chance I give you, so listen carefully.”

“…”

“Whatever secret you’re hiding, don’t try to conceal it. Just tell me everything. Whatever it is, I won’t laugh and I’ll take it seriously. If you don’t want to do that, just tell me to leave now. And then we’ll never see each other again, no matter what happens. How about it? Easy, right? The choice is yours, Saint Candidate.”

“…”

Rosaria kept her head down and didn’t answer. Instead, she just muttered quietly.

“As if you’d take me seriously and not laugh when I tell you you’re just a character in a novel… how can I tell someone that…”

“A character in a novel?”

When I interrupted her muttering with a question, Rosaria looked up in shock.

“Y-you heard that?!”

“I did. Very clearly.”

Now I was starting to understand. What that other personality she described was a metaphor for, and why she maintained that attitude.

“…”

Rosaria looked like she truly believed all was lost. I spoke before she could panic completely.

“What, are you a transmigrator too?”

“…Huh?”

Her crimson eyes widened. Her stammering lips produced what was almost a scream.

“Huuuuuh?!”

In conclusion, everything she had just explained was a lie.

She tried to explain using metaphors, thinking no one would believe her if she said outright that this was a fictional world and she was a transmigrator.

What happened to her was similar to Priscilla. If she tried to deviate from the original story, she would forcibly lose control, and after witnessing the same ending of the novel, she would die and regress.

She had been repeating this cycle, but for some reason, she had regained some freedom over her body a week ago.

It was really just a little freedom. Whenever she visited places related to the original story, she would lose control as before and could only watch as the original owner of the body wreaked havoc.

The same thing happened in Bellium Forest. She lost control as soon as she arrived at the academy and had to act like the real Rosaria, dragging the nun away. Only after meeting me did the real transmigrator, Shin Yura, regain control.

The reason she acted so rudely from our first meeting was that she was too shocked by this unprecedented experience, and since she thought I was just a character in the novel, she believed any damaged relationship could be fixed after regression.

She apologized sincerely, so I decided to forgive her.

‘I didn’t know there was someone else like Priscilla.’

Overall, her explanation reminded me of Priscilla.

The differences were that Rosaria had only repeated the regression four times, and she met me while having some freedom of action.

Also, while Priscilla’s mind was half-broken and she was like a doll until she met me, with a severe dependency on me even now, Rosaria was relatively sane.

“…So, putting everything else aside, I decided to quit being a Saint Candidate first. I’m sick of that damn church. I don’t even want to look at it anymore.”

“What does trying to seduce me have to do with giving up your position as a Saint Candidate?”

“Everything. Do you think the Starlight Church would let me go that easily? They’d do anything to keep me from leaving. But what if I had sex with you and lost my virginity? Ta-da, problem solved! As I said earlier, only pure virgins can become saints. It goes against the goddess’s rules—what could they do? They’d have to kick me out.”

Rosaria cackled as if the mere thought brought her joy.

“Oh, don’t worry. I was planning to keep who I did it with a complete secret. The church might retaliate against someone who took the Saint’s virginity, you know? Those bastards are more corrupt than you can imagine. I couldn’t bear to see my savior suffer like that.”

Now I understood the whole situation. Rosaria had been desperate in her own way. Desperate enough to make such an attempt with someone she’d just met.

She had to watch herself tear human flesh and crush bones with her own hands, and in the end, she had to thank the original protagonist while her internal organs melted while she was still alive.

All while trapped in the body of the original character, Rosaria Leone de Michaela.

“But honestly, I never imagined you’d reject me. So I didn’t prepare any excuses. I hate to say it myself, but I’m not just ordinarily pretty. My figure, and these clothes…”

Rosaria flicked the star in the middle of her chest with her finger, then stopped mid-sentence and began to tremble. Her face gradually turned bright red.

“These clothes… these clothes…”

“Surely you didn’t choose to wear them?”

“Of course not!”

Rosaria’s body sprang up.

“Do you know what that bastard Pope said to me? He gave me these insane rags to wear and spouted nonsense about how I looked good because I looked as holy as the goddess! Holy like the goddess, my ass! He just liked seeing me half-naked! I can’t count how many times I wanted to cut off that bastard’s dick!”

Judging by her use of profanity, which she had never used before, she had a lot of pent-up frustration. Rosaria continued to vent her anger, her clenched fists trembling.

“It’s not just the Pope! Every single one of those filthy, disgusting old fucks would look at me and say to each other, ‘If only she wasn’t a Saint Candidate,’ and other such crap! They knew perfectly well I could hear them! And then what? They say it’s normal for a saint to wear such clothes? That this is normal?”

She seemed to recognize that her attire wasn’t normal. I wasn’t sure whether to consider it fortunate or unfortunate, given the days of shame she must have endured.

“Normal my ass! Even cheap prostitutes wouldn’t wear this garbage! To think this is normal, the goddess herself would have to be completely insane, and there’s no way such a crazy world exists! There’s no way such a crazy goddess exists!”