Ch.23Saint Candidate – 4

“So, how did you break the Maker’s core?”

It was a somewhat awkward question to answer honestly.

If I mixed in half-truths, I’d be seen through immediately, which would be worse than not answering at all. And to answer honestly would mean revealing everything about Priscilla, which was out of the question from the start.

In the end, I needed to find an answer that would satisfy the Chairwoman without revealing the truth.

“Is that a difficult question to answer? Take your time, I’ll give you plenty of it.”

The Chairwoman crossed her legs with a relaxed smile. As she did, her tight-fitting skirt—so form-fitting that “skin-tight” would be an understatement—rolled up slightly, pressing into the flesh of her thigh.

Inside the glossy black stockings sat captivating leg lines, and her red high heels dangled from her toes, twitching slightly to some strange rhythm.

Above the tight skirt was a belt that cinched her waist and a white suit vest that clung to her body so tightly that it would reveal her navel’s contours if it went any lower.

The buttons across her chest looked precariously close to popping with the slightest change in posture, and between them, glimpses of sexy black lingerie were visible.

The thin white vest, almost transparent enough to reveal her lingerie, ended at a position that nearly exposed her side-bosom, naturally failing to cover her armpits as well.

“Hehe.”

The Chairwoman changed the position of her crossed legs while looking at me with a seductive laugh. Left leg down, right leg up.

Due to her posture, I thought I caught a glimpse of a woman’s intimate area beneath the suit skirt that had rolled up so high it barely covered half her buttocks.

‘…’

Looking at her, I definitely felt something was strange. More accurately, a doubt I’d had for a while grew stronger.

The novel I was possessing was supposedly a romance fantasy. But why were there so suspiciously many female characters, and why did they all have settings and outfits that seemed to belong in a male-oriented novel?

I could overlook the protagonist being female, but everyone around the protagonist was also female—the hero was female, most professors were female except for a countable few, and the Chairwoman before me was female too.

Even the academy’s female-to-male student ratio seemed to be about 7:3 or even 8:2 in severe cases. This despite there being no mention that women were superior to men in this world.

‘…Could the original work have been yuri?’

It’s a bit awkward to say this after dropping it just from reading the prologue because it wasn’t to my taste, but at least in the parts I read, it didn’t feel that way.

In truth, the tags and title were a bit ambiguous for a romance fantasy. The reason I even read the prologue was because it didn’t have that typical romance fantasy feel from the outside. I only learned the genre after reading the comments.

‘And what the Starlight Order was doing…’

No matter how much they wanted to emphasize their evil side to justify future developments, having villains who tried to dress a saint in such clothes was unthinkable. At least in female-oriented works, this would never happen.

I probably needed to ask Priscilla or Rosaria about the original novel. I’d asked a lot about the original story, but I’d rarely asked about the work itself.

“I’d like to hear your answer now. Do you need more time?”

I snapped out of my thoughts at the voice that exuded experience. The Chairwoman was still sitting with one arm supporting her chest, emphasizing her bust, while sipping tea with the other hand. Her high heels remained in place.

After briefly considering how to answer, I decided to choose the most fundamental option.

“I was lucky.”

“Lucky?”

Despite my somewhat absurd answer, the Chairwoman showed no signs of displeasure or anger, only an interested expression as if inviting me to continue.

“First, I had no way to penetrate the bones covering his body.”

“That would be the case. The Maker’s armor repels most attacks. He didn’t become the 3rd Corps Commander on eloquence alone.”

In truth, if I had tried to penetrate it properly, it might not have been entirely impossible, but that wasn’t the important point right now.

“So I had to find another place where I could inflict damage. Looking closely, I noticed he didn’t cover his eyes and mouth with bones.”

“Then why didn’t you aim for the eyes? They would have been much easier to attack than the mouth.”

His eyes took up half his face even when he was human-sized. Maintaining that proportion as he grew, he must have looked like a walking target to anyone seeing him for the first time.

I knew it was a trap because Priscilla had told me, but I couldn’t reveal that truth.

“It seemed unnatural. As if he was deliberately inviting an attack.”

“…Oh?”

I might have imagined it, but his vertically slit yellow eyes seemed to flash slightly.

“If the eyes were truly a weakness, he would have either protected them as much as possible or hidden them entirely, but he didn’t. That meant one of two things: either they were fake weak points that wouldn’t be damaged by attacks, or they were traps designed to make you think that way and counter-attack.”

The smile on that face deepened.

“I see. And then?”

“There’s not much more to it. I bet on the former, and with the eyes eliminated, the only option left was the mouth. So I aimed for it, and I guess I got lucky.”

“…I see. So that’s why you said you were lucky…”

The Chairwoman leaned back on the sofa, still cross-legged with her arms folded under her chest, wiggling the red high heels precariously dangling from her toes as she fell into thought.

Suddenly, her eyebrows curved into an elegant arc.

“Hearing that makes me even more curious. Just how far does your luck extend?”

‘She doesn’t believe me.’

I could feel the scales tipping heavily from half-belief toward doubt. It seemed this level of bluffing wasn’t going to work.

“Let’s go with the ‘lucky’ explanation for now. And there’s one more thing you should know—during the interrogation process, someone suggested you might have survived by colluding with the 3rd Corps Commander.”

“…What?”

What madman would say such a thing? As I twitched my eyes in question, the Chairwoman burst into laughter that didn’t match her dignity.

“The one who said that was personally buried by the Crown Prince. Apparently, all his corruption was exposed, and he’s completely finished. It was quite entertaining to see the Crown Prince so enraged.”

“…”

I nodded glumly. I wasn’t sure whether to be happy about this or not.

“Let’s put the small talk aside. Next, as the Chairwoman of Bellium Academy, I would like to apologize again. Regardless of the cause, I allowed a student of my academy to face a Demon King’s Army Corps Commander. If it hadn’t been you trapped in there, the person would most likely have been found dead. This was clearly the academy’s mistake. I’m sorry.”

The Chairwoman uncrossed her legs and removed the smile from her face, bowing her head slightly.

It was barely even a nod, but for the Chairwoman who had been with Bellium Academy since its founding and throughout its history to show such a gesture to a mere first-year student was quite extraordinary.

“So I ask, is there anything you want from me?”

“Anything I want?”

“At first, I thought about giving you compensation money. But no matter how much I give, it would probably be an insignificant amount to you.”

That was true. What could be a more meaningless reward to me than money?

“Perhaps you’d prefer money after all?”

“No, that’s not it.”

At my firm refusal, a smile returned to the Chairwoman’s face.

“Then I mean for you to come up with something else you want. I’ll grant it as much as possible within my capabilities. I swear by the name of Erestica.”

Something I want. I thought carefully and decided to take a step back. This wasn’t something I should decide alone.

The Chairwoman of Bellium Academy would be an even more powerful card than Ingrid, with whom we had previously reached an agreement.

“May I postpone my answer? I need time to think.”

“Of course. Do as you please. Just don’t drag it out too long.”

“How long would be too long?”

“Hmm, perhaps a hundred years. Even I would find it difficult to wait longer than that.”

“…”

Dragon time perception, as always.

When our conversation ended, the Chairwoman let me go without much further comment. Until the end, she seemed eager to know “how” exactly my luck had worked, but when she realized I had no intention of telling her, she gracefully backed down.

There was still plenty of time before lunch ended, so I was about to head to the cafeteria when I sensed someone approaching from behind me, where it had been completely empty just moments ago. With a tingling sensation at the back of my head, I turned around.

“…Aria?”

“Hello, Miss Mira.”

Aria was standing there. With her hands modestly clasped together, she greeted me in her usual measured tone.

Dumbfounded, I asked:

“How long have you been here?”

“Since just before you opened the door and came out. Didn’t you see me?”

I didn’t. I blankly recalled what had just happened. When I opened the door to the corridor, I had visually confirmed there was no one there, and none of my other senses had detected anything either.

Yet suddenly Aria was standing there. It felt like being haunted by a ghost.

“…Why are you here?”

“The Chairwoman called for me too.”

I see. I nodded with a somewhat disgruntled feeling. I was still bewildered about what had happened.

Aria gave me a slight bow and was about to enter the Chairwoman’s office when she paused, turned back to me, and said with a smile:

“You don’t need to think about it too complicatedly.”

“…About what?”

“Hehe. Is there such a thing? I’m good at reading people’s expressions, you know. Your face looked full of questions.”

Before my confusion could be resolved, Aria disappeared behind the door. With a click, the door closed, and left alone in the top floor corridor of the main building, I stared blankly at the Chairwoman’s office before turning away dejectedly.

I still had no idea what had just happened.

Aria returned surprisingly quickly. It felt like less than five minutes after I arrived at the cafeteria. I asked her what it was about, but she just smiled without answering.

And another unexpected person returned as well.

“How is it? This should be decent enough not to be called indecent, right?”

It was Rosaria, who had shut herself in the dormitory claiming she would make a new saint’s robe with starlight threads. She had arrived within an hour as she had boldly promised.

“Uh…”

Myself, Priscilla, Aria, and Brunhild all sat silently, at a loss for words as we looked at Rosaria standing proudly with her chest out.

And for good reason—she was wearing a black one-piece sweater that not only revealed every curve of her body but was so short in length that it barely seemed able to cover her buttocks if she were to sit down.

“I don’t think the clothes are the problem,” Priscilla muttered.