⟨Saintess & Hero⟩
Abbreviated as ⟨Saintess & Hero⟩, the game was fundamentally an RPG set in an academy, with a dash of character-raising elements mixed in.
Being an RPG, it naturally featured factions that opposed the player—broadly divided into two categories.
The first was the academy faculty, who endlessly tormented the player and students at Stellar Academy.
The second was the demons currently sprawled out in front of me.
The demon race had appeared on the continent a thousand years ago alongside the Demon King's emergence.
After the First Hero's efforts brought the Demon King down, they were said to have vanished from the continent entirely—but in truth, they had never stopped scheming in the shadows, forever waiting for their chance to resurrect the Demon King and bring about the world's destruction.
In short: the main villain faction of ⟨Saintess & Hero⟩'s main storyline.
*But why have they shown up already?*
As far as I could remember, the demons didn't appear while the player was still a first-year.
For one thing, first-years never left Stellar Academy, which sat under Rustil's protection. And the demons, by the game's own lore, were still in the process of recovering their strength.
Yet here they were—first-year, before the mid-terms had even been held.
And inside Stellar Academy itself, which Rustil personally oversaw.
This wasn't a decision the demons could have made lightly.
A faction of their caliber would have a clear read on Rustil's power.
They would have known exactly how dangerous it was to touch her domain.
And yet they'd done it anyway—which meant there was something here worth risking their lives for.
Something that was probably…
That was precisely the moment my thoughts reached that conclusion.
*BOOM—!!*
From the direction of the rendezvous point we were supposed to be heading toward, a tremendous roar shook the entire ruins, and a massive shockwave of mana rolled over us.
That mana signature—it's my young mistress!
*Whatever's going on, the young mistress comes first!*
"Senior!"
"Y-yes?!"
"Can you use Spatial Transfer right now?"
"Ah, I—that is… there's still so much of the headmistress's mana saturating this area that I can't lock onto coordinates…"
I'd asked Dorothia whether Spatial Transfer was possible, but she was still reeling from the shock of the demons' sudden appearance, and the answer was no.
Can't be helped. Frustrating, but the young mistress's safety is the top priority.
With demons in play, the game's scenario had already gone off the rails long ago.
In a situation like this, with no telling what dangers might arise, getting to the young mistress was the only thing that mattered.
"Senior. Hold on tight."
"Hm? Kyaaaaaaah—!!"
I didn't have time to wait for a reply. I scooped Dorothia up around the waist as she crouched on the floor examining the demon corpse, and held her against me.
Then I detonated the mana in my heart to a degree that made my earlier fight look like a warm-up, and kicked off the ground.
*CRACK—!*
The floor where I'd been standing shattered like a spiderweb, fragments flying in every direction.
The air resistance was ferocious—the scenery blurred into smears as I ran—but my body, which had long since left human limits behind, didn't so much as flinch.
Dorothia, on the other hand, was being buffeted like a balloon in a gale, her body whipping around in my arms from the sheer force of it. An unavoidable sacrifice.
*Sorry, Senior. Once this is all over, I'll let you pinch my cheek.*
Using her suffering as fuel, I sprinted toward my young mistress at full speed.
*I'm coming, young mistress. Gladia's on her way.*
***
Let's rewind a little.
From the moment the groups had split up to explore the ruins, things had not been going smoothly for Aiolette and Cruje.
"Hmm… it's a lot darker and gloomier in here than I expected."
"Hey, quack. Light up the area. That's your thing, isn't it."
"I'm not a quack! Hff… you're really awful."
Cruje pouted but obediently conjured a small golden orb at her fingertips and sent it floating upward.
Even with the holy light illuminating their surroundings, however, the two made no progress whatsoever.
The first reason was that the section they'd chosen was noticeably darker and more oppressive than the area Gladia and Dorothia had taken—the kind of place that looked gloomy even at a glance.
The second reason was that neither of them had any experience with this sort of exploration.
In other words: they were simply out of their depth.
Cruje, who had been nothing but a country girl before becoming a Saintess, and who had done nothing but trail after the convent's nuns ever since.
Aiolette, who barely left her room without Gladia—a shut-in of the highest order.
This pairing should never have been allowed to exist.
"Ugh, these corridors are so complicated, it's infuriating. Can't we just smash through all the walls and go in a straight line?"
"No! What if the ruins collapse?!"
"Then you find the right path. I feel like we've been going in circles since forever."
"What?! I've been following you!"
"Huh? I've been following you."
It was only then that both of them realized they'd each been following the other. They stopped dead.
"…"
"…"
A suffocating silence settled over the dark corridor.
"…Hey."
"…Yes."
"You're a Saintess and you can't even find your way around?"
"You're one to talk! Without Gladia, you can't do anything properly either!"
Bicker, bicker.
In the middle of the pitch-dark ruins, the two of them accomplished nothing but a thoroughly pointless argument.
"God, I really miss Dia."
"M-me too… it would've been so much easier if Gladia were here."
"Hey. Why are you missing someone else's maid?"
"Because I'm close with her too!"
"Ha, unbelievable. She's mine. What gives you the right to act like—"
And so, squabbling all the while, the two of them drifted deeper into the ruins at a meandering crawl.
Not that they had anything to show for it.
Aiolette had no interest in the First Hero, so she couldn't tell what was worth finding. Cruje simply had no idea.
A truly hopeless duo.
"…Hey. Quack."
"Yes… and I'm not a quack."
"Let's just head back. The two of us going any further is pointless."
"…"
Aiolette reached her conclusion with swift self-awareness. Cruje privately agreed.
Having accepted their own uselessness with admirable speed, the two abandoned the exploration without a second thought.
Rather than wandering aimlessly through the hot, damp ruins, they decided to head to the rendezvous point early and wait.
"Ugh… my legs hurt… and my chest is sore from all that running earlier."
"That's what you get for lugging around useless dead weight."
"That's too mean! These grew naturally! Do you have any idea how much trouble they cause me?!"
As Cruje said this and casually gave herself a demonstrative squeeze, Aiolette's hand began to tremble.
*What does Dia even see in that pile of fat…!*
Aiolette already knew that Gladia paid a certain amount of attention to Cruje's chest, and that knowledge made Cruje's innocent little display feel like a direct blow to her own. She briefly considered striking it again.
But she knew perfectly well that Cruje would just go whine to Gladia about it afterward, so Aiolette clenched her trembling fist and swallowed it down.
"…You're loud. Shut up and walk. We're almost there."
She snapped at Cruje and took the lead—and it was just as they finally neared the wide open clearing that served as the agreed rendezvous point that Aiolette stopped.
"…Huh?"
She was the first to notice something was wrong.
The clearing where they were supposed to meet Gladia was already occupied.
A group in conspicuously suspicious robes had taken over the space, tearing up the ground and searching for something.
If they'd merely looked suspicious, Aiolette might have driven them off and waited for Gladia—but.
*…What are those? Every single one of them has dark-attribute mana.*
Her sensitivity to the dark attribute—abnormal even by Gladia's standards—picked up the pulsing, restless waves of dark mana stirring in the hearts of every figure in that clearing.
That many dark-attribute mana users, when they were vanishingly rare even among humans?
"Hey, wait—"
Aiolette stopped short, grabbed Cruje by the shoulder, and pulled her behind a massive stone pillar that had half-crumbled to rubble.
"Ah, why are you—mmph!"
"Shh. Not a word."
Aiolette clamped a hand over Cruje's mouth and carefully peered around the edge of the pillar toward the clearing.
"Faster! Keep digging around here!"
"We're running out of time! We have to find it before the red one gets back!"
The intruders didn't seem to have noticed Cruje and Aiolette yet.
"Quack. Look over there."
"…!"
Cruje finally sucked in a sharp breath as she spotted the suspicious group in the clearing.
Her holy power recoiled instinctively, sending up a warning.
These were people she absolutely should not get tangled up with.
"W-what do we do, Lady Aiolette? They're obviously bad news…"
Even under Cruje's urgent questioning, Aiolette didn't answer immediately. She narrowed her eyes.
From behind the pillar, she quietly assessed their mana levels one by one.
Every single one of them: below Aiolette.
Conclusion: they were all weaker than her.
Contempt for the weak: activated.
At the same time, one of Gladia's lessons flashed through her mind.
*—The most important thing in a fight is the first strike, young mistress! It's not cowardly! The one who hits first is already halfway to winning!*
"L-Lady Aiolette, let's regroup with Gladia first—?! What are you—?!"
"Hey, quack. I'm counting to three."
"W-what?!"
"Hit them the moment I do."
There was no stopping her. The shadows gathering at Aiolette's fingertips began to condense with a sound like the world holding its breath.
By now the robed group had sensed Aiolette's mana and spun toward the pillar in alarm—but it was far too late.
Aiolette curled her lips into a smirk and called out with contemptuous delight.
"First strike wins. You idiots."
*BOOM—!!*