Fortunately, Sela came out of it without any serious trouble.
She'd taken a fairly hard beating and blacked out for a moment, but the recovery magic hanging over the training hall did its work, and she was back on her feet before long.
*Different from the game… I didn't think she'd actually pass out.*
Gladia hadn't expected things to go quite that far, but the person who'd actually passed out didn't seem particularly bothered by it.
If anything, once Sela realized her mana and stamina had been restored along with her body, she looked even more eager than before.
"I challenge again. Different this time."
*She's genuinely tough.*
The moment Sela was up and confirmed nothing was broken, she threw herself at Gladia again.
Her body might have recovered, but the pain she'd felt getting hit should have been just as real—Gladia clicked her tongue at the sheer stubbornness of someone who clearly didn't care.
She drove the charging Sela straight into the floor and found herself thinking back to the Sela she knew from *Saintess & Hero*.
The twelfth daughter of the Great Chieftain. Sela.
She'd been one of the major recurring characters in *Saintess & Hero*.
The setup was that the Great Chieftain of the barbarian tribes who ruled the vast northern plains had sent his daughter to study abroad in the Empire as a gesture of goodwill—though in practice, she was essentially a hostage. She'd appeared frequently at Stellar Academy as a classmate of the player.
*High HP, fast recovery, solid tanking, and that Ancestral Blessing trait for burst damage when you needed it—she was a top-tier pick and a fan favorite…*
And then there was the outfit. Chocolate-brown skin, a stomach that looked carved from stone, and a level of exposure that left very little to the imagination.
*I always picked her up whenever she showed up in a run.*
Gladia reversed the joint lock Sela was attempting out of sheer habit and twisted her arm back the other way, slipping into thought.
"Aaagh! My arm! It's going to break! It's going to break!"
*…Should I draw my sword?*
Gladia swallowed as the image of Sela from the game surfaced in her mind.
Every character in *Saintess & Hero* was attractive in their own way, but Sela's exposure level was in a class entirely by itself.
Covering the Ancestral Blessing is a disgrace, apparently.
At the time, Gladia had been fairly certain it was a developer conspiracy to extract money from players, but the illustrations had been beautiful enough that all was forgiven.
Anyway.
That was why Sela stuck to an outfit that left everything except the critical areas on full display.
There had even been equipment restrictions built into the game to enforce it.
A muscular bikini-armor beauty! What a world!
*How is anyone supposed to hold back?*
"Gladia…! It doesn't bend that way! That direction! My arm!"
Sela was shouting something urgently while Gladia had her arm pinned, but Gladia was too deep in thought to register any of it.
Through the grip she had on Sela, she could feel the curves of Sela's athletic frame.
She had once given up on Cruje with bitter tears, overwhelmed by the sheer force of her presence.
But this was a sparring match. Drawing her sword here would be completely natural.
She'd been fighting without it specifically to test how far the Hero's Blood had pushed her physical limits—but surely there were moments in life when a sword simply had to be drawn.
*Right. I'm drawing it.*
The moment Gladia made up her mind—
*Crack.*
"AAAAAAGH!! MY ARM! IT BROKE!"
A snapping sound rang out, and Sela's scream echoed through the training hall.
"Oh."
*…Right, I was still twisting her arm.*
Through Heart-Sight, Gladia felt Sela rolling across the floor clutching her arm, and the ripple of frightened stares from the students around them.
"…"
*My bad.*
***
There had been a few incidents, but the experiment was a success.
Gladia had gotten a rough sense of just how much her physical capabilities had improved.
*Better than I expected. Way better.*
When Cruje had examined Gladia's body some time ago, she'd left her with a particular observation.
*You're healthy enough to win a bare-knuckle brawl against an orc right now.*
The moment she'd heard that, Gladia had understood that the Hero's Blood had pushed her further than she'd anticipated.
So she'd decided to use this session of *Efficient Core Training* as a test—to see how far she could go without activating Sword Saint.
*The training hall has recovery magic, so even if someone gets hurt it's not a disaster. No need to hold back.*
And the result? A resounding success.
*At this level, I might not even need to activate Sword Saint…*
There wouldn't be many opponents worth worrying about among the first-years.
Gladia flexed her hand open and closed, turning that thought over.
Hero's Blood was only obtainable early in the game, and its performance had always felt a bit underwhelming—she hadn't expected much from it. For it to show results like this was genuinely surprising.
*Is this one of those cases where the game and reality just don't match up?*
She found herself imagining what the First Hero must have been like, carrying a body full of that blood at all times. The thought sent a chill down her spine.
*Did she actually punch a dragon with her bare hands?*
Even Gladia, who had only absorbed a fraction of the Hero's Blood, was already operating well above orc-level. The First Hero might have genuinely held her own against a dragon in hand-to-hand combat.
And the effects didn't stop there.
"…I can feel myself getting stronger. Gradually."
Gladia sat quietly and took stock of her body.
The Hero's Blood flowing through her veins was slowly settling in, making itself at home.
It wasn't simply physical enhancement. It felt more like the entity called *Gladia* was evolving into something a step above human—the body itself growing accustomed to the blood, its ceiling rising with every passing day.
Just then, her door swung open and Aiolette came bounding in.
"Ugh, I'm exhausted! Dia! Something to drink!"
She made a running dive onto Gladia's bed without breaking stride.
As if it were her own room. Completely natural.
And Gladia, for her part, received this with equal naturalness—she simply handed over the drink she'd already prepared, as though she'd been expecting exactly this.
"Good work today. Did you find anything useful?"
"Total waste of time. I was on my feet all day and didn't catch a single shadow."
Aiolette drained the cold drink in one go, then sprawled across the bed and started grumbling at the ceiling.
She'd spent the entire day wandering the academy with Cruje.
She'd received Cruje's "goodwill" and had genuinely intended to help in return, but—
"That quack had absolutely no plan!"
Aiolette smacked the pillow in frustration.
The Saintess, it turned out, had nothing. No strategy whatsoever.
Aiolette had assumed that two years after receiving a divine oracle from the goddess, Cruje would at least have some kind of system in place for finding the Hero. Reality had been a rude awakening.
She'd expected Cruje to have a special method. Some kind of technique.
She did not.
Cruje's plan, summarized as simply as possible, was this:
Watch everyone who shows potential.
Cruje's reasoning: the Hero was destined to be the world's savior, so naturally they would be born with extraordinary talent. Therefore, if you followed around all the talented people long enough—
Ta-da! Hero found!
"Is she serious?!"
Aiolette's voice rose again at the memory.
She'd spent the whole day trailing Cruje around, observing the academy's so-called promising students.
Under normal circumstances she would have gone to find Gladia the moment classes ended, but the Saintess had whined so persistently that there'd been no clean escape.
Normally, Aiolette wouldn't have hesitated to leave Cruje to her own devices regardless of the whining—but the sight of her clutching her wallet and crying had been pathetic enough to briefly resurrect something resembling a conscience in Aiolette's thoroughly weathered heart.
"There's scatterbrained and then there's *this*! At this rate, when is she ever going to find the Hero?!"
Aiolette pounded the mattress in outrage. Gladia quietly moved to sit beside her.
She reached over and gently stroked Aiolette's hair, smoothing the frustration out of her.
The soft touch worked. Aiolette's agitation slowly ebbed.
"There, there. Calm down, my lady."
"Dia… what are we going to do? We're completely stuck…"
Aiolette whined, looking as though the future had gone very dark indeed.
The thought of following Cruje around and stalking students again tomorrow was already giving her a headache.
Gladia had separate lectures to attend, but Aiolette was in the same classes as Cruje. Of all the luck.
But what could she do?
She was the one who'd maneuvered Cruje into offering her "goodwill" in the first place.
What goes around comes around. You reap what you sow.
And yet ignoring the obligation and refusing to help was something the pride of the Drnaris heir simply wouldn't permit.
It was very much in keeping with the girl who had never forgotten to repay the beggar who had saved her life.
The familiar sight of her young mistress, unchanged as ever, brought an old memory to the surface, and Gladia smiled quietly.
*—I won't allow the benefactor of the Drnaris House to wander around looking like that. My pride won't stand for it.*
*Our young mistress has a rotten personality, but her loyalty is the real thing.*
"…Why are you smiling?"
"Oh, it's nothing~"
Aiolette gave her a suspicious look, but Gladia deflected smoothly.
She knew exactly what would happen if she said it out loud—Aiolette would go red and start grumbling.
Aiolette stared at her with mild displeasure for a moment, then gave up and went back to complaining.
They spent a good while like that, lounging and talking, until Aiolette simply fell asleep in Gladia's bed.
And the next morning—
"Everyone!"
On their way out to breakfast, someone ambushed them.
White vestments. Pink hair. An overwhelming presence.
The goddess's representative. The pink-headed menace. The chest catastrophe. The scatterbrain. The quack. Drnaris's *friend* (debatable).
The Saintess Cruje had arrived.
She absorbed Aiolette's flat *why are you here* stare without flinching, thrust her already-considerable chest out even further, and announced with a triumphant gleam in her eye:
"I've found a way to locate the Hero!!"