Soft.
How long had it been since she'd felt anything this pleasant against her fingertips?
A month had passed since she'd fallen into this world.
In all that time, the only surfaces she'd laid her body down on were hard pavement, damp cardboard, and the mold-reeking floors of back alleys.
But what cradled her back now was a softness like floating on clouds.
*…A bed?*
The forgotten sensation flowed through her entire body.
A blanket with just the right weight pressing pleasantly against her, the smooth texture of sheets grazing her skin.
And drifting through the air, a faint scent of lavender.
For a moment, a foolish hope tickled the pit of her stomach—that she'd somehow returned to her room in the world she'd come from.
She pressed down the trembling feeling and slowly opened her eyes.
"……."
As expected.
Nothing formed on her retinas. Only pitch-black darkness remained, permitting not a single point of light.
That vivid, brilliant world she'd glimpsed the moment she gripped the sword had scattered like a dream at dawn.
She was back to being a helpless blind beggar girl.
But…
*It wasn't a dream.*
The throbbing pain along her sides and back proved that everything she'd experienced had been real.
The agony of bones wrenched out of place had subsided, but the muscle soreness crushing her entire body remained.
She quietly sifted through the fragments of her memory.
The system message that had flashed across her vision the instant she took up the sword. And Aiolette's face, frozen in shock, at the very end.
Every clue pointed to a single conclusion.
"…I thought I'd fallen into another world, but this place—it's the world of *Saintess & Hero*."
The moment she recognized it, everything began to make sense, like a tangled thread finally coming loose.
After all, this absurd story had begun the moment she selected the hidden trait 〈Sword Saint〉—her reward for clearing the game—and pressed the start button.
*Becoming a woman… that's the karma for spinning the character customization on random.*
She carefully pushed herself upright. The bed creaked.
She reached out and felt around her surroundings.
This body was the result of lazily hitting random on the customization screen.
And it seemed the world had dumped her in a back alley as a beggar, stripped her of her sight, and saddled her with something called the 〈World's Trial〉 for good measure.
*If I'd known it would come to this, I would've put in the effort to customize properly, no matter how tedious…!*
Then she could have started as a male character and kept her precious *hyper-weapon* intact!
Setting aside her belated resentment toward her past self, she coolly continued to assess the situation.
*The trait 〈Sword Saint〉….*
That strange power, which had come without even a description, had activated the moment she gripped the sword.
It was far more than simply restoring her sight. Her senses had expanded to a transcendent degree—enough to cut through the very trajectories of magic.
Though she was submerged in darkness again now, she was certain that as long as she held a sword, she could step back into that transcendent world.
But it wasn't a power without a price.
Even now, she could feel the pain gnawing through her entire body.
*It's not simple recoil.*
The phrase that had flashed across her vision just before she lost consciousness. 〈World's Trial〉.
Her instinct told her that this crushing fatigue and pain wasn't a side effect of the Sword Saint trait—it was the immense will of this world itself, trying to suppress her existence.
*So in ordinary circumstances, the Trial blinds and weakens me—but the moment I grip a sword and the Sword Saint trait activates, I temporarily overpower that Trial by sheer force…?*
In other words, the price of reclaiming her sight and wielding the Sword Saint's power was absorbing the world's full hostility with her bare body.
Having reached a tentative conclusion, she reached out and ran her hand along the area around the bed.
Smoothly finished wooden posts. The precisely carved edges of fine furniture.
The texture of luxury pieces one would only find in the manor of high nobility—nothing like the trash bins of a back alley.
*Someone moved me.*
There was only one person in her mind who could provide this kind of lavish environment and had reason to bring her here.
*Aiolette Drnaris.*
The worst hidden boss—the name alone was enough to make any *Saintess & Hero* player shudder.
The arrogant villainess who had driven tens of thousands of players into an endless cycle of retries. It had to be her who'd brought Gladia here.
As Gladia probed the air of the room, a faint sound of approaching footsteps caught her ear.
Light, yet carrying an unmistakable arrogance in every stride. A sound already etched into her memory.
A moment later.
*Click.*
The voice that struck her eardrums was far higher and younger than the Aiolette she remembered from the game, but it carried that same characteristic overbearing air.
"You're awake, I see? You slept so stupidly long I thought you'd just gone ahead and died."
***
Aiolette had spent every waking moment in a frenzy—cleaning up the disaster of the back alley, rooting out whoever had sent the assassins.
But the moment she heard that the mysterious girl she'd picked up had opened her eyes, she dropped everything and came running.
Aiolette Drnaris threw open the door and found herself face to face with a girl sitting blankly on the bed.
"You're awake, I see? You slept so stupidly long I thought you'd just gone ahead and died."
She'd deliberately chosen the sharpest words she could find.
But the girl showed not the slightest sign of flustering—she only turned her head slowly toward the source of the sound.
When Aiolette met those unfocused, vacant eyes, she felt a strange sense of dissonance.
Could this frail child really be the same specter who had painted that alley red?
"Where… is this?"
The girl asked in a thin, trembling voice.
It was the kind of helpless appearance that would stir anyone's protective instincts.
But Aiolette fixed her with a sharp, unwavering stare.
She had witnessed firsthand just how keen a blade this pitiful-looking girl concealed within herself.
"A guest room near my chambers. I could hardly bring you into my room in that filthy state, could I?"
Aiolette moved slowly toward the bedside.
Up close, the girl looked far more precarious than she'd expected.
Her face was rather pretty, but her body was skeletal.
Stick-thin limbs. Rags caked with grime.
It was impossible to believe this was the monster who had carved through the murderous triplets like a butcher at work.
Aiolette cut straight to what had been nagging at her all this time.
"What are you, exactly?"
The arrogance drained from Aiolette's voice, replaced by undisguised curiosity.
While the girl had been unconscious, Aiolette had mobilized the full intelligence network of the Drnaris Ducal House to dig into her background.
The results had been dismal.
All they'd managed to uncover was that she had appeared in the back alleys a month ago and begun living as a beggar.
Where she'd been before that, what she'd been doing, how she'd ended up drifting into the Imperial Capital—not a single fragment of information had been found.
As though she had simply dropped into this world a month ago. A perfect void.
*Then I'll ask her directly. I, Aiolette Drnaris, am personally deigning to ask—would she dare lie to my face?*
But the answer she received tested her patience.
"…I am nothing more than a beggar who knows a little swordwork."
"My."
Aiolette let out a short, incredulous laugh. Was this girl actually trying to deceive her?
"Do you even know who you cut down in that alley? The murderous triplets—the hunting hounds of the back alleys. They'd killed even first-rank mages!"
Aiolette snapped the words out and closed the distance until she was right in the girl's face.
Her agitation let her youth bleed through into her voice.
"Are you joking? Even the mages of my own house struggle to take on all three of them at once!"
"I was simply lucky."
"Ha! Still the same line? Are you looking down on me right now?"
Aiolette's voice rang sharply through the room.
She fixed the girl with blazing eyes.
*She's suspicious, no question.*
Her origins, her appearance, and that uncanny swordsmanship—nothing added up.
Most baffling of all was that despite being blind, the girl showed not the slightest sign of being cowed by the presence of a direct heir to a ducal house.
In fact, there was even a peculiar sense that the girl was looking at her the way one looks at a mildly bothersome child.
Aiolette finally exhaled and stepped back. It was clear the girl had no intention of revealing her identity.
"…Fine. Whatever. You were collapsed, so I brought you here and had you treated."
She continued in a blunt tone.
"You didn't seem badly injured, but you were completely skin and bones. Tch—my pride won't allow the person who saved the Drnaris house to go around looking like that."
Aiolette crossed her arms and lifted her chin.
"Right. Whatever you are, a favor is a favor. I'll repay you properly. If there's something you want, say it."
Her voice carried her characteristic arrogance, but the promise of repayment was genuine.
Suspicious in every way, but a benefactor was a benefactor.
Aiolette Drnaris was, at the very least, not the sort of coward who turned her back on a debt.
…And, if she was being honest, she was rather hungry for that extraordinary swordsmanship.
"Oh, and the bounty on the triplets is yours, naturally. Those pieces of trash had the nerve to throw their weight around, so the sum is considerable. Pocket change to me, but for a commoner like you it's probably more money than you've ever touched in your life."
Aiolette held her breath, waiting to hear what answer would come from the girl's lips.
Money? Honor? A letter of recommendation from the ducal house?
The girl fell silent for a moment, as if weighing her options.
At last, those thin lips parted, and an answer came that sailed far beyond the bounds of Aiolette's imagination.
"…Would you take me in? I wish to serve at your side, my lady."