Tap-tap-tap-tap—
Footsteps echoed through the ruins.
The first to enter was Dorothia.
She moved as though she'd done this a hundred times before, immediately claiming the high ground the moment she stepped inside.
Whooom—flash!
Mana surged from beneath her feet, tracing a perfect circle in an instant, and launched her body straight upward.
Dorothia surveyed the ruins from atop one of the towering pillars, her gaze sweeping the space below.
Her eyes catalogued the ruins' value with a speed and precision no one else could match.
*…That's a painting modeled after the Hero!*
*That's a statue of the Hero!!*
*That's a mural of the Hero!!!*
*And in the corner—a little doodle of the Hero scratched into the wall!!!!*
The moment she'd mapped every item worth taking, Dorothia swept her hand through the air. Objects rose from their resting places and came flying toward her in rapid succession.
Straight into the bag she'd brought.
The items were clearly too large to fit, yet they slipped inside as naturally as if the laws of physics had simply given up—a spectacle, if nothing else.
Total time elapsed: one minute.
Anyone watching would have been forgiven for mistaking her for a legendary phantom thief rather than a great mage. It was a flawless performance.
Gladia and Aiolette had watched the whole thing from the base of the pillars.
Cruje, for her part, had been left behind long ago.
Dorothia's sprinting speed was something else entirely—short of Gladia herself, no one could keep up. The moment Gladia had clocked this, she'd scooped Aiolette under her arm and carried her along. Cruje, unfortunately, had no maid to do the same for her.
The way Gladia and Aiolette had merged into a single unit had been so seamless that Cruje had stood there blinking for a moment before snapping back to reality and crying out pitifully not to be left behind. No one had listened.
Thud.
"H-heh… hehe… Impressive, wasn't it…? Th-this is how you do it—grab what matters and move on to the next section…!"
Dorothia dropped back down, patting her bag with undisguised pride.
Her voice was practically preening. *My juniors must be in awe right now.*
That was clearly what she was thinking.
Aiolette's reaction, however, bore no resemblance to what Dorothia had imagined.
"You're literally a thief."
"A th-thief?!"
Aiolette's bluntness hit like a thrown brick. Dorothia flinched and scrambled to defend herself.
"What else would you call it? You broke into ruins the headmistress hid for personal use, swept everything that wasn't nailed down, and you're in the middle of running away with it."
Strictly speaking, Aiolette wasn't wrong.
This place was essentially Rustil's private property. She'd even warded it with magic to keep people out—and here they were, having smashed through those wards and helped themselves to the contents.
Anyone would have been furious. Not just Rustil.
"Th-this isn't stealing…!"
"Then what is it?"
"It's… it's more like… relocating items to a safer location… a, um… positional transfer, you might say…."
Even she didn't seem convinced by her own argument. The confidence had drained entirely from Dorothia's voice.
"B-besides, isn't it better overall for me to take them than to leave them with a headmistress who doesn't even appreciate the Hero's value…? …Isn't it…?"
The shamelessness of the self-justification was impressive, but her voice shrank with every word.
Aiolette wasn't even threatening her. And yet Dorothia was visibly wilting.
In raw terms, Dorothia was undoubtedly stronger than Aiolette—but there are hierarchies in human nature that sheer power cannot overcome, much like magma consuming fire.
For Dorothia, a born pushover, Aiolette—a born force of nature—was nothing short of a suffocating natural predator.
A frog before a serpent. A doughnut before a river of magma.
*…I didn't know magma could burn fire.*
While Gladia entertained this entirely useless tangent about social hierarchies, the hierarchy between Aiolette and Dorothia was being established at remarkable speed.
Aiolette's fact-delivery—blunt, guileless, and utterly without malice—was dismantling Dorothia piece by piece.
It wasn't that Aiolette was trying to bully her senior. She was simply saying what she saw. But that expression of hers didn't help the atmosphere.
*It looks like a delinquent shaking down a nerd….*
Was a delinquent who was kind to otakus truly a creature that only existed in fantasy?
Either way, Gladia had no interest in letting things sour between Aiolette and Dorothia.
"Now, now, my lady—don't be too hard on her."
"I'm not being hard on anyone. I'm just a little baffled."
"I know, I know. But at this rate, the headmistress is going to show up."
Rustil had almost certainly felt the moment her wards were broken and was already sprinting this way.
*If we waste any more time here, we'll get caught before we grab anything worth having.*
This was, in fact, exactly how the mini-game worked in *Saintess & Hero* after joining the Hero Research Club—a time attack where you had to collect items and escape before Rustil caught you.
And Gladia knew precisely how to get Aiolette on board.
She let a smooth smile settle onto her face and continued.
"Besides, at Stellar Academy, you're free to do just about anything as long as you have the ability—so long as it isn't a crime."
"Isn't this a crime?"
Aiolette raised an eyebrow at the breathtaking audacity of that logic.
Gladia's smile didn't waver.
"My lady. It's only a crime if you get caught."
"…."
*…Fair enough.*
Aiolette: convinced.
***
With Rustil potentially descending on us at any moment, we decided to move fast and take only what mattered.
One member of our party had yet to arrive, but that was a separate problem.
*Cruje, where on earth are you?*
She was the Saintess, sure, but this was getting ridiculous.
As if on cue, I felt her presence in the distance—Cruje, barreling toward us at full tilt.
"Hah… hah… d-don't leave me behind…."
She arrived drenched in equal parts sweat and tears.
Watching her run, I finally understood why she'd fallen so far behind.
"Hah… hah…."
Bounce. Bounce.
With every labored breath, the weight Cruje carried through life made itself known to the surrounding air.
And that was just from breathing. Running must have been something else entirely.
*Damn it…!*
I'd been too busy grabbing Aiolette when we bolted to notice. A tragedy I would carry with me.
Not that I was looking at her strangely, to be clear.
It was more like… the feeling you get when you encounter a work of art so striking it demands acknowledgment.
Honestly, every time Cruje did that, my resentment toward the ⟨World's Trial⟩ flared up all over again.
*I really need to deal with this thing sooner rather than later.*
Having to draw a sword every time I want to see anything properly is getting old.
Thanks to ⟨Heart-Sight⟩ enhanced by the ⟨Hero's Blood⟩, daily life wasn't much of a problem—but how long was I supposed to live like this?
If I'd been born blind, maybe I could have made peace with it.
But I used to see just fine. Then I got dropped into this world and—what? I'm supposed to just accept it? Am I supposed to be grateful?
I am absolutely not grateful!! Just because she was the First Hero doesn't mean she gets to do whatever she wants!
*…Okay. Breathe.*
Somewhere in that train of thought, the First Hero had surfaced in my mind and I'd gotten worked up without meaning to.
Moments like this called for fidgeting with Aiolette until I calmed down—but unfortunately, my personal comfort object, Lady Aiolette, was not currently at my side.
Why?
Because the moment Cruje rejoined us, I'd used the need to cover the ruins quickly as cover to quietly split us into pairs, separating myself from Aiolette in the process.
Aiolette had wanted to stay with me, but what could she do? The lot draw said otherwise.
She had a funny habit of accepting results like that without much argument.
The lot draw was, of course, completely rigged. With ⟨Heart-Sight⟩, picking whichever slip I wanted was trivially easy.
The reason I'd gone to the trouble of separating even from Aiolette was simple: I needed to get Dorothia alone.
More precisely, I had questions about the First Hero that I needed to ask her.
If I was going to track down the First Hero's traces, I needed something to go on first.
It was a little embarrassing to admit, given how deep I'd gone into *Saintess & Hero*—but honestly, I knew almost nothing about the First Hero.
Which made sense, in a way. In the original game, the First Hero was pure background lore. A name dropped in a few lines of text, nothing more.
My in-game knowledge about her amounted to almost nothing.
Which was exactly why Dorothia was the most valuable person I could talk to right now. She'd kept the Hero Research Club running alone for years. That kind of accumulated obsession wasn't something to dismiss.
With that reasoning settled, I nudged Dorothia in the side as she swept artifacts into her bag.
"Senior. You've been running the Hero Research Club for years—you must know a lot about the Hero. I'll be honest, I don't know much about her at all. What kind of person was she?"
A casual question, tossed out lightly.
And in that instant, Dorothia's shoulders went rigid.
Then she moved—faster than I had ever seen her move—and was suddenly right in front of me.
*…!*
Fast enough that ⟨Heart-Sight⟩ almost missed it?!
She'd crossed the distance like a teleport. One moment she was over there; the next she was directly in my face.
The disorientation of being caught off guard for the first time since gaining ⟨Heart-Sight⟩ was still washing over me when Dorothia answered in a voice that sounded almost delighted.
"Y-you're interested in the Hero?!?!"
"Uh… yeah, a little…?"
"Oh WOW!!"
The sound of someone reuniting with a long-lost family member.
I had apparently pressed the otaku's activation button.
Dorothia's mouth became a machine gun.
"TheHerokilledtheDemonLordtwothousandyearsagowithapartyoffivethatiswellknownbuttherearescholarswhoproposethatitwasntsixbutactuallysixwithanunnamedportertaggingalongandtheevidenceforthisisthatoccasionallyinHeroshrinesyoufindunsignedmuralsandscratchingsofanunidentifiedwomanwhichclearlyindicatessomeonewasdeliberatelyerasedfromhistoryanditsentirelypossiblethattheheadmistressherselfhasbeendestroyingtheseruinstoconcealthatfactwhichistheprevailingtheoryincertainacademiccircles……!"
Good lord. That was the first time I'd ever heard Dorothia speak without stuttering.
So *this* is what people mean when they say their ears are bleeding.
Especially mine—I have sensitive hearing.
*Oh.*
A certain sixty-five-point prince with an explanation addiction came to mind.
Asking an otaku about their favorite subject. My mistake entirely.
Cutting her off mid-flow seemed inadvisable. The momentum behind Dorothia's explanation was not something to be trifled with.
I was going to have to let her run until she wound down on her own.
"Andontopofthatthere'sevenatheorycirculatingthattheHerowantsactuallywomanandit'ssendingshockwavesthrough academic circles—!"
*I miss Aiolette.*