MLBR 36

Grandfather’s furious kicking continued even as they hauled him away with the knights.

“Put this down! Let go! There really was a saint. The son of the Great Mother who is a man really existed!”

At his shouting, those nearby recoiled. One of them squinted and muttered in an uncertain tone.

“Isn’t that the wanted man?”

“Ah, no way. Would someone like that come to the temple?”

“No, I think it is him.”

“Who in their right mind would come to such a public place? You must have misseen it. By the way, causing a disturbance inside the sacred temple—what nerve. Look at that arm. On that arm—what is that?”

Wanted? I agreed with the latter speaker and watched the knights’ backs with a pitying face. At the edge of my vision I saw the mark on Grandfather’s arm. The eerie-looking pupil faded away.

“This won’t count toward merits or points, but I hope he at least gets a bonus this year.”

Then a familiar voice rippled into my ear.

“Shall we go back now? Have you been out alone too long?”

“Of course not. Miss! Don’t worry! Really, don’t worry!”

It was the latter, not the electronic tone that irritated my ears. It sounded like Melissa’s voice.

Even if she was a friend, I hadn’t felt any need to speak, so I had stepped back. Past the pillar Melissa’s hair fluttered and an odd conversation reached me.

“Your lady mother must be proud. She would be proud of how you are now. All the family would be!”

“Would they? They’d be proud of me, right? Happy, right?”

“Y-yes, they would!”

“Really that much? Good. That helps. Thank you, really. And that penpal of mine—would they be like that too?”

“Yes, even though we don’t know their face!”

The moment I heard that, I took an instinctive step forward. At the edge of my sight a flash of gray hair paused and disappeared.

“If only they’d sent that letter back, they’d have a warm heart! It was odd that they wrote the exact address and time where they found the letter in the first one and warned about identity theft or crime, though!”

What? That was the exact same thing I had written in my first letter to my penpal Melissa. Under the same sky, that coincidence—

‘It’s not a coincidence.’

Only one correct answer. Melissa is not my penpal! The woman with gray hair who had just been by her side was my real penpal.

Gray hair—there was no one I knew with that. The only person it could possibly be was Mille. But after becoming a saintess her hair was supposed to change to silver, so she would be silver-haired now.

Then who was she?

By the time I came to my senses they had already turned the corner and disappeared.

“Wow…”

My head was buzzing as if I’d hit a pillar. I’d been hiding my identity, too, yet I had never even considered that the other party might be doing the same.

Crap, my brain needs exercise.

I had no intention of running after them. There were enough clues that the truth would come out in time.

“So it’s certain—the penpal I’d been exchanging letters with wasn’t Melissa. She was in the same situation as I was.”

I wasn’t the only one. Just as I had borrowed Clara’s identity, she had borrowed Melissa’s.

Why? If she were a noble young lady living a peaceful life, she wouldn’t need to pretend. She wouldn’t have a bad reputation like mine.

‘Maybe she didn’t want to admit that a noble lady accepted help from a commoner who picked up a fallen letter, so she kept pretending.’

There was a contradiction there too. If she was hiding it because she couldn’t admit it, why keep exchanging letters? Not efficient.

“…Does she enjoy toying with people? Or is she trying to dig up gossip about the nobles through me—introducing herself as a noble maidservant?”

Some people are like that.

Sighing, I stopped entertaining unnecessary thoughts. It wasn’t an impossible idea, but it didn’t feel very realistic.

Besides, these notions were probably the result of having read thriller novels for days on end.

“I should rebalance with a romance novel and think it over again.”

The day of the saintess prophecy approached.

The location was the capital’s huge temple, famous throughout the empire. Right behind it lay their forest, said to be filled with sacred aura.

A building of white bricks carved densely with images of the saintess and the saint, or the Mother’s son and the Mother herself. The sculptures that even filled the large bronze-gold gate with brownish tones were like a feast of the gods and the suffering of the laborers. You could almost feel their blood and tears.

“Amazing.”

Even someone like me couldn’t continuously create art regardless of season—there’s cold, heat, and danger to endure.

I shook my head and leaned against a tree; Clara spoke up.

“When will you go in? You should enter and watch the events that happen on the day of the saintess prophecy and report back.”

“We haven’t waited that long. It’s about to start soon.”

“We’ve been standing here since six in the morning. It’s past noon and nearly one now. I get that you want to meet the Marquis, but why are you hiding like this?”

Right now we were hiding in an alley, straining every nerve. We were here to meet the Marquis Savior.

‘Maybe today, the Marquis Savior’s dress will be dirtied and she won’t be able to attend the saintess prophecy event.’

That incident didn’t appear in the remade story, but it did in the earlier tale. The exact situation wasn’t described, but Saintess Mille said something like:

• The Marquis Savior’s outfit got ruined and he couldn’t do anything—sorry, I was late because I had to help him. Really, really, I’m truly sorry.

It was a contrivance used to make Whistler fall for the kind, gentle Mille who behaved like a saintess. No doubt about it.

For this day I had prepared an extra dress and rehearsed the scenario lines based on the novel.

The plan: damage her a little while making a fuss, ruin both her and my dresses, then boldly present this gift to the embarrassed her.

There were problems.

The novel never gave an exact time. It only said “afternoon,” and even that was unreliable.

‘How can I know it will happen the way the novel described?’

Since I was no longer exactly the same person as Filena from the novel, situations were changing. I only put a high chance on this incident because the Marquis Savior was not the story’s main lead.

To eliminate risk, the only method was to camp out from dawn. Above all, we had to be there before Mille.

“Clara, look. Your eyesight is much better than mine.”

We mustn’t make a mistake.

“Ah—! Yes! I can see our Marquis Savior! He’s here!”

Her voice was full of emotion as if at a family reunion. Clara hugged the box we intended to hand to the Marquis Savior.

Luckily Mille was nowhere to be seen. We had some leeway.

“…After waiting so long, when will you go out?”

“Just a little longer, wait a few more seconds. Heroes always appear at critical moments.”

That may work in a novel, but in reality it’s an agony of watching the clock. A hero must appear at the perfect—

“Oh no. Marquis!”

With the driver’s distressed shout, a splash of mud flew. The Marquis Savior’s brilliantly shining dress was ruined in an instant.

I froze like a stone; Clara’s mouth fell open. Clara stared at us and the Marquis Savior alternately as if stunned.

Darn, instead of becoming a hero, my spirit left my body. The timing was far, far too late.

“The hero was supposed to—this wasn’t the plan, right? You weren’t planning to save the Marquis if something like that happened, were you?”

“……”