Chapter 16 : Chapter 16
Chapter 16: This Catgirl Is Sick, So How About...
The wildly spreading rumors did not shake Fia’s heart.
She had come from an era of information overload. Compared to that, this was nothing. The backward level of entertainment in this other world meant that these natives had no idea what it meant to manufacture a trending topic or conduct multi-channel propaganda.
If she were the one writing the story, she would carefully fabricate the interactions between the Saintess and the candidate, blur the timeline, and splice together fragments of their daily life together. As far as she knew, for experts who handled magic stones, such techniques were not difficult to achieve.
Then she would definitely add some eye-catching details—such as exactly what the two of them did on the bed, how Lorinna cried out and begged for mercy beneath her hands, and then invite a few “professionals” to provide vague and ambiguous testimony.
Would that not create a perfect, irremovable stigma?
Instead of the current situation, where there were only a few dry lines about “switching the keys.” Anyone with a brain could smell that something was wrong. Under the Church’s clarification, it had not stirred up much of a storm.
But if others did not reciprocate courtesy, it would be discourteous.
After comforting Lorinna, who had been so anxious that she was on the verge of tears, and failing to fleece a bit of Constitution from the system, Fia took the opportunity to record Lorinna’s tearful appearance using a magic stone. She already had the background audio of burly men training, so she only needed to secretly record a bit of activity from the representatives during the next Central Council meeting.
Heh heh. She hoped they would enjoy this little gift.
As for the situation before her, those people’s intentions were already very obvious. They were eager to redeem the “Hero,” and with deliberate manipulation, they had also dragged the “Saintess” into the situation.
In their plan, the choices placed before Fia were only two.
Either she held her ground and hid within the Church like a turtle inside its shell. With the deterrence of power, her life could temporarily remain safe, but she would lose a portion of public support. With continued maneuvering afterward, sooner or later she would completely lose her qualification as Saintess. Lorinna would take her place, expanding their influence.
Or she followed their wishes and set out on an adventure together with the “Hero.” Along the route they had carefully arranged, crushing a rookie professional who had just stepped into the world and a support-type girl who could barely tie up a chicken would be effortless.
Among them, quite a few probably hoped she would choose the latter option.
After all, appetite and desire were human nature. Plenty of people were waiting for a chance to get close to her beauty.
As for the escort guards that the Saintess would bring on a journey?
Come on. Did they not understand foreign territory? Armies were not allowed to enter.
“This is troublesome.”
Fia stroked her smooth chin as she walked along the path back to her bedchamber. Her original intention was not to leave the Church in the short term. After all, the ritual had already changed, and the Hero who had been summoned had also lost…
“Aurora?”
She looked toward the girl standing in front of her room, as well as the catgirl struggling and flailing in the girl’s grasp.
“What happened?”
The Hero she had not seen for three days had changed into a set of clean clothes. They resembled the style of an entry-level knight’s uniform, though the size did not fit very well, making it look slightly awkward. She was still wearing green trousers. It seemed that no matter which one it was, they all had a special fondness for that color.
With confusion on her face, Aurora heard Fia calling out and turned her head slightly. She recognized the girl who had spoken to her during the ritual that day—the one who had smiled so gently.
After three days of intensive lessons, she now knew that this girl was the Saintess of the Church—the one the old priest in her village had described as the purest girl in the world, the one closest to the gods.
She was truly beautiful.
“Fi…a.” Lowering her eyes slightly, the farmer’s daughter was unsure whether calling someone directly by their name would be disrespectful. At the very least, the names of those noble lords could not even be mentioned. Their lackeys would seize any excuse to beat the offender and confiscate whatever food remained in the household.
But she still wanted to call her that.
“I’m here.”
Fia stepped forward and took Yuna from her hands. When her fingertip brushed against the back of Aurora’s hand, the brown-haired Hero jerked back as if shocked by electricity.
“I’m sorry.”
Speak louder, I can’t hear you. How are you going to defeat the Demon King if you talk this softly?
Fia very much wanted to lighten the mood, but seeing how shy the girl truly was, she abandoned the thought.
There was a thick wall called class standing between them.
「Yuna, Apprentice Knight LV6, Shadow Walker LV8」
【Status: Awakening】
The little catgirl was still struggling, stretching her hands forward with sharp nails. It looked as if the moment Fia loosened her grip, she would immediately pounce forward and give Aurora a facial makeover.
What do you mean “awakening”? Since when did this broken game have an awakening system?
If not for the system window popping up, Fia—who had been so busy these past few days that she had lost track of everything—would have nearly forgotten that this was still the game world she knew.
“Yuna, calm down.”
Holy light filled the corridor. Despite being only at a beginner level, she released a mid-tier Divine Magic. Perhaps this was also part of the Saintess’s innate talent.
The frequency of the catgirl’s twisting gradually decreased. Her puffed-up black hair smoothed down. The little catgirl raised her head, tears brimming in her eyes.
“Saintess, she bullied me!”
Her finger pointed at Aurora, who looked completely innocent.
Something was wrong. Extremely wrong—twelve parts wrong out of ten.
Fia had no intention of dwelling on whether the Hero was a cat lover or not. She looked at the small girl she was holding under the arms. In the moment when the girl had raised her head earlier, Fia had clearly seen a phantom shadow attached to Yuna’s body.
That figure was unmistakably the perverted and sadistic beastwoman who had stabbed through her in her previous life.
Her hands trembled, and she almost dropped the girl to the ground.
“Slowly now. Tell me everything that happened.”
***
After listening to the maids who had been hiding in the distance and only ran over once things calmed down—talking over each other in a chaotic chorus—Fia finally managed to piece together the events.
The little girl had originally been peacefully playing house with the adults. But when the Hero—who had been wandering around cluelessly—passed by, the girl suddenly reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
Aurora swore again and again that she had done nothing. Yet the catgirl had leapt up and tried to use the Hero’s body to verify a statement—
My claws and fangs are by no means dull!
Then the farm girl locked her in a chokehold and held her suspended in midair, which resulted in the scene Fia had just witnessed.
“I suddenly felt something very dangerous. I was scared. It felt like I couldn’t breathe, and it also felt as if something was being pulled out of my body.”
Yuna’s voice carried a trace of grievance. Squatting beside Fia’s feet, she felt the Saintess’s palm gently stroking her head. Her ears drooped as she hugged her own tail.
Wonderful. There’s even a hidden storyline. I’m hopeless.
Fia sighed and looked toward the Hero, who was sitting there restlessly, unsure whether she should step forward to apologize to the Saintess’s “pet.” This girl was truly something—she had subdued a dual-class level-eight fighter while being only level one.
“It’s not your fault, Aurora. You don’t need to feel guilty.”
Since the situation was unclear, she could not allow Yuna to continue living together with those maids. As for sending her back to the training grounds… if she was not within sight, Fia would not feel at ease.
A spark of inspiration flashed through her mind.
Fia stood up and spoke in an exaggerated, coquettish voice.
“Hero, my room is very large. Would you like to come live with me?”
She lifted the catgirl from the ground.
“My kitty can do backflips.”