Whoosh. I was shoved away.
Dejected. I am kneeling with both hands raised, reflecting on my actions.
Lady Ravina, who had been checking her now-empty abdomen again, wore a face of such despair it was as if the world had ended.
“Benefactor... do you have any idea what you just did?!”
“I hugged you...”
“Uuu...!”
I committed a sin.
I definitely did something wrong. I hugged her without even getting permission.
How discourteous. I tremble at my own shamelessness.
Maybe I had unconsciously been longing for human warmth.
I was about to cry, “Hing-ing-ing,” but Lady Ravina collapsed first and began crying.
“Waah, waah, waah...”
Waah, waah, waah. So Lady Ravina is a waah-waah-waah type.
I’m glad it doesn’t overlap with me.
“It’s all over now... Do you know how I’d been gathering divinity in that sword...? I was almost done...! I trusted you, Benefactor...!”
“??”
“Why on earth did you do that? Hm?”
“There was a very important reason.”
“......”
Lady Ravina’s eyes lit up as if to say she would hear me out, and I explained confidently.
“Actually, there wasn’t. I’m sorry.”
“Waah, waah, waah...!”
“Oh dear. If possible, please cry quietly.”
“Waah, waah, waah...”
“This is what you’re looking for, right?”
I put my hand into my subspace pouch and looked for Lady Ravina’s sword.
Come to think of it, the name was no ordinary thing.
I checked its options too.
「Ravina’s Holy Sword (S): A holy sword imbued with Ravina’s divinity.
- Exerts powerful strength against all things impure.
- Can weaken a True Ancestor’s immortality.」
S-rank. And a holy sword.
The description was extremely simple, but considering this was still only the 6th floor, it made no sense.
I have plenty of Maid Points, so I could mass-produce S-rank weapons, but an S-rank weapon is the sort of weapon whose very existence becomes a symbol of hope.
I heard that even on Earth, only an extremely small number of people owned S-rank weapons.
But Lady Ravina, who appears at the very beginning, has a weapon like that?
That was basically the same as saying, “You need at least a weapon of this level to have a chance of clearing the trial.”
Lady Ravina’s eyes sparkled when she saw the holy sword.
“Ah...! My holy sword...! So it didn’t vanish?! Please give it back!”
“Lady Ravina. There’s something I’m curious about.”
“Yes?”
“Why were you walking around with the holy sword stuck in your stomach?”
“That is...”
More than anything, there was something a bit strange.
Even if the holy sword was pulled out, the wound healed in an instant, yet on the 1st floor, Lady Ravina was an NPC with a mortality rate of 99%.
Considering the holy sword’s rank and effects, that number made no sense.
If she simply pulled out the sword stuck in her own stomach and fought, she could survive, but in most situations, Lady Ravina gave up resisting and accepted death.
“And why did the holy sword get bigger?”
And it wasn’t just my imagination—the holy sword had definitely grown larger.
There was a clear difference between a longsword and a greatsword.
When I asked what on earth was going on, since the sword stuck in her stomach couldn’t have grown on its own, Lady Ravina blushed and answered.
“Thanks to you, Benefactor... I raised it somewhere safe...”
“??”
“It’s the child between you and me...”
“????”
- What are you even talking about
Hm. Even I, flexible as I am, couldn’t understand that.
I’ve thought this for a while, but Lady Ravina seems a little strange.
“Lady Ravina. A sword is not a child. Swords don’t grow that way.”
“Why are you so certain...?”
“??”
Why am I so certain? Because it’s common sense... Wait. What is common sense?
Right now, I am standing on a dangerous boundary.
The boundary where, with one wrong step, I could become Han Yuyeon, a person with stiff and narrow-minded thoughts.
I feel my heart tightening. To begin with, isn’t common sense quite vague?
What is the standard for common sense? What is common sense by one person’s standards may not be common sense by another’s.
Is there common sense designated by the country? Is there common sense designated by the world?
In that case, since Lady Ravina and I are not merely from different countries but from different worlds, wouldn’t it be inevitable for our lines of common sense to differ?
“If there is enough love and affection, it’s only natural for a sword to grow, isn’t it...?”
“......”
I was the one lacking common sense. I was the one trapped in narrow-minded thinking.
In this world, a sword could grow with love and affection.
Once I acknowledged that in my heart, I felt my thoughts become more flexible.
“I see. Lady Sword. You’ve grown splendidly.”
“Hehehe...”
- (flabbergasted wizard emote)
“In any case, I’ll return it to you. Please don’t cry anymore.”
“Ah...”
I gripped the blade and offered Lady Ravina the hilt.
But then, all of a sudden, Lady Ravina did not take the hilt and instead blushed as she spoke.
“Benefactor... if it isn’t too rude, could you stick it back into my stomach?”
“?????”
- Seriously, what are you talking about
My thinking became stiff again.
***
Hm. Was my flexibility training insufficient?
After taking some time to reflect, I made a judgment.
It was time to display an essential quality of a maid.
The so-called Maid Dignity Counseling Mode.
First, I would take out the mansion and invite her in—ah, right. My mansion was destroyed.
“!!!”
Emergency Maid Dignity Response.
I formed a structure with ice magic.
It wasn’t as good as the mansion I had poured my heart and soul into making, but at any rate, I created something resembling a mansion as quickly as possible.
- Wow, so she really meant it when she said it was fine even if the mansion was gone;
- She could just make a new one?
- It’s even way prettier than the old one
“Waaah...!”
Seeing Lady Ravina’s reaction, this much might be all right.
I invited Lady Ravina in as naturally as possible.
“It is shabby, but please enter with honor.”
“It isn’t shabby at all! How did you make such a pretty mansion in an instant...?!”
“???”
This is pretty? I’m seriously worried about Lady Ravina’s aesthetic sense.
No matter how you look at it, my original mansion was about 17 times prettier.
For now, I escorted Lady Ravina.
Treating guests with honor was also a maid’s essential quality...
“......!”
Electricity ran through my head.
Isn’t Lady Ravina in a body that cannot eat?
Then the services I can provide her are drastically reduced.
While breaking out in a cold sweat inside, I received Lady Ravina as calmly as possible.
“Please sit comfortably.”
“Um... why so suddenly...”
“Lady Ravina. I’ll be asking you questions from now on, and can you answer honestly?”
“Uh... yes...”
“By any chance, is your mind a little unwell?”
“What???”
- Why are you doing this again, Yuyeon
- Her breathing sounded kinda perverted from the start
- She doesn’t seem sane, at least
Blushing while asking me to stick a sword into her abdomen was eccentric behavior that I could not understand within my line of common sense.
But while it was incomprehensible, it wasn’t a type of eccentric behavior I had never seen before.
Because I had read about this kind of thing in books.
“By any chance, Lady Ravina, are you the sort who enjoys being hit?”
“Pardon......?”
“By any chance, Lady Ravina, are you the sort who enjoys pain?”
“I do think that if you can’t avoid it, you should enjoy it...”
“By any chance, Lady Ravina, do you feel pleasure when there is a sword stuck in your abdomen?”
“......”
Lady Ravina blushed and avoided my gaze.
I felt genuine fear.
“Lady Ravina. You have a severe pain addiction.”
“Ah... n-no, I don’t! I only enjoyed it because I couldn’t avoid it!”
“You couldn’t avoid it? What does that mean?”
“Um... it’s truly embarrassing, but... priests of Servein...”
“!”
- Huh??
The moment Lady Ravina, red all the way to her earlobes, began fidgeting with her nun’s habit, I stopped her hand with extreme reaction speed.
Judging by her gesture, Lady Ravina was about to raise the broadcast’s rating by a great deal.
Goodness. I had been relieved because even her clothes regenerated, but to think she would suddenly attempt a surprise attack.
“Lady Ravina. There may be people watching us right now, so please keep the rating under control.”
“Pardon...? But...”
- What the fuck, show us
- Boo, Han Yuyeon, raise the rating
- Maybe say that after you cover up that subspace pouch first
After hesitating, Lady Ravina traced her fingers over her abdomen and explained as if drawing a picture.
“...Benefactor. A priest of Servein manifests a stigmata from the moment they become a priest.”
Her touch left not even a mark, but I could tell what she was drawing.
The fingers dancing over Lady Ravina’s abdomen were clearly drawing a sword.
Lady Ravina stopped moving her hand, avoided my gaze, and said,
“This is where my stigmata manifested. And a priest of Servein can connect the stigmata and a sword to pour divine power into the sword.”
“By any chance, is that connection an actual physical connection?”
“Yes... In exchange for storing all the divinity I possess in the sword, I must endure the pain for as long as we are connected.”
- Damn;
- What kind of stigmata is that;
- So that’s why she had a sword stuck in her stomach...
Lady Ravina stroked her abdomen again and continued.
“It’s not as if I wanted to do something like this from the beginning. It wasn’t even my arm or leg—it was my stomach. Do you know how frightening it is to stick a sword there?”
“......”
“But I had to. Because I’m the only priest left in Servein now. Because I’m the only priest left who can forge a holy sword capable of resisting the True Ancestor...”
I focused on Lady Ravina’s words in order to understand this worldview.
“At first, I spent more than a whole day hesitating before I could stab myself. Unlike the other priests, my mind isn’t strong... I just couldn’t do it.”
“......”
“More than anything, I was afraid that while the stigmata and the sword were connected, I would become helpless, unable to use divine techniques.”
Even so, she had no choice but to stab herself.
Because there was a problem that no one but her could solve.
Poor Lady Ravina. I want to hug her...
“But when I finally swallowed the pain and stuck it into my stomach... huh? It was better than I’d expected.”
“?”
- ?
“Rather... it felt thrilling, like electricity running through my head... and somehow...”
“???”
“It felt like it would be fine even if I were ruined into a complete mess—”
“We will now have a brief rating control intermission.”
- Uh, yes;;
“Mmph—?!”
I covered Lady Ravina’s mouth and whispered into her ear.
“Lady Ravina. I think it would be best if I kept the holy sword for the time being.”
“Mmph! Mmph!”
“The point is this, right? The means to resist the True Ancestor lies with you, Lady Ravina.”
“......”
Nod, nod.
Lady Ravina nodded.
“So even though you were afraid, you have endured this painful time until now in order to fulfill your responsibility and duty as a priest. Correct?”
Shake, shake.
Lady Ravina shook her head. Why on earth?
“...Lady Ravina. As long as I am here, you no longer need to keep a sword stuck in your stomach. I will face the True Ancestor—”
Crunch, crunch.
Lady Ravina bit my hand.
And tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.
Oh dear. My skin, constantly reinforced with aura, was too powerful.
After healing the inside of her mouth with healing arts, Lady Ravina did not give up and licked my hand, so I had no choice but to pull it away in surprise.
“Benefactor. I know you’re strong. If it’s you, Benefactor, you could surely fight even the True Ancestor.”
“......”
“But this is something I must do. It’s something I, who survived to the very end amid the sacrifices of my sisters and the soldiers, must do.”
“!”
“If I don’t... if I can’t achieve vengeance and protection with my own strength...”
Drop. A tear fell from Lady Ravina’s eye.
Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes were crying.
“Wouldn’t I be far too ashamed to face the dead...?”
“!!!”
A powerful shock ran through my head.
The things I had done just moments ago came back to me.
Forcibly cutting her off and covering her mouth.
Trying to trample over Lady Ravina’s pride in the name of protection and fighting in her stead.
How discourteous.
So shameless. I want to hide in a mouse hole. Later, when I build a new mansion, I should add a mouse hole too.
And a vegetable garden, if possible.
“Lady Ravina. I’m sorry. I didn’t think deeply enough about your position.”
“Ah... then...”
“I’ll return the holy sword to you. And I’ll avoid fighting the True Ancestor as much as possible. If someone is to face them, it is right for you to do so, Lady Ravina.”
I think I understand the standard strategy for Hell difficulty.
Rescue Lady Ravina on the 1st floor, then preserve her divinity.
Wouldn’t the standard strategy be to accumulate as much divinity as possible in the holy sword and support Lady Ravina so she could fight the True Ancestor in perfect condition?
If Lady Ravina were defeated, I would have to step in.
Whatever the case, if we have to fight the True Ancestor, Lady Ravina has priority.
“Still, Lady Ravina. Please remember this. You’re not alone anymore. If you ever feel you absolutely can’t do it, I’ll help you.”
“Uh... thank you...?”
“Then I’m going in now. Hold your breath.”
I adjusted my grip on the holy sword.
The target was the abdomen where the stigmata was engraved.
As I reinforced my entire body with aura and finished preparing to stab the sword in as cleanly and swiftly as possible, Lady Ravina’s complexion turned deathly pale.
“W-wait a moment! I need to prepare myself...!”
“If you dodge, it won’t end in one strike.”
“Are you planning to kill me in one strike?!”
“It’ll sting.”
“There’s absolutely no way it’ll end with just a sting?! Kyaaht—!?”
“Stab, stab.”
Hm. Surgery successful. It went in cleanly.
Perhaps because the sword was stuck back into her abdomen, or perhaps because the sword was absorbing divine power, Lady Ravina swayed with her head lowered.
I hurried over to check her complexion.
“Are you all right?”
When I looked up at Lady Ravina’s face from below, her pupils and the corners of her mouth had gone subtly slack.
“Yeees......♡”