*
The rose scent tickling my nose.
The soft sensation from where my head is resting.
“Hehe, even Mr. Pervy Wolf is quite the sleepyhead.”
How long have I been asleep?
As I open my eyes, a fox-like smile beams at me.
“… Saintess?”
“Yes, I’m your very own Nameless Saintess!”
The Nameless Saintess.
Her pure white figure looks fragile enough to shatter with a touch, yet she gazes at me intently.
“You slept for so long, I thought I’d provide a little sanctuary… Did you rest well?”
Her flowing white hair brushes against me, and I can even feel our breaths mingling.
“What… exactly happened?”
She’s looking down at me with my head nestled on her lap.
Not long ago, I met Demon God Pina and regained my lost memories.
Adventuring with the Nameless Saintess, meeting comrades, and defeating the Demon King.
Memories that I thought were forgotten come crashing back like waves, making me feel as if I was lost in a long, long dream.
“Well, I guess everything might not be just divine arrangement.”
Why did I forget such memories?
“It’s kind of cliché to say ‘Nice to meet you’, isn’t it? Sir Knight.”
“……”
The Saintess draws lines of curiosity at my bewildered face.
She’s doting on my cheek like a playful child.
“We’ve already met in our dreams, after all.”
Just as I try to rise out of guilt, she shakes her head.
“No, don’t get up.”
Is she trying to Seduce me on purpose?
With both hands, she firmly grasped my head to keep me in place.
“Well, your breath is a bit dangerous…”
The white-haired Saintess continues while her cheeks flush.
The position feels like one wrong move will bury me into her chest.
Thinking over and over again, I realize that such an innocent face matched with that physique makes no sense.
She’s not even a succubus.
“… Please rest comfortably in my embrace for now, Sir Knight.”
Even she finds it embarrassing, she stutters slightly.
“I’m a greedy person who wants to monopolize you, even if I have to be stubborn about it.”
This little part of her was just like Pina Grancia.
I thought I was returned to a world line where Princess Pina exists.
“Surely, I can’t be dreaming, can I, Saintess?”
“Should I prove to you that it’s definitely not a dream?”
Before I knew it, I was having a private talk with the Nameless Saintess Pina.
“How disappointing. If you had just slept a little longer, I could have woken you up with a kiss.”
“……”
She pouts, sticking out her tongue as if regretting it.
The allure in her demeanor is so compelling, it’s more than that of a wolf.
“Just now, the memories returned to you from another me, are indeed memories of a past world.”
“Memories from a previous world…?”
I lay on her lap, afraid to resist and let her explain.
“Yes, the story from before time rewound, when I, the Nameless Saintess, fought against the Demon Kings together with you.”
The memories before this world was reset.
We succeeded in gathering comrades and defeating the Demon King of Truth, but…
“You wished for my happiness, didn’t you?”
Back then, being possessed by Licht, I knew her feelings yet wished for something else.
It felt like lying if I were to become lovers while in that state.
“To be more precise… it was ‘Pina Grancia’s happiness’.”
“That’s right. I had to regain my memories, my name, family, and friends… so that I could become happy.”
Having done nothing for the Saintess, I wished for her happiness as my last act.
I thought that was how I returned to my original world.
“…So my wish caused everything to rewind for the first time.”
It was my empty wish that twisted everything.
The forgotten princess of the Grancia Empire.
In order to change the fate taken by the Demon Kings, she had to return to when she was attending the Academy.
“That’s incorrect.”
“…… Huh?”
The Nameless Saintess denied my brave deduction.
“Only half of that is true.”
Only half? Then what is the actual truth that she carries such a satisfied expression for?
“Without you by my side, there’s no way I could be happy!”
“Ah ha.”
The fundamental premise was wrong from the start.
After I returned to my original world, she wept and missed me throughout the day.
Just like Pina from another world who fell into Demon Godhood.
“So… I also made a wish with the God of Darkness, Liset.”
“Was that even possible…?”
Normally, only the Hero who fulfilled their mission would have the right to wish. How could a Saintess like her…
Oh, thinking back, she would certainly qualify.
“Yes, I later realized… I was also a Hero.”
“The Hero of Affection. So we indeed both made our wishes.”
A Hero with a shining holy sword like glass.
She was the prophetic hero who could defeat all the Demon Kings of the Hero Church.
Finally, the riddle unraveled.
Pantoze had said that this whole mess stemmed from the wishes she and I made.
Was it her wish to summon me back to this world?
Even with the delusion of being in a game, there was no way I could have come here.
“Summoning me back to this world… was the Saintess’s wish…?”
“Well… in a way, but I didn’t actually wish for that.”
Then what kind of wish did she make?
“… Then what was it?”
When I gazed at her in confusion again, she sweetly touched my cheek while smiling.
“The wish I made was, ‘To always be a source of strength by your side.’”
She could have wished to marry me!
I wondered who she got her selflessness from, thinking of others over herself.
The Nameless Saintess smiled kindly at me, saying:
“I wanted to support you, even if just a little, when you returned to reality.”
“Couldn’t you have been a bit greedier?”
“I was greedy…!”
Watching the Saintess, who was only trying to protect herself but ended up getting hurt.
Her maximum greed being that a Saintess who doesn’t even use Divine Power well.
“Hmph, I’ve always held onto the thought that I didn’t want you to get hurt because of my weakness.”
“I apologize for rolling around back then…”
She’s always a source of strength by my side.
Then what kind of chemical reaction did these two wishes create?
“Thanks to that, I never thought our faces would be hard to see like this.”
Did I lose my memories and come back to the past?
“… Originally, you were pushed to your limits by continuous death.”
She gently strokes my hair with a sad gaze.
“The Magic Hat had to die… you kept dying and coming back.”
“The aftereffect of the inheritor.”
Drake had looked at me with eyes of someone who was about to die, or perhaps the reason I can’t fall asleep easily even now.
“Not being able to sleep at night was normal. Waking up screaming was just common.”
She sighed heavily.
As she gently touches my forehead, checking if I have any pain after recalling my memories.
“I cast a spell on your helmet, hoping you wouldn’t suffer.”
“So that’s why I thought I was possessed.”
Originally, it was the Saintess’s consideration not to let me remember painful memories when I returned to reality.
“…Looks like it’s all been revealed now. It’s so regretful that I’m the Demon God.”
Because of that, I had mistaken the situation for being possessed.
Pina Grancia’s happiness.
And in order for her to be by my side and support me, all must come together.
“It was those two wishes that allowed me to come to Grand Hertz Academy.”
Pina and I must have gone back to the past together.
It seems my receiving a beta tester email was fate, not coincidence.
‘Forgetting previous memories is the same thing.’
The cost of trying to change fate.
The lesser gods said they couldn’t help against fate either.
“It’s not a lie that I fell for you, is it?”
“…It really is.”
By rewinding time, the Pina from her Academy days also fell in love with me.
Like the contradiction of an ouroboros.
“It was shocking that you’re even better looking than when you were possessed…”
“Flattering words, Miss Saintess.”
She pouts her cheeks while looking at my face.
“It’s true! I thought I could like you even if I were less attractive… but this is just unfair…”
Her cheeks are slightly red, and though she has a smile hanging from her ear, it doesn’t seem like an empty compliment.
But how is the Saintess right here meeting me now?
The Nameless Saintess is a future that Pina could have realized.
In other words, she could also be called another world’s version of her.
“… Saintess, I must return to my original world.”
Now the thought struck, I stood up. She looks down, like a disappointed person.
“I once believed you were dead.”
“You’d be the one to say that, Sir Knight.”
With her arms crossed, she drags her feet.
It must be difficult seeing me after such a long time; she must feel disappointed.
Just like Pina, who transformed into a Demon God, she must have waited solely for me.
“There’s no need to rush, Sir Knight.”
She gently touches my cheek as she speaks.
“This is a shrine where the God of Light and the God of Darkness are worshiped.”
Looking around, it seems like a landscape divided like the yin-yang symbol.
“A place free from constraints of time and space.”
“Are you trying to own me like you’ve become a Demon God?”
I ask her, feeling a chill in my heart.
Am I to risk living under the control of another world’s Pina, caught forever?
“Of course not. If that were the case, another me wouldn’t have sent you here.”
“…Then why?”
My worries were unfounded.
The Saintess shook her head in denial.
“In order to fulfill the Grand Route… I need your help, as the Starter’s heir.”
An honorable path where all possibilities converge.
She’s suggesting that in order to become the Grand Route, her help is essential.
“There’s still one time frame left to go.”
She seemed to rise on her heels, trying to reach my gaze.
“…Saintess?”
Out of nowhere, she brought a helmet and placed it on my head.
Seizing the moment I was bewildered by this ideology helmet, she spoke.
“This is a farewell, Sir Knight.”
Chu. My lips were stolen like a crafty cat on the sly.
It felt like I was floating in midair.
As our lips met, voices began to echo in my head.
[Meeting my younger self will be the end of this time travel.]
The end of time travel, huh?
Just why must I meet the young Pina Grancia?
If I just return to my original world…
[The Demon King of Truth has not yet given up, Lee Soo-hyun.]
In that moment, the scenery around me rapidly changed, revealing someone’s back.
A girl with black hair, running as if she’s being chased.
A blood-stained white dress.
I could see an Inrang Tribe girl running with all her might, almost gasping for breath.
‘…Pina?’
With the wolf tail and ears, she looks just like the young her.
Before she turns white-haired, perhaps…
[The Demon King, revived again through the power of a successor.]
Hands chasing after a younger Pina could be seen below.
They seemed grotesque, like sharp tree roots.
I know the owner of these hands.
[Destined to die at the hands of the younger me.]
I saw a madman grinning while grasping Pina.
Soon after, the Magic Hat stared directly at me.
As if it knew I could see it.
Just as I was about to summon my demon sword to stop it from choking her,
[Save her.]
My consciousness flickered as I felt myself being dragged back into the dark sea again.
