It was night.
Inside a second floor room of the wooden house in the middle of a secluded small farm.
A young girl with bleary eyes opened them, rubbing them sleepily.
“Hmm… How did I get back to my room?”
Lintis’s head drooped, a bit confused by the situation. Her chaotic brain began searching through her memories, trying to find answers for its master.
‘I think I fell asleep on the sofa?’
She murmured to herself with uncertainty. If she had fallen asleep on the sofa, why would she be back in her room?
It couldn’t be that Master Shilo carried her back, could it?
‘Hmm… That doesn’t seem likely… Would Master Shilo, who turns red just from a little teasing, really dare to carry me?’
She felt he was the type who, if a girl fell asleep in front of him, would go up and shake her awake.
‘So, I must have wandered back to my room in a daze, right?’
Her chaotic brain weighed the possibilities but failed to reach a conclusion for a while.
“Well… whatever, it doesn’t matter~”
Lintis shrugged nonchalantly, kicked off the covers, put on her slippers, and left the room.
She walked down the wooden stairs to the first floor, where all the lights were currently extinguished.
As Lintis felt her way down the stairs in the dark, her foot suddenly brushed against something fluffy. Looking closely, she realized it was her own Xiaobai, lying nearby and sleeping soundly.
He was fast asleep on the wooden floor, with rhythmic snores rolling out from deep within his throat, one after another.
Lintis chuckled softly, squatted down, and patted his head with very gentle movements while whispering.
“Looks like you’re exhausted too — rest well, Xiaobai.”
After saying that, she stood up and took two steps before suddenly freezing in place.
She seemed to have forgotten to feed Xiaobai…
This was bad!
He was the dog she wanted to raise, yet she had run off to sleep right after eating, leaving Xiaobai behind. Master Shilo must be so angry!
‘And Xiaobai… (＞人＜) I’m so sorry you ended up with a master like me…’
Lintis hurriedly returned to Xiaobai’s side, her eyes searching for something to feed the dog. She circled the area a few times but found no food.
Then she suddenly remembered that among the items she had asked Master Shilo to help bring back were the small cookies Lady Sery had given her.
While feeding a dog cookies was a bit strange, she felt she couldn’t leave him hungry. However, just as she was about to go upstairs to get the cookies, her peripheral vision caught sight of a bowl placed next to Xiaobai.
The bowl still contained a bit of leftover stew. It was the same hodgepodge stew Master Shilo had made not long ago. To be honest, it didn’t taste great and lacked flavor; Master Shilo’s culinary skills definitely needed improvement.
Okay… that wasn’t the point.
‘This big dog actually eats vegetables!’
Okay… that wasn’t the point either…
The point was that Master Shilo had actually fed the dog for her!
Lintis was deeply shocked. She had thought Master Shilo was the type who would drag her out of her room, force her to feed the dog, and stand by the side making sarcastic remarks!
This wasn’t just her being prejudiced; the Shilo in her impressions really was that kind of person.
He couldn’t stand seeing others laze around, had no manners toward girls, didn’t know how to speak properly, and loved to mock people — a pure little brat!
Yet now he had actually helped her feed the dog! He had even done it spontaneously without her even asking!
This was truly unexpected…
‘Could it be that my Master Shilo Correction Plan is already starting to work?’
Lintis had already devised a set of correction plans for Master Shilo. The highest priority was correcting his terrible personality. Someone with that kind of attitude could never become a knight!
In her memory, even if knights weren’t all kind-hearted, at least they weren’t “demon pills” who lacked basic manners toward girls. A personality like Master Shilo’s would have been hauled off by the Inquisition for personal correction if he were in the Church she knew.
Isol City didn’t have an Inquisition, and even the local church here seemed a bit crooked.
Lintis believed that this task of correcting a knight should naturally be undertaken by her, since she was still technically a Saintess.
‘Hmm? Wait…’
‘Could it really have been Master Shilo who carried me back to my room?’
If he was afraid she would catch a cold, it seemed like something he might actually do. After all, from the moment they met until now, Master Shilo had never truly rejected her for anything. He was a complete and utter “sharp-tongued but soft-hearted” idiot!
Lintis’s eyes slowly widened. She felt that this possibility was becoming more and more likely…
As the thought appeared, her mind automatically conjured an image of Master Shilo picking her up. In that image, she was leaning against Master Shilo’s chest, sleeping soundly.
Lintis: “…”
For some reason, she felt her cheeks getting hotter and hotter. She hurriedly went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face, which finally made her feel a bit better.
Looking at her reflection in the mirror — her hair a bit messy and her face flushed bright red — Lintis silently toyed with a stray lock of hair while muttering under her breath.
“Am I an idiot? Why am I blushing just because I might have been carried?”
After a good while, she finally composed herself. She brushed her hair and headed back up the stairs to her room.
Looking at the bright moon outside through the window, her emotions calmed down significantly.
Lintis did not go back to bed to sleep. Instead, she went to the wardrobe. Her dress fell from her body, leaving her completely unclothed.
The moonlight fell upon her as if draping her in a silver veil, making her look exceptionally holy.
This moment didn’t last long. Lintis put on her undergarments and donned her oversized priestess robes, hiding her perfect figure entirely.
Her lips parted slightly as she murmured something. In the next second, her body drifted into the air as if the moonlight were carrying her forward. She came to the window and sat with her back to the outside.
Then, without the slightest hesitation, she leaned backward and completely vanished outside.
Lintis’s body was falling. Despite it being a dangerous situation, her expression didn’t fluctuate at all. Her face, which usually wore a smile, was now cold and indifferent, like someone seeking death with no regrets.
But the expected injury never happened. Her body vanished halfway through the fall, leaving no trace behind.
By the time she reappeared, she was in a different room.
Lintis stepped out from the shadows in Shilo’s room, looking as if she were a part of the shadows themselves.
Upon entering the room, Lintis scanned her surroundings. She first noticed Master Shilo sleeping soundly on the bed, and then she felt a familiar holy power fluctuation — her own.
Her body hovered slightly off the ground to avoid making unnecessary noise. She moved like a ghost, stopping when she reached what appeared to be Master Shilo’s desk.
Lintis kept her movements very light as she slowly opened the drawer. Inside the drawer lay the ring she had been thinking about.
— The Ring of Seras.
In common terms, it was a spatial ring. It was named that simply because the legendary mage who created such convenient items was named “Seras,” and mages usually cared a great deal about patent rights.
Lintis reached out from her sleeve, picked up the ring, and sensed the items inside.
Soon, her expression turned a bit strange.
This was because the items inside the ring were still in the same state they were in before being thrown away. Nothing was missing, and even their positions hadn’t changed.
Surprise aside, Lintis withdrew her spiritual energy and placed the ring back.
It wasn’t time to take it back yet. At least… not until she finished correcting this knight.
She had come this time simply to confirm whether the ring was in Shilo’s hands and to retrieve her private clothes, so that she wouldn’t work hard for nothing and target the wrong person.
But now…
Lintis looked at the sleeping boy on the bed, her lips curling up slightly. Since Master Shilo was being so honest, she shouldn’t do anything that might arouse suspicion.
Now, she had other things to do. She had to go and return before dawn.
She pushed the drawer back into place, approached the shadows near the wall, and her figure gradually disappeared.
***
A few minutes after she vanished, Shilo, who had been sleeping soundly on the bed, suddenly opened his eyes. He rolled out of bed and went to the desk.
Seeing the ring still in the drawer and that nothing inside had been moved, he fell into silence.
Because he had been troubled by the Saintess’s strange behavior, he had found it difficult to fall asleep. Drowsiness had only just hit him a moment ago when he sensed someone entering his room.
That familiar fragrance had allowed him to identify the person instantly.
Holding the ring, Shilo looked at the moon outside the window and murmured.
“Saintess, what on earth are you trying to do?”