Perfect Defense.
A way to protect oneself not only from all forms of attack, but from poison and natural disaster.
Such a thing was surely impossible even for Lady Druella, as mighty as she was... no, even for the Chief God, who was said to have created the world.
In that way, protecting everything was like destroying everything.
The Chief God, capable only of waging a war by proxy against Her Majesty the Dark Lord, could not protect everything.
—And if that was the case... defenses made by people could not possibly be anything like absolute...
The barriers were woven with various magic that was designed to detect the approach of monsters.
But I slipped through them easily.
That secret path, which I had reported on and pointed out to my superiors many times when I had been a "Hero," had been cleared in the belief that Lescatié, possessing as it did a greater number of heroes than any other country, would never be targeted.
Even though I had known that at the back of that attitude lay the expectation that we heroes would wish to supply the immense funds necessary to reinforce the barrier from our own purses, we had been unable to effect any improvement.
—But... I suppose I ought to be thankful for that now...
I thought such things to myself as I lowered my feet onto the roof of a familiar lodging house with a thump.
I would say that I could not have broken through if there had not been such a loophole, but it would surely have taken me much longer to make it this far.
If things had gone poorly they might have dragged on until morning, and I would probably have had to remove "obstacles" even before conveying my feelings to El.
When I thought of the labor and loss of time, I could not but feel grateful to Lescatié's top brass.
—Now... then... El's room is...
It was right in the middle of a five storey building, on the left end of the third floor.
He was currently residing in one of the private rooms allotted to high-class soldiers.
Of course, it was not as if I had found that out just now; I had checked up on it as soon as I had learned that El had joined the Order of Holy Knights.
—Perhaps... I'd wanted to sneak into his room at night like this...
I had wanted to know anything I could about him.
That had been my only feeling at the time.
But now that I had cast away my sundry fetters and become the "Real Me," I wasn't so sure that there hadn't been a licentious expectation at the back of that emotion.
However much I had tried to temporize myself as a "Hero," there could be no doubt that the "Real Me" I had been suppressing deep inside my breast was a mere woman, after all.
—Hee hee... Well... I suppose that's got nothing to do with me now...
However I had been in the past, I had no doubts about what I was going to do now.
Coming to that conclusion, I kicked the roof softly and flung myself into the night sky.
My wings flapped open and checked my fall, and, floating lightly, I drew near his room.
My hand crept to a third floor window, it's curtains drawn, and it opened without any resistance whatever.
—A little careless... isn't he...? Or else, maybe he was hoping that I would sneak into his room for some...
As I thought such things to myself, my body slipped smoothly in through the window.
A smell of sweat wafted to my nose as my feet landed on the floor.
He must have been tired from training day after day.
I felt almost as if my nose was being penetrated by that somewhat musky odor of his sweat.
Still, it wasn't at all unpleasant.
On the contrary, as it enveloped me I felt a sense of safety as if El were hugging me tight.
—Aah... This is El's... El's scent...
The scent of my beloved's sweat, savored with a monster's sense of smell.
While filling my lungs with that, which might even be called luscious, I quietly surveyed my surroundings.
His room, furnished with only the bare minimum — a regulation bookcase, desk, dresser and so on — was tidier than I had expected.
I was glad to see that, as it showed the serious disposition of the occupant, but at the same time I felt disappointed that I would be unable to taste the feeling of a new wife tidying them up, as I had wanted.
—Still... that's not the real issue at hand...
I could hear a sleeper's regular breathing from bed which lay along the wall by my left hand.
When I turned my eyes in that direction, I saw that his back was to me, his characteristic red hair swaying.
I could never mistake that hair, which seemed to assert itself even in the darkness.
The sleeper was unquestionably El, my childhood friend, my beloved.
"E–el... "
"Uuh... nn..."
As if in response to my sweet request, he turned softly over in his sleep.
By that motion, El's peaceful, sleeping face was exposed to my eyes.
That gentle, sleeping face gave a somewhat innocent and even childish impression on me.
Seeing that on the face of a youth my own age reminded me vividly of when we had played together in childhood... and caused a sweet throbbing to lodge itself in my breast.
—If he's going to show me something like this... there's no way I can control myself...
Even just having been able to get close enough to El that I could reach out and touch him was enough to push me to the limits of endurance, and yet he showed me such a lovely face as this.
My body was approaching El, blowing away my faint hesitation over whether I ought to wake him when he was sleeping so peacefully.