If I had to compare them to something else, I'd pick...twin mountains. Wait, no—mounds of marshmallows. While they rose high and proud like mighty mountains, they were also soft and jiggly to the touch.
The feel of her skin against my hands was firm, yet soft, and I could feel my fingers sink into the plush, pliant peaks.
As you might've guessed, I was currently fondling Farah's perfect tiddies. One of the perks of my position.
Surprisingly enough, this whole ordeal had been solved by Verner and his strong muscles.
Didn't expect that, huh? Yeah, me neither.
In the original story, Farah had been dealt with in one of two ways—either by Verner, who figured out how to use his dark powers (lol), or by Eterna, who used her powers as the saint to triumph. In either case, one of the main characters was supposed to have an awakening in the face of danger and gain access to their hidden powers.
And yet, Verner's special hidden power in this storyline was being buff.
He had torn through the ropes with brute force and pulverized a monster by throwing it at someone.
And done! Time for a standing ovation! No, seriously, who could've predicted that?
The thing was that Kuon no Sanka did have some stupid gag scenes like this one sprinkled throughout, so I couldn't really complain, could I?
Anyway, thanks to him I'd been given the perfect opportunity to fondle Farah's boobs, so it was all good!
Now, let's get back to the topic at hand—quite literally.
As much as I wished I could spend the rest of the day enjoying Farah's assets, that wouldn't look very professional. Especially since I actually had a respectable reason for doing this...well, for the time being, at least.
The weird black mist coming out from her chest was responsible for everything that had happened until now, so I had to purge the witch's energy from Farah's body. But, hey, the ominous mist had given me a perfectly good excuse to cop a feel. Forget the fact that I was totally doing this for my own personal enjoyment—this was really all done in the name of justice, of course!
Black mist, you're a true bro. But you could've done me a solid and taken over her crotch area too, couldn't you?
If only Kuon no Sanka was an erotic game instead of a dating sim, then that would've happened for sure! Then Verner would've had to use his big magnum to treat her, right? FIRE!
Aaaargh! Now I'll never get to see that! Everything's screwed up because of you, black mist! You're so useless!
Anyway, I'd pretended to pinpoint the black mist before I started touching her, so everyone should've believed I was doing this for a very good reason. I used the dark power (lol) I had borrowed from Verner to forcefully pull out the witch's powers from Farah's body.
Normally, the witch's power could only be purged by the saint. That was why, in your first run when you had to fight Farah without Eterna, she was bound to die no matter what.
However, there was actually one more way to counter the witch's powers even without the saint—although the player would have no way of knowing at that point in the story. The key was to use the witch's powers against her: dark magic.
By the way, besides the saint's magic and dark magic, nothing else—and I mean absolutely nothing, trust me—would ever work against the witch. Even if you were to blast hundreds of spells powerful enough to destroy entire cities on her, she'd remain completely unscathed.
Then again, maybe I couldn't be a hundred percent sure of that. The witch may have limits I wasn't aware of. For instance, I was pretty sure a nuke would tear her to shreds in a heartbeat. Such weapons of mass destruction didn't exist in this world, though, so it didn't matter much.
All in all, my point was that, in this world, only the saint's power and the witch's power could work. Why? Well, because both of these powers were essentially the same.
Uh-oh! I just blurted out a big spoiler, didn't I? You're not supposed to learn that this early in the game. Oops!
Anyway, with dark magic, I could save Farah. Time to fish the darkness out!
I pulled on the mist and removed my hand from the warmth of Farah's boobies. In my closed fist, I held the black mist that had been manipulating the mammaries. I crushed it, and it exploded into particles of light that soon fluttered away.
"Lady Ellize... What just happened?" one of Farah's ex-hostages asked meekly.
Oh? Who might you be? I've never seen you in the game, but you're a total babe.
Now that I took a closer look at her, though, I realized I'd met her once three years ago. She'd used to have a huge scar on her face and I'd fixed it.
I remember now! You were already pretty cute three years ago!
The girl I'd saved had grown into a fine beauty. How nice. I told her as much, and she looked at me in awe, deeply moved.
"W-We'd only met once before, but you remembered me..."
I'd never forget a pretty face! Who do you take me for?
Anyway, she was asking me about the mist, wasn't she?
I explained that it had been controlling Farah all along. She was nothing but a victim, and I told them I hoped they wouldn't blame her. She had committed a grave sin, but she deserved forgiveness... At least for the sake of her impressive tiddies.
"Lady Ellize... It's been a long time. You may not remember me, but my name is John. I was a soldier when you saved me and my comrades from certain death. So... Miss Farah was forced to do all of this?"
Uh, and you are...?! Sorry bro, but I don't commit dudes to memory... Or so I wish I could say, but there are too many eyes on us. I'll nod and pretend I totally know who he is. What, are you thinking I'm a wuss for pretending? You're right on the money! I am.
While I chatted with the students, we heard sets of heavy footsteps approaching, as if several people were coming down the stairs. The door slammed open, and Scotterbrain, accompanied by the rest of my guard, rushed in.
"Lady Ellize! Are you all right?!" she yelled.
I assured Scotterbrain that I was fine.
She ran up to me at full speed and started sobbing.
"I'm so glad...you're all right... Lady Ellize, please... Never do something like this again..."
Looks like someone was really worried about me. You have a cute side to you, don't you, Scotterbrain?
I felt a bit bad. She'd be even more hurt when she finally learned the truth... I had no qualms about her betraying me. If anything, I was convinced it was a good thing.
Ever since she was a toddler, she'd been raised in the most spartan of ways in order to become a perfect member of the saint's guard. Her entire life up until now had been dedicated to the saint.
Since Eterna was the real deal, the sad truth was that she had been dedicating her life to a fake.
Back when I played the game, I used to cheer her on. "Stop putting up with that piece of shit! Come on! Abandon her and live your life already!" I'd say.
I liked her a lot, so I wanted her to leave my side and go to Eterna, but I also knew that hearing her harsh criticisms when the time came would take a toll on me.
Let's get along until that happens, my dear Layla.
I decided to stop calling her Scotterbrain even in my thoughts. It wasn't very nice, after all.
While I was busy thinking about all that, Layla noticed Farah, who was still lying unconscious on the floor. She started approaching her with her sword in hand and the scariest face I'd ever seen her make.
"You! How dare you threaten Lady Ellize! You're a disgrace! There's no need to wait for a trial! I'll have your head right this instant, you scum!"
Scotterbrain?!
I gathered mana around my arm and hurriedly blocked her sword.
Phew...
"Lady Ellize?! Why are you— Your arm! Are you hurt?!"
Of course not! Easy peasy.
It was a good thing I hadn't gotten hurt—if anyone else had tried that, they'd have lost their arm on the spot. Plus, if I had taken damage from a regular blade, the fact I was a fake would've been revealed on the spot. Just like the witch, the saint could only be hurt by her own powers or the witch's.
Since Farah had been controlled by the witch, it would've been logical if she'd hurt me, but it would've been completely impossible for my guard's blade to cut me...in theory. I wouldn't have been able to handwave it away with an explanation.
In fact, what had convinced everyone that Ellize was really a fake in the original game was that she'd gotten hurt.
I reassured Scotterbrain by telling her that her blade could never have hurt me. Only the witch's magic and the saint's magic were effective on me, blah blah blah. It was a lie, but I needed her to calm down. I also explained that Farah was just a hapless victim in this situation and hadn't meant for any of this to happen.
Even though I'd just said that, my guards couldn't help but be wary of Farah, so they restrained her anyway. They'd believed me enough to resist killing her on the spot, at least, so that was already a win.
After that, Scotterbrain dragged me back home, so I didn't get the chance to chat with Verner or Eterna.
◇
Eterna had a secret she kept from everyone else.
For as long as she could remember, she'd never gotten hurt. Or, to put it more accurately, she'd never gotten hurt because of anyone or anything other than herself.
At first, she hadn't paid it much mind; she'd just figured it was luck.
However, she'd finally noticed that something was wrong after she'd been attacked by a wild beast in the forest. The bear had charged at her, its sharp claws had touched her skin, and its pointed fangs had tried to dig into her flesh. And yet...she hadn't felt any pain. Her clothes had been torn beyond recognition, but not even a scratch had appeared on her body.
While part of the reason Eterna had decided to enroll in the academy was worry for Verner—she'd wanted to make sure he'd be all right—her main goal was to finally uncover the truth about herself. She wanted to know what she was, and she had a feeling she'd find the answer to that question at the academy.
Eventually, she had.
"The witch and the saint can only be hurt by each other, or by their very own power."
What she'd learned in class was oddly reminiscent of her own situation. She also couldn't suffer injuries at the hand of anyone but herself. Did that mean she was the saint, then?
But there was already a saint, and not just any saint—Ellize was known as the greatest one in history.
She'd heard of Ellize's many achievements in class—killing thousands of monsters by herself, single-handedly curing every infirm person in a village on her own, turning a wasteland into a flower field just by walking through it, et cetera—and she couldn't believe that she'd truly done all of that at her age.
Two saints couldn't be born in the same generation, which meant that either she or Ellize was a fake. But was it possible for someone who was lauded as the greatest saint to ever grace these lands to be a fake? It just didn't make any sense.
What confused Eterna even more was that no one knew who this generation's witch was. No one had ever seen her. Everyone thought that she was hiding because she was afraid of Ellize, but...was that really the case?
Could it be that...Eterna herself was the witch without being aware of it?
If two people fit the bill of not sustaining injuries, one had to be the saint and the other the witch. That was the logical outcome.
Ellize couldn't be the witch; it was simply out of the question. Why would the witch slaughter monsters by the thousands? Why should she spend most of her time rescuing and healing people? What could she stand to gain from such selfless actions? Nothing. The witch would never put herself in such a disadvantageous position.
Eterna felt like she might crumble under the weight of her worries. She wanted to believe she wasn't the witch, but... What if she was? She couldn't rid herself of that fear.
After she'd seen Ellize in the flesh, her anxiety had only grown. She had the power of wiping out an entire army of gigantic monsters at once, all the while looking so ethereally beautiful that anyone would be taken in by her charms.
It seemed to Eterna that the word "saint" had been crafted just for Ellize. She embodied the very idea of holiness. Now that she'd seen her in action with her own eyes, she realized all over again just how different the two of them were. Up until then, she'd clung onto the hope that maybe, just maybe, Ellize was the fake after all; that maybe she was nothing more than a regular person with strong magical powers. While even Eterna herself admitted that it sounded ridiculous and far-fetched, she was ready to believe anything as long as it pointed away from the possibility that she was the hateful witch.
But now, after she'd witnessed the other girl in action, she knew that there was just no way Ellize could be a fake. She'd been the only one to sense the witch's magic inside Farah, and she'd been able to purge it. Eterna, on the other hand, hadn't even noticed that Farah wasn't acting out of her own volition.
When Eterna had seen Ellize touch Farah's chest, she'd had been a little puzzled at first. In fact, she'd even wondered if the famed saint was a closeted pervert. But it turned out she had been completely wrong. Ellize could never have such impure thoughts; she'd simply done whatever she could to save Farah. In the end, Eterna was the one who'd exposed her foolishness by even considering something like that.
"You... I saw you once in the past, did I not? I believe it was in the village of Fohr, correct? You've grown into such a beauty that I did not recognize you at first," Ellize had told one of the hostages.
"W-We'd only met once before, but you remembered me..."
"How could I forget you?" Ellize had asked with a smile.
"I'm honored..."
"You wanted to know about this mist, did you not? It's the real culprit behind what transpired here today. It was created by the witch, and it had been controlling Farah this entire time. She's also a victim, so please don't blame her."
"A-A victim? But...what she did was an act of rebellion against our country... No, against the world! Trying to kill the saint isn't some petty crime that can be forgiven!"
"You're right—Farah has committed a grave sin, but I hope that all of you can find it in your hearts to pardon her. A forgiving heart is a great virtue."
While she'd spoken, Ellize had destroyed the mist. Only the saint or the witch herself could hope to destroy a spell cast by the witch, so she'd proven her might as the saint. An ordinary person—no matter how skilled they might've been in magic—could never achieve something like that.
It was at that point when any hopes that Ellize was just a skilled magician had vanished from Eterna's heart.
A few moments later, the saint's guards stormed in, and one of them tried to deliver the final blow to Farah. Ellize hadn't even hesitated for a moment before she'd dove in front of her, using her bare arm to block her sword. Miraculously...she hadn't sustained any injuries.
"Lady Ellize?! Why are you— Your arm! Are you hurt?!"
"Your blade cannot hurt me, so calm your heart. Only the witch's magic and the saint's magic are effective on me. You're aware of that, are you not?"
Eterna felt her heart grow cold. She was so disappointed that Ellize was the real deal, and she loathed herself for feeling that way.
Ellize was the saint. There was no room for Eterna to doubt that anymore.
She had been able to sense the witch's magic, purge it, save the poor woman who was being controlled, and block a sword with her arm without getting hurt. She was strong, beautiful, and above all, kind.
How could Eterna have ever believed such foolish things? While she'd been busy wallowing in self-pity and clinging to ridiculous hopes, Ellize had been doing everything in her power to help people. She'd even put her own life in danger for the sake of seven strangers.
She's the real deal... And I'm nothing like her. I'm not as pretty, not as strong...and certainly not as commendable.
After the day's events, Ellize had been dragged away by the members of her guards, but Eterna had barely noticed. She didn't have the leisure to observe her surroundings anymore. The truth had come crashing down on her, and it was all too obvious what she truly was.
If two people had the attributes of the saint and of the witch, it stood to reason that they were those people. Ellize was no fake... And she sure as hell wasn't the witch. That meant the real saint already existed. Then, if she were to follow that logic, there was only one conclusion Eterna could draw.
No one had seen this generation's witch yet, so no one knew her name or what she looked like. And Eterna just so happened to have the same abilities as her...
I understand now...
Eterna staggered all the way to her room. Had the world always been such a dark place? She had never felt so miserable in her entire life.
Then again, it was only natural for the world to appear dark in her eyes. After all, she was...
The witch. I was the witch all along.
...the hateful witch that threatened humanity.