Isn’t it night right now?
Since Iserin had said those words, did it mean she already knew what her wish was?
“Do you want to come?”
“I do!”
Mowan answered almost the very instant Iserin finished asking the question.
Iserin paused, the corners of her mouth curling up slightly as her eyes gazed deeply at Mowan.
Iserin considered her own emotional fluctuations to be rather faint.
But today, at this very moment, she saw the purple-haired girl’s entire heart reflected on her face—her eagerness, her irrepressible joy.
The smile dancing between her eyes was as bright as the morning sun, and her youthful face was as clean as cake cream.
The only pity was that the girl’s chin was a bit too sharp; perhaps the three years of hardship had left her somewhat malnourished.
But that did not detract from the girl’s cuteness.
Indeed.
Iserin never deceived herself; she would never deliberately ignore her own emotions.
Only by being one hundred percent certain of her inner feelings could she precisely control her actions and execute her plans as methodically as a machine.
She felt that the current Mowan was very cute.
It had nothing to do with Mowan’s race.
Even if Mowan had horns on her forehead and pointed ears, she even felt those were extra points for Mowan’s cuteness.
Mowan had guessed one thing correctly.
To become the Saintess, Iserin’s state of mind was certainly beyond that of an ordinary person.
She was not like those believers who were deceived by The Church’s propaganda and saw the world in pure black and white.
Iserin did not hate the Demon Race.
She certainly did not hate the Demon Princess before her, who had done nothing wrong and had never killed a single Human.
But that was where the helplessness lay.
The fate of the Demon King’s Inheritance flowed through her blood.
That was her only mistake, yet it was also her only special passage to reach Iserin’s side.
“Let’s finish dinner first.”
“Mhm, mhm.”
Mowan hurriedly buried her head in her food.
Finally, after clearing every scrap of food from the table, Mowan did a quick cleanup and prepared to head out with Iserin.
Looking at the night sky outside, Mowan was filled with anticipation.
“Why the sudden desire to go to the place where I live?”
“Didn’t you invite me?”
“Is that so? Then did I guess wrong? I thought you wanted to go but were too embarrassed to ask directly, so I invited you.”
Mowan rolled her eyes.
It seemed nothing going on in her mind could escape Iserin’s sharp intuition.
“You… you guessed right. Then why did you come to my place? You don’t have a mission tomorrow, right? You even went out of your way to bring me food.”
“I just wanted to see you.”
“Then it’s the same for me. I just suddenly wanted to go to where you live, just on a whim. Don’t you know that it’s perfectly normal for good friends to visit each other’s homes?”
“I see.”
Mowan followed Iserin out of the house.
Iserin asked again from up ahead.
“Then have you and Rosa visited each other?”
“No. For me and Rosa, it couldn’t be helped. I didn’t have a home. And although Rosa has a home, it’s in a very, very far away place. She might never return there for the rest of her life.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s too far. The distance to the Holy City is even further than the distance from the Holy City to the Demon Empire Capital. Besides, as an adventurer, Rosa is afraid that if she goes home for even a look, she won’t be able to let go of her attachments there.”
“I thought Rosa had some conflict with her family.”
“Not at all. In my memory, Rosa gets along well with everyone. To be able to raise Rosa like that, her family must be very excellent as well.”
“You know Rosa very well.”
“She was the one who proactively brought it up to me. After three years together, even if I didn’t ask, she would constantly mumble in my ear during our free time. Over time, she ended up revealing everything about her family situation herself.”
“Are you blaming me for not mentioning anything to you?”
Hearing what seemed like a trace of a complaint in Iserin’s words, Mowan hurriedly circled to Iserin’s front, turning sideways to stare at her face.
“No, Sister Iserin, I definitely didn’t mean it that way!”
She was just making small talk; how could Iserin link it to that?
“I thought you were coming to my place because you wanted to understand me the way you understand Rosa.”
“I do have that intention, but… you and Rosa are different.”
“Oh?”
Mowan shut her mouth.
She walked forward quickly.
They were different.
Rosa was just my friend, while you are my ideal lover.
The feeling of wanting to understand you and wanting to understand Rosa was completely different.
But one of Iserin’s excellent traits was that sometimes, if Mowan didn’t answer, Iserin wouldn’t press further.
Rosa, on the other hand, would never be satisfied until a conversation had a proper conclusion.
Suddenly.
Iserin took Mowan’s hand.
Mowan’s heart skipped a beat.
“I’ll help you turn invisible and hide your presence. I don’t want to have to climb over the wall to get back into my house.”
So that was it.
The Church was not far off now.
Mowan obediently let Iserin hold her right hand.
She could feel Iserin’s magic flowing into her palm until it covered her entire body.
Iserin led her silently into the Church, bypassing the Nuns’ gazes and returning to the courtyard at the back.
Besides the main building of the Church, there was a manor-like area in the rear.
The Nuns lived and worked here.
Most members of The Church lived in the same courtyard, their individual rooms side-by-side.
However, important figures like Iserin and the Pope had their own private courtyards, where one person could occupy several rooms.
They stepped into Iserin’s courtyard.
Only after Iserin closed the gate did she deactivate the Invisibility Magic on Mowan.
Moonlight flowed into the courtyard, reflecting off the ground so clearly it looked like a pool of water.
Flowers, grass, and trees were planted around the perimeter, though they looked like they hadn’t been trimmed in a long time.
There were scattered fallen leaves on the ground, but it looked as though someone came to sweep every day or two.
“Did I disappoint you? The Saintess’s residence doesn’t look like a paradise.”
“No.”
Mowan’s gaze shifted to the rooms with tightly closed windows and doors.
This courtyard had four rooms, but every single one was gloomy, without a single flicker of light.
“I never fantasized that Sister Iserin lived in paradise. Sister Iserin is just like us ordinary people. When you come back, you see closed doors and dark windows without candlelight. You feel lonely too, right?”
Mowan turned back to look at Iserin.
She saw the other woman freeze for a moment before nodding gently.
“However, back when Croll was learning magic from me, the nights weren’t this cold and quiet. Ever since Croll finished her studies, she moved back into the Royal Palace.”
Mowan felt a bit of sadness.
The former Her Highness the Princess was probably Iserin’s emotional anchor, wasn’t she?
Now that the Princess was grown and her wings had hardened, she wouldn’t listen to Iserin anymore.
Mowan sighed.
“Sister Iserin, do you know? Every time the Princess and I return from a mission, seeing the lights on at home makes my heart feel so, so warm. The feeling of having someone waiting for you to come home is truly different. I finally understand why Rosa said she couldn’t let go of her attachments if she went home for a look. Right now, what I look forward to most after every mission is seeing you waiting for me at home.”
“If your heart cannot let go of attachments, you cannot go to places that are too far away. Yearning torments the heart and causes one to lose focus in battle.”
Mowan was moved by the scene.
She couldn’t help but say so much.
When she was with Rosa in the past, she would never have had so many sentimental reflections.
But facing Iserin, she wished she could pour out all the emotions in her heart and reveal her truest self.