Chapter 23 – The Gospel of a Selfish Saint

My villain was safe, but he wasn’t secure.

The clearing was still and silent, thick with the fallout of my intervention. Siegfried was on the ground, staring at me with the baffled expression of a man just saved from a fire by the arsonist. I stood over him, my body still trembling with adrenaline. Kenji, Reina, and Daisuke were looking at me like I had just sprouted wings and a halo. This was a delicate moment. One wrong move and they might decide to finish the job.

“Ryuuji… how can you be so forgiving?”

Kenji’s voice was filled with a choked, reverent awe. I had to act fast. I needed to reframe this entire situation. My goal wasn’t to forgive Siegfried. It was to preserve him. I needed to launch the most brilliant, manipulative PR campaign of my life, and I needed to do it now.

I took a deep breath and began my sermon.

“He was a hero in this city.”

My voice was quiet, but it carried in the silence. I looked at Kenji, then at Reina, making sure they saw the profound sadness in my eyes. It was a carefully crafted sadness. The kind that made people lean in and listen.

“Even if it was fake. Even if he was lying the entire time, he did do something. Think about it. The children who looked up to him. The merchants who felt safe. The hope he gave this town, even for a short while… that part was real.”

I was spewing so much garbage I could barely stand it. My soul was cringing, but my face was a mask of sainthood. I needed them to believe that keeping him alive was the highest form of justice. My own personal, long-term, selfish justice.

Siegfried, apparently not grasping that I was currently saving his life, chose that moment to speak. He pushed himself up on one elbow, his face a mess of dirt and confusion.

“I didn’t…”

“HE DID HIS BEST AT SOME POINT!”

The shout ripped out of my throat, a thousand times louder than necessary. It was a raw, primal roar of command. Everyone, including Siegfried, flinched back as if struck by a physical blow. The birds that had just resettled in the trees took off again in a panic.

My heart was jackhammering. Shut up. Shut up, you magnificent idiot. I am trying to save your life so you can ruin mine later. Just let me work.

I looked back at my party. Their faces were stunned into submission. I gave them a slow, reassuring smile. It was a masterpiece of control. A calm, confident, “leave it to me” expression that broadcasted an aura of profound wisdom. It was completely fake.

I turned my gaze back to the now-silent Siegfried.

“Is he a scoundrel? Yes.”

I let the word hang in the air.

“Is he worthless? He is absolutely worthless.”

Siegfried flinched again. Good.

“But he must pay for his crimes. The good he pretended to do, and the evil he actually did. He must pay for all of it. In life, not in death. Death is an easy escape. A true punishment is forcing him to confront what he’s done. Forcing him to work to repay his debt to the people he fooled.”

I was a genius. It was the perfect argument. It sounded noble and heroic, but it secretly achieved my primary objective: keeping my future betrayer on a very short leash.

It worked. Oh my god, it worked.

Kenji’s face was a waterfall. Tears of pure, unadulterated admiration streamed down his cheeks. He was looking at me like I was the goddess herself, descended to teach them the true meaning of mercy. Beside him, Daisuke, who had been tying Siegfried’s hands, stopped and gave a slow, solemn nod of utter respect. He was sold. Completely.

My God. I was a very, very good actor.

“Ryuuji-sama!”

The cry came from Kenji. He looked like his soul had just been cleansed. My party now believed that sparing our enemy was the correct, noble path.

Everyone, that is, except Reina.

But Reina wasn’t crying tears of admiration.

“I almost… I almost did something unforgivable.”

Her voice was a broken whisper. This was a new problem. A much more complicated one. Kenji’s hero worship was easy. This was something else entirely.

“I almost let Ryuuji-sama see my ugly side.”

She looked at me, her eyes wide with a terror that had nothing to do with Siegfried. It was the terror of a zealot who had almost disappointed her god.

“What would I have done if you had abandoned me…”

Damn. This girl was legit crazy. Her breakdown wasn’t about the act of murder. It was about me seeing her about to do it. Her fear wasn’t about morality; it was about my approval rating. This was a ticking yandere time bomb, and I needed to defuse it right now.

Okay. Think. What do you say to a devoted, obsessive, potentially homicidal fangirl to calm her down? What’s the magic phrase that doesn’t accidentally unlock some new, even weirder level of psycho-devotion?

My brain went completely blank. The words just fell out of my mouth before I could stop them.

“Reina, even if you sin, even if you fall, I’ll be there with you.”

Dead silence.

The birds were silent. The wind was silent. My own brain was screaming a high-pitched siren of pure, undiluted panic.

I replayed the words in my head. I’ll be there with you. Oh no. That was bad. That sounded… romantic. That sounded like a full-blown, prime-time drama love confession. Abort mission. Abort!

It was too late.

Reina’s head tilted. The terrified tears stopped instantly. Her eyes, which had been filled with despair, were now filled with a strange, new, intensely focused light. It was the look of someone who had just been handed the keys to the universe.

In the background, Siegfried, now securely tied up, let out a small, choked snort of laughter. Daisuke immediately shot him a glare that could curdle milk.

My mind raced, trying to find a way to walk it back. To clarify. To say anything that would fix what I had just broken.

But Reina’s face was already transforming. It broke into a radiant, beautiful, and utterly terrifying smile.

“Ryuuji-sama!”

And then she launched herself at me.