It's Clichéd, But That's Why She's the Protagonist

After entering the room, the Saintess said nothing in particular and quietly took the seat I indicated.

...

Though I deliberately spoke in an insolent, slick manner, she did not seem particularly bothered.

No, rather, Ariel simply watched me, while only the priest who appeared to be her guard glared at me from behind her.

'Oh?'

Ignoring the guard's gaze, I examined Ariel and let out a quiet exclamation of admiration inwardly.

She really does look like the protagonist of a romance fantasy, huh?

That was my first thought when I saw Ariel.

Of course, it was still only an assumption, but she was such a captivating woman that the thought came naturally.

Lustrous pure-white hair befitting the title of the Pure White Saintess.

Following the pull of that sacred hair, my gaze descended to a face that made the word beautiful spring unbidden to mind.

'Wow, this is only the second time I've been awed by someone's face.'

The first was when I saw an elf for the first time in the underworld.

To be honest, it was less admiration for her looks than amazement at seeing the elven race for the first time.

The only person whose looks could rival hers was probably Mist, who stood behind me and attended me.

Of course, our first meeting had been so suspicious that I hadn't admired her looks at the time.

'I think I can understand why men would cling to her.'

What exactly is the romance-fantasy genre?

Reverse harem. More simply, as I understood it, it was a genre with countless men clinging to the female protagonist.

Of course, I had never read a romance fantasy, so I might have been viewing it through tinted glasses, but that was what I had heard.

And if that was what it meant, then although it was still only an assumption, I found myself nodding when I called Ariel the protagonist of a romance fantasy.

Her pure-white hair and a face that could confidently claim the highest place among the countless beauties I had seen.

Even though her nun's habit revealed no skin at all, the unmistakable lines of her figure were enough to captivate men.

Stare.

If I hadn't felt Mist's gaze fixed on me from behind, I might have continued staring blankly.

"All right. Since everyone's here, shall we get started?"

If I stayed quiet, I felt like someone's gaze would bore a hole through my back.

"Sure. Let's."

Breck, the Nostra Family's capital branch head, sighed, crossed his arms, and leaned back against the sofa.

"Why am I here...?"

Lena, a member of House Nebla's execution squad, [White Shadow].

She was frowning as if wondering why she had come here as [White Shadow]'s representative.

But since her eyes were rapidly scanning her surroundings, half of it was probably an act.

...

Ariel, the Saintess of the Church of Light, which followed Luminous, the God of Light.

She lifted the black tea Breck's secretary had brought out and quietly observed me as I spoke.

"That makes four of us, including me."

Perhaps because each of them held a position at the top of an organization, I couldn't shake the feeling that they all had strong personalities.

But the reason we had gathered was to form an alliance—in other words, to cooperate.

"We all gathered to eradicate [Mirage], didn't we? So let's set aside our personal feelings and have a constructive discussion."

In truth, I was saying this with the Saintess—in other words, the Church—in mind.

Breck and I had already finished discussing things.

Even though the Saintess had been the one to request our cooperation, had her subordinates agreed as well?

There was no choice but to wonder about that.

If we formed an alliance with someone who couldn't even control their subordinates, it was obvious that all we'd get was friction.

...

At my words, the Saintess's guard's eyes began to burn more and more fiercely.

But it stopped there. The fire did not spread into any further action.

'Oh?'

Seeing that, I smiled faintly and looked at the Saintess.

Because of her title of Saintess and my preconception that she was—though it was not yet certain—the protagonist of a romance fantasy, I had assumed she would not have her subordinates completely under control.

You know the sort of thing. The person herself remains silent while her subordinates act rudely, saying things like, 'Do you dare? Do you even know where you are?'

But there was no sign of that.

No, rather, the guard seemed to restrain himself after becoming heated when he looked at the Saintess.

'She's got them under control quite well.'

Even I had noticed it, so there was no way Breck, the capital branch head of the information-dealing Nostra Family, had missed it.

When I turned to look at Breck, nothing showed on his face, but he unfolded his crossed arms and looked at her.

My role was over now.

I had only been there to stir things up, or perhaps to sound out the other side's intentions.

In the first place, I was nothing more than an illegitimate child of House Nebla.

With important matters being discussed, the Nostra Family's capital branch head and the Saintess of the Church of Light should be the main players. I couldn't lead the discussion.

To be honest, it was a hassle, too.

"Then shall we exchange the information we've gathered?"

"Yes, let's."

Taking Breck's words as the signal, the Saintess and Breck began exchanging information.

Breck provided the detailed information on the drug, its supply chain, and the suppliers.

Ariel had learned more detailed information about the addicts' reactions and the effects the drug had on the human body.

Ariel offered the information they—in other words, the Church—had uncovered first.

"Based on the addicts' reactions, we believe it is a synthetic drug. After taking it, the side effects are trembling, vomiting, delirium, muscle rigidity, and severe indigestion. These are the characteristics of [Mirage]."

"Indigestion?"

Breck unconsciously asked again as he took the report containing the information on [Mirage] that Ariel handed him.

"Yes. Those are the representative side effects of the individual drugs [Aspen], [Perta], and [Heroin]. It seems to have been made by combining five other drugs that we identified as well."

As she said this, Ariel frowned momentarily and continued.

"Mixing drugs can make the side effects disappear."

Rather than disappear, though, if they were mixed without specialized knowledge, the result could simply be a cheap drug that was neither one thing nor the other.

I had never touched drugs myself, but if you lived in the underworld, you heard things by word of mouth, so I knew at least this much.

"But [Mirage] is different. Instead, it has captured and amplified both the side effects and the addictiveness."

And there was a reason those severe side effects had been preserved.

"So people would seek out the drug even more."

It was an ironic story.

They had suffered such terrible pain from taking drugs, yet they needed drugs to suppress that pain.

As I said that, I looked at Ariel, who was grimacing.

She was more concerned about the addicts than anyone, looking every bit the Saintess her position called for.

"Therefore, we believe the culprit is an alchemist."

Impressive.

As Ariel finished speaking, I admired her, but for a different reason than before.

There was a very high chance that the Church had not managed to secure any actual [Mirage] when it began moving.

The Nostra Family had only obtained everything it had by moving first, after all.

That was because the drug had only recently begun circulating and the amount in circulation was small.

And yet the Church had gathered information from the addicted and drawn a conclusion that came remarkably close to the correct answer.

"Heh..."

I shifted my eyes to Lena, and she was looking at the Saintess as though she found this very interesting.

This was a different method of inferring the culprit from ours, which had identified him immediately through Lena's ability.

It was an answer born of experience, gained solely from dealing with countless patients and addicts.

I felt intrigued by that method.

"Remarkable."

Breck let out a quiet exclamation of admiration as he looked at the Church.

"Then we'll provide the information we've uncovered."

As he said this, Breck handed over the information about the true nature of the drug and the culprit that they had learned through Lena.

Ariel accepted and read the information Breck handed her, then gave a slight, bitter smile.

"This... Haah. So you've found out everything, haven't you?"

"That's right... But we didn't find this out ourselves. We learned it through the ability of that [White Shadow] member over there."

At Breck's words, Ariel's gaze fixed on Lena, who had been sitting quietly.

Her eyes widened slightly in surprise, plainly revealing how strong her astonishment was.

"As expected..."

"In any case, we're the ones who are more surprised. We learned it through an ability, but the Church reached that answer without anything of the sort, so you're more impressive, if anything."

"Hehehe. Thank you for the consolation. But shall we move on to the next matter? If you've learned that much, it seems you must have discovered something else as well."

At Ariel's words, Breck gave a short nod, pulled a sheet of paper from inside his coat, and handed copies to us.

There was not much information written on the paper. It was fairly concise.

But it was packed with decisive information.

"The information written there is what we learned by pressuring the Magic Tower. [Name: Heros] [Mage Rank: Red]. Apparently, the fellow has achievements in both magic and alchemy."

At the end of that information...

[Special Note: He cannot restrain his curiosity and has a rather hasty personality.]

When Breck finished speaking, Lena, who had come here as [White Shadow]'s representative, raised her hand and began to speak.

"Ah, we at [White Shadow] have identified a place suspected to be Heros's workshop."

"Hmm? Already?"

Only about a day had passed since we learned the culprit's identity.

And yet they had already identified a place suspected to be his workshop.

At my question, Lena lightly nodded and smiled like a child.

"Yes! [White Shadow] had been investigating the entire imperial capital from the moment this drug crisis began, you know?"

As she said this, Lena took out a map of the imperial capital from the bag she had brought.

It was a map marked in remarkable detail with the locations of shops, the terrain, and the roads—in short, everything.

"Once we identify the suspicious places and combine them with the culprit's traits that I discovered, the answer turns out to be surprisingly easy to find."

As expected of the ducal house's execution squad. Their work was so meticulous it was almost frightening.

In other words, before asking me for help, [White Shadow] had already identified the candidates they considered likely to be the culprit's base.

What they needed was accurate information about the culprit.

Their goal was to narrow down the suspicious areas they had identified as possible bases using that information.

"Huh... You guys are impressive."

Once again, I was reminded that House Nebla did not rule the underworld as its king for no reason.

"Heheh, thank you! Anyway, look here."

Saying that, Lena pointed to a total of four places on the map with her finger.

A salon in the noble district where the aristocrats lived.

A hotel near the central fountain, where commoners frequently came and went.

A lounge bar where merchants exchanged information.

And finally, a loan shark's building in the slums.

"These four places are the candidates we identified as possible workshops belonging to the culprit behind this drug crisis."

When Lena finished, everyone here, including me, began studying the map and thinking hard.

It was impossible to raid all four in succession.

All of them were connected to the mage's workshop behind this drug crisis, so there was no telling whether the culprit might learn about the raids.

But if we intended to proceed slowly and take our time, we would not have gathered like this to exchange information.

"All right. Then how about each of us takes one place and carries out a raid at the appointed time?"

The number happened to fit perfectly.

No one seemed to object to my suggestion, as no one said anything else.

"Then let's each designate one place. If our choices overlap, we'll coordinate."

Saying that, I raised my index finger.

The other three, tacitly agreeing with my action, raised their index fingers as well.

"Then point out the place each of you wants."

...

"The Nostra Family will raid the slums."

"The Church of Light will take the hotel near the central fountain."

"[White Shadow] will choose the salon in the noble district."

The discussion proceeded smoothly and swiftly, without a single person choosing the same place.

With a quiet laugh at that, I looked toward the place I had pointed to and brought the discussion to a close.

"Then I'll take the lounge bar where the merchants gather."

However, raiding it immediately would probably be difficult.

This was the imperial capital.

We would have to inform the Empire in advance that we intended to raid the place.

Even by a rough estimate, it was clearly something that would take a little time.

"Then, now that we've each chosen a place to raid, let's begin as soon as preparations are complete and permission is granted."

Before I knew it, I had taken charge of the meeting, but the others did not seem particularly bothered.

Lena had been inexplicably deferential toward me from the beginning,

and Breck was excluded, since he already knew my strength.

If anything was surprising, it was Ariel; she, too, did not object to me taking the lead like this.

...

I found it strange, but decided that, as long as things worked out, there was no need to question it, and clapped my hands to end the meeting.

***

"Ah, Saintess? Could I speak with you for a moment?"

With the meeting ending on my words, everyone else began preparing to leave the building.

In that situation, I deliberately stopped the Saintess, who was about to leave while discussing something with the priest.

"What is it?"

"Ah, it's nothing important. Just something I'm curious about."

Yes, it really was nothing more than a trivial curiosity.

"Why did you save the addicts first?"

When the Church first ran around stirring things up and slowed the progress of the drug case, I simply thought the Church was incompetent.

Afterward, when I assumed that the Saintess was the protagonist of a romance fantasy, I could more or less accept it.

But after meeting her, I found she was a little different from what I had expected.

Yes, if I had to put it in a single word, she was exceptional.

That only made me more curious. Why had someone like her gone out of her way to take the longer route?

In response to my question, which contained that doubt, Ariel looked at me with clear eyes and said,

"Because that's the path that saves more people."

Her voice was utterly calm, as though she were stating something completely obvious.

"Does one person need a reason to try to save another?"

"Ha..."

At her words, I let out a sigh without realizing it.

'As I thought.'

And I was convinced.

She truly was the protagonist.