Chapter 23
“Good grief.”
Makarov let out a gloomy sigh.
If he carefully considered why his heart felt so unsettled and turbulent, it was because he’d caught a glimpse of a secret rendezvous between the Saintess he admired and the Hero.
He hadn’t been peeking with any improper intentions.
The boy had only wanted to ask Aria, who had returned after a long absence, what kind of person the Hero was.
Or so he had thought.
What Makarov had seen was Aria straddling the Hero.
It was a rather provocative sight for Makarov, who was still only a boy.
He shook his head, trying to clear the image from his mind.
‘Are the two of them especially close?’
A young man and woman were in the same room late at night.
And in a rather compromising position, at that.
The implications were unmistakable.
Makarov was still young, but he was precocious for his age and understood plenty.
‘They do suit each other.’
The Hero and the Saintess.
Objectively speaking, they did make a well-matched pair.
Even so, for some reason, a spot in Makarov’s chest ached with a dull, hard pang.
Something about it rubbed him the wrong way.
The boy was puzzled and troubled by the strange signs his own feelings were showing.
‘Does Lady Aria like the Hero?’
It was a foolish question.
If she disliked him, she wouldn’t have invited him to her room in the middle of the night.
The glimpse of Aria’s expression he’d caught through the door hadn’t been the austere face of the Saintess she usually showed, but something more like the face of a woman in love.
Intimate, amorous, and alluring.
Remembering the sight made Makarov blush.
But soon his expression turned gloomy.
In the room he’d peeked into, Aria had been smiling warmly, like sunshine on a bright spring day.
A smile meant for the Hero, not Makarov.
It was more than enough to fan the jealousy in the boy’s heart.
Makarov pressed a hand to his chest and sighed again.
I’m jealous of that man, the Hero.
‘I like the Saintess, too.’
Makarov’s feelings for Aria…
They weren’t romantic affection or love for someone of the opposite sex.
If he had to put a name to them, they were closer to admiration, fondness, and respect.
Even so, it still stung.
The fact remained that someone he liked had been taken from him.
Was this how an eldest child felt when a late-born sibling came along and stole all their parents’ attention?
Thump.
Deep in thought about Aria, Makarov failed to notice the person in front of him and bumped into them.
“Ow.”
The impact had been hard enough to make his head ring.
The boy pressed a hand to his forehead and grimaced.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Are you hurt?”
It was a familiar woman’s voice.
Who was it?
Puzzled, Makarov replied.
“I’m all ri—”
He stopped and swallowed.
That was because he’d seen who he had bumped into.
“Saintess?”
The last person he wanted to meet right now.
It was Aria.
“……Oh, Makarov.”
Aria looked directly at him.
It was as if she were watching his every move.
Makarov felt a stab of guilt, as though he’d committed some terrible offense.
“I-I’m sorry. I-I should go!”
Unable to bear her composed gaze, Makarov’s legs started running on their own.
He hurried straight past Aria.
“Huh? Believer?”
Even when he heard her calling him, the boy didn’t turn around.
He was afraid that if he looked back, he might stop without meaning to.
So he ignored her calling after him.
Aria seemed to be staring at Makarov in bewilderment.
At least, he wasn’t sure.
Makarov didn’t have the ability to look behind him while running forward.
Still, he could feel her gaze on his back.
The thoughtful Saintess must have noticed his strange behavior.
That gaze was terribly embarrassing to Makarov.
In short, it was puberty.
How far had he run down the corridor?
His breath was catching in his throat.
He slowly came to a stop and tried to catch his breath.
His chest rose and fell again and again.
“………I’m acting so strangely.”
Why had he run away?
It wasn’t as if he’d done anything shameful to Aria, to put it bluntly.
Makarov scratched his head irritably.
“How can I face the Saintess now?”
When he thought about it, it was terribly embarrassing.
He’d seen her and immediately bolted.
Wasn’t that proof that he was painfully conscious of what he’d seen in the Saintess’s room?
Would she start thinking he was some creepy little brat?
If Aria thought that, he would feel miserable.
“……Young Master Makarov.”
Someone called his name.
Makarov turned toward the voice.
A man with short brown hair and an average build stood there. His name was Iline.
He was his father’s direct subordinate.
When their eyes met, Iline bowed with proper formality.
“His Eminence the Cardinal is looking for you.”
“……Father wants me?”
“Yes.”
“Then lead the way.”
The man nodded silently.
Makarov was bewildered by the situation, but for now he followed him.
His father was thoughtful and considerate, so there was no way he’d called Makarov over without good reason.
A boy and a man walked down the corridor.
Iline led him toward the cathedral’s basement.
‘Isn’t he in his office?’
It was strange.
His father was always buried in work, so what business could he have in the cathedral basement?
How long had they been walking?
Makarov had seen dozens of Holy Knights along the way.
Why were so many ‘Holy Knights,’ one of the cult’s core forces, gathered here?
Even a boy like Makarov could tell that was excessive.
At this point, suspicion crept in whether he wanted it to or not.
Had they sealed some dangerous monster in the cathedral basement?
Makarov narrowed his eyes and questioned Iline.
“……Mr. Iline, has the basement always been guarded this heavily?”
Iline gave a businesslike answer.
“It’s necessary.”
Makarov couldn’t imagine what could possibly make it so important.
‘Well, I’ll find out once I see Father.’
The boy decided not to overthink it.
Following Iline’s lead, Makarov arrived at the entrance to the darkroom.
The winding route had made the journey take quite a while.
“You may enter when His Eminence tells you to.”
“……All right.”
He looked at the firmly shut door.
It was a gloomy, foreboding door.
Makarov rubbed the goose bumps on his arm.
Was Father really in there?
It felt suspicious and unsettling.
After they waited a while, just as Iline had said, his father’s booming voice came from inside.
“Come in.”
When Makarov grasped the doorknob, the metal felt cold against his palm.
He turned it, and a click sounded as something inside the door shifted.
The door opened, revealing the scene inside.
It was a pitch-dark room.
Wasn’t a room like this usually called a darkroom?
“F-Father. It’s so dark in here.”
“You’ll get used to it soon.”
As Mavlov had said, after a few minutes Makarov’s eyes began to make out the objects around him.
He couldn’t help staring in confusion at the scene before him.
His father was there, along with several bishops and the Saintess, Aria.
Makarov couldn’t help but wonder what was going on.
Had they gathered here for some sort of after-party?
“……Did I come to the wrong place?”
“No, you’re in the right place. Bishop Ronin, go ahead.”
“Certainly. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Believer Makarov.”
Bishop Ronin greeted him warmly.
Makarov nodded in a daze.
“I-It’s a pleasure to meet you, too.”
“We’ve called you here, Believer Makarov, because we’d like to give you a little lesson.”
It was an enigmatic thing to say.
A lesson? Wasn’t he already studying theology diligently?
“………What kind of lesson?”
“Let’s say it’s about the female body.”
The female body?
Why would he need to learn about that……?
Aria, who had been listening to the conversation, went pale.
“W-what are you planning to do in front of Believer Makarov? L-let me go!”
Ronin had the people around him firmly restrain Aria’s arms and legs.
Held in place while standing, she twisted and struggled, but it made little difference.
Meanwhile, Makarov couldn’t keep up with the sudden turn of events.
Questions appeared and vanished in his mind one after another.
“Why are you tormenting the Saintess?”
Bishop Ronin shrugged.
“I’m not tormenting her. Saintess Aria will serve as a teaching aid for Believer Makarov’s lesson.”
“……A teaching aid?”
“Oh dear, you weren’t listening carefully. Do you remember what I just said?”
“You said you were going to give me a lesson.”
“Specifically, what was the lesson about?”
Makarov thought back over what Ronin had said, then opened his mouth.
“You said it was about the female body……”
“Do you understand now?”
Had Bishop Ronin’s words been directed at Aria?
Or at Makarov?
Only Ronin knew.
* * *
Squish, squish.
A lewd, wet sound filled the room.
It wasn’t the only sound.
A pained, stifled moan came at regular intervals.
“H-Hng, ah, hhk, ngh.”
Ronin’s index and middle fingers plunged without hesitation into Aria’s pussy.
As if he knew every inch of her sensitive places, Ronin made Aria react violently with the slightest touch.
His fingers deftly teased her already heated arousal.
Aria felt the nightmare Ashtein had helped bury begin to rise again.
She hated that her body grew aroused against her will.
She hated this filthy body, made to crave pleasure even in the most painful circumstances.
“Nnh, ah. No, no—please, no!”
Aria’s face, as Ronin caressed her in her most intimate place in front of the boy she hadn’t wanted to see, was wretched.
She looked as though she might cry, or as though she had given up.
Her once-bright eyes had grown terribly dull.
Ronin privately considered that a positive sign.
When he lightly scraped just behind her clitoris with his index finger, he felt Aria’s hips twitch.
It was an involuntary reaction to the overwhelming stimulation.
“Nngh, ah.”
How devastated must Aria feel, bound hand and foot and made to show the boy who admired her as she was humiliated by having her private parts toyed with?
The answer was plain in Aria’s eyes.
They were filled with despair and grief.
It seemed she was close to breaking completely if he pushed her just a little further.
It was the outcome he had wanted so badly.
Ronin couldn’t think of a way to describe the moment.
The word ‘good’ couldn’t capture it.
The word ‘happy’ would only diminish it.
Aria.
Your despair makes me feel so alive.
It reminds me that I exist in this world.
“Hnngh.”
Aria showed signs of curling in on herself as she neared climax.
Ronin signaled to the men restraining her, making sure she couldn’t curl up.
“Ah, hhk, I don’t want to come!”
Being abused by a crowd of men was one way to destroy a person’s self-worth, but exposing that humiliation in front of someone who admired her was an even surer way to violate her dignity.
Ronin clenched his teeth, holding back a laugh that threatened to escape him.
Then he scolded Aria in a stern voice.
“Saintess, if you keep barking like such a lewd bitch, you’ll disrupt Believer Makarov’s lesson. Please be a little quieter.”
Contrary to his words, Ronin increased the speed of his thrusting fingers.
It was a rough caress, but one that also sharply stimulated Aria’s arousal.
“Ah!”
Aria let out a loud, anguished cry, her face on the verge of tears.
Even after she had already been brought to climax once, Ronin had no intention of stopping.
The relentless assault gave her no time to recover, and she soon reached climax again.
“P-please stop, B-Bishop. Ah, hhk.”
Aria had been conditioned over the past year, making her increasingly sensitive, and Bishop Ronin knew her body better than anyone.
It was easy for Ronin to bring Aria to climax.
“Didn’t I tell you I was giving him a lesson?”
“Ah, ngh……”
Even as Aria’s breath grew ragged and choked, Ronin looked calmly at Makarov.
“Believer Makarov.”
“……”
“Hmm. Is the Saintess making it hard for you to concentrate?”
Ronin moved his fingers as if scraping the sensitive inside of Aria.
“Ah, ah, ah.”
This climax seemed to linger for a long time.
Perhaps that was why.
Trickle.
Aria lost control of her bladder after the brutal climax.
The yellow stream flowing from her urethra ran down her thighs and soaked the white panties caught between them.
“Ah, ah, ah.”
Aria’s moans came in broken fragments.
Perhaps she had begun to lose consciousness; her responses had weakened.
“How undignified. Well, now that the Saintess has quieted down, let’s resume the explanation.”
For all to see, Ronin spread apart Aria’s red, swollen labia majora.
“This is a woman’s reproductive organ. This small protrusion is the clitoris. Touch it, and as you can see……”
“Ah……”
Aria let out a moan as though she were a machine following a command.
“……you can see a woman’s sensitive reaction. Below that is the urethral opening, where the Saintess just urinated, and a little farther down is the vaginal opening. A woman’s sexual sensitivity is generally distributed around the clitoris and inside the vagina.”
No one asked a question or answered him as he continued.
Only Bishop Ronin kept explaining, as if he were enjoying himself.
“When a woman receives sexual stimulation, whether from fingers or an object, her vagina secretes lubrication. This happens to make it easier for her to receive a man.”
The fingers Ronin had been using to toy with Aria’s vagina withdrew.
A clear liquid, viscous as syrup, stretched between Bishop Ronin’s index and middle fingers.
“This is the Saintess’s lubrication.”
Makarov’s head was spinning.
What in the world was happening?
Why was he being made to watch this?
And why was Father just standing by?
The Saintess was suffering like that!
“Believer Makarov, are you listening?”
Makarov could no longer bear it.
Bishop Ronin was out of his mind.
“W-why are you doing this to the Saintess? And why is Father just standing by while you commit such an outrageous act?”
Ronin stroked his chin, pretending to ponder the question.
“Didn’t I say I was doing this to give Believer Makarov a lesson?”
“W-what kind of lesson is this? This is absurd!”
“Well, I’m sure the Cardinal can explain it to you.”
“Father!”
Makarov’s gaze turned toward Mavlov.
His eyes burned with bright, yellow hostility.
Of course, no adult would be frightened by the glare of a mere boy.
Mavlov smiled kindly.
To Makarov, the smile was utterly repulsive.
“Makarov, I remember how often you told me you wanted to become a devout believer like the Saintess.”
“……”
Mavlov’s cheeks trembled as he laughed.
“Well? What do you think now that you’ve seen what that devout girl is really like?”
His words were full of mockery.
They carried a razor-sharp edge.
“Father.”
“She’s a filthy woman. From the day she became a Saintess, she’s been made to accept men. Isn’t it ironic that someone who should be the most chaste and virtuous is so debauched? Though, of course, we had quite a hand in making her this way.”
“Why would you do this?”
Mavlov spoke with the confidence of someone reciting the truth.
“Makarov, faith is a fragile thing. People blindly follow illusions someone else has created. Look at that bitch. Do you see any devout faith in her as she writhes in pleasure? Once you strip away the surface, everything is utterly trivial. True faith begins with ‘doubt.’ That’s why I wanted to give you true faith.”
Makarov looked at Aria with trembling eyes.
There was no trace of hope in her eyes.
Even the eyes of a dead fish would have looked brighter.
True faith? After reducing a woman to this?
Makarov shivered.
“That’s disgusting sophistry.”
“Makarov. My son, my own flesh and blood—I thought you would understand me. If not now, then later, someday, you will.”
Makarov couldn’t accept his father’s words.
His father had always been so kind.
His father had always been so considerate.
But now, he was nothing more than a monster.
“Don’t assume I’ll turn out just like you.”
Suddenly, Mavlov chuckled.
“Makarov, do you really think you’re any different? Looking at this lewd girl, don’t you feel desire?”
Mavlov strode forward and tore Aria’s robe from her.
Aria was left completely naked, but she showed no sign of resisting.
Makarov bit his lip.
“……What are you planning to do to the Saintess?”
“I’m going to personally shatter the illusion you have of this girl. She’s the sort who can’t think straight when a man’s cock is inside her.”
“……Stop this.”
“Come, let’s see how this bitch cries out.”
Mavlov grabbed Aria by the waist.
Then he rubbed his enormous, fully erect cock against her wet pussy.
And then.
The door to the darkroom was smashed apart.