The Magical Holy Woman Seraphina - Chapter 8

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Magic Saint Seraphina
Episode 8
“What are you doing out there at this hour?”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d take a walk…….”
“A walk more than thirty minutes away from home?”
“This path is beautiful, though.”
I pointed toward the River Bank where a small boat lay moored.
“It’s even prettier if you climb up here and look around.”
I offered kindly for him to join me, but he didn’t bite.
Who, you ask?
Who else. Arden.
Arden, who’d been eyeing me like I was the strangest person alive, suddenly frowned.
“By the way, senior.”
“Hmm?”
“Did you just climb that wall with your shoes on?”
“Climbing without them would be even more strange…… Sorry.”
I immediately tucked my tail between my legs at his cold stare.
“I’ll come down.”
“Yeah.”
I jumped down at once.
Arden, who’d been reaching out to catch me, stared blankly at how I landed perfectly without his help.
“…….”
“…….”
“I have decent balance.”
“So I see.”
“Next time I jump from somewhere higher, you catch me.”
“You’re planning to climb something again?”
“Who knows what life will throw at you?”
I joked, pointing toward the Plaza Clock Tower visible in the distance—saying that even if I threw myself from that tower, he’d have to do his best to catch me.
“Can’t you just not do something like that?”
He didn’t even bother to retort.
“If you can’t sleep, go to a hospital. Don’t wander around like this.”
“Is there a hospital for insomnia? Actually, I heard one just opened recently.”
They built a hospital for people suffering from ailments of the mind rather than the body.
Apparently the Crown Prince himself invited a foreign physician from abroad.
Truly a good man.
“The Crown Prince seems like he’d be a conscientious and gentle person.”
“…….”
“With the increased patrols so people can return home safely at night, and the hospital project too.”
He must be a kind and thoughtful person indeed. I even clapped my hands together in praise.
“I heard he’s having his Coronation Ceremony soon. How old is he anyway? A few years older than me, right?”
“I don’t know.”
“Really now.”
So evasive.
I scrutinized Arden with silent grumbling.
Even in his deep black Imperial Guard uniform with a black coat over it, his face was so radiant that nothing looked dull on him—truly, his blond hair was an accessory unto itself.
The purple cufflinks visible on his shirt sleeves beneath the coat matched his hair color so perfectly it was almost uncanny.
‘Those cufflinks look like jewels. Everything he carries around seems subtly expensive.’
He buys fifty handkerchiefs a day and cufflinks besides…… I bet all his spending on grooming is why he lives at our Boarding House without a fortune.
Tsk, tsk.
“Arden.”
“What.”
“The Imperial Guard gets a pension, but there could be unexpected expenses in life that a pension alone can’t cover.”
As you grow older, costs crop up that you never anticipated in your youth.
“You need to set aside a fixed amount of your salary for savings. Understand?”
“I don’t.”
“How long do you think you’ll stay young and healthy? Prepare for your old age. Think of it as splitting the money you earn now with yourself sixty years from now, when you’re elderly.”
“…….”
“You do have parents, don’t you?”
“If someone heard you say such a thing without flinching…… you’d be executed.”
“What did you say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course.”
Either way, Arden showed no intention of leaving, despite dismissing everything I said.
We naturally began walking together along the river bank.
“But what were you doing here at this hour? Working late?”
“I saw members of the Capital Security Unit running past on my way home.”
“Ah.”
“There was apparently a report from De Marci Street.”
“Ah.”
I decided to play ignorant.
“Really? What happened?”
“Nothing serious, they say. A magician showed up.”
“A magician…”
“It was loud for a moment, but apparently it was over quickly.”
Arden spoke with such ease that he showed no sign of connecting the incident on De Marci Street to me, who happened to be taking a walk in the middle of the night.
“Phew.”
Arden watched me intently as I let out a sigh of relief.
“What?”
“You have something in your hair.”
“Really?”
Tilting my head in confusion, I brushed at my hair with my palm.
Pat-pat-pat.
“Is it gone now?”
“No.”
Pat-pat-pat-pat-pat.
“How about now?”
“It’s still there.”
“I’ll just leave it.”
At that, hesitant Arden reached out his hand.
From somewhere, his gloved hand appeared and gently combed through the ends of my hair. He touched it with minimal contact, then withdrew.
What came away on his fingertips was.
“Ah.”
A petal.
From when I transformed and it scattered moments ago.
Arden’s hand clenched into a fist once he confirmed what had come away.
“I was running an errand at the Estate with Greenhouse earlier.”
Caught off guard, I improvised an excuse.
“There was a flowering tree in the center of the estate, and I guess I picked up petals when I passed underneath it. I was envious, actually. Seeing flowers bloom in this season.”
“What’s there to envy? Spring is coming soon.”
“That’s true.”
Spring will be here soon.
I looked up at the sky.
Right now it’s a season where breath clouds with every word I speak, but it will warm up soon enough.
“Arden.”
“…Yes.”
“Do you think the world is in winter right now?”
Is the world so cold and chaotic? Enough that an Oracle calling for a Magic Saint comes down after nine hundred and fifty years?
“The Age of War was far more chaotic than this, wasn’t it?”
That was five hundred years ago, and even then a Magic Saint didn’t appear. So why now? I swallowed the complaint I couldn’t voice.
I hadn’t expected a response, but Arden gave me a surprisingly serious answer.
“The average rose, but the gap widened.”
“What?”
“Back then, everyone lived a life of -100. But now—”
Some live a life of +100, while most live a life of -50.”
“I see.”
“For someone, that gap might be the greatest chaos of all.”
“You’re right……”
I hadn’t thought of that. I nodded. Arden, glancing at me, added:
“So I will work to change it. To bring a fair spring for everyone.”
“You?”
“Why not? You think I can’t do it?”
That’s not what I meant.
You’re not even the emperor—how can you speak with such certainty…….
“You can change things too, senior.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Isn’t that why you’ve been studying?”
To make the world a better place. Arden added quietly.
“…….”
No. I studied for my own advancement and success.
But standing before a junior who wanted to change the world, I couldn’t bring myself to say that—it would wound my pride.
“Right. Of course. That’s why I studied—to change the world.”
“Yes. I’ve thought about it, and I think you have what it takes, senior.”
“All right. Let’s work hard at it. When I succeed, I’ll buy you dinner.”
“Make it twice.”
“Deal.”
So I’ve become the person who’s going to change the world.
“And you can change the world too.”
“What are you muttering about to yourself?”
Arden had reached the Boarding House and opened the door, now looking at me with a question in his eyes—why wasn’t I coming in?
While I checked the mailbox, I called out to stop him before he headed upstairs.
“But Arden.”
“Yes?”
“When you said you’d ‘thought about it’—does that mean you were thinking about me when I wasn’t around?”
“What?!”
“Ah.”
Was it really something to get that upset about—to raise his voice so sharply?
“I’m not the kind of person who thinks about other people like that. I don’t spare a thought for anyone but myself.”
“I see.”
“I only ever think about myself.”
“I…see.”
So there was Arden—twenty-one years old, Imperial Guard, world-changer, yet utterly indifferent to everyone else.
“I received some Chocolate at the Knight Order Cafeteria earlier, and it turned out to be the kind they sold at the Academy. That’s all—I simply remembered it because you used to eat it often back then. I wasn’t thinking about you. I just… remembered.”
Wasn’t that the same thing?
“Understood.”
I nodded, suppressing a smile.
At that, Arden pressed his lips together, clearly displeased, and headed upstairs without another word.
“Sleep well…?”
My farewell, called out to that handsome silhouette—even the back of his head was beautiful—dispersed into the air unanswered.
And then, a little while later, morning came.
“Ugh… I don’t want to go to work…….”
After barely scraping together thirty minutes of sleep and forcing my body out of bed.
“Hmm?”
A strand of green yarn was dangling and swaying in front of my bedroom window.
It came down from Arden’s room upstairs.
The same way we used to pass notes to friends at the Academy when we had different classes.
And tied to the end of it was.
“…Chocolate?”
I leaned out the window and looked up, but there was no sign of Arden.
The moment I grabbed the Chocolate, the string snapped.
Click. The sound of a window closing.
“……It’s from that vending machine at the Academy.”
I used to volunteer for every errand the class assistants needed done just to get one of these.
And there was a note attached to the Chocolate.
—I don’t want this anymore.
“…….”
I take back what I said two days ago when I looked at Arden and thought, ‘What woman would ever take him?’
Any woman would.
He’s strikingly handsome, and just slightly—impossibly—endearing.
‘Actually, let’s get married after I pass the Imperial Palace Civil Service Exam.’
I’ll give a generous wedding gift.
As I made this resolution, boys in berets pedaled their bicycles below my line of sight, delivering newspapers from house to house.
[So many villains in the world, she came to catch them herself… the Magic Saint makes her entrance]
[What exactly is a Magic Saint?]
[Who is the innocent young professional robbed of her livelihood?]
I saw the photograph printed there and retched.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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