I Can Hear the Saint’s Inner Thoughts

Episode 1 – The Saint’s Inner Thoughts Heard (1)

“Listen carefully, Astal. For the next week, just one week, could you pretend to be my lover?”

The start was, without a doubt, that sudden.

This whole mess began with the proposal of Victoria, the saint of the hero party, a woman half-covered in flowers.

“…Why the hell would I do that?”

I gave Victoria a lukewarm reaction as I stared at her.

For the past year, during our journey to subjugate the Demon Lord, we were closer to friends, or even worse, frenemies, than lovers.

“Everyone else has someone they’re dating.”

“So, why do *I* specifically have to play your fake lover? There are plenty of other guys walking around.”

It didn’t make sense. The saint, who usually couldn’t wait to needle me, why was she making this kind of proposal all of a sudden?

Stress was building, so I brought a cigarette to my lips, only for Victoria to use her miracle to stop me.

“Tell me right now. Will you do it, or not?”

The cigarette, made from magic leaves, immediately transformed into a flower, making it unsmokable.

Victoria, biting her lower lip, showed a displeased expression. She strongly disliked my smoking and drinking habits.

“If I do, will you tell me why?”

I countered, folding my arms slightly. It was rare for her, who was serious about everything, to ask me for such a favor.

“…You also know that among the Four Heavenly Kings we have to face, there’s a powerful enemy called the Succubus Queen, don’t you?”

Victoria began to speak, her lips slightly fluttering.

“Right. You screamed and fainted as soon as you faced her…”

A dream-manipulating succubus. The Succubus Queen, considered the most powerful of them all, had been relentlessly targeting only Victoria, the saint.

At that time, Victoria had been so shocked that she couldn’t sleep for days.

“…This may sound strange, but you, Astal, appeared in my dream.”

“What? Don’t lie. You said you absolutely hated guys like me, right?”

“Yes, I really do hate you. After knowing the truth, I wanted to throw up everything I had inside. The Succubus Queen must have taken advantage of my dislike for you.”

Victoria stuck out her tongue and made a retching motion. It was a look of disgust as if she were seeing something less than a bug, which almost wounded me a little.

“It was truly a terrible nightmare… seeing you propose to me.”

“So, how does that have anything to do with pretending to be lovers?”

“If I experience being lovers with you beforehand, wouldn’t it be possible to escape from the succubus’s illusions?”

Victoria said that she might have failed to wake up from the illusion due to this reason. It was something that happened because so many men were in love with her.

I nodded at Victoria’s statement.

“Because, you see, the way to wake up from a dream is to realize the gap between it and reality.”

For the record, even *I* had Saint Victoria appear in my dream. She was the kind of woman that just walking past would make every guy turn their head.

Her looks, said to be sculpted by an angel himself, and a figure that would inspire faith in even the godless, were alluring enough to send anyone into a spiral of desire.

‘But as soon as Victoria said she actually liked me, I immediately realized it was fake and woke up from the dream…’

Victoria’s real personality was that of a truly picky and bothersome woman.

She’d suggest we offer prayers to the heavens several times a day, and when I took night watch, she’d sneak up and ask if I needed company.

When she banned all my booze and smokes because they were bad for my health, I seriously considered grabbing her by the collar and fighting her.

“Is this the only way? Isn’t this a problem that could be solved if you had a lover besides me? There are holy knights within the papacy, you know.”

To become lovers with that Victoria, even if it was fake, was something I hated.

I was tapping my foot under the table, calculating the pros and cons in my head.

1. If I pretend to be dating Victoria, what would become of our memories as friends?

2. Honestly, Victoria is beautiful, both objectively and subjectively. It’s not a bad deal for me.

3. But her personality is a complete pain in the ass. There isn’t anyone else who could withstand her like me.

─ 4. Can I become her fake lover, with all the friendship and affection, and the mindset of accepting this absolute b*tch?

“I’d rather die than be your lover.”

My answer was no.

So I rejected Victoria’s proposal, and suggested she try to find someone else.

“That’s even worse. The holy knights of the papacy these days are just horny guys desperate to win me over.”

Victoria shook her head, her brow furrowing even more than before. It was rumored that the number of men applying to become holy knights had quadrupled since she became a saint.

“Yeah, I bet they’d bite their tongues and die if they knew your real personality.”

I looked at Victoria and made a *snip* motion at my throat with my hand. She was a beast who went around smashing demon heads with a hammer.

“Astal, are you aware that your personality is even more of an ass?”

“…Of course, Saintess.”

I concealed the natural clench of my fist, desperately trying to maintain a smile on my face.

‘Honestly, if not for that personality and way of speaking, I’d be asking her out right now…’

No matter how I looked at it, becoming her fake lover was something I hated. Look at her now, snatching my glass and gulping down my drink because she hates seeing me take a sip.

Just hang in there a little longer; this stubbornness of hers can’t last forever.

We missed the Succubus Queen because Saint Victoria fainted, but I could just kill her next time we met.

“Hooo… Astaaal…”

Just then, Victoria was twirling her finger on the table, talking in a lisp. It was the kind of cute act that others would find adorable.

Heaving a hot breath, the captivating woman subtly adjusted her holy vestments, a silent plea for relief from the heat.

“Y-yes, Saintess.”

But I wasn’t one to be fooled.

I immediately cast a cooling spell on Victoria, shutting down her transparent flirtation.

“Eek, isn’t it cold! You, as a man…!”

“I couldn’t ignore the Saintess’s discomfort, so I, the humble mage Astar, used magic.”

I couldn’t let myself be swayed.

There was that time I carried a drunk Victoria to bed, and she’d teased me endlessly about it, saying, ‘Astar-nim is definitely a eunuch, I knew it.’

If I’d actually touched her, I’d have been dragged to the Vatican. Charged with being a lust-crazed dog trying to defile the Saintess.

“Astar, am I…not attractive?”

Then, Victoria, as if tipsy, suddenly spoke in a softer tone.

She was certainly attractive. Pretty face, a prickly personality but not completely bad.

In the past, she’d even wept and prayed for those who’d lost their families in war.

“Who said you weren’t attractive?”

It was just that she had a foul mouth and a twisted personality.

“You. Even though I say I don’t like it, aren’t you being too cold?”

Victoria was almost crying. Since a succubus’s dream is tied to the caster, she could have endlessly repeated nightmares, making it a horrific experience.

“Victoria, I know you’re not drunk. How many times have I watched people drink because of you? You can hold more than this.”

“……”

*Hic*

Just how much had the Succubus Queen tormented her? She looked startled, hiccuping.

She was absolutely not the kind to show weakness like this, but Victoria was even pretending to be drunk to persuade me.

“So, what are the exact terms and the duration? We have to be clear about this.”

I sighed deeply and handed Victoria a magically created parchment and quill. The objects hovering in the air drew attention.

“…Huh? Huh? Is that real? I thought you’d tell me to endure it with my willpower.”

Victoria gaped at me, twice, looking utterly incredulous. Her eyes seemed to say she hadn’t expected this to work either.

“Just set the conditions quickly. If you end up passing out again like last time, how are we supposed to save the injured comrades?”

Looking at Victoria, I wanted nothing more than to leave this place. If it weren’t for the Succubus Queen, I wouldn’t have to do all this tiresome stuff.

“The first condition is, this contract is just for a week… no. A week is too short, let’s make it a month. It’ll be easier to explain to others then.”

I quickly wrote down the clause I had calculated on the parchment. A week wouldn’t be enough to tell the difference between reality and dreams.

“Why is it supposedly easy to make excuses?”

“Because a month is when couples are most likely to break up. You really haven’t dated, have you?”

“Neither have you, for that matter.”

“…Shut up.”

I was speechless at Victoria’s jab. Somehow, she had closed the distance so we were practically breathing on each other.

“Second, when the contract period ends, we go back to being friends.”

“O-of course. Did you perhaps think I was saying this because you genuinely believe I might come to like you?”

Victoria was slightly stammering. It was the first time I’d seen her so flustered, she seemed like she was nervous about doing this contract relationship thing for the first time.

“Of course not. If I ever saw you as a woman, I’d want to magically burn my own eyes out.”

“……”

Honestly, more than a woman, she felt like the foul-mouthed younger sister from next door. Immature, with a potty mouth, always snappy but not someone you could hate.

“Third, we don’t touch each other without permission. Got it? Victoria?”

“Understood.”

Even swallowing hard, the Saintess was staring intently at the parchment I was writing on.

“Lastly, the fact we’re doing this contract relationship is our secret…”

“We’ll tell others we dated, then broke up and went back to being friends. That seems like the cleanest way to do it.”

“Fine. So, it’s settled?”

She was quick on her feet only at times like this. Watching Victoria steal my line, I gave a small smile.

After all, we were comrades who had been through thick and thin. I could trust her with my life, and I could even ask her for a favor regarding my hometown with that kind of trust we’d formed.

“Then, from now on, we are…”

We wrote each other’s names on the parchment and each took one of the contracts.

“Dating. Just for a month. To build immunity against the Succubus Queen’s attacks.”

In that moment, Victoria and I locked eyes, neither one making the first move.

“Then, may I hold your hand? I’ve always wanted to try holding a man’s hand once.”

“You can, but are you really that starved for a man?”

“…Absolutely not.”

As soon as permission was granted, Victoria intertwined her fingers with mine, wrapping around them like a snake.

Her faint smile, and the slight upturn of her lips, whether from tension or not, was misleading enough to make someone mistake it.

“Your hands are cold. Do you know the saying? They say people with cold hands have warm hearts.”

“That’s true. You are certainly quite warm.”

“Was that… was that an insult aimed at me?”

My heart nearly hammered out of my chest for a split second.

Clearly, Victoria thinks of this as just a contract relationship, a fleeting fling.

* * *

That’s how it should have been, for sure.

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

– Finally, I did it! From now on, I can use this excuse, make him see me as a woman…!

Ever since we signed that contract, I’ve suddenly started hearing Victoria’s inner thoughts.