2

When they arrived at the forest entrance, the Hero’s party and Mariana expressed their gratitude to the coachman before disembarking from the wagon.  

It was only a short while after they set foot into the forest.  

Suddenly, the men surrounded Mariana and closed in on her.  

“W-what are you doing?”  

Sensing the danger in their leering eyes, Mariana tried to run. But her clumsy body didn’t get far before Brandon grabbed her by the hair.  

“Kyahhh!”  

“Shout all you want. Who’s going to come to this place, rumored to have the Demon King’s castle?”  

Randall and Phylon each seized one of her arms. Rough hands began tearing at her Saintess robes.  

“Let’s see what the Saintess’s body tastes like.”  

“I’ve had my way with plenty of women, but never a Saintess. I’ve always been curious—what kind of sounds does a Saintess make when she’s taken?”  

“P-please don’t do this! God will be furious!”  

Mariana cried out, her face pale with fear, but it was no use. The men sneered and mocked her.  

“If a woman follows three men by herself, isn’t this much expected?”  

“If you behave, we won’t be rough.”  

“It’d be better for you to spread your legs willingly, Saintess.”  

But when the men finally exposed Mariana’s bare body, they fell silent.  

She was hugging her chest with both arms and curling her legs up as she sobbed.  

Her body, covered in scars from countless lashings, was far from arousing. Instead, it drained any trace of lust from the men.  

“W-what is this?”  

Brandon shouted, his face twisted in disgust. Randall and Phylon also stepped back a few paces, as if her body were a plague.  

“I… I told you not to touch me….”  

But soon, their shock turned into anger. The men quickly changed their attitude and began kicking Mariana mercilessly.  

“Ugh, you useless wretch! If your face is ugly, your body should at least be decent. Why do you even exist?”  

“Aren’t you ashamed to call yourself a woman? Just die already!”  

Their words tore open Mariana’s emotional wounds even further. These were the very things she had been telling herself all along.  

‘If only I had been pretty, would I have been adopted sooner and loved?’  

‘If I hadn’t been fat, would people have at least stopped hating me and feeling ashamed of me?’

Why was I cursed not only with a wretched appearance but also with no talent for holy magic, leaving my body covered in scars?  

Though her body ached from being kicked around by the men, her heart hurt even more.  

After a while, the men, having exhausted themselves, stopped their violence.  

“This pig of a woman, she sure can take a beating with all that fat.”  

“Go fetch some water for the camp!”  

Phylon threw a wooden bucket at her. By the time it hit Mariana, darkness had fallen completely over the forest.  

With a vacant expression, Mariana staggered to her feet and retrieved a spare set of clothes from her bag to change into. Then, picking up the bucket, she trudged toward the sound of running water.  

“Holy Light.”  

She cast a holy spell to summon a sphere of light before her. A faint orb of light floated up, barely illuminating two or three steps ahead.  

‘I can’t even manage such a simple holy spell. What’s wrong with me….’  

After walking for a while, Mariana reached a stream. As she began filling the bucket with water, a thought crossed her mind.  

“Should I run away? If I leave now and head back….”  

The men hadn’t assigned anyone to watch her, nor had they cast any tracking spells. It was clear they didn’t care in the slightest if she ran away.  

‘If I can just make it out of the forest, I can walk and keep walking until I somehow make it back to the Temple.’  

Mariana considered this, but the faces of the priests who had mistreated her flashed through her mind, draining her courage.  

Wouldn’t they be relieved that I was finally gone from the Temple? If I returned, they’d only be deeply disappointed.  

She imagined the priests sighing heavily as if the ground might collapse beneath them, the devotees pointing fingers and whispering behind her back, and the High Priestess openly humiliating her.  

‘When you stormed out so boldly, what’s this? Crawling back in shame? Have you no decency at all!’  

The image of the High Priestess berating her, her voice sharp and scornful, lingered in Mariana’s mind. She couldn’t make up her mind.  

‘Even if I’m lucky enough to make it back and they accept me again… I’ll only end up even more miserable than before.’  

Just then, cutting through the sound of the flowing water, a distinct noise reached her ears.  

Awooooo…  

It was the howl of a wolf, echoing from afar. Holding the bucket, Mariana quickly decided to return to the Hero’s party.  

‘As horrible as they are, it’s better than becoming wolf food.’  

Awooooo…

But then, as if in response to the earlier howl, several wolves howled together. This time, the sound came from much closer.  

‘I-I need to get back quickly!’  

Terrified, Mariana broke into a run. To move faster, she abandoned the bucket, letting it fall to the ground.  

Amid the sound of her footsteps, she could hear the heavy breathing of something chasing her. It was undoubtedly the wolves. If she didn’t rejoin the group, she would be devoured by them!  

She ran with all her might, but the pursuit only grew closer. Worse, it seemed like the number of wolves was increasing. The sound of paws trampling dirt and leaves behind her grew louder and more chaotic. She couldn’t even count how many there were.  

“Huff… huff… sniff….”  

Mariana ran frantically, tears streaming down her face. She ran and ran, but no matter how far she went, the Hero’s party was nowhere to be seen.  

‘I-I’ve lost my way!’  

Only then did Mariana realize that she had been running blindly in the dark, completely disoriented.  

‘What should I do? Should I fight? But with my holy magic, could I even handle one wolf, let alone an entire pack chasing me?’  

To make matters worse, she felt her body tilt as she stumbled. Her foot had caught on a rock.  

“Kyaaaaaah!”  

She thought she was done for. But just then, without a sound, a boy appeared from behind a tree and caught her as she fell.  

“What are you doing here in the middle of the night, Big Sister? Gymnastics under the moonlight?”  

The boy asked in a cheeky, nonchalant tone.  

“W-wolves….”  

Mariana stammered, unable to form a complete sentence through her sobs.  

Grrrrrrr. 

Meanwhile, in the darkness, several pairs of glowing yellow eyes surrounded them.  

“Eeeeek!”  

Clutching the boy, who barely came up to her waist, Mariana trembled violently. Yet the boy remained calm even in the ominous forest.  

“Big Sister, are you scared of wolves?”  

When Mariana, her tear-streaked face a mess, could only nod, the boy smirked and gestured toward the wolves.  

“Guys, she’s scared. Leave her alone now.”  

“….”  

Mariana stared in disbelief as the wolves, as if understanding the boy’s words, turned and left. Only when their footsteps faded entirely into the distance did she regain her senses enough to speak.  

“Th-thank you. But who are you? Why are you alone in a forest like this…?”  

“Well, why don’t you guess?”  

The boy grinned mischievously. As he watched her bewildered expression, he suddenly pointed to her chest.  

“Big Sister, are you a priestess?”  

“Huh? Oh, uh… yes.”  

Mariana nodded dumbly. It seemed the boy had recognized the embroidered symbol of the sun, the mark of the divine, on her Saintess robes.  

“You must be someone really important. Your outfit looks amazing!”  

“Well, technically… I’ve been given the title of Saintess.”  

“Wow! That’s incredible! So you’re someone really cool? But why are you wandering around alone in a forest like this?”  

“I was with my party, but I went to fetch water and ended up being chased by wolves….”  

As Mariana conversed with the boy, she felt herself gradually relaxing. For a moment, she thought she saw a suspicious glint in the boy’s eyes, but she dismissed it as a trick of the moonlight.  

The boy stared into the darkness for a while before speaking.  

“I see. There really are others. Over there, three men are sitting around a campfire, resting. One of them is an elf, and the other two are humans. Right?”  

“Y-yes. That must be my party.”  

“I’ll take you to them. Let’s go together.”  

The boy grabbed Mariana’s hand and began to lead her.  

As they walked, Mariana’s scattered thoughts slowly came back into focus.  

“But what about you? What are you doing here alone?”  

“I live here. I know everything about this forest, so it’s fine. Oh, and those wolves earlier? They’re actually my subordinates.”  

She couldn’t tell whether the boy was joking, bluffing, or being serious.  

‘He doesn’t seem like an ordinary kid… Making those wolves leave with just a word, and everything else… Is he even human?’  

Even so, Mariana believed that the boy who had saved her couldn’t possibly be a bad person.  

‘If he had ill intentions, why would he have saved me?’