“Eek!”

In the end, unable to contain his anger, Antoine swung his sword at the Crown Prince.

Though he knew full well that, as someone born a noble, striking at an imperial family was an act of suicide, he could no longer allow the Saintess to be insulted.

Knights of the Imperial Order hurriedly stepped in between Antoine and the Crown Prince to block his sword and fulfill their duties.

However, it was natural to wonder whether someone like that even deserved to be protected just because he was the Crown Prince.

Anyone could see his guilt was obvious.

“Sir Antoine!”

Eluaz, trembling with fury at the sight of the Crown Prince’s tiny penis, called out to Antoine.

She did not want her precious knight—a man far more endowed than the Crown Prince—to be injured over someone like him.

“Please put away your sword.”

“But he is the one who insulted you, Saintess.”

“You are far more important to me than that. I do not want you to be hurt.”

Eluaz could not shake off the feeling of betrayal toward the Crown Prince.

She found it outrageous that he dared try to seduce her with such a small penis.

Even so, she could not simply let him be killed.

She had to consider the relationship between the Western Empire and the Holy Empire, and as the Saintess, she could not very well cheer Antoine on to kill him.

‘And the Crown Prince’s words weren’t entirely false.’

Eluaz gathered her holy power at her fingertips and gently caressed Antoine’s cheek.

“You’re hurt.”

When Antoine froze at the sound of his name, a blade from the Imperial Knights grazed his cheek.

Seeing blood well on his handsome face made Eluaz’s heart ache.

She would not care if the Crown Prince’s face was covered in scars, but to mar such a handsome face would be a loss not only to the Holy Empire but to the entire continent.

Golden light flowed from the Saintess’s hand into his cheek, and the healing power instantly erased the wound.

“As expected of the Saintess! She truly is the Saintess!”

“To witness a miracle with my own eyes!”

“Then His Highness the Crown Prince tried to…”

They had just witnessed her heal someone with holy power. She was without doubt the true Saintess.

And yet the Crown Prince had not only attempted to assault God’s representative but had also slandered her as a lewd woman.

“No… it’s not… it’s not like that!”

Etienne’s eyes shook violently. The cold gazes aimed at him were unfamiliar.

From the start, he had planned to make the Saintess his Crown Princess to secure his claim to the throne. But what was this situation now?

It was all the more frustrating because everything he had said was the truth.

“If what His Highness says is true, why did the Saintess scream?”

Antoine caught the Saintess’s hand on his cheek and pulled her behind him, in case the Crown Prince tried to harm her.

He glared at Etienne with the intent to kill.

“So that woman… that woman…”

The Crown Prince could not bring himself to say it.

With that gentle-looking face and an expression of innocence, she had utterly crushed a man’s pride to pieces.

“You there! Say it yourself! Tell them what you did and what you said!”

“How dare you to the Saintess…!”

The paladins, who had barely managed to calm their anger upon seeing her holy power, gripped their swords once again.

They looked ready to swing at any moment.

They were willing to lay down their lives for the Saintess.

They had already sworn to give their all to God when they became paladins.

Eluaz did not want the paladins to be hurt or to waste any more time on the Crown Prince.

She was filled with thoughts of hurrying back to the Holy Empire to devour anyone she could, paladin or priest.

Strike while the iron is hot, and as quickly as possible!

“I will explain what happened.”

Everyone present focused on Eluaz’s words.

The Crown Prince nodded confidently, thinking his grievances would soon be cleared.

“I was resting on the terrace when His Highness suddenly came in.”

The fact that he had approached the Saintess uninvited already earned him disapproving looks, but the Crown Prince did not deny it.

He even tried to laugh it off, saying that as the Crown Prince, he had the right to approach her.

“Then suddenly… suddenly he touched my chest… and when I was on the verge of tears, he laughed and…”

“Saintess.”

Antoine stopped her, unable to listen any longer.

But Eluaz continued in a trembling voice, “When I told him to stop, he said my resistance was cute and that he looked forward to seeing me… lewdly moving my hips on top of him.”

Gasps and sighs came from all around.

They knew the Crown Prince was promiscuous, but to touch the Saintess?

Was he trying to make an enemy of God?

It was natural to worry about the country’s future if such a short-sighted man became emperor.

At the contemptuous gazes aimed at him, the Crown Prince urged Eluaz on.

From what they had heard so far, he was nothing but a rapist.

“And! You should tell them what happened after that!”

“He loosened my robe, pushed his thigh between my legs and pressed down, and… sob!”

With the victim’s detailed testimony, the Crown Prince faced even sharper looks.

Etienne was deeply uncomfortable, but he endured it.

Once they learned what she had done, the situation would turn in his favor.

But how painstakingly had Eluaz built her image as the Saintess?

By neither eating (paladins and priests) nor sleeping (sex), she had painstakingly crafted that image. There was no way she would answer obediently.

“Then I screamed, and you all came.”

“…Is that all? There’s something omitted in the middle!”

There was too much packed into that “then.”

Everything Etienne claimed was contained inside the Saintess’s “then.”

She had been explaining in detail right up until a moment ago, and here she suddenly inserted an (omitted), so it was only natural that the Crown Prince was flustered.

“Pardon?”

But the Saintess tilted her head as if she did not know what he was talking about.

Then, looking at the Crown Prince, as if recalling the wretched thing she had just suffered, she averted her gaze and burrowed into Antoine’s chest to hide.

As if to tell her not to worry, Antoine stroked her back, and Eluaz pressed her face to his solid chest, repeatedly drawing in a deep breath and letting it out.

Sss-ha. Sss-ha. Oh, the smell… a handsome man even smells nice.

‘I skipped everything the Crown Prince wants to hear, but so what? Does this era have CCTV, or anything like that?’

Among the romance fantasy worlds she had seen, there had been something called a “recording stone,” but fortunately this world seemed not to have it.

If such a convenient thing existed, the Crown Prince would not be waiting for Eluaz’s words; he would have brought that out first.

“Is that true?”

“Yes, in God’s name.”

At the Emperor’s question, Eluaz poked out her head and answered firmly. She had only omitted rather a lot; she had not lied!

“You, you…!”

“Enough! Knights, drag the Crown Prince to the palace!”

While the Emperor could not bring himself to continue, the Empress quickly stepped forward.

It was an incident so huge that, handled poorly, even her own position could be endangered, so she had to shrink the matter somehow and end it with the Crown Prince merely put under discipline.

But Antoine, being a high noble, knew far too well how the imperial family handled incidents.

“Surely you do not intend to end this by quietly confining, for just a few days, the one who not only tried to violate the Saintess but even slandered her?”

At that apt point, the Emperor issued a new order, “Confine the criminal Etienne in the eastern tower.”

“Your Majesty! How can you treat Etienne so!”

“Hold your tongue!”

The Empress tried to stop it somehow, but it was impossible.

The Crown Prince struggled as the knights seized him, but he was dragged away, and the Empress sank down helplessly.

“We apologize, Saintess.”

The Emperor of the continent’s greatest empire bowed his head to Eluaz.

The nobles and knights around her all bowed their heads according to etiquette as well.

“P-Please, raise your head.”

The flustered Eluaz helped the Emperor up.

Moreover, the Emperor, who until then had subtly looked down on her, was now treating her with scrupulous respect.

Once it was certain she was the Saintess, he was not foolish enough to slight God’s representative.

He also became more cautious because Etienne had done something that turned God into an enemy.

“How should I atone for this…”

“No. How could all of this be Your Majesty the Emperor’s fault?”

“If it is acceptable to you, Saintess, what would you think of becoming Crown Princess? Later, you would be Empress of the Western Empire.”

“Pardon? Surely not…”

She wondered if they were thrusting this at her to spare the Crown Prince his punishment. Fortunately, that was only her needless worry.

“I have several sons besides that fellow from before.”

“……”

But there was no guarantee another prince would be suitable.

Whether by looks, by words and deeds, or in matters below the waist. With nothing known, her future was at stake; it was not something she could answer lightly.

The safest was the Emperor before her eyes, but she could not, before this many people, proclaim, ‘Not your son, you!’

Above all, Eluaz’s dream was not to be one of the many women in a harem, but a reverse harem.

Not to wait for the Emperor to choose her tonight, but to choose for herself!