Hero Candidates.
Chosen by the Church of the Holy Name according to the will of 【God】, from every nation and every race, in the period before a Demon King is due to be born.
The Church then provides them with initial funds and a resource subsidy, so that the Hero Candidates may become adventurers and temper themselves, and wait for the moment when a Demon King is truly born and the true Hero is born along with him.
That was how the process was supposed to go.
But to Seraphia, who knew part of the game's plot, it was quite certain that the grey-haired young man in front of her was that Hero of destiny.
Which meant that from here on she needed to build a decent relationship with the fellow, and steer clear of that ending where she died.
【After all, a harem lead of this type is guaranteed to have that lukewarm personality, the sort who has no idea how to refuse a pretty girl's request.】
Having mocked him a little more inwardly, she hung the smile back on her face. "Lord Hero Candidate, where is our first stop?"
The theocracy the Church of the Holy Name controlled stood on the front line against the beastmen and the demon race. Within its borders were several powerful Holy Church knight orders, the country was relatively stable, and perhaps because divine grace and blessing genuinely existed, monsters born inside this theocracy were extremely rare. Yet it was also more prone to producing angel-monsters like Seraphia and Nephim—
The birth of monsters seemed to have some sort of connection with the region.
In any case, if they were to work as adventurers, the two of them first had to leave the Theocracy of the Holy Name.
"Ah... there's no need to use that honorific so often. Just call me Shu. Our plan is to cross the border into the Kiden Federation first. Commerce is very active there, there's a great deal of dungeon and monster activity inside the country, and there are plenty of commissions for adventurers."
He leaned in and held up the map in his hands for Seraphia to see.
But Miss Angel's gaze settled briefly on his elbow, because when he leaned in like that, it always felt as though he would brush straight against her chest.
She understood perfectly well that the fellow had no such intention in any conscious sense. It was mostly because he had only ever talked to his own sex from childhood on, and... because that pair of E-sizes on Seraphia's front really did take up an awful lot of room.
"Lord Shu, please stand right there and don't move."
A mild reminder that he could come no closer.
"Ah, sorry, sorry... please forgive me, Miss Seraphia. From childhood to now I don't have much of a record of talking to women."
The expression of a man who wanted to dig a hole in the ground and crawl into it.
There was something oddly endearing about this sort of reaction. It called to mind those rotten friends of hers from her previous life, the ones who would rattle off filthy jokes in private, but who, actually put in a girl's company, would come apart completely at the smallest 【overstep】 or 【awkwardness】.
Well.
The truth was that Seraphia, back then, had been more or less that same kind of person.
If a girl with this face and this figure had shown up in reality, her old self would probably only have dared to steal glances out of the corner of her eye.
【Come to think of it... since I crossed over yesterday there's been one thing after another, and I never got the chance to properly check... what this body is actually like...】
She had read them before, those serialized web novels of the TS genre, which is to say, generally speaking, novels about a boy turning into a girl.
There is one scene such a story absolutely must have: early on, the protagonist, in order to establish the state of the new body, conducts this and that test on the chest and on what is below, in a bedroom or a bathroom—
Though in theory, when it comes to self-service, women get more pleasure out of it than men do, and doing it several times in a row causes far less damage to the body than it does on the male side.
【The moment I have some privacy, I am definitely going to give it a try...】
"So, Miss Seraphia, what are your thoughts...?"
With her mind on strange matters, even her management of her own expression had gone strange without her noticing, and Shu, rather puzzled, put out a hand and waved it in front of Seraphia's face.
"Eh? Ah... this, this... the Hero... Lord Shu should just decide for himself."
And so Shu watched the Holy Wing assigned to be his companion, on that face which was polite and distant at all times, undergo a violent series of expressions.
Beginning with something that looked like she was thinking about something delightful, so much so that her mouth had fallen open without her realizing, then rapidly turning shy and flustered, the pale gold eyes casting about at random, before finally landing on the map in his hands as though deliberately fleeing there.
She was not so difficult to get along with after all.
"Mm, the Kiden Federation has a great many adventurer-related industries. A lot of new adventurers use it as their starting point."
"...You should just decide for yourself."
It seemed there would be no continuing the conversation with her.
Shu was rather curious about what exactly she had been thinking of, to be so lost in it.
The two of them packed their things, and then the journey was to begin.
The territory of the Theocracy of the Holy Name lay mostly across hills and plains, so travel was convenient enough. They boarded a church carriage, ready to leave this country for their appointed destination, the nation called the 【Kiden Federation】.
"Miss Seraphia, do you know much about the Kiden Federation?"
"No. I was born near the Theocracy, and as for my age... I am a great deal younger than you imagine. When I was born into this world I already looked as I do now, and there is a great deal about the outside world I have not yet had time to learn."
"Eh?!"
Unlike humans, who require a long cycle of growth, angels born as monsters emerge at randomly varying ages. Hence a case like Seraphia's, born already in the shape of a young woman and possessed of an intellectual bearing as well, which was perhaps further indirect proof that she was a very special and perfect individual.
"May I be so bold as to ask what your actual age is?"
"Weren't we discussing the Kiden Federation?"
"Ah... sorry." Another reflexive apology. Seraphia looked at him and narrowed her eyes slightly. There was something unpleasantly lukewarm about it, like looking into a mirror at her old self.
And on top of that, her old self had not been as good-looking as this fellow—
That got a laugh out of her, of the thoroughly exasperated sort.
"The Kiden Federation is a nation formed by a union of a dozen or more city-states, and the different city-states are governed autonomously by different 【Merchant Nobles】."
"Merchant... Nobles?"
【In a world that looks medieval in every possible respect, how did those two words end up standing next to each other?】
"Mm... the Federation's history of development takes a long time to tell, but it's simple enough to summarize... the most fundamental cause is the Corruption Sickness."
That much, at least, Seraphia did know.
Within the Church's logic of the world, it was a peculiar affliction contracted when a human soul, having fallen asleep without protection, came into contact with pollution while dreaming.
Its greatest characteristic was bodily mutation.
Animal characteristics, or even monstrous ones, would grow on a human's body, and the mind and will would fall into madness from the pollution as well. In a certain sense, the malformed appearance of Seraphia's angel kin was much the same as that of those infected with the Corruption Sickness.
Only within lands protected by 【God】 could a person avoid the effects of this peculiar sickness.
"...I think I can guess roughly what the situation is."
The most fundamental reason for the Church of the Holy Name's perfect control and influence within its borders was not the knight orders under its command, nor the miracles it could call down from God, but that it could genuinely and effectively protect every ordinary person from the threat of the Corruption Sickness.
So long as a village had a 【Warding Stone】 installed and maintained by the Church, its people would not be polluted in their dreams as they slept, and would not turn into malformed monsters.
"In the Kiden Federation, the controllers of the city-states keep their own city-states safe at all times... while the other villages and towns drifting outside the cities are deliberately overlooked... there's even a claim that at earlier stages of their development, there were cases of local Warding Stones being destroyed on purpose, in order to drive people into their cities to live."
【Mm. Now that is a very 'commercial' way of doing things.】
A trace of indignation showed on Shu's face.
"And if you do live inside a city, you'll find the cost of living enormous. An ordinary person could sell everything they own to a Kiden Federation trading company and still only scrape out a bare existence."