Two Voices of the Heart

‘It would naturally be excellent if Sir Hero could accompany us.’

Inspection work for promoting the Royal Family and the Church would naturally not be undertaken by the Saintess alone. Therefore, after meeting with the Church’s contingent, the leading bishop, upon hearing that Luke would also be joining, immediately beamed with delight.

‘Damn it, why didn’t he refuse!’

A certain scummy pinkette’s mental chibi exploded, violently pummeling an unseen pillow.

Later, when discussing this with Charlie, the Royal Knights’ commander, the result was even less suspenseful.

‘This is truly wonderful. I will protect you well; you can do whatever you wish.’

Because Charlie was leading the team, Luke had been running to him all week whenever he had nothing else to do. Without even mentioning affection, their familiarity had certainly reached its peak.

Thus, Luke successfully joined the inspection team, and along the way, he chatted and joked with the accompanying bishop and officials.

Before long, he had become so familiar with them that even if he made a small mistake, they would actively help him out of trouble—oh, I forgot to mention, quantifying affinity was also one of the effects of his mind-reading ability.

Although Elia couldn’t see others’ affinity, she could tell that all the plans she had just hatched in her mind to make Luke stumble and get driven away had died in their infancy. She immediately resumed a round of angry shadow boxing in her mind.

‘Never mind, anyway, everything today should be done quickly. I’ll deal with him another day.’

As the inspection team approached the slum area, an unpleasant smell wafted over, and Elia swiftly cast aside her grand mission to deal with a certain bastard Hero.

The officials and nobles quickly had their mages cast mask-like filtering magic for themselves. Although the soldiers wouldn’t go to such extremes, they all couldn’t help but frown.

‘Sir Luke, would you like one too?’ the bishop asked. The Church had its reputation to maintain, so he had a Holy Light shield cast for himself. Although it essentially also filtered out odors, it looked much better.

‘Mhm, then I’ll leave it to you.’

In these three years, Luke had long since mingled in various low-level areas, even in stinking goblin lairs The Royal Capital’s slum area, at least, had restrooms and people to deal with excrement; it couldn’t be cleaner.

The reason he readily accepted was simply because the surrounding officials and nobles had taken precautions, and for him to act specially would be somewhat out of place.

Oh no, there was one person who was slightly special—

Amidst his frown, Charlie’s eyes revealed more sadness and imperceptible anger.

Iris, as a clean elf, performed an entirely different circling wind. The air within the wind was not only fresh and pleasant but also carried a faint mint scent… immediately drawing exclamations of admiration from the accompanying mages of various nobles.

‘Remarkable, truly worthy of that young lady.’

‘Is this the secret art of the Elven Royal Family?’

Iris automatically ignored the praises that didn’t fit her maid status, instead looking somewhat worriedly at her Saintess.

When something like this happened, she would naturally think of Elia first, but the latter neither accepted her spell nor cast similar magic herself.

She didn’t even take out items like a handkerchief or a folding fan that could slightly mask the smell.

‘Ugh, it stinks, I want to throw up…’

Don’t misunderstand, Elia hadn’t secretly cast any magic to block the stench.

Although her magic skills were superb, with so many powerful individuals nearby, she simply couldn’t guarantee that the negligible magical fluctuations wouldn’t be noticed by others.

But to make her act like an ordinary person, casting magic to obscure the smell, she couldn’t bring herself to lose face.

After all, she was a Grand Saintess Candidate, the Saintess among Saintesses; she should somehow be superior and stand out.

Besides, this was an inspection. If she, such a benevolent, kind, and loving Saintess, were to make such a discriminatory gesture towards commoners, how would the world view her? And how would they view the Royal Family and the Church she represented?

At the thought that she might be utterly ruined, considered unworthy of being a Saintess, and thus lose all her current benefits and life… she could only try her best to act as if nothing were amiss.

And there were benefits to this—

‘Amazing! To be able to remain calm in such a foul-smelling place, truly worthy of Her Highness Elia!’

‘As expected, Lady Saintess is different!’

If she showed even a hint of pity for humanity—

‘Her Highness the Saintess must be saddened by the people living in such a place; she is truly great!’

‘Compared to Lady Elia, I am but a tiny ant… No, a grain of sand in the ocean!’

‘Heh heh, if you can talk, praise more!’

Elia’s mental chibi pinched its nose and raised its head to the point where its nostrils pointed at others, incredibly proud.

Regrettably, covering her nose in her mind was akin to burying her head in the sand. Soon, the mental chibi couldn’t maintain its posture and knelt on the ground, vomiting profusely.

But for Luke, compared to the minor issue of the stench, the attitude of the slum residents towards them was the bigger problem.

As soon as the inspection team entered the slum area, they were met with glares and angry stares from the residents.

‘Here they come again, another one of these performative inspections.’

‘What we need is work, warm clothes, food, and medicine, not meaningless concern!’

‘At least distribute some thin gruel…’

‘What damn Saintess and Hero? They’re not even a fraction of Princess Moonlight!’

In Luke’s view, their accusations were completely justified.

For instance, now that the weather had just gotten a bit warmer and the snow began to melt, cleaners were visible everywhere in the Royal Capital, but here in the slum, there wasn’t even anyone to clean up the frozen corpses… Forget about the stench; it would be good if a plague didn’t break out next.

Moreover, this inspection team only intended to make a quick trip to the orphanage, paying no attention to any situations encountered along the way, and having almost no supplies to distribute… It was clear that the Royal Kingdom’s high command simply didn’t care about the people of the slum.

As for that notorious scummy pinkette, she cared even less about such matters… Luke couldn’t help but recall Tu Yi, the fat man’s words, and agreed with his view.

No matter how well she feigned kindness and benevolence, she ultimately sided with the nobles, bringing no benefit to the common people of the kingdom.

‘Alright, actually, I’m pretty similar.’

Of course, Luke was also well aware that he had no right to point fingers at others’ inaction.

But if a conflict between the Royal Family and the common people were to erupt in the Messiah Kingdom in the future, he could at least ensure he wouldn’t aid and abet evil.

Amidst the silent curses of the populace, the inspection team passed through the streets of the slum and arrived at an orphanage named Morning Light.

But before dismounting the carriage, Luke heard two distinctly different inner voices emanating from within the orphanage.

‘They’re finally here, wonderful, the orphanage is saved!’

‘You bastards dare to come again… Damn it, I’ll make you pay!’