Technological Improvements

‘Hmm, why does it feel a bit… calm?’

Leaving her bedchamber and arriving at the dining hall, Elia felt a hint of unease while waiting for the maid to serve the breakfast specially prepared by the chef.

As a Grand Saintess Candidate, the head Saintess of the Messiah Kingdom, Elia had an exclusive bedchamber in the Royal Palace.

Dozens of maids took turns attending to her daily.

To show herself as an approachable Saintess, she allowed the maids to move freely during her meals and even permitted them to dine with her.

Although eventually, all maids except Iris declined to dine with her, when they stood by, they would discuss interesting things happening in the palace, sometimes even reporting directly to her, like living morning news.

Today, they did discuss things, but not a single word about last night’s events.

Was last night’s incident not interesting enough, or did they think the Hero’s affair would disgrace her, so they deliberately avoided mentioning it?

Elia couldn’t figure it out and certainly wouldn’t lower herself to specifically ask about such matters.

However, the maids were quite understanding; they eventually told her that Iris had gone to deal with last night’s events.

‘I see, the news hasn’t completely spread yet… Alright, this isn’t Earth after all, there’s no social media or microblogs.’

But it was impossible for Elia to suppress her curiosity and her fervent desire to see a certain someone get their comeuppance.

Considering she had no special today, after breakfast, she told the maids that she would stay in the study to read and learn.

No, don’t jump to conclusions yet.

This wasn’t a contradiction, but rather creating an alibi for herself.

‘Come out, my clone!’

After entering the study, Elia eagerly released an AI autonomous holy light clone identical to herself, letting it study in the study on her behalf, while she herself slipped out of the room through a crack in the door, heading straight outside.

You ask about the crack in the door?

This was the greatness of holy light magic; wherever light could pass, Elia could come and go freely.

Similarly, even if she stood openly in front of others, she could make them unable to see her, only perceiving her as a beam of light… although usually, she did more to focus others’ attention on herself.

However, considering that this kingdom still had some hidden masters or people with special abilities, Elia specifically changed into a maid’s attire, her hair to a common brown, and her face was masked by image perception magic.

Now, even without optical invisibility magic, in others’ eyes, she would only be an unremarkable background character.

Since she had merged into the maid segment, Elia naturally acted freely; she immediately rushed to the other side of the Royal Palace where the Hero resided.

‘Sir Hero? He’s gone out, to deal with yesterday’s matters.’ The maid sweeping at the residence entrance replied. ‘Which lord sent you? I can leave a message for you.’

‘Thank you, but no need, goodbye.’

Elia slipped away like light. Afterwards, she went to the Royal Palace courtyard, where most maids chatted, because the greenhouse magic protected the plants, leading to piles of fallen leaves to be swept even in deep winter.

‘Did you hear? About last night.’

Elia had no intention of joining the maids in such arduous cleaning work.

She cast optical invisibility and searched around, finally spotting two small maids slacking off and discussing.

‘I heard. I really didn’t expect Sir Hero to do something like that.’

‘I was also very surprised.’

Good, good, keep saying more bad things about him!

Elia’s mood immediately became excited.

‘Yes, when I first heard about it, I thought he was like other men, but it turned out… it’s really amazing!’

‘He is Sir Hero after all, different from others.’

What was going on? How did it suddenly turn from disdain to praise?

Elia was somewhat bewildered.

After observing for a while and seeing that their evaluation of the Hero remained primarily positive, Elia immediately identified them as face-obsessed fanatics and left the area.

‘Looks like I need to find some slightly more mature maids.’

Fortunately, Elia soon found three adult maids discussing gossip.

‘What do you think about that matter?’

‘It’s definitely a good thing. Madame Mary will probably rein herself in a bit after this.’

‘Sir Hero has certainly rid the people of a pest.’

‘What the hell? It was clearly my credit, how did it become his?’

Elia’s eyes widened in anger. After eavesdropping for a while, she finally understood how the matter was perceived by outsiders now.

‘They’re saying that under my guidance, the Hero helped resolve Madame Mary’s emotional knot? Are they that good at whitewashing? That good at taking credit?’

The more she thought, the angrier she became.

Elia quickly returned to her bedchamber, changed back into her wedding-dress-like white Saintess robe, and left the study.

Of course, even if her heart was bursting with anger, the moment she stepped out of the room, her movements were still elegant and natural, dignified and graceful, like a slender fairy stepping out of a painting.

‘I’ll be moving around the palace. Everyone, please continue with your work.’

After assuring the maids not to worry about her whereabouts, Elia deployed optical invisibility as soon as she left the room and searched for Iris at top speed—in the current situation where that bastard Hero was twisting facts, only the elf maid who had witnessed the entire process could turn the tide.

For safety, and to avoid encountering acquaintances when doing something shady, Elia had left a marking magic on Iris.

Thus, after a while, she found Iris in the lower-class dining hall used by guards and servants.

‘As expected of Iris, she’s diligently carrying out the task I assigned her.’

There weren’t many people in the lower-class dining hall, but most were gathered around Iris… Clearly, she was describing the true situation of last night to everyone.

Elia couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. It seemed that even if she didn’t interfere, Iris would handle things.

But just as she was about to leave, the scenes she had just eavesdropped on flooded her mind.

‘N-no way…’

With an uneasy heart, Elia quietly walked to the back of the crowd.

The very first sentence uttered by the golden-haired maid, in whom she had placed such high hopes, almost made her stumble to the ground:

‘That’s right, I can testify that Sir Luke used Her Highness Elia’s power to resolve it. From the beginning, Her Highness Elia had intended to help Count Barge and Madame Mary reconcile…’

‘How could it be you, my seemingly trustworthy subordinate, spreading rumors!’

Elia was frantic. She barely managed to suppress the urge to appear and question them, while suppressing her anger, she continued to listen.

Then she completely understood: Iris hadn’t betrayed her; it was simply that bastard Hero who had stumbled upon dumb luck.

Clever as she was, she couldn’t have foreseen that someone would anger Madame Mary into a ‘blackened’ state without even starting any ‘suggestive’ activities, and then accidentally trigger her magic… Ultimately, from an outsider’s perspective, it was that bastard Hero who spearheaded the resolution of everything, while she only served as a remote support.

And that series of conversations yesterday was even more speechless. The actual situation was that after the matter in the Countess’s mansion was resolved, to restore the bastard Hero’s reputation, the Count and his mother, along with the four of them (including Iris), went out to explain. Coincidentally, the King had sent people to maintain order, so most people left with a mix of belief and doubt.

The group who stubbornly disbelieved was also convinced by Elia, who arrived later.

Since it was assumed that Elia had known everything all along and had planned everything, when she finally had to do the cleanup work, Iris and that bastard Hero both felt deep guilt over their lack of ability…

‘Screw you all!’

The explanation made sense, but what she wanted was for the Hero’s reputation to be damaged, not for her to be overshadowed like this!

The most infuriating thing was that she had unknowingly resolved that bastard Hero’s future troubles… Even if there was a factor of her taking action without fully understanding the situation, she was a super invincible beautiful girl Saintess, how could it be her fault!

Since the fault lay with that bastard Hero, what she needed to do was resolve him as quickly as possible.

‘Your days of happiness are numbered!’

Maintaining her invisible state, Elia turned and left the dining hall.

She was heading to the residences of the other two inviters to improve the magic she had previously cast.

However, what Elia didn’t realize was that although both holy light and mind-reading abilities could prevent each other from being detected in the realm of invisibility, the latter also had the method of “discerning position by listening to heartbeats” to discover the former.

‘That scummy pinkette is really quite idle.’

And the former could only remain completely unaware.