The Saint

“Ah, Charlotte, welcome.”

“Thank you for inviting me today, Prince Vladik.”

The handsome, black-haired 3rd prince of the Aerkban Kingdom, greeted his childhood friend, Saint Charlotte de Vas to what was supposed to be a lunch date for just the two of them.

“…Why are you here, Lord Gatsby, Mr Trenton?”

The two uninvited gentlemen found themselves under the warm smile and deadly stare of the prince.

“I was simply escorting Lady Charlotte to protect her from danger,” declared Gatsby, the future duke of the Pierce Duchy. “There are lots of dangerous, horrible people who might target her.”

“I-I didn’t mean to follow, but…Lady Charlotte…insisted,” mumbled Trenton, the son of a merchant. “…If my presence is a bother, then-”

“What are you talking about, Trenton? You’re someone precious to me too, so there’s no way it’d be a problem. Right, Vlad?”

Charlotte’s innocent smile made the prince relent and give up on his plans to woo her for today.

Instead, the four of them enjoyed a lovely lunch together, just as Saint Charlotte had intended.

Heh, I’m sorry, Vlad, but for the sake of my dream, you have to get along with each other.

***

Once upon a time, there was a lonely girl living in Japan.

She didn’t have many friends because she wasn’t cute and because she wasn’t normal.

As other girls grew up, she remained fixated on wanting to be a princess.

But she wasn’t.

She wasn’t anyone special.

On Earth, at least.

But she was someone special in countless worlds.

There, she was cute and beautiful.

There, she was a princess, surrounded by people who loved her and doted on her.

And he was there too, SoRe-sama, her favourite streamer who always thanked her so much for her donations and hard work.

When real people around her let her down or rejected her, she had him.

Until he was murdered and her life felt like it had ended.

And when it did end, the girl realised that wasn’t the life she was meant to live; it was a test, a trial she had to endure to achieve the life she’d always wanted, the life of Charlotte de Vas, the saint, the pure, the kind, the benevolent and-

“My lady’s saying strange things again.”

“What are you talking about, Yena?” Charlotte de Vas asked, sitting up on her bed away from her diary. “Every woman in the world wants to be waited on hand and foot by beautiful men.”

“Apologise to every normal woman on the planet.”

“Y-you!” Charlotte leapt up and angrily thrust a finger at her bored maid. “I could easily have your head for your insolence.”

“Don’t worry, my lady. My head is firmly secure on my neck for your mother loves me like a sister.”

“She loves me more!”

“I don’t think she would if she learnt of your grooming harem plan.”

“Don’t call it grooming!”

“‘I will raise those young men so that they’ll be great people who love me, no matter what.’ What a sinful child you’ve given birth to, Evalyn. I fear for the future.”

When I told her I had memories of my past life and that I wanted to save those 3 from terrible fates, she put her hand on my shoulder and said, “And then you woke up?”

When I tried to tell her again, she put two hands on my shoulders and said, “My Lady, with all due respect, you might be special, but you aren’t that special.”

When I protested to mother, Yena said she never said those things and mother believed the maid over me!

Still, I won’t be swayed!

I will make my harem dream come true!

“…If I don’t, they really will die.”

***

Making of Heroes was a famous franchise in Japan, but Maaya Fujikawa didn’t know about it until SoRe-sama started playing it.

“Honestly, this franchise it’s insane, like insane!” He’d often said. “It’s like been going for decades, literal decades, and there’s just so much of it I can’t even begin to properly describe it!”

Because SoRe-sama was a big fan, Maaya looked into them but decided they weren’t for her.

Until she saw there was an Otome Visual Novel spin-off called MoH - Love of Divines.

The game was set at the Imperial Royal Academy and was playing out in the background of the Days of Iron games.

Maaya didn’t care about that though.

She fell in love with the artwork and then became a mega fan after playing the demo.

In Love of Divines, the protagonist, the relatively minor character of Saint Charlotte from the Days of Iron game, would experience a dramatic love story with one of three male leads, the very boys that Charlotte had had lunch with earlier that day. Each route took about 25 hours to complete and had lots of dead ends, hard choices and rivalled even the greatest visual novels in terms of scope, depth and difficulty.

“Even though it wasn’t written by **** or had ****’s artwork, the game’s still-”

Charlotte had skipped through the promotional materials whenever the staff came up because she didn’t care.

The closest she got to learning their names was when the photo SoRe-sama took went viral.

As part of a video he was planning to release on the MoH games, SoRe-sama had snuck into the Japan Eagle offices in the early hours of the morning. While leaving, he saw a fight break out between the executives of the company, AD Nois and DaGR.

DaGR, a co-founder and the lead artist of the games, had been seen yelling and screaming, and throwing insults at AD Nois and the executives behind her.

The photo SoRe-sama took showed the most dramatic moment of the argument; the moment DaGR, seething with rage, threw the roses and gifts he’d been given by AD Nois back at her. It was later that week it was announced that DaGR had left the company and that it had been a mutual separation.

After DaGR had formally resigned, SoRe-sama posted the photograph and the backlash against all the parties involved was intense.

Maaya hadn’t paid the scandal much attention until SoRe-sama was brutally killed by a fanatical fan live on stream.

When she’d learnt SoRe-sama was dead, Maaya collapsed from the shock and became depressed.

She had been one of his biggest fans and gave him massive donations from her salary, which he always thanked her for.

“Ah, my little lady, thank you very much. I love you~?” And then he’d blow her a kiss.

In fact, for his biggest donators, SoRe-sama would send red roses to their homes, with signed photographs and other bits of merchandise, and Maaya treasured all of it.

With SoRe-sama gone, Maaya felt she’d lost her reason for living and-

Well, there’s no need to go back to that dark place.

Maaya was dead - Charlotte was alive and well and living happily.

She studied and worked hard to become a great Saint, earning love from those close to her and admiration from the people around her, all while Charlotte continued to plan for her perfect harem end with her men.

All while her maid looked at her with a hint of disgust.

“If the people knew this was how you truly were, I fear the whole foundations of our church would be destroyed forever,” Yena would often lament.

But Charlotte knew she was joking.

Yena had been watching over and nurturing Charlotte since she was a baby, and she was like a big sister to Charlotte.

When Charlotte entered the Imperial Royal Academy, Yena would come with her.

Ah, I can’t wait for the main story to start!