The Daughter of the Demon King studies magic restlessly!

Chapter 16 - Mellie's Flashback.

Several years ago, in the main temple of the White Church in the Theocratic state of Lumenaire.

"You have all done well to be selected this far in the Prospective Saintess Selection. Now the final test awaiting you all is coming soon." 

In front of a classroom of young children, there was an old sister who was encouraging this class of young girls to do their best in the next test.

All of these kids were orphans found and raised by the collective efforts of the Church. They were all taught at high standards in order to potentially reach the famed position of Saintess. 

Even those who failed this selection would not be abandoned. With the teaching they went through, they would be part of the many sisters who helped take care of the various affairs in the White Church.

So, we were all cheerful and expectant of the future.

Then, the test arrived and all of us were sent into individual isolated rooms to undergo our final test. In the rooms were a simple liquid vial that was labeled for us to drink.

Without any second thoughts we all drank the medicine they gave us without a thought on how suspicious it all was.

Then came the agony. A pain that seemed to echo throughout my whole soul then ran through my whole body. I felt as if every single point of my body was being broken down and reorganized. 

It was for hours that this happened and when the pain finally stopped I found that I was now in a small room in the church. When I woke up, another member of the church came to me and sadly announced that perhaps if it was in other years that I could have been a saintess, but this time I was just short of another person in the listing.

Although I was a little sad about the situation, I still came to her ceremony dressed properly and congratulated her for rising to that holy position. In the meantime, I read the holy codexes that were held in the church. 

Of course, I could not read the true originals, but the written forms of the photo copies were enough to get a basic idea of the knowledge within an eventually brought me to a high level in the church.

It was only about two years later that I heard about the Saintess's passing. This was rather unusual as the Saintess had been ambushed by the Demon King Army at an unusual time. It was then that we learned that a seer on the Demon King's side had proclaimed of the next hero being born soon so they wanted to quickly eliminate all of their future threats early.

This was spread by spies of the Aloph Empire who then sent his own only daughter to search for the Hero. Because of the big changes going on around the world, they held another Saintess selection and of course I was to be the one chosen next.

Although there was another candidate who was to compete with me who was backed by one of the Bishops of the church, they were ultimately no match in terms of Light magic which was the greatest determining factor between us.

Even if I was super talented, I still worked extra hard to get where I was so it was only natural for me to be chosen. 

Since that happened, days went on where I had been trained to be able to fight assassins and learned various defensive techniques with a paladin of the church watching over and guiding me.

It was then a few years later that news of the Hero being found by the Daughter of the Emperor was spread and after confirming the situation they sent me to spy on the hero to see his potential flaws that could lead to the world's downfall if he succeeded slaying the Demon King. 

During those few years I was taught on how to profile others and how to assassinate others if I needed to.

So I was sent over to see who the Hero was and I was rather curious myself. After all, there were many stories of Saintesses following heroes and even of them falling in love. Though not every Hero fell for them, the fact that it was possible made me a little confused. 

Then I was able to meet the princess Vanessa and the Hero myself. At that time, she looked like she was protecting her food and always stayed near the hero and kept away any other women that sought to get close with him. I thought it was rather cute so I started to tease her a bit with it and eventually got really good at it.

At that time, she pushed me away and did not want me in their team and though the Emperor had asked if I would like to stay anyways, I decided for now to simply watch the pair from the shadows to get a rough understanding of the hero.

So the next two months were spent traveling around following the pair as the Hero constantly found places that needed help and working to help them even if it was time consuming. 

After this time, any doubt I had was sated so I decided to return to the capital in order to take a carriage back to the Headquarters of the Church. On the way back, I suddenly received news of the assassination of the hero while looking for intel on the way back. 

Hearing this, I was a little worried so I decided t0 head back full speed to check up on them from where I last saw them. 

Going back to that last town, I found that the placed was quite wrecked and that there were clues in many different directions. Using reasoning and deductions, I was able to find the true direction they headed and followed the trail. 

Now, it was getting more difficult to follow the tracks that they left behind so I decided to ask for some backup nearby and got a paladin to help me track down their fight.

Only for a day later to hear a large crashing sound in the distance.

The two of us quickly headed over there and saw that it was a large demon that had been fighting them till now. Seeing the demon, my paladin backup went to confront it in the weaker hero's stead as I quickly healed both him and the princess.

After carefully tending to there wounds, I put up a barrier to prevent them from being attacked and joined in on the fight against the demon.

It was quite exhausted after fighting the hero all this time so we were eventually able to slay it. The paladin then asked if I still needed back up here or if he can take this demon corpse back himself.

Telling him to leave the hero to me, he then took the corpse and headed back to report it to the main church.

As he left, I went back to take care of the hero and princess duo and it was only a few hours later that she awoke from her coma and stared blankly at me.

Seeing me and feeling her now healed body, she thanked me and told me something quite interesting.

"Thanks for saving us. I guess that in some cases having a stalker watch you isn't so bad."

"Hmm?"

Then she told me that the hero has always had an insane intuition since he was born. So he was able to sense that someone was watching the two of them without any malice so he told me not to care about you following.

Seems like my tracking is not nearly as good as I thought it would be.

After some chatting amongst us, she then asked about the hero and I explained that he was still recovering and that it seems that he had been far more exhausted then he looks and Vanessa then looked a little sorrowful.

"It was my fault. He had already felt the demon arriving, but I did not listen. I told him that we were strong enough on our own that we could face it ourselves. But when the demon took the village hostage, Luke had to fight on his back foot and we were slowly pushed back."

Although she did not mention anything else, I understood that what happened after would be something the Hero wanted to keep secret. So I obliged and did not ask further. 

So the two of us waited and it was not until that night that he finally woke from his slumber. When he woke and saw me, he smiled and greeted me joyfully.

"I knew that you would come back to help us if we were in trouble." He said. 

That really confused me as in my heart, I knew that I was sent here to potentially assassinate him, but he was here thanking me for simply lending a hand in a time of trouble. 

Not knowing how to respond, I simply froze there looking at him. He then said that he had sensed my intentions, but knew that my potential hostility had lowered again and again after each time he helped others.

That meant that I was more likely to help him in his ideal to create a peaceful world and era, where even every peasant could live and work with peace of mind and live happily together.

Seeing his naive innocence, I wanted to lecture him on the evils of human nature, but I simply couldn't.

"Where is Vanessa?" He asked while I was still thinking.

"Oh she is in the next room over." I responded.

He then went and visited Vanessa who was currently struggling in the kitchen.

She wanted to learn how to cook from me and I had taught her the basics, but once I left to take care of Luke she seemed to have forgotten everything once again.

Then seeing her haphazardly chopped ingredients and the heat flaring at maximum, the hero rushed into the kitchen to take her out and quickly quell the chaos in there.

After lightly chastising her, he then went and proposed to cook himself. Seeing Vanessa sulking in the tent, I could not help but laugh which caused her cheeks to flare once more.

Then when the meal was ready, I could already smell the warm scent of food wafting towards us as he brought out a pot of warm soup. Then we all sat by the table and had our meal together.

Being in this warm group really calmed my mind and put it at ease. It even made me forget about how harsh the mission to slay the hero would be. Especially when the Church had said in the worst case scenario that a I may have to kill the hero myself if he turns evil after slaying the demon king. Such a harsh fate and cruel mission had been tugging at my seams ever since I first watched them helping a poor farmer in a village.

Then those words were told to me.

"Now that the both of us are here I can ask this. Would you like to join our party?" The hero said to me. 

I was stunned. I was not expecting to be invited at this time. I then turned to Vanessa who shrugged at me.

"I can't really disobey on who Luke seeks out. His intuition in stronger than my insight so even if I disagree it would likely end up worse in the end anyways." She said before relaxing.

I wanted to voice out that I was told to assassinate him when the time came and he then preempted me.

"You are worrying about the mission that the Church gave you? Vanessa told me about the mission given to any saintess before entering the hero party. It is to slay me when I turn wrong, right? Well I trust you to know when I am to turn wrong. Will you trust me to always walk the right path?" Luke said. 

Then he extended his hand to me and after some time I eventually stretched my hand to meet his.

"Happy to have you in the party! Let me officially introduce myself. I am Luke Aloph. I am the hero of this generation and I hope we can work together to cure the evils of this world." He introduced.

"I'm Vanessa Aloph. Not his sister in blood, but in adoption. Nice to meet you."

Then there was me. After choking back some tears, I then introduced myself.

"I am saintess Mellie. Although I was sent to monitor you, while I am here I will help you fulfill your wish to the best of my abilities."

With a bright smile, I greeted this new team that would eventually become my everything.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!