Chapter 17: Thinking Tiiiime!

“What do you mean, who I am…”

I somehow manage to hold back my eyes from darting around.

“My name’s Logy, I’m twenty-one, born in the Royal Capital, the self-proclaimed poster girl of the Lycoris Tavern, and the mother of the cutest Lowell in the world—got a problem with that!?”

I puff out my chest and declare it proudly, but the young lord’s sharp gaze doesn’t waver in the slightest.

“You really think I’d be fooled by such a sloppy self-introduction?
I’m asking about that holy magic.”

“Ugh…”

Yeah, of course that’s where this goes.

I let out a loooong sigh.

“…Honestly, I’m the one who wants to know.
I never imagined I could do something like that.
To begin with, was that really holy magic?”

“Instantly erasing the poison and wounds inflicted by a magical beast could only be holy magic.”

The young lord looks at me like I’m asking something obvious.

“But I still can’t believe it.
Why me…?”

“Logy… could it be that you were actually a former noble lady—”

“No, no, absolutely not!”

I cut him off forcefully, denying it with all my might.

…It’s technically not a lie.
I’m a former princess, not a former noble lady, after all.

“My mother was a commoner, and I hardly ever met my father…”

My voice trails off into a mumble at the end.

This, too, isn’t exactly a lie.

My mother was a once-famous actress who caught the king’s eye and became his mistress.

And my father, the king, showed no interest in a daughter who inherited none of the royal traits, so despite living in the same palace, I rarely ever saw him.

“I see.
Then perhaps an illegitimate child of a high noble…?”

The young lord mutters a guess that isn’t entirely off the mark.

I feel relieved that he hasn’t realized I’m the former Princess Rosalind.

Of course he wouldn’t.
No one would imagine a former princess working at a frontier tavern as a single mother.

But yes.
There is royal blood running through my veins.
So awakening to holy magic might not be completely impossible.

Even so, the thought of “why me!?” keeps swirling endlessly in my mind.

I try to recall what happened then as calmly as I can.

Holding the unconscious Lowell, poisoned by a deadly toxin, I cursed my own helplessness.

If only I weren’t a failure.
If only I could use holy magic.

Faced with the cruel option of amputating his arm, and the despair that even then he might not survive, I desperately wished I could never endure such a thing, that I would give my own life if it meant saving Lowell.

At that moment, I felt magical power erupt from deep within my body.
A kind of magic utterly different from anything before.

By the time I realized it, both Lowell and I were wrapped in that power, and the poison had vanished from his right arm.

And that strange magic is still circulating inside my body even now.

I must have awakened to a second attribute.
And a rare one at that—holy magic.

There’s really no other explanation.

And yet…!

‘Awakening to holy magic as a second attribute…
Isn’t that exactly the role of Liliana, the heroine of The Black Wolf General’s Beloved Flower!?’

I feel like clutching my head in confusion.

Liliana, the novel’s heroine, can only use water magic at the start of the story, and even that power is weak.

Then she meets the hero, Adolphus, grows closer to him, and through loving and being loved by him (in a platonic sense!), awakens the holy magic that had been sleeping within her.

This is important, so let me say it again.
The condition for awakening holy magic is exchanging love with Adolphus.

What kind of condition is that, you ask?
I don’t know either, but that was the setting.

When I read it as a reader, I just thought, ‘The hero’s doting love solves everything!
Hooray for convenience!’
But now that I think about it, it’s ridiculously mysterious.

‘More importantly, I don’t meet that condition, do I!?’

Yes, we did what needed to be done on our wedding night, and people do sometimes euphemistically call that ‘exchanging love,’ but that alone shouldn’t satisfy the condition.
The heart has to be involved.

‘I mean, as for me, sure, but Adolphus…’

“Ma-ma?”

At that moment, my eyes meet Lowell’s as he looks up at me with a puzzled expression while I’m holding my head.
A light bulb goes off in my mind.

‘Ah—could it be!’

Maybe the person you love and are loved by doesn’t actually have to be Adolphus!
It just happened to be him in Liliana’s case.

And ‘love’ doesn’t only exist in romance.

In other words…

“Lowell, you’re cute again today!
I love you more than anything in the world!”

“Ro-chan loves Mama the most too!”

When I hug him tightly, he hugs me back with his whole little body.

Yes, no doubt about it.
This is unmistakably love!

Lowell’s existence must have awakened the holy magic that had been dormant inside me.

For now, that’s the conclusion I decide on.
There’s no point overthinking it.

As I hug Lowell tightly, I notice the young lord watching me intently.

“…Young lord, is there still something?
I can’t answer any more questions about my origins.
I’ve cleanly thrown my past away.”

I came to this town of Diudo alone, discarding my name, my status—everything.

…Though, since Lowell was in my belly at the time, perhaps I should say we came together.

The young lord shakes his head slightly.

“That still concerns me, I won’t lie, but…
I was thinking you seem surprisingly calm, Logy.
You awakened to holy magic, yet you don’t look very happy.”

“Well… honestly, I’m not all that happy…”

I’m of course glad I could save Lowell.
I’m grateful that I awakened to holy magic.

But a complicated feeling of ‘now, of all times’ weighs heavily on me.

If it had happened back then, when I was desperately searching for my place in the palace, maybe I could have been genuinely happy.

“Why is that?
Holy magic is extremely valuable.
If you report it to the palace and it’s recognized, you’d be welcomed back to the Royal Capital at once and given the status and wealth befitting a saint.”

“That’s exactly what I don’t want.
You know I came from the Royal Capital to Diudo for various reasons, right?
I want to stay as far away from the capital as possible.
There are a lot of people I don’t want to see…”

It may sound heartless, but I don’t particularly want to see my father, my mother, or my half-siblings.

And above all, my ex-husband, Adolphus.

If the original story is playing out as it should, he’s already met the heroine, Liliana, and the distance between them is gradually closing.

If I were to accidentally run into the two of them now…

I’ve long since exited as the villainous wife, but who knows how I might be shoved back into that role.

Better safe than sorry.

“Besides, I like it here.
This town of Diudo, and the people in it.”

Dan and Hanna, my benefactors.
Jake and the other regulars at the Lycoris Tavern.
The sisters at the church.

Thanks to them all, both Lowell and I can live freely and happily.

The young lord is… well, a good person too, as long as he stops hitting on me.
He even brings fish roe.

“So, Logy, you want to keep living here in Diudo?”

“Yes.
If possible.”

When I nod firmly, the young lord goes, “Hmm…” and looks thoughtful for a moment, then claps his hands.

“Alright.
If that’s the case, I’ll fully cooperate.
To start with, Logy—”

The young lord smiles a very, very nice smile.

“Why don’t you become a saint for my defense force?”