I Reject the villain’s ending.

Episode 16.

Iros seems afraid to even look at me, and I can’t figure out why.

I feel frustrated when I see Iros, who has been attached to me like a gumdrop 24 hours a day, voluntarily falling away.

Eventually, I opened the door, and jumped down from the high carriage, holding Diane’s hand as she escorted me.

Looking around, they found themselves in the forest, a perfect spot for a campfire.

Iros was gathering dry branches for the fire.

Still not making eye contact with me.

Despite my apparent nonchalance, my hands were shaking as I experienced my first pet’s separation anxiety.

I’ve ignored and distanced myself from Iros many times, but he’s never done it before.

He always approached me first.

That’s why I never knew how to approach people. Because when I needed him, he was always there first.

‘Sierra!’

Yes. Just like now.

I lurched forward, unable to see the stone beak jutting out of the ground, and Iros, who had been picking up a branch, was upon me in the blink of an eye.

I screamed at the sight of him and slowly sank to the ground.

‘You fool, you shouldn’t have thrown the branch you’ve worked so hard to pick up like that.

As I thought this, I was dangerously failing about, but Iros, who had come running with a desperate look on his face, caught me in his arms.

A snap. My head hit a hard chest and I was barely stopped on the ground by Iros, who tightened his arms around me.

Thump, thump, thump. The thumping of my heart transmitted through the hard muscles of his chest and onto my forehead.

‘Are you okay?’

His breath, uneven and ragged, tickled the top of my head.

It was a strange feeling, somehow.

The way Iros had been avoiding me, the desperation in his eyes as he saw me fall, his heart beating fast, his breathing uncharacteristically ragged.

I lift my head and look up at him.

‘I’m not okay.’

‘……!’

‘The sound of your heart.’

‘What?’

Iros’s white face flushed red as he asked a small question, peering into my face.

It paled, turning a shade of pink that slightly resembled hair.

‘Pink, my dear, your heart is about to burst.’

And that’s when I realized why I was so happy.

‘……!’

Iros pushed me away and covered my mouth with the back of his hand.

I’d already seen the embarrassment on his flushed face, and now he can’t cover it up…….

I said confidently, eyes wide as if I’d caught him in the act.

‘Are you, are you accusing me of-’

‘No!’

‘You were worried about what?’

‘…….’

‘You didn’t come running because you were worried about me, then why the hell did you come running for?’

I ask, frowning as my expectations are thwarted, and Iros sighs as he raises his hand to cover his eyes.

‘Worry, haha, that’s right, I ran out to worry. The priestess’s been a bit of a wreck lately.’

‘Isn’t that right, Pinkie, you pretended not to see me, but then she saw everything I was doing and was paying attention.’

‘Yes, yes.’

I clapped my hands and smiled broadly, and Iros’s sigh deepened.

You’re so afraid I’m going to fall, child.

I reached out and gently stroked Iros’s pale pink peony-like hair.

they weren’t real flowers, so it wasn’t moist to the touch, but the strands were soft as they swayed between my fingers, staining my white hand pink.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll heal you if you get hurt anyway, and I won’t kill you unless there’s a knife in your throat-’

‘…….’

‘…….’

We were both silent when I suddenly realized something was wrong and stopped talking.

‘Ah. My mistake. It was only yesterday that he slit my throat with his sword.

But by the time I realized, it was too late.

Iros was the first to speak, his eyes dark and sunken.

I’m going to finish gathering firewood.’

Pink is that,

‘I think you’d better rest, saint, you don’t want to trip over any stones again.’

‘Oh, ah…….’

Turning around, I reached out to touch Iros’s back as he walked away at a rapid pace, then lowered my hand in disbelief.

‘Ha ha. Don’t talk about getting a knife to your throat in there, Sierra, you idiot.’

The regret was too late, too late to take back. It made it even harder to get to Iros first.

He sighed heavily, shoulders slumping like a defeated man, and trudged back to the group.

The three men who had been watching from a distance took in my unhappy expression as I walked up, and each said something.

‘Did you get into a fight?’

‘Did you fight?’

I asked, the corners of my mouth twitching with emotion as I stood before Mei, Eldrakis, and Diane.

‘I don’t know .’

‘What?’

‘The whole approaching first thing, how do you do that?’

‘Mmm. You can’t even ask me that with a face like that…….’

Mei laughed, her eyes narrowing in embarrassment.

When she turned her head to look at the others, Eldrakis had already averted his eyes and lowered his head.

Diane had raised her head very clumsily and was chasing a bird in the sky.

I narrowed my eyes, drew my bow, nocked an arrow, pulled the string, and aimed at the bird of the sky.

Piyung. The arrow flew and the bird was watching crashed to the ground.

‘There you go. Lunch is served.’

Then he called out to Diane.

‘Diane.’

She flinched.

At the sound of his name, Diane’s broad shoulders stiffened.

Her head snapped back, as stiff as unoiled scrap metal.

‘You… are… you…’

‘Yep. Can you give me an idea, of how to approach him first?’

He smirked, and Diane racked her brain furiously.

If she didn’t come up with a suitable solution, she didn’t know what this famously nasty saint in front of her would do.

Diane glared at Iros, who had gone so far into the forest to gather branches.

‘That’s why you should approach her first. Be friendly…….’

Diane’s lecture began.

Iros, meanwhile, was picking up branches, just as confused.

‘Why?

He couldn’t figure out why his heart was racing, his breath was short, his chest was tight, and he was shaking whenever he saw Sierra.

‘Like I’m in love with her. Even though I don’t.’

To be honest, Sierra had picked me up, but she hadn’t been a very good owner, and there was something distant about her.

She never picked me up in the first place and never came to look at me.

But she did come looking for me once, for the first time. Or more accurately, she found me.

‘When I was captured by that insane superintendent and locked in that maze of mirrors.

* * *

When I first came to the temple and was being trained by the educator, the madman often locked me in the infamous chamber of mirrors, where nine times out of ten, he would come out insane under the guise of education.

I was the only one reflected in the glittering mirrors on all sides, and I wandered disorientated through the labyrinth of paths and mirrors.

Just as I was becoming delirious from being trapped in that terrible, horrible place with no time, no sound, and no other people, I heard the door slam open.

And through tear-stained, blurred vision, I saw pale blonde hair glistening in the blue moonlight, and eyes bluer than the moon.

‘The governess has crossed the line.’

Those were the first words out of the young girl’s mouth.

The cool words, spoken without the clichéd concern for his well-being, were a relief.

It’s funny to think about now.

That girl, that little girl, how she seemed like a trustworthy person who would protect me from the superintendent.

I must have been crazy back then, but Sierra, so skinny and weak, like she could crumble to pieces if you touched her, seemed so strong and trustworthy.

So I clung to her. To get me out of here, to stay with me, to not… abandon me.

‘Then I’ll stay with you, you’re my “dog” from now on, I’ll be your master, I’ll be in charge of you.’

My heart, which had been pounding in my chest at those high-pressure words, slowly calmed down, and instead, it fluttered with a different meaning.

That arrogant bitch would protect me for the rest of my life, as long as I was her dog.

Sierra’s smile was ecstatic and rose-scented, and I cried into her skirt, into her hand, into her tiny body.

As the warmth of her small hands embraced me, I felt for the first time that I was not alone.

And I became her loyal dog from that day forward.

‘Saint, you shouldn’t hurt people.

‘Saint, it’s autumn and you’ll catch a cold if you sleep uncovered.

‘Saint, you must attend the ceremony today.

‘Saint, Saint, Saint, Saint…….’

She didn’t let me off the hook, and I stuck to her even harder.

I think it’s because I’m different from other people, special, that she doesn’t mind being around me, even though other people don’t like me. I guess that’s what I thought.

I had a talent for swordsmanship, and I couldn’t have been happier when I rose to prominence among the paladins and was chosen as the sixth ‘sword’.

Now I wouldn’t have to be separated from her for training sessions, because I could stick around all day.

But that’s when Sierra started to change.

‘Get the hell out of here!’

The golden warmth of her divine power was still there, but Sierra was becoming more and more like a normal adolescent girl: cranky, sensitive, and nervous.

More often, and more severely, the water level rose, with all sorts of notoriety added to it, and rumors inflated by the pompous until it was more than she could stop on her own.

‘Saint, please…….’

No matter how many times I got down on my knees and tried to take her out of it, Sierra would only get more frantic, eventually reaching out to her dog.

That is me.

‘Iros, my sweet pink, if you want to save that maid, I want you to entertain me. Here, where everyone can see, undress her. Shall we start with the conquest of the pure white guardian?’

I was puzzled, and for a moment I did not understand what I had heard, and remained on my knees, dumbfounded.

‘Take off that coat, and the white shirt underneath. If you don’t like it, I’ll kill the maid.’

With trembling hands, he took off his coat and unbuttoned his shirt one by one.

To stay by her side longer, the body he had trained to be a sword was laid bare before Sierra, and tears of shame welled up in his eyes.

‘You have a beautiful body. Your muscles are white and hard. It’s like a sculpture. That’s my dog.’

He gouged out the maid’s eyes for seeing his, gave her some money, and sent her out of the temple.

The maid bowed repeatedly to thank him for sparing her life and went her way.

From that day on, Sierra’s harassment of me grew unrelenting.

First by undressing me and kissing me, then by gently touching me in various parts of my body, then by her tongue, and finally by gagging me.