The novel "Saint, Reverse Harems Are Impure!" was as explicit as its title suggested.
It was a mass-produced romance fantasy novel wandering in the corners of online platforms.
It employed the typical isekai reincarnation cliché—an unfortunate female protagonist dies lonely, only to open her eyes as a saint in a medieval fantasy world.
Naturally, the reincarnated saint received confession attacks from all sorts of handsome men and built her reverse harem.
Looking back now, it was quite a fairy tale of a novel. In the worst possible way.
There was a villain who seemed born solely for evil deeds, piling up corpses and blood.
There was an almost perfectly capable and kind prince, and the female protagonist overcame her wounds to move forward.
By the end of the novel, even the deep-rooted war between humans and demons had ended.
The villains either fell to the prince's sword or had all their crimes exposed and were executed.
And finally, the prince and the saint married and lived happily ever after.
A story so flat it was foolish.
A happy ending so sweet it could rot your teeth. If one had to choose a novel to live in, it would have been a fairly decent choice.
If only I weren't the villain destined to fall in the final battle.
I, Razen Vertus, was the antagonist who threatened the protagonist throughout the work.
I was also a murderous demon who had killed the most lives before having my heart pierced at the end of the battle with the male leads.
The siblings of the Grand Duchy of Ilensia, whom I had been with since infancy, met similar fates.
The eldest, Terion, went abroad to study and died of illness, while the second, Sirien, was captured and executed after plunging the empire into chaos alongside me.
Naturally, I had no intention of dying as I did in the novel.
I couldn't leave the siblings who had treated me like family to die either. I wanted to add my own touch to that foolishly sweet happy ending.
But I regained my memories too late.
The day I recovered my memories was the day Eligos, the fifteenth-ranked Demon Lord, invaded the Grand Duchy of Ilensia.
* * *
It was a night with a hazy moon halo.
The cold, damp air seemed to soak one's lungs with each breath, and thick fog covered the dense darkness.
When the wind blew, the rustling leaves made an eerie sound.
Shrouded in night shadows, they appeared to me like dark shadows rippling.
On such a night, there were people racing down a path where one couldn't see an inch ahead. It was an old wagon.
The carriage ran like a ghost. Without even a single lantern hung, it meant everyone was holding their breath.
It had been a sudden journey.
The clanging bells announcing an air raid, the knights departing with grim expressions—these images wouldn't leave my mind.
The explosions from colliding spells.
The tower melting and flowing with red-hot lava.
The soldier with a spear through his neck.
The territory turned battlefield was impossible to forget.
The siblings inside the carriage also wore dark expressions.
Though barely over ten years old, they seemed to sense that the situation wasn't good. How long had the silence lasted?
A familiar voice broke it.
"Uncle. Please tell us now. Where are we going?"
"I can't tell you anything yet."
"What happened to Father?"
"I can't tell you that either. It's for your own good."
How many times had that question been asked?
The eldest of the siblings, Terion, looked frustrated.
His handsome young lord's face was deeply furrowed.
With his usually sharp temperament, he would have shown irritation long ago, but this time his opponent was formidable.
Count Roxen, the siblings' uncle, was arguably the most trusted person of the Grand Duke of Ilensia.
If Count Roxen said he couldn't tell them for their own good, he truly meant it.
That's why Terion couldn't press him further.
"Cough, cough!"
"My lady, are you alright?"
"Mm-hmm. I'm fine. Just some dust in the air."
"Wait a moment."
Perhaps the carriage wheel had hit a stone?
Dust flew inside whenever the cargo compartment shook.
The old wood smell turned out to be just dust.
The Grand Duke's young lady wasn't accustomed to such environments.
Despite being covered with cloths gathered from here and there, she huddled against the cold, and whenever dust flew, she inevitably let out pitiful coughs.
The maid riding in the carriage with us gave me a pleading look.
Fortunately, there was plenty of water in the canteen.
"Drink some water first."
"I don't like that leather smell from your canteen. And I don't like cold water either."
"Bear with it and drink. It's not that cold."
"Ugh..."
The duke's daughter, Sirien, grumbled but accepted the water.
Wrapping a handkerchief around her nose and mouth helped reduce her coughing.
If we could slow the carriage a bit, things would improve greatly, but given the circumstances, I couldn't suggest that.
Rather, the urgent crack of the coachman's whip was welcome.
We needed to end this unwelcome journey as quickly as possible.
"You should feel better now. Breathing will be uncomfortable, but bear with it."
"Thank you. What about you, Razen? I have another handkerchief."
"I'm fine. The knights' armory is dustier than this. And I'm not very thirsty."
That was a lie. Until I was called here, I had been training, so I was both hungry and thirsty.
But we didn't know when we could refill the canteen, so we needed to conserve water.
I couldn't say such things to that girl.
The situation was clearly bad. Demon Lord Eligos's offensive was unusually swift and sharp.
As a result, the direct line of the Grand Duchy of Ilensia was evacuating, hidden in a cargo carriage with minimal escorts.
I, who was supposed to gain combat experience soon, wasn't sent to the battlefield.
"Either interpretation seems terrible."
The first possibility was that the enemy pursuing us was so threatening that escorts would be meaningless.
Rather than drawing attention with inadequate protection, they chose to remain inconspicuous from the start.
In other words, if we were discovered, it would be over.
The second possibility was that the war situation was extremely unstable.
Despite everything, I was the heir of a major vassal.
While not treated like direct blood relatives, I received a certain level of respect.
Someone like me wouldn't be sent to just any battlefield—not to one that was very dangerous or disadvantageous.
In other words, the current war situation was either very unfavorable or dangerous.
Sure enough, Sirien also seemed troubled.
Her gaze toward the corner of the carriage was empty.
Despite her frequent childish behavior, Sirien was the smartest among us.
She might have grasped the situation even faster than I had.
Soon her lips parted.
"Hey, Razen."
"What?"
"I wonder if our other siblings are okay? I'm a bit worried."
No. She was far better than me.
The Grand Duke and his wife had only two children.
So when Sirien said "siblings," she meant somewhat distant relatives—the children of branch families or vassals who lived together at the Grand Duke's residence.
Even in a situation where her own life was in danger, Sirien knew to worry about them.
I had never seen a girl of barely ten years look so mature. I had to remind myself of the girl's name again.
Sirien Ilensia.
The legitimate daughter of the Grand Duke of Ilensia, known as the Empire's Shield.
A lady who always wore a fresh smile and was kind to both her siblings and servants.
But.
Her "siblings" had likely become decoys. This was a reasonable inference, but I needed to put it out of my mind for now.
"Worry about yourself. The Grand Duke and my father are with them. All the senior knights went there too."
"But that..."
"I understand what you're thinking, but no matter what anyone says, you're the most important right now. We don't know what else might happen, so try to get some sleep. I'll wake you up."
"Mm-hmm. Okay."
This really wasn't the time to worry about others.
We didn't know when the Demon Lord's pursuit team might catch up, and the future I knew from the novel was utterly bleak.
Ten years from now.
Only ten years remained until the original female protagonist would be reincarnated and rise as a saint.
"The Sirien from ten years later and the current Sirien are completely different people."
The Sirien I knew from the original work was a picture-perfect villainess.
There wasn't a trace of the kind-hearted, delicate person she was now.
The same went for her concern for her other siblings.
In the original story, Sirien's first move was to purge her own blood relatives with her own hands.
She even personally sent numerous branch family members to the execution block to confirm their deaths.
The problem was that I had no idea what Sirien and I would go through during these ten years.
That cursed novel—or rather, that failed novel—didn't describe anything about us at all.
In the worst case, the current Sirien might have already died, and the Sirien in the original work could have been her stand-in.
Thinking about it, this actually made more sense.
If the Sirien in the original work was an impostor, it would explain why she killed her blood relatives.
She wouldn't want to keep alive those who knew her true identity.
This was a much more plausible story than the tender-hearted girl before me suddenly going mad one day.
"It's still unknown. I just don't have enough information right now."
Other transmigrators memorized world settings or hidden character backstories to gain advantages from the beginning.
But for me, far from gaining advantages, I seemed headed for a dead end from the start.
I remembered every single word of the original work, yet none of it was helpful.
If I had to name one piece of information I knew right now, it would be that Count Roxen liked cookies with Ramuris flower petals in them.
Ramuris flowers grew abundantly in the western part of the empire, and their petals had a sweet and tangy taste when baked.
What use could I possibly have for such knowledge?
I couldn't figure it out no matter how much I thought about it.
There was no point in worrying about problems with no answers.
For now, I needed to focus on getting out of this situation.
If possible, I planned to take thorough care of my health to prevent Terion's death.
As for Sirien... I could only watch over her as best I could.
Even just this might change many things. For Sirien. And for me too.
As if by coincidence, Sirien spoke softly.
"...Thank you. I'll leave it to you then."