“******, hurry and go!” a woman commanded.
She seemed to be a mother figure to a young girl. The girl didn’t remember her own name—it didn’t seem relevant to her and was only ever used when this “mother” barked orders at her.
The woman was a lady of the night. To the young girl, she was beautiful, worthy of her lifestyle of gaudy outfits and gaudier behavior. Perhaps out of confidence in her appearance, the woman was haughty even toward her fellow night workers and was not well-liked.
Still, the sins of the mother should not have been visited upon the daughter. The other women should’ve felt sympathy for the young girl, whose parent treated her so coldly—yet they acted as though she didn’t so much as exist. They went to greater lengths to avoid her than they did to avoid her mother, to whom they could at least relate to an extent. It was as though the girl was seen as some sort of incomprehensible, alien object.
That made the girl uncomfortable with women. For as long as she could remember, she’d been oppressed by the woman who called herself her mother and ignored by the other women. Only men—the women’s customers—ever offered her food and affection.
In her mind, a simple association formed: Men were protectors and women were bullies.
Perhaps it was the girl’s physical resemblance to her mother that made men favor her. She had refined features and gentle, sleepy eyes that looked up at them adoringly. Few could resist her.
Today, she’d yet again been driven out of their quarters by her mother, who’d brought in a male client. With no intention of asking other women for help, the girl wandered alone at night, consoling the pitiable men whom her mother figure had rejected and thus finding food and a place to sleep for the night.
She knew her looks were outstanding, but she also knew she was very different from her mother. The woman lorded her superiority over others and pursued only good-looking male customers. But the girl was different. She’s grown up without a father and with no love from her mother—all she wanted was to be loved. And she hated women, so she sought love only from men who treated her kindly.
Appearance didn’t matter. Birth and status were irrelevant. Anyone was fine as long as they loved her above all others. She simply wanted an abundance of love.
What mother and daughter each sought was fundamentally different.
As more men treated the girl as a daughter, she began to feel that her mother, who was picky about her clients, was becoming burdensome. Gradually, she began to see her mother as an obstacle.
“I don’t need her anymore.”
So she discarded her mother.
It was serendipitous. The Barony of Horus was adjacent to monster habitats, and one day, a stampede descended upon the town. Though it wasn’t particularly large, it still led to over a thousand casualties.
The mother, who had brought a man into her room, was slow to escape. Knowing monsters were approaching, the girl placed objects in front of the door and fled. Her burden disappeared, but the young girl’s plan didn’t go too well—many of her benefactors also died, and survivors who had lost their homes and jobs left town.
But many dead meant many orphans. The girl schemed to blend in with them and enter an orphanage.
She finally got lucky—or so she thought. The orphanage she’d managed to worm her way into was a living nightmare. Its budget was low, but the old woman who managed it would accept any orphans sent her way, even when donations were few.
The only reason the old woman could do this was the fact she exploited the defenseless children, using them as free labor. To survive the harsh work on little food, the girl charmed and manipulated older boys. This made the girls hate and bully her, but she saw this as mere jealousy and further sought the company—and protection—of the boys, posing as a victim.
But working children could only make so much money. The old woman forced them to do her own chores, yes, but most of the money she made was from selling the better-looking orphans to wealthy people in lieu of proper adoption.
Other orphans didn’t notice what was happening, but given her past life, the girl knew. But she didn’t denounce it to anyone. She didn’t want to be adopted. She wanted to be loved by a man, as a woman.
And yet the girl wasn’t chosen to be sold. Instead, the old woman chose a pink-haired child. Since the girl had no interest in other girls, she didn’t know much about the chosen child other than the fact that the old woman often dumped an unfair amount of work on her, which she did without complaint.
The girl wondered how she could gain the man’s attention instead of that child.
But the next day, the pink-haired child disappeared, the old woman was killed, and the buyer failed to show up. The orphanage’s management was taken over by retainers of Baron Horus, and next thing she knew, the girl came across an aethercrystal containing knowledge about the future.
The crystal was like a signpost pointing to men who had been as completely unreachable as the clouds above. It was the path to becoming the protagonist.
When the girl first picked up the crystal, she cut her fingertip on its sharp edge. Through contact with the girl’s blood, something inside the crystal—something akin to a will—tried to swallow her mind. But either because the will of the crystal lacked compulsive force without its own source of blood flow or because the girl’s mind was simply stronger, that will had become background noise in her mind, providing her with knowledge.
To fulfill her singular wish of being loved by many men, paternally or otherwise, the girl began to go by the name “Alicia.” Following the story of the game she learned about from the crystal, she claimed she was the daughter of a noblewoman who had eloped with a squire, seeking to usurp the real Alicia’s place.
It was obsession, plain and simple. Existing only to be loved, the girl replaced even her own memories of the mother she hated with those of the game’s heroine. She mimicked the heroine’s mannerisms, speech, expression, and even thought processes perfectly. She used her knowledge of Alicia as she was featured in the game’s artwork to make herself appear more attractive.
Orphan boys, captivated by her even lovelier form, helped spread word of her fabricated background, until finally, she hooked a noble family who believed they were related. Through them, she became a viscount’s adopted daughter—Alicia Melsis.
Now officially on the heroine’s path, she could charm noblemen.
Each of these men had his own inner demons and limitations. They were still vulnerable and hadn’t awakened to their full potential. In the game, the heroine would face her chosen man’s dark side, join him in his anxiety and pain, grow with him, make him see his true worth, and the two would fall in love.
The “woman” within the aethercrystal insisted that the girl should focus on winning over the crown prince, whose requirements were relatively simple and whose status was highest.
But the girl had never planned on stopping at one man. She wanted all of their love. Even if she ultimately chose the crown prince, she wasn’t going to pass up on all the others right away.
The “woman” protested. Chasing multiple men was impossible. The only way to open up another’s heart was to dedicate oneself fully.
Instead of listening to that, the girl chose to coddle the men, validating them indiscriminately, never facing the darkness and pain in their hearts.
The “woman” protested again. She said no one would find happiness like this.
But the girl only wished to be loved by as many men as possible. Nothing else mattered. The men could collapse under the weight of their own darkness. They could self-destruct. The girl could be implicated and sentenced to beheading. None of it mattered.
“Love me, and I will hold you until my last breath...”
She didn’t wish for happiness. She didn’t wish for self-destruction. She only wished to love and be loved. She wished for the ultimate loving bliss, in which the crown prince, the king’s younger brother, and the high priest’s grandson would all give themselves to her fully, abandoning everything else for her sake.
Only that could satisfy her endless hunger.
But her plans weren’t without obstacles.
There was Princess Elena, who would become the crown prince’s political enemy.
There was Karla, the dangerous daughter of a count, who was the crown prince’s fiancée.
There was Alia, the princess’s pink-haired guard, who was feared in the underworld.
And that was why...
“Everyone,” she said, “I think we need a dungeon’s gift.”
At a table in the Sorcerers’ Academy, the girl—“Saint Licia”—smiled adorably like a child pleading for a flower before Elvan, the crown prince; Amor, the king’s younger brother; and Nathanital, the high priest’s grandson.