A Trivial Extra in a Dating Sim

‘Somehow this feels like I’ve become Pavlov’s dog.’*

Her body reacted to the people she met with the appropriate level of courtesy before her head had even registered it. It felt like she had been installed with an etiquette cheat key.

If she thought about it, it wasn’t like her to just stay still back when she had first met Daniel and he had kissed the back of her hand.

“Saintess Evanessa, you may lift your head.”

A dignified voice carried over her head.

Her heart half-excited and half-worried, Evanessa tentatively raised her head. It was then that she met eyes with a handsome man who was a perfect fit for the description of ‘a man in his prime’.

Evanessa hurriedly lowered her gaze.

‘It’s overwhelming.’

As she was only familiar with Asian faces from real life, her eyes couldn’t adjust to meeting face-to-face with Western features. Especially those of the royal line of Grancia, all of whom possessed purple eyes.

Actual purple irises. This was the first time she had ever seen such a thing.

“Be seated”

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Obeying the emperor’s order, Evanessa rose from the ground and carefully took her place on the sofa opposite the emperor.

“I heard that you met with some small trouble on your way here.”

“…yes lord.”

“It has been hard on you. Should we delay your visit to the wizard’s tower this afternoon?”

Evanessa’s face paled when she heard the words ‘wizard’s tower’. They wanted her to walk into the den of the number 1 person that she had to avoid at all costs, the head of the wizard’s tower?

It felt like she was a Level 1 beginner who had just received an impossible quest to subjugate a boss mob.

Thinking about it, the very first thing that Evanessa was supposed to do upon entering the palace was to visit the wizard’s tower. To treat the people who had caught ‘that’…

“Evanessa? Is your body not feeling well?”

Evanessa’s relationship with the emperor had begun at a very young age. So she replied without any hesitation and in a very close manner as if she was talking to a friend of her father’s from real life.

“Yes. I feel like I’m about to die.”

Although she was aware that her reply didn’t conform with etiquette, she absolutely rejected anything to do with the wizard’s tower. Like a broken gear, her head was stuck on the fact that she would be heading down the worst route as soon she met the head wizard.

‘I don’t want to be caught and eaten like some domesticated monster by the head wizard! I absolutely don’t want the cannibal ending!’

Desperately, Evanessa raised her head and looked straight at the emperor.

The emperor met Evanessa’s gaze with a strange expression on his face. Even when her body was in a truly poor state, Evanessa was a child who would always show a smiling face and just repeatedly say, “I’m fine.” The emperor’s face darkened.

“Maid! Are you there.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

Only

The maid’s voice was heard through the door.

“Call the physician to examine the saintess’s condition.”

Under the usual circumstances, he would have called for priests blessed with sacred power instead of the physician. However, as the saintess who was known to be the representative of Lunium, she was also, in a way, a spiritual vessel that was constantly being filled with an infinite flow of magical power.

The Grancia Empire held both the ‘Lunium Church’, whose priests held magic power and the ‘Church of Helena’, whose priests were blessed with sacred power.

Sacred power and magic power were incompatible. The moment that sacred power entered the body of the saintess, the two forces would conflict with each other and create an immense shock. If things went badly, she could even die.

This matter not only applied to Evanessa, it was also an issue for wizards, the priests of Lunium, and the imperial family who had received Lunium’s blessing.

A physician belonging to the wizard’s tower, who was able to examine the flow of mana while it was inside someone’s body, arrived promptly. After meticulously examining the saintess with diagnostic magic, he turned towards the emperor with a perplexed look.

*From the term Pavlovian response. A scientist who did research into a way to make someone respond instinctively to a certain trigger.