"So why are you here? And how the hell did you even get here so fast, human?!" I demand of the heroine Grace, who appeared out of nowhere right where I was standing! And I'm on the other side of the continent! There's absolutely no way she should be here!!

"Don't be like that, Marie! I came to see you! Augustus finished his mission and kicked me away, saying he didn't want me around anymore!" Grace says with a smile as she approaches.

"..."

"Are you trying to steal information to send to the human kingdom?!" I ask, serious and suspicious.

"Nope! I'm absolutely here just for you! Most of your siblings are away, and Evelyn and Esther are married, so going after them would be super wrong! So I came after my favorite girl on this continent!" she says, moving even closer to me.

"..."

'How the hell did she find me?! I'm literally thousands of kilometers from the castle...' I wonder if I should kick her out, considering this espionage.

"...Tsk...don't bother me too much," I say, continuing to walk. My current mission is to collect some supplies for my troops, since I'm leading one of the fronts in the war.

"..."

"Marie, aren't you bothered by the war with the angels?" Grace asks as we walk through the dense forest. I use fire magic to burn through the vines and press forward.

"Not one bit. They're annoying pests, and their deaths are the best part of the battlefield," I say with some frustration, since it's their fault I even have to be on the battlefield in the first place.

"..." Grace suddenly stops, and I stop too. I look around, feeling uncomfortable about something.

"Marie, it feels like there's a problematic monster in the area... even though it's pretty far, I think we should get out of here, right?"

'Problematic monster... well, we are near the ocean... the coast is usually full of monsters...'

"I noticed! I didn't need your warning! I would have noticed anyway!" Grace suddenly lunges at me, grabbing me by the waist and lifting me up.

"W-What!! What do you think you're—!"

"You've been poisoned. We need to get out of here... looks like it's already spread a bit through your body." She starts running for no reason while I try to process what this lunatic is saying, until I look at the back of my hand and see the veins turning a vibrant, dark purple.

"!!!"

'When?!' I hadn't noticed.

"...How did you find me?" I ask, wondering if it wasn't Grace who poisoned me in the first place, only to now play the savior.

"I'd say it's destiny, you know? When I'm interested in someone, fate usually gives me [Fated Encounters] to improve [Favorability]... it's not something you'd understand."

"But just know that it's part of being a heroine to find and defend damsels in distress!" she says in a silly tone that makes me sigh.

"Don't talk as if I'm some helpless girl..." I can neutralize any poison as long as I know there's a cure; I just need to create the antidote using my blessing.

'Now, what poison is this? And what exactly poisoned my hand?' I look at it and notice a small hole. Something pierced it without me noticing. But without knowing what the poison is, I don't know what to create to cure it.

"Ugh..." My vision suddenly turns purple, and blood trickles from my eyes. Grace stops and sets me down as I push her away. I look at my arms, seeing the abnormal speed at which the poison is spreading.

"..."

"Marie, tell me what you came here to get!" Grace says seriously, her tone strangely concerned even though we barely have any relationship.

"...Just some things to use in the war..."

"Tell me what it was," she says as my legs tremble.

"...P-Poisons, okay!! I came to get poison! I read in a book that the area near the continent's coast has lots of poisonous plants I could use... it's a war, you can't judge me for deciding to use whatever I find," I say, frustrated, as my vision blurs and starts to swim dizzily as if everything is spinning.

"..." She looks a bit shocked but just nods, taking my hand and examining it. The point where the poison started spreading is turning black, showing rapid necrosis.

'Damn, is this how I die?! Poisoned because I came to gather materials?! Shit... what a stupid way to die...' I feel ashamed that others will know I died in such a stupid way.

'If I had noticed earlier, I could have cut my hand off before it spread...' Though I admit I wouldn't have noticed the wound without Grace's warning, but I'll never admit that out loud.

"..." Grace looks around at the flowers and trees of the forest, seemingly thinking about what to do as I fall to my knees, feeling my lungs swelling as if they're about to burst.

'Ah, damn... how humiliating...'

"...W-What are you doing?" I murmur when I see Grace letting me go and taking steps back, drawing her sword. She takes a stance, and I feel betrayed.

'Is she going to try to kill me?! I knew it... you can't trust humans...' I feel like an idiot for being so careless around her. I try to use my blessing to generate a giant serpentine beast to at least hurt her before I die.

But she's faster, charging at me and delivering a great slash from top to bottom. I close my eyes, but feel nothing. I open them again, confused, as the effects of the poison seem to lessen.

"W-What did you do..." My voice comes out weak.

"I killed the culprit. It wasn't just poison." She takes my hand again, running her finger over the spot where the poison started. Soon, she grabs something and starts pulling. I see a thin, white thread coming out as blood flows from my skin.

"That... is..."

"It's exactly what you're seeing, Marie. A parasite... but I don't recognize the type. It must have been on the leaves of some plant, and when you collected it, it stuck to your hand and burrowed into your skin." She says something logical.

"How disgusting..." I say, revolted that this thing was inside me. It must be some kind of monster, since it bypassed all my detection.

"By the way, my sword only cuts what I want it to cut. So I can easily pass it through someone's body if I want, and they won't get hurt. I noticed there was something inside you because I saw something crawling up your neck from the inside... I think it was trying to climb higher..." she says, making me shudder a little.

"...Again... it's strange how you always show up at moments when you can talk to me and help me in some way..." I murmur while Grace just shrugs.

"Yeah, I think it's strange too. It's not something I choose, but I always end up in situations where people in danger find me, and at the last moment, I find some solution."

"I guess this is like a passive skill of the heroine title? But I like it; it helps me help people out of nowhere, and it also gives me luck," she says with a smile, while I'm still poisoned but no longer in pain.

"Lucky..." I say, annoyed by it. She's so lucky. My curse has turned my blessing into a real nightmare; everything I create has a chance to turn against me, forcing me to be extremely paranoid and cautious when using this ability.

"..." Grace sits down beside me, leaning her shoulder against mine.

"You know, I know we aren't exactly friends... but... you always seem so standoffish and competitive with everyone. Want to talk to me about it? Just while you recover from the poison." Her voice is calm, giving me an unpleasant sense of security.

And I don't want to feel safe around her because it really makes me want to talk about things I never tell anyone.

"Well, if you want to know about me so badly, tell me a secret of yours," I say arrogantly, knowing she'll refuse. No demon would just spill their secrets like that, and when she refuses, I'll refuse too, since she'd be being hypocritical.

"Hmmm... this is a secret I've never told anyone, but I... 'maybe'... just for a few hours... slept with the king's wife from my kingdom... W-Wait, don't think too much about it! In my defense, I didn't know she was the queen or that she was married!"

"She was drinking alone in a secluded spot and looked really young! I was drinking too, went to flirt with her, and one thing led to another! It was even kind of weird seeing her two weeks later next to the king... she recognized me and was mortified too, and it sort of became a secret between us."

"I think she just wanted to have a little fling! But I regret it a lot! I have a solid moral code to never flirt with married women!" Grace actually admits a secret that would make her a criminal if it got out.

And it's so absurd it can't just be a lie, which leaves me shocked by her honesty.

"W-Why did you tell me that?!"

"Because you asked for my secret in exchange for yours... By the way, the Queen was really hot... I won't lie! I totally regret what happened, but I won't deny it was good!" she says, confident that I'll share my secret. And even though I don't want to, something compels me to be honest.

"...Tsk, you weird girl... committing such a sin and then talking about it as if it were natural..." I turn my face away, my cheeks puffed with anger.

"...I... I want to make my father proud... and I want to become queen to break my curse... I... I hate the blessing I have..."

"Because of it... I accidentally killed my best friend... I didn't know the curse's effects were so bad... We were playing, and I was showing her all sorts of stupid tricks..."

"Then I created a big golem to show her that I didn't really have a material limit... but the golem threw me to the ground... The next thing I knew, the golem was trying to crush me."

"I even tried to fight back... but I was so terrified by what was happening for the first time that I did everything wrong. And to save me, my friend pushed me out of the way of one of the golem's attacks."

"The golem slammed her into the ground with a punch, and then... it started stomping on her... I heard the sound of bones breaking, that wet, squelching noise echoing through the area with sickening cracks."

"Every time I have nightmares about it, that wet sound of flesh being crushed comes to mind... and I ran... it was all I could do... I fled, let the golem kill my friend, and ran away like a coward... I always think that if I had stayed calm, I could have destroyed the golem with magic..." I tell her.

It's the first time I've told anyone about this. I notice the tears on my face. That was also the only time someone showed me so much affection, since she sacrificed herself for my life.

"..." Grace hugs me. Her embrace is warm as she strokes my head.

"That's horrible... I can't get too involved in the competition for the throne, but I hope you manage to break your curse." Her words aren't exactly comforting, but they help a lot.

"Yes... I hope... I can get rid of this curse..."

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