Chapter 1

One day, Ines suddenly had a thought.

When my husband returns, I should divorce him.

‘Why have I suddenly decided to do this?’

Strangely enough, there was no particular reason. She had simply woken up one morning and found herself thinking that it was time to do it.

Even she couldn’t explain what had prompted such an abrupt decision.

All she knew was that, for some reason, her stubborn obsession with clinging to this mansion had vanished in an instant. She no longer felt the need to remain attached to a meaningless marriage.

‘That’s right. Now that I think about it, it was strange that I kept trying to maintain this marriage in the first place.’

She hadn’t married him for love.

Ines and her husband had married for one reason alone: they needed each other. Each had chosen the other as a means of resolving their own predicament.

That was all their marriage had ever been—a contract.

As it happened, a letter had arrived at the mansion a few days earlier.

It announced the official return of Jekard Evanhart, the great war hero.

After five years away, her husband had finally won the war against the monsters and was returning home in triumph as a celebrated hero.

In other words, the contract between them would soon come to an end.

‘I’ve managed to endure five years without incident. I’ve fulfilled my obligations, too.’

According to the letter, her husband would return in a month’s time.

It was a long time, and yet, in some ways, it was short.

Ines calmly took stock of her situation.

There was her mother-in-law, the former duchess, who still hated her with a passion despite the five years of their marriage. There was her husband, whose face she could barely remember anymore. And then there was this cold domain, where no one was pleased to have her around.

There was no reason for Ines to remain here.

‘That’s right. As soon as my husband returns, I’ll tell him I’m leaving.’

Spring had finally arrived.

Ines decided to divorce her husband.

Ines Chartier was a candidate for Saintess.

More precisely, she had once been a candidate for Saintess. She had lost that qualification after entering into a contractual marriage with Jekard at his proposal.

‘Although, even if that hadn’t happened, I would have been cast out eventually.’

To explain how it had all come to this, one had to go back to the beginning.

“The next Saintess will be chosen from among these candidates.”

In the Holy Empire of Ethila, there were four noble houses said to have received the blessing of the Supreme God, Ethernel, for leading the effort to seal the Evil God during the empire’s founding.

Ines belonged to one of those four houses: House Chartier.

“A divine oracle has revealed that one of the sisters will become the next Saintess. We have high hopes for both girls, so raise them well.”

When Ines was eight years old, people from the temple came to visit.

According to the oracle they delivered, one of the Chartier sisters would become the next Saintess.

Furthermore, after interpreting various signs and omens, the temple had concluded that the next Saintess would possess the greatest divine power of any Saintess in history. It was practically proof that the Supreme God would shower her with His favor.

Naturally, Ines’s parents were overjoyed by the prophecy.

After all, House Chartier was the only one among the four great holy houses that had never produced a Saintess. It had also been a long time since the family had produced even a respectable priest.

Hearing a prophecy that a Saintess of unparalleled greatness would finally emerge from their house was more than enough to fill them with excitement.

“We shall keep that in mind. We will raise the girls properly.”

And so, what should have been a blessing became the beginning of Ines’s tragedy.

From that day forward, her parents subjected both sisters to a brutal education.

“Why can’t you even do this much?!”

“Get up this instant!”

“You won’t eat until you’ve memorized the entire scripture.”

Her parents had never been particularly affectionate to begin with. Ines, especially, had always maintained a distant relationship with them, perhaps because of her uncharming personality. Unlike her younger sister, who knew how to flatter their parents and win their affection, Ines had never been good at acting cute to please others.

‘It’s fine. I can handle this much.’

Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—Ines was resilient.

She quietly and diligently endured the education, or rather, the trials imposed upon her.

Did she want to become the Saintess?

Perhaps not.

She simply didn’t want to disappoint her parents.

“Why does my older sister keep getting punished?”

“Ines simply lacks the necessary talent. We must awaken her divine power, even if it means making her suffer.”

Even when she realized that her younger sister, who was far more talented than her, had never once been struck…

She convinced herself that there was nothing to be done about it.

She was the one who lacked talent, after all.

But some things were simply never meant to be.

“Unbelievable! Such pure divine power!”

At long last, the fateful day arrived.

Before a vast assembly of people at the Grand Temple, her younger sister, Elise, awakened as the Saintess in a dazzling display of divine power.

“Just as the prophecy foretold! Elise Chartier will become a Saintess whose name will be remembered throughout history!”

Everyone erupted in cheers at the birth of their new Saintess.

And Ines…

“…It’s hard to believe they’re even sisters. How pitiful.”

All she had managed to produce was a thin strand of pale light, barely glowing above her palm.

That was all.

“Congratulations. House Chartier will finally have its moment in the sun.”

People laughed and chatted merrily.

Her parents modestly pretended to downplay their achievement even as they basked in their newfound glory, while the priests sang their praises.

And then there was…

“…Give up, Sister. You’ll never make it.”

Her younger sister, looking down at her with pity.

No—Saintess Elise.

Even now, Ines could not forget the look in her sister’s eyes that day.

Still, she endured.

‘…It’s fine. I never expected anything in the first place.’

The truth was, she had always known.

There had been a vast difference between her and Elise from the very beginning.

But preparing herself for disappointment didn’t mean she could simply make peace with it.

“You’re truly useless.”

The frigid gaze.

The contempt lurking within it.

Once even the faint hope that she might one day become a Saintess had disappeared, Ines’s heart began to crumble.

And that was when Jekard Evanhart reached out his hand to her.

“Let’s make a deal.”

One day, Jekard appeared out of the blue and proposed a contractual marriage.

He explained that he needed a wife in name only to secure his succession to the ducal title.

He needed someone befitting his status as a duke, yet powerless enough that she would never be able to exert any real influence over him.

“I will be leaving for the battlefield soon. All you need to do is remain in the position of Duchess until I return.”

The northern domain of Evanhart lay farther away than Ines, who had spent her entire life in the capital, could ever have imagined.

Unlike the four great holy houses, House Evanhart had been incorporated into the empire at a later date in recognition of its achievements in hunting monsters. As a result, the ducal estate was situated a great distance from the capital.

But what other choice did she have?

Ines had spent her entire life looking toward one goal: becoming the Saintess. When that entire world came crashing down around her, the man who reached out to her seemed like a beautiful savior.

Without hesitation, Ines took Jekard’s hand.

It had already been five years since she had arrived in the Evanhart domain with him.

‘A lot has happened since then.’

Just as he had promised, Jekard left for the battlefield immediately after their wedding.

Alone in a place where she knew not a single soul, Ines had to fight another difficult battle—one different from the struggles she had endured at the temple.

There were even moments when she wondered if it might have been better to stay with her family after all, futile as such thoughts were…

‘No. Enough. I shouldn’t dwell on unpleasant things.’

No matter how painful those years had been, they were finally coming to an end.

Five years.

It was by no means a short time.

‘As soon as he arrives, I’ll tell him I want a divorce.’

Fortunately, for once in her life, even the gods seemed to be on Ines’s side.

She recalled a conversation she’d had a few days earlier with her mother-in-law, Selena Evanhart, the former Duchess of Evanhart.

“You’ve heard the rumors, haven’t you? The rumors that my son has found another woman.”

That was what Selena had told her.

Her husband, Jekard Evanhart, had fallen in love with Saintess Elise on the battlefield.

“I hear the new Saintess and Jekard are very close. Apparently, it’s an open secret among the knights.”

And it wasn’t just among the knights.

The rumor had spread throughout the capital, far from the front lines, and had even reached this distant northern domain.

Considering that it had long since reached Ines, who had no close confidants to bring her such news, there was little doubt about how widely it had spread.

The love between the hero Jekard and Saintess Elise.

Everyone was captivated by the beautiful, romantic tale, as if it had come straight out of a fairy tale.

Because of this, people all over the empire were saying the same thing.

When the great war hero Jekard Evanhart finally returned, he would divorce his wicked wife, whose only purpose had been to serve as a wife in name, and at long last find true love with the Saintess.