A man dragged his feet on the dirt path to his home.

He wore tattered old clothes, with a crudely made bow in hand and several hand made arrows in the other.

The man, Philip, wasn't limping, but simply had no motivation to reach his home. To see his loving wife and family.

(Are they going to have to go to sleep hungry again?)

That thought was all that occupied his mind.

But as he approached his home, the scent of food reached his nostrils. The smell of meat made him think that maybe a neighbour had some luck today and they were celebrating. He felt happy for them, but it wouldn't do anything for his family unless if they got a large kill. If it was only a rush rabbit, then there probably wasn't enough to share.

Philip's feet grew even more heavy. If the scent reached his home, his family would be the ones trying to hold back their hunger as they imagined what the neighbours were eating.

But no matter how much he walked, how many neighbours' homes he passed, how much closer he got to his home, the smells didn't weaken. Instead they grew stronger.

It wasn't possible.

No, maybe it was, but it was hard to get his hopes up after years of famine had struck the poor village and most of the wild game in the nearby forest had been hunted out.

People had been going in deeper and deeper into the forest in search of food and animals to hunt, but stories of people going missing or people just barely escaping strong monsters had been increasing. The local adventurer's guild had been doing all it could to bring in as much meat as it could and sell it to the village cheaply, as had Mint and his general store been buying everything it could from the villagers to sell at the nearby Linsington City, then bring back food that they gathered from more successful farming villages.

But no matter what they did, it wasn't enough.

The crops had been failing at an alarming rate year after year. Wheat simply didn't grow well in the area for some reason. Despite that, other plants grew in the soil as if the low fertility was a lie.

In particular, milkweed was easy to cultivate, and they were able to sell the threads and woven cloth made from milkweed, but they didn't sell for much in the city. It was just barely enough pay for the food to supplement their meagre wheat harvests and forest hunting. But as the wheat crops failed more and more, they were forced to rely on hunting that much more to avoid starving. That in turn meant that there was less and less animals to hunt the next year, and the year after.

For the last few years, it was rare to find anything to hunt without going deep into the forest, but not many returned.

Philip thought back to the winter more than a year before. After counting everything up, it was clear that they didn't have enough food to last the winter. If he tried to feed his whole family, then they might have had to go an entire month before the snow thawed and they could scrounge for any seeds and edible plants they could find in the forest.

Nobody in his family would survive a month without food, so together with his wife, Hilde, he made the hard choice to sacrifice one of their children in the hopes that the rest would survive.

In truth, he wanted to sacrifice himself for the sake of all his children, but doing so would doom them in the long run. With only one strong adult left, there wouldn't be anyone who could take the risks in the hopes of bringing in a kill from the forest, or to gather seeds and mushrooms where the weaker monsters might appear.

Then again, he thought, he hadn't managed to do either this day. Even scrounging the forest floor for any of it's bounty was getting harder and harder.

It wasn't just him either. It was getting rarer and rarer for anyone in the village to get much of anything from the forest.

So because of that, he and his wife decided that for the sake of everyone, they needed one less mouth to feed. Philip's first child was born with clouded eyes. The village chief had said that she would never know light her entire life. The day he discovered that, Philip and Hilde wept the entire day, mourning for the gift their daughter would never have.

Due to her cloudy eyes, she was unable to do anything on her own, and her body ended up weak as a result. Even when she was old enough to work, she needed extra time and teaching to learn anything, as she couldn't see to learn by example. Even when she did learn to do work, she couldn't do it for long, as her body was weak.

Even worse, she couldn't do any of the hard work needed to raise her level. Without eyes, she couldn't kill small animals and pests, nor could she safely do any real labour. She couldn't even play with the other kids to slowly gain XP.

His daughter was the only one he had heard of that was still at level one after six winters. Most children reached their second level by the time they were three, and by four, it was extremely rare for any children to have not have reached level two. Any normal child should have already achieved level three by the time they saw their sixth winter.

All her younger siblings did just that, and she was his only child who was still at level one, with his youngest reaching level two at the beginning of that year.

As for who to sacrifice, the choice was obvious. Both he and Hilde knew which one without asking. Most families would chose their youngest as they were the ones most vulnerable to illness. But for them, their youngest could already do more work than the oldest.

Together with his wife, Philip told their children that they were going to gather food deeper in the forest than usual, and everyone had to help so that they could bring back as much as possible.

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Philip saw his eldest's eyes glitter with excitement. The thought that she could be truly be useful for the first time in her life made her happy, and thought of the fate that he was about to condemn her made his determination waver. If Hilde hadn't put her hand on his shoulder and shook her head right then, his will might have broken right then and there.

Philip carried his daughter on his back so they could hurry and spend as much time as possible gathering everything they could.

As the trees grew bigger and bigger, the knot in the pit of his stomach grew colder and denser, but the thought of his family starving to death even with whatever they managed to bring back spurred him on.

As if for extra encouragement, he spotted the broken skull of a child lying beside one tree.

The sight reminded him that some of the people who went missing in recent years had been children. The fate of the adults who disappeared was easy for Philip to understand, but how little children, usually less than four years old, went missing had always confused him. To have thought that he wasn't the only one burdened with the sin he was in the middle of committing.

With the proof that his family wasn't the only one that had been suffering so badly, that very thought hardened his resolve.

And so, he left his elder of two daughters deep in the forest, telling her that he's be back with a basket full of the forest's bounty for her to carry home.

He wondered though, that the sad expression she made as he turned his back on his own child, if it was one made knowing what exactly he was doing. If she had known from the start what her fate was, and willing came along with that knowledge?

Philip shook his head. Such questions didn't matter. He would never see his first daughter's smile ever again.

With such memories shoved firmly in the back of his mind, the man focused on returning to his home. Tormented by the smells of dinner as his empty belly rumbled, another day gone with the food meant for him being given to one of his children instead. For Philip, it was his punishment for abandoning one of his children. It was his duty to make sure the ones that lived would continue to survive, even if he had to go most days with nothing entering his mouth but cold water and rough tree bark as he distracted his belly to the best of his ability.

But to his bewilderment, the scent of food grew stronger as he approached his home. Not just any food, but the rich scent of cooked meat.

Finally, after being starved for so long, he was convinced that he had started to hallucinate. His failure as a father meant that god had decided to finally punish him with this hallucination more real than the harsh reality he had been living up until now.

With a heavy heart, he opened the door to his home.

"Papa! It's Papa!"

"Papa! Welcome home!"

"Look Papa! It's food!"

"Welcome home dear"

Before he could take a second step into his home, Philip was assaulted by his three living children as they excitedly pulled him inside to show him the dining room table.

There, against all common sense, were plates filled with fruit. Off to the side in the kitchen was a pot on the fire brimming to capacity with with meat and vegetables.

"Wha, this...am I hallucinating?"

"I thought so too at first, but it's all real dear"

Philip's shocked question was answered by Hilde.

"How..."

"I'm not entirely sure, but do you remember this?"

Hilde pulled out some rags from a bag. It looked like a worn sack with some holes cut into it. But Philip recognized what it really was.

"That dress? Huh? Doesn't it look just like..."

He hesitated to say so, but his heart already decided that it was a fact.

"This, it looks exactly like the dress that Alicia wore, the only one she had"

But Hilde finished his thought, confirming she thought so as well.

"Then..."

A strange hope started to well up inside Philip, but he wasn't so optimistic as to let it run rampant.

"I also found this"

But as if trying to crush his common sense, Hilde showed a stone tablet with etchings on one side.

"Thank you for taking care of her until we could meet...then that means"

"She didn't die that day. Not only that, someone found her and took her in!"

"Where is she then? Did you see her"

Philip's voice rose in excitement, but Hilde's lack of an immediate response drowned his elatement quickly.

"I don't know. These, along with a large amount of food was left in front of the house. I didn't even see who left it"

"Then...but then..."

An alternate possibility started to surface, but no matter how much Philip tried to swallow it down, it refused to sink.

"Maybe she didn't want to see us. No, that's probably the case. Why would she want to look on the faces of the parents who abandoned her?"

"Maybe, but then, why would she leave such gifts?"

If that was true, then the very sight of these gifts went in contrary to how their daughter probably felt about her parents.

"I don't know, but maybe she wasn't the one who decided that"

"What do you mean?"

"As I came back from sharing the food with the neighbours, Russel came by to offer some food. Apparently someone came to the guild and sold enough meat to feed the entire village, so he came to trade some of it so we could eat. He was pretty surprised when he found out that someone had left so much food at our doorsteps."

"Someone did something like that as well?"

Philip was amazed. With how difficult it was to hunt lately, whoever it was must've been strong enough to hunt in the deeper parts of the forest. There was no reason for such a person to sell food at a place like this that couldn't afford to give good prices.

"Not only that, but apparently she spent most of the money she earned from selling the meat to buy things at Mint's. Everything she bought was something made in the village on top of that"

"That...how could such a good person even exist?"

"I don't know, but Russel said her name was Scarlet"

"Like in the stories?"

"She said that she was named after her"

"She sounds more like the person herself if you ask me"

"I think so too. Maybe unlike the stories, she survived that damn hero?"

"Or maybe god gave her a second chance after her life was cut short?"

"If anyone deserved such a thing, it would probably be her, wouldn't it?"

"I think so too. We're really in a blessed age if Scarlet had returned"

"Papa! Mama! We're hungry!"

"That's right! I wanna eat!"

"Food! Food!"

"Alright everyone, settle down. We'll start eating immediately"

"""Yay!"""

 

"Ahh, she's gone"

*Whack!*

"Hey what the hell?!"

The young cat tribe beastkin man, Aaron, pulled his triangular ears back as he held the bump forming on his head.

"It's your fault she ran away!"

"Haaa? How's it my fault?!"

"How about how you keep on hitting on anything with tits?"

"Ahh, she really had big tits though"

"Aargh! That's why she ran away!"

The young human woman, Mary, held her head in both hands in frustration.

"Hey, maybe she really had some business she needed to attend to?"

"In the middle of the night?!"

"That's right! If anything, we should've offered her a place to rest!"

"You just wanted to sleep with her!"

"What's wrong with that?"

"Everything!"

"Hey stop it you two!"

Mary and Aaron glared at each other once again, ignoring Jason, who was technically the leader of this adventurer party.

"Now now, she might've had her own circumstances. The sun had sunk quite a while ago, yet she appeared out of nowhere. She might really have had urgent business to attend to"

"See? Even Mint thinks I'm right"

"Grrrr..."

"But that doesn't excuse the fact that we were rude to our saviour, nor the fact that we hadn't been able to thank her properly"

The condescending face along with the frustrated face both turned into gloomy expressions at once. What their employer said was right after all.

"Haaa...I would've liked to at least found out her name though"

"Same here. Such a cute girl must've had a cute name to go with it"

"No, it would've been something sexy, with such big tits like that"

"No way! She was small and cute! She must've had a cute name!"

"She was small, but those tits were the real thing, unlike a certain someone I could mention"

"Why you!"

"I said stop it!"

Once again the pair got into another fight and were forced apart by their supposed party leader. It was because this was such a common occurrence that he felt more like a baby sitter than an actual party leader though.

*clap clap*

"Now everyone, I know you're tired, but we still have work to do. Imagine how happy everyone'll be when they find out that you brought the meat and hides from so many loam wolves"

"Umm...before that, I think you might want to clean yourself up?"

Raining on Mint's parade, Jason held out a water skin.

The older man looked down at himself before accepting the skin and hid himself on the other side of the wagon where the sound of water splashing around came before he returned, wearing a pair of recently wrung out pants.

"Ahem! Anyways, would your families be happy to have meat to eat and hides to work into sellable items?"

Acting as if the last minute hadn't happened, Mint clapped his hands once more and offered the trio some rewarding work.

"Is it really alright to take these though? We didn't help kill a single one"

"Can't we consider it a gift?"

"Haa? A gift on top of saving our lives? What kind of selfish prick are you?"

"And what, you want to just leave all these loam wolves here to rot? If she didn't want it for herself, then it would be rude not to make use of it!"

"That's just you and your selfish reasoning!"

Once again, the pair started to fight.

"Now now, what you both say is right. It is rude to take it without permissions, but she also left without any indication of wanting any of it. If we meet again, then I'll take responsibility for any misunderstandings. Fortunately, it looked like she came from Edgeworth, so someone might know something about her"

"You heard old man Mint, let's get to work you guys!"

"Who's the old man?!"

Pretending not to hear the merchant's words, the trio pulled out their knives and opened up the carcasses to drain the blood and remove the organs. Fortunately for them, their mysterious saviour had remembered to undo her magic before running off.

 

The next day as the sky started to darken slightly, the group finally managed to reach their destination.

Expecting to be welcomed like heroes having brought back the corpses of 23 fresh wolf kills, the three adventurers and one merchant were rudely surprised by the smell of cooked meat wafting around all over the village.

"Oh hey, you guys are back!"

"Hey Zimmer. What's going on? I can smell something delicious from even over here. Did someone manage to catch something big?"

"No, even better. There's talk that the legendary saint came back and spent some time in the village!"

"The saint? You mean Scarlet?! Hey hey, even as a joke, you shouldn't be calling her a saint"

Unlike a simple village guard, Mint understood the danger of calling someone a saint when the church hadn't ordained them. While it had been kept deep under wraps, there were plenty of rumours that unordained saints generally disappeared. It wasn't like it happened often, but that was more due to the lack of people being called saints by the public without the church's permission.

But to people with wide information networks like merchants, they couldn't help but think of such things as suspicious, even if there wasn't any grounds to be suspicious. But the fact was, the incident with Scarlet herself was widely suspected to have been an assassination rather than an accident amongst merchants and other groups unaffiliated with the church that benefited from Scarlet's philanthropy.

It wasn't like they thought the church was evil, but rather that it was simply an organization like any other. And all large organizations had dark shadows, no matter how pretty the window dressing were.

What made her death especially suspicious was both the fact that she was known to be pretty powerful person with a high level, along with the fact that there were records that she extended a hand even to those that the church openly condemned. She wasn't one to differentiate nor discriminate, and gave succour freely.

Among some of the more famous stories were those where she aided known criminals. And due to the mercy they received, those criminals turned their back on their dark past and started to walk in the light, helping others in similar ways to how they had been helped. In fact, there were many orphanages, soup kitchens, and shelters that were in fact famous for being started by those exact criminals, and carried Scarlet's name as an eternal reminder.

Most importantly though, was the fact that the one to have slain her was a hero, a venerable figure ordained by the church. The very fact that Scarlet just happened to be near a group of demons that hero was after, only to be mistaken as one of them, was a suspicious point. In fact, that point ruined that particular hero, as he lost the trust of both the people and many major organizations. With the public trust at stake, the church had no choice but to abandon support for the hero as well

But when they tried to posthumously ordain Scarlet as a saint, the public in turn struck back, with rumours spreading that there was a greater reason why Scarlet never joined the church in the first place.

After that, the church lost quite a lot of influence for decades until the public forgot the details not told explicitly in the old stories.

Ever since then, Scarlet had been a sensitive issue for the church, one that still, centuries later, got people in trouble whenever they got wind that people were still calling her a saint.

"Well, I don't know the details, but apparently some girl stopped by the adventurer's guild and sold off a ton of meat in exchange for registering as an adventurer"

"Really? That's pretty nice, but I don't see how it's connected to the legends"

"The thing is, when she registered, it turned out her name was Scarlet"

"That's...quite interesting, but Scarlet isn't that rare of a name"

It was still a relatively popular name amongst the poor. There was even a girl with that name in this very village.

"But it's not just that. According to Russel, her skin was as white as snow, just like in the legends"

"Wait, a girl with snow white skin?!"

"Was she really cute and a bit small?!"

"Hey! Don't let go! Come back and help me!"

Suddenly, two of the young adventurers started to run over to get more information, but were forced back to help guide the overloaded wagon through the village gates.

"That certainly is quite the coincidence, I'll admit"

Mint turned to watch the trio to make sure they didn't do something stupid again right as they were reaching the end of their job.

"Yea, but it gets even better. Right after she registered and got her money, the girl went to your store and spent most of it immediately!"

"Haaa...while I admit I'm happy to have a bit of extra income, but that's hardly praiseworthy"

"No, not just that, but everything she bought were things that were made here in the village!"

"Almost everything sold in my store is made in the village. The only things that aren't are the preserved food I brought over from the city"

"Yea, but here's the best part. Apparently she knew Alicia, you know, Philip and Hilde's girl that went missing a year ago? Apparently she found her and took care of her, then went to their house and left behind a ton more food! So much that together with the stuff she sold, we're still eating it even though she first came yesterday morning!"

"That's, certainly pretty amazing. She really did do her namesake proud..."

But something in the guard's story tugged at the back of Mint's mind.

"You said she was a girl with pale skin like snow, right?"

"That's right. Apparently she was really beautiful too"

"Did she have long silver hair with a big pink ribbon along with a heavy black robe and a big, fluffy hat?"

"An elf too! She had those cute, pointed ears as well! She must've been pretty young since she was shorter than me!"

With the mystery girl's appearance being discussed, Mary suddenly joined in as the wagon was finished being moved to the side of the main road.

"But she had those tits too! Ones so big you wouldn't imagine them from those usually stick-like elves!"

"Was she really an elf though? I could've sworn her eyes were red"

As Aaron interjected, adding the details he felt were most important, Jason asked his own question.

"Huh? They were red? You sure you weren't seeing things? I've never seen a person with red eyes, elf or not"

"I think so too. It was pretty dark and she was wearing a hat. I only know she's sexy cuz of her nice voice"

"Haaa?! Is that the only thing you care about? Tits and sexiness?! You damn pervert!"

"Better than a girl without any sex appeal"

"Hey you two, not again!"

As usual, the duo got into another fight, with their third trying to do his best to break things up.

"Hey hey, by any chance you saw her on your way here?"

"Maybe. Yesterday night, we were attacked by a large pack of loam wolves lead by an alpha loam wolf. To be honest, I thought we were done for, but all of the sudden, a girl in all black appeared from the sky and wiped out all the wolves at once. It didn't even take a second"

"Man, that sounds amazing! I really wish I saw her, but apparently nobody saw her leave the village. From what I heard, Alan was the last person to have seen her"

"That lazy bum huh? I bet she ran away because he started hitting on her"

"Haha, it wouldn't be the first time"

"But nobody saw her leave the village?"

"Yea, it's strange. Nathan didn't even notice her approaching the walls until she suddenly yelled out to him apparently. He said it was like she was invisible until she called out to him, but I think he was probably just half asleep and didn't notice"

"Invisible huh? Maybe she really could go invisible?"

"What sort of grass are you smoking Mint. You know nobody can do that"

The guard looked at the merchant half in pity, and in exasperation.

"No, actually it is possible, but you need to be pretty strong in [Light Magic] to do it well I hear"

"So you think this girl's a master at [Light Magic] then?"

"More than just that. She killed all those wolves using [Earth Magic], and it looked like she killed the alpha loam wolf with a single kick"

"That's...pretty impressive alright"

"Not only that, but when those three bumbling fools scared her off, she turned invisible after a bit of running"

"You even saw it with your own eyes huh? Maybe she really can do it then"

"Ah! Don't forget! She's an elf too!"

As if forgetting everything that lead to the earlier fight, Mary yelled out again.

"Hmmm? Well, sure, but how is that relevant?"

Not sure where she was going with this, Mint threw out the unassuming question.

"Don't you remember? As she was running, she called out to something before turning invisible! If she was an elf, then that was definitely some spirits, right?"

"That! That's actually..."

As if the puzzle pieces he didn't even know he had suddenly clicked together, a new realization arrived in Mint's mind.

"You're right. She did call out to something, like she had a group of kids following after her"

"Huh, but that just confirms she's an elf, right?"

But contrary to Zimmer's words, Mint shook his head.

"No, elves can sense spirits, sure, but most can't see them at all. The best they can do roughly feel where they are. In fact, this isn't unique to the elves at all. There's a bunch of people from other races who can do exactly that, but people who can actually see spirits are incredibly rare. Mostly just the elven elders and spiritualists. But that girl did what few even amongst even they can do, which was talk to them"

"You say that, but all she did was call out to them. All she said was 'hey we're going' or something, right?"

Jason tried to refute his employer's words.

"You don't get it. She yelled that with the presumption that they could understand her, like it was a normal thing. It's not like whistling and waving at an animal you own in the hopes that they'd come over, but an act with the full belief that they understood her and were willing to follower her orders"

"So...?"

"The thing is, from what I've heard, anyone who could do this was only able to manage it after centuries of practice. It takes decades for most elves to learn to see spirits, and many more on top of that to learn how to communicate with them"

"What are you trying to say?"

Unable to see where the merchant's words were going, the guard finally asked.

"Maybe this isn't a revival, but she actually is the one and the same Scarlet from the legends?"

"Is that possible?"

"That hero never brought back a body. We only have the word of a disgraced hero that she even died"

"So you really think that after centuries of hiding, the legendary saint has come back?"

"I don't know. I don't know, but...maybe there's more to it than a girl who simply has the same name by chance?"