I refused the crown prince's proposal because I'm gay!

Chapter 14

Five hours earlier...

After parting ways from the party, Blanca offered one of her maids to show Anri to her quarters.

The name of the maid was Claire, the most loyal servant of the villainess Blanca.

In the novel, this undying loyalty was only mentioned once in the final chapter, "As her mistress slowly approaches the gallows to meet her end, Claire makes one more attempt to sabotage the execution. But her efforts were in vain, and paid with her life."

"Saintess Serena."

Anri snapped out of her thoughts and turned towards the owner of the voice addressing her so formally. Claire smiled and bowed as she delivered the message, "Lady Blanca wishes to see you later this evening privately, so make sure no one sees you."

After relaying the message from her lady, Claire stood back upright, then rolled her eyes, "Not that you need to make an effort trying to conceal yourself from the other servants in this manor, those idiots can't even spot an elephant ribbon dancing in front of their faces." Claire's voice was full of disdain, as she insults the incompetence of the lazy servants.

Claire bowed once more and as she walked away, she muttered a few words under her breath. And because of the gradually increasing distance, Anri couldn't quite catch everything Claire said, "...information broker is still...yesterday ... skip town? ...raise."

'Information broker?' Anri thought deeply to herself, 'I only know one, did Blanca make contact with them?'

In the novel, the Information Broker was a mysterious character that appeared every now and then in Francis' route. How did the Prince know about all his attempted assassinations? The Information Broker! How did Francis get his hands on a wide variety of books? The Information Broker! Where does this vaguely valuable treasure come from? You guessed it, The Information Broker! To crudely sum it up the Information Broker was a means to drive the plot further and patch up any plot holes.

Invading into the saintess' thoughts, the goddess reminds the girl of her glorious existence by inputting, "Should you really worry about such meaningless things right now, Dear?"

'Oh, why hello Mother,' Anri blankly replied, 'to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?'

"I'm just popping by to see if you're still alive," Empusa answered, asking, "Now where are my millions of followers? I should have billions of prayers rolling in every hour. Why else would I have granted you such a high aptitude of holy magic."

Anri gasped dramatically, "Oh I have failed you. Please, O Great One, guide this lost child."

Silently closing the doors behind her, Anri took a quick glance around. It seems Miss Claire's insults hold some merits. The room was stuffy and the curtains are either ripped or barely clinging to their hinges. The other furniture are fine except for the fact that everything is covered in a layer of dust. They are lucky the saintess is immune to every type of disease and allergies thanks to Goddess Empusa's blessing.

Anri wasn't too shaken up about the state of the room, after all for most of her previous life she had to live in poverty and fought with other kids for food at the orphanage. But her benefactor thinks otherwise.

"I've known this for a long time, but the humans of this era don't take my existence as seriously as they should." Empusa remarks. "To think they have the audacity to prepared such a room for my messenger"

Anri just shrugged, brushing Empusa's comment aside. Anri then closed her eyes and brought her hands together. Her chest warms up as she stirs the holy magic within herself, preparing to thoroughly purify the room.