It was supposed to be easy.
All I had to do was be cruel to the downtrodden. Say something heartless. Step over a starving child without blinking. Toss a bag of gold and laugh about how little it was worth. You know—classic villainess behavior. I'd been rehearsing lines in the mirror.
But no one warned me the slums would smell like burnt beans and grief.
And no one warned me the kids would have the same look I used to see in the mirror when I ran out of instant noodles before payday.
The carriage ride had been full of promise. The good kind. The "your reputation is about to tank harder than your grades in high school" kind.
Five paladins flanked me like overprotective tin cans. All tall, armored, glowy, and deeply unimpressed with life. One of them, Ser Damar, had a chin sharp enough to file paperwork on. He also had the unfortunate aura of someone who believed deodorant was for peasants and mercy was optional.
"We're entering District Twelve" he'd said, voice flat. "Known for petty theft, disease, and three confirmed cults."
I nodded solemnly. "Excellent. Let's commit a little PR suicide."
⋆⁺₊✧༚˚. ᗢ .˚༚✧₊⁺⋆
When I said I wanted to ruin my reputation, I didn't mean it in the "saint tours the slums and spits at orphans" kind of way.
But here I was.
Rocking gently in a gilded white carriage with gold-embossed holy seals and the most obnoxiously visible sigil of the Church stamped on every damn panel. We weren't sneaking in. We were announcing our arrival like a parade float.
The slums smelled like smoke, piss, and boiled cabbage. And something else I couldn't quite place—desperation, maybe. Poverty had a texture here. It clung to the stones, the broken shutters, the silence of people watching from dark doorways like ghosts.
This should've been the perfect place to start my villain arc.
All I had to do was sneer, scoff, maybe step on a rat with my pristine church shoes and call it a day. Saintly credibility: gone. Reputation: shattered in scandalous pieces.
But then a kid ran in front of the carriage.
Not dramatically. Not like the start of a musical number. Just a small, starved child—clothes torn, face dirt-smudged—stumbling into our path with a look that said: please, someone, do anything.
And Ser Damar, the lead paladin, drew his sword.
I didn't think. I just yelled.
"STOP."
The divine reinforcement in my voice cracked the air like thunder. The carriage horses reared, and Damar's blade halted mid-arc, catching the light like a holy threat.
The kid froze too. So did I, honestly.
I slid out of the carriage, hit the ground, and walked straight up to the paladin. My heels clicked against the stone like judgment itself. Damar didn't flinch, but I saw his jaw tighten.
"He's just a child" I said.
"He approached with unnatural haste" Damar replied stiffly, like that justified almost cleaving a nine-year-old.
"He's barefoot. His ribs are showing. You think he's got assassination training?"
"My lady, pardon my rudeness—if you permit poor behavior," he said, "they'll learn to exploit kindness."
"Good." I smiled, all teeth. "Let them do so. Let them learn that kindness works. Let them exploit it so hard they get to eat tonight."
There was a pause. The other paladins looked anywhere but at us. The child was still standing there—not running, just… staring at me like he didn't know if this was real or another hallucination caused by hunger.
I crouched down and offered him the bread Lucien had been eating.
Yes, I brought toast. No, I'm not proud of it. Lucien insisted I "mingle properly," and he was mid-bite when the day turned into a moral reckoning.
The kid took it.
His fingers were trembling.
And I—dammit, I felt something twist inside me. Something warm. Something soft. Something deeply inconvenient.
So that was the end of that. No reputation ruined for now.
⋆⁺₊✧༚˚. ᗢ .˚༚✧₊⁺⋆
We spent the next hour walking through the slums.
People didn't come running. They didn't cheer or weep or reach for blessings. Most of them just watched from windows or alleyways like I was another politician trying to collect pity points.
I hated that they were right.
I hated it more that I wanted to prove them wrong.
Every child I passed that looked too thin, I glanced at twice. Every collapsed roof made me itch to summon a shelter spell. And when a girl coughed blood into her sleeve and tried to pretend she hadn't—I stopped, dropped to one knee, and healed her anyway.
A warm light passed from my hand into her chest, and she gasped like she hadn't taken a proper breath in weeks.
"…Why?" she whispered.
I couldn't tell her "Because I want to get excommunicated but I'm weak to tragic backstories" so I just said, "Because you needed it."
"B-but Mother said that I'm a waste of air—"
"You're not."
Word spread. Not fast, but enough.
Soon the kids were trailing me. Hesitant at first, then bold, then laughing. Someone handed me a flower that was just a stem with half a petal. I wore it in my hair anyway.
And that's when it hit me: I was being saintly.
I was actively healing the public image I was supposed to be destroying. This was not what I had in mind.
Goddammit.
⋆⁺₊✧༚˚. ᗢ .˚༚✧₊⁺⋆
We were wrapping up.
Lucien said we had ten minutes left before I needed to bless a guildhall or shake hands with a noble or some other pointless saintly PR stunt. I was already rehearsing how to fake a nosebleed to get out of it when I saw them.
A woman and a man. In a side alley, partially obscured by hanging laundry and warped wooden planks. She was maybe in her thirties, clothes threadbare, shoes more hole than fabric. He was taller, red-faced, and holding a crumpled sack in one hand like he was owed the world.
She passed him a few coins—four, maybe five copper bits. Not much, but not nothing. And he slapped them out of her hand.
"I told you I need a silver, Merna!" he snapped. "Not your street rat scraps!"
Then he raised his hand.
I didn't think.
I was already moving.
My boots hit the cobblestones harder than I meant, a soft pulse of light trailing my steps as if even my rage came pre-blessed. Damar tried to say something behind me, but I was halfway through the alley before anyone caught up.
The man hadn't even registered me yet.
Which was his mistake.
Because I caught his wrist mid-swing, my fingers wrapped tight enough that he hissed in surprise. A flash of holy resonance rippled between us—sharp and electric.
"You want to hit someone?" I said, voice low. "Try me."
He looked up, and the blood drained from his face.
Now, I didn't look particularly threatening. My robes were immaculate. My hair had literal divine highlights. I probably smelled like lavender and incense.
But apparently glowing gold with righteous fury does something to the average man's fight-or-flight.
"Y-Your Holiness!" he stammered. "This is a misunderstanding—she owes me—"
"She gave you what she had."
"It's not enough!"
"Oh" I said, nodding thoughtfully. "You're right."
Then I raised my free hand and cast.
Nothing flashy. Just a resonance of Boundaries. One of the cleaner, more socially-acceptable affinities. A shimmer pulsed between him and the woman—an invisible barrier that would repel him like a wall if he so much as thought about raising his hand again.
"I've decided it's not enough either" I continued, smiling. "Which is why you'll be delivering her double what she gave you by sundown. If you don't, I'll know. And next time? I won't stop at a wall."
He looked like he wanted to argue. He also looked like he was two seconds from peeing himself. The barrier gave a faint hum when he edged near it, and he stumbled back with a yelp.
I turned to the woman. "Are you alright?"
She was staring at me like I'd just walked off the moon.
"…Yes, Your Holiness" she whispered. "Thank you."
"I didn't do it for you" I muttered, brushing off my robes. "I did it because my reputation was recovering too fast and I thought threatening a man would balance the scales."
She smiled at my musing.
Dammit.
Lucien arrived a moment later, looking too pleased.
"I see Your Holiness is establishing public order with zeal."
"I'm establishing nothing. He was a dick."
"And now he is humbled."
"Lucien, I swear to every pantheon in this country, if you quote scripture at me right now—"
"I would never. But I do feel obligated to mention this moment of righteous wrath may be recorded as a minor miracle if the woman files a testimony."
"I'm going to kill something."
"Not in public, my lady" he said. "There's not a form for murder."
As we left, I caught Damar looking back at the slums with something like discomfort.
"Still worried they'll exploit kindness?" I asked.
He was quiet a long time before answering.
"…I think they've forgotten what kindness looks like. Also, Lord Lucien is currently negotiating with Baron Falkhen to direct some of the budget here to fix it."
And now I couldn't even be mad at him anymore.
Perfect. Wonderful. Outstanding failure.
⋆⁺₊✧༚˚. ᗢ .˚༚✧₊⁺⋆
Lucien POV:
As the paladins escorted Her Holiness away—chattering amongst themselves, still high off the adrenaline of her spontaneous divine smackdown—Lucien lingered.
No one questioned it. He always lingered. Smiling. Polite. Helpful. Who would suspect anything when he was the Saint's most loyal attendant? When his every step practically radiated floral-scented sunshine?
He waited for the paladins to round the corner. Waited for Iris's robes to disappear into the weave of the city streets.
Then he exhaled slowly, the fake warmth bleeding out of his face like candlewax.
Behind him, the shadows shifted.
Four figures peeled themselves from the walls of the alley, silent and featureless. Black-cloaked, hooded, masked—completely unremarkable in that way that meant they were trained to be unremarkable. Blink and they were gone.
Lucien didn't look at them as he spoke. Just stared down at the piss-scared man still trembling against the alley wall, eyes wide and wet with fear.
"The Saint was very kind today" Lucien said, voice quiet. Calm. Almost gentle.
The man flinched like those words were a curse.
"She gave you a chance. That doesn't happen often."
The man opened his mouth to speak. Beg. Plead. Maybe lie.
Lucien finally looked at him—and his smile was ice.
"You spat on it."
He turned his head slightly, just enough for the shadows behind him to catch the cue.
"Clean it up" he said. "No screaming. She's still within earshot."
The man's face twisted in horror. "Please—I—I didn't know it was her—I thought she was just some noble brat—!"
Lucien sighed, tired. "And if she wasn't? You'd have struck a woman for coins anyway."
His voice, still so pleasant, was devoid of mercy.
"She doesn't need to know about this. And she won't. Because you're going to disappear quietly, like the shit stain you are."
The shadows moved.
There was no sound. No scream. Just a soft footstep, a swish of cloak, and then—
Silence.
Lucien didn't watch. He didn't need to. He was already checking his timepiece.
"Three minutes" he murmured. "Plenty of time to catch up."
"For the others—make it quick and painless" he added with a slight frown. "Unless they resist. Or unless you find out they're affiliated with the Red Roots. Then, by all means…"
He turned back toward the main road, slipping the warm, affable expression back onto his face like an old glove. It fit perfectly.
By the time he reached Iris's side again, he was smiling once more.
"You seemed very moved by that woman's courage" he said sweetly. "I'm sure the people will hear of it by sundown."
She didn't even glance at him.
"Shut up, Lucien."
"As you command, Your Holiness."
And the day continued.