“Hey, do you need help then? About that charity thing? I mean, if we’re staying here to get that in order, I can hardly stand around doing nothing.”

  N-no, wait!

  Stella knew this was coming. It was why she didn’t overtly say anything about her having trouble before Phoebe ruined it all. That jerk maid of hers. Stella was definitely going to talk her down later. She was messing with her far too much! Ignoring the fact that Phoebe was on point about Stella wanting to delay because she wanted to show off to Marcus, Stella also didn’t want to bother Marcus too much.

  After hearing about Marcus’s grueling story, the main thing Stella cared about wasn’t Marcus killing the Death God or anything else; it was the fact that she realized that beneath the tough guy facade that Marcus created and maintained for himself, he was quite the tired guy. Ever since saving Stella, Marcus has had headache after headache thrown at him.

  He already served. He already saved mankind once and ensured peace for centuries, for no recognition. The only reward he received upon returning was more work to do, and Marcus, as Stella learned, was a serial workaholic. He would never rest until he finished work, even if that work wasn’t for him.

  As such, if he knew about Stella’s troubles, he would certainly not get a wink of rest that he so sorely deserved at this point. She wanted to let him kick back and relax in the piece of safe haven she carved for herself in the Royal Palace.

  “Marcus,” Stella spoke up, her pointy ears quivering a bit. Shamefully, she actually did feel nice that he offered help. To Stella, it was a form of affection she had come to like. But she didn’t really like asking for more. “To be honest, I think I can do this myself.”

  “No can do, I want to see how you work on it too. Besides, charity seems like interesting work. Quite frankly, the only work I know so far is killing people.”

  “M-Marcus! There you go again, thinking about more work. I…admittedly, wanted you to rest here instead.”

  Her voice became more subdued. “Um…you see, I’ve already asked so much from you. This would be another—”

  “Then I’ll ask for myself. Hey, can I help you? I want to help you.”

  “Marcus…that’s unfair.”

  Now, instead of Stella being the one asking for aid, it was Marcus asking to poke his nose into Stella’s business. Unfortunately, Stella internally wanted Marcus’s help, even if she preferred for him to stay put and have fun in the capital. After all, she was a bit of a greedy girl inside in some ways.

  But she held the line. Raising her chin with a pout, she crossed her arms.

  “Stella, what is it now?”

  “Even if you wanted to help, how would you even help?” Stella started speaking rapidly. “After all, charity work is a bit more complex than just attacking an enemy. I have to find the right people, organize them, give them money and work, find the people in need that should receive aid, and then help them out. And the people in need ranges from those who are just starving, to people who have health problems, to people just trying to find a job—”

  “Pfft.”

  “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing. I guess even you know that all I know is war, huh?”

  Stella’s eyes widened. “W-wait, that’s not what I meant!”

  I just want you to back off and rest. Damn it, I’m so silly!

  “That’s also why I partially wanted to ask you this. Well, it’s mostly because I’m interested in what you’re doing and in helping you, but…” Marcus lightly scratched the back of his head with that trademark silly awkward smile on his face. “I’m somewhat doing this for myself. After all, once the Death God Cult is gone and all that, what else is there for me to do?”

  “...What?”

  “At this rate, the only path forward in life that I’ll have is either lazing around with the money I reappropriated from those stupid cultists or becoming some kind of a mercenary. I mean, that’s where my skillset lies.”

  Marcus placed a hand on his chin. “I suppose I can be like those wizards in those towers who spend their lives reaching the pinnacle of magic, which I’d like to do too on the side, but what’s the point if I won’t be using it for some kind of job? It’ll be like being retired but also not. I don’t want that. I want purpose.”

  “You want…purpose?”

  “Yeah?” Marcus laughed to himself. “I don’t know. I’ve already…done a lot of things, so now I’m running out of what to do. I have to be something. I realize I’m actually still young. I’ve got a lot of time to burn. I don’t want to spend that time being nobody.”

  “Marcus, you’ll never be nobody.”

  “If I lazed around doing nothing all the time, then I’ll be a nobody. I want some work that makes me feel fulfilled. Killing bad people is one thing, but…looking at you.”

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  Marcus smiled. “You seem quite fulfilled by directly saving good people. I’m quite envious of that. It’s true purpose in life, which I lack. Will you let me selfishly copy you, perhaps?”

  A purpose in life, huh. So Marcus…doesn’t want to rest.

  Stella made a mistake. She assumed that what Marcus needed was to lie around doing nothing, because she felt bad about him. It must have been her ego blinding her again and making her do baseless assumptions. Indeed, perhaps the reason Marcus always had that invisible weight bearing down on his soul was because all this time, his purpose was to only ever dispense violence.

  Unlike Stella, who did have that purpose when it came to vanquishing evil, she still had other things that she did in her life. So many things, in fact. She was a complete person, with her own hobbies, work, side work, friends, family, and much more. She was more than just a [Saint]. Meanwhile, Marcus so far was just a lone soldier wandering the land with her.

  Nothing more, nothing less.

  I have to change that.

  A surge of determination grew in Stella’s heart. She wanted to help rebuild Marcus’s life from now on.

  “Alright. Come with me then,” Stella said. “I’ll teach you how to be helpful to people.”

  Marcus…didn’t know how to deal with paperwork.

  You see, back during the great demonic war, Marcus was only really drafted as an enlisted soldier before being sent to hell. It was battlefield distinctions that caused him to rise in the ranks while in hell, especially since casualties were so high that the original officers were dying off fast.

  While he did do his best to imitate and, indeed, embody a proper officer in the battlefield, Marcus still wasn’t educated in how to become one in the rear or during peacetime. In hell, there was very little, if ever, paperwork to be done. Administrative tasks were almost non-existent; organization was almost always done informally due to a breakdown of logistics, supplies, and leadership.

  It was why, now, stuck in Stella’s study room, Marcus had no idea what he was doing. She was parsing through mountains of letters, financial statements, and various other documents related to her charity works. It seemed like she had three organizations total under her, and while they weren’t exactly that massive—they were more like groups of a few dozen people each with ‘volunteers’ filling the rest—organizing them still required quite a lot of papers.

  The first one, the Order of Wellness, dealt with matters of healthcare; it was a group made up mostly of clerics and doctors from the Holy Church and her noblewoman colleagues from the Grand University of Sordale, where Stella originally studied.

  The second one dealt with matters of poverty and destitution, a partnership that she had with the daughter of a Sordalian duke. They were the Stella & Amelia Foundation, or the SA Foundation for short. Though, apparently, it was a bit of a political creation between Stella’s and Amelia’s families to make themselves look better in the public’s eyes, and it was largely not managed by Stella herself, it just looked better to have the [Saint’s] name up front.

  The last one was the most personal one for Stella. It was a small orphanage in the slums of Kalthafen, which housed a hundred or so children. It was where most of her personal money went.

  All three required her immediate attention—less so for the SA Foundation—so Stella would have to juggle multiple problems at once in the span of days. Of course, Stella, who was a highly educated woman who spent her time in the academy, was adept at it. While there was a lot of work in front of her, she was chewing through it at a comfortable pace. She was writing letters, creating new documents that detailed the needs and requirements of each group, and she was streamlining her schedule for the week.

  Meanwhile, most of what Marcus did was to follow her instructions. Move this paper here. Write this down. So on and so forth. In between, he tried to understand the importance of each task, but most of it was lost to him. He hated it. He hated how uneducated he was compared to her.

  It made him feel less worthy to stand near her. To her, Marcus was practically a scrub. It reminded Marcus that strength and even wealth were truly not everything. After all that he gained in his lifetime, he still was an uneducated commoner in the end.

  By midday, break arrived. Marie later arrived to deliver food to the two, a sweet smile on her face as she praised Marcus for helping Stella. When Marie left, Marcus dropped down on one of the chairs in Stella’s study room and began stuffing muffins in his mouth.

  “So, when you’re not training, or you’re not on a mission, this is what you do?” Marcus asked, as Stella silently sipped tea while writing another letter.

  “Yeah, I suppose so,” Stella nodded. “Though, usually, I’m outside helping in the field. I love the children in that orphanage, so I prefer visiting them and giving them goodies when I have the time.”

  “It’s no wonder you’re quite popular to people around here.”

  “Hmph, many disapprove of this. They call it a waste of time, and they say that I’m helping people who don’t deserve it.”

  Marcus felt a twitch in his eye. Who ever said that to Stella? He wanted to punch them.

  “What are their names?”

  “You’re not getting to know that, Marcus,” Stella chuckled. “I know what’s on your mind. Besides, it was years ago, but, yeah, this is why I pay for this on my own. People around the palace prefer that destitute people work hard.”

  “Well, people ought to work hard indeed,” Marcus nodded to himself.

  “But Marcus, how will they work hard if their life is ruined?”

  “By…working?”

  Marcus thought that once, he was also so poor that he had to risk his life as an adventurer to make his own money. It was both to help his family and to become more independent. He thought that was how people should live: try hard, work hard, and keep fighting to survive.

  “Is that so?” Stella then looked Marcus in the eye. “Would you prefer that, then, if you have no support right now? And that you’ll just work and work to get a chance at a good life?”

  He felt himself turn cold. The idea of not having Stella helping him out briefly made him feel like he’d die.

  “Err…well, of course not.”

  She pointed her fountain pen at him with a small smile. “My civics professor, an old lady, once taught me about that. For a society to prosper, the ones at the bottom should be given some help so they can help themselves. She and like-minded people even made books about it.”

  “You agree with that?”

  “Yes. I suppose so.”

  Marcus thought about it himself. In his days, what was instilled in him was for everyone to work hard for themselves to pull themselves upward, or else people would get lazy and stupid. He never questioned it, quite frankly, because Marcus rarely questioned things he heard that involved daily life.

  Stella then emptied the cup of tea on her table, and then she stood up from her seat.

  “I’ll go visit the orphanage,” Stella said, turning to Marcus. “Are you coming with me?”