I Wanted to Become the Hero, but the Saintess Is the Demon King?! Volume 1

Raina Aldcrest has trained for seven years to become a Hero.

Unfortunately, everyone else seems to think she'd make a much better Barbarian.

At the Sacred Heroic Academy, becoming part of the next Hero's Party isn't just about strength. Candidates are ranked, interviewed, sponsored, filmed, voted on by fans—and eliminated in front of the entire kingdom.

Raina's competition includes Leon Varros, the handsome, charismatic, impossibly polished favorite who's been training for the Hero role his entire life.

Raina has a secondhand sword and a combat philosophy best summarized as whatever works.

Then she throws an Academy training construct into another one.

Suddenly, everyone knows her name.

Now the so-called “Barbarian Candidate” has to prove that saving people matters more than looking heroic while doing it—without letting the rankings, cameras, or Leon's infuriatingly genuine talent push her out of the role she's wanted since childhood.

And then there's Seren Noctis.

Beautiful, quiet, socially hopeless, and frighteningly gifted at healing and purification, Seren is rapidly becoming the Academy's most mysterious Saintess candidate. Raina can't quite figure him out, but the more time they spend together, the more certain she becomes that there's something unusual beneath his calm exterior.

She's right.

Seren has a very good reason for knowing far too much about demons.

After all, he used to be their king.

A fantasy academy light novel about Hero auditions, public rankings, friendly rivalry, found family, a stubborn female Hero candidate, and one Demon King who has decided he'd much rather become the Saintess.