Two days after sending off members of the
The letter contained the announcement of Hasse's crimes and punishment, as well as the date we would arrive to carry out sentences on the townmaster and the other traitors. There was no need to wait for a reply. I had written in the date myself, but this was an official decree stamped with the Lord's seal.
I planned to ride a riding beast to Hasse in time for the fifth bell, but the letter should have already arrived by now. Right about now, the people of Hasse were probably in a state of tension and anxiety so thick they couldn't even swallow their lunch. Even I, who had to deliver the verdict and pass judgment on the townmaster, felt my heart grow heavy.
I let out a slow sigh and set down my pen. Gathering the completed papers into a bundle, I held them out to
"Fritz, this is the manuscript for the winter picture book. Please give it to
"Understood."
I had asked Fritz and
The attendants who remained in my room after sending the others off early that morning were Fritz, who managed the workshop, and
In addition to them, several gray priests who normally worked in the workshop were present in my room. I had specifically gathered gray priests who had experience serving blue priests, because the Chief Priest—whose dedicated cook and most attendants had been sent to Hasse—was joining us for lunch today.
"Hey, Fran. Is the cooking going to be all right? I'm sure
For today's lunch, where Ela had already departed for the Dedication Ritual, I had borrowed Hugo and another assistant through the Guild Master and Frieda. It seemed the heir to the Italian restaurant's chefs had grown into his role, and Hugo—eager to build ties with me—had agreed to today's request without hesitation.
"Even though it's an unfamiliar kitchen, the layout isn't much different from the orphanage director's kitchen, so they're cooking without any problems. The Chief Priest should be satisfied."
"And
Today's lunch guest was the Chief Priest, who had sent his dedicated cook off to Hasse. My plan was to eat lunch, rest briefly, then ride to Hasse for the fifth bell, so there was no particular need to invite Eckhart and Justus. But an ordalan had flown in expressing his extreme eagerness, and I had no choice but to extend the invitation.
"More importantly, you'd better finish writing quickly. The Chief Priest will be here soon."
"You're right."
I was writing a letter of thanks to Frieda, which I planned to give Hugo. I filled in the seasonal menu items that Hugo and Ela had prepared for me so often last year, adding a note that I'd come eat there again after the Dedication Ritual was over.
If I sealed it and gave it to Fritz, he should hand it to Hugo when paying for today's business trip expenses.
"Could that be the Chief Priest?"
A bell rang beyond the door, announcing a visitor. When Fritz opened it, Zalum and the Chief Priest stood there, with Eckhart and Justus behind them.
"Myrne, I'm sorry for leaving the lunch arrangements to you."
"Not at all. You indulged my selfish request to travel by riding beast. I'm truly grateful to the Chief Priest."
"Sorry for making you prepare our share as well, too."
Eckhart followed, flashing a broad grin. Both he and Father were hearty eaters with big appetites, and I couldn't help but wish he'd at least look a little apologetic about it. Was that just me being petty?
After finishing Hugo's excellent lunch, we drank tea Fran had brewed and discussed Hasse as we prepared to depart.
I needed to explain Hasse's current situation to Eckhart and Justus, who didn't know the full story.
Once I confirmed that everyone had taken the eavesdropping-prevention magical tools I had offered the Chief Priest, I began my account. It all started when I had said I wanted to spread the printing industry throughout the territory and needed an orphanage-workshop with a temple attached so I could come and go easily.
"I was ignorant at the time."
Back then, I had just undergone my
But I went and said I wanted a temple. Since a temple was a place where blue priests of noble blood would be coming and going, the moment those words left my mouth, I had sealed the deal on building a white building.
"If I had known anything about nobility, I never would have said I wanted a small temple, and I certainly wouldn't have made such a demand at a dinner invitation."
"If
The Chief Priest let out a soft breath.
Even the Chief Priest, who normally would have stopped Sylvester, had assumed that I was using food to curry favor with my adoptive father and the Chief Priest, trying to manipulate them into a position where I could push through my demands. He was apparently quite pleased internally that I had become "properly noble" in my behavior—a frightening reminder of how awareness and common sense can be so far apart.
"As a result, a small temple was built in Hasse that very day."
Unlike Eckhart, whose eyes widened in surprise at the hidden backstory, Justus's eyes lit up with interest.
"Oh ho. The truth is always full of surprises. That's exactly why gathering information is so fascinating. And what kind of problems arose? Come, tell me!"
After that, we had to renovate the small temple in Hasse into livable conditions and go to retrieve the orphans.
The initial reason I had wanted to take in the orphans was to lighten the burden on Hasse, which had been looking after them, and also to help those poor children who were being mistreated.
"I was able to save a girl and her brothers who were about to be sold off. But my actions plunged the town of Hasse into crisis."
The townmaster of Hasse had already signed a contract with a noble civil official and could not simply back out. Who knew what unreasonable demands would be forced upon them if they failed to honor that agreement? They had been counting on that money to prepare for winter isolation, and now it was gone.
"I had no idea that Hasse's orphans were being treated as shared property until someone from the Gilberta Company pointed it out."
"Normally, nobody would know about how orphans are treated. In Ehrenfest, once children finish their Baptism Ceremony, their workplace takes responsibility for them."
At Justus's words, Eckhart murmured, "Is that so?" Justus, who knew how commoner orphans in Ehrenfest were treated, was clearly no ordinary noble.
"They must have thought that if it was a temple matter, they could simply appeal to the High Priest. The townmaster didn't know the former High Priest had died, so he believed he had powerful backing and attacked the small temple to reclaim the girls."
"Wait! That small temple is a white building
Eckhart's eyes bulged as his voice rose in alarm. I nodded firmly.
A white building where nobles resided could only be created by the Lord or the Lord's child. Attacking one was considered an act of rebellion against the Lord's family. I hadn't known this either, but ignorance was no excuse.
"Thanks to the temple's defenses, we suffered no damage here, but Hasse became a town of traitors."
"Send the subjugation force immediately!"
Eckhart whipped out his stave on the spot, but the Chief Priest stopped him with a single sigh.
"Eckhart, calm yourself. Hasse is Rozemyne's teaching material. I can't have it destroyed at random."
Because Hasse had become a town of traitors, it had become a place the Chief Priest felt he could deal with however he pleased—and it had become my teaching material.
"Hasse is a teaching material for Rozemyne to learn how to move people, to obtain the conclusion she desires, to understand how to judge criminals, and to consider the impact of her own actions."
"...Teaching material?"
"Yes, that's right, Justus. Rozemyne said she didn't want to erase Hasse, so I set her the task of creating and nurturing a faction opposed to the townmaster, isolating the townmaster who was the traitor—so that the town could be saved from destruction. This time, we are punishing that townmaster and his faction."
The Chief Priest smiled faintly at his own words, but Eckhart furrowed his brow in confusion and looked at me.
"Commoners who attack white buildings are nothing but pests, aren't they? Removing them is the correct course of action. What is it that Rozemyne finds objectionable?"
As Eckhart's words made clear, my common sense and that of the nobility were completely different.
"Hmm..." I twisted my neck thoughtfully and then stated my own understanding.
"From what I know, a Lord exists to protect the people. The idea of simply erasing an entire town—so many people—without a second thought is incomprehensible to me. Isn't it better to make them reflect on what they've done and let them live, rather than take their lives?"
"Let them live? For what purpose?"
Eckhart furrowed his brow as though he genuinely could not understand.
"For nobles, commoners are tax bearers, aren't they? If so, then I thought it would be sufficient to have them pay their taxes. The punishment I proposed to my adoptive father for Hasse is a ten-year tax increase."
"...I see. The fundamental perspective of commoners and nobles really is completely different."
Eckhart, who knew I had once been a soldier's daughter, attributed the difference in common sense to the divide between nobility and commoners, stroking his chin slowly.
"Indeed, as Rozemyne says, the Lord protects the people. By infusing magic power and providing a place to live. By paying taxes, they are recognized as territory residents and granted the right to live there. But the only ones a Lord needs to protect are obedient subjects. Traitors who don't even know the Lord's benevolence need not be kept alive."
The Lord provided magic power, revitalized the land, created an environment where people could live, and maintained it. Eckhart argued that those who enjoyed the benefits of the Lord's magic and noble magic power while living in the territory had committed treason, so being eliminated was only natural.
"But if you include the surrounding farming villages near Hasse, that's roughly a thousand people. Even excluding those, Hasse's townsfolk alone number nearly two hundred. If you crush Hasse, tax revenue decreases, and in the end, won't both the Lord and the nobles suffer?"
Appealing to their humanity was useless, and the gap in common sense between classes was an insurmountable barrier. That was why I tried attacking from the angle of tax revenue.
But it had absolutely no effect.
"We wouldn't be inconvenienced now."
"Not particularly."
"What?"
Both the Chief Priest and Justus responded immediately, and I was the one left blinking in surprise. The Chief Priest furrowed his brow deeply and spoke in an unpleasant tone.
"The nobles are in short supply. The priests are in short supply. Magic power is generally insufficient. We're stretching the magic power supply to its limit to keep the current people alive. You entering the temple and conducting Dedication Rituals across the land created a small surplus, but the commoners who consume magic power still far outnumber the nobles who supply it. Losing one town's worth wouldn't make the slightest difference. If anything, it would be a relief."
"W-wait a moment!"
At words I never expected, I stood up involuntarily. The Chief Priest shot me a sharp glare. "Don't stand up so suddenly. It's unseemly," he admonished.
"...Because you said what you did, I've been waiting, haven't I? I've been waiting to arrive at the optimal solution you wanted—punishing the rude and foolish townmaster while sparing as many of the other townsfolk as possible—without simply disposing of the townmaster."
I had thought the Chief Priest was mean, even demonic, in various ways. But it seemed he had actually been making the maximum possible concessions on my behalf.
But perhaps this attitude still didn't sit right with Eckhart, because he glared at me with displeasure.
"Rozemyne, those who receive the Lord's blessing yet point weapons at the Lord's family are fools better off without. Why bother with the trouble of keeping them around? Just eliminate them quickly."
"No, Eckhart. I agree with the young lady's plan to extract everything from them slowly. It takes time for commoners to grow old enough to pay taxes, so reducing their numbers too much would be problematic. Commoners die easily from even minor epidemics."
This was a very Justus-like opinion, befitting his role as tax assessor, and I slumped my shoulders. As expected, I just couldn't fit in with noble thinking.
"Well then, let's be on our way to Hasse. This time, we'll be punishing the townmaster's faction as traitors. Let's see how many people Rozemyne's strategy managed to move. I hope the anti-townmaster faction has indeed grown, as you wished."
The corner of the Chief Priest's mouth curved upward.
My heart clenched tightly.
We brought out riding beasts from the temple's main entrance. Fran and Zalum would ride my lesser beast with me. For protection,
"My lady, may we place this luggage on your riding beast?"
Justus had a gray priest carry in a large box. It was a sizable box, locked securely. Big enough that an adult man could just barely carry it alone—roughly the size of a chair that fit me perfectly.
It was an awkward size for transporting by riding beast, so I agreed immediately.
"Yes, of course. Go ahead."
Fran and Zalum loaded the box the gray priest had brought onto my lesser beast. And just as I was about to climb in, Justus flashed a smile.
"Please let me ride along as well, Rozemyne-sama."
"Justus!"
The Chief Priest's thunder struck instantly. Justus seemed to have no learning ability whatsoever—the situation was exactly the same as during the Harvest Festival. I let out a soft sigh, and Justus's smile deepened.
"I am the manager of this box, so I cannot very well leave its side. Surely Ferdinand-sama understands the importance of this?"
Justus puffed out his chest as if to say "What do you think?" The Chief Priest glared back with a face so murderous he looked like he was about to shout. After the two stared at each other for a moment, the Chief Priest turned his gaze to me.
"Rozemyne, whatever you do, don't listen to anything Justus says. He'll distract you, and you'll fall."
"Ferdinand-sama has given his permission. Now then, please, my lady, climb aboard."
"Huh? Wait—was that just now... permission?"
I looked back and forth between the Chief Priest, who had turned his back and was summoning his own riding beast without a word, and Justus, who was urging me along with a cheerful "Come, come." I reluctantly opened the entrance to my lesser beast.
"Fran, please show him how to fasten the seat belt."
"Understood."
I let the enthusiastic Justus board my lesser beast, and we departed—but he was insufferable, peppering me with question after question: "My lady, what is this? How do you use it?"
At first I answered him politely, but I was getting genuinely scared that the Chief Priest's warning about being "distracted and falling" might come true.
"My lady, one final question—how did you make this riding beast?"
"What do you mean, 'how'? I made it thinking of it as something like this, so it's difficult to explain..."
"What a shame. I was hoping to make something similar..."
The flight through the air to Hasse didn't take that long. Before long, we arrived.
Just like during the Harvest Festival, as we moved to descend into the square, the people quickly cleared away and made room for us. But unlike the Harvest Festival, the moment they cleared the space, everyone knelt. Their faces, heads bowed low, were uniformly grim and somber. The children seemed to sense the atmosphere too—none were playing around. They clung to their parents with worried expressions, or knelt just like the adults.
The heavy atmosphere made it clear that everyone understood the situation. I pressed my lips together tightly. Would the punishment really end with just the townmaster?
I looked up at the Chief Priest walking ahead, but I couldn't read his true intentions.
"...We received the letter from the Gilberta Company and have been waiting."
Benno's letter had arrived as expected.
On a raised platform, several people knelt with Richter at the center, awaiting us. They were likely the village heads from the surrounding farming villages.
The townmaster had been sentenced, and Richter had taken the lead in organizing the winter manor, apparently. Richter began his greeting as the representative.
"High Priest, Chief Priest. Welcome to Hasse. We offer our heartfelt gratitude for the guidance of the Water Goddess, Friedurine."
Receiving the formal greeting addressed to nobles, we nodded politely. When Richter, still kneeling, raised his head, he came up to my eye level.
"High Priest, um, Hasse is..."
"I'm sorry, Richter. As I wrote in the letter, the attack on the small temple constitutes treason against the Lord's family. No matter how much I appeal to my adoptive father, that cannot be changed."
After saying this to Richter, I turned to address the townsfolk gathered in the square. I held a magical tool that amplified my voice—the same one I had used at the Fuchspiele concert.
"Citizens of Hasse, the attack on the small temple constitutes treason against the Lord's family. No matter how much I appeal to my adoptive father, that cannot be changed. Treason is a grave crime punishable even among nobility. In Hasse's case, where the attack was directed by the townmaster and many townsfolk participated, the crime is severe enough that the entire town could be destroyed as a town harboring hostility toward the Lord."
A ripple of murmuring spread through the square. Anguished voices rose from before me: "What has the townmaster done?" "We farmers have absolutely nothing to do with this!" "This is complete collateral damage!"
"But among you are farmers who normally live in the surrounding villages. Some of you were threatened or deceived by the townmaster. I did everything in my power to argue against demolishing Hasse as a whole under collective responsibility—and I was able to have the decision reconsidered."
A wave of awe rose from the crowd, and the color of dread on their faces began to give way to hope.
I hastily added, before expectations could swell further: "However, that does not mean there is no punishment at all. Hasse's punishment is a ban on sending priests to this year's Dedication Ritual, along with a ten-year tax increase. Your lives have been spared, but the punishment imposed on Hasse is by no means light. Please forgive me, whose power was not enough to do more."
This time, cries of joy truly erupted. I could see townsfolk sighing with relief—saying "Thank goodness"—embracing one another in happiness.
"Just escaping collective responsibility is more than enough."
"Thank you, High Priest."
As the square buzzed with excitement, the Chief Priest stepped forward quietly and took the voice-amplifying magical tool from my hand.
Then, holding the tool, he spoke in an icy voice: "Bring out the traitors. They will be punished."
The square fell silent in an instant. The stillness was so absolute that you could hear people gulping.
Richter closed his eyes tightly once, then nodded. "Understood."
The punishment for Hasse has been announced.
Next time: The Chief Priest and the townmaster's turn.