The Orphanage's Reality

A few days had passed since Delia started working as my attendant. Apart from Earth Day, which was designated as a rest day and meant both Mom and Tuuli had the day off, I went to the temple every single day.

This was because the items I had ordered through Benno kept arriving, I needed to teach new recipes to the head cook by writing them on wooden boards, and I wanted at least a little time to read.

In those few days, the division of tasks among the attendants had gradually taken shape.

Delia was in charge of managing my baths, the toilet, laundry for expensive garments, and other such personal care, as well as cleaning the second floor. Recently she had been learning how to brew tea from Fran, so preparing tea had also become her responsibility.

Gil's main duties were cleaning the first floor and the grounds, as well as keeping watch on the cooks. Fran was currently drilling him on proper speech and etiquette.

When I told him that Lutz had spent the winter practicing letters and calculations, Gil's competitive spirit flared and he declared, "I want to learn that too!" but according to Fran, there were mountains of things he needed to learn first.

Incidentally, Fran handled everything else besides confirming their work—reading recipes aloud to the cooks, checking inventory so things wouldn't be embezzled or carried off, and so on.

He accompanied me to the High Priest's room in the mornings to do paperwork, then delivered leftover lunch to the orphanage, explained the afternoon menu and checked ingredients with the cooks, and accompanied me to the library. Managing my health, dealing with visitors like when Benno came, educating the two apprentices, and even educating me—who had zero knowledge of noble customs—everything was left to Fran.

Worried about Fran being overworked, I asked, "Don't you think the workload is too much?" and he replied, "It's easy, since I'm not suddenly summoned in the middle of the night." Fran was just too capable. My gratitude to Fran, my trust in him, and his salary were all skyrocketing, and as for the Head Priest who had assigned Fran to support me, I was grateful to the point where I could never point my feet toward him in sleep.

Today was also supposed to be a rest day, but I had come to the temple anyway. A marble bath—one of the things said to be fashionable among nobles lately—was being installed in a room on the second floor that I had thought was just a storage closet, and I had to pay for it.

Honestly, hauling hot water looked exhausting, and at home I just bathed with Tuuli, so a bath in this room didn't seem particularly necessary. But when I said, "Wouldn't a basin be enough?" Delia snapped, "What are you saying?! Even the High Priest's attendants get to use a proper bath!"

Delia eagerly wanted to try out the newly installed bath, so when I said "Go ahead," she got angry again: "I can't possibly use it before my mistress! Honestly!" For a Blue Priestess, both water and firewood were available, but a Gray Priestess was apparently only permitted to use water.

"Then could you prepare it for me?"

Since the hot water had to be carried from the kitchen, the preparations looked incredibly troublesome, but Delia was bustling about with evident delight despite her usual pouting, so I figured, fine, and let her do as she pleased.

Delia washed me down, dressed me, dried my hair, and after checking the luster of my hair with a blissful expression, she said, "I'll be using the leftover bathwater," and climbed in herself. I suspected she was pouring effort into polishing herself.

"Myne, please be careful not to trust Delia too much. She still has ties to the High Priest."

While Delia was in the bath, Fran brought me a drink and delivered this warning with a displeased frown. At his serious demeanor, I let out a small chuckle.

"I know. Delia was in high spirits, saying she'd talked with the High Priest's attendants."

Of course she wouldn't just abandon dear little me, Delia had said with her chest puffed with pride. But she apparently wasn't going back to the High Priest—rather, she was shifting her base of operations here. Her reasons were to extract as much information from me as possible, and because the work was easier and the treatment better.

Apparently the High Priest's room had two Gray Priests and three Gray Priestesses, with three apprentice attendants including Delia. In the High Priest's room, the three apprentices had to tend to six people, the High Priest included.

But here, the person to attend to was basically me alone. Moreover, I only came as a commuter, so compared to other Blue Priests, the actual caretaking work was minimal. On top of that, Fran—who had the authority to assign tasks to apprentices—was wary of Delia, so the amount of work she was given was drastically less than what the High Priest's Gray Priests faced.

Because of this, Delia—who had not yet given up on her path to becoming a concubine—could devote herself to self-improvement to her heart's content. She had said she'd rather be someone who used others than someone who served. Setting aside the direction of her ambitions, I had to admit she was hardworking.

"As long as Delia works diligently, I don't care if she's in cahoots with the High Priest. Just be careful about what information I give her. …Though I'm not entirely sure what information I even need to keep hidden."

"Myne, that is precisely the problem."

Fran sighed and told me to avoid talking too much about my family and Lutz, since they were my greatest vulnerabilities.

When Delia came out of the bath, it was time for lunch.

Today's lunch was fluffy roll bread, vegetable and bacon consommé soup, and herb-roasted chicken. Gil and Delia took turns serving, and everyone besides the server ate at the same time as me.

Fran was excused from serving because after lunch he had to deliver the Goddess's Blessing to the orphanage and then accompany me to the library in the afternoon.

"Then, Myne. I shall go deliver the Goddess's Blessing to the orphanage."

"Yes, please."

The wagon prepared outside was loaded with still-warm soup, bread, and leftover herb-roasted chicken. Since neither Delia nor Gil had the strength to push the heavy wagon to the orphanage, this task generally fell to Fran.

"Huh? Has Fran already left?"

After Fran had gone, Gil emerged from the kitchen carrying a basket with several rolls of bread. Seeing that there was no wagon outside the door, he glanced down at the basket in his hands.

"What's wrong, Gil?"

"Delia said, 'There's no way they can eat this much! Honestly!' and I thought maybe I could still make it in time. I thought about saving some for dinner, but the cook said he was making different bread this afternoon…"

"The Goddess's Blessing is scarce right now, isn't it? Why not bring it along?"

"Yeah, I'll do that."

Gil grinned and repositioned the basket in his arms. Even four extra rolls would surely be welcome.

"Hey, Gil. Would it be all right if I came along? I've never seen what the orphanage looks like."

"Then I'll show you the way. I know a shortcut. This way."

Following Gil's lead, I headed toward the orphanage.

Even though the entrance was different, the orphanage was nearby, so I should have run into the children at some point, but I had never actually seen any of the orphanage children.

I'd seen children around Delia and Gil's age—who had already been baptized and were doing apprentice work—cleaning corridors or the chapel, doing laundry near the well, or heading to the animal barn to tend livestock. But I had never seen the unbaptized orphans.

"Actually, you're supposed to go out this way and circle around the corridor. A wagon can't go through stairs, right? But this way is actually closer. We might even get there before Fran."

Gil whispered this with a hint of pride as he led the way toward the gate. A shortcut was perfect for someone with as little stamina as me.

After circling around the building and descending the wide staircase in front of the chapel, the white stone steps blazed under the early summer sun. I usually only walked outside during the cool morning and evening hours, but midday outdoors was like the peak of summer.

"The orphans eat in the girls' building. The girls' building has unbaptized children and Gray Priestesses and apprentices who aren't attendants. Once boys finish their baptism ceremony, they move to the boys' building. To distribute the Goddess's Blessing equally, it's easier for the men—who are working all over the place—to go to the girls' building than to drag the little ones around, right?"

"Ah, I see."

As Gil explained the orphanage while we descended, we headed toward the girls' building, where a back door to the orphanage was hidden beside the staircase. The latch was on the outside, making it look less like it was meant to keep intruders out and more like it was meant to keep the people inside from getting out.

"Almost nobody knows this door can be opened. From the other side it just looks like part of the wall, and nobody ever opens it."

"How do you know about it, Gil?"

"One time when I was little, it opened in the middle of the night. Someone was waving, and a Gray Priestess ran out. I wanted to go out too, but the door was closed right away and I couldn't move it. Since then, I've always wanted to go outside, wondering if someone might come for me too."

His eyes softened with nostalgia as he set the basket down and pulled the latch free. Then, whether the hinges were rusted or not, the door wouldn't budge easily, so he leaned his full weight into it and wrenched it open.

The next instant, a wave of sweltering heat and a foul stench came rushing out, and I instinctively pressed my nose. Gil groaned and did the same. Even someone accustomed to city smells couldn't endure this putrid stench.

With the door thrown wide, the scene inside became horrifyingly clear.

Strewn across manure-soaked straw that reeked of mildew and filth, numerous naked toddlers lay with listless expressions. The room seemed sealed shut, and despite it being a bright midday in early summer, the interior was dim.

"…The Goddess's Blessing?"

Perhaps noticing the smell of bread, a toddler—filthy, with black grime caked on, eyes suddenly glinting wildly, voice hoarse—came crawling toward us.

Thin and skeletal, like the starving African refugee children I'd only ever seen in photos and videos, they dragged themselves closer. Before I could even feel pity, horror seized me. An indescribable fear took hold, my body refused to move, and my teeth chattered.

"…N-No…"

Perhaps my voice snapped him out of it, because Gil—frozen in shock—hurriedly slammed the door shut and threw the latch.

From inside, I could hear thuds against the door as they tried to get out, but the impacts lacked any real force. There was no way they could break through.

The relief of escaping that terror mixed with the revulsion of a scene that was nothing like what I'd imagined an orphanage would be, and my mind went blank. My consciousness seemed to cut out, and my body crumpled to the ground.

When I came to, I was in my room.

The surface beneath me felt hard, and when I shifted my hands slightly, I realized I was lying on the bare wooden bed in my own room—no aristocratic cotton-stuffed futon, no straw-stuffed futon like the one at home.

Turning my head and eyes slightly, I could see Gil huddled in a chair beside the bed, hugging his knees to his chest and making himself small.

"…Gil?"

"You're awake? …Thank goodness. I'm sorry, I…"

Before the tearful Gil could say more, Delia's voice cut in from behind him.

"Honestly! You idiot, Gil, idiot! Taking Myne to the girls' building—and through the back door of all places!"

"I couldn't help it! I had no idea it was like that!"

The words "like that" from Gil's mouth pulled up a cascade of images from the orphanage.

A sealed room. Straw drenched in filth. Naked, skeletal, starving children. No matter how you looked at it, that was not an environment for raising human beings. Even a well-ventilated animal barn would have been better.

The memory made goosebumps rise across my whole body, and something sour surged up from my depths. I lurched upright, swallowed it down, and endured.

Seeing me suddenly sit up and clutch my mouth, Fran pushed past the flustered Gil and appeared at my side.

"I am terribly sorry, Myne. I humbly apologize for making you witness something so unpleasant. Please, forget about it."

I felt a strange disconnect at Fran calling the orphanage's wretched state "something unpleasant" and telling me to forget it, but I turned my gaze to Gil.

"Is that the orphanage? It's completely different from what you described."

"After my baptism ceremony, I moved to the boys' building, so I only know the girls' building's dining hall… What you saw is where the unbaptized ones are. It wasn't like that when I was there."

Gil bowed his head and murmured weakly. Delia shot him a light glare and snorted.

"It's because the Blue Priests disappeared and the Gray Priestesses dwindled. There was no one left to look after the little children, and they started dying one after another. If they could just survive until the baptism ceremony, they'd be able to live on the first floor, so they waited for that day to come… What I know is from a year ago, so it must be even worse now. I don't even want to think about it."

Delia's voice trembled slightly as she looked down.

Gil was ten, so three years ago when he had his baptism ceremony, things had apparently still been better. Delia had just turned eight, and by the time of her ceremony, conditions were already dire. From the information Delia grudgingly revealed, it seemed that about a year and a half ago, the women who had been looking after the children had disappeared one by one, and the orphans had been left in a state where they simply received two meals a day and nothing else.

"On the day of my baptism ceremony, they dragged me out, and a Gray Priestess scrubbed my entire body raw so I wouldn't look dirty in front of the Blue Priests. The moment the grime came off, she started saying how cute I was and how beautiful I'd become, and right after the ceremony, they took me straight to the High Priest. Three of us were taken together. I became an apprentice attendant, but the others weren't chosen, so they were sent back to the orphanage."

Now I understood Delia's obsession with her own cuteness and her adamant refusal to have anything to do with the orphanage, and it made my heart heavy.

"Myne, please help them. I'm begging you."

"Stop it, Gil. She must not get involved, Myne."

Fran cut off Gil's plea with a stern expression. I myself didn't particularly want to get involved, given how sick the sight made me feel, but I hadn't expected to be told that by Fran—who came from the orphanage himself.

"Why not?!"

"It is far too dangerous."

Fran answered Gil—who was voicing my own inner thoughts—with a firm tone.

"Myne has a tendency to treasure anything she takes into her heart, no matter the cost. Just as she was willing to direct her mana at the High Priest to protect her family. If Myne were to become deeply involved with the orphanage and take it into herself, she might end up in conflict with the Blue Priests in order to protect the orphans. It would be best to reduce any possibility of her unconsciously releasing her mana, even slightly."

Gil was begging me to help them, Fran was telling me not to, and I looked toward Delia, wanting to hear her opinion as well.

"…If they can be helped, then they should be helped. But I don't want to get involved, and I don't want to remember it."

Delia said this with a hard expression and turned her face away.

Gil's face twisted as if hurt that no one shared his desire to help the orphans. Clenching his teeth, eyes wavering as he stared at me intently, Gil slowly knelt on one knee before me, crossed both hands over his chest, and lowered his gaze.

"Myne, please. I'm begging you—help them."

Gil's heartfelt plea made me press my lips together.

Inside me, there was a desire to help if I could. For instance, if someone specifically asked me to do something and it was within my ability, I could manage that much.

But if I were told to keep doing it indefinitely, or to do it without anyone's guidance, I would be at a complete loss.

In my life as Urano, I had donated money on occasion but never done volunteer work beyond what was mandatory at school. I had never been interested in anything besides reading books.

And after becoming Myne, my frailty and chronic illness meant I was always the one being cared for, always the one receiving help. I could offer advice if my knowledge was applicable, but the actual physical work was always done by someone else. I couldn't imagine what I could possibly do.

"Right now, I'm happy because Myne praises me and I enjoy working, and my pay goes up when I work hard. The food is good, I can eat my fill, and I have my own room where I can stretch out and sleep. But those kids, they're like that…"

"I'm sorry, Gil. There is almost nothing I can do. I'm a Blue Priestess but not a noble, and I can't disregard what Fran has said."

Gil raised his head with a hurt expression.

I was originally just a commoner who wanted to read books and had won that right by trading my mana for money. Without knowing anything about the situation, I couldn't carelessly promise to help the orphans, and I couldn't take responsibility for looking after them long-term.

"But I'll at least try asking the Head Priest. If there are extra Gray Priests, maybe we could have someone assigned to care for them, or arrange for a slightly larger budget… I'll ask the Head Priest to do whatever he can to improve the orphanage, even a little."

"Thank you, Myne."

The Head Priest, who handled all the practical matters, would surely do something—whether increasing the budget or finding someone to look after the younger children—if I explained the situation and made the request.

I let out a sigh of relief at having found someone to consult, but Fran shook his head with a furrowed brow.

"Myne, there is no need to get involved."

"I'm only going to ask the Head Priest. Would you arrange a time for me to speak with him?"

If the Head Priest refused, then there was nothing I could do. And if he gave me advice on what to do, then I would simply carry it out. At the very least, that was far better than endlessly worrying without knowing whether there was something I could do or not.

I pressed Fran further with repeated requests, and he finally arranged for me to speak with the Head Priest.

The meeting was approved around the time the fifth bell rang, and Fran and I headed to the Head Priest's room. He had apparently already heard from Fran, because the moment he saw my face, he stated bluntly: "I reject your request. There is no reason to improve the situation."

"What?"

What I had learned from Gil and Delia was nothing at all like what I had expected the orphanage to be.

Next time: the Head Priest's side of the story.