Cantona entered the room. He was an average-built, average-height middle-aged man, but the first impression—the word that popped into my head the moment I saw him—was "small fry." The personality type that goes along to get along with those in power was completely written all over his face.
His eyes darted back and forth between the Chief Priest and me, probing to figure out whether the news was good or bad, and he looked every bit the petty bureaucrat. The type who lorded it over those of lower status and fawned excessively on those above.
After exchanging noble greetings and being offered a seat by the Chief Priest, Cantona's gaze grew even more restless, flitting about nervously.
"Lord
"Surely the fact that we are all assembled here tells you something?"
The Chief Priest furrowed his brow ever so slightly. Cantona wore an expression of complete blankness and began desperately rummaging through his memory.
Was he truly not aware of his own duties? Had he already been reassigned? Or did he simply not know that we were involved in the
"I am terribly sorry, but I cannot think of what this might be about."
"...It's about the town of Hasse."
For just an instant, his eyes shifted, but other than that, he maintained his smile and continued, "Hasse, you say? Has something happened?"
"The plan to build an orphanage and a printing workshop in the town of Hasse was directly ordered by the Lord, and I am spearheading the project with Rosemine here as her guardian. Recently, I sent some merchants I am acquainted with, along with one of Rosemine's Attendants, on a site visit. According to their report, you were being quite uncooperative."
"No, that's not..."
Cantona's eyes darted around calculatingly, slightly unfocused, as he smiled sweetly. He was smiling, but you could see right through him—he was desperately thinking about how to protect himself, how dire the situation was.
"In fact, they said it was suspicious enough to wonder whether you were trying to sabotage the plan entirely."
"That must be some kind of misunderstanding... Or perhaps the merchants are conspiring together for some purpose. They change their opinions on a dime for money, after all."
Was that supposed to be a self-introduction? The words nearly escaped my lips before I swallowed them back down. I was here today to observe how nobility conducted their affairs. I had to keep my mouth shut.
"So you're saying their reports are lies... Is that what you mean?"
"I wouldn't go so far as to say that definitively, but there may be some misunderstandings and miscommunications on both sides. After all, the other party is merchants who think of nothing but profit."
He plastered on an ingratiating smile and kept repeating "merchants, merchants," but did Cantona even know that one of the group had been my own Attendant,
I was the one the Chief Priest had scolded for "truly not being able to read the room," so I tossed aside all my patience and restraint and spoke up.
"I don't think they would be unfamiliar with how we nobles conduct business."
"Are you saying, Cantona, that even my own Attendant would be unfamiliar with noble ways?"
Totally unfamiliar, actually, I added silently while watching his reaction.
He clearly hadn't expected me to interject. Cantona's eyes went wide and he stammered, "That's not exactly what I mean..." trailing off evasively.
I wanted to press him with "Then what exactly do you mean?" but the Chief Priest lightly tapped my foot under the table, so I gave up.
The Chief Priest lowered his gaze, sighed, and said, "I understand your position." Then he looked up and fixed Cantona with his stare.
"Now then, about today's business. You entered into a contract with the town mayor of Hasse to purchase an orphan, is that correct?"
"Eh? Y-Yes. And that is...?"
"Rosemine took a liking to that orphan and essentially dragged her home by force. However, I was informed that you already had a contract with the mayor. I felt it necessary to verify the facts, which is why I called you here."
The Chief Priest said this with a faint smile on his face. "It seems as though we've essentially snatched her away, and we do feel rather bad about it..." He paused, then adopted an expression of deep concern.
"Your wife, who is quite the jealous type, apparently suspects you of having ulterior motives for leaving town. In such circumstances, purchasing a female orphan on the cusp of adulthood—that hardly seems like something you would do unless you had a very good reason, don't you think?"
As the Chief Priest probed with a worried look while simultaneously slipping in a threat, I was silently applauding his ruthlessness. Cantona turned pale in an instant, as though the blood had drained from his face. And yet, he still maintained that goofy grin—very much the noble way of handling things.
"Yes, yes. There are deep and complicated circumstances involved. However, if she is to Rosemine's ladyship's liking, then I shall happily cede her. I will withdraw the contract. Allow me to retrieve the contract documents; please wait just a moment."
Cantona fled the room. After watching the door shut behind him with a snap, I looked up at the Chief Priest.
"You seem to know everything about Cantona's wife as well, Lord Ferdinand."
"Before negotiating with fellow nobles, how much information you have about the other party is often the key.
If it was information you needed, Justus would scrounge up anything and everything. Combine that with the Chief Priest's terrifyingly sharp memory and knack for sorting the useful from the useless, and you had the ultimate, most fearsome combination possible. As Justus himself had said, "You're the only one who knows how to use me properly"—finding what you needed from that mass of miscellaneous data was, in ordinary circumstances, incredibly difficult.
Even without meaning to make enemies, I was aware that my relationships and activities in the lower town had been investigated. I had no idea just what Justus and the Chief Priest knew about me.
In my case, I felt like I had nothing but weaknesses, so the moment I became the Chief Priest's enemy, I'd probably be finished with a flick of his finger.
"Please rest assured, I will never be your enemy, Lord Ferdinand."
"...What is with that sudden declaration? Did
...They must all have realized how scary the Chief Priest is.
Later I learned that unlike me, the coward who decided never to make an enemy of him because he was scary, those two had each been so moved by their own encounters with the Chief Priest that their declarations were words of resolve to serve him as their lord for life. "Don't lump us together," Eckhart had told me.
...Sorry, brother. I just don't really understand the feeling of "serving someone as my lord for life."
While the Chief Priest was making a complicated face over my sudden declaration, Cantona returned with the contract documents.
He flinched at the Chief Priest's expression, but immediately held out the contract.
"Here are the contract documents."
"Ah, my apologies. ...I will pay the penalty myself, so under no circumstances should you attempt to retrieve anything from Hasse."
Take these contract documents to Hasse, talk to the mayor, and it would be over.
"Haa, it's done," I breathed a sigh of relief, but Cantona kept glancing at the Chief Priest and began speaking in an excuse-laden tone and manner.
"Even so, this is quite a problem. As I mentioned earlier, there were deep circumstances involved, and this contract wasn't something I wanted—rather, I was asked to do it as well."
I'd thought it was merely an excuse for his wife, a way to cover his tracks, but it turned out Cantona had also been asked by someone else to find an adult woman.
"Who asked you? Would we need to speak with that person as well?"
We'd retrieved the contract so that we wouldn't be cast as the villains in the eyes of Hasse. I wanted to make sure Cantona and his client didn't end up cast as villains for having things snatched away either. If anything, earning the enmity of the town mayor would be far more troublesome than the nobles' grudge.
"I would very much like to speak with that person sincerely and honestly."
"No, that is... not the sort of conversation that should reach Rosemine's ears..."
Cantona broke into a cold sweat as he declined, his eyes silently pleading with the Chief Priest for help.
"Rosemine, that will be all. Go study with
He must have judged that certain things couldn't be discussed with me present. The Chief Priest said this and gestured for us to leave. I obediently nodded and exited the room.
We took the lesser bus to Wilfried's room. When I entered, a half-hearted game of karuta was in full swing—the kind that seemed designed to let Wilfried win. After the reading card was read aloud, the ten-second countdown felt like an eternity. Wilfried, surrounded by fawning Attendants, was looking at the picture cards with a bored expression.
I could see Richalda standing quietly in a spot where she could survey the entire room. She was probably assessing which Attendants were useless. The fact that her eyes were burning with fury yet she remained quiet was somehow more frightening.
"Wilfried brother, I'd like to join in from the middle, if you don't mind."
I smiled at the Attendant who was counting to ten at a leisurely pace, signaling them to stop, then counted to ten at a normal speed myself and snatched up the cards immediately. Among them were some with characters that Wilfried had only just learned today.
"What!? Rosemine, that's too fast!"
"That's not it. You're the one who's slow. You should know where your own picture cards are from when they were first laid out, right? You should be reaching for them the instant the reading card is read. I'm the one counting to ten and waiting, you know."
Joining partway through, I defeated Wilfried, then counted the karuta cards while surveying the Attendants in a circle. That one, that one, and that one—those will be swapped out.
"Shall we play again, brother? This time, if you can make sure to grab the characters you learned today, you win."
"Just the ones I've memorized? That's easy."
I let him win the first round normally, but in the second, I occasionally rearranged the picture cards into random positions, forcing him to search for them again and increasing the difficulty.
"Dang it! One more round!"
His competitive nature had been ignited. Through several rounds of karuta, he gradually came to remember most of the basic alphabet characters used in his own name.
"Brother, that's incorrect. The rule is 'foul,' and when you take the wrong card, you lose one."
"What!? That single card made the difference, and Wilfried stomped his feet in frustration at his defeat."
"Please practice plenty before next time."
"I only started today and already got this many! Next time, I'll take them all!"
"I won't lose either."
Though I said that, I had a feeling it wouldn't be long before I started losing to Wilfried, just as I'd ended up losing to the orphanage children before I knew it.
...Hmm, Wilfried brother does seem to have pretty high base stats. His memory is actually quite good, isn't it? Or maybe he's like my adoptive father—giving his all when he's interested in something?
"Well then, shall we study numbers with cards next?"
"...Numbers."
I laid out cards from one to ten.
"Just now, during karuta, you counted to ten over and over, right? Since they're in order, let's work on the numbers while reading them from the beginning."
"One, two, three..."
He read all the way to ten without trouble. Then I had him arrange the cards in order from largest to smallest, and pick out cards for numbers I called out.
After that, we played Sevens. He could now read the number of each suit, so though it took some time, he was able to play.
"Richalda, have you decided which Attendants to swap out?"
"Yes, of course, My Lady."
During study time, I called out to Richalda, who had been silently watching the room, and she narrowed her eyes with a smile.
"You said that if they lost thirty games, they would be swapped out, My Lady, but you never once said that if they didn't lose, they wouldn't be replaced. Those who lack sufficient seriousness should simply be swapped out one after another."
I could only hope that the whole household would continue to grow like this.
Just before the sixth bell, a message came from the Chief Priest: "We're returning to the
"Then, Wilfried brother, I'll be heading back to the Temple. If you keep practicing like today, I think you'll be able to play the feischpiel before long."
"Mm, understood."
Wilfried nodded with great confidence on his face.
The feischpiel practice wasn't too difficult because I'd managed to remember the piece I'd been asked to memorize in the morning, and hadn't forgotten it by afternoon. I practiced the scales
"It's easier than I thought."
The assignment chart that got filled in upon completion was being filled in far more than I'd expected. As long as I didn't lose interest halfway through, I should be ready in time for the winter debut.
"See, you really can do it when you try. Keep filling it in at this pace. You should show this assignment chart to your adoptive father and adoptive mother at dinner tonight. They'll surely praise you generously, since your efforts are plain to see."
"Will do."
"Everyone did a wonderful job. I'm very happy, and as your lord, I'm proud."
I rode my feathreature back to the Temple and praised my Attendants lavishly. If our Attendants hadn't done their best, Wilfried would have been on the fast track to disinheritance. The true heroes were our Attendants.
"We've gotten used to Rosemine's sudden, incomprehensible requests by now,"
Then I asked the Attendants what they'd seen of how Wilfried had spent his time at the Temple.
"Considered as a blue Priest entering the Temple, or as a child of nobility before baptism, there was nothing particularly remarkable. He was far more willing to listen to what we had to say than usual, which made a world of difference."
Thinking about the blue Priest Apprentices and blue Shrine Maiden Apprentices who would be coming to the Temple from now on, my head started to ache.
The next day was an ordinary day. I practiced the feischpiel as usual and went to help the Chief Priest.
There, he handed me a Magical Tool for preventing eavesdropping.
"Yesterday, after you left, I heard what Cantona had to say..."
According to the Chief Priest, the number of Gray Priestesses currently being supplied to nobles had dropped dramatically. Previously, all you had to do was ask the High Priest, and you could easily get Gray Priestesses. However, the High Priest had reduced their numbers to cut down on provisions, keeping only the presentable ones. On top of that, as the Lord's daughter, I was employing them in the workshop and the orphanage, giving them roles to fill—so they had become unavailable.
Even asking the blue Priests who were currently using Gray Priestesses as Attendants to hand them over hadn't worked. Perhaps because they were rare now, the prices were being driven up. "It's difficult to ask either the Chief Priest or the High Priest for new Attendants," the blue Priests claimed.
As for the nobles, the Chief Priest had no interest in the Flower Offering whatsoever—unlike the previous High Priest—so they found it awkward to ask him to arrange Gray Priestesses. Gray Priestesses had been convenient because they were cheap. There was no need to spend a fortune buying them from blue Priests.
As a result, it seemed they had begun searching orphanages in surrounding towns for orphans of the right age.
"Rosemine, what should we do? Sell Gray Priestesses to the nobles?"
The Chief Priest looked at me with probing eyes as he asked.
"...If a Gray Priestess said she'd rather be a noble's mistress than remain a Gray Priestess, then though it would be unpleasant on a personal level, I could consider arranging it as employment. But I have not the slightest intention of selling Gray Priestesses who don't want to go. Right now, I can support them in the workshop, and I am the one who ultimately controls the orphans' fates."
The Chief Priest narrowed his eyes in satisfaction at my answer.
"In that case, what do you intend to do about nobles buying orphans from orphanages in surrounding towns?"
The reason buying and selling orphans felt wrong to me was that I still hadn't fully aligned with this world's sense of ethics. But the revulsion had lessened compared to before.
"...
Using the power of being the Lord's adopted daughter, I could easily intervene and take in every orphan in Hasse. But orphans didn't exist only in Hasse. I didn't have the power to save them all.
And what I, as the High Priest, had to concern myself with was the orphanage within the Temple. I'd been told it was wrong to recklessly extend my reach to orphanages in other towns.
For the small temple in Hasse, that was within my jurisdiction, so I'd handle it. Everything else beyond my sight—I would not concern myself with.
I didn't want to accept it, but if I didn't internalize this, I couldn't go on.
"Good. It's reassuring to see that you've learned at least something."
The Chief Priest nodded in apparent satisfaction at my answer, then wore a mean expression and continued pressing with another question.
"Then, Rosemine—what about the orphan in the possession of Hasse's town mayor? That one certainly fell within your sight, didn't it?"
I bit my lip for a moment, then shook my head lightly.
"Unlike the Temple's orphanage, orphans in other towns apparently receive farmland as townsfolk once they come of age—if they're boys. Girls also receive farmland and have marriages arranged for them. If that's the case, then rather than living as orphans, as Priests... it may be happier for them to live as ordinary townsfolk within a land and customs they know."
Having every aspect of their previous way of life denied, being reeducated, and then living in the Temple's orphanage as Priests or Shrine Maidens with no visible future, right beside the nobility... versus living a life that might be harsh but within a world they could understand—which was the right choice was something only they themselves could know.
No matter how it might look to those around me, if given the choice, I would rather have stayed with my family—not as the Lord's adopted daughter.
"...I did offer them the option. Regardless, the moment they chose not to come to our orphanage, they became no longer my responsibility."
At my answer, the Chief Priest said, "Very good," and nodded. Seeing the satisfied look on his face, I felt relieved that I hadn't gotten it wrong.
...Ah, I hate this.
I knew this was the correct answer as the Lord's daughter. And at the same time, I felt as though yet another piece of my own common sense had been wiped away.
The contract documents were retrieved, so Cantona was reassigned by the Chief Priest, and his part in this is done. Our association was brief, but thank you for your efforts.
I've lit a fire under Wilfried brother's motivation. Keep it up through winter.
Next time: Rumors of merchants.