Another day, another yawn let out as I did my daily Relic polishing. The imperial capital had seen a series of incidents over the past few days, but this day, like the previous one, was just fine. Lazily basking in the sun shining through my specially made windows, I became acutely aware of how nice peace was.
As I savored the serenity, there was a knock at my door, followed by Eva entering with a newspaper in one hand. Delivering a newspaper and giving her morning (except it was already noon) report was part of her daily routine. I had told her she didn’t need to bother with it, but someone as diligent as her would never neglect reporting to her boss.
So she concisely informed me on the state of the capital.
“It appears the empire is taking the Divinarium’s prophecy very seriously,” she said. “For starters, they’re taking a rather forceful approach to gathering information.”
“Hmm. That doesn’t sound good. There’s been too much going on around here lately.”
Eva didn’t say anything.
Yes, I had made a number of mistakes, but if the Sword Saint hadn’t given me that strange staff, the incident at ZAM wouldn’t have happened in the first place. Let’s just ignore the fact that Eliza was the starting point of all this. If I pointed this out to her, she might stop bringing me Relics, which would’ve made me sad. Besides, when she brought me so many items, there was nothing odd about a cursed item or two getting mixed in.
After nearly a full day, Sitri still hadn’t come back. I figured she would have immediately noticed that the contents of the water bottle had been swapped out, so she must have been busy with some other matter. Generally speaking, I was the only member of Grieving Souls with excess time on their hands.
While I entered energy conservation mode, one of the busy people, Eva, said to me, “By the sound of it, the church has something major.”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“Is that the truth?”
I didn’t respond.
Eva looked at me suspiciously. I guess she had already found out that I was the cause of the trouble over at the Academy of Magic.
I didn’t do it. I’ve done nothing.
I had almost nothing to do with the church. About the only thing we had in common was that Ansem was a member of the church.
There were several figures that were referred to as gods. Ansem’s church revered the Omnilucent God as the supreme deity. One of the most recognized deities in the world, they were the source of holy magic, which is to say, healing spells.
The term “Cleric” generally referred to people who worshipped this god and borrowed their power. Similarly, many hunters could be counted among the devout, including just about every Paladin out there. In Obsidian Cross, a party where everyone had some form of healing capabilities, only their Magus, Marietta, wasn’t a devotee.
Since the imperial capital was such an immense city, the Church of the Radiant Spirit had a large presence to match. But at the same time, the church tended not to interact too much with outsiders. You could join if you wanted, but they weren’t proactive about recruiting.
According to Ansem, this was because the Omnilucent God’s powers were finite. Something about how if the number of believers increased, then so would the people drawing upon the god’s powers, which would reduce the power an individual could receive. Technically, that was supposed to be one of the church’s most closely guarded secrets. It’s a miserly world.
Despite their passive approach to recruiting, the church had followers all around the world, a testament to the utility of the Omnilucent God’s powers. In fact, when I went to see Ansem once, they seemed to get the wrong idea and made a point of visibly scowling at me. I was Ansem’s best friend! His best friend! And, uh, Lucia’s brother.
I thought for a moment, wrinkles forming on my brow.
“Is it possible I did do something?” I said.
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to answer that,” Eva replied. “Does anything come to mind?”
“No, nothing. But you could say the same about the thing with the Sword Saint and the thing with the Black World Tree.”
Eva looked at me silently.
Nope. I tried thinking, but nothing came up. Besides, since Ansem wasn’t like Luke or Liz in that he didn’t go dragging me around, I hadn’t even come close to a church lately. I nodded to myself, satisfied with my own slothfulness.
“Well,” Eva said with a small sigh, “the Church of the Radiant Spirit does specialize in matters pertaining to curses. I believe they’re even involved in the safeguarding of the imperial capital.”
“I understand that Ansem’s busy, but,” I checked the clock, “he should be here soon.”
It was about that time of day when my guard would change, and today Ansem would be on duty. To be fair, he was one of the most popular Paladins within the church. In terms of admirers, he probably even surpassed Lucia. Remember, the church liked him so much that they granted him that Relic armor.
Perhaps he couldn’t get away when so much buzz about that prophecy was causing so many headaches. Lately, I hadn’t had many chances to chat with Ansem and was in the mood to talk with him.
I think once he gets here, I’ll just tell him there’s nowhere I have to go today, so he doesn’t need to bother.
The newspaper talked about the attack on the magic academy, but said almost nothing regarding the cause. I guess Professor Seyge was keeping the truth a secret. Noticing a line that said nobody had died in the incident, I let out a sigh of relief. Then the Sounding Stone on my desk began to vibrate.
I felt like this thing was going off every day. I didn’t want to answer it, but I didn’t have much choice with Eva right there. Leaving it on the desk, I activated it. The stone went still, and a brief silence ensued.
“I’ll kill you,” said a strained voice.
“You’ve got the wrong man,” I replied.
“I’ll kill you! I didn’t tell you to stop the curses, then stir up something else! I told you not to cause any problems! A curse would be better than this!”
He sounded as if he were right in front of me. It hurt my ears. Good thing I had left the stone on the desk. He sounded like his voltage was pretty high, but I couldn’t help him if he didn’t tell me what had happened.
“Despite it all, I am...Lucia’s brother, you know?”
“I assume you’re aware that at this very moment, chaos is breaking out at the Primus Institute over a certain potion.”
“Franz, does your order deal with every bit of trouble that pops up in the capital?”
I groaned internally. And you keep coming to me over every little thing? Did you become one of my fans or something?
“I’ll kill you,” Franz said in a tense, rapid-fire voice. “There was a leak from one of the institute’s Alchemists. We wouldn’t have found out otherwise! It was your Alchemist who brought the potion in! Thirteen knights were lost when the Third Order tried to quell the mayhem! A paralyzing gas instantly took them out! I’m not cleaning another one of your damn messes! Get over here right now! This time, this goddamn time, you’re going to listen to me!”
I see. Oh, how do I put this?
I calmed myself with a deep breath, then hesitantly said, “But, the thing is, that potion is probably strawberry milk.”
“HUH?!”
That potion our Alchemist brought in...
I wasn’t sure what to say. I could even tell him the name of the manufacturer. It boggled my mind to think that strawberry milk was causing such a fuss. Going off of what Franz had said, Sitri hadn’t realized it was milk and brought it over to her old haunt.
Sitri, try to pay attention!
“I don’t want your nonsense! In front of the academy of magic. Now!”
“Hey, it’s not nonsense. I put it in the metal bottle, and she took it away.”
“Hm?!”
I heard the sound of something falling, then the Sounding Stone was silent.
I looked up and saw Eva. She stared at me, her cheek twitching, her body trembling.
They had it wrong. All wrong. For once, I wasn’t at fault. If anything, I thought I deserved a pat on the back. If the fake stuff had caused so much uproar, who knows what might have happened if that was the actual potion?
“He said a curse would be better than this. Ha ha. Then let’s make the next one a curse.”
“Please stop it!”
What did these people want from me? All I did was throw away a potion and put some strawberry milk in a bottle.
Yeah, uh-huh. I had done something unnecessary—I had given in to the impulse to compare the two side by side. I didn’t think Sitri would barge in at that exact moment.
But there was still time. If she realized this was all a misunderstanding, our oddball Alchemist would surely calm down. Even if the potion really were something dangerous, all this madness struck me as a little unnecessary, but I thought it better to stay out of this mess. Proper people don’t go to improper places.
Sitting in my chair, I crossed my arms and gave Eva, who was still frozen, a hard-boiled smile. “Eva, the rest is in your hands.”
“Wh-What’s in my hands?! Please, don’t leave this to me!”
Oh, I’ve never heard Eva ask that. That’s a rare drop.
I heard heavy footfalls, followed by a pounding on the door. I gave a response, and the door opened. Ansem scrunched his shoulders and slipped in.
“Ah, Ansem. It’s been a while. You took your time showing up.”
“Mmm. Apologies,” said a voice muffled by a helmet visor.
Oh, haven’t heard him talk in a while. Another rare drop.
Eva looked equally surprised. Ansem had always been a reticent man. He was also a very polite man. Ansem’s stature far surpassed what was normal for people, but his increasing size was taken into account during the construction of the clan master’s office. He couldn’t fit into my personal quarters, but he’d just have to deal with that. If he wanted to enter, he would just have to shrink himself with his armor.
With the calm but weighty movements of a large monster, he came up to my desk. As I understood it, harsh movements from him were liable to break things, which was why he made such slow and cautious movements. His presence was imposing as always. Though she had known him for a long time, even Eva shrank back before his towering form.