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“Forget it, forget it. I don’t need any friends. All the groups in class are already locked in anyway. I won’t be able to make my own at this point,” Stella grumbled. She was talking tough as she postured in bed, but she was depressed enough to not even light the candle beside her. She curled up her slender body into a tiny ball within the darkness.
“Be that as it may, if you can’t cast Water or Earth miracles in class when you need to, then—”
“We can just practice. It may not be your specialty, but it’s not like you can’t use the elements at all,” Stella said, “Luxsaria Sein.”
The spirits of Light gathered in response to my call. An orb of light floated amid the darkness. It was like a disco ball, bright and glittering. Stella stared at it before continuing.
“All I need is you, Otaku,” she muttered quietly.
“Stella.”
“Ah! D-Don’t get the wrong idea, okay? I just meant in terms of miracles. It’s not like I care about you specifically at all!”
“Sure,” I replied.
Stella was starting from zero, a point in which she had never been able to cast a single miracle. I could understand why she’d think a weakness was still better than a complete inability.
Still, that reasoning wouldn’t be what made her dream come true.
The chances of Stella making a friend on her own are astronomically low. This is where I’d like to step in, but a staff suddenly talking to students would cause a fuss, so...
As I worked the problem over in my head, Stella began rummaging through her closet. “I’m just gonna go take a bath and forget any of this ever happened. It’s bath day, after all.”
“Bath day...? Didn’t you take a shower yesterday instead?”
“It’s called bath day because the big shared bath is open. Each grade has a set day for using it; it’s not big enough for the whole dorm to go in at once.”
“Makes sense. Big baths feel the best.”
“Uh-huh,” Stella said, grabbing me and a change of clothes before suddenly stopping in place. “Are you trying to come with me or something?!”
Insane false charges. I wasn’t trying to sneak into the girls’ bathroom whatsoever.
Staves were the lifeline of saints, and so it was normal for them to bring their staves with them everywhere, including baths. People would look at her weird if she didn’t have a staff.
And so it was that I found myself in the changing room to the large bath.
Or more specifically, I was stuffed into a doorless vertical locker alongside her uniform.
This normally would have led to seeing girls change in front of me, but Stella wrapped a handkerchief around my head so I couldn’t see anything. It was an endless cacophony of giggling girls and rustling clothes. I could also smell steam and soap, which made for the ultimate blue balls.
Am I gonna be edged like this every bath day...?
As my heart pounded, I felt the uniform thrown over me shake. I thought Stella had gotten out of the bath. Suddenly, my neck was grabbed, and a moment later I was thrown into something next-level soft.
Mmm?!
It was a chest. This I could say for sure, given my position: I was in someone’s bust—and it wasn’t Stella’s. It was hard to imagine she was hiding weapons this deadly, and she wouldn’t bury me in her chest like this even if she was.
Who was this, then? They spun around while they clutched me tightly. I could feel them start to run.
Hey hey hey, I belong to Stella! You got the wrong locker!
As much as I wanted to inform them of their mistake, my identity as a talking staff was still top secret.
Well, she’ll notice once she makes it back to her room.
I elected to remain optimistic and enjoy the peak softness enveloping me.
Unfortunately, the girl holding me did not return to her room.
“Terararia Sein, Terararia Sein, Terararia Sein...”
She gave brief chants between ragged breaths. She was casting miracles while running.
That meant she had her own staff. I had no idea if you could use another person’s staff to cast miracles, but at the very least, I wasn’t playing the part of a guardian spirit. This all led to the conclusion she had not, in fact, grabbed me by mistake.
The girl suddenly stopped and released me from her chest, then undid the handkerchief around my head.
At first glance, she seemed like a weak-willed girl. Her light-colored shoulder-length hair, her droopy eyes, and her gentle features were all reserved. The only thing that stood out about her were the absolute mountains threatening to burst out of her school uniform. I had been buried between those puppies... Wow.
We were in a gloomy woods. The area around us was pitch-black, and the girl was using a miracle to light up the tip of her staff to see. She leaned me against a nearby tree and started digging into the ground. Somehow... This felt all too familiar.
I looked closely at the girl as she dug, and suddenly I recognized her. She was one of Quinza’s lackeys... She always stood in the back and just repeated “truly” over and over, so it had taken me a moment to recognize her.
All right. I think I see what’s happening here.
It should’ve struck me before—why had I been buried in the dirt when Stella first found me? Students aiming to be saints generally never left their staves alone. Stella was the same. But they did take their eyes off them momentarily when bathing. They had used that gap to take Stella’s staff and hide it. It was like an elementary school prank.
The girl set aside her shovel and wiped her brow. The hole seemed deep enough. She took me into her hands.
At this point, it’d just be stupid to let myself be buried. I needed to get back and see my idol fresh out of the bath.
“O villainous lackey, do not bury that staff. If you return it to its locker, your sins shall go unpunished,” I intoned. She jumped up with a start.
“I-Iron wall! Terararia Sein!”
Four gray-colored walls shot up on all sides.
Oho.
Thanks to the walls she formed being made of metal, there wasn’t even a crack between them as they loomed protectively over the girl. They had no weakness...unless the threat was inside.
“Who... Who are you? The Antohsa grounds are holy. No boys are allowed here,” she said, her tone guarded. Stella had reacted the same way. Nobody thought it was the staff speaking to them.
Not knowing whether she would continue to react in the same way, I proceeded with caution—and less pomp. “I’m willing to reveal my identity, but you have to promise not to run after I explain. Can you promise not to run?”
The girl, trembling with fear over my mystery voice, nodded. “Y-Yesss, I swear...”
“Then allow me to introduce myself... I’m the staff you’re holding. Or more precisely, the being in Stella’s staff that you’re trying to bury right now.”
The girl’s eyes fell to the staff. Her face paled to the point of going stark white. Her lips trembled, and she fell into a state of pure panic. The walls around us vanished in the blink of an eye.
“Ah...ah...” she croaked, a faint whisper slipping between her lips. She took one step back, then another.
“Heeey, stop! Don’t run! You promised not to run no matter what, remember? I can’t move on my own! Don’t leave me h—”
“F-Forgive my rudeness, O Great Spirit...!”
She leaned me against a tree before rapidly backing up and bowing to press her face into the dirt. Well, that was better than me being left behind.
The girl continued to grovel, making no move to look up. Her body trembled, either out of terror or awe.
This was a pickle, since I didn’t exactly have a fetish for making girls prostrate before me.
“I’d like it if you raised your head,” I said.
“I could never!” she cried at once. “My soul has been stained with sin. Not even death would be enough to repay the crimes I committed by attempting to bury a Great Spirit in the earth...!”
“Eh...” I metaphorically put a hand on my forehead. “No need to debase yourself like that. I’m not a Great Spirit to begin with.”
“Only spirits of particularly high rank ever speak to people! This is the first time I have ever exchanged words with a spirit. I thank you for this miracle, oh Great Spirit!”
“Again, I’m not a Great Spirit.”
“You were surely sent by the Goddess to punish me for my sins. Aaah, oh Great Spirit, if you are to punish anyone, please stop at me! Spare my family your wrat—”
“ARGH, I’m telling you, I’m not a Great Spirit! I’m just an otaku!”
“Eeek, I have infuriated the Great Spirit...! My apologies, I shall now call you Master Otaku!”
“Master?! Holy heck, please no!” That was not a word to ever put next to otaku; it sent shivers down my spine. “Listen up, you. Otaku is a word that inevitably carries with it some degree of derision. Only chaos comes from attaching any kind of honorific to it! What I like more than anything else is for a girl younger than me to call me an otaku with a mocking tone in her voice!”
“M-My apologies! Would you prefer Lord Otaku, then? Or His Majesty Emperor Otaku? King of Kings Otaku?!”
I was speechless.
“Um, Master Otaku...?” The girl lifted her head to eye me warily.
I let out an exaggerated sigh. This girl was, how would you put it...? She was an airhead; everything went in one ear and out the other.
“Sorry. I kind of pushed my fetishes on you just now.”
“Um?”
“For now, I’d like to know your name.”
“Of course. I am Feena, daughter of Baron Serdia.”
“Oh? You’re a noble, Feena?”
“My grandfather was granted a barony after finding success in the brewing industry. Despite our low status, we are humbled to count ourselves among the nobility.”
“Why do you bully Stella?” I asked.
Feena shook, hard. “Forgive me, Master Otaku.”
“If you’re going to apologize, do it to Stella, not me. I just want to know why you all continue to bully her even now that she can cast miracles.”
“That...would be due to her status.”
“Her status?”
“This kingdom was founded by descendants of Orava, the wielder of six miracles who slew witches alongside the Goddess. The majority of nobles are descendants of saints and miracle wielders who achieved glory in the Pandemonium Era. Most who enroll in Antohsa are daughters of either royal or noble families.”
Whether one could join Antohsa or not depended on their mana quantity, with mana being understood as holy power. I’d heard in class earlier that one’s mana quantity was a natural, innate thing. Genes probably played a role here.
“Stella, however, is a commoner. One from an orphanage, in fact. There are many who think lowly of this fact.”