＊＊＊
At Stella’s firm request, the two of them changed before teatime proper.
The delectable scent of black tea filled the room. It was an elegant way to spend an afternoon, but they’d been talking about nothing but exams for a while.
“Feena, how much of the scriptures have you memorized? You said before you barely had any of it down, right?”
“Ngh... I feel that I have memorized a bit more than before, perhaps?”
“Try to recite the second chapter of Revelations from the top.”
“A-A pop quiz?!”
Feena set her cup down and gave it her best shot.
“She who kills is a calamity! She who steals is a calamity! She who violates is a calamity! The heavens punish those who aid witches. Those who seek magic will be...um, what was it?”
“Burned in the hottest of hells, remember?”
I snorted. Stella looked at me. I was already back in the staff holder.
“What?”
“Nothing. By all means, continue.”
“Come on. Now I’m curious,” Stella said, pursing her lips.
“It was just funny for the scriptures to disapprove of murder.”
“Why?” Feena asked.
“Murder is the greatest sin of them all. The Goddess would never forgive a murderer,” Stella added.
I couldn’t bring myself to say that the very same Goddess was trying to murder her specifically.
“Hey, I’ve got a question,” I said after some hesitation. Both Stella and Feena faced me. “What would you do if the Goddess appeared in front of you and told you to kill someone?”
The people of this world had an intense and passionate belief for the Goddess. I wondered if they would just blindly obey anything she asked of them.
However, their answers surprised me.
“She’d never do that.”
“I must agree with Stella. There is no world in which the Goddess would demand such a thing.”
“I’m talking theoretically. A pure hypothetical. If something like that were to happen—”
“There’s a negative eighty percent chance of that ever happening, so thinking about it’s a waste of time. Like...the most I can say is that if the Goddess told me to kill someone, that’s just not the Goddess.”
Oho.
“I must echo this. The Goddess is a deeply compassionate lover of peace. She would never, under any circumstance, drive another to commit murder.”
“You wouldn’t believe her even if she looked exactly like the Goddess.”
“Nope, not for a second. That’d be some monster disguising themselves as the Goddess.”
“In that case, what about if the Goddess told you to kill a witch specifically?”
Stella and Feena both exchanged looks...then burst into laughter.
“A witch? Those all died out long ago.”
“Master Otaku, witches are a thing of the distant past. They are not in the modern era.”
The girls giggled and sipped their tea.
Well... Now I understand why she picked me.
It all came together. The Goddess gave me this “divine power” because she liked me? As if. I never believed that for a second. In reality, there was just nobody but me she could order to kill Stella. I wouldn’t notice the inconsistency since I wasn’t from this world.
Still, that didn’t necessarily mean Stella was safe as long as I didn’t touch her. As unfortunate as it was, this world had Goddess statues placed all over the place. She could genuinely appear whenever and wherever she wanted. It was possible she could appear and cause trouble like she did the other day when Stella was in danger.
What I know from the wyvern incident is that the Goddess has a sense of urgency about this, to the point that she’s appearing in front of the masses and performing a miracle. And I’m starting to reach the limit in how I could hide this too.
There was a knock on the door. It opened, and a professor called Feena’s name. Feena accepted a slender box from her and returned to her seat.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“A package from House Serdia.”
“Ah.”
“That must be a new staff,” Stella said.
“You can tell? How astute.”
“Anyone could tell from a box shaped like that. But... Aren’t you going to take it out?”
She must have been hesitant opening it in front of Stella. Only at her urging did Feena open the box.
Inside was a new staff and a letter.
“Wow, what a cute color...!”
The new staff was a faint pink that suited Feena well. She read the letter, then beamed.
“It says, ‘May this staff bring you good luck on your final exams.’ It seems father and the rest are finally supporting my becoming a saint.”
“Did they oppose you going into Antohsa?” Stella asked.
“It’s less that they opposed it and more that they did not believe I could succeed. Antohsa is generally attended only by the mightiest of miracle users and wealthy daughters of historically powerful houses. In comparison, my lineage is poor and has produced no miracle users of note...” Feena said, then caught herself. “Eep! I had no intention of scorning you just now, Stella...!”
“It doesn’t bother me. I know as well as anyone that the nobility have houses that produce generations of successful saints,” Stella said, shrugging and eyeing Feena over. “Mm, but it is news to me that your parents aren’t miracle users. Why did you decide to try and be a saint?”
“W-Well... I thought that I could protect my family if I did...” Feena said, lowering her gaze and fidgeting after noticing that we were watching her. (How she knew I was looking at her when I was a staff with no eyes or ability to turn my head was one of life’s great mysteries.) “Nobody in my family can cast miracles, and so when our land is attacked by magibeasts, we rely on the royal army’s aid. Sometimes, though, they arrive late, and... If only I were a saint, and could build greater walls of iron, perhaps I could defend my land, my citizens, and my family... I, um, I-I know this is far too grand of a dream for one of my stature, but—!”
“Sounds fine to me. It’s hardly ill-fitting for you.” Feena looked up with shock. Stella continued, wearing her usual unperturbed expression. “Make sure you accomplish that dream of yours. Otherwise sucking it up as Quinza’s servant for a year will have been pointless.”
“Ehe heh,” Feena laughed, breaking out into a smile. “Let’s become saints together, Stella.”
“Obviously?”
Feena, now smiling, picked up her new staff and held it up to the light. That was when I finally noticed something. “By the way... You can just change staves?”
“Yes. The staff I have been using is one of the free ones lent to students by the academy. Some commission new staves upon special occasions like advancing grades.”
“Doesn’t your staff have a spirit, though? If you change staves, what happens to the spirit in your old staff?”
“That is nothing to worry about. We are bound to our spirits through our mana. Luxsaria Sein,” Feena said, chanting with her new staff in hand. A small orb of light appeared at its tip. “See? My spirit has now inhabited this staff.”
Her miracle functioning was proof the spirit had moved to her new staff.
“But now I must go return my old one,” Feena said, picking up her other staff and standing up to leave.
“Wait,” Stella said, stopping Feena. “Can I borrow your old staff for a second? I want to test something.”
“Certainly. Here you are.”
Despite looking confused, Feena handed over the staff.
The staff Feena had been lent from the academy looked identical to me. Stella must have borrowed hers too.
With the other staff in hand, Stella’s expression darkened. She gave a solemn chant. “Luxsaria Sein.”
No light appeared. Stella’s miracle hadn’t worked, and I remained in the old staff.
“Looks like it doesn’t work,” I said.
“Hm? How strange. Master Otaku should have moved to this staff after you gave your chant,” Feena said, and she was right. If spirits were bound to their master by mana or whatever, I should have moved to Stella’s new staff too.
“Perhaps you should try again, Stella. It may be that the Light spirits were merely feeling uncooperative.”
“One try was enough. Here’s your staff back,” Stella said, forcing it into Feena’s hands. Feena was unable to push the subject, so she backed down at once. She left to go return the staff.
The door shut with a thunk, leaving the two of us alone.
“I mean, duh. I knew this wasn’t normal. I just didn’t want to face reality,” Stella said, sitting back down and muttering to herself with a dark expression.
“What’s up?”
“This just proved it. You reincarnating into my staff was something that never should have happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, isn’t it obvious?! You entering my staff didn’t follow the same rules as getting a spirit. Our mana isn’t linked, so neither are our hearts. That’s why miracles don’t work like I want them to, unlike everyone else’s.”
“S—” I began, but Stella interrupted me before I could apologize.
“Not to mention, you’re a human, not a spirit. You reincarnated into that staff and can’t move to any other staff. That staff may as well be your real body. At this rate, I’ll have to keep using a borrowed old staff for the rest of my life. How awful is that?!”
People couldn’t change the body they’re in. Unlike spirits, I couldn’t move to another staff.
“Sorry for being an inconveni—”
“Why are you apologizing? It’s not your fault that you ended up in a st—” Stella clamped her mouth shut mid-sentence, then looked at me awkwardly from the corner of her eyes. “It’s just...not normal for a conscious human to end up stuck in a staff working as some kind of replacement spirit. This is just wrong.”
Her face twisted the moment she said that. And then, before I could say that all’s well that ends well, she abruptly stood up. She turned, silver hair flowing behind her, and strode to the door.
“Where are you going?”
“It’s got nothing to do with you.”
“Yeah, it does. I’m your staff. Where you go, I g—”
“Bathroom!” she barked, and then she disappeared on the other end of the door.
It must’ve been my imagination, but her expression looked like one of pain.