Just as I was telling myself that it would be better to just stay up instead of napping, considering the trial was in three hours, Jiray asked a question with some confusion.
“Have you ever met a church knight before?” I asked.
“Huh? No, never. I don’t really have anything to do with them.”
“Then remember this... While it depends on their rank, the church knights are as strong as us adventurers even without Spheres.”
Mana had the power to enhance the qualities of objects. Magic was a way to wield it in whatever way you desired, and swords sharpened by mana stones could become extra sharp. By the same logic, living organisms that absorbed mana would become stronger. However, due to the fact that mana was poisonous to the human body, if you merely took it in, all sorts of complications would arise. The conclusion of this was that if the poisonous qualities of mana could be weakened and the body could overcome the damage the mana caused, then they would be able to acquire the benefits.
In the age before the guild—and consequently, Spheres—the church searched for ways that a single person could fend off monsters. After much effort, they managed to create the church knights, who had strength beyond that of the average person. The reason Saphirism flourished as the largest religion on the planet was because they monopolized these methods and kept them secret. Until the War of the Witches came to a close, they ruled supreme.
Eventually the guild developed Spheres. This was way, way before I was born so I didn’t know the details, but thanks to these little stones, regular people could attain the same power that church knights held. However, unlike church knights, they didn’t need to spend months or years training their minds and bodies, they didn’t need to show their devotion to Saphir through deeds or donations, and didn’t need to be acknowledged by a higher-up and receive their baptism into becoming a knight. They could skip this lengthy process.
The emergence of the guild signaled an end to the period of rule dominated by the Church of Saphir. That was why they hated adventurers and Spheres, along with us. In their eyes, their power was the culmination of their hard work and diligent study, earned through their faith to the church. To them, we seemed like some shallow fools who had skipped all that and still achieved the same power anyway. Many regular members of the clergy hated adventurers too, meaning that this hatred could become the source of many fights in daily life.
Derg was a third-class knight, so he was an elite member of the church. If Erifell hadn’t been involved, then I would never have spoken with him.
“If you pick a fight with them, you’ll end up bloody and bruised,” I warned.
Then Ruvy was the cream of the crop: one of the six special-class knights who were specially chosen and stood above all the other knights. In adventurer terms, she was S rank—a living legend who someone like me couldn’t hold a candle to. This was the reason I had well and truly hoped I wouldn’t see her.
“You were totally trying to pick a fight with her,” Jiray replied.
I couldn’t reply. I’d tried to give him a warning, but my warning ended up being shot down.
“Listen, Jiray. Don’t turn out like Hakura!” Leen quipped.
“Dammit! I hate that I can’t even deny this!”
I wasn’t trying to pick a fight with Ruvy. And the reason I was taking on the witch trial was because I’d assumed Erifell’s evidence would increase the chances of success.
What I was worried about was what would happen if Cormeca decided to use everything at her disposal to flee after she was cornered and had her identity exposed. Who knew, maybe she had already sniffed out that a witch trial was imminent and was trying to make her escape.
“Hmm...”
“What is it?” Leen asked.
“Oh. Nothing.”
Cormeca was a witch. My gut and the logic in front of me said so. So why did I feel like something was off? I felt uneasy, but I wasn’t sure why.
“Anyway, let’s head back to Erifell,” I said.
“Agreed. Bye, Jiray,” Leen said.
“I dunno what you guys are doing, but good luck,” Jiray said.
We left Jiray behind and headed back the way we came. I forced down the exhaustion bubbling up.
“Hey, Leen?” I said after the store had disappeared from sight.
“Yes, what is it?”
“If a stigma can’t be identified anymore, it moves to somewhere else on the body, right?”
“That’s right...”
“What happens if you try to cover it up?”
It seemed like Leen got what I was trying to say. She stopped walking.
“Hmm... It should move if you do something like try to cover it up or change its appearance with a tattoo. However, I doubt this would happen if you used makeup or paints. Why are you asking?”
“Well, Cormeca’s an alchemist, right? Can’t she make some paints that would blend with her skin and be difficult to wash off?”
Leen looked elsewhere.
“I’ve never seen someone try it before, but are witch trials really so sloppy that they would miss something like that?”
“Well, no, but...”
It was the duty of a knight and nun under the Carbuncles to investigate the woman who was indicted. It was highly likely that all the witches who had been previously suspected had tried all sorts of measures to try and evade punishment. I supposed that almost every witch had considered hiding their stigma somehow and the Carbuncles would be on the lookout for that. We even had Ruvy, the organization’s best, here to make sure nothing would be overlooked.
“Please keep it together, Hakura. You’re not getting scared, are you?”
“I...wish I could say I’m not.”
I was fully on board with putting my life on the line. If I decided to do it, then I was aware that it was my responsibility. All the same, I just couldn’t explain why I felt so uneasy. Was I really scared...?
“No, sorry. I’m fine. I’m just a bit nervous, I guess,” I went on.
“It’ll be fiiine!”
“Whoa!”
Just as I looked down to try and keep it together, I felt a powerful smack on my back.
“In my eyes, Cormeca’s definitely a witch. No doubt. I guarantee it.” Leen didn’t look scared in the slightest and gave me a broad smile. “You gotta be confident when you say it. Be like, ‘The witch...is you!’”
“Uh-huh...”
The strange feeling in my head didn’t completely go away, but for some strange reason, it felt a lot lighter. Hearing Leen say this with such conviction made me feel like she might just be right.
“Okay, if I die, then I’ll totally haunt you,” I said.
“It would be too much if you did that too, so I’ll have to say no thanks.”
All right, all right, unfeeling so-and-so...