For the time being, our squad was complete. There was the princess—the silver-haired, blue-eyed Astrantia—and me; the red-haired, irritable Cuphea and the blue-haired, attentive Linum; and finally, the blonde, former bully noble lady Agrimonia and her new holy knight, the androgynous-looking beauty Hypericum.
Although it seemed like a dream harem at first glance, the tragic reality was that four of the members were off-limits. Only Hypericum was over twenty. While I was making some headway to become acquainted with her, the glares from the princess and Cuphea made things difficult.
The two newest additions seemed to possess enough skill to be made into formal allies. Compared to Cuphea’s unorthodox, self-taught style, Hypericum’s swordplay was simple and effective. Agrimonia’s mana and mana control were both in the upper echelon of her year. If we all trained together and worked on our cooperation, we’d have no trouble performing, even in the Forbidden Cities.
Additionally, it was decided that the princess and I of White along with Orlaya and Myra of Black would be participating in the mission to defeat the One-Armed Giant. The originator of the plan and one of the Twelve Saints, Nemophila of Blizzard, would also be participating alongside the Grave Keeper of the Golden City. Had it only been those three pairs, I would have been able to use my curion powers freely as we all knew the situation, but that wasn’t the case.
Publicly, both Black and Blizzard had defeated one of the Twelve Corpses. There were many people who didn’t want to lose standing by allowing those two pairs to add a third to that list. That, or some of the other Twelve Saints were joining because they genuinely wanted to save the world. Either way, it meant more people were interfering. Regardless, no matter how many people tagged along, my mission remained the same: protect the princess and defeat my enemies.
That aside, it was finally a day off. As such, it was time to enrich my mind and soothe my soul. In other words, it was time for women.
I set off through the city in search of a new encounter. I’d been spending a lot of time with younger girls and brats at the orphanage lately, but my true passion was getting intimate with adult women. Today was the day I would realize my idea of happiness and find a grown woman to share my love with—
Or so I thought, until I saw a familiar face. A beautiful woman and a man wearing an obscene expression were standing by the back entrance of a store in an alley. I took a moment to check the name of the store and it seemed to be some kind of medicinal herb shop. While I didn’t know much about herbs, I’d heard that some stimulated mana generation. Those types of shops also tended to sell empty manastones, along with manastones that had been filled by other people.
Since this city had an academy for training saints, students were probably the shop’s main source of business. After completing a few missions and acquiring some extermination bonuses, even commoners could afford herbs and manastones. The old man was presumably an employee or the owner of the shop, while the beautiful woman was none other than Edel.
She was a stunning woman who ran the orphanage with her mother, the old lady. Although she seemed to be over thirty, her golden hair shone beautifully, and her skin was every bit as glossy as a teenager’s. Despite that, her somber eyes and the mole beneath one of them gave her a mature allure. On top of all that, her chest was bountiful, her waist was slim, and her ass was curvy. All she had to do was stand there and her beauty would make men head over heels for her.
After confirming the uncomfortable look on her face, I silently approached the alley and hid in the shadows, ready to leap out at a moment’s notice. Hopefully it wouldn’t be necessary, but better safe than sorry.
“Good work today, Edel. Here’s your pay.” The man handed Edel several silver coins.
“Thank you very much,” Edel replied.
“It’s hard finding people willing to fill up manastones, so you’re a big help.” That explained it. The filled manastones were provided by people like Edel. Active mages used their mana for themselves, so people willing to sell their mana were probably pretty rare.
“No, thank you for paying me for my mana.”
“You’re a former holy woman, aren’t you? Couldn’t you earn money by healing people?” I was curious about that too. She had once been a holy woman, so surely she could use healing magic. However, it was such an obvious idea that I had assumed there was a reason she wasn’t doing it. What a tactless old man.
Edel fell silent.
“Sorry, sorry, I’m sure you have your circumstances.”
“Um, I need to look after the children, so I’ll be on my way now.”
“Ah, hold on. Have you given what I said some thought? About working here?”
“I appreciate the offer, but we still have a lot of young children at the orphanage. I’d rather not be away for long periods of time.” Considering her situation, filling manastones for the store in her free time was a pretty good fit.
“Are you sure? You don’t want to be paid more? It could help get more food for those children.” I was starting to get annoyed, but I could endure it for now. He hadn’t done anything so awful that I needed to intervene. That said, pretending to care about the children in an attempt to get her to do more work didn’t paint him in a good light.
“Filling the manastones is enough work for me, thank you.” Edel politely bowed and turned the man down, and he gave an exaggerated sigh in response.
“Read between the lines a little. I’m saying you gotta work here if you wanna keep making money off these manastones.” In the blink of an eye, he revealed his true colors. Then he went to wrap his arm around Edel’s shoulder.
“You were running late, so I came to pick you up, Edel,” I said, grabbing the man’s wrist. I smiled at Edel, whose eyes went wide with shock for a moment before she caught on to what I was doing.
“Ah, Albert.” She even refrained from calling me “Sir Albert” like usual.
“I assume this is the owner of the shop?” The man gave me an uncomfortable look, and for good reason. Even though it was a day off, I was wearing my holy knight outfit. His shop’s primary clientele were holy women, meaning it was in his best interest to stay on good terms with holy knights.
“S-Sir holy knight, what can I do for you?”
“I was just on my way to pick up my precious Edel when I happened to see someone trying to touch her. I was fully prepared to punish the villain before I realized it was the shop’s owner. Did I jump to the wrong conclusion?” I slightly tightened my grip on his wrist and the man’s face went pale.
“A-Are you a friend of Edel’s?”
“Yeah. Now you wouldn’t be so foolish as to try to lay your hands on someone else’s woman, would you?”
“O-Of course not!” the man said, repeatedly shaking his head.
“Good. I would hate to think that the herb shop we rely on was run by a scumbag who took advantage of women. That would certainly disappoint all the holy women at the academy.” Rumors circulated fast on campus, and he surely knew that. It’d be bad for his business if word about him harassing a former holy woman spread. He started shaking, presumably imagining all the customers he stood to lose.
“D-Don’t be ridiculous! I was just saying how I hoped to continue relying on her for manastones in the future!”
“Oh, so you’ll keep buying them? Edel hasn’t caused you any problems?” Even though I’d stepped in this time, there was no telling if he would threaten her job out of anger later. However, if he thought treating Edel poorly would negatively impact his business in the future, he wouldn’t be inclined to do so. She’d be able to continue earning money by pouring her mana into manastones.
“C-Certainly!” I released the pale-in-the-face shop owner’s wrist with a smile. Although it had my handprint on it, I hadn’t broken it.
“All right, let’s get back to the kids, Edel.” I put my arm around her shoulder. Since she knew it was all an act, she didn’t resist. As we left, I turned back to the shopkeeper. “My holy woman will be visiting this shop in the future.”