As soon as Ariel finished her declaration, the atmosphere in the reception room completely flipped. Alvin leapt out of his seat and bowed repeatedly to her.
"Oh! Thank you. Thank you so much, saintess!"
"W-what?!"
Gion bolted upright from his chair and shouted.
"You cannot!"
Ariel raised a hand slightly to calm everyone down.
"I can't commute every single day either."
Tapping her teacup thoughtfully for a moment, Ariel suddenly looked up.
"How about five days a week? The Magic Tower will need time to analyze the results between experiments anyway."
"Five days! That's so reasonable! It's a perfect schedule!"
As the two reached a swift agreement, the air in the reception room turned freezing cold.
"How could you fall for such nonsense?!"
Unsurprisingly, Gion was the first to explode.
"Saintess Ariel! Selling divine power to those filthy heretics—are you in your right mind?! If the Order finds out, you will be excommunicated on the spot! Do you want to see our Order disgraced?!"
Gion flew into a frenzy as if he were about to jump onto the table. Hilda and Ian remained silent, but the glare they aimed at Alvin was anything but friendly.
Surrounded by hostile eyes in the middle of the temple, Alvin quickly scrambled to his feet.
"T-then I will consider the deal finalized! Thank you!"
Alvin shouted hastily while backing away toward the door.
"I-I will see you tomorrow at the Magic Tower!"
As Alvin fled the room, Ariel waved cheerfully at his retreating back and replied brightly.
"Yes, see you tomorrow~."
Thump.
The door slammed shut, plunging the reception room into silence.
But Gion's fury had not subsided. If anything, it burned even hotter.
"Archbishop! Does this make any sense at all?!"
Veins bulging on his neck as he yelled, Gion whipped his head toward Mathias, who was sitting upright.
"How can you just sit there and watch?! A saintess joined hands with the Magic Tower—the very place our Order despises! You should be stopping her!"
Mathias casually raised his teacup, acting like someone completely unrelated to the situation.
"Ho-ho. What an unprecedented exchange."
"Archbishop!"
Gion pounded his chest in frustration and cried out. Only then did Mathias set his cup down slowly and offer a benevolent smile.
"Calm down, Priest Gion. The saintess has already agreed; how could we go back on it now?"
"But sir!"
"A clergyman's vow is not something as light as a feather. Upholding the weight of a promise made in the name of God is also a fine form of spiritual discipline, wouldn't you say? Ho-ho."
In short: deal with it yourself.
"Haa…"
Gion let out a deep sigh and held his forehead.
"Then again, she is a criminal banished all the way to the North. It is no surprise she gets along so well with those crazy heretics."
Gion glared at Ariel out of the corner of his eye and sneered in disgust.
"Birds of a feather flock together, after all."
Whatever he said, Gion's words sounded like nothing more than buzzing flies in Ariel's ears.
Five days a week.
Six hours a day.
A weekly wage of thirty gold!
"…Nice."
A holy smile of pure capitalism spread across Ariel's lips.
Gion frothed at the mouth and mocked her from behind, but soaked in golden light, Ariel's expression never wavered.
* * *
When Ian first saw the new saintess, Ariel, he thought she was no different from the others who had been dispatched to the North.
Selfish, insidious, and greedy.
However, her boldness in stopping even the grand duke's overload shattered Ian's prejudice in a single instant.
Yet the current situation pushed Ian into an even deeper labyrinth.
Anyone belonging to the Order was meant to guard against the Magic Tower down to their very bones. Even Ian, whose resistance was relatively mild because he was a Northerner, had kept his guard up against them—yet she accepted them without hesitation. She was even willing to hand over her own divine power.
What on earth is she thinking? Is there something I am missing?
Ian fell into deep thought.
* * *
Later that afternoon…
Not long after Alvin left, Gion—who had been in a rage—finally came to his senses. Realizing he had been disrespectful in front of the archbishop, he grabbed a mop to make amends.
After thoroughly cleaning every nook and cranny of the temple, he bundled himself up in a heavy coat, about to step over the threshold to shovel snow outside.
Hilda and Ian quietly watched the bustling scene from a corner of the hallway.
Hilda watched out of boredom, while Ian kept his eyes on Gion in case trouble arose.
"Commander, should I tell him that I already swept outside this morning?"
"Don't bother."
"Then should I inform him that the blizzard will just pile it back up anyway, so it's pointless?"
"No."
At Ian's blunt response, Hilda closed her mouth tight.
The two simply stared with indifference at Gion's back as he struggled to step outside, solemnly chanting "One, two, one, two" while doing warm-up stretches.
"Um… commander."
Hesitating for a moment as she read Ian's mood, Hilda spoke cautiously.
"By the way, what kind of crime did the saintess commit in the capital to get sent all the way here?"
"…"
"Should I ask Priest Gion?"
Ian slowly turned to stare at Hilda.
"…Why not ask her directly?"
"Well, asking the saintess directly might be rude."
Hilda cupped her hands together, her eyes sparkling with admiration.
"According to the people who saw His Grace's overload, the saintess released a staggering amount of divine power, didn't she? They said it was a white light so bright it was blinding."
Hilda said with a hint of excitement in her voice.
"Someone like that must be a high-rank, or even highest-rank saintess. To think such a person was banished to the borderlands."
Hilda clenched her fists tightly.
"She is completely different from the people sent here before. The saintess said she was framed. The rotten Order definitely cooked up a scheme."
"…"
"Commander, do you think we could get purified by the saintess too?"
"…"
Ian kept his mouth firmly shut instead of answering.
The blindingly bright white light that erupted during the grand duke's overload flashed in Ian's mind.
Inside that light, it almost looked as though the saintess was slapping His Grace across the cheek. However, the overload's raw wavelength had shattered his senses, and the swirling dust had blurred his vision.
I must have been seeing things.
As Ian shook his head, loud footsteps echoed from down the hallway.
Hilda and Ian both turned toward the sound at the same time.
Ariel was striding toward Gion, her expression frozen colder and more lethal than a northern winter blizzard.
"Priest Gion."
Gion, who was stretching, froze at Ariel's chilly voice.
"Where did you get this?"
Ariel motioned with her chin toward something.
"Why do you care?"
Gion snorted and waved his arms again, openly ignoring her.
"I asked where you got it."
Ariel's voice grew sharper.
"Gion, you took this from my room, didn't you?"
Offended by Ariel dropping his title, Gion raised his voice.
"Watch your manners, Saintess Ariel!"
"Manners, my foot. You should watch your own manners, you thief, stealing stuff from other people's rooms."
"W-what?! A thief?!"
Gion's face flushed red and purple. Ariel stepped toward him as if she were about to grab him by the collar at any moment.
Sensing the explosive situation, Ian and Hilda rushed in from behind to intervene.
"Calm down, saintess! Deep breath! In, out!"
Hilda held Ariel's shoulders and guided her breathing. Ian stepped between them with a troubled expression and asked.
"What in the world is going on?"
"That mop! That mop is definitely mine."
Ariel huffed and pointed accusingly at the mop in Gion's hand.
"I had that mop safely tucked away in the corner of my room, and this guy stole it without asking!"
"H-how do you even know that, Saintess Ariel?!"
Gion stumbled back, stammering.
"A-a mop is just a mop! Why on earth would I steal one from your room?! Stop lying!"
As Gion shamelessly denied it, Ariel reached out and snatched the mop from his hand in one swift motion. The worn wooden handle fit perfectly into her palm.
This overwhelming grip.
Without a doubt, it was her mop.
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