“Flawi Priest of the Flower Goddess Church, I hereby conscript you under the authority of the Sun Church’s Saintess.”
Stunned by the Saintess’s request that repaid kindness with enmity, I asked.
“…May I ask what you mean by conscription?”
“It means exactly what I said. I’d like you to help me.”
Given the Saintess’s current expected situation, the word ‘draft’ came to mind before ‘conscription.’
But judging from her reaction, she didn’t seem to mean it that way.
‘Besides, with the Sun Church’s own manpower available, there’s no reason to draft me, a priest of this city.’
Nor did she seem to have caught onto my rank—no, my standing.
‘What exactly is she after?’
I could only figure out the Saintess’s purpose after a bit more conversation.
“It sounds absurd to say this after making a request, but I can’t give you the details. I just need you and Priest Patch to gather information around the city.”
The Saintess’s decision to invoke her authority and demand conscription wasn’t because the situation was dire, nor because she held my abilities in high regard.
‘She must have found him that annoying.’
In short, she needed someone to offload an irritating ‘babysitter’ onto.
You could call it Priest Patch’s karma.
In a way, it was my karma too, for having held Patch back while defending the Saintess.
‘I don’t know whether to call her clever or just corrupted.’
At the Saintess’s attempt to remove Priest Patch under the pretext of mission and authority, I nearly let out a hollow laugh.
“But I have a condition.”
“If you require compensation, the Sun Church can…”
“No, I’m fine with money or material goods.”
I cut off the Saintess’s unnecessary words.
“Instead, help out at the Healing Center.”
“…Excuse me?”
At my unexpected condition, the Saintess tilted her head in confusion.
“Is it that you don’t know how to use the Miracle of Healing?”
Could it be that each religion has different miracles at its disposal?
I asked to confirm, given her unfamiliar reaction.
“What do you take our Saintess for?!”
It was Priest Patch who answered, fuming with anger.
He was bristling as if he himself had been insulted.
“Our Saintess is a whole 6th Rank, I’ll have you know!”
6th Rank.
In familiar terms, that meant A-Rank.
“Then she’ll be more than enough help.”
“You’re a priest from some backwater city, so you probably can’t even grasp what 6th Rank means…!”
I let Patch’s noisy blustering wash over me and waited for the Saintess’s answer.
“If it helps people, I’ll gladly do it.”
“Thank you.”
But despite her words of gratitude, my mind was elsewhere.
‘So it’s nothing too serious, then.’
Half of my condition was just to test her reaction.
Yet her surprisingly easy acceptance shifted my thoughts a little.
‘Still, that’s a relief.’
I wouldn’t have to neglect the Healing Center’s work.
And for a while, I might even get to rest a bit easier.
Of course, it didn’t take long to realize that thought was a mistake.
“…”
The Healing Center was bursting at the seams.
“Oh my, to receive healing from the Saintess… we’ll be blessed for generations.”
“Heheh, think she can treat my hemorrhoids too?”
It was all because of the patients—no, the nuisances—who’d come just to see the Saintess.
…
I let out a hollow laugh at the Healing Center’s longest queue I’d ever seen in my life.
What was even more absurd was that a good number of them weren’t patients at all.
Perfectly healthy people had pretended to be sick just to get in and behold the Saintess.
“Excuse me, is there any way I could get healed by the Saintess?”
“…”
Even the patient who’d come to see me was spouting this nonsense, so I could easily guess how bad things were.
“Please hold back, Priest Flawi!”
“You can’t strangle patients, even if they’re faking it!”
In the end, I did end up strangling a few of those nuisances, but there was no meaningful change in numbers.
The whole situation only settled down once the Saintess finally left.
Losing the extra hands was a shame, but it was better than actual patients going untreated.
“What a pity.”
With a face that showed no real regret, the Saintess returned to the Church.
Instead, there was someone else I got to put to work.
“Why in the world am I doing this?!”
It was Priest Patch, who had been acting as the Saintess’s self-appointed guardian.
“We have to do the information gathering together anyway, don’t we? Might as well do some good and pry information out of the patients while we’re at it.”
“Dammit, I’m supposed to be attending to the Saintess!”
‘Then maybe you should have done a better job of it.’
I couldn’t very well tell him the truth—that the Saintess had kicked him out—so I had no choice but to offer empty encouragement.
“This is all because you’re so capable, Priest Patch. You’re so trusted, so please, do the hard work for us.”
“…Hmph, well, I am the Saintess’s right hand, after all.”
‘That actually worked.’
He was weak to flattery, too.
But despite his terrible social awareness, Priest Patch was quite competent.
“You blasphemous wretch!”
I nearly applauded as he slammed his Scripture down on the nuisances looking for the Saintess.
‘He’s good at Healing and good at beating people, too.’
Margaret would have coveted a talent like him if she’d seen it.
‘Still, I have no idea what they’re actually investigating.’
His work ethic aside, I couldn’t figure out what he was searching for.
He never told me what he was trying to find, and Patch, despite all his grumbling, focused solely on Healing.
‘Goddess, do you happen to know anything?’
-I dunno.
I should have asked the right questions.
The Gallery was just as lacking in information.
[♿♿♿Ah+ah❗+ah❗+ah❗+ah❗+shit❗]
[Gyaaaah! Armband man!!!!! Armband!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
[Assistant Moderator, you son of a bitch, why aren’t you working when you’re getting paid!!]
On top of that, the bait was old news, so there were almost no posts mentioning the Saintess.
It was the second day of bringing Priest Patch along to the Healing Center.
Just as I was wondering why this so-called investigation was dragging on longer than expected—
Perhaps feeling just as frustrated, Priest Patch was the one to broach the subject first.
“Ahem, Priest Flawi. This city seems rather peaceful.”
“? Is that so.”
“I’ve seen quite a few patients over the past two days, but for a provincial city where the public security is usually unstable, I haven’t seen a single patient hurt by monsters.”
He was speaking indirectly, but there was no mistaking what he meant.
‘So that’s what they were investigating.’
I’d wondered why he never seemed to ask the patients anything despite doing his searching at the Healing Center.
He wasn’t looking for words—he was looking for traces in their wounds.
‘That’s probably why the Saintess agreed to the Healing Center work so easily.’
I was about to answer carefully when—
“Actually, it’s not all that peaceful.”
The one who suddenly cut into the conversation was the Priestess organizing bandages nearby.
“About a week ago, some soldiers came in pretty badly injured.”
“…Is that so?”
“I remember Priest Flawi personally went with the soldiers to subjugate a dungeon at the time, right?”
‘Tch, talking out of turn.’
But since the secret was already out, I had no choice but to put on a friendly smile.
“It was only my duty as a priest.”
“If it weren’t for your taste in clothes, Priest Flawi, you’d be quite popular.”
I brushed off the Priestess’s incomprehensible comment with a forced smile and glanced at Patch.
His pupils wavered slightly.
“Priest Flawi, did that dungeon close by any chance? No—I’m just curious where it is. …As a priest of the Sun Church, I can’t very well turn a blind eye to such matters.”
“I wouldn’t know; I’m not privy to the finer details. If you’re curious, why not ask the Lord?”
At my lie, Priest Patch nodded as if convinced.
‘Though it is a bit odd. He seemed certain there was a dungeon near Millers, but he doesn’t actually know where it is.’
And if he was looking for the dungeon, why not just ask the Lord outright? That question also nagged at me.
It was a highly distorted picture of information, a situation I couldn’t understand.
But soon, Iris’s voice gave me a clue about that distorted information.
-That’s Dad’s Divine Power!
‘For something found through Divine Power, it seems rather imprecise.’
-Well, duh, ’cause it wasn’t Dad who used it?
‘Hm.’
That did make sense.
Then, curious, I asked.
‘So is there any Divine Power I could borrow?’
-Yep!
I waited with anticipation for the Goddess’s answer.
-You can make flowers bloom for a long, long time without withering!
“…”
I seriously considered converting.
-Nooo!
When quitting time came, Patch immediately reported the information he’d gathered to the Saintess.
I watched that scene, pretending not to, and let out a sigh.
‘The real problem is that I’m the one who fixed that dungeon in place.’
It was done at Charlotte’s request, so it shouldn’t be a major issue, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that a misunderstanding might arise.
And my unpleasant premonition hit the mark.
In the dead of night, when everyone should have been asleep.
-Wake up!
-We’re screwed right now!
When I opened my eyes at the Goddess’s voice, I saw someone holding a blade to my throat.
“I don’t know what this is about, but please spare me.”