Hasse’s Monastery
Today was the day that the gray priests and shrine maidens were due to move to Hasse. Two carriages that had been provided by Benno were lined up by the temple’s back gate connecting to the lower city. Everyone in the orphanage had gathered to see them off as three priests stepped into one carriage and three shrine maidens into the other. Mark would be riding with the gray priests, while Lutz would be with the shrine maidens.
“Please take care, everyone.”
“Thank you. I will watch over your esteemed gray priests, Lady Rozemyne,” Mark said while kneeling. I gave him a courteous nod, there as the representative of the orphanage, but I couldn’t help but look right over Mark’s shoulders as I did. He and Lutz gave wry grins and followed my gaze.
There knelt a single soldier. Despite having been ordered to guard the priests from the east gate to Hasse, Dad had come to the temple to see the priests leave in their carriages. I greeted him as well, barely holding back my smile.
“I will soon be leaving for Hasse myself,” I said. “I entrust guarding the priests to you.”
“You can count on me,” Dad responded, standing up with a grin and tapping his chest twice. I did the same, then watched the carriages depart.
I would be heading for Hasse three days from now, since that was the bare minimum it would take for the carriages to arrive there and everyone to finish settling in. As time passed, I counted down on my fingers how many days were left until I could go and see Dad again.
“Rozemyne, are you sure about this? I believe it would be best for you to ride with Brigitte,” Ferdinand said with a surly expression when I created my highbeast at the temple’s front gate. But I had taken my training seriously, and I was now good enough at driving Lessy that I would be perfectly fine on my own.
“Hasse is the closest city to Ehrenfest; if I can’t manage to fly there, then there’s no way I could fly the long distance required for the Harvest Festival. I’ll travel by Pandabus for the sake of practice.”
“I agree that you need more practice. However...” Ferdinand trailed off, being surprisingly wishy-washy about this even though he himself had said that I needed practical experience.
“Lord Ferdinand,” Brigitte interjected, “if you are that concerned, may I suggest that I ride with Lady Rozemyne? As I am also a wielder of mana, we can evacuate on my highbeast if need be. This way, she will be safer than she would be otherwise.”
“True... Brigitte, would you feel comfortable doing that?”
“I have seen Lady Rozemyne’s improvement with my own eyes. She has my trust,” Brigitte said in a cool and confident tone, but I could see that her amethyst eyes were twinkling. It seemed to me that she was at least a little interested in riding my Pandabus. She made her highbeast disappear and walked over, so I opened the door on the passenger side.
Ferdinand lowered his eyes in defeat as he watched on. “If you insist, Brigitte. I leave her to you.”
Brigitte bobbed her head in a nod and stepped into my Pandabus. I got into the driver’s seat myself and closed all the doors.
“Brigitte, please fasten your (seatbelt). Pull this and click it into here...” I explained, putting my own seatbelt on to demonstrate. Safety first, after all. Only the driver’s seat had morphed to match my size, so the passenger seat beside me looked super big and tall from my perspective.
Stroking the side of her seat, Brigitte smiled. “This truly is a cute highbeast.”
“Riiight? He’s so cute, isn’t he?”
Ferdinand treated it like something weird, but I knew my Pandabus was cute. Maybe I would be able to discuss his cuteness with a fellow girl. I looked up at Brigitte with hopeful eyes, only for her to flinch in regret and awkwardly clear her throat.
“Ahem! Er, well... I meant that in the sense that it is a good match for you.”
“Ahaha. I thank you ever so much. Now, it’s time for liftoff.”
I gripped the Pandabus by his handles, poured mana into him, then stepped on the accelerator to chase after Ferdinand’s highbeast which had already flown off. He began running on his tiny red panda legs and, when I pulled the handles back, started soaring through the air.
“I never considered that one could sit inside of a highbeast. The seat is very comfortably soft, and it is nice that I would not necessarily have to change into clothes designed for riding highbeasts. I have a feeling that ladies in noble society might wish to copy this design,” Brigitte said.
It seemed that fine noblewomen had to change into clothes made for riding highbeasts, since sitting on the back of an animal required you to spread your legs to straddle it. But no such accommodations were necessary to ride the Pandabus.
“Were there no carriages when highbeasts were first made, I wonder?”
“Highbeasts are made in the image of animals, and the spell is not equipped to create carriages or anything of the like. The concept of riding inside the animal itself is definitely new, and it is a very wonderful idea in my opinion.”
Retrospectively, I probably wouldn’t have thought to ride inside of an animal either had I not grown up around anime and theme parks full of animal rides. But for all of Brigitte’s compliments, I couldn’t exactly celebrate much. After all, the original idea here definitely wasn’t mine.
“I wasn’t sure whether it would be trendy among women, since Ferdinand looked so displeased with him,” I confided. The Pandabus’s legs waved about through the air as he followed after Ferdinand’s lion.
My red panda is so super cute. Ehehehe...
Our highbeasts landed by the monastery. It appeared that someone had been keeping watch, as Benno and the others immediately came outside. The Gilberta Company, the gray priests, and the soldiers guarding them were all kneeling.
I climbed out of my highbeast and returned him to his feystone form, which I then placed in the cage hanging off my belt. It took me a lot longer than it took Ferdinand and Damuel, but still, I was getting better.
With that done, I took a half-step in front of Ferdinand. Had we been able to do things my way then I would have been hiding behind him instead, but I had been told it was improper for the High Priest to stand ahead of the High Bishop.
Ferdinand looked across the people kneeling, then nodded. “We appreciate your welcome. Now, we shall see the inside of the monastery at once.”
Everyone stood up. I made eye contact with Dad, who was standing at the very front of the soldiers, and we exchanged smiles. That was all we could do with Ferdinand and the others around.
“I shall start with the girls’ building,” Benno said, taking the role of guide as he led us inside. The previously empty doorways now had doors, and there were boxes for putting personal belongings in alongside mattresses on the floor. “The beds should be ready by winter. Given the rush, we prioritized making the rooms livable.”
I nodded repeatedly; the rooms being livable was important. Boxes and mattresses were about all the orphans would need, since they didn’t have many personal belongings to begin with.
“This room is for handling paperwork,” Benno continued. “There is an identical one in the boys’ building.”
The room had been set up with chairs, desks, and writing utensils. The gray shrine maidens would be tasked with writing documents regarding food and living expenses, while the gray priests would be tasked with writing reports on the workshop.
The dining hall only had a makeshift table that consisted of a board resting on several boxes; the rest would be prepared later. The carpenters had been using it while working on the monastery, and it had apparently been more than good enough for them to eat on.
Since it was already the afternoon, the soldiers and the Gilberta Company would be spending the night in the monastery as well. That meant everyone would be having dinner together, which demanded an extra board or two be added onto the table.
Like in the temple, the basement of the girls’ dorm was a kitchen, and it was equipped with pots, metal griddles, and an oven like in my kitchen. It also had wooden plates and cutlery, so eating here would be just like eating in the temple’s orphanage.
“It is a bit excessive for an orphanage’s kitchen, but we went the extra distance since we knew you would be visiting, Lady Rozemyne.”
“I thank you ever so much. My chefs will surely appreciate it.”
There was an exit in the basement of the girls’ building just like there was in the temple, leading to the basement of the boys’ building which had been made into a workshop. It had all of the tools and materials it would need to operate as a Rozemyne Workshop. The only things it didn’t have were metal letter types and a letterpress printer, but given that the latter demanded the strength of several adult men and we had a shortage of personnel, they would be focusing on paper-making and mimeograph printing for now.
“We will bring the printing presses once more people have arrived, but for now this should be enough for the workshop to function,” Benno said while leading us upstairs.
The rooms in the boys’ building were just like those in the girls’ building—furnished with boxes and mattresses to make them livable. It seemed that this was where the soldiers and the Gilberta Company would be staying.
“These kids are just orphans and they’re living better than us, huh?” one of the soldiers accompanying us grumbled with a grimace.
“Would you like to become a priest too, then? You won’t be permitted to marry or leave the temple, and your life will be constantly shaken around by the whims of blue priests, but if that seems like a pleasant life to you, then we would gladly welcome you into the monastery,” I said, unable to remain silent.
They knew nothing about the orphans’ situation—that they were stuck in the orphanage until their baptism, that they could easily be discarded if unneeded, or that they could die if there was no one around to take care of them. And yet, they had the gall to say they lived better lives than them.
The soldier quickly noticed my frustration and the blood drained from his face. He knelt down and said, “Forgive me, I did not mean to offend,” before offering a variety of excuses.
“Lady Rozemyne, it is understandable they would think that after seeing how we live now. It is thanks to you and your efforts in the temple that our quality of life has seen such dramatic improvement. They have no way of knowing how much worse our lives would be if not for you,” one gray priest said, trying to console me with praise. All the while, I could see Dad proudly nodding along with a look on his face that seemed to say “Isn’t my daughter incredible?”
...Don’t just nod in agreement. Think about the soldier trembling on the ground right now. Isn’t he yours? I thought, but seeing Dad acting so proud of me like usual eased my anger, and my shoulders soon loosened up.
“I imagine you spoke without thinking, but I would ask that you take care before making such prejudicial assumptions about others,” I said.
“I have no excuse. It won’t happen again,” the soldier said apologetically. I had forgiven him, and so the matter ended there.
Next up was the chapel. It had two impressive, ornately carved wooden doors, which immediately exuded the majestic aura that one would expect from a chapel. As the gray priests pushed them open, I saw that the previously pure-white floor inside now had a carpet laid atop it, and there was an altar at the far end of the room meant for holding the statues of the gods. The chapel wasn’t too large overall, but it definitely had the same atmosphere as the temple.
“Benno, when will the statues be ready?” Ferdinand asked, looking at the unadorned altar.
“I am told it will take one more month.”
“I see. So they will be ready in time for the Harvest Festival. Excellent. Rozemyne, follow me; I will now make your room.”
Ferdinand took out a feystone, pressed it against the wall at about waist-height, then made his schtappe appear and began to chant something. In no time at all, a band of red light started to stretch out from the feystone, extending up until it was about fifteen centimeters taller than Ferdinand before splitting in two and moving in opposite directions.
After growing for a bit longer, the bands suddenly bent at a ninety-degree angle and headed straight down, then bent at another ninety-degree angle just before they touched the ground. The two lines were now headed toward one another, moving parallel to the floor until they eventually fused back together. Finally, the light stretched straight up to return to the feystone, which then started to shine intensely. When the brightness faded, the feystone was embedded in the door to a hidden room.
“Rozemyne, register your mana here and build your room.”
“Okay.”
I put my hand on the feystone and registered my mana with it, just like I had with the hidden room in my own chambers. Back then, it had been so high up that I needed to use a chair to touch it, but here it was low enough that I could reach it from the ground. It was only then that I realized Ferdinand had adjusted the height for my convenience.
I let my mana flow while thinking of my room in the temple, and when the door opened to signal the end of the registration, it revealed a room that looked to be exactly the same size.
“You may order furniture and any other things you need and have them brought here,” Ferdinand said, looking over at Benno and Mark. I followed his gaze. They were smiling, but I could see in their eyes that they were taken aback by being expected to do more work.
...Sorry. I’m really sorry.
“Oh yes, and pour your mana into this until the color has completely changed,” Ferdinand instructed, pointing at a feystone that was embedded in the back wall at the far end of the chapel.
“What is it?”
“Something essential for protecting the monastery. As of now, it still contains mana from when it was constructed, but that will not last until spring. Protecting this place is one of your duties.”
I steadily poured my mana into the protection magic tool to charge it. I had expected it to require a ton of mana to protect the whole monastery, but as it turned out, the amount it needed was surprisingly small.
We looped back through the monastery and returned to the front door; it was time for us nobles to hurry up and leave so that everyone else could get back to working on the monastery and preparing dinner.
“I see that the monastery is more than livable,” I said to a gray shrine maiden, who responded with a smile.
“Yes, I think we will be just fine here.”
“I suggest that you all stay here for a while. If everything is determined to be fine, we can go and get the orphans. We shall return in three days to check up on things. Please tell me then if you need anything else,” I said, giving each priest and shrine maiden a diptych. I had asked Benno to prepare them in advance since they would be essential for their work. “These have your names engraved on them, which means they are not shared property, but your own personal belongings. Consider them my gift to you for the work you will soon be performing in this monastery. I pray that they will be of use.”
“We are honored.”
The priests, knowing that only my attendants had carried diptychs in the temple, broke into grins as they looked at their names on the diptychs.
“Lutz, is everything ready?” I asked.
“Of course,” he replied, handing me a cloth pouch that made a small clinking noise as it moved. I took it from him and turned to face the soldiers.
“Thank you all for your efforts in guarding us today. I cannot offer you much, but I hope to express my appreciation with a gift. You may accept this without worry,” I said.
The soldiers rarely went outside the city, so it wasn’t hard to imagine that their families would be worried about them being gone for so many days in a row. My gift was like a bonus, or a company covering its employees’ travel expenses. I intended to ask them to guard Benno’s supply caravans in the future, so the more they liked us, the better.
“It may come to pass that I ask you to guard us again in the future. If so, I trust you to serve us well.”
I handed them a small silver coin each, and eventually I reached Dad. Watching the others exchange greedy looks out of the corner of my eye, I sneakily gave him alone a large silver. “Please praise them for their work,” I whispered quietly, and Dad grinned in response.
At that, I addressed the rows of soldiers once more. “I must be leaving now, but remember that men are not allowed in the girls’ building under any circumstances. I trust that none of you are immoral men who would seek to lay hands on my shrine maidens, but those in charge should take care to keep their men under control. Violators shall not be forgiven under any circumstances,” I said, glaring at them to drive my point home.
Dad and the Gilberta Company were fine for sure, but people in the lower city looked down upon those in the temple’s orphanage. I didn’t want any of them to relax once I was gone and try to blow off some steam by laying their grubby hands on the shrine maidens. I wasn’t joking when I said that all of the shrine maidens still in the orphanage were absolute babes, so firmly putting my foot down for safety’s sake was crucial.
Ferdinand summoned his highbeast, so I followed suit and made my Pandabus. Brigitte got in with me, and off we went. It would be three days before we returned to Hasse.
Upon returning to Ehrenfest, I received reports from Benno and Dad, completed the third picture book that I would be printing (one based around Leidenschaft the God of Fire and his subordinate gods), and met with Wilma to ask her to draw the illustrations. The three days passed before I knew it. Assuming the priests hadn’t experienced any problems living in the monastery, it would be time to start thinking about bringing the orphans.
This time, we would be meeting the mayor of Hasse.
“Rozemyne, do you truly intend to make your attendants ride in that thing?” Ferdinand asked, looking at my family car-sized Pandabus like he was walking—or rather, flying—garbage.
“Of course. That’s why he’s a Pandabus,” I replied, not bothered by his lack of taste in the slightest. My attendants were happy, at least.
“Woah, Lady Rozemyne! The door just stretched open! So cool!”
“Wow, the seat is so soft and comfy!”
Gil was so excited that he didn’t even realize he’d stopped speaking politely, while Nicola’s never-ending interest in new things meant that she was completely full of glee from the moment she had packed our luggage and climbed inside. Fran was the only one looking at the Pandabus with an expression of abject despair and grim resolve.
“I am prepared to travel with you until the end of my days, Lady Rozemyne.”
“Fran, you don’t need to look like you’re about to step off a cliff. It’s not that dangerous. Brigitte rode with me last time just fine.”
“And I shall ride again. Fear not,” Brigitte said, getting into the front passenger seat. Fran, steeling his resolve once and for all, clenched his teeth and climbed into the back seat.
“Does everyone have their seatbelts on? We’re about to go,” I said before flying off. Fran was nervously gripping his seatbelt, while Gil and Nicola let out cries of excitement as the Pandabus soared through the air.
“Woooah! So high!”
“Lady Rozemyne, the city looks so small. Fran, look out the window!”
“Gil, Nicola—you mustn’t speak to Lady Rozemyne right now. She needs to focus.” Fran immediately scolded them, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“Fran, I can talk while driving just fine.”
“Please don’t. I beg you to focus.”
We arrived at Hasse before long. My attendants started to unload my luggage once I had landed in front of the monastery, and a number of gray priests came out to help them carry it inside.
Once everything had been brought into the hidden room at the far end of the chapel, my attendants began setting up my room. It wouldn’t take long since we had only brought the carpet and tapestries with us. A spare bed from the temple would be brought here later so that I wouldn’t have to worry much about collapsing.
While that was going on, Ferdinand and I were resting in the dining hall, being served tea by a gray shrine maiden while we ate the sweets we had brought.
“How is life here?” I asked the gray priests while sipping my tea.
“All has been well. Having the forest and river so close by has made paper-making much easier,” one responded. There was a tinge of nervousness in his voice, no doubt due to Ferdinand being here.
I looked over to the shrine maiden who had poured our tea. “Would things continue to be okay if we were to bring the orphans here?”
“I believe so. We can start preparing lunch so that they can be brought over at once.”
At that, Ferdinand, my attendants, and I traveled by highbeast to see Hasse’s highest authority—the mayor. Incidentally, despite us having informed them of our arrival in advance, the servant who greeted us almost immediately freaked out and started floundering. They probably hadn’t prepared at all.
“Th-The High Bishop and the High Priest, you say?! Wasn’t the merchant supposed to be the one coming?!”
Benno had passed on the announcement that we would be coming for the orphans, but it seemed he had failed to mention that Ferdinand and I would be the ones collecting them. Judging by how the mayor was practically frothing at the mouth when he burst into the room, I could guess that Benno had not been treated exceptionally well here.
“Where are the orphans?” Ferdinand asked sharply. “We informed you of our arrival ahead of time. Bring them here at once.”
The mayor gulped in air and immediately had a servant go and summon the orphans. Soon, a crowd of bony-looking children with unwashed hair and dirty clothes came into the room. They reminded me of the temple’s orphans when I first saw them, and a single glance was all it took for me to know how hard their lives were.
I counted that there were fourteen children, which confused me. “This isn’t everyone, is it? I was told that there were more.”
“I am sure that whoever told you that was mistaken,” the mayor said with a smile as he knelt before us, only for one of the orphan boys to glare at him and shake his head hard.
“No, he’s lying! He hid Marthe and my sister so he could sell them!”
“Shut it, Thore!” the mayor shouted, his eyes flaring with rage as he stood up to strike the boy. But Damuel smoothly stepped forward, pinned the mayor’s arm behind his back, and drew his schtappe.
“Lord Ferdinand ordered all of the orphans to be brought forward. Did you not hear him, or are you deliberately defying him?” Damuel asked coldly. For a mere commoner like the mayor, defying a direct order from Ferdinand, the half-brother of the archduke, was like signing his own death sentence. He could be executed here and now without anyone batting an eye.
The mayor gasped at the sight of Damuel drawing his weapon with zero hesitation. “S-Someone! Anyone! Go get Nora and Marthe!”
Two young girls were brought into the room, both so pretty that I understood why they had been singled out to be sold. We now had the correct number of orphans that Benno had reported, so I began to speak to them.
“Would any of you like to move to the orphanage I have built? You will become priests and shrine maidens, but I am not forcing anyone to come against their will. You will have a place to sleep and eat at the monastery, but you will need to work and live according to our rules.”
The orphans fearfully looked between the mayor and I, aside from Thore, who simply looked straight at me. “If you’re not gonna sell my sister, she and I will go with you.”
“Thore...” muttered the older of the two girls, a worried look on her face. She was probably his sister.
The mayor reached out a hand toward her to interrupt what was happening. “Hold it. Nora’s not leav—”
“Silence. Lady Rozemyne has not permitted you to speak,” Damuel said, pushing the kneeling mayor’s head back down.
Ferdinand narrowed his eyes coldly at the mayor; that was the look he gave when he was getting annoyed. I turned my back to the chilly air gathering around him so that I could speak to Nora.
“What do you want to do, Nora? If you move to our orphanage, we will never sell you. But gray priests and shrine maidens are not permitted to marry.”
“Not like orphans can get a proper marriage anyway,” Thore spat out.
“I am not asking you, Thore. I am asking Nora.”
Nora lowered her eyes for a moment, then looked at me. “I’ll go. I won’t be able to marry here either, and I was about to be separated from Thore forever. Anything is better than being sold,” she said with a sad smile.
“Then I shall welcome you.”
“If Thore’s going, me and Marthe are too!” another boy said, taking the hand of the girl who had been brought in with Nora.
“Rick, you sure...?” Thore asked.
“If we stay here, Marthe’s getting sold next.”
It seemed that the other orphans didn’t intend to defy the mayor, as they all just shook their heads and asked to stay. Whether they were scared of changing environments or scared because Damuel had been violent with their owner the mayor, I couldn’t tell. But either way, I didn’t intend to force them to join us.
“I shall take these four, then. Is that okay with you, Ferdinand?”
“Quite. We did what we came to do and nothing more. Let us depart.”
The mayor just watched us leave in a daze, no longer having the two girls in his possession whom he had hidden from us to sell.
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