The Proposal

A few days had passed in Lunéville since the arena's completion festival, which had gone forward even as construction on the city gates continued.

The arena drew a never-ending crowd; on the rest days, when the place was closed for large-scale cleaning and maintenance, shogi tournaments and the like were now being held in its stead. Ilya had wondered whether it was really proper to hold such things in so blood-soaked a venue, but for the participants the gratitude over regular tournaments outweighed any such qualm, and the events were proving quite popular.

And then there was the danger of keeping monsters caged, which the recent incident had brought into the light.

To begin with, the "anti-monster combat" exhibitions had been the Guild Association headquarters' own proposal, an attempt to scrub away the image of match-fixing left over from the previous arena. The exhibitions had no room for such fixing, but given that the recent incident had shown them to fall hardest on the residents of Lunéville, they had been put on hold pending a fresh explanation of their purpose and safeguards to the townspeople, and a popular vote on whether to allow them.

Since the arena was nominally under the direct control of the Guild Association, its supreme overseer was Frank, head of the Lunéville Branch. He, however, had taken stock of the branch's current state and decided to hire separate personnel for its day-to-day operation.

The patrol group, too, was functioning well, without showing any aftereffects of the recent incident, and even with the arena now open Lunéville had been largely free of trouble.

For the branch itself, then, the workload was unchanged, and Ilya, mindful of the warning the departing former Branch Vice Manager Dennis had left her, resolved to keep an eye out for the movements of the human-supremacists.

It was just at that point that they received a visitor.

"It seems the two of you are already acquainted, but allow me to make the introduction again. Father, this is Ilya, who works for our branch. Ilya. This is Father Bernart Gartman, who has been assigned to Lunéville's Lottévester Church, and his parishioner Sophia-san."

In the third-floor reception room of the branch, Ilya exchanged bows with the two seated across from her.

At Frank's prompting Bernart settled back onto the sofa, while Sophia and Ilya took up positions standing behind their respective superiors.

Sophia, who knew at least a part of Ilya's true ability, blinked at the arrangement; Bernart, however, seemed to find nothing amiss and gave no particular reaction.

"Erm… where had we left off?"

Bernart tilted his head with a wry smile, and Sophia leaned in to whisper something.

"Ah, yes. We'd reached the point where the Lunéville church construction that had been planned previously fell through."

"The cancellation itself was decided fairly early on, but…"

The reason the project had foundered was the thieves' guild that had then sprawled across Lunéville, so none of the fault was Frank's. That he still looked uncomfortable about it made Ilya think there was such a thing as being too earnest.

You ought to take more pride in your own accomplishments, she thought.

"To my shame… the church itself was in some turmoil at the time, so I learned of the cancellation only quite a bit later. By then, Sophia and I had drifted into being looked after by the cathedral in Akradist's royal capital. Even so, after that we traveled around the country doing missionary work."

"Then you came to Rondéville with the recent evacuations?"

The recent commotion… the temporary rise in sea level and the high waves caused by a divine beast's rampage had forced many residents of Akradist's coastal regions to evacuate inland. Owing to the limits on facilities and food supplies for taking them in, neighboring Rondéville had also taken in refugees, and a great many had come to Lunéville.

Most of the damage had been suffered by the areas facing the sea, but Akradist's royal capital was not itself coastal; it sat a little ways up the Lacaba Canal, which ran inland from the sea.

Even with the well-developed sluice gates allowing for some control of the water volume, the damage from the sea-level rise had been far from minor.

"No. We had remained at the shelter in the royal capital, doing nursing work. Many of the others had gone out to assist refugees, you see."

Once that work had reached a stopping point, they had come on at last to take up their new posting here. With that, Bernart concluded his account of how they had ended up in Lunéville.

After the meeting, the four of them headed into town, partly to give the newcomers a tour of Lunéville, and then made for the manor to meet with Hector once he had returned from his duties.

While they waited for Hector, Sophia's cheeks were still flushed pink, the excitement still not faded from her.

"(Is something the matter?)"

"(A-ah, ahaha…)"

When Ilya asked her quietly, Sophia scratched her cheek bashfully.

"(How do I put it… I was just so moved! Akradist's royal capital had waterways too and I thought it was lovely, but somehow underneath the splendor there was a shadow to it. Lunéville, though, is beautiful and bright!)"

Pulling off the rare feat of speaking emphatically in a hushed voice, Sophia heaped praise on the city of Lunéville.

More than the city itself, perhaps it was the atmosphere she was praising. Streetscapes were the work of those who had built them, but atmosphere was made by the people who lived there, and so Ilya found she could feel honestly glad about it.

So this is how pleasing it is to have something I love praised, she thought, savoring a small bit of emotion. Just then, Hector arrived.

"My apologies for keeping you waiting."

Hector bowed his head the moment he appeared, throwing Bernart and Sophia, who were meeting him for the first time, into a flustered panic.

There were soft-spoken nobles and unfailingly polite ones, but a lord this self-effacing was unheard of, so it was natural enough that they reacted the way they did.

Seeing herself of not so long ago in the pair of them, Ilya smiled wryly.

"I serve as the lord of these lands. I am Hector."

"I have been appointed to the Lunéville Church. My name is Bernart."

After the introductions, they finished signing the application forms for church appointment registration and the like, concluding the formal part of the visit.

Tea was brought out by way of a break, and the three settled into something more like chatter than business, catching up on recent events. At Ilya's side, Sophia was smiling cheerfully along, but it was painfully obvious she didn't understand a word of it.

In that sense one could argue there was no harm in her sitting in, but it did make Ilya wonder whether it was really proper for a mere parishioner like Sophia and a mere receptionist like herself to be present at so important a meeting.

(… I've pretty much given up on that one, though.)

Heedless of her inner musings, the three men's conversation rolled on.

"In most cities this size, you'd expect to see some part of the populace struggling with poverty, and yet there's none of that here. If only the whole world could be as happy as this town…"

Bernart said it with a wry smile.

(Poverty, huh…)

Unlike her previous life, this world had guilds, where anyone could take commissions and earn a wage; Ilya had once assumed, on those grounds, that there was no such thing as unemployment.

In practice, however, guild registration required passing an exam, and anyone unable to keep working any longer had to live off something like severance pay or a pension calculated from their prior contributions.

For the mercenary guild, that often came from injury; for the commerce and industry guilds, debts and management failures that cost people their jobs. Even in the agriculture guild, which didn't set foot on battlefields, injuries happened, and stories of entire families having to sell off their land and end up on the road were not at all rare.

(… … Let's stop there.)

Realizing that just thinking about it was sending her into a brooding gloom, Ilya pulled herself back out of her memories.

As that demonstrated, unemployment and poverty were everyday realities of this world too. Even Lunéville, the happy place Bernart had spoken of, had no guarantee its present state would last.

The pillar supporting economic growth was the continuous development of technology, which began with raising the next generation.

Looked at that way, the three people gathered here were the heads of the three great powers in Lunéville.

Judging it a good opportunity, Ilya waited for a break in their conversation.

"How would you feel about building a school?"

"A school, you say?"

The first to respond was Bernart.

Or rather, the other two seemed accustomed to her coming out with strange things, and rather than surprise they were giving her the kind of look that simply prompted her to continue.

Taking that as her cue, Ilya began her explanation.

"In most countries' capitals, there are educational institutions run either by the state or by the guilds. The reason they're concentrated at a nation's center is partly because that's where the scholarly jobs are (civil officials, administrative staff and so on), but also because the standard of living is high enough that children don't need to be sent out to work."

That was the public face of it.

The other side was that they were institutions for raising the kind of personnel convenient to those in power, and the thieves' guild educational institutions, where that motive was especially strong, maintained an educational standard on par with the nobility of provincial cities.

Compulsory education like the kind in her previous life would be impossible here, but as far as neutrality was concerned, Ilya could think of no environment better suited than Lunéville.

It was on that basis that she had proposed it, though the three of them seemed already to have caught onto the point, since none of them mentioned the political angle aloud.

"I see… Just how many households are currently sending their children out to work?"

"Twenty-eight households. The breakdown is, most of them are families in the agriculture guild or families running inns in the commerce guild."

Hector answered without hesitation.

To know the state of his people so finely could perhaps be called a kind of love for them; Ilya was still marveling at it when Frank, catching her doing so, gave her a wry smile.

Before she could properly look embarrassed, Frank, his smile still in place, turned back to Bernart and added context to Hector's answer.

"As for the rest of the households, they're either taking on something like an apprenticeship, less for the labor and more for the experience, or leaving the children at home to study using the teaching materials Ilya put together."

"Materials she made?"

Bernart's eyes widened, and Ilya internally smiled at her own expense. Fair enough, she thought.

Elves had a reputation, in some circles, for being the guardians of the gods' knowledge, but the image of them as a people removed from the everyday world was strong. It was understandable that he'd doubt whether such a person had the kind of knowledge needed to put together teaching materials.

Or so Ilya guessed was his reaction.

"Then we have nothing to worry about."

He accepted it with the easiest of nods, and it was Ilya's turn to blink.

Why? As she wondered it, she noticed Sophia, standing behind him, bowing her head apologetically over and over.

But her usual habit kept her own expression from changing, and the question went unresolved as the discussion of the school resumed.

"Do you already have a draft proposal?"

"The instructional plan for the academic side is done. What's left is the three of your approvals, explaining it to the residents, securing a location, and arranging the funds."

"Funds? Are you planning to build a dedicated schoolhouse?"

"No," Ilya answered Frank.

"Since I have no way of knowing how many students will actually come, I was thinking we'd use a private room in the branch. The funds we'd need are for equipment, something like a blackboard, on which we can write things out in front of the students. If the budget allowed I'd like to set aside wages for specialists to come and teach, but… the monthly fees we'd collect from the students' guardians, I was hoping we could use for school lunches."

The four of them were staring at her dumbfoundedly, and the dry smile of ah, I've done it again rose to Ilya's face.

She had let her own momentum carry her, but in this world's equivalents of schools, teachers did not write explanations on a blackboard in front of the class. Standard lectures had students working steadily through their materials; if they had questions the teacher would explain things individually, and after tests the teacher would go over the parts they had gotten wrong. That was the method.

And there was no such thing, either, as school lunches. In schools attended by wealthy children, dishes prepared by chefs were brought out to the dining hall by waitstaff; at slightly lower-class schools, the standard was to bring one's own lunchbox.

"Hmm… Ilya-san. About this 'school lunch'… what exactly are we talking about?"

Bernart's voice was full of interest.

She had been intending to explain anyway, but, sensing that the other three were every bit as interested as he was, Ilya picked her words carefully.

"You'd take the monthly fees collected as compensation for teaching the students, pool them, and use them to prepare lunches for everyone. The advantages are that cooking the same dish in bulk reduces the per-meal cost, while nutritionally balanced meals help support the students' growth."

I see, Frank and Hector nodded.

Bernart, on the other hand, had bowed his head, and his shoulders were shaking faintly.

The Lottévester Faith had a teaching that all lives sustained by the world trees were equal.

It was for that reason that she had assumed he would not object, but…

"Splendid!!"

True to form, or rather, he had shot off at a sharp angle from what she'd expected.

"Won't you please leave the running of this school to the church!"

"Th-thank you for the kind offer, but…"

Frank could hardly be blamed for flinching back from the wild upswing in Bernart's enthusiasm.

For Ilya, however, the offer was very much rice cake falling from the shelves, and she decided to stay quiet and let him press it through.

"For the funds for equipment, let us use the subsidies allotted to the church. And if you'll use the church building's rooms, you needn't worry about location, either!"

His unchanged habit of getting fired up and charging headlong left Ilya momentarily dumbstruck, and as she met Sophia's equally astonished gaze the two of them couldn't help breaking into faint smiles at one another.

They certainly hadn't been laughing at him, but Bernart, noticing the two of them, gave an embarrassed wry smile of his own and let his gaze drift sideways.

Seizing the opening, Hector finally managed to get a word in.

"Father, your offer is more than we could have hoped for. But… is there really no problem with using church subsidies in this way?"

Bernart nodded with conviction.

"How the subsidies are used is left to the discretion of those on the ground, so long as it stays within the bounds of church teaching: maintaining the building, spreading the faith, that sort of thing. So… if we could set aside some time within the curriculum to speak on the preciousness of life, even the cathedral would be satisfied."

(Satisfied, he says…)

Should a priest really be putting it that way? Catching Sophia making an involuntary wry smile of her own, Ilya allowed herself the same internally.

"If it's to be part of the curriculum, I had been planning to include a moral education class, so there's no issue at all. That said, there will be the question of balance against the other subjects, so could I ask you to prepare a teaching plan? I'll bring over examples from the other subjects later as references."

"Of course!"

She had said all the proper-sounding things, but the truth was, she had only been daydreaming about wanting to build a school. There was no concrete plan.

That said, if multiple teachers were going to be running academic classes, then drawing up a curriculum and lesson plans was non-negotiable.

(Well, it's not like there's a progression system into high school or university, so things can stay relatively loose.)

Setting aside the labor of actually drafting the plans, the moment a teaching plan existed they would know in advance what was going to be taught, and if anyone was teaching something not on the plan, they could lodge a formal protest. Ilya didn't view the Lottévester Faith as a fanatical group, but if a paranoid precaution let her feel she had taken every reasonable measure, that was good enough.

"Is there anything we can do?"

"For you to lend your weight as authorities, recognized by both the state and the guild, is itself more than sufficient… If I could be greedy, I'd like to have a guarantee that 'those who complete the full curriculum will be placed in suitable work.' This being a trial run, after all, things are uncertain on both sides: the side hiring and the side being hired."

If she could be greedier still, she would have wanted to set up specialized classes for individual fields too, but at the current stage that was getting ahead of themselves.

(Results matter, but you don't get to the result without going through the process.)

For now, raising the students' general level of learning while exposing them to a variety of possibilities was the priority.

"Then let's settle on a concrete proposal for the school and a date for an information session."

"If you'd be so kind."

"All right, first…"

Hector, it seemed, had been thinking about raising Lunéville's level of education as well, and from there the discussion ran along in fine fashion. Watching Bernart, who stayed at peak enthusiasm throughout, one would never have suspected (without [God's Eyes]) that an evil god was lodged inside him.

 

*

 

After the summit ended, Ilya parted ways with Bernart and decided to accompany Sophia, who had gone out to do the shopping for dinner.

However safe the town was, you couldn't very well leave a frail girl new to the city to walk it alone.

"Lunéville has ordinary vegetable shops and the like too, huh."

Their shopping done, the two of them were on the way to the church, arms loaded with vegetables and flour, when Sophia said it, sounding quietly impressed.

"Everyone's got to eat their regular meals, after all."

"True. I'd heard the branch's dining hall had a stranglehold on all the town's meals, so I had the wrong impression of it."

Sophia smiled wryly.

That wasn't something Ilya could entirely deny, but it referred to eating out; plenty of households still cooked for themselves. Even so, the reason the branch saw so many local diners was probably that buying ingredients in bulk drove the unit cost down, so eating there was cheaper than badly attempting to cook for oneself.

That said, delicious came first, of course.

"Fish were more expensive than in Akradist, as expected, but the vegetables were surprisingly cheap. I was shocked!"

"River fish are pretty cheap, you know? Although they're not on the market right now since it's the no-take season."

"Ah, I heard about that! Grilled with salt, right? I'm honestly looking forward to it!"

In the middle of that easy, peaceful exchange, Sophia abruptly stopped, and…

"… Onee-sama, I'm sorry!"

… bowed her head.

Lost as to what she was apologizing for, and with the act drawing public attention right in the middle of a busy street, Ilya decided first to have her straighten up.

When she lifted her face, Sophia's expression was serious, and they relocated to a bench in the nearby central plaza to hear her out. The press of foot traffic made it harder for any of it to be overheard while also making it easier to spot anyone deliberately listening or paying them more attention than ordinary.

"Um… what's all this about, all of a sudden?"

"Yes… The thing is, I happened to overhear something. Father was speaking…"

Ilya kept it off her face, but inwardly she was shaken. If it had to do with the evil god, Sophia herself would be in danger. Depending on the circumstances, she might be forced to engage in an early, decisive confrontation.

Sophia tightened her grip on the hem of her skirt, and at last raised her face to look Ilya straight in the eye.

"Father said… that Onee-sama might be a 'Vessel of God'…"

"… Huh?"

She did have the unique skill [God's Vessel], but in a world where the very concept of skills didn't exist, it was hard to imagine anyone discussing an individual's specific skill.

Ilya tilted her head despite herself, and Sophia, expression no less earnest, continued.

"He was talking with people from the church… saying that if they could confirm it, they wanted you to become Pope…"

"… That would be a bit of a problem, actually."

Relief that neither the skill nor an evil god was involved, mixed with the discovery of a fresh nuisance, pulled her head into a slight slump.

(Isn't Pope the highest position in the Lottévester Faith? Absolutely not.)

She kept that flat refusal corralled inside her chest.

"But why are you the one apologizing for this?"

Sophia gave a little jolt and then bowed her head furiously again.

"I'm so sorry!! Father found out about… what Onee-sama did in the village…!"

Geh.

It almost slipped out before she stopped it, realizing it would only blame Sophia.

That the village incident had come to light meant Bernart now knew Ilya was the kind of human (elf) who had crushed an evil god to death.

(… Wait.)

It was at that point that something occurred to her.

She had killed an evil god, certainly; but why did that conclusion lead to "Vessel of God"?

By ordinary sensibilities one would think "abnormally strong," surely, but not as far as "like a god."

(Could it be like with the great spirits? They've taken the cheat side of things in a positive way?)

People who knew of the gods' power, who revered the gods, would see resemblances in those who wielded a mighty power, who destroyed the evils that menaced mankind. They would seek out such resemblances. It wasn't impossible.

"Everyone in the village kept it quiet like you told us to, Onee-sama. So I don't think anyone said it to Father's face, but I think someone overheard the villagers talking about it…"

(By chance, huh…)

Picking up the worst kind of fragmentary information had led them to interpret it in the most convenient way and to make the leap to "Vessel of God."

Bernart had shown no doubt whatever when the talk of teaching materials came up. If he simply didn't know she had subdued the evil god by force, and had concluded, "Anyone who could defeat an evil god might well possess divinely inspired wisdom," then his reaction made sense.

(But if that's actually the case, this could get bad…)

The fact that there was room for arbitrary misinterpretation meant she couldn't risk careless behavior.

Reaching that point, she turned a reassuring smile on the still-contrite Sophia.

"It's all right. I'm no Vessel of God or anything like that, so as long as we can clear up the misunderstanding, there's no real problem."

"Onee-sama…"

A smile finally returned to Sophia's face, and Ilya answered it with one of her own.

It would be a hassle to handle, sure, but better than acting in ignorance and making things worse.

That was how she chose to look at it.

 

*

 

Afterwards, the two of them talked for a while before delivering the groceries to the church, and Ilya returned to the branch to handle the night shift.

From the next day onward life resumed its usual rhythm, much as it had been before the arena was built.

Bernart showed no notable changes, and the school-related work was progressing smoothly; Ilya decided to start on yet another project, this one as a precaution in case the demon- or evil-god problem flared up.

"Ilya, registration please."

"Certainly."

She accepted the commission slip and registration card together and began processing the assignment. While she did so, Ilya glanced at the status of the woman standing in front of her.

"Clara-san, I have a proposal, if you wouldn't mind hearing it?"

"Of course. What is it?"

"As it happens, the branch has just concluded a partnership with the arms and armor workshops."

This part was true: in order to supply the arena with weapons and armor, the branch had signed partnership contracts with several smithing workshops.

It allowed the branch a stable supply of arms in case of emergency, and gave the workshops an opportunity to see the gear they produced put to use.

It also meant, however, that Ilya could commission the production of weapons she had in mind while using the branch as a convenient cover.

"Hmm? And?"

A weapon was, without exaggeration, a guild member's life. It was only natural Clara would be interested.

"A prototype sword was just completed, and I'd like your help in testing it out."

What she set on the counter was a blade shorter than a tachi. In Ilya's terms: a katana.

Even drawing it from its sheath, anyone without [Appraisal] would have no way to discern what made it a prototype.

"A test, huh… It looks better-made than the average thing in circulation, but I don't see anything especially unusual about it."

"I can't say this too loudly, but a sliver of keseki has been worked into it. Pour mana into it and a supporting spell will activate. It's still a prototype, so the effect is weak."

"Huh…"

The reason the effect was weak was straightforward: Ilya, wary of throwing the market into chaos with too sudden a technological leap, had deliberately limited what she disclosed.

She had volunteered the weakness up front, but seeing Clara's expression Ilya confirmed things were going as she'd planned.

"The test itself is nothing complicated; I just want to know your impressions after using it."

"That's it?"

"Yes. The smiths say they're short on real-combat data. We'll prepare a separate fee for it as well."

A sales pitch designed to close off any line of retreat. Feeling a touch of self-disgust at her own slyness, she watched as Clara at last slid the sword back into its sheath and tucked it under her arm.

"Got it. I'll help with your test."

"Thank you very much."

So as not to interrupt the conversation, she returned the commission slip and registration card, which she had finished processing partway through.

"Subjugations outside the designated area won't count, so please be careful… Good luck."

"Mm. I'm off."

She saw Clara and her companions out of the branch, then quietly let herself feel relieved at having cleared the first step.

The trial Ilya was running.

It was, in essence, to help people develop a weapon skill suited to the aptitude they actually had.

The "mage-spell-without-being-a-mage" weapons were merely a way to get the holder interested in the weapon itself; beyond that, they meant nothing.

Unless the weapon was made of orichalcum (the rare metal Ilya had been the first in the world to identify and name as "psychic-resonant metal"), it lacked the durability to bring out the spell's full effect, and any spell-effect weak enough to fire properly could be countered easily enough.

It was on those grounds that she had been willing to disclose the technology at all.

Clara was a whip-user with growing [Chain Arts] skill, but her true aptitude was the katana, a derivative of the [Swordplay] line.

The person themself, too, tended to sense something of the sort. Barring a powerful preference of their own, those with an aptitude tended to start growing the corresponding skill naturally after using the relevant weapon even once. By that measure, Clara had likely never used anything but the whip. By appearance alone the whip suited her better than a katana, that much was certain.

You wouldn't know an aptitude until you actually tried the thing; whether it suited the person as a person was a separate question, not so different from "talent" as she'd known it in her previous life.

(Though I had no talent at all!)

A dry laugh escaped Ilya.

 

*

 

While she continued her quiet aptitude-nudging efforts, the days passed in ordinary work. Of the new facilities, Ilya found herself rarely involved with the arena and instead visiting the church regularly.

And today, again, she was on her way to the church.

Personally, there were two reasons she didn't want to draw close to Bernart, but as the very person who had proposed the school, she couldn't well leave it all to him.

Greeting the patrol guards she passed along the way, she arrived to find the church bustling with preparations: desks, chairs, blackboards, chalk, the slow accumulation of everything classes would need.

"Ah, Ilya-san. My apologies for not coming out to greet you."

"Don't mind it. To the point, then. Here is the year's lesson plan."

"Thank you for going to the trouble. Standing in the hall is hardly the place for it. Come this way, please."

Ilya wanted to decline (really, no need on her account) but turning him down too pointedly here would only seem suspicious, so she meekly went along.

The only people who had been transferred to the church were Bernart and Sophia, and they lived in the church's rooms.

The church building was large even compared to the other facilities. Setting aside the chapel and the dining hall, there were eight classrooms the size of those in Japan (two on the first floor, six on the second), and the third floor held a row of small rooms for parishioners to live in. Most of the rooms on the first and second floors had been outfitted with blackboards and desks, which spoke to the depth of Bernart's enthusiasm.

Ilya could only pray it would not all turn out to have been so much spinning of wheels.

After a short walk together through the church, Ilya was led to the dining hall at the back of the first floor, where she took a seat across from Bernart at one end of a long table.

"Reading, arithmetic, science, social studies, and then arts and crafts, physical education, home economics, and moral studies, is it?"

"Yes."

She nodded as Bernart turned the pages, checking the contents of each subject.

What Bernart had read as "Reading" was the section labeled "National Language"; because it taught reading and writing, she'd converted the name for clarity.

"Ah, um… Ilya-san."

"Yes?"

Bernart's voice when he spoke was a touch subdued, and his complexion looked, perhaps, just a little off.

"Is there really anyone who can teach all this…?"

Whatever do you mean?

Ilya answered with a guileless smile.

"I'm thinking that the teachers should study as well."

"I see…"

"For arts and crafts, physical education, and home economics, we can commission people working in the relevant trades to teach. For reading, arithmetic, science, and social studies, we hire dedicated people, or have one person handle several."

Bernart had been intending to teach alongside them, of course; the sheer quantity of material had made him hesitate.

Even in Japan, lessons at the elementary lower-grades level were often new to grown-ups encountering them for the first time, so it was hardly unreasonable.

"Perhaps this year we can devote to training teachers."

"Right…"

From his tone, he was clearly not at all reconciled to the idea.

"In that case, shall we hold periodic study sessions?"

"Study sessions?"

"Yes. Gather the teachers together, walk through the key points of teaching, and supplement them on points the students find hard to grasp."

We could even put together something like a teacher's-edition study guide, she thought for an instant, and just as quickly…

(… No, never mind. I have no confidence at all.)

She had no trouble at all studying for her own sake, since her comprehension and memory were both cheats. The flip side, however, was that she had lost any sense of where the difficulty lay for other people.

She knew first-hand, from her previous life, that this was about the most luxurious of complaints, so she meant to dodge around it somehow.

"I'll leave the choice to you. Are there any other concerns, at the moment?"

"No. The immediate matter is securing teachers… Without those who can teach in place, we can't very well recruit students."

What she saw in his drooping expression was only the dejection of feeling himself lacking. No twisted feelings, nothing dark.

Assuming the evil god's influence wasn't at work for the moment, Ilya decided to ask after something she'd been wondering about.

"It seems strange of me to ask this when I'm the one who proposed it, but… when I heard you yourself were going to take the lead, I was a little surprised."

"What an odd thing to say. Surely you know that churches double as orphanages and educational institutions?"

Ilya gave him a small nod.

"I do. But it's usually limited to those affiliated with the church, isn't it? I didn't think a priest himself would overturn that premise."

For most priests, her question would have warranted a sharp reprimand for impertinence.

But, in keeping with Ilya's expectations, Bernart only smiled awkwardly, looking sheepish.

"I respect you a great deal."

"Eh?"

The unexpected return left her caught flat-footed.

To him, evidently, even that reaction came across as something normal, and he continued in the same vein.

"Not only you. Master Aina, Father Jean… those who have brought forth wonderful ideas, I respect every one of them. The reason I took this post was that I wanted those ideas to reach more people. Though, if I'm being entirely honest with my deepest motives, perhaps I only wanted to share in some of the wonder of those I revere."

His self-deprecation was tinged with shame.

"For this matter as well, it was because I was struck by your idea, so full of charity, that I resolved at least to act. But in the end, perhaps I only wanted to steal a portion of the praise you'd receive."

There was something close to remorse in the way he disparaged himself.

Just like the issue with finding teachers a moment ago, perhaps his missionary work too was not going well.

Choosing her words, Ilya answered.

"Has anyone said anything to you?"

He shook his head.

Of course, she was aware he wasn't the kind of person to nod in answer to that even if it were true.

"It's just that, at odd moments, the thought comes to me: what a wretched, small-minded man I am. And then that thought drives me all the harder to be more humble, to aspire to the foundations of a greater will."

Hearing him say "drives me," her thoughts flickered for an instant to the evil god, but the actual content made her dismiss the thought. If anything, "You are a base, lowly man," "Aren't you ashamed of acting like this?", the kind of words that fanned anxiety and cornered the soul, that was more an evil god's style.

Widening the cracks in the heart, then taking it over. That was the standard tactic of evil gods and demons that possessed minds rather than bodies.

In any case, the weight of the air had Ilya inwardly exasperated.

It was often said that earnest people were prone to spiraling inward, but, the evil god aside, Ilya thought it a real waste.

"No matter how lofty the intention, isn't it meaningless if you can't spread it?"

"That is…"

Bernart faltered, though of course Ilya knew what he wanted to say.

"And no matter how wonderful the idea, if there's no one to embody it then it's no different from a daydream. The one who brings the idea into being and the one who carries it outward: neither of them is dispensable, so isn't it pointless to argue over which is superior?"

Especially in a religion that held equality as its creed.

Bernart didn't raise his voice in protest at Ilya's discourteous phrasing, but neither did he respond as though he'd accepted it.

Perhaps, devout as he was, her words simply weren't going to land easily.

That being the case, Ilya decided to change tack.

"As for the school: whatever anyone says, the greater share of the credit belongs to you, Bernart-san."

Especially since the idea itself wasn't mine to begin with, though that was something she could hardly say out loud.

"If you weren't actively moving things forward like this, we'd be much further from where we are now. I can hardly thank you enough… So please, have more confidence in yourself."

She held his gaze, doing her best to show that she meant every word.

"You are doing something wonderful."

You don't need to belittle yourself for it.

Whether all of that came through, whether he accepted it, Ilya couldn't tell.

Even so, Bernart's caught-off-guard expression softened.

"… Thank you."

He smiled.

 

*

 

In the end, though she had several more chances to meet with him after that, she gathered nothing new on the evil god possessing Bernart.

In the gaps between businesslike exchanges of opinion she listened to what sounded sometimes like grumbling, sometimes like consultations over personal worries, and offered support in the form of small talk. The cycle repeated.

Following up like that was at least keeping the evil god from finding new footholds, which was fine in itself; the problem was whether Bernart still suspected she was the "Vessel of God."

No matter how many times they talked, he never so much as hinted at the topic.

If it was simply a misunderstanding on Sophia's part, that was fine; but if he were deliberately concealing it, then beyond just being a nuisance, frankly Ilya didn't want to be involved with him at all.

So Ilya changed tack and decided to ask Sophia instead.

"Father's recent behavior, you mean?"

"Mm. He's been carrying a lot because of the school, so I was wondering if he was all right."

Setting her juice glass next to her study materials, Sophia tilted her head as if calling things to mind.

The church had finished most of its set-up work apart from the school preparations and had settled down considerably, and Sophia, finding her own spare time, had taken to coming for lessons with Ilya. Usually Ilya taught her while handling reception at the counter, but today Ilya had no shift, and so they had a one-on-one lesson in a private room on the second floor.

"… Less tired than… more often he seems somehow distant."

"Distant?"

A suspicion stirring, Ilya watched, unnoticed, as Sophia let her gaze drift upward and continued digging through her memories.

"Yes… Even back in Akradist there were moments like that, but lately, whenever there's a lull, he just sort of slips into thought. Stares into nothing. Is that… hmm, but…"

Isn't that pretty much the final stage already?

Beside the now-cogitating Sophia, Ilya barely suppressed a sigh.

"Erm… he doesn't actually suffer when he does it, does he?"

"Eh, ah! Yes, right!"

"… He does?"

Sophia nodded, dropping her gaze guiltily.

"After he stares off like that, he often grimaces as if in pain. He'll say things like, What am I thinking?"

"I see…"

For a moment she considered whether physical possession was already underway, but if those were the words Sophia had heard, then it was more likely psychic erosion, and she felt a slight measure of relief.

When the body was taken, the original consciousness remained intact even after the takeover. Being fully aware of what one's own body was doing under another's control was no exaggeration to call hell on earth.

If Ilya could be present at the very moment of takeover, as she had been during her travels with Pasha and Gabriel, it was easy enough to deal with. But with someone as good-natured as Bernart, even if she stopped the evil god partway after it had done something through him, he might well take his own life out of remorse.

Still, no changes had shown in his status, so physical takeover was unlikely, and Ilya turned her attention to countermeasures against psychic erosion.

The difficulty was that, at this stage, there was nothing she or anyone else could directly do.

"Sophia, will you tell me if anything happens with Father? He'll surely insist on not worrying anyone, so… without telling him."

"O-okay!"

Ilya answered Sophia's almost-leaning-forward eagerness with a wry smile.

Unlike possession via [Miko Arts]-style skills, psychic erosion that proceeded only because the two parties' wavelengths matched couldn't be torn out once the takeover was complete.

If his mind lost, all that would be left was to kill him.

Watching Sophia commit herself, knowing none of that, Ilya couldn't keep down a swell of guilt.

 

*

 

A few months had passed since Ilya had first proposed founding the school.

Preparing the classrooms, recruiting and selecting teachers, informing the residents and giving the explanation sessions, gathering students. All the other various matters had moved along without trouble, and at last the first of its events, the opening ceremony, was about to begin.

… However.

"Wh-what, what should we do, Father?! Th-there are so many people…!"

"Calm yourself, Sophia. First, let's take a deep breath together."

"Ah! F-Father, your robe is on backwards!"

"Th-that is embarrassing. I, too, must calm down. For now… might I trouble you for some tea?"

"You're holding it in your hand already～…"

Bernart, who would be acting as headmaster, and Sophia, who would be one of the teachers, were at the absolute pinnacle of nervous panic.

"Have the two of you had breakfast?" Frank asked with a wry smile, and the pair shook their heads, looking abashed.

"No… we somehow couldn't bring ourselves to eat last night, and this morning, nothing."

"That won't do. Ilya."

"Yes. I'll borrow the kitchen for a moment."

She reheated what she'd brought, plated it, and carried it out on trays.

The three trays each held a glass of milk plus, respectively, "bread, stew, salad," "bread, wakame and egg Chinese-style soup, hamburger steak," and "spaghetti with meat sauce, omelet, seaweed salad."

"Wh-what is…?"

"Sample school lunches. I have variations with rice as the main as well, but for today I limited the options to bread."

"Please pick whichever you like. I haven't had breakfast either, so do you mind if I join you?"

"O-of course not."

Originally she had brought them out for lunch, but in line with Frank's arrangement she ended up taking a late breakfast with the three of them.

It turned out Bernart and Sophia had simply forgotten about hunger from nerves; once the aroma and the look of the dishes drew them in for a first bite, their hands wouldn't stop.

The tension eased while they chatted about the menu, Hector joined them after a bit, and the opening ceremony held in the chapel concluded without incident.

Ilya was washing dishes in the kitchen when Sophia, finished with her meetings with the other teachers and parents, came in. Noticing what Ilya was doing, she rushed over, looking faintly flustered.

"Onee-sama! I'll do it!"

"I'm almost done, don't worry about it. You must be tired, Sophia."

When doing things one wasn't used to, even small amounts of activity could feel more tiring than usual. And in fact she really must have been worn out, because she yielded with hardly any resistance.

 

*

 

"Did your introduction go well?"

"Uuh… please don't ask～…"

Sitting down in a chair, Sophia promptly faceplanted onto the table.

"Standing in front of people makes you nervous, doesn't it."

"You too, Onee-sama?"

"Of course."

That said, in her case it was less nervous and more wanting to flee the scene. It probably wasn't very convincing coming from someone who worked reception for a living, but Sophia lifted her face a little, and her expression looked a touch more at ease.

"Father and the Lord and the Branch Manager are all amazing… So composed, all of them."

And there she paused, and then, whatever the thought was, she came out with it.

"Onee-sama, there's something I'd like to ask…"

The girl had matured, certainly, but being addressed this stiffly still felt strange, and Ilya couldn't help a wry smile.

"What is it? You don't have to be so formal."

"Um… are you in a relationship with the Branch Manager?"

(… Huh?)

The leap was so abrupt Ilya couldn't manage a clean answer, and seeing that, Sophia somehow started panicking in turn.

"Y-you know, I was told the two of you were… living… I mean, lived in the same place! A-and, and you two are always so in sync, and, ah, you make such a good pair…!"

"… Right."

What she was trying to clarify wasn't quite clear, but seeing Sophia smiling and flustered let Ilya, conversely, settle down.

Come to think of it, she did recall a similar misunderstanding right after they'd renovated the branch, on account of her and Frank living on the same floor of the same building.

For Sophia, who didn't know the circumstances, it was perhaps unavoidable.

"Even if we're in the same building, our rooms are separate. It's the same as an inn."

"Ah, i-is that so?"

"Yeah. One of the reasons I took the job at the branch was that it included lodging."

"Huh…"

The look on Sophia's face suggested she wasn't entirely satisfied, and then a thought struck Ilya.

Wait, could this be…?

"Sophia. Do you have a thing for Frank-san?"

"Eh? Eeeeh?! Th-th-that, that is most certainly not the case!"

She shook both head and hands, but her very desperation was suspicious.

Considering that there'd been no hint of it up to now, perhaps it had been triggered by his address today.

He did look quite dashing, all crisp like that. Combined with the gap from his usually-gentle air, it might really get dangerous.

As Ilya was nodding to herself in agreement, Sophia denied it more frantically still.

"I-it's not like that, really! And besides, we believers are forbidden from forming attachments to any one individual!"

"R-right. So you were. Sorry."

She tried to placate Sophia, who was practically leaning forward with the force of her denial, but Sophia didn't seem appeased. They moved on to having tea together, and her mood improved enough that Ilya gathered it perhaps hadn't been so weighty a matter after all.

(Though personally I don't see a problem with whoever wants to like whoever.)

That was how Ilya felt about it. With the asterisk of so long as I'm not dragged into it.

"So this is where you were, Ilya."

The newcomers were Frank and Bernart.

Frank looked a touch troubled, and Bernart was clearly forcing a calm front.

There might have been some issue with the school, but if they were trying to hide it, it was better not to pry.

Judging so, Ilya stood up as if nothing had happened and greeted the two.

"Yes. Are you ready to leave?"

"Mm. Father. Sophia-san. We'll be taking our leave. I sincerely hope tomorrow's classes prove fruitful."

"Thank you very much."

After exchanging farewells, Frank and Ilya left the church.

 

*

 

Estrus.

It was a system in place to encourage reproductive activity, and many animals had it.

And so it was with the peoples of this world, too.

Many beastkin emitted a distinct scent during estrus, drawing the opposite sex of their species into arousal. Many birdkin used distinctive cries or dances to arouse the opposite sex of their kind. Fishmen, in addition to dances like the birdkin's, could shift the color of parts of their bodies to entice the opposite sex.

The catch was that the target of such enticement was the opposite sex of the same species, and that one couldn't consciously control either the target or the timing of estrus.

Those in love with a specific individual or a different race. Those who didn't wish for sexual contact at all. People like that, unavoidably, were forced into living without contact with others.

The same was true for Lunéville, with its mixture of many races, and was, in fact, one of the issues the branch was currently grappling with.

"Good luck～…"

Clarice was the one limply seeing off the commission-taker.

Beside her, Luke was processing the registration, while in the hall were Rachelle, Cynthia, and Ilya, drafted in temporarily as a waitress.

Anywhere you looked in the branch, there wasn't a beastkin to be seen.

Ordinarily the estrus seasons of beastkin (cats, dogs, and so on) fell at different times, but this time around they had happened to coincide, with the result that every last one of them had shut themselves indoors.

"Ilya-chan, can I get a refill?"

"Certainly."

"Ah, me too, me too!"

"… … … … Certainly."

Ahh, if only this estrus period would end already.

Such a wish wouldn't be granted, not for her or any of the other staff. The lone consolation was that the estrus was happening worldwide, not only in Lunéville. The number of people taking commissions or eating out had likewise fallen, so the actual workload was not, for once, desperate.

But that brought its own problems.

"Phew, I'm beat～…"

"Aah, we finally made it…"

The group filing into the branch in a ragged line was the mercenary guild [Crimson Smoke of Water and Fire], who had taken on several commissions the day before.

While the representative had the completion processed at Clarice's counter, the rest of the group took seats and ordered each as they pleased.

One of them happened to glance at the notice board and gave a wry smile.

"Whoa… there's more up there than yesterday."

"Eh? Wow. We really are short-handed, huh."

Just as they said, the board behind their gaze was plastered with commission slips.

With the labor shortage from the estrus period, the commissions (which had grown in proportion to Lunéville's population) weren't being cleared and were piling up.

The most serious of them were the monster subjugation requests.

Lunéville, growing steadily into a tourism town with the inn district and the arena, had a growing population, and the monsters drawn by that population grew in turn.

But of late, the number of monsters appearing had outstripped even that proportional increase.

Aside from Ilya, no one knew the baseline "monster increase due to population growth" trend and so didn't notice it, but the rise in monsters was clearly abnormal.

Given the current situation, Ilya suspected an evil god as the cause, and just then…

"Hello～!"

A cheerful voice rang across the branch.

"Hello, Onee-sama!"

"Hello, Sophia. They're in the usual spot."

"Thank you very much!"

Sophia gave a full-bloom smile, bowed, and headed for the kitchen.

What she had come to pick up was the day's school lunch. The waitstaff had some leeway just then, so Ilya decided to help her out.

"Th-thank you very much."

When Sophia stumbled trying to thank her, weighed down by the heaviest of the stockpots, Ilya caught her.

She helped move the stockpot and the trays full of side dishes onto a handcart, and saw Sophia off as she pulled it away toward the church.

As Sophia's smile attested, the school was running smoothly. There was, however, one problem.

It was the textbooks Ilya had compiled.

The textbooks for each subject were limited to "knowledge that, including from her previous life, was acceptable to disclose in this world," and yet they still covered more than enough information.

For that reason the royal capital had demanded the textbooks be submitted as official materials. Complying, however, could have led to censorship restrictions, so Ilya refused. The state, for its part, had no desire to butt heads with the guild and quietly backed down, but there had been a small skirmish: royal and noble families pushing to enroll their children in order to siphon the textbook contents and so on.

Things had since calmed, but Hector, who would be going to the royal capital to report on the town's progress, was someone Ilya genuinely felt sorry for.

In any case, Lunéville had grown, given its scale, its retained military strength, its tourism industry, and its educational institutions, into a town that could, if pushed, match or exceed a small kingdom.

For Ilya, who valued peace above all, that wasn't entirely welcome news, but she had no intention of dampening the joy of the people close to her.

 

*

 

On the other hand, Ilya hadn't seen Bernart since the opening ceremony. From the rumors around her and from her time with Sophia, no further changes in him had reached her ears.

This, even though the influence over a wide region of monsters around Lunéville could only be the work of an evil god.

Was the evil god harboring some plan, lurking in the depths of Bernart's mind? Or were only its effects leaking outward, with the actual takeover still some way off?

Either way, with Bernart's consciousness clearly intact, there was little Ilya could do.

"… Haa."

She tried to shake the gloom of always being a step behind out of her chest with one short exhale and started back toward the branch to return to work.

"D-don't mess around!"

"You're the one messing around."

Sharp, angry voices echoed through the hall, and Ilya nearly turned right back around and walked out of the branch.

Still, she had thrown plenty of barbarians out the door over fighting being strictly forbidden, and she couldn't very well let this one slide. She headed over to Cynthia, who was the nearest, to find out what was going on.

"(Ah, Ilya.)"

"(Sorry I left earlier.)"

"(It's nothing. More importantly, that, right?)"

The two of them looked together at the pair locked in argument.

On one side, a common-human girl. By appearance an archer; the job display in Ilya's eye showed Compounder.

On the other side, a common-human boy. Look and class both said Swordsman, except he carried no sword.

The girl was doing most of the talking, but going by their faces and posture, the boy seemed to have the upper hand.

"(Did you catch what it was about?)"

"(Hmm… I couldn't hear it clearly, but something like, 'You're dead weight, so quit'? After that, the girl stood up and… yeah.)"

"(I see… thanks.)"

Listening now with Cynthia's summary in mind, it did sound like the boy was berating the girl for her low ability, and the girl was pushing back.

Capability friction in a party was, in a sense, almost a rite of passage. Judging it nothing genuinely vicious, Ilya struck forcibly evict them from her list of options.

"Excuse me, if I may."

"Ah?! Whaddya want!"

"This is a nuisance to the other patrons. Could I ask you to take this quarrel elsewhere?"

When Ilya said it with a full-bloom smile, this type tended, mysteriously, to wilt.

Her rule of thumb worked again. Silence fell between the pair.

"… I'm sorry. We'll leave now."

The first to move was the girl, who bowed and picked up her belongings.

The boy called out as the girl turned to leave the branch.

"Wait up."

He stood up, and the two of them walked together for the entrance.

"… Erica. So you've really got no intention of quitting?"

"…"

Even as they walked, the same air hung between them.

"Then if you're going to be like that, fight me."

"… Eh?"

The two stopped walking, and Ilya approached.

It was partly to make sure they actually left, but more than that, the word fight had a sharp edge to it she didn't like.

She had no intention of letting violence with a foregone conclusion happen in this branch.

But Ilya's worst fear missed; the boy turned and looked at her.

He hadn't realized she'd come up so close, and he covered his start with a deliberate cough before turning back to her.

"You. Be our witness?"

"H-hold on, Selge, what are you…?"

The girl tried to stop him, confused.

He spared her only a glance, his smile turning mocking.

"For the next month, starting today, we'll see who can take down more monsters. If I win… no, that'd be too easy. We'll see who can complete the higher-rank subjugation commissions. If I win, you do one thing I say."

In the face of the exasperation in the air around them, jeering tone and all, he laid out his proposal. Everyone watching expected the girl to refuse it.

But…

"… And if I win?"

What she asked instead was a clarification of the rules.

The boy had clearly been intending, once she refused, to follow up by formally firing her on the spot. Her response was as unexpected to him as it was to anyone, and a beat opened in their conversation.

But only a beat. The boy recovered quickly, returning to his sneer.

"If you do, I'll allow you to stay in the par —"

"No."

The boy and everyone else listening were thrown for a second time.

"If I win, then you do one thing I say."

"… Ha. Hahahahahaha!"

His laughter rang through the hall. The girl held her glare, the strength in her clenched fists rising.

After he'd laughed his fill, the boy told her:

"Fine. In that case, on top of the order, I'll allow you to stay in the party."

And so Ilya found herself appointed witness to some baffling contest.

A man and a woman quarreling in the middle of the estrus period.

The more the population grew, it really did seem, the more the trouble grew with it.

(No, seriously, please give me a break.)

 

*

 

A few days passed.

As "witness" Ilya apparently had no particular duties, and she didn't even know how the contest was going.

So her life from then on was unchanged, and she headed for the church to teach a class for the higher-grade students.

The "higher grade" was the section made up of those who, on the first entrance exam, had been judged as already possessing a certain baseline of knowledge: in her previous life's terms, something like a middle-school level.

With the teachers' own studies not yet caught up, Ilya was filling in as a temporary instructor.

At the church, she was greeted at the entrance by Bernart.

"Thank you again for today, Ilya-san."

"Not at all. I'm the one who proposed it; if anything, I'm glad to be of help."

"… Yes. This way, then."

She followed Bernart toward the classroom.

His bearing seemed unchanged from usual. Yet for an instant, Ilya didn't miss the expression of pain that flickered across his face.

There was nothing in the conversation they'd just had unpleasant enough to provoke that, and [God's Eyes] showed no illness afflicting him.

He was resisting the evil god's erosion. Ilya settled on that conclusion.

If she took his life here and now, the evil god would be destroyed with him. But considering how thoroughly he'd integrated into the town, how deeply Sophia trusted him, and, for the sake of her own peace of mind, with a chance to save him still on the table, that wasn't an option she could choose.

If he hadn't yet realized the evil god's presence, then she couldn't yet move her real pieces; and saying the wrong thing now might push him over the edge in the wrong direction.

The whole psychic-possession business was such a nuisance, she thought, slumping inwardly.

"Father."

"?"

"I know you're busy, but please take care of yourself. You are the pillar of this school, like a father to it."

Bernart, looking at her, went momentarily still at the words.

In case the meaning hadn't been clear, she put it differently.

"You are an important person to everyone."

So don't fall away that easily, please.

She didn't know if he would catch the implication, but if even a little of it strengthened him, she'd be glad.

That was Ilya's intent, but on hearing it, Bernart's face twisted briefly with a flash of pain.

That expression passed instantly, however.

"I will keep that in mind."

The smile he showed her then looked like one drawn from the heart.

Now that she thought about it again, Ilya didn't actually know which of Bernart's emotions the evil god was working through. If her words just now had only become another burden, perhaps she had only made things harder for him.

Unable to dispel that nagging unease, they arrived at the third-floor classroom.

"Well then, I'll leave them to you."

"Yes."

She parted with Bernart and stepped through the classroom door.

"Good morning."

"""Good morning."""

She tried to think, while conducting the lesson, of any clever stratagem to recover the situation, but nothing convenient came to mind.

"That's it for class today. Next time we move to the late period of the Great War of the Genesis Age. Those of you with the time, please prepare."

"""Thank you very much."""

When class ended, the students swarmed around Ilya.

From early twenties down to early teens, regardless of age or race or gender, they pressed their curiosity onto her as a barrage of questions.

Of world history, the Genesis Age she'd just covered was something like myth: a war-scroll-like appeal lay in the great war that had ended in the deaths of a great number of common-human gods, beast gods, bird gods, and fish gods. Whether that appealed to some male sensibility or what, the boys, who were normally dragged along by the girls, were today pushing in eagerly.

Generally speaking, knowledge of the Genesis Age belonged to archaeology, and even the elves of various lands held only fragmentary pieces of it.

Ilya knew most of it through [Star Memory], but she set aside the information the elves guarded (to avoid pointless conflict) and added a little flair to heighten the narrative quality, working to make the lessons enjoyable.

Otherwise, the historical record was a parade of grim developments and a cast made entirely of perverts.

"Sorry, I have a reception shift after this, so I need to head back soon."

"""Eeeh!"""

She mollified the reluctant students and left the classroom, and just outside the church a man called out to her with an A-um.

He was a birdkin man. She didn't recall registering a commission for him, and might have taken his order in the hall once or twice recently, the most cursory sort of acquaintance.

If he was new in town, perhaps he was lost.

So Ilya thought.

"I-Ilya-san."

"Yes?"

But apparently Ilya herself was the goal; he came straight up to her and held out a piece of paper.

It was a ticket to the arena.

"T-tomorrow morning, I'm gonna be in an individual match! I-if you would, please come watch me! I'm gonna give it my all!"

Birdkin or not, jock or not, his voice was way too loud, and Ilya's honest feeling was that she was grateful the foot traffic in front of the church was sparse.

"I'm sorry, I don't much care for bloody things."

That way the atmosphere of the town wouldn't suffer either, and he wouldn't be turned down with too many people watching.

His ability as it showed in Ilya's eye was passable, and apparently he was self-aware enough about combat being his strong suit that, after being turned down, he walked off without making a fuss, which gave a decent impression.

Of course, if she found out he'd actually looked up that her shift was free tomorrow morning (just a coincidence being the only thing keeping it tolerable), she'd have cut him down for being creepy in a single stroke.

From there on, Ilya found herself receiving invitations several times more.

Not only to the arena, but to dinner at private residences, some openly lecherous.

(Fufufu. Won't they please vanish～… Honestly, anyone who interferes with my work should just disappear.)

What should have been her usual smile was, with weeks of pent-up frustration behind it, putting off an unsettling aura.

"Whoa… you're pretty mad, huh, Ilya."

"… … … … Haa."

The look on Cynthia at the next reception spot bordered on horror, and Ilya somehow managed to gather herself.

At least during reception, I should keep the practiced smile on.

She tried to switch gears, but something didn't sit right.

"… Still, why all of a sudden?"

"Aah… it's probably that, right?"

What Cynthia indicated with her eyes was the several pairs of beastkin canoodling in the hall.

"When you keep seeing it, it makes you anxious～."

Cynthia sighed.

It wasn't terribly convincing coming from someone as popular as her, but Ilya pointing that out would only sound sarcastic.

Even so, brought up like that, thinking back to her previous life she could remember a similar atmosphere around Christmas and the like.

That was mostly during high school and university, of course.

(You lot are students?!)

Putting aside that bit of reality-flight, in the hall where a fluttery atmosphere and a stagnant one were jostling together, one seat at the counter was emanating its own peculiar air.

The girl seated there had her head in her hands, so her expression was hidden, but it was nine times out of ten the girl from the contest Ilya was witnessing.

Another girl who had been sitting beside her noticed Ilya's gaze and moved to the seat across from her.

She was someone Ilya recognized: a common-human girl named Lilith, who belonged to a party that had been doing a lot of work since the abnormal increase in monsters started.

Ilya knew Lilith and the girl with her head down were in the same party.

"… It's not going well, then?"

"Yes…"

Lilith nodded heavily.

"Erica's been pushing herself, taking on C-rank commissions one after another, but that Selge guy apparently completed a B-rank subjugation, so…"

The girl (Erica) and the boy (Selge); the contest between them was over who could complete more high-rank commissions.

Without knowing the exact scoring system, Ilya couldn't tell how many C-ranks a B-rank was worth, but from the look of the two of them, the situation was clearly looking dire.

"Um, what's the relationship between Erica-san and Selge-san?"

"Hey, Cynthia."

Cynthia had asked Lilith in a tone of pretended casual curiosity that wasn't quite hiding her real interest. She had an unfortunate habit of running off with imagined romances, and Ilya gathered that's where this came from and chided her.

"(I mean, my gut's saying it's a complicated one. Aren't you curious?)"

(I knew it…)

Cynthia had at least lowered her voice for form's sake, but Lilith had heard her anyway and let out a wry smile.

After a small pause, Lilith looked at Ilya again.

"That's right… Would you mind hearing me out?"

I have a feeling it won't end with just hearing, Ilya thought, but she couldn't pretend not to see, either. She nodded honestly.

Off to the side, Cynthia gave her a look that said we're the same kind; Ilya threw a cold one back.

"Those two were originally in separate parties."

The two parties that had originally been separate had been merged when commissions in Lunéville started overlapping.

Erica's was all-women; Selge's, all-men. With members temporarily off the line because of the current estrus period, plans both sides had originally been considering (to expand their roster) got fast-tracked, and the parties merged.

The two of them, brought together that way, had turned out to be acquaintances from the same village, and the moment they'd shown their faces to each other, they'd started arguing.

"Selge isn't comfortable with a weak person like me being in the mercenary guild at all."

"Erica…"

She had apparently been listening, because Erica spoke from where she sat, staring at the glass in front of her.

For her honor's sake, let it be added that the glass contained juice, not anyone-drowning-their-sorrows alcohol.

"You don't have the talent, give it up. You're weak, blah blah blah. … He wasn't like that before…!"

"Ah, that, that was happening before he met you too."

The voice belonged to a man who'd come in just earlier.

Judging from the fact that he was taking commissions with them, Ilya guessed he had been one of Selge's original party members and stayed back to observe.

The man naturally slipped into the seat next to Lilith and gave his drink order to Rachelle.

For a moment, Cynthia's eyes lit up; perhaps Lilith and he were close, but honestly, Ilya didn't care.

The mug that arrived almost immediately, the man wet his throat with, then continued.

"That guy lost in the arena over in Orbwight, and ever since he's been like that. Apathetic, sulking, kinda."

"Is that so…"

Selge had reasonably high ability for a common human.

But without anything corresponding to [Genius], having the confidence built from single-minded effort shattered would understandably leave anyone discouraged.

A setback that made you face your own limits was something most people experienced. Lilith too, perhaps recalling something of her own, knit her brow sympathetically.

On the other hand…

"… I know."

Erica said.

Her unexpected admission startled not only the man but Lilith as well.

"'Tristan of the Demon Sword,' isn't it…?"

"Yeah, that's it. After he lost to him, he tossed his sword and started swapping weapons constantly, and quit the training he'd been doing daily."

Apparently he too had been holding onto frustrations, because he drained the rest of his mug in one go.

It was genuinely a help when, at the break in their words, several aspiring registrants arrived and dispersed the heavy air.

For a while after, would-be registrants kept lining up as if on cue, and Ilya focused on processing them.

"Subjugations outside the designated area won't count, so please be careful… Good luck."

"You bet! Let's go, you lot!"

Just when the line of registrations finally broke and she thought she could take a breath…

"… After all, I can't just give up."

Erica muttered, standing.

"Ilya-san. There's something I need to ask of you!"

She bowed her head toward Ilya.

 

*

 

The scene changes to a private room on the second floor.

"Please recommend a weapon for me as well!"

The moment the door closed, Erica bowed her head again.

For the time being, Ilya had her sit down to calm her.

"A weapon for you, Erica-san?"

She asked to make sure, and Erica nodded forcefully.

"It's been going around that the weapons you recommend are really easy to handle, and that people end up better with them than with whatever they were using before… Of course, since they don't want it spreading too far, everyone's been keeping quiet about it."

Like the monster appearances, the truth was being passed along in a slightly distorted form.

That Ilya herself wasn't named as the direct cause, and the matter was instead being treated like a sort of good-luck charm, was perhaps fortunate, a silver lining in the cloud.

It would be a problem if people thought it was an easy shortcut to strength and ended up resentful when reality didn't oblige.

Whether their motive for limiting word-of-mouth was their own self-interest or not, it suited Ilya's purposes.

That aside, into the main matter.

"Why do you want to win that badly?"

She had the job class [Compounder], so her [Compounding] skill was above average. In combat she mostly worked with poisons and healing potions, but if she truly committed to it she could shift into that as a proper profession, which she herself would understand best of all.

Unlike children who let their wishes run unchecked into hopes, an adult could look at her own limits, stop, and seek out a road forward.

For that reason Ilya wanted to know why she wanted to win, what she was clinging to.

Erica met her skeptical gaze head-on.

"I want him to get back on his feet."

"… He's changed, you said."

Erica nodded wordlessly, dropping her gaze, glaring at the table.

"… I wanted to prove it to him, by winning. That there's no such thing as wasted effort. I can beat you, so don't give up over losing once…!"

A drop fell onto the table, not soaking in, beading there.

"But… I couldn't… I have no talent… I didn't want to just be protected… I wanted to be with him… we promised… and I couldn't do anything…!"

More drops fell with the words that spilled out of her.

Her feelings were beyond her, the things she said weren't quite making sense, but in proportion, they sounded like her real heart.

Ilya rose, and rubbed Erica's back.

She had probably been carrying this fear alone, on the brink of being crushed under it.

So Ilya, by touching her, by speaking at her side, told her: you are not alone.

"To be with him. That's what you'd been trying so hard for."

"… Yes. And yet, he keeps telling me to go home, that it's pointless because I'm weak…!"

"It scares you when you think it might all be for nothing, doesn't it?"

"… Yes…"

For a while, as Ilya listened, Erica cried as if a dam had broken.

When she at last raised her face, her eyes and nose were red, but there was something almost clear in her expression. Whether timing was good or bad, Erica's stomach grumbled, and after a shared laugh they ended up eating together.

Judging her more settled now than mid-cry, Ilya took the chance to ask again about Erica's reasons.

"Selge and I were childhood friends. He was cool, back then. He promised to protect me, to be with me always."

And yet, she said, slapping the table. It must have hurt quite a bit, but anger had her hiding any wince, frighteningly enough.

"He up and left the village, talking about getting stronger! Isn't that awful?!"

"Whoa… that is awful."

"Right?! And then when I said I'd come too, he wouldn't listen! So I started practicing the bow, so I could be with him… He was a swordsman, you know."

"You worked hard."

Venting her frustrations, and getting sympathy, had drained some of it.

A subdued Erica nodded.

"And then on the way to chase after him, I joined up with Lilith's party, and learned compounding so I could make myself useful, since I couldn't get any better at the bow."

"With compounding on top, they must've found you very useful."

She had dipped into low spirits at the "couldn't get any better" line, but at Ilya's words her smile turned shy.

"I don't know about useful. But being able to support everyone in more ways than just the bow made me really happy."

Perhaps recalling those days, Erica's gaze drifted with her smile.

But it froze, abruptly.

"While traveling with everyone I was listening for word of him, and one day, I heard. That he'd lost in the arena to a famous swordsman and thrown away his sword. I'd been worried about him the whole time after that, and then I happened to run into him here…"

He had changed far more than she had imagined.

"Even before that, I knew I was the weakest in the party. The dead weight. But I thought there were still things I could do. He, though, said the current party didn't need that either, and told them to drop me."

Which led to the current contest.

Whether he really believed it, or whether he was driving her away because seeing her made him remember his old self and hurt, she couldn't tell. But for him to push it so strongly, Selge's intent to remove her from the party was clearly serious.

"Just to confirm, Erica-san. Do you only want to win this contest?"

"… I want to win. Win, and have the old Selge back. But…"

Reminded perhaps of the present, she trailed off. Even so:

"… I want to be with him."

She put the wish into words.

If so, Ilya's answer was clear.

"Understood. I'll lend you all the support I can."

Supporting guild members was, after all, part of her duties as an Association employee.

 

*

 

Lending support meant more than just switching her weapon. From here, Ilya would be giving Erica instructions.

First, building a foundation.

"L-lumber-gathering… commissions?"

"Yes."

She half-forced the dubious Erica into several registrations and sent her out into the field for about a week.

 

*

 

A few more days passed.

The first sign of trouble Ilya caught was in Sophia's manner when she came to pick up the school lunches.

"Ah, h-hello!"

Ilya had no shift and had come down to the first floor to help carry the lunches when she ran into her.

The moment Sophia saw Ilya, her smile turned visibly forced.

The school could be cause enough, along with any number of other things, but inferring a change with Bernart was the natural step.

There was no point in leaving it alone, so Ilya decided to ask.

"You seem down. Did something happen?"

Sophia jerked at Ilya's question, carrying lunches as they walked, and refused to open her mouth.

"… Can't tell me?"

She neither denied nor confirmed.

"Got it. I'm going to ask one-sidedly. If I'm wrong, shake your head, okay?"

A nod.

"Did something happen outside the church?"

A shake. Sophia denied it.

"Is it about the school?"

Denied.

"Is the cause something you've done?"

A short pause, then denied.

So it wasn't the cause of her low spirits, but the reason she couldn't tell Ilya lay with Sophia herself.

That was Ilya's read.

"All right. Got it."

"Onee-sama, I —"

"It's okay."

Ilya cut her off before she could continue.

It was possible Sophia just hadn't sorted out her feelings, but there were curses that activated the moment a secret was leaked. There was no need to make her cross a dangerous bridge.

"It's okay. I'll do everything I can. At night, make sure to lock your door tightly."

"… Okay."

That she couldn't even, as cold comfort, promise no one will die… she hadn't realized that would hurt this much.

 

*

 

After finishing the lunch delivery, Ilya went straight to the manor.

"There's something I need to ask of you."

"Please, go on."

Sensing the weight of it from her expression, Hector straightened in his seat.

"When you go to the royal capital for your report, I'd like you to arrange for the priest to accompany you."

"… May I ask why?"

Of course, she nodded.

However explicitly Hector showed his trust in her, Ilya had no intention of riding on it carelessly.

She explained the situation and her plan in full, everything aside from her own cheats. Hector showed a flash of being shaken at how serious it had become.

But his experience with all manner of crises had honed him; he recovered quickly and consented.

The remainder was preparation.

The one bitter thing was that the most critical piece, the one Ilya could do nothing about, was the variable she had no way to influence.

 

*

 

The unwelcome visitor came that night.

Sensing the presence, Ilya threw open her window.

Her gaze went to the figure on the roof opposite.

"Good evening, lovely miko."

The figure giving the respectful bow was Bernart himself.

His status was unchanged, but the air around him was completely different.

"How dutiful of you to come pay your respects in person. Evil God-sama."

Bernart's laugh answered Ilya's sarcasm.

"Why, of course. It was only because the miko herself noticed that I could come before you once again like this. The least I could do."

Once again.

The word confirmed her suspicion.

If a new evil god had been born, the great spirits would surely have noticed the shift. And yet Gnome and Sylph alike had said there had been no anomaly.

And Bernart had once visited the village that had been performing the sacrificial rites.

That was enough.

"You are the 'eldest evil god,' aren't you?"

"Indeed. Since you've already noticed…"

Bernart's voice broke off.

"Will this voice be more familiar to your ears?"

Kuhaha, it laughed.

A sound nothing like the voice before, like styrofoam scraping together, struck unpleasantly against the eardrum.

"I don't get it. I cut you down in a single stroke. Why bother announcing yourself like this?"

"Because you grew complacent."

The ugly voice spun out words.

"You back then were beautiful. Terrifying. Your arrogance was godlike; it stole the heart from me."

"How nice for you."

"But what of you now? Beautiful, yes; the strength you bear is fearsome, enough that one might be tempted to kneel. But…"

Even so.

The voice that continued was:

"There is no glow of those days! No ferocity! No greed!! … As you are now, you don't even regard me as a thing whose life and death is worth your deciding."

The denial, the scornful gaze.

She didn't want to acknowledge it, and yet, somehow, no rebuttal came to her.

"Then by all means, watch from your high seat. To drag you down, I'll do anything."

"… Do you think I'd let you?"

"If you don't let me, it'll be my honor."

She didn't get it.

What the evil god was thinking, Ilya couldn't read at all.

"One question, may I?"

"Go ahead… But of course, you'll answer one of mine in exchange, too."

An evil god being polite, of all things…

The strange whiff of human-flavored manners actually disarmed her a little, and her tone slipped looser.

"Got it. Then… is Bernart-san's consciousness still there?"

"Yes. In the daytime he's frantically maintaining his smile while suffering the nightmare you see now."

If that was true, the evil god's consciousness had been surfacing for some time already.

Regretting that she'd missed it, Ilya listened on as the evil god spoke. Sounding very, very pleased.

"Next is my turn."

"… Go ahead."

If it tried some strange contract, she had her barrier; there was no problem.

Bring it on!

So she braced…

"Tell me. Are you still a virgin?"

"Good night."

She shut the window and decided to grab Haku and go to sleep.

She'd known. Among the criteria his evil god used to select sacrifices was "maiden": a virgin obsessive, in other words.

She hadn't answered, but she could have sworn she heard the evil god's delighted voice on the other side of the window, and that infuriated her.

 

*

 

After last night's encounter, a new rule had been added: if Ilya herself acted directly, she would win the battle but lose the war. From what the evil god had let slip, that was Ilya's conclusion.

(… Not like I'd been planning to in the first place, though.)

Speaking of contests, that meant Erica.

A week had passed since she'd been sent out, and she returned to the branch safely.

"Uuh… my muscles are killing me…"

"Then for your next, please take this and request a rondoboiga subjugation."

"Eh?! Th-this is… not again…"

"Good luck."

A full-bloom smile sent her off, and the moment she returned:

"Next, a rondred ape."

"Eh."

Another registration was processed.

After about a week of that subjugation-life…

In the meantime, Frank set out for the royal capital to report on Lunéville's situation, the arena and the church and the rest. Per Ilya's arrangement, Priest Bernart traveled with him.

That meant Frank wouldn't be back for a week.

Meanwhile, while Erica was steadily clearing commissions, Selge had completed three B-rank subjugations and five C-rank subjugations.

His remaining time: three days.

"Did you rest well yesterday?"

"… Yes."

Status looked fine. But her morale was rock-bottom.

"From here on… what should I even…?"

"The next is the last."

"With the deadline… right, it would be…"

Erica let out a dry laugh.

Cornered as she was by the lifestyle, she clearly wasn't able to grasp the situation properly.

"The next subjugation target is the Goola-Aji-Ogul."

"Right… wait, EHHH?! A-Aji-Ogul is A-rank!! No way, no way!!"

Her anguished cry drew all the eyes in the hall to her.

Every one of those expressions was past exasperated or sneering and into questioning her sanity.

The Goola-Aji-Ogul was a sub-disaster-class monster, confirmed only recently as the new master of the forest left vacant by the tyrant spider.

Atop a robust upper body resembling a giant, it had a snake's lower body, and with the long lower half and brute strength, it shattered prey and consumed them. With its tendency to gulp down anything that caught its eye, it had been designated a sub-disaster-class for the ecosystem-breaking threat it posed.

What pushed the Goola-Aji-Ogul into A-rank territory beyond its size and strength was its essentially inexhaustible vitality.

Slashed, burned, pierced: it would not let go of the prey it had caught. Its tenacity was recognized as its greatest threat.

That said, it had weaknesses, and there was a recent move to reassess its rank.

Generally good news, but in this case it was particularly fortunate.

"It'll be all right. As you are now, you can defeat it alone."

Maybe because Ilya said it with such conviction, Erica began doubting her own panic, and the earlier fear faded.

"B-but…"

"Don't mess around!!"

The voice that cut her off was Selge's, having burst into the branch out of breath.

Not bothering even to catch his breath, he strode right up to Erica.

"There's no way you can kill an Aji-Ogul!! You wanna die, you idiot!!"

"Wha —"

For all his bullish intensity and the desperation in his face, Erica pushed back.

"You don't know unless you try!!"

But Selge wouldn't back off. If anything he closed in harder.

"It's impossible, idiot!!"

"'It's impossible, it's impossible'… I'm not like you, giving up before I even try!!"

"Don't get cocky just 'cause you've gained a little power, you talentless —!! Dead means no chance to regret!!"

"A hundred times better than rotting away regretting!! Ilya-san!!"

A back-and-forth of words sold and words bought.

Riding the surge, Erica thrust her registration card out to Ilya.

Of course Ilya took it and started processing.

"Are you… are you serious?!"

"Yes."

She answered with her business smile, and Selge glared at her with the expression of one who'd bitten into a bitter pill.

"Are you trying to get her killed?!"

"Hardly. I said I'd lend my full support to her as the branch receptionist."

Ilya met his gaze, and told him:

"I'm only keeping my word."

What about you?

She let the implication hang.

"Khh…!!"

If he had no rebuttal, then Ilya was not going to stop the registration.

A long silence.

With all eyes in the hall on the three of them frozen there, the first to move was Ilya, the registration completed.

"Registration complete. Erica-san, here's your card and commission slip."

"A-ah, yes."

Erica, who'd been standing there blankly almost as if it weren't her business, snapped back into motion.

"… I'm going too."

Selge muttered.

He didn't meet either of their eyes; he spoke again.

"I'm going on that subjugation too."

Ilya glanced at Erica; reading her, Erica looked once at Selge, then closed her eyes to think.

"All right."

She opened her eyes again in less than a few seconds and accepted.

"But don't lift a finger."

"… Got it."

Selge agreed to her condition, and turned to hand his card to Ilya.

That's not enough.

Ilya didn't take the offered card; she added conditions.

"If the worst-case scenario does occur, you alone might not be able to handle it. If others were to accompany you, we can process additional registrations."

"Wha —"

"And one more thing."

She continued before he could object.

"If there are other potential combatants present within the subjugation target's detection range besides her, the target's behavior may change, so we'll have you wait outside the range. Will you accept these two conditions?"

It would read as you're dead weight so don't get in the way. She knew it would.

But to keep her promise with Erica, Ilya couldn't yield here.

A silence in which neither of them broke eye contact stretched on.

It ended only when Selge yielded.

"… Got it. I'll take the conditions."

When he turned to call his comrades, they were already gathered there.

The members nodded wordlessly and handed Selge their registration cards. He took them, turned, and offered them along with his own to Ilya.

His eyes were full of hostility for her.

(It's not like I'm doing this to be liked by you, so I don't really care.)

She kept her expression smooth, and with an inward wry smile finished processing and returned them.

"Erica-san, please wait here while I explain the operation. The rest of you, once you've rendezvoused with Erica-san, please proceed to the subjugation."

The exchange so flatly businesslike that Selge glared at her with fresh resentment, but the other party members ushered him out.

Erica, meanwhile, with him gone, was now more in a state than before he'd arrived.

"Wh-wh-wh-what should I do…! What do we do!!"

"It's okay. Calm down."

She offered Erica a cup of cocoa. Whether it was thanks to the amplified relaxation effect, Erica's composure gradually returned, and judging the timing, Ilya began.

"You know the Aji-Ogul's lower body is covered in hard scales, yes?"

"Y-yes."

"The Aji-Ogul's scales are hardened keratinizations of the outermost layer of skin. When new keratin forms underneath, they shed those scales, something like molting, in a habitual cycle."

Unlike ordinary reptiles, the Aji-Ogul could shed only the damaged scales, then channel mana into the affected area to harden the keratin again.

"So attacking the lower body is pointless…?"

"Not while the scales are intact, yes."

Of course, an attack stronger than the scales' durability would still get through, but that was beyond her present level.

"But there's one weakness."

"A weakness?"

"Yes. The Aji-Ogul boasts high vitality, and that vitality means blood and mana circulate fast through its body. So whether for nerves or mana itself, paralysis toxin and any toxins spread through it quickly."

Perhaps because of the protection of its hard scales: despite living in forests, a hotbed of status ailments, its resistance to bad-status effects was uniformly low across the board.

"On top of that, and this is the important part: when paralysis toxin gets into them, the Aji-Ogul's body apparently misreads it as if the scales had died, and they shed all the scales from the lower body."

"Eh…?!"

Her surprise this time wasn't laced with despair; it was the surprise of someone catching a glimmer of hope.

"With its mana flow disrupted, the scales' keratinization is slow to rebuild. In that window, cleave the lower body in half."

"Cleave it… ah."

Catching what she was getting at, Ilya smiled.

The rondoboiga subjugations Ilya had had Erica carry out, though smaller (about two-thirds the size of an Aji-Ogul's lower body), had given her practice handling the writhing bodies of large snakes en masse, teaching her how to slice through them cleanly.

And for cleaving via weight, there was nothing as convenient as a two-handed axe.

"Is that why you had me practice with the axe?"

"No. I recommended the axe because it's the weapon that suits you."

Erica, who'd ended up in the mercenary guild by drift, had assumed from the start that she had no combat talent.

The result was the bow, and the side-supporting compounding.

But in truth her aptitude was [Two-Handed Axe]. On top of that, low-level though it was, she had [Genius].

If she had simply lived her life as a village girl, it was a talent she would never have noticed.

That Goola-Aji-Ogul had been chosen as the final target was simply because, while searching for a match well-suited to Erica, Ilya had conveniently spotted it.

She had spotted the sub-disaster-class with [Clairvoyance] even before its discovery was reported, and the subjugation commissions she'd chosen as preparation (the lumber-gathering as axe basics, the rondoboiga as a practice target) had been picked with this in mind.

"Aji-Ogul has the habit of trying to gulp down any food that catches its eye. So feeding it bait laced with a slow-acting poison, then dosing it with an anesthetic arrow to put it to sleep, then closing in once the poison has spread and the scales have shed: that should be the safest approach to severing the lower body. The exact method, though, I leave to you."

"Y-yes!"

With hope visible now, Erica's cheeks softened even through her bewilderment.

She was murmuring through this and that of an image-training when she suddenly turned to Ilya and asked:

"I did the rondoboiga commission a bunch of times, but… what was the meaning of the other subjugations?"

She could hardly say efficient experience-grinding tuned to your skill level.

"Familiarizing you with close combat and the axe, and building your confidence. The rondred ape subjugation was to simulate combat after you'd severed the lower body."

This world, despite being shot through with game-like systems as Ilya saw it, lacked game-like conveniences.

There were no special attack patterns just because something was a "boss"; monsters of similar build and skill tended to attack in similar ways.

An Aji-Ogul without its lower body was just a giant ape without a lower body.

Whether it came at her with a tree, or with bare-arm strength alone, similar behaviors could be experienced in the rondred ape.

With its lower body intact, it used arms as legs to swing the lower body around, or wrapped a tail it had snuck up behind while attacking with the upper body: complicated patterns Ilya wanted to restrict.

(Big as it is, with the lower body gone the head comes within reach.)

She was going over her plan in her head when she noticed, belatedly, that Erica had frozen.

"… Is something wrong?"

"Um… an Aji-Ogul… can it survive even after you cut off the lower body…?"

"Yes. Unless you destroy the head, you should assume it stays alive."

"Uweeeeeh——!?"

Half a day was needed to get her recovered after that; even Ilya hadn't seen that development coming.

 

*

 

Departure pushed to the next day, Ilya went downstairs to see Erica's group off, and found Ria and the other beastkin staff who'd been on leave during the estrus period gathered in the office.

"Everyone, you're all back?"

"Yeah! We're fine now! Haku, it's been a while!"

"Pii～."

Thank goodness, Ilya sighed inwardly.

Now she could focus on the situation without worrying about her shifts.

After seeing Erica off at the west gate, she switched to [Clairvoyance] and checked the progress in the royal capital's direction.

Hector's people were so meticulous with preparations as to look nervous about it.

The next hurdle was whether Bernart would hold up that long.

There wasn't much Ilya could do from here; ideally she'd be able to do nothing at all.

The same was true for Erica and her group.

After camping out in the forest, they advanced the next morning, as planned, to the Aji-Ogul's territory.

Conditions and plan all per schedule.

The giant's sheer imposing presence sometimes endangered them, but the combat leading up to the Aji-Ogul encounter had pushed Erica's [Two-Handed Axe] skill even higher, and severing the lower body went smoother than Ilya had anticipated.

After that, only crushing the head was left.

With the lower body cleaved, Erica's nerves had eased in a healthy way, and from there she dispatched the Aji-Ogul with composed footwork.

That made her completion of an A-rank subjugation official.

Win or lose of the contest aside, she couldn't be labeled dead weight any longer.

The rest was up to them. Judging so, Ilya cut [Clairvoyance] and returned to her work.

"Ilya, this commission…"

Elizah's voice called, and Ilya headed for the office to deliver reports and pass along messages for the period the beastkin staff had been on leave.

With those who'd been resting back, the office buzzed with life for the first time in a while.

 

*

 

Five days after Hector's party set out.

Having departed the royal capital, they were following the highway straight back toward Lunéville.

The formation went, per plan, with Hector at the front, Bernart behind him, and the escorts around the perimeter.

The second hurdle (of Bernart keeping his sanity) looked, as far as she could tell, like it was holding.

The next day, at noon.

If everything went as planned, that would be the start of the next phase of action, and the greatest hurdle.

Was anything overlooked? Anything missing?

Ilya was going over it in her private room when she heard Ria's voice.

"Ilya, you've got a customer～."

"Got it. I'll be right there."

She petted the half-waking Haku back to sleep and went down to the first floor, watching the branch slowly recover its old life now that the beastkin had returned.

"Ilya-san!"

A group had taken up a corner of the hall, and from it Erica's voice called.

The "customer" Ria had mentioned was her, apparently. Erica rushed over and bowed deeply, then beamed.

"Thank you so much, for everything!"

"Not at all. It's the fruit of your own efforts."

Looking at the group, Selge was sitting with a sour expression on his face.

At his hip was a single sword in a soot-stained sheath.

"It went well, then. Congratulations."

"Yes. Thank you very much."

Erica bowed once more, gave a shy little smile, and leaned in close to whisper to Ilya alone.

What she told her was the full account of the contest, with the truth behind it, and the side story besides.

When the story was done, the two of them naturally looked over at Selge, and seeing the boy noticing their warm gazes and beginning to panic, they couldn't help breaking into smiles.

"We've decided to make this place our base from now on. There's everything here, the food is delicious, and Selge says he needs to retrain in the arena, so…"

She paused.

"… so we'd like to luxuriate a little more in the goddess-sama's protection."

Erica smiled in full bloom.

Please, enough already with that line.

Beaten by the guileless smile, Ilya let the protest stay in her chest.

 

*

 

The next day.

As planned, Hector's party traveled down the highway and approached the unmanned cabin (used as a shelter and resting point) situated between Carunne and Tsuryune.

The escort at the head of the column inspected the cabin first, confirmed there was no issue, and moved on.

"…"

But inside the cabin were two figures.

Killing their breath, waiting silently for the moment to come, these were Hector's people. It was only natural the inspection had judged them as nothing out of the ordinary.

Once.

Twice… And a third time.

The instant a certain casual word, slipped into the outside conversation, came around for the fourth time —

((Now!))

The seal on the box set in the center of the cabin was broken, and the faintly green-glowing crystal it had held was revealed: a Crystal Pillar of Wind.

It was something that, by its nature, produced wind elements.

Elements bonded with elements of their own attribute, and wind elements, in contact with one another, produced flows of air: wind.

A core piece with no controls applied to it should have unleashed gales that would permit nothing to come near.

… Or should have.

But the gusts that rose from the crystal weren't enough to so much as toss the cabin, let alone budge the people; what spilled out felt no stronger than a breeze.

They'd been told there'd be no catastrophe, but unable to make sense of it, the two in the cabin, bewildered, looked out the window.

What spread before them was Hector's hard-faced silhouette and his escorts, all surrounding a single carriage.

Seeing the two emerge from the cabin and confirming the situation was progressing, Hector caught the eye of the escort beside him and signaled the move to the next phase.

I wanted to be the one to go, the look said.

Smiling wryly inside, Sibyl, his guard and maid, ushered Hector to a safe position.

In the direction of Hector's gaze, one of the escorts was just stepping into the carriage.

Beyond the opened door was Bernart, his face pale and his eyes somehow vacant. For him, what had just happened was that the suffocating pressure, the kind that felt like his very consciousness was being scrubbed out, had thinned suddenly, and his clouded awareness was, just now, sharpening.

The escort, careful even while wary not to be discourteous, held out a letter.

What is this?

To Bernart's hazy, questioning gaze, the man answered briefly.

"A letter from Ilya."

Taking it was the only choice that came to mind.

Enduring the chill and discomfort still gnawing at him, he opened the letter.

Father Bernart-sama. Forgive my impertinence; I'll skip the greetings and pleasantries and explain the situation.

As you are no doubt aware by now, there is something gnawing at you from within.

In common terms, that being is none other than an evil god.

To clarify a likely misunderstanding: the evil god was not born of anything inside your heart.

That evil god was, in the past, called the eldest evil god.

Even after its body was destroyed, its existence was not, and I believe a faint residual fragment of its consciousness seeped into your spirit, which had grown adapted to receive it.

The reason your spirit could so adapt is likely that you possessed a high degree of affinity with earth elements.

It is a coincidence, an unfortunate one; but it is also, conversely, an opportunity.

The truth is that evil gods are, in essence, the monstrous form of the great spirits.

The details brush against an elven taboo so I will refrain from explaining further, but this is a certainty.

Therefore, just as with the great spirits, it is possible to form a contract with one.

If a contract can be formed, the evil god will no longer be able to gnaw at you, let alone harm others.

To do so, however, you must converse with the evil god yourself, and bring it to submission.

The hours of the day when monsters are weakened.

The saturation of wind elements, the counter-element to earth.

Every preparation that could be made from my side has been made. Whether it can be brought to submission, however, depends on you.

Become an evil god, or fulfill your duty as a man of faith. Choose.

If you choose the latter, I will support you with everything I have. If the former, leave the aftermath to me.

Whichever you choose, I will stand by your decision.

Finally, I write here the incantation for the contract, and the procedure leading up to it. First…

He finished reading and closed the letter.

The text, devoid of feeling and any soothing touches, almost felt like it was telling him she expected nothing of him, and coming from a person normally so attentive, it was easy enough to read as provocation.

It was startling content on top of that, but what rose in his heart was relief.

He didn't know the particulars, but he knew that Ilya had cut down the eldest evil god in the past. He hadn't seen the moment, but the joy of the villagers, who had lived for so long under the threat of an evil god, was proof enough that it had been done.

And above all, through her life here in Lunéville, through the school and the rest, Bernart had come to know her kindness, her refusal to abandon anyone, her honesty in never promising what couldn't be done.

He had come to know it.

And such a person was saying she would stand at his back.

"… What a comfort."

He could honestly think it. There was not a moment's hesitation as he began the contract's incantation.

Closing his eyes, he turned his awareness inward.

Whether thanks to the chant, or because he had been told this presence was there, something not him, something distinctly other, he could clearly feel.

That something seemed to turn its smile toward him.

It was not affection, nothing of the sort, but Bernart, undaunted, focused his consciousness on it.

The deeper he probed, the more distinct it became, and proportional to that came an increasing, suffocating pressure.

That suffocation seemed almost to refuse his approach, but Bernart pushed in further.

Not by cut and thrust, but through dialogue.

That was the path he had chosen and walked.

Pleased to meet you, devotee of the world tree.

A voice spoke into him.

The moment he understood, Bernart simultaneously recognized what this being was.

Not because Ilya had told him so, but because, here, through this connection, it was a fact he could perceive.

Yes. Pleased to meet you. Adversary of mankind.

In his words there was no avoidance, no hatred.

Because it had been made to be born that way, and it accepted that, even unconsciously, it laughed, and the dialogue began.

His consciousness having turned fully inward, he fell as if into a state of slumber, and the force resisting evaporated.

With the counter-element gone, nothing now blocked the release of wind elements from the Crystal Pillar, and the wind elements surged in a sudden flood.

Almost at the same moment Bernart collapsed, in less than a blink, the cabin burst apart, and a howling gale rampaged across the area.