Side Story: The Buck-Passing Founder, Kehma

"Goshujin-samaaaa. Word on the street is ya can grow arms back?"

"…I didn't do anything that impressive, though?"

"But ya can grow arms back, can't ya, Goshujin-sama?"

"I mean, I can, but…"

It was way simpler than generating Orichalcum particles.

If anything, since you could just brute-force it with mana-powered healing magic, it was even less involved than making a Golem prosthetic arm.

The Golem prosthetic approach required having Niku take on a Succubus form and fine-tune things with [Charm], after all…

"This time, I just reattached a freshly severed arm, the guy's own at that, so it's really not a big deal."

"True enough. In White Goddess Faith terms, that'd be priest-level stuff. Nothin' special fer the Beddhism Founder, but… this here's an adventurer village. There's demand, and folk who want their arms fixed are gonna keep showin' up at the church."

…What a pain.

I had my own stuff to deal with, like figuring out how to handle Narikin's dungeon strategy.

"Right. Let's have the Succubus Sisters set up so they can handle the healing themselves. That way I won't even need to get involved."

"Ya think? I mean, the Sisters can already handle simple treatments as is."

"We'll have Soto mass-produce healing magic skills and hand them out to the Sisters. Tell the Sisters to wear their socks and keep them warm. That'll be Soto's compensation."

"Sounds like Soto-sama's gonna be real busy. Well, if she gets socks out of it, she'll prolly be happy to do it."

The Succubus Sisters were well-versed in matters of fetishes, so they'd surely prepare socks that would satisfy Soto.

Healing magic in exchange for socks? What a bargain.

"Then we'll trade well-worn socks for good spells! One day gets you [Light Heal], three days gets you [Healing], we can work out the middle tiers later, and thirty days of worn-to-tatters socks gets you [Resurrection]!"

…Well, no reason to refuse. Approved.

Oh, but limit the trades to the Succubus Sisters only. Handing out healing magic to the general public at these rates would cause all sorts of problems. Optics-wise, too.

 

＊ ＊ ＊

 

At the Beddhism Church in Golen Village, in its back room, the Succubi were holding a meeting.

The original Sister appointees had since risen to the rank of upper management.

Head Sister Suira was chairing the meeting. On the agenda: "Requests have been received for the use of healing miracles."

"…And so, in order for us to handle these requests ourselves, it has been arranged that if we offer socks to Soto-sama, she will bestow healing magic scrolls upon us."

The upper management Sisters had only been told one thing: that Soto could prepare scrolls.

It was probably a skill, they figured. What kind exactly was unclear, but it seemed to require offering either "something worn for a long time" or "something she liked" as compensation.

"Soto-sama's got a more, shall we say, niche fetish than you'd expect from her looks."

"It's kind of endearing how someone so cute can be so… unfortunate in her tastes."

"I'm jealous of how mutually in love she and Leona-sama are… Think we could get in on some of that?"

For the record, the Succubi had Soto's fetish completely figured out.

They were Succubi, after all. Spend enough time talking with someone and they'd just pick up on it.

It helped that Soto didn't try very hard to hide it. Her gaze drifted toward feet, same as the Founder's. Though in Soto's case, she was particularly interested in the socks themselves once removed.

"For reference, here is the rate chart for the spells available for exchange."

"Huh, so one day of worn socks gets you [Light Heal]… Hm?"

"…[Healing] would be nice. I'm not great at healing magic, so that really helps… Wait?"

"……Re…sur…rec…tion???"

Listed there was a legendary spell: [Resurrection].

Apparently, all it took was offering a pair of socks worn to tatters over thirty days to learn a legendary spell.

"In order for us to reattach severed arms, I'd like everyone to learn [High Heal] at the ten-day tier. Founder-sama apparently reattached one with just [Healing], but only someone on the level of Founder-sama or Leona-sama could pull off a full heal with that alone. Also, since this is urgent, deferred payment is acceptable."

As Head Sister Suira laid all of this out matter-of-factly, the other Sisters cut in with a chorus of "No, no, hold on."

"Um, Suira-sama. It says [Resurrection] here!?"

"That's the legendary one, right!? The one lost to history where only the name and effect are known!? Is this real!?"

"Ah… As Head Sister, I've already learned it on deferred payment, so I can confirm it's the real deal. It's ritual magic, so I can't cast it alone, but once everyone here has learned it, we should be able to manage roughly one resurrection every three days."

In other words, if they wanted to, this Beddhism Church was capable of even resurrecting the dead.

And if they were to advertise that fact, this minor religion in a remote village would undoubtedly see growth far beyond its current standing.

But knowing the Founder's aversion to anything that would make him busier, that was never going to happen.

"By the way, Founder-sama… can use it too, right? Naturally?"

"If Soto-sama can provide it, there's no way Founder-sama couldn't use it himself."

"Right, of course."

If this was something they were willing to teach even the Succubus Sisters, who were, in dungeon terms, somewhat outsiders, there was no way the Founder hadn't already learned it himself.

"It wasn't specifically mentioned, but I believe we should cap newcomers from Karisoto District at [High Heal]."

"It wasn't specifically mentioned!?"

"To be precise, the discretion was left to me as Head Sister. 'Just make it work,' were his words."

"Isn't there a limit to how much you can just dump on someone?"

"…We've earned that much of his trust. That's what I'm going with."

And so it was settled.