Following the rough dirt path, Shahan asked. JeJe silently looked up at him for a moment, then shook her head. It wasn’t something to welcome with open arms either. The expression that she felt nothing at all would be more accurate.

Around them were guards carrying sharp-edged spears and swords. With so many watching eyes, Shahan also kept his words to himself. The two soon arrived at a bleak temple standing alone in the middle of a remote forest.

“Basic meals and clothing will be distributed from the temple once a week.”

The leader among the guards explained curtly.

“If you attempt to enter or exit the temple using force or divine power, the barrier will activate and burn your body. However, this apprentice priest can freely come and go from the temple, but must undergo belongings inspection each time. We will station two sentries in case of emergency, so be aware of this.”

They left a week’s worth of food and old clothes before returning to the Imperial Palace. The remaining sentries guided Shahan and JeJe into the gloomy temple of dark gray-white. The building’s structure was extremely simple, matching most of the fragmentary information JeJe had gathered from Elpida. 

A bedroom with nothing but an old creaking wooden bed, a desolate inner courtyard without even a vegetable patch, a terrifyingly fierce-looking statue of Ascalto resembling a demon, and a bleak chapel decorated haphazardly with crumbling candlesticks. 

The entire space consisted of achromatic colors. The most brilliant thing in this building was a narrow rectangular altar made of glass-like material. Unlike temple altars made of white or gray-white marble, this one was transparent enough to reflect faces.

“It’s the judgment altar that reflects sins. Though that’s just a fancy name they stuck on it.”

Eventually, even the last remaining guards withdrew. JeJe looked around the eerily silent temple interior that seemed frozen in time, shivering from the cold.

“Since it’s gotten dark today, it would be best to retire to bed early. We need to prepare a meal, so please light a fire.”

The internal conditions were worse than expected. She had thought there would be household items since people lived here, but what the Imperial Palace had sent consisted only of a small pot, a dull knife, copper spoons and plates, and something resembling a cutting board made of flat stone. 

They even had to gather firewood themselves. The reason the knife was so dull it couldn’t function properly seemed to be to prevent the sinner from self-harm. Of course, for Shahan who could freely manipulate wind, the presence or absence of a knife didn’t seem particularly important.

“I’ll go outside and gather firewood, so please prepare the meal, Shahan. I don’t know what’s in the sack, but there doesn’t seem to be much meat—mostly bread, vegetables, and grains. There’s also a salt pouch.”

Shahan stood blankly watching JeJe rummage through the food sack.

“I see.”

He looked at the sack with an unfamiliar expression and slowly nodded. He looked lost, not knowing what to do.

“Do you know how to cook? I heard you often did so in your room.”

“That was… just simply heating up things that were already prepared.”

Shahan made a rare stiff expression.

“So you don’t know how to season food, and you don’t know simple ingredient preparation methods either?”

“…”

“Shahan, do you know how to light a fire? Of course you wouldn’t. Oh, fortunately there’s an igniter here. I thought I’d have to light a fire with flint.”

JeJe picked up and examined the slender device that produced small flames by injecting magical power, then handed it to Shahan. He received the igniter with an attitude like encountering an object he’d never seen before and let out a troubled sigh.

“I’ll gather the firewood. Rather than rummaging through the forest with a knife that can’t even cut cloth hems, it would be better to use my divine power.”

Having grown up receiving only treatment without ever doing menial work with his own hands his entire life, he seemed to feel his own incompetence for the first time. In the current situation, all he knew how to do was cut tree branches using wind blades.

“What can you make with this?”

“Tonight’s dinner is potato stew.”

Shahan frowned.

“There’s no choice. That’s the only dish I can make with the ingredients prepared right now. If you catch a rabbit or sparrow with that amazing divine power of yours, I could prepare a more filling meal.”

“Never mind. Who said they wanted to eat such things?”

JeJe replied indifferently while peeling potato skins with the dull knife that barely cut.

“Fortunately, we won’t need to search the entire mountain for water. There’s a small well in the inner courtyard, so we can draw water from there. I can’t guarantee the hygiene, but since we’ll boil it before drinking, it should be fine. We can also draw bath water from the well… The problem is drinking water. Shahan, unless you plan to drink cold water, you’ll always need to boil it into tea. Fortunately, there are cheap herb leaves in the sack.”

Shahan pressed his forehead like he was fed up.

“We have to live like this for three years.”

She wanted to ask what crime she had committed to be forcibly dragged here by him, but JeJe kept her mouth shut, not wanting to get involved in pointless arguments.

“Think of it as reaping what you sowed.”

Something seemed to thoroughly irritate him, because Shahan, who had gone outside, chopped up all the nearby trees to pieces and moved them to the inner courtyard like a mountain. 

If there hadn’t been a barrier around the temple, it would have become a wasteland rather than a mountain. 

Shahan, who accomplished everything with just a flick of his finger without exerting any effort, looked quite exhausted from the aftermath of pouring out excessive divine power after a long time.

“This amount should be enough for this winter. No wait, I don’t even know the basics of how much firewood is needed to get through winter, so I’ll need to get advice from you again. Tell me, do we need more?”

Breathing somewhat roughly, Shahan wiped his sweat-soaked forehead with his sleeve.

Looking at the enormous pile of firewood stacked in the yard, JeJe was speechless with amazement. It was more than enough—there would be plenty left over.

“This is sufficient. Rather than that, you should go change clothes. You’ll have to do rough work frequently from now on, and fine silk clothes will get dirty quickly.”

JeJe handed him rough-designed monastic robes with no patterns or embroidery. He looked distastefully at the coarse linen clothes that hadn’t gone through finishing processes, then reluctantly took the clothes and disappeared into the bedroom.

“My body feels prickly. How on earth can one live wearing such things?”

Shahan reappeared, uncomfortably fiddling with the round neckline while asking.

“High-ranking people do line the inside with silk or cotton depending on the season. It would be a bit hot to wear that now, so you should do the same when deep winter comes.”

Once they lit the fire, the temple became a reasonably livable space. With the heat of flames and human warmth filling it, it was much more cozy and warm than when they first arrived.

The two ate the steaming potato stew JeJe had prepared. With such a picky palate, Shahan grumbled needlessly throughout the meal about it being too thin or too salty, but since he was hungry, he eventually shut his mouth and began eating quietly.

“It’s not entirely flavorless, but I’d like you to use less salt when cooking from now on.”

Unlike Shahan, who couldn’t solve his own food, clothing, and shelter needs, JeJe currently held the mighty power(?) of being the ‘cooking person in charge.’ Perhaps because of this, his tone sounded much more careful than usual.

The two cleaned up together and each washed themselves. Fortunately, Shahan didn’t mind bathing in cold water, so there was no need to troublesomely heat bath water.

JeJe poured slightly warmed bath water into her wooden bathtub, then hung long cloth in a corner of the temple to create a makeshift bathroom. Since Shahan would bathe in his bedroom anyway, it didn’t matter.

The problem was the bedroom… Having finished her refreshing bath, JeJe looked around with a perplexed gaze. No matter how she looked, there was nowhere to lie down except for the ‘one and only bedroom.’ 

There was also only one brass brazier, so it would probably have to be placed in Shahan’s bedroom. Then what about her?

Would she have to spend the night shivering in the chapel with nothing but the hard altar, bumpy statue, and dirty floor?

While JeJe was wracking her brains in worry, Shahan suddenly spoke up.

“What are you doing instead of following me in? Do you plan to freeze to death?”

“…”

“If sharing a bed with me is uncomfortable, you can just lay a mat around the brazier and sleep there.”

The chill had already crept in from being away from the fire. Since there was no other method, she had no choice but to agree. JeJe laid out a thick mat and curled up on it.

“You look quite uncomfortable.”

Shahan, lying on his side with his chin propped up, looked down at her with a languid smile.

“If you lay something thick, the covering will be thin and your body will be cold, and if you lay something thin, it’ll be uncomfortable like sleeping curled up on a stone floor, so why don’t you just come up to the bed?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re going to spend three years like that?”

“I’m going through this hardship all because of you, but since there’s no other way, what can I do?”

“…Stop being stubborn and come up. If you don’t listen, I’ll forcibly bring you over.”

JeJe turned her back and lay still for a moment. Seeing her contemplative behavior, Shahan let out an irritated sigh. Soon he raised his hand, and her body surrounded by wind floated into the air along with the blanket covering her.

“You have a talent for troubling people. There’s no doctor here to care for you if you get sick. If you catch even a cold, you’d have to return to the Imperial Palace, and I don’t want the apprentice priest assisting me to be changed to someone else.”

But what she had just heard from Shahan was quite useful. If she caught a cold, she would have an excuse to escape this temple.

‘Though there’s no guarantee it would be safer outside than now.’

Shahan laid JeJe close beside him so she wouldn’t run away and pulled the blanket up to her neck. His thin hand wrapped around her back and gently caressed it. Was it because she was very tired? 

Though she couldn’t have imagined it before, drowsiness gradually came over her lying next to Shahan, whom she had felt such aversion toward.

“JeJe, do you remember the meaning of your name?”

With Shahan’s voice echoing like a hallucination in her ear, she closed her eyes.