“Ah! It’s that auntie from before!”

“……”

A very familiar voice tickled my ears. But since responding to being called ‘auntie’ would mean defeat, I lightly ignored it and hurried my steps.

“Auntie, where are you going? You heard my voice, didn’t you?”

“……”

Forcibly smoothing out my furrowed brow, I turned around.

“Ho ho ho. Hello, Alice. It’s been a while.”

“It has been a while.”

Alice grinned.

Next to her stood a boy I hadn’t seen before. With dazzling blonde hair and blue eyes, the boy’s appearance stood out even among the crowd. So much so that his worn-out clothes barely registered.

He clutched Alice’s collar and said,

“Miss Alice, this person is…”

“What?”

Judging by his troubled expression, unlike Alice, the blonde boy seemed to recognize me. I quickly interrupted and asked,

“Oh my, Alice. Is this Anton?”

“H-How did you know? Is this your life wisdom again?”

Alice was startled.

“You could say that!”

I crossed my arms, showing off in front of her after a long time.

“More importantly, are you on a date with Anton?”

When I whispered softly in her ear to tease her, her chubby cheeks instantly turned red.

“I-It’s not like that. We just came out on an errand.”

Alice grumbled, denying it.

“Are you here to see the Saintess?”

“Well, I came to visit a cafe and get some fresh air, all at once. Oh, this is…”

I turned my head to introduce Spinel, but she wasn’t in her place.

“S-Sir Lucas. Where did Miss Spinel go?”

“Well…”

Lucas, who was standing behind, pointed in one direction.

Spinel was in the middle of an argument with the owner of a skewer stall. No wonder it had been so quiet!

We had just arrived in town, but I was already getting a headache.

“Um, Alice. I think I need to go. I’ll introduce you to my friend next time.”

“Wait…!”

As I was about to hurry to the stall, Alice grabbed me.

“Come visit the bookstore sometimes. So… I’ll recommend more books for you.”

Alice glanced at Anton, then rolled her eyes and looked at me. It seemed she had something she wanted to consult about.

“You want to play with me, don’t you?”

“I-It’s not like that.”

“Of course. Someone invited me, so I should definitely go.”

At my answer, Alice’s lips quivered happily. She’s not very honest with expressing her emotions, but it’s cute how it shows on her face.

After making a promise with Alice, I quickly ran towards Spinel.

“Come on, if you ate it, you should pay!”

“You’re asking for payment for this tiny piece of meat on a stick that’s not even a mouthful?”

“…You’re a difficult customer, miss.”

“I’m the one who finds this difficult to understand. Isn’t this just a sample? If you’re selling, it should at least be the size of a whole pig…”

“W-Wait a moment!”

I blocked Spinel and asked the owner,

“How much is it?”

“10 silver.”

The owner replied to me with an annoyed expression. 10 silver? It seemed she had eaten almost all the skewers on the stand in that short time. She ate quite a lot…

“Here, I’ll pay.”

I quickly took money out of my pocket and handed it to the owner, while Spinel turned away, fuming.

“How dare they charge money for that tiny piece of meat that’s not even good as a toothpick?”

“10 silver is probably more than a full meal…”

“These merchants are just greedy for money.”

“……”

I was seriously worried if we could get through today safely.

The cafe was not crowded in the early morning.

As we sat down, a waiter approached.

While ordering something to eat, I asked the waiter if he knew what time the Saintess would be visiting the temple today.

“I heard from other customers that she’s coming around 1 PM.”

“Is that so?”

It’s 11 AM now, so we still had some time. It seemed we could leisurely drink tea and then go to the temple.

“Would you like the cake packaged to go?”

“No, we’ll eat here.”

“Pardon?”

The waiter seemed confused when a customer who ordered one whole cake, two slices of cake, and three drinks said they would eat it all here.

“You’re going to eat the whole cake here too?”

“Yes.”

I nodded in response to her asking again.

A moment later. A large cake was placed on the table.

Curious about the unfamiliar food, Spinel sniffed it, her nose twitching.

“I ordered for Sir Lucas too. Sit down and eat with us.”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“I ordered it especially, it would be a waste if you don’t eat. And it doesn’t seem like anything dangerous will happen in a cafe like this.”

After continued urging, Lucas finally sat down reluctantly.

I handed Spinel a fork.

The tiny fork looked as out of place next to the large cake as a hoe on a construction site.

Spinel also seemed dissatisfied with it, examining the fork from various angles before putting it down indifferently.

Right, I thought so. Of course, a hoe wouldn’t do. At least it should be a shovel…

I called the staff and requested a table spoon.

Only after getting the spoon did Spinel seem somewhat satisfied and started eating the cake.

“This is delicious! It truly lives up to its reputation!”

After taking a bite, she exclaimed with wide eyes. Her hand holding the spoon moved faster and faster.

Seeing her with her mouth full and a pleased expression, the combination of sugar and flour was indeed right.

After eating the cake and cleansing our palates with tea, the clock showed 12 o’clock.

“Well then, I have a small errand to run… Would you like to return to the mansion first, Miss Spinel?”

“What errand?”

“I was thinking of visiting the temple briefly.”

“I have nothing else to do, so let’s go together.”

That seems a bit dangerous, in many ways…

“Um, it probably won’t be very interesting…”

As I spoke with a troubled expression, Spinel swallowed her last bite and said,

“It’s fine.”

“It really won’t be interesting…”

“You don’t seem to know, Ravenne, but you’re quite an interesting human to watch. So have some confidence.”

“……”

How should I take that comment?

***

“Saintess, we have arrived.”

Artia slowly got out of the carriage, feeling that something was going wrong.

She was supposed to be kidnapped by a cult today.

Artia recalled that time, which made her shudder just thinking about it.

The image of the Emperor coming to rescue her when she was kidnapped by Bertel.

Seeing her on the verge of death, Klaus calmly asked.

If she wanted to be saved.

Artia, terrified, begged to be saved, and Klaus, as if he had been waiting for this, started killing the cult members one by one.

It was a scene that could only be described as a massacre.

‘I hope you’re satisfied with your choice.’

He said that, looking down at her covered in the cultists’ blood.

As if this horrific scene was all because of Artia’s choice.

It was a memory she couldn’t forget even if she wanted to.

But the past had changed once again.

These consecutive events that deviated from her expectations were not good news for Artia.

She bit her lip in anxiety.

She hoped that at least today would be the same as the past. Because she absolutely had to meet Bertel.

It wasn’t that she needed the cult’s help particularly. They would die by Klaus’s hand once again anyway.

What she wanted was the staff Bertel had. The power to seal magic was absolutely necessary to escape from Klaus.

If only Klaus couldn’t use magic, Ilion’s rebellion would have succeeded.

If it was for that, rolling in a pool of cultists’ blood was nothing. She could do it twice if needed.

“Are there any cults in the Empire as well?”

Artia asked as she headed towards the temple with the priests who came to greet her.

Thinking it might raise unnecessary suspicion to ask about Bertel directly, she deliberately asked a roundabout question.

“Cults, you say? It’s shameful to say, but there are quite a few in the Empire as well. His Majesty doesn’t seem interested in dealing with them either.”

“I see. You must be worried.”

“Ah, come to think of it, I heard a fairly large cult was recently caught.”

“A large cult…?”

Artia asked, suppressing her urgency.

“Bertel, was it? There was someone who claimed to be the incarnation of God himself.”

“That person… was caught…?”

Why? If it’s Bertel, it should be before he even kidnapped her…

“Do you know about this too, Saintess?”

“Ah, no. I just thought I might have heard about it before.”

Artia quickly shook her head at the priest’s question.

“Well, they had quite a following, so you might have heard of them once or twice.”

“Do you know why they were caught?”

“The rumor is that they kidnapped a noble… I don’t know the details…”

It wasn’t a satisfying answer. She needed someone who could tell her more about this…

“Oh my! Saintess, hello!”

Artia, who was biting her lip again out of habit, turned her head at the voice calling her.

“Lady… Rischefeld.”

The appearance of an unexpected person was surprising.

“What brings you here…”

“It’s been so long! Have you been well?”

“…Yes. Have you been well too, Lady?”

“I’ve been doing well, thanks to your concern. Oh, I’m really grateful for your help with the Duke recently. The Duke is very thankful to you, even if he’s not good at expressing it.”

She was still a person with too many words and too much energy, hard to keep up with. So different from the gloomy Ravenne of the past that she felt like a completely different person.

“It was nothing. I just followed God’s will. More importantly, what brings you to the temple…”

“Actually, I have something I wanted to ask you, Saintess. I heard you were coming to the temple…”

Saying that, she took out an object wrapped in cloth from her bag.

When she unwrapped the cloth, there was a familiar object inside.

No, should I say familiar? It didn’t seem to originally look like this…

“It seems this object has stolen my friend’s mana, is there any way to fix it?”

“……”

Artia looked at Ravenne, feeling that she couldn’t manage her expression well.

“I-It’s broken.”

“Haha, yes. I hit it on the floor a bit too hard.”

“…You hit a holy relic on the floor?”

“Haha. I guess I was too strong.”

Artia looked at the miserable state of her last means to oppose Klaus, praying that this moment was just a dream.