The boy swallowed the raw truth pooling inside him and answered on the surface with the obedience of a doll. Producing whatever answer adults wanted, regardless of what he truly felt, was something he long knew how to do.

Mirha looked at him with a sorrowful expression, seemingly seeing straight through him, but instead of pressing further she carried him quietly into the building. Taniel followed behind her teacher with a composed bearing.

The inside of the building was quiet. Not a stark, desolate silence, but a comfortable and sacred stillness.

Faint sounds of hymns being played and prayers murmured drifted through closed doors. Carried in Mirha’s arms through the corridor, the boy listened to all of it in silence.

Mirha wore a plain shirt and trousers with a cloak over them, not her order uniform. Because of that, no one approached to greet her upon recognizing her clothes.

‘Good thing I came in civilian clothes. Drawing attention here would only be a nuisance.’

The Elapha Order was generally held in respect throughout the holy nation, and it was common courtesy for even strangers to approach a knight and offer a greeting.

Currently under official confinement orders and the subject of gossip for dismantling the slave auction house on her own, Mirha wanted to avoid that kind of attention as much as possible. Not only for herself, but for the boy.

Her wish was granted, and Mirha reached the Hall of Truth without any interruption. The door to the hall was closed, but she didn’t hesitate.

‘I hope there’s no one inside.’

This time, however, her wish went unfulfilled. When Mirha opened the door and stepped in, two people who had been speaking in low voices stopped abruptly and turned around at the same time.

‘Of all things.’

Mirha nearly swore out loud. The boy instinctively shrank in her arms.

“Dame Mirha?”

A middle-aged man who had been speaking with a man in clerical robes frowned at the sight of Mirha. His irises were a warm brown, but the feeling behind his gaze was cold.

The cold gaze softened immediately upon spotting the small girl standing beside Mirha. A father’s natural reaction to his daughter.

“My respects, Chairman.”

Mirha greeted him with proper courtesy. The man’s gaze returned to her and cooled again as before.

“What brings you here? I heard you were under confinement.”

“You heard correctly. I am under confinement, but I had an urgent matter and was obliged to stop by the temple.”

“You’re nothing if not consistent.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

The man addressed as Chairman looked like he wanted to say more, but he suppressed his irritation for the sake of his daughter, standing beside her teacher and watching him carefully.

The young cleric caught in the middle swallowed dryly and watched both sides with nervous eyes, and the boy pressed himself closer against Mirha’s chest, like a rabbit curling away from a predator.

The Chairman’s gaze moved to the boy now. It was not a kind look.

“Is that the child? The one you brought out of the slave auction house on your own.”

“Yes, Chairman. That’s correct.”

“Bringing a child to the Hall of Truth, are you here for a sacred power measurement?”

“Yes.”

By this point Mirha abandoned even surface-level pleasantries. She replied curtly, and the man’s expression turned to one of disbelief.

“You’re checking whether the child has the makings of a knight? What, if he does, you’ll toss my daughter aside and train him instead?”

“Toss aside? I have no intention of giving up on Taniel. I’ll simply take on two students.”

The boy, who had been keeping his head down to avoid the frightening adult’s cold gaze, snapped his head up. He stared at the man blankly.

“Daughter…?”

The boy murmured. Taniel made an awkward face. Mirha kept her gaze on the man’s face and whispered gently toward the boy.

“That’s right. He is Taniel’s father.”

Jeric Zinion, head of the Santir Arts Association, husband of the chief senator, and a devoted father who doted on his daughter to a fault.

He acknowledged Mirha’s ability and entrusted his daughter’s training to her, but he was one of the most prominent figures who harbored resentment toward her because of her origins.

People believed that Mirha Elapha, born in the slums, came to take the precious daughter of a sacred family as her student thanks to the girl’s parents, but that common belief was half right and half wrong.

The one who first recognized Mirha’s ability and wanted to entrust her daughter to her was Kelena, the current chief senator.

Her husband Jeric resisted almost to the very end, but yielded reluctantly under his wife’s persistent persuasion.

Simply running into Jeric was enough to exhaust Mirha. Kelena didn’t look favorably on her either, but perhaps owing to Kelena’s cold temperament, the two never clashed in any particularly emotional way.

Unlike his wife, Jeric Zinion had quite a temper. Whenever young Taniel showed a flash of hot-headedness, Mirha inevitably thought of her student’s father.

“Tch, can you really handle training two students properly? Managing even one fully would be a stretch.”

“That falls under my discretion, so please don’t worry yourself, Chairman. There’s a reason the order’s rules permit up to three students.”

Jeric jabbed at her in a cutting tone, and Mirha shot back coolly. Jeric pursed his lips in displeasure. His sharp gaze landed on the boy, and the boy’s shoulders drew in.

“Then let’s see.”

“Pardon?”

“To take that child as a student, you first need to confirm whether he has sacred power or not, don’t you? It’s rather amusing that you’re already talking about taking on two students when nothing has been decided yet.”

“No, I was simply…”

“The cleric happens to be here as well, so we can confirm it together. A sacred power measurement isn’t unrelated to the cleric either. Not everyone with sacred power becomes a knight, after all. The cleric’s path might be this child’s calling.”

Mirha gritted her teeth. Making a child who was already frightened of strangers, especially adults, stand in the middle like a rare specimen in a circus and have his sacred power measured was not part of the plan.

Mirha fixed Jeric Zinion with a cold stare. Jeric met her gaze with a shameless composure, not the least bit rattled.

Meanwhile, Taniel, caught between her father and her teacher, felt her blood run cold.

She wanted nothing more than to ask her father to step aside right then, but even she, who became endlessly indulgent around family in private, had to tread carefully here.

Joining the order meant, in principle, severing one’s worldly ties and committing to a life of serving God.

Though still only a trainee, the girl who dreamed of one day receiving the name of Elapha in place of her family name Zinion, and trained hard toward that day, wanted to honor that principle.

Taniel was especially careful precisely because she knew how great the influence of her family was.

The last thing she ever wanted to hear was that she coasted into knighthood on undeserved privilege, carried by the name of a sacred family.

So it felt wrong to make a point of acknowledging her father here and asking him for anything beyond what was necessary. The best the troubled girl could do was look at her father with pleading eyes.

Mirha glanced at the cleric. One look at the cleric nervously reading Jeric Zinion’s mood with a stiff face told her he wouldn’t be much help to her.

‘Then again, the authority of a sacred noble is more frightening than a low-born knight.’

Mirha swallowed the bitter self-mockery. She spoke bluntly.

“You haven’t asked the opinion of the most important person here, Chairman. The one whose sacred power is to be measured is not me.”

Mirha turned to the boy. The boy looked up at her with wide, pitiful eyes. Mirha spoke to him with a gentleness that was the complete opposite of how she looked at Jeric moments before.

“Child, what do you think? Would you like to have your sacred power measured here and now? Or shall we come back another day?”

The boy hesitated. He stared at Mirha’s warm, reassuring face, then stole a glance at Jeric Zinion, who was glaring coldly at Mirha.

“…I’ll have it measured now, Dame Mirha.”

The boy murmured. Jeric Zinion frightened him personally, but he was more worried about Mirha. He didn’t want her to be put in a difficult position on his account.

“All right.”

Somehow he expected that answer, and it left a bitter taste. Mirha nodded readily, doing her best to hide the ache she felt.

Mirha walked with the boy in her arms toward the center of the hall. On the circular platform there stood a marble pedestal carved in the shape of a tree.

Resting on the pedestal was a rough, uncut stone about the size of the boy’s head.

‘This is the sacred stone?’

The boy was taken aback. He expected something grander and more beautiful from a device that measured divine power, but this lumpy rock fell far short of the magnificent temple that overwhelmed him today.

Mirha bit her lip with a fond feeling, watching the boy tilt his head with a bewildered look.

If the cleric and Jeric Zinion weren’t watching, she would have patted the boy’s cheek without a second thought.