Secret Talk With the High Priest

Secret Talk With the High Priest

Secret Talk With the High Priest

I had decided to save the orphans, but there wasn’t much I could do on the way home. After talking things out with Lutz and Fran, I decided to do my work carefully, with the key point being “save lives.”

I wasn’t sure how well the starved orphans could handle food, so I started by making light soup with chunks of bread in it, which Lutz delivered to them through the back door. Fran had said that if he delivered divine gifts to the front door while Gil stealthily delivered the soup from the back door, we could feed the small kids without anyone noticing.

“Gil is the one most worried about them, so he should take this work very seriously.”

“I’ll give Gil some of my clothes and tell him to use them when he’s doing dirty work,” offered Lutz.

That was all I could do today, but I felt better knowing that at the very least it meant that they wouldn’t starve to death overnight. But in contrast to my relief, Fran looked at me with a stiff expression.

“Sister Myne, please be careful around Delia. It is very likely that the High Bishop will be opposed to saving the orphans.”

“...And the High Priest won’t?” I thought that the High Priest was fairly opposed to it as well, but I wasn’t sure what Fran was thinking. His eyes widened a bit in surprise at my question.

“I will discuss this matter with the High Priest. I know that he is just as frustrated as you are with the abandonment of the orphanage and the treatment of gray priests and shrine maidens.”

“What? It certainly didn’t seem that way to me.” I tilted my head in confusion and Fran lowered his eyes regretfully.

“Do you remember what Delia said? The High Bishop has ultimate authority within the temple. For this reason, the High Priest hides his true feelings and intentions behind a well-composed mask so that they are not detected. It may be exceedingly hard to notice, but he is very frustrated with the High Bishop right now.”

“...I didn’t realize that at all.” What kind of detective would it take to realize from our prior conversation that the High Priest was frustrated with the High Priest? Could Fran read the High Priest’s mind? I fell into thought, baffled, and Lutz shrugged his shoulders.

“Sounds like you gotta tell the High Priest that Myne’s not understanding him.”

“Indeed. Sister Myne will need to study the roundabout, euphemistic ways of the nobility.” The two of them looked at me with the kind of pity a teacher might look at a failing student with. Ouch.

Over the next few days, Fran and I discussed how best to approach the High Priest while Gil continued to stealthily deliver the food. Since the Myne Workshop would be involved I even wrapped up Benno in this, who grimaced and complained about me sticking my head into trouble again. I wanted to get the High Priest’s permission as soon as possible so I could start working on improving the orphanage, but Benno yelled at me for being thoughtless again.

“Don’t just charge straight to your goal like that! It might be annoying to deal with nobles properly, but preparing ahead of time and laying the groundwork before meeting them is essential! Really, you could say the outcome of a meeting is decided before it begins. Nothing good will come from you just rushing to meet him without a plan.”

“Master Benno is correct. Sister Myne, you always act as soon as you make a decision, but when it comes to important discussions, it is normal to communicate your requests and what you know to them before arranging a meeting. When discussing matters with nobles, one must not be impatient. Take as much time as you can to lay the groundwork that will ensure as favorable of an outcome as possible for you.”

Fran informed me that me meeting with the High Priest right after seeing the orphans and repeatedly asking for his help on an emotional basis was, in reality, enormously rude and a blatant violation of polite manners. Things would not go well for me if I didn’t give the High Priest enough information and time to prepare.

“This will be a good opportunity for you, Sister Myne. Please observe and learn how to arrange a meeting with a noble and prepare for it ahead of time. This will be very important to you in the coming years.”

As the result of several conversations on the matter, I decided to accept the position of orphanage director and use funds earned by the Myne Workshop to improve the orphanage on the basis of establishing a branch there.

First, we would wash up the pre-baptism children and have the older kids clean every inch of the orphanage. Once that was done, they would establish the workshop in the basement of the boys’ building and bring in the tools, hearth, and so on necessary for cooking and making paper.

I had three main groups in mind for splitting the work up: a paper-making slash forest-gathering group, an orphanage chores group, and a temple work group. They would rotate once monthly and get experience in all forms of work. Then, I would ask about them their individual preferences and place them accordingly. One could choose their own jobs at will.

I would need to list up the clothes and tools we needed, not to mention buy them through Benno. To get the funds for everything, I had Lutz and Ralph carve wooden hangers. They were hangers I was well used to, with rounded shoulders. I explained to Benno that they damaged clothes less than the cross-shaped hangers I had seen before, and he jumped on them with gleaming eyes. Thanks for the business, as always.

“What’s the ultimate goal of the Myne Workshop Orphanage Branch?” asked Benno, sizing me up. If I couldn’t give him a proper answer, he would call me an idiot again. So I told him the answer I had long settled on by now.

“To earn enough funds to pay for the orphanage’s food. I would like for them to be capable of independently earning the money necessary to pay for food when just divine gifts aren’t enough.”

“Food? That’s all?”

“The temple gives them most everything they need, like clothes and shelter, so I’m fine as long as it earns enough profit to cover their food.”

Lutz said they could just gather food in the forest if they didn’t have money, but given the size of the orphanage, it wouldn’t be sustainable to send them for food out every day. There wouldn’t be enough food in the forest to go around. Once we knew if the workshop there could earn money, I could temporarily pay for their food until the workshop was earning enough for them to cover it themselves.

As I answered Benno’s questions, Lutz wrote out the price of paper and the price of food to do some math. “...Looks like it’ll be surprisingly easy to cover just the food. But if you’re gonna pay, Myne, why bother teaching them to gather?”

“I want them to learn to gather while they’re making paper. That way, worst-case scenario, they’ll be able to get food for themselves before starving to death. Without the right knowledge, they’ll just pick up poison mushrooms like I used to.”

“You sure did pick a lot of poison mushrooms...”

Once we had a clear goal with all the relevant steps outlined, Fran stealthily discussed the matter with the High Priest, and although it wasn’t public yet, he approved of me becoming the orphanage director and establishing a branch of the Myne Workshop in the orphanage. On top of that, he permitted a meeting to make things official.

It seemed that you had to write a letter several days ahead of time when formally requesting a meeting, so I wrote one after being taught the proper format. ...Dealing with nobles sure is a pain.

By the time the letter of invitation arrived from the High Priest, the kids in the orphanage had already gotten a lot better thanks to Gil’s efforts. Gil said that they could eat harder foods in addition to their soup now, and they were bit by bit getting more energetic. They were healthy enough that they could survive being bathed while their waste-filled rooms were cleaned.

When third bell arrived and signaled it was time for our meeting, I went to the High Priest’s room with Fran. Gil and Lutz were standing at the ready in my chambers, prepared to start work at any moment.

“Thank you very much for taking the time to meet with me.”

“Myne, noble women do not speak like that.”

According to the High Priest, noble women would say “I thank you ever so much” instead. There was a period in history where it was popular for women to make themselves sound a bit more dramatic, and various vestiges of that era remained to this day. I had mostly learned my polite language from the Gilberta Company and guards at the gate, so I probably had more exposure to male speech patterns than female speech patterns.

“It seems you will need a gray shrine maiden to instruct you on language as well. But that can wait. We have more important matters to discuss today.” The High Priest had cleared the room before I arrived, leaving only Arno. I started to walk toward his desk, but then the High Priest suddenly walked in the opposite direction, toward his bed.

“High Priest?!” Arno let out a cry of surprise. Fran also looked shocked.

I just followed after the High Priest, not really sure what was going on. He parted the curtains surrounding his bed, some distance away from the frame itself, and beckoned me forward. I tilted my head in confusion, then saw that there was a door built in the wall beside his bed.

“We will talk in here.” The High Priest pressed his hand on the door and immediately a sparkling blue magic circle arose, making the gemstone of a ring on his finger shine bright red. The ring’s red light did a lap through the magic circle, then faded.

“Not even my attendants can enter this room. Come, Myne.” The door opened with a click and the High Priest entered with neither Arno nor Fran. The dark room was scary enough that I looked back at Fran with worry. He gave a light nod, prompting me inside.

“E-Excuse me.” The moment I went inside and the door shut, a window appeared in the once-dark room and allowed a bright stream of light to pour inside. It was very sudden, as shutters had been opened very quickly.

“Bwuh?!” As I covered my eyes and waited for them to adjust, I could hear the High Priest moving around. I slowly opened my eyes and saw that the once pitch-black room was actually a study, resembling a college lab room to some degree.

There were all manner of scrolls and parchment scattered across a desk and shelves, not to mention a stack of several books. One of the shelves had tools I had never seen before lined up next to each other, but I could tell they were related to science somehow. The corner of the room seemed to be a rest area with a cushioned bench, but there were documents covering it too. The room, unlike the one kept clean by his attendants, was entirely his own. I was in the High Priest’s private, personal study.

“This room is built such that only those with mana above a certain quantity can enter. I believe that you are the only other person in the temple that is capable of entering it. There is no better place for a private talk.”

“This is a really cool hidden room. It’s like, just what I’d expect from magic...”

The High Priest looked at me while cleaning the documents off the bench. “...Your chambers have a room just like this.”

“They do? I didn’t know that.” I had never parted my bed’s canopy, especially since the bed was just a frame without a mattress. Considering how often I collapsed, it would probably be smart to get a mattress at some point.

“Though as it requires a mana registration to use, you won’t be able to get inside at the moment..”

“Mana registration?”

“We can discuss the process another day. Let us get straight to the point. Sit.” The High Priest cut the conversation on that subject short and pointed to the bench he had just cleaned off. He himself brought over the chair by his desk to sit on. When he looked up, he wasn’t wearing a blank expression like the one Fran often wore. His brows were furrowed and his mouth was bent into a sharp frown.

...Is he going to lecture me? Over the past few days of being critiqued by Fran, I could imagine what the High Priest was going to say. He had probably taken me to this room so he could lecture me where no attendants could see. And since we were alone, I couldn’t ask for Fran’s help. I was on my own.

“U-U-Um, High Priest. Why are we talking here in this room?”

“Because Fran advised me that you did not understand how nobles communicate.” He glared at me.

In general he had the face of a somewhat cold, expressionless person, so seeing him furrow his brows in clear displeasure was very frightening indeed. Unlike Benno dropping thunder, the High Priest’s anger was icy cold and made me feel like ice was steadily freezing me from the bottom up.

“And sure enough, the day before you spoke of important, reckless things without thinking first. On that day, one of the High Bishop’s attendants was in my room on business. Did you notice?”

“I didn’t notice at all.”

“I suppose, then, you didn’t understand that you were criticizing and insulting the High Bishop in the presence of his attendant while I practically perished on the inside, agonizing at every word that came out of your mouth.”

“...I-I’m sorry.” I had thought that I was helping the High Priest understand the horror of the situation, but in reality I was just criticizing the High Bishop’s method while the High Priest, his attendants, and basically everyone there had broken out in a cold sweat.

“At the very least, you must learn the names and faces of every blue robe, in addition to the faces of their attendants. How do you intend to survive when you know nothing of your enemies? You are too careless.” The High Priest’s exasperated expression looked a lot like the one Benno made. It seemed I was fated to be lectured and berated no matter where I went.