Chapter 18
Chapter 18
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 18
Chapter Title: The Princess on the Donkey
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Spring was drawing near, and the winter winds were making their final desperate stand, unleashing a cold snap across the continent as fierce as the depths of midwinter.
The potato flowers had withered and faded, giving way to potatoes in their place.
Even as I harvested them, I couldn’t help but marvel. Why had the Lord bestowed potatoes upon me, of all things?
In this bitter cold, no less.
“...It doesn’t taste good.”
Roca, with her taste for meat, refused to touch potatoes.
That meant one serving was enough for our house.
‘These potatoes are so plump and solid—quite a bountiful yield.’
They had grown in just one corner of my little vegetable patch, yet their roots plunged so deep.
There was no explaining it except as the will of the divine.
‘There are too many. Why would the Lord grant me such a gift?’
The sight of dozens of potatoes dangling from those roots was truly astonishing.
I took those potatoes to the clinic and shared them bit by bit with the patients seeking treatment. I gave some to Mr. Rubelt, and went around to the neighbors, handing them out to those in need.
I made potato salad to stock up for myself and boiled potato soup, living off it for three meals. When Roca ate meat while I had potato soup, she felt sorry for me, but I’ve always been a light eater anyway. I hardly feel hunger even when I skip meals.
“Good day, sir. A pleasure to meet you. I am...”
“Oh, if it isn’t the priest from Kyle’s Clinic! My word, we’ve heard so much about you. To think you’d grace our orphanage—could it be...”
“I received a generous gift of potatoes, far more than I could eat alone.”
That was why I hauled several sacks of them to the orphanage as a donation.
The people there were deeply grateful. It was a place dedicated to aiding the poor, yet it received little in the way of support or contributions.
“To think of such kindness! We were down to our last scraps, reduced to serving acorn porridge.”
“Whoever this generous soul was who gifted you so many potatoes, sir—and you for sharing them—may blessings rain upon you both. Thanks to this, so many of our brothers won’t go hungry on the feast day. They’ll at least fill their bellies with potato soup. In the name of the Goddess, we thank you.”
“No need for such words! May blessings be upon you in the name of the Lord.”
“And may blessings be upon you, in the name of the Lord.”
We served different gods, yet our paths converged in the same direction.
The Three Gods preached love, and my own Lord preached love as well.
I prayed to my Lord for peace and well-being, and they to theirs—that was enough.
‘Come to think of it, Saint Beoro’s feast day is approaching.’
She had been a mere low priestess of the Goddess Hila.
Yet she devoted her life to healing and aiding the poor, and was later canonized as a saint.
The day honoring Saint Beoro was at hand. The Goddess was one of the Three Gods, making the feast day of a Hila Church saint a holiday across the entire continent.
Our faiths may diverge, but I had no reason not to revere her.
No reason not to joyfully observe the day in her honor.
‘On the feast day, perhaps I should offer a prayer to the Goddess.’
My Lord did not mind if I prayed to other gods.
It was not a transfer of faith—just a small prayer of thanks, left to my discretion. Such trust was more than I deserved for so trivial a thing.
I sought only to repay it by discerning the Lord’s will.
“Roca, do you believe in God?”
She shook her head.
“No. They’re all frauds.”
“Haha...”
“Our tribe worshiped the Goddess of the Plains, Lady Epina. I did too. Not anymore.”
“I see. That’s fair enough. In the end, the only thing worth truly believing in is oneself.”
I was essential; God was a choice.
Would He look kindly on someone who couldn’t even trust themselves, who denied their own potential, and served only Him blindly?
My Lord, at least, would not.
“Master. Could I believe in the one you believe in too?”
“Roca, my Lord has no need of faith.”
As long as one never gave up until the very last moment—that was faith in my Lord.
As long as one did not yield to hardship—that was belief in God.
Praying together did not make one a believer.
Reciting scriptures did not make it so. Faith came from living by His teachings.
Even I sometimes wondered if I truly counted as a believer.
“If your heart is sincere and filled with devotion, He might accept your faith. But Roca, you needn’t follow the one I serve.”
The continent teemed with gods, from the Three Gods at the pinnacle downward.
Any would do. Faith could not be forced.
One simply served the god one wished to serve.
To follow mine merely because I did?
Such a heart could not be true, and God would not accept such faith.
Roca would have to feign devotion to a god she cared nothing for. It would do no one any good.
“Truth be told, the one I serve is...”
Roca started to say something, then closed her mouth.
She just let out a smile and pressed her lips shut tight. Her eyes sparkled as she looked at me.
‘Has she grown a little taller?’
Her eyes seemed a bit higher now.
Still far from meeting my gaze, but the gap had narrowed just a touch?
Beastkin grew fast, it seemed—and truly they did.
Roca’s childhood would pass even swifter than my own.
“On the feast day, what would you like to do?”
“Whatever Master wants.”
“Then I want whatever you want.”
“Then I want to walk with Master. Like we do now.”
Such a simple wish from such a young one.
“That’ll do.”
And so, for the feast day, we decided to go out together. Out for fun, though it would just mean wandering the festival.
*****
In this dark night with cold winds howling, who rides a donkey forth?
Wearing a mask carved of wood, astride a donkey on the verge of foaming at the mouth,
sighing dreamily from her lips as she races on—who could she be?
Once hailed as the Iron Princess, a hero of the battlefield, now reduced to a mass of rotting flesh: the Princess of Ardine.
All her glittering deeds had faded; her white steed was gone, replaced by this lone donkey as her mount.
‘It couldn’t be helped.’
Her body could not endure the time a normal journey would take.
When her horse tired and refused to run, she sold it for an inferior one.
When that one flagged, she bought a draft horse used for plowing. Only when that one reached its limit did she choose this donkey. Seeing the foam at its mouth, even this beast was nearing its breaking point.
“Is this... Larphentia...”
Forcing the unresponsive mount onward with mana itself,
the princess dismounted the donkey. Even that simple act sent her legs into numb paralysis.
She had crossed an unimaginable distance with scarcely any rest.
Even a sturdy soul would be exhausted; her body was anything but sturdy, by any measure.
Her already crumbling form now felt cracked and fractured everywhere.
“Haha...”
It was white. Her mind was pure white.
She felt as if she’d collapse from exhaustion at any moment. Only her heart kept her going.
Her body was already half not her own. The noose called death tightened around her neck bit by bit.
How much longer could she hold out? A day? Two?
Even she could not say. Her life flickered like a dying candle.
And yet, for the hale and the dying alike,
hunger came indifferently. It knew no satisfaction from past feasts. If feeding time came and went unmet, it flew into a rage no matter how much it had been indulged before. The princess felt a hunger bordering on cramps.
‘I really am a fool. At a time like this, my first thought is that I’m hungry.’
She no longer felt the cold wind; her skin was crumbling, her senses rotting away. But if she felt no chill, she still felt the starvation.
On the way here, she had subsisted on hardtack and jerky, never once having a proper meal. The princess was ravenous. She had never known how terrifying true hunger could be.
In the palace, a mere snap of her fingers summoned delicacies.
On the battlefield, it was unthinkable for her—a royal and commander—to go hungry. No general would dare let her starve, pouring every effort into feeding her.
Even as soldiers marched clutching empty bellies from poor supply lines,
she had advanced sipping honeyed water. Never before had she known such starvation.
‘For now, rest at an inn.’
She lacked even the strength to seek out Priest Kyle.
Clutching her empty stomach, the princess walked on, seeking only to fill it.
* * *