It’s Not About That Right Now. (1)
Unfortunately, Aiden did not understand why Lapisha was bursting into laughter.
At the same time, he was equally baffled by Jamie, who was hugging him while wailing in a moved voice, "Oh, Administrator!"
"Get off, what are you doing!"
"Waaaaah!"
"Ah, seriously!"
He barely managed to peel the bear-like man off him, and this time, Lapisha wiped away the tears that had leaked out from laughing so hard and spoke again.
"Are you truly saying it doesn't matter even if she is a witch?"
To Aiden, that question sounded a bit strange.
There were mages who used magic and priests who used divine power. In this world, knights used mana to slice through boulders with their swords. He hadn't seen one yet, but there were spiritists who handled spirits, and other races like dwarves and cat-folk lived alongside humans, earning good money.
In such a world, what was the big deal about one witch?
"...Do witches actually go around eating people or something?"
If the image was like the crooked-nosed hag from a fairy tale, that would be a different story. You know, the kind that stirs a black cauldron of unknown ingredients with a large wooden spoon, cackling eerily while eating children.
"Do you believe Lady Kalisa would do such a thing?"
"Of course not."
Aiden chuckled and shrugged. If witches were truly such beings, wouldn't that content have appeared countless times when he was collecting all sorts of folklore and fairy tales for the children of the North?
He couldn't say he had read every single thing carefully, but as these were essentially textbooks for teaching the children, Aiden had at least skimmed through the plots.
'Black mages and liches who eat people appeared, though.'
Nowhere could he find a witch who made potions with gloomy ingredients and cursed humans. He didn't know the history of this region well, but people lived similar lives everywhere. Persecuting witches in the name of religion—Aiden, at least, was not unfamiliar with this structure.
'Witch hunts.'
If that was truly for the sake of judging evil in the name of justice, how could the word "hunt" be attached to the title of the people being called? It would have been called a "witch trial" or "witch education" or something like that.
Just think carefully about what happened here. Those Solar Church inquisitors who had become corpses used derogatory terms like "mongrel" to refer to Kalisa. Seeing as even Lady Lapisha knew everything, it seemed that it wasn't simply that she had done something wrong, but that those Solar Church bastards were originally in the business of purging "mongrels" like that.
This was just how it was. It was a kind of assembly to strengthen the internal cohesion of "our community" by designating the weak as targets and beating them to a pulp. In other words, this wasn't a religious issue; it was a political one.
"Do you know the relationship between the Solar Church and the Magic Tower, Administrator?"
"Let's see. That they are friendly?"
At Aiden's answer, Lapisha nodded.
"The Solar Church and the Magic Tower are separated now, but they actually came from the same root. The Goddess Aurea bestowed magic upon her first human disciple, and she granted miracles to her first believer; that was the beginning of the Magic Tower and the Solar Church, respectively."
That was one capable goddess.
Aiden listened to the folklore-like story with a bored expression. Since the distinction between myth and history was ambiguous in this world, it was certainly a problem. It was unclear where the truth ended and the fabrication began.
"However, just as there is night if there is day, and the moon if there is the sun, is it not logical that when the power of the Goddess Aurea, the Goddess of the Sun, weakens, the power of the Goddess Argenta, the Goddess of the Moon, grows stronger?"
"Yes, well..."
He didn't want to comment on someone else's religious doctrine, but by now, Aiden had a rough idea.
"So, witches were a group that served the Goddess Argenta, the Goddess of the Moon."
And the Solar Church, which served the Goddess Aurea, must have found such "witches" to be an eyesore.
"As expected, you are quick to understand."
But then, another question arose. If it were merely a religious issue related to the gods they served, one side wouldn't be getting beaten up unilaterally like this. As he had said, the Solar Church was not a major denomination in the Empire. To put it another way:
'If a mediocre guy is unilaterally beating up a weak kid, the big bosses wouldn't have stayed silent.'
Like, "Stop bullying that kid," or "Why is your temper like that?" Because it was the privilege of the strong to occasionally take the side of the visible weak. But if a mediocre thug picked one person as a punching bag and beat them, and the big bosses didn't step in?
Then the conclusion was:
'They know about it and are just pretending not to, that's all.'
Judging by the way the story had progressed so far, there was only one answer.
"The Magic Tower must have intervened, right?"
"You are indeed wise."
Perhaps from the perspective of other major denominations, it wasn't a bad thing. It was an opportunity to get close to the Magic Tower, which had many useful resources, and if push came to shove, they could frame their political rivals as "witches" and dispose of them. It was killing two birds with one stone.
"Tsk."
He still didn't like it. Even though there was no aspect of life that didn't revolve around the logic of power, perhaps because he had spent quite a long time in the romantic North, Aiden felt a wave of nausea at this unreasonable situation.
"Well, never mind. Nothing has changed whether I know the circumstances or not."
"Then, Administrator, will you—"
"Jamie."
"Yes, yes!"
"Keep an eye on her, and tell her to return to work as soon as she comes to her senses."
"A-are you serious?"
"I said it clearly. As soon as she comes to her senses, she returns. Im. Me. Di. Ate. Ly."
Jamie was moved by Aiden's gesture of not caring even after learning Kalisa's true identity, but soon he felt something was a bit off.
"So, that's after she recovers, right...?"
"What kind of nonsense is that? The year-end settlement is right around the corner, so what do you mean, recover?"
"But Administrator! Kalisa's arm is..."
"Does anyone here not know she's ambidextrous?"
"..."
"Even if her left hand is broken, her right hand is fine."
Why are you acting like an amateur? To Aiden, whether Kalisa was a witch or not was far less important than whether he could receive the year-end settlement on time.
Exactly three days later.
"I will return to work starting today."
Kalisa showed up. Her face was still pale. Her white complexion, contrasting with her red hair, would make even a stranger worry, but Aiden's concern was of a different nature.
"...Can I see the settlement within the deadline? If you don't think you can, tell me in advance. I'll have Roland assist you."
"I can do it."
"You know that if you collapse again, the New Year's meetings will be pushed back one after another, right?"
"Even if I collapse, I will hand it over after processing all the urgent matters."
"Good."
Smirk.
At the sight of Aiden nodding in satisfaction, Kalisa also curled up the corners of her lips and smiled. For Jamie and Roland, it was a scene they couldn't understand no matter how many times they saw it. At a glance, it was a conversation between a cold-blooded superior without blood or tears and a subordinate who was being pointlessly stubborn when it wasn't the time to be proud.
To others, both of them were truly something else, but since the two people who were crazy about work always ended their conversations with satisfaction, it was truly a mystery.
- Hey, do you understand them?
- I've given up, myself.
The two men's gazes flickered back and forth.
- But is Kalisa really okay—?
Roland had to take on an additional 20% of the work Kalisa was responsible for while she was away. For reference, Aiden naturally handled the remaining 80%. Jamie had been half out of his mind while Kalisa was collapsed, so it was a miracle he even processed his own work. Because of that, he hadn't even had time to visit Kalisa in the hospital, so he wanted to grab Jamie now and hear more detailed stories.
However, as if that bastard had no intention of satisfying his friend's curiosity from the start, he wiped away his gaze and began to whine beside Kalisa in a way that didn't match his size.
"Kalisa. Is there anything you need?"
"...?"
"Sh-should I brew you some tea?"
"Why would you?"
"Because you're still a patient..."
"Just do your work."
The temperature had dropped sharply over the past few days, and there was still a chill in the office, so the sight of Jamie sweating profusely all by himself was truly tear-jerking, absolutely tear-jerking. Roland, shaking his head at the transparent circumstances of his colleagues, soon immersed himself in his own work.
Scratch, scratch.
The morning passed, filled only with the sound of pen nibs moving over paper.
"Let's eat lunch and continue."
At Aiden's words, everyone finally stretched.
"Kalisa, for lunch, something easy to digest—"
"Administrator. If you don't mind, could we talk for a moment?"
As if waiting for this, Jamie approached Kalisa's desk to speak, but Kalisa, who had her red hair tied back tightly, didn't even acknowledge his desperate heart and headed straight for Aiden.
"Urgent business? ...Ah. It's not that I'll only listen if it's urgent."
Aiden was not very pleased, but he couldn't refuse a subordinate who had been absent for a while due to injury when she requested a consultation.
'I don't want to go because I think I know what she's going to say.'
Of course, it was a matter that had to be discussed and moved past eventually, but Aiden was truly not accustomed to things like this.
"...It's cold. Let's talk quickly and go back in."
Jamie and Roland sometimes disappeared somewhere during break times as if they had something to talk about separately, but since both Aiden and Kalisa were people far from slacking off, they wandered for a while and eventually settled in the deserted backyard.
"Why are you not asking?"
They stopped walking and stood facing one direction, as if ready to talk. Kalisa threw a straight pitch without beating around the bush. However, Aiden was not the type to be struck out by that pitch.
"I've already heard most of what I was curious about."
"Are you sure you don't need to ask anything more?"
"I'm more curious about whether the settlement will actually come out as scheduled, to be honest."
Kalisa was at a loss for words, her mouth agaping for a moment before she lifted her face toward the sky. It had just started to snow again.
"The Solar Church does not expand its influence to the North."
"Because the North is poor?"
"Because their power weakens in places where the light is faint."
"Ah."
"That is why I threw everything away and lived in the North, disguised as a merchant."
A confession of her past that came out of nowhere. Aiden thought:
'This is why I didn't want to come.'
He hated sob stories, and he hated the private lives of his subordinates even more. I won't ask, so please, can't you just bury it in your heart and say nothing?
Whether he liked it or not, Kalisa, having opened the floodgates, didn't care about the listener's feelings and began to pour out her story as she pleased.
"I wanted to save money and build a village someday. In a deep, deep place in the North where human footsteps never reach. For my brothers and sisters who tremble in anxiety every day, waiting for the day they will be hunted."
I gave you a map once before, didn't I, Administrator? The map marked with unregistered villages in the North. Why do you think I had that? With the scale of the merchant group I led at the time, I didn't have the capacity to go around finding villages that were hidden so well and spread out. I was looking for a place to establish a village. I was looking for land where my brothers and sisters could live in peace. But as it turns out, people's thoughts are all similar; all the places that were even remotely livable were already occupied by villages.
"..."
Kalisa, who had been rambling on about her life for a long time, finally looked straight at Aiden and said,
"When you were about to appoint me as your adjutant, you clearly said to me: if my dream was the reconstruction of my family or revenge against my enemies, there would be a way to walk that path together with the North."
Aiden, who had been spacing out while thinking about the documents and meeting topics to be handled in the afternoon, felt a warning bell ring in his head at Kalisa's words.
"Since my identity has been exposed anyway, I ask you without shame. Could you please take pity on my brothers and sisters?"
Kalisa closed her eyes tightly, uncharacteristically, and waited for his judgment. She believed that the sword was now completely in Aiden's hands.
"You want to build a village for witches, right? Before that, what can witches do?"
"Pardon?"
"No, now that I think about it, I know you're a witch, but I don't know what kind of abilities witches possess. I don't even know if they are dangerous people or not. In that situation, I can't just hand over land."
Even when accepting immigrants, huh? You look at what they do, the skills they have, their education and major, all of that.
"Unlike the magic of mages, our witches' abilities are almost invisible to the eye."
"Still, there must be some kind of ability."
"There is a large individual variance, but precognition, emotional resonance, memory transfer..."
Kalisa stammered as she continued her story.
"Wait a minute. What did you say you could do?"
"I mean, precognition, emotional resonance, memory transfer..."
Aiden's jaw dropped.
People really should live kindly after all.