Earthbound Spirit
"There's a fellow among my brothers who used to serve as a knight's squire. The lad's skill is solid enough, but the lord he served died of illness, so he had to quit..."
"My brother-in-law is an absolute wizard with a blade!"
"The younger brother of a guy I know, well—"
The navigators I had purchased on the spot boasted truly astonishing performance. The moment they beheld the healing flames Sister Rebecca kindled, they transformed into devout believers and rattled off the names of every swordsman they knew, recommending each one as a Holy Knight to escort the Saintess.
It was exactly the result I had wanted.
In an age that possessed neither the internet nor even wired telegraphy using Morse code, the best way to secure the talent one desired was not to post a job notice with nowhere to hang it, but to exploit personal networks. The serfs I had just recruited were, of course, excellent members of the local community.
"Saintess! My in-law's eighth cousin's brother's eldest son dreams of becoming a knight!"
There were so many people that I received far too many recommendations, but that was easily solved by filtering. I ruthlessly cut every candidate who failed to meet the standards I had set in advance. What I needed was not a defective knight order stuffed with mediocrities, but a sharp dagger to drive into the Loan King's belly. Three or four at most would be plenty. Hiring any more would only waste money and draw unwanted eyes.
"Hmm. Never mind people you know personally—are there any rumors circulating around Avignon? Something about a certain house having a gifted swordsman, that sort of thing."
"Ah, come to think of it, there used to be a baronial family to the east—"
The networks of bottom-rung serfs consisted only of people in similar straits, so decent candidates had been scarce and I had been fretting over it when a question tossed out without much thought struck the jackpot.
Arturo Paleheart.
Eldest son of the Paleheart baronial house that had collapsed after failing to suppress a peasant uprising in its own territory. Possessed of outstanding talent and excellent character, he had been on the verge of receiving a title directly from the Count of Avignon—until the Count's blunders turned the entire Avignon region into chaos and left the young man unemployed and penniless.
A man with a résumé and backstory that made one's mouth water was waiting somewhere in this very neighborhood for someone who would become his lord.
"Oh..."
I could not let this one slip away. Smacking my lips in anticipation, I returned to the carriage. After waving to the serf uncles who until moments earlier had been trying to kill me, I ordered the coachman who had accompanied us from Montpellier to change our route.
A page in my travel journal had just been updated. It was time to go collect the new hire whose face we had never even seen.
"Ah, found him."
Locating the eldest son of a baronial house that had gone bankrupt overnight proved surprisingly easy. The pitiful tale of Arturo, who had lost parents and siblings and been left penniless, was known to everyone. Residents near the former Paleheart barony were so tightly knit that everyone knew everyone within two degrees of separation, and they were loyal enough never to give information to outsiders—until shiny gold coins appeared. In other words, once I pressed those shiny gold coins into their palms, they opened their mouths without further protest.
I had no desire to condemn them for betraying a neighbor out of greed. In a sense they had simply valued neighborly affection at ninety-nine florins; the money I offered so casually had merely weighed heavier than their loyalty.
"Who... are you? What business could you possibly have with me..."
"Would you like to work with me on something?"
Besides, I had not come to harm their neighbor. I was always a kind and wise Saintess who insisted on the proper path and placed the public good first. Therefore this transaction, too, had been prepared under excellent terms that would satisfy everyone; anyone who objected could expect an Inquisitor to arrive and burn them at the stake so quietly that neither mouse nor bird would know.
Of course that was a joke. Our order was still lying in its coffin and lacked the capacity to dispatch anything resembling an Inquisitor. If I wanted to exercise force right now, I would have to take Sister Rebecca by the hand and go to the site myself. So the talk of stake-burning had been pure jest—yet the claim that I had prepared excellent terms everyone could accept was one hundred percent pure truth.
No matter how one looked at it, this was a deal in which every party gained. I obtained a reliable knight at a reasonable price; Arturo obtained a job no one would envy; the local residents obtained shiny gold coins in exchange for information. Where, exactly, was the loser?
Later the Loan King whose neck my exclusive knight would take off would suffer the terrible loss of his life, but that fellow was not objectively human, so there was no problem. Therefore our big brother Arturo ought to accept my proposal with gladness...
"What are you babbling about, kid? Stop spouting nonsense and go home."
Damn it. This childlike exterior kept tripping me up at every turn. Since mere words seemed unlikely to work, I decided to borrow the power of money. From my much-thinned emergency pouch I drew a few coins and displayed them to Arturo as if flaunting them.
"Signing bonus of two hundred florins, annual salary of one thousand florins. Bonuses to follow according to performance. Does my talk still sound like nonsense?"
When I handed over two gold coins and promised a salary roughly ten times that of a commoner, the eyes that had been clouded with gloom went round. Yes—it was far too much money to refuse. Judging by the shabby clothes he wore, he had endured terrible hardship since the family's fall; he could hardly ignore an employer who began by pressing gold into his hand. By now I roughly knew the local prices. To a penniless knight aspirant, a thousand florins was an absurd fortune.
"No, but where on earth does money like this even come from—"
"Would you answer my question first?"
Was I taking a loss of that magnitude? Hardly. The role I intended for Arturo was that of the righteous and kind protector of the people who would eliminate the greedy Loan King. In practical terms I was asking him to take up a single sword and make an enemy of Montpellier's entire underworld; considering the intensity of the work and the hazard pay, this much was only fair. Moreover, given that the other side might try to buy him, I needed to guarantee enough profit that he would never feel compelled to dirty his hands. Money, after all, was rotting in excess.
"...All right. But first I think an introduction is in order."
The future workhorse who had surrendered before the overwhelming violence of capital nodded obediently, signaling that he was ready to give my words his full attention. Meeting that expectation was only proper. I chose my words with the utmost care, shaped them into sentences, and then released the finished product—containing nothing but one-hundred-percent pure truth—from my lips.
"I'm Asty, the Saintess chosen by the Goddess, and I came here because I want to hire Mr. Arturo as a knight! I have a suspiciously large amount of money, but you don't need to be suspicious!"
A bone-chilling silence fell. From behind me came the sound of Sister Rebecca smacking her own forehead.
Strange. Why was the atmosphere like this? I had clearly spoken only the truth.
"Saintess. If you introduce yourself that way, even the lambs that have already come will run away..."
So why, really? Our senior had always stepped forward with exactly that kind of confidence, anytime and anywhere.
Wait a moment. Was that the problem?
"...Ahem. It seems I got a little ahead of myself. Let me start over from the beginning."
Come to think of it, our senior's confidence had more often than not failed to translate into actual results. Venting my irritation at a person who did not exist in this place, I introduced myself once more.
"I am Asty, the proxy of the Goddess who descended with the command to bring prosperity to this world. Would you please become my knight and help me set the world right?"
Good. This much could be considered a passing grade. Unfortunately my age made credibility rather low, but that weakness could be covered by overwhelming capital and Divine Power. For someone in the position of being hired, the sum that fell to their own share was always far more important than the counterpart's identity or lofty cause. For the heir of a knightly house ruined by a peasant revolt, the reasons to take my hand were more than sufficient.
"...In that case, there is one condition."
As expected, Arturo did not dig into my identity. He merely offered an additional condition in exchange for accepting a proposal that looked suspicious on its face. Of course I was already prepared to grant whatever he asked. From the bitter backstory and the uncommon air about him to the handsome features that could not be hidden even by shabby clothes—Arturo Paleheart was a human born to become a hero. Money spent recruiting talent with this much star quality would not be wasted in the slightest—
"Please heal my little sister's eyes. I beg of you."
...Huh. I had no idea how to do that.
I turned a bewildered look on Rebecca; she shook her head with a subtle expression.
"Can't Divine Power do something? Earlier you reattached severed arms and legs without any trouble...!"
"That was possible only because they had not been separated for long. Regenerating a part that has been destroyed for some time—especially something as vital as an eye—would require a high-ranking priest who specializes in healing."
But our order was already in its coffin. High-ranking priest or not, the only person who could wield Divine Power was Sister Rebecca.
What now?