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"Devote your entire lives to Her."
That was what the Archbishop always said.
The merciful Goddess of Family and Hearth had loved them enough to bring them into this world, and so they must repay that love without fail.
The priests of the old order had grown corrupt and fallen, disappointing Her completely—therefore they must never follow in those footsteps.
So that the Flame of Benevolence might return to this land once more, they were to spend their whole lives making Her glad.
And young Rebecca had taken the Archbishop's words exactly as they were given.
There had been no reason not to.
The girl had never known her parents' faces.
She had not even known why she did not know them.
Whether she had been the first branch cut away when their lives reached their limit, or the discarded child of some brothel prostitute who had taken an unknown man's seed, or simply left alone when both of them left the world—she had no way of finding out, and no reason to need to.
She did not even know whether they had rejoiced or grieved at her birth.
In the City of Light that had turned into one vast open sewer, stories like that were common enough to trip over.
By the time she learned to speak and picked up the basic facts of the world, the girl had naturally let go of any lingering attachment to parents whose very survival she could not confirm.
In their place she filled herself with faith.
Jude, last Archbishop of the old order, had been a diligent and good man.
He had always cared for the children he took in with real love, and he never spared effort to keep their lives free of hardship.
He gladly cut his own meals in half so the children could have one more bowl of soup. The moment rain began to leak through the old building he rolled up his sleeves. He even shortened his own sleep to teach them with passionate care.
In the process he had also given them a faith education that bordered on indoctrination, yet given an age when the doctrines written in scripture were the very standard of morality, that could not even be called a minor flaw.
This was an era that justified kidnapping and imprisonment under the fine name of feudal contract, and the insane exploitation that took seven-tenths of a man's income.
Moreover, Paris—once the capital of France—had become a crime-ridden district that put Gotham to shame after the order's collapse.
In a city swarming with criminals and vagrants, performing charity was literally impossible unless one staked one's life on it, and Jude had willingly put his life on the line.
...Of course a living weapon who had once been an Archbishop of the old order was never going to be in real danger from a few back-alley thugs, but the fact remained that he had devoted himself to orphans in wretched conditions.
So Rebecca had trusted and followed Archbishop Jude like a father. Recognized for the martial skill she had honed day and night and for her unshakable mental fortitude, she had been given the sacred duty of guarding the lantern.
And now she had been ordered by Vesta Herself to serve as the Saintess's escort.
It was an environment perfectly designed to sink a person into blind faith.
"Hey, you lot! If you throw the net like that you'll wreck your backs! We made it a lot bigger than the ones you used to use, so make sure you use the weights!"
And yet—why was it?
The faith cultivated in that perfect environment kept trying to waver.
Because of the very proxy the Flame of Benevolence Herself had chosen.
No matter how I look at it, the Goddess just got lucky...
Asty was always far too competent.
From the moment she had produced those bizarre inventions in a rural village beyond even a lord's reach, right up to now, when she was freely giving advice to seasoned fishermen.
Every time that young girl appeared with some new technique or strategy no one else could have imagined, Rebecca's faith trembled a little without her even noticing.
Because the Saintess chosen by the Goddess seemed able to shine on her own, without borrowing Her hearth-fire.
Come to think of it, Asty had never once relied on Vesta's divinity.
The power she had been granted and even the status of Saintess itself had only been cards to make up for her lack of combat strength and standing. What shone in the critical moments had always been her wisdom and her spirit of self-sacrifice.
Yet while the Saintess ran around on her own two feet, the so-called Goddess merely tossed her a flame the size of a candle and then left her completely alone. Even with Rebecca's firm belief, it was impossible not to feel that something was wrong.
If the two of them had at least gotten along, she might have settled for the simple impression that of course the one their Goddess chose was extraordinary. But bring up matters of faith with Asty now and she would complain every single time without fail.
An irresponsible Goddess who never actually helped and only made her suffer.
And from where Rebecca stood, that assessment was correct.
It was absurd that the Saintess chosen by none other than the Flame of Benevolence had been forced to douse herself in oil fire because she lacked enough power.
Meanwhile the Goddess who had caused the whole mess sat comfortably in the back room, freeloading off the order's reconstruction.
No matter how she looked at it, this was not a case of Asty receiving the Goddess's grace—it was the Goddess riding on Asty's coattails.
"...Saintess, please rest a little as you work. If you rush like that, nothing will get done properly."
"Just wait a bit. We're about to start the real work, so I have to finish the safety training first."
Of course such blasphemous thoughts never lasted long.
When all was said and done she was the Lantern Bearer who had sworn to devote her entire life to the Goddess, a fanatic raised from childhood to live that way.
The inertia of the life she had lived was far too strong for her faith to break or twist over one or two trials of this level.
"All right! We still haven't made life jackets, so pay close attention when I teach you survival swimming!"
"Come on, Saintess! You really think a man who lives by catching fish can't swim properly?"
"It's a different kind of swimming, so concentrate. Back when I was in Somalia, more than a few guys slipped off the little boats while fishing and drowned—"
Asty's assaults simply never stopped at one or two.
Armed with future knowledge and a sense of mission, the Saintess bustled around the site re-educating Montpellier's fishermen. She finished demonstrating the new nets, every piece of life-saving equipment, and even the swimming lessons before she finally climbed out of the sea looking like a thoroughly soaked puppy.
"Ugh. Fishing village work clothes are way too uncomfortable for swimming. We don't have the materials to make proper swimsuits, so maybe I should at least try making a water jacket first."
And the moment she left the water she started talking about work again.
"What's a water jacket?"
"Traditional diving gear they used on Jeju Island before rubber suits. We have cotton, so if we go through a few trials and errors we should be able to make something similar... but since it's basically a diving suit, it might be a bit awkward for regular swimming..."
The sight was so absurd yet somehow so proud that Rebecca offered a few polite responses. Sure enough, Asty grew excited and launched into a stream of stories only she knew.
While she chattered on, Rebecca wiped her dry with a clean cloth and draped a blanket over her. This time Asty simply sat down on the ground and began drawing something in the dirt.
"...Aren't you going inside? It will take quite a while for the boats to return."
"They'll be back before the sun goes down anyway. Until then I figured I'd take it easy and prepare the next project."
No ordinary person called business planning "rest," yet Asty began explaining her ideas as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"With this we've opened the way for developing the fishing industry. We've improved the equipment and working conditions, so production will gradually increase. Once profitability is guaranteed, the merchants will take care of the rest on their own. All we have to do is develop salt pans, promote various recipes, and secure sales channels."
Of course Rebecca understood less than half of what Asty was saying, but high-ranking people rarely cared about the difficulties of those beneath them.
After going on at length about the development of Montpellier's fisheries, Asty belatedly realized Rebecca was not keeping up and changed the subject.
"Livestock will require agricultural reform no matter where we start, so we'll skip that for now. I was thinking of touching forestry once, partly to secure tar—"
More work talk.
For roughly the next hour Asty carefully explained why logging and gathering were even more essential to civilization than agriculture. She casually dropped hardships from her previous life that left Rebecca flustered, then added various explanations while devising three business plans and six inventions before finally quieting down a little.
...Now I can't even understand a quarter of it.
Could She Herself even understand this conversation?
Rebecca, her faith tested once again, briefly entertained a blasphemous thought, then shook it off and tried to regain her composure.
"Ah. Come to think of it, there was that. I should make one right away before I forget."
Asty suddenly remembered something else, then dashed off to gather materials.
No matter how many times she saw it, that drive never became familiar.
What kind of person could work so tirelessly for people whose names she did not even know?
What kind of being—
The Lantern Bearer unconsciously cut the thought off right there.
That question was far too blasphemous.