Mary Joins the Journey
We were making our slow way down into the city when heavy footsteps and a shout rose behind us.
"What's that noise?"
I turned to look. Sister Mary was charging toward us at full speed.
"S-Saintess!"
Why her? Did I forget something? I racked my brain.
Nothing came to mind. I had packed everything the night before, and I had taken every item the Order had given me.
"Sister Mary? Why are you running so hard?"
She had sprinted the whole way; for a moment she could only stand there gasping, unable to speak. Once she had her breath back she drew in a deep lungful of air and opened her mouth.
"By the Cardinal's order, I have been assigned to serve the Saintess."
What?
"Excuse me?"
"From now on I will assist the Saintess with her travels and her research. I look forward to working with you!"
Flushed and earnest, Sister Mary bowed as she made the declaration.
Ha… how am I supposed to take this?
I glanced at Maximilian and Emma beside me. Emma watched the scene with a blank face; Maximilian looked thoroughly awkward.
"What do we do?"
"Telling her to go back would only make things worse."
I considered Maximilian's point. If I refused her and sent her away, what would the Order think? That she had failed to serve me properly and been dismissed? And if that were the case, what would become of Sister Mary?
Would they freeze her out?
That… did not sit right with me.
"S-Saintess?"
She fixed me with a pitiful look.
I sighed. Faced with those eyes, I could not bring myself to refuse. Besides, even in the few days we had spent together she had been a great help. Sending her back now felt impossible.
"Fine. All right. But the title 'Saintess' is forbidden."
"B-But…"
"Honorifics are forbidden too."
Sister Mary looked stricken.
"Shall we just use names, then?"
"How could I possibly…"
"You do understand we have to keep my identity hidden, right?"
I let a slight frown crease my brow. She flinched.
"I-I'm sorry."
"No honorifics."
"Y-Yes…"
Getting used to this was clearly going to take time.
"I was about to leave the city at once, but it looks like that won't be possible now."
Maximilian smiled.
"Then we can take the chance to buy the things we need as well."
I turned to the still-troubled Sister Mary.
"We're going shopping for supplies."
First, what do we need…? A bag for the luggage, obviously. Then the usual travel necessities, packed straight into it. Yes. That would do.
We started with a bag of suitable size. It was made of sturdy leather and the price was correspondingly high.
"I-Isn't that far too expensive? No—is it expensive?"
Honestly, when is she going to adapt?
"We'll be using it a long time, so it has to be tough."
Money was not a concern. The pouch the Cardinal had given me was stuffed full. I had checked earlier—two hundred gold pieces. With that much, of course we were buying quality.
"Th-That is so… no, that is true."
"I really wish Sister Mary would get used to this faster."
"I-I'll try…"
Sister Mary was twenty-four, the oldest among us by a comfortable margin, which made the matter of address easy to settle. Since she was the eldest, I simply ordered everyone to speak to her casually. She insisted she could not manage it, so I made it a direct command.
"Bag's done. Next we need clothes and underthings, right?"
The pure-white habit and her rich black hair suited her beautifully, but the outfit was full of problems for travel.
"Y-Yes… no, yeah…"
We found a decent clothier's shop.
"Buy the underthings yourself."
There was no way I—still a man at heart—was going to help choose those. If she struggled, I could always send Emma in with her. I handed Sister Mary the money.
"A-All right."
She was back out in less than five minutes.
"You bought properly, right?"
Finished in under five minutes… she did choose carefully, didn't she?
"Y-Yes. Five sets."
Still a little stiff, but I could let it pass.
"Then next are the clothes."
Right beside the clothier's was a large clothing shop; we went in together. Sister Mary proved hopeless at picking commoner clothes.
"I-Is this all right?"
She had grown up an orphan, yet she had been raised in one of the capital's great temples. The orphanage was run directly by the Order, so support had been generous and life comfortable. Orphanages usually make one think of embezzlement, but would the Order's own faithful really steal from their charges?
"Hmm. A bit awkward…"
Perhaps it was simply that I had only ever seen her in the habit; the everyday clothes felt off. We had dressed her in a style similar to Emma's, and somehow it still looked strange.
Especially around the chest…
"No problem."
I myself had only recently become a woman. Emma's judgment was probably sounder than mine.
"Then let's buy a few outfits like this one."
"A-All right."
Once the clothes were purchased we returned to the plaza. Maximilian waved us over.
"Over here."
"Shopping is exhausting."
Maximilian had declared that women's shopping was best left to women and had gone off to buy his own supplies.
"So, everything bought?"
"Yes."
He smiled and pointed to the side. There sat a set of tableware and a mace.
"I chose carefully."
"Sister, check them."
"Y-Yes."
The tableware needed no inspection. The weapon was what mattered.
Sister Mary lifted the mace and swung it a few times with easy whooshes.
"Hmm. Lighter than it looks."
She whirled the heavy-looking weapon as if it weighed nothing.
"It's only a spare, so I picked something roughly suitable."
She was a nun— a healer, in game terms. She would almost never stand on the front line with a weapon in hand. The mace was purely for emergencies if an enemy closed in, and to make her look like an ordinary adventurer for the sake of disguise.
"Yes. It should serve well enough."
She nodded and hung the mace at her waist.
"Now we only need armor."
Even a rear-line fighter had to prepare for the possibility of being attacked.
"Yes. This will be the last."
We decided on leather armor that could actually protect the body.
Only…
"I-Isn't the chest far too tight…?"
Sister Mary was unused to leather armor and clearly uncomfortable. Given the size of what she was carrying, discomfort was only natural.
Neither Emma nor I—both lacking that particular burden—could relate.
I glanced around. The shopkeeper was grinning openly at Sister Mary. I whipped my head toward Maximilian; he was looking at her too. And his gaze seemed to be fixed squarely on her chest.
Even Maximilian is still a man, is that it?
Why? Watching him look at her made my own chest twinge. A strange, sour feeling rose in me.
"Then don't wear it."
My voice came out sharper than I intended.
"A-No, it's fine."
Sister Mary startled and insisted this one would do.
"Then we'll pay."
As I spoke I gave Maximilian's shin a solid kick.
Men…
I wanted to click my tongue, but I held it in.
Shopping finished, we left Wizheim. Sister Mary still looked awkward in the new clothes and armor, constantly fussing with them. The chest in particular seemed to bother her; she kept adjusting it with her hands.
Maximilian saw that, turned his head away, and cleared his throat.
It simply put me in a foul mood.
"Just get used to it."
"I-I will."
Why do I feel like the villain here?
Honestly…
"Since we left late, we should move as quickly as we can."
Originally we had planned to reach a nearby village. The delayed start had cut our travel time short.
"Right."
I cast a blessing at once and urged everyone to pick up the pace.
As expected of holy magic. By repeating blessings and recovery spells we cut our rest stops to almost nothing and reached the destination village before the night grew too late.
"H-Hard…"
This kind of forced march was clearly new to Sister Mary; she looked utterly spent.
"We did it to avoid camping outdoors."
"I see."
We chose a cheap inn. Money was plentiful, but thrift was still wise when possible.
"Y-You sleep in places like this?"
"We save when we can."
A four-person room felt too expensive, so the three of us decided to share a two-person room.
Sister Mary stood frozen, looking as though the situation had dealt her a physical blow.
"Get used to it. I'm a commoner. There are times I live far rougher than this. If you truly want to stay at my side, you will have to adapt."
"Understood…"
There was no proper bed, so we pulled out sleeping bags and made do.
"We still need to eat."
"I'll go get something."
Emma took the purse and left the room. Sister Mary and I were alone.
"Hard, isn't it?"
"I-I'll adapt quickly."
"And drop the honorifics."
"I-I'll adapt."
"By the way, I can't keep calling you Sister. What should we use for a name?"
Between the rush of packing and the forced march we had never settled the matter properly.
"Just Mary is fine."
"But you're older."
"What does age matter? If our hearts match, we become friends."
Is that how it works? In the world of my previous life hierarchy had been everything. Here, it seemed, things were different. People had never corrected me; they must have assumed I was simply being polite.
"Haha… i-is that so?"
I tried speaking casually, though it felt awkward.
"Yes. That is fine… no, fine."
"Let's get used to each other."
"Yes… no, yeah…"
A short while later Emma returned with food. There was nothing special about it: thin soup and hard black bread.
"Ugh. We had a feast this morning and now it's black bread for dinner."
Sister Mary stared at the meal as though it had personally offended her; her eyes trembled.
"I-Is this dinner?"
"Yes. Honestly, we should be grateful for this much."
There had been worse times—only a little soup, or nothing at all.
I tore off a piece of the black bread and put it in my mouth. It was so hard that chewing was difficult, but saliva gradually softened it.
Sister Mary squeezed her eyes shut, forced a piece in, and began to chew. She did not last long before she started choking.
"If it sticks, drink the soup."
I made no move to help. A little suffering now would teach her caution. She drank the soup and slowly recovered.
"Is this really bread?"
Apparently she had never eaten black bread before.
"It's what commoners eat—especially the poor ones."
"There are plenty of times they can't even get this bread."
"I-Is that so…"
She stared blankly at the loaf. Was it truly that shocking? Come to think of it, Maximilian had been just as stunned the first time… though he had adapted quickly.
Right now he was probably eating the same meal in the next room.
Sister Mary never quite recovered her composure before bedtime. Commoner life, it seemed, had hit her hard.
"Julian is the Saintess… do you really live like this?"
I was already lying in my sleeping bag with my eyes closed when she asked.
"I've lived worse than this."
"Really…?"
"Yes. Even though my parents were the village chief and we lived relatively well, it was still like that."
I thought back. During the famine there had been days we ate only once. Even that single meal was only a handful of grain; the growling of empty stomachs never stopped. We were lucky to eat at all. Our parents sometimes went without so that we could have something.
Sister Mary fell silent, clearly shaken by what I had said.
"If you lived in the temple you could live in luxury, couldn't you?"
"True enough…"
But that life was far from what I wanted. Research could be done with the Order's support inside the temple, of course…
"But can someone who has lived more than fifteen years as a commoner suddenly adapt to temple life?"
"That…"
"That's how it is. Delicious food, comfortable living—it was nice at first. But as time passed it felt stifling, like wearing clothes that didn't fit."
I had already left the temple, so I spoke freely.
"And I have something I want to do."
The absolute goal of becoming a man again.
"I see. Understood. I will strive to adapt to the Saintess's way of life so that I may assist you properly."
Suddenly she was stiff and formal again.
I let out a small laugh.
"Yes, yes. Please do your best."
If she insisted on coming along, there was no point trying to stop her.
"We leave early again tomorrow, so get some sleep."
"Yes."
The forced march had left us exhausted; sleep came quickly.