Reading to a Cat (4)
- Thump, thump.
On the way to the village, I happened to cross paths with a traveling merchant, and it turned out I could buy everything I needed from him.
Thanks to that, I saved a great deal of time and made it back to the church far faster than I had planned.
"Phew..."
The moment I returned to the church, the morning sun was already beginning to rise.
It had been a heart-stoppingly close call — a little later, and I would have taken the dawn light head-on.
But luck stayed with me once again.
The terrifying morning sun creeping up behind me picked up speed and bore down on me with fury, yet I quickened my pace without a flicker of panic.
In the end, with a wave of relief washing over me the instant I crossed the threshold, I made it safely inside the church.
Then I set down the bundle on the floor, heavy and swollen as a boulder, and slowly loosened its knots, casually beginning to unpack my purchases from the merchant as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
"The magic books, and the clothes... and the doll Ellie asked for..."
At first, I was sure I'd bought just the right amount.
But now that I was home, unwrapping each item one by one, there turned out to be quite a few things I hadn't actually needed mixed in with the rest.
"......"
Somehow, with every item I sorted out of the bundle, my expression grew graver and graver.
At last, half hoping I was wrong, I carefully checked the ingredients I'd so neatly tucked into my leather pouch — only to belatedly discover that the shriveled, deflated thing hung utterly empty, without a trace of weight to it.
"...Ah, damn it. I got played."
Overspending. The belly had swallowed the meal whole.
For a random merchant on the road, the man talked like a born con artist — every trinket he pulled out, I bought on the spot without so much as a second thought.
By the time I came to my senses, my purse was drained dry and the things I didn't actually need had piled up like a mountain.
"To think I'd run into a master salesman of all people out there..."
My head was a tangled mess of thoughts at that moment, frankly rather chaotic.
Still, I could take some small comfort in the fact that none of it was entirely useless. These were the kinds of things that, if I kept them around, would probably come in handy at least once someday.
- Creeeak.
I was carrying on with the unpacking, steeped in that peculiar discomfort, when the church door slowly swung open and a bleary-eyed Ellie peeked her head out.
"Oh... Sister...?"
"Ellie? What are you doing up at this hour?"
The moment she saw me, she crossed the distance without a hint of hesitation and burrowed straight into my arms.
She reminded me so much of a small, cuddly animal that a smile crept onto my face before I knew it.
"Why did you come back so early? You said you might be late."
"I ran into a merchant on the way to the village, so I was able to buy everything we needed after all."
"Wow, really? What a relief—"
"And what about you, Ellie? Why are you up so early?"
"I came to pray to Lady Paelia. So that you'd make it home safe and sound, Sister."
That one sentence from Ellie didn't just cleanse away the tangled mess in my heart — it stirred up a strange, aching warmth in me besides.
She'd gotten up this early just for me, and had even meant to pray for my safe return.
An angel. She had to be an angel.
"Maybe it was thanks to you that I met that merchant at all. Thank you, Ellie."
"Mm... that was probably Lady Paelia being kind to you."
"You think so?"
"Yes. I'm certain of it."
Ellie was, without question, the most devout follower of Paelia in this entire church.
Eisen and Iris were certainly faithful in their own right, but I was confident neither of them could ever surpass the depth of Ellie's devotion.
"Ellie, look at this."
"Oh, it's a bunny doll!"
It wasn't exactly a sophisticated or elegant doll, mind you.
Of all the many dolls the merchant had shown me, this was the one I had agonized and agonized over, convinced it suited Ellie best, before finally managing to buy it.
I'd been a little nervous she might be disappointed by my choice, but thankfully, it seemed to delight her.
"Hehe, it's cute and so soft and puffy. Thank you, Sister—"
"Oh, that's not all."
"Huh?"
With the doll a resounding success, I promptly presented my next gift with full confidence.
"It's a dress. Complete with fluttery frills, no less."
The doll — the gift I'd been least sure about — had turned out to be a meaningful triumph, so surely this dress, the one I felt most confident in, would fill me with even greater pride.
And why wouldn't it? The moment I laid eyes on it, I'd thought it was the perfect dress for Ellie.
"......"
But contrary to my expectations, the moment Ellie saw the dress, her face began to darken rapidly.
As if she were looking at something deeply shocking.
"...You don't like it...?"
"N-no! No, I do! I love it! Heh, hehe... it's, it's pretty..."
Her movements were oddly stiff.
A single bead of cold sweat trickled down her left cheek. Clearly, this dress was not to Ellie's taste.
"Ah... ahaha... well, I did buy some other things besides this dress, so how about we—"
- Clunk.
Just as I was fumbling for words, thoroughly rattled by her unexpected reaction, the church door swung open once more, and Eisen and Iris gingerly poked their heads inside.
"Huh? It's Levi."
"It's the Sister."
The exact same reaction as Ellie's.
I calmly explained what had happened over the night to the two children, who had no idea what was going on, and tried to put on a composed little smile — but the sizable damage I'd just taken meant the smile refused to come out naturally.
"Whoa—!! A book with magic written in it!"
"Why is there so much stuff? It's mostly clothes."
Iris immediately snatched up a magic book and bounced around in delight, while Eisen took one look at the mountain of goods and wore a thoroughly baffled expression.
"I, um... bought some clothes, but... I'm not sure if you'll like them..."
My confidence had quietly crumbled to rock bottom.
Of all the things I'd bought, the item I'd been certain they'd love the most had failed spectacularly right out of the gate.
Maybe that was why — showing Eisen and Iris the clothes I'd picked felt more nerve-racking than anything I'd ever experienced before.
"Whoa!! Wh..."
The moment I thrust the clothes forward with my tense, anxious face, Eisen screwed up his brow without mercy and opened his mouth wide.
I caught something of what he said, but Ellie, standing beside him, suddenly darted forward at blinding speed and clamped a hand over his mouth, so I never heard the rest.
"Let's try these on...! The Sister went through so much trouble to pick them out for us...!"
"Huh? But you said a minute ago you met a merchant on the way to the village?"
"Iris, shh—!"
I was being roasted.
There was no malice in it, but the implication was vivid all the same: I had absolutely no eye for clothes.
"We'll go try them on and come back...! Thank you, Sister!"
By then my spirit had been broken well past the point of repair, and nothing Ellie said reached me at all.
My expression had already melted into a gloomy puddle, my gaze fixed vacantly on the pile of goods before me.
.
.
.
"..."
"..."
"..."
A few minutes later, the children reappeared before me.
Each of them was doing their best to put on a happy face in the clothes I'd bought them, but an unmistakable awkwardness lingered faintly beneath it all.
Still, that was only the beginning.
Something else soon flustered me far more than the children's visible discomfort with their outfits.
And that was—
"Wh-what...?"
The sizes were all wrong.
Ellie's dress was the only one that came close to fitting. Iris's clothes were so enormous they dragged along the floor, while Eisen's outfit — which I'd picked out while imagining a dashing, heroic silhouette — was laughably, almost tragically small.
"Th-that's strange... I thought they'd at least fit roughly, even if not perfectly...?"
By this point, I had no choice but to understand why the children had looked so glum.
Not only did I have no eye for fashion — my sense of sizing was the absolute worst.
"I'm sorry, Sister... I don't think I can wear this out and about..."
Even Ellie, who had been struggling heroically on my behalf, finally seemed to surrender to reality and ventured a careful remark.
The disappointment in myself was so overwhelming that I felt tears welling up on the spot, but if I actually started crying, my dignity would be beyond salvaging. I bit down hard on my lower lip and grimly held it in.
"...I'm sorry, everyone. Just trying them on for me is more than enough, so go ahead and change back into your own clothes."
"But we really are happy...! Because you picked these out just for us, Sister..."
"Next time, let's all go shopping together. That way it'll be better for everyone, I think."
The atmosphere had grown suffocatingly heavy thanks to my absurd blunder.
If only I hadn't bought the clothes, the gifts would have been quite a success—
"...Oh, right. Eisen, I got you something I thought you'd need."
Amid that thoroughly chastened mood, I carefully handed Eisen the item that seemed best suited to him.
"Oh? What's this?!"
It was an iron sword.
Light and small enough that even a ten-year-old could swing it comfortably.
It wasn't an expensive item, but it looked like exactly what Eisen needed most, so I'd bought it the moment I saw it.
"I was actually just thinking it'd be nice to have one of these...!"
"Really, Eisen. Yesterday you said there wasn't a single thing you needed."
"I figured if I said I wanted a sword, you wouldn't buy it for me. This — this really makes me happy!"
From now on, I decided, I should buy them things instead of clothes.
His reaction was so different from earlier that I honestly couldn't tell whether to laugh or cry.
"And a staff for Ellie, a wand for Iris."
"A s-staff...?"
"A wand!"
Not just Eisen — I'd picked out weapons perfectly suited to each of them, one by one.
From everything I'd observed so far, Eisen was obviously going to be a sword-focused knight, while Ellie — the most devout soul here — was all but certain to become a priestess, and Iris, with her fascination for magic, a mage.
With each child's aptitude so unmistakably clear, there was no reason on earth for me not to buy them their weapons.
"I think now is the right time for everyone to start building up their abilities in line with their own talents."
The very moment I said it softly, doing my best to reclaim my composure—
The kids had just class-changed, out of nowhere.