Feeding Divinity to Kittens
Two children had been caught playing hide-and-seek.
The little girl, frightened at the sight of the unfamiliar outsiders, trembled and shook, while the boy—whose curiosity outweighed any fear—kept his eyes glued to Simon and Lethe, watching them without pause.
"Hello there?"
Lethe bent down at the waist, lowering herself closer to the children's eye level.
"This big sister and this mister here are teachers who've come to teach you~"
Simon shot her a glare from the side, but she breezed right past it and kept going.
"Starting tomorrow, you'll be studying plenty with your teachers. Did you already miss us?"
She ruffled the boy's hair in a warm little flurry.
"Let's have fun together from now on, okay?"
"......Teacher?"
Simon caught it instantly—the way the girl's pupils wavered at that single word. The more outgoing boy, meanwhile, simply giggled with delight at being petted.
"It's getting late now, so let's stop playing and head home. All right?"
"Yes, Teacher!"
The boy answered brightly, took the girl by the hand, and led her out.
The girl kept glancing back over her shoulder at the two of them, and the moment her eyes met Simon's, she ducked her head quickly and hurried out as if fleeing.
Unpacking their things and tidying the room swallowed the rest of the day, and night fell quickly.
"Hmm."
Simon was still turning over the little girl's reaction from earlier.
"Something strange really is going on in this village."
"Scared, are we?"
The soft, honeyed tone she'd used with the children was gone; this was Lethe in her usual register, as if the last hour had never happened.
"Israfil the Saintess herself said she senses a great evil here. Staying on guard is only natural."
"I'm a Saintess too, you know. No need to panic."
Lethe yawned and went on.
"We spent all day climbing that mountain, so no searching tonight. I'm declaring it."
"Fine. Today, let's focus on tomorrow's demonstration class."
"That reminds me—"
Lethe's pupils snapped vertical, catlike, in an instant.
"!"
At the same moment, Simon saw it too.
Beyond the window where darkness had settled—
A woman was glaring at the two of them, weeping tears of vivid, blood-red.
The Snow Woman?!
The instant terror turned his whole body to stone—
Whoosh!
Lethe swept her arm across the air. A holy arrow surged forth at once, shattering the window and streaking out into the night.
The apparition vanished in the same breath.
"Sh-shall we chase it?"
"Consider that a warning delivered. The people of this village seem awfully fond of eavesdropping."
Of course, Lethe had unfurled a soundproofing barrier the moment they'd entered the lodgings. That was exactly why Simon had felt free to mention Israfil by name.
"Let's just prepare for tomorrow's class."
She gave a long, lazy yawn and flexed her fingers. The shards of the shattered window drifted back up and fitted themselves neatly into place.
"We're already under plenty of suspicion, after all."
"......Yeah."
His body was bone-tired from the climb, yet somehow he doubted sleep would come easily tonight.
In this village, all they had to rely on was each other.
The next morning, the demonstration class began.
Strange weather, the Snow Woman from last night, the tangled relationship between Kula and Eskyle Village—and fatigue piled on top of it all, Simon's head was still a muddled mess.
"All right, everyone! Say hello to your teachers!"
"Hel-looo!"
But the moment he saw the children Petria had brought from their homes, every worry seemed to melt away into warm nothing.
Every one of them was as pretty as an angel.
This really is the cutest age.
Chubby cheeks, big round eyes, boundless energy to spare.
Simon smiled to himself as he listened to Petria's introductions.
Two boys—four-year-old Matthew and five-year-old Ali.
Three girls—four-year-old Sophie, five-year-old Anda, and five-year-old Sea.
The pair caught playing hide-and-seek the night before had been Matthew and Sophie.
And Ali, Anda, and Sea—the three five-year-olds—all had grey hair. They were children of the Mizzenaci, the clan that ruled this village. Even the clothes on their backs carried an air of refinement.
"Hello, everyone!"
Lethe greeted the children brightly.
"I'm Teacher Leia. And this here is Teacher Shawn."
She folded her hands together and rested them atop her belly.
"Now then, shall we learn how to greet someone first? Copy me! Hands on your tummy!"
With children, the force behind Lethe's accent and pronunciation shifted completely. She waited with her hands on her belly, and the children, swept up in the moment, mimicked her.
"From this pose, when I say 'Greeting!', we all say together, 'Hello, Teacher~' Got it?"
"Yes!"
"From the top! Hands on your tummy!"
Tap! Tap!
The children placed their hands on their bellies.
"Greeting!"
"Hel-looo~ Teacher!"
Simon let out an admiring chuckle as he watched Lethe's back.
How is she this good at it?
Crisp, pleasant pronunciation, rhythmic gestures like a dance routine, exaggerated expressions to match—
This was not the handiwork of someone who'd handled children once or twice.
Even the village adults watching from a distance were nodding quietly along.
"Now then! Teacher Leia brought something from the city, just for you. Ta-da!"
What she pulled from her backpack was a set of paints in every color of the rainbow, along with notebooks. The children's eyes nearly spun in their heads.
"A coloring set!!"
"Give me one!"
"Me first, me first!"
The children stampeded toward Lethe. She quickly hoisted the paint set above her head.
The little ones refused to listen no matter what. One of the Mizzenaci children even glanced toward the adults and whined for them to make the teacher hand it over faster. To know how to bend a teacher to your will with the power of a parent—at five years old, the kid was terrifyingly shrewd.
But Lethe was not one to be swayed by such tricks.
"Everyone! Do you want the coloring set?"
"Yeees!!"
A shout loud enough to peel paint off the walls.
"Good. Then what do you have to do to get what you want? You have to ask the teacher, right? And how do we ask?"
Well done.
Suspiciously well done.
Before he knew it, every child in the village had their little hands pressed neatly together, held out, chanting, "Teacher! Please!"
And so the children got what they wanted, smiles blooming across their faces.
"Since it's our first class, today you can draw whatever your heart desires! Exciting, right?"
And so the morning was devoted mostly to coloring.
Of course, growing bodies needed exercise too. They placed their hands on each other's shoulders and played the Holy Train game as well.
"Train departing!"
"There's a reindeer up ahead! Stop the train!"
Every single word out of Lethe sent the children into gales of giggling laughter.
......This is a bit embarrassing, but the kids seem to be having fun.
Simon clapped his hands earnestly, keeping the rhythm.
Singing the Holy Train song and then turning into an animal friend was Simon's job too. He was performing five roles at once.
"Excuse me. Teacher Shawn?"
Lethe sidled up and gave his waist a sharp pinch.
"Stop looking embarrassed and do it properly."
"I-I'm doing my best here!"
"Act like a professional. Like teaching children is your actual job."
Grumbling as she said it, Lethe turned back toward the children with her expression wiped clean, beaming a bright smile once more.
Because you're just too good at this. Honestly.
Then came lunchtime.
With Lethe's skills so outstanding, Simon assumed the adults would trust them and leave for the afternoon. But—
"The, the elders say they want to watch holy power training."
Petria mumbled, twisting her hands. Lethe's face soured.
"Excuse me? Education has an order to it—holy power training right away? That's far too early for these children."
"I'm, I'm sorry! I'm sorry! They're insisting they must see it right now......"
Only now did the real reason the village elders had brought in priest-teachers from outside come to light.
They wanted to raise the children into Priests.
For one thing, all five of these children could already resonate with mana and manifest pure elemental magic, despite their tender age.
The region was naturally rich in mana, which was why so many prodigies were born here—but the elders hoped that at least one of the children would grow into a Priest who could wield divinity as well.
The reason they wanted a Priest was obvious.
A village needs a doctor. When people were injured or fell ill, someone had to treat them—and in the Holy Federation, that role naturally belonged to Priests.
But Eskyle was an isolated, closed-off village.
Even if a sick patient left for treatment, Kula—with which they maintained the worst of relations—would likely refuse to take them in. Traveling beyond Kula to other regions devoured enormous time and money.
And if an epidemic ever swept through, the village would be finished. The people must have wanted a Priest of their own by any means necessary.
Lethe and Simon held an emergency strategy meeting ahead of the afternoon class.
"Ugh, honestly, not one thing about these villagers sits right with me."
Lethe grumbled.
"Prodigies or not, they want to force this on children who know nothing? They never once think of becoming Priests properly, through the 19 Tribulations and the Holy Coffin like everyone else."
"Because that would mean joining the Deva faith and coming under Efnel. These people want to stay in their village forever."
Lethe let out a long sigh and spoke.
"Parental orders, so follow them we shall. I'll weave play and divinity together and see what happens."
"Now then, everyone! What could this be? Ta-da!"
Just as planned, Lethe combined play with divinity and showed it to the children—but the instant they laid eyes on the holy power, every small face went stiff.
"I—I don't want it!"
"Scary!"
Some showed outright, violent rejection. Lethe cast a frosty sidelong glance toward the adults.
Modest amounts of divinity did ordinary people no harm. Far from it—it healed wounds, restored strength, buoyed the spirit; its positive effects vastly outnumbered the negative.
But in the end, divinity was still a foreign substance to the ordinary body.
Absorb too much, and the body couldn't endure it. Growing children especially had weak resistance to it, their senses still developing. Even so, this level of reaction was deeply abnormal.
In the end, Lethe took Petria outside and made her confess everything: it seemed the anxious elders, desperate over illness, had forced the children into contact with divinity to some degree. That was why the children now feared the very sight of it.
"As always, it's the greed of a handful of old people that ruins everything."
Lethe said it with irritation and came over to Simon.
"Well? Thoughts?"
"They recoil from just a small glimpse of divinity. At this rate, this is going to be an uphill battle."
"Small amounts are harmless, though?"
"They are. But the psychological damage is the real problem. Divinity is power manifested through strong faith—if a child carries trauma from an early age and harbors bad feelings toward divinity itself, becoming a Priest may be impossible for them forever."
In other words, overcoming the trauma came first.
"Leave it to me."
"? What are you plann—"
Simon walked over to the children and broke into a gentle smile.
"Hello, everyone! It's Teacher Shawn!"
The children must have assumed he was about to make them touch divinity again, because they looked up at him with wary eyes. They'd already shut their hearts.
"There are some animal friends here who want to play with you all right now. Shall we go meet them?"
But at the words animal friends, the children's expressions transformed in a flash.
Simon opened his divine subspace and brought out his sacred beasts.
None other than—
-Nyaaaoow!
-Meow! Mew!
The sacred beasts, Whitey and Blacky.
The children shrieked with excitement.
"Kitties!"
"Kitty, kitty!!"
STAMPEDE!
The children swarmed over with delighted screams and began petting and stroking the cats. Simon sat down beside them and began the lesson.
"Anda. If you squeeze and pinch like that, the sacred beast won't like it."
Anda, clutching Whitey in her arms, glared at him with a pouty scowl that plainly said don't interfere.
Simon smiled.
"If you keep bothering her like that, Whitey might not want to play with you anymore."
At those words, Anda's pupils wavered violently.
"Th-then what should I do?"
"Like this—stroke her fur gently with your whole palm."
Simon demonstrated. As he stroked the fur softly, Whitey let out a low, rumbling purr.
"Teacher! Whitey's making a motor sound!"
"Yep. She's happy. That's how you really become friends with someone."
He never forced anything—he simply helped the children arrive at understanding on their own.
For their part, the baby sacred beasts, out of the subspace after so long, didn't mind these tiny humans one bit—the first ones in ages to give them their proper attention.
The sacred beasts and the children alike brimmed with energy. The children could not have been happier, but the faces of the watching adults were another matter entirely.
Yes, yes. I know. When exactly is the divinity training happening?
Simon raised divinity in his palm.
An application of Holy Bolt, the basic attack spell of white magic—with all offensive power stripped away, leaving nothing but divinity gathered into a soft clump.
He set the white little snowball of it down on a plate.
-Meow! Meow!
"Teacher! Whitey and Blacky keep crying!"
"That's because they're hungry."
Simon said with a smile.
"Sacred beasts eat clean, pure divinity. Who wants to feed the kitties?"
The children hesitated, staring at the divinity with uncertain faces.
Whitey and Blacky slipped out of the children's arms and padded over to the table, meowing plaintively before the plate.
-Give it here! Hurry!
They gazed desperately back and forth between Simon and the children, waving their stubby little paws this way and that.
That pitiful display melted the children's hearts.
"I—I want to feed them."
Then Sophie—the shy hide-and-seek girl—stepped forward.
Simon smiled warmly and held out the plate of divinity to her.
"Ah......"
Her gaze settled on the divinity.
It had stung and hurt when it entered her body—but held in her hand like this, it felt as soft and cozy as a pair of warm eyes.
-Nyaaow!
Perhaps they sensed food was coming. The two kittens sat neatly in front of Sophie and waited patiently.
Before long, Sophie offered the divinity to Whitey first.
-Gulp!
Whitey swallowed the divinity in one bite.
"Whoaaaa!"
Whitey's body floated up into the air and was swallowed by a swirl of light.
Her shape shifted, as though she were trying to become something else.
The transformation's definitely been lasting longer lately.
Was her sacred beast awakening drawing near? Or was it simply that the environment here in the Holy Federation was so good for her?
Her owner, Simon, let his happy circuits spin at full speed.
But the transformation soon unraveled, and pop—she was a kitten again. Whitey dropped to the floor and bounced up and down in pure glee.
-More! Give me more!
Blacky rubbed herself against Sophie's legs, mewing insistently.
-Me too! Me too!
And the children, having just witnessed Whitey's transformation, swarmed over as if nothing had happened.
"Teacher Shawn! I want to feed one too!"
"Me too, me too!"
The children jostled each other, waving their arms. Simon grinned and put Lethe's lesson to work.
"And what did we say we have to do if we want something?"
The whining children shouted in perfect unison.
"Teacher! Please!"
Through play with the sacred beasts, the children slowly began to overcome their trauma toward divinity.
Of course, the one dying on his feet was Simon, who had to keep churning out divinity nonstop.
Lethe, arms crossed as she watched, gave a small snort of laughter.
......Not bad at all, actually.
The village elders, too, looked immensely satisfied, applauding and cheering.
This was a problem no outside teacher had ever solved. Lethe spoke up.
"Petria."
"Ah, yes! Leia!"
"Tell those people: if they force divinity into the children's bodies even once more, we'll abandon the holy training altogether. From now on, all divinity training goes through us."
"Yes, ma'am! I'll tell them right away!"
The two of them watched with smiles—the children playing with the sacred beasts, and Simon beside them, drenched in sweat as he pumped out divinity after divinity.