They’re Not a Fraud Ring (1)
Recently, the Introductory Guide to Holy Arts Endy had bought at the bookstore had proven to be enormously useful.
He hadn’t had much time to study it, what with preparing Cream’s lessons, but a little careful reading had been enough to make him feel like a beginner among beginners.
Before, he had been a beginner among beginners among beginners. In other words, he’d gone from three beggar-thin levels of incompetence down to two.
For one thing, he had learned about the muscle soreness.
According to the book, when someone first awakened holy power, used it again after a long time, or overused it, the strain on the blood vessels caused pain. Since it was the life force flowing through the blood being converted into holy power, it made perfect sense.
Unfortunately, there was no explanation for the headache that felt like his skull was splitting open, but he suspected that was also a side effect of being a total novice at holy arts.
“…”
Wondering if there might be a way to solve this recoil, he flipped further through the book and found an explanation for a useful tool.
The staff every priest was said to carry.
After reading about it with particular interest, Endy rode out of the mansion.
It was his first time on the route, but getting from the mansion to the commercial district wasn’t especially difficult. He just had to head down from the hill and follow the road.
“Mmnnh, munch munch.”
“You’ll choke if you eat on horseback.”
“I won’t choke.”
Riding behind him was Cream, her mouth smeared with juice. She had already made short work of the hamburger packed for lunch.
She sat primly sideways in the saddle, one hand clutching Endy’s coat hem and the other squeezing the hamburger as she devoured it with gusto.
She really could eat while riding. Endy was going slowly because he was a novice horseman, but her devotion to burgers definitely helped too.
Always carrying her doll around, always living with a burger in her mouth—once Cream fixed on something, she seemed to adore it with frightening intensity.
“We’ve arrived.”
Once they reached the commercial district, the two of them left the horse at a suitable inn, bought the things they needed for today’s request, and returned to the inn again.
They rented one room; Endy started getting ready in the bathroom, and Cream in the bedroom.
“Do we really have to go this far?”
“Of course. Tie your hair up and hide it well under the hood, and make sure you change your shoes too.”
“We’re only doing this once anyway…”
“You promised you’d do this one properly.”
“Ugh, fine…”
It didn’t matter when Endy traveled alone, but with Cream, the pair stood out. A “man and one girl” combination drew far more attention than just “one man,” didn’t it?
If word got back to the mansion and today’s outing was exposed, who knew what kind of nonsense he’d hear. He still hadn’t properly built up the count’s trust in him as a tutor.
At worst, he might even get fired for fooling around instead of educating the child.
That was why they were in disguise, to conceal their identities properly. He’d taken off his suit and instead pulled on a black male priest’s robe and hooded cloak.
From the rustling in the bedroom too, it sounded like Cream was preparing carefully.
“Are you finished? May I come out?”
[Yes…]
When he opened the door, there was a black bundle standing in the bedroom.
She wore a robe and hooded cloak similar to Endy’s, but her body was so small that she looked like a walking sack.
“Ah, young lady…”
“If you laugh, I’ll kill you.”
“I’m not laughing. But I do have one serious question.”
“What.”
“Can you see out of that?”
Cream pulled a needle from the cloak’s inner pocket and jabbed Endy in the back several times.
When the two of them stood side by side, both swathed in black, they looked a little suspicious, but never mind that.
***
At the cathedral, the priests were too busy handling large-scale purification of impurities, exorcising monsters, and sealing rifts—things that posed immediate threats to the people—to spare much attention.
So the comparatively smaller matters, like cursed houses or objects tainted by corruption, were set aside and passed along to the request office.
It was still a serious matter for the people involved, enough to leave them anxious and frantic, but there was no helping it.
All they could do was wait obediently for a holy arts user working independently or a priest out on pilgrimage to take care of it.
Today’s client had also been waiting for a resolver for roughly the same reason.
After reporting some problem to the cathedral, they’d been lucky enough to have someone come right away, but according to the priest, “This is no problem at all. It’s not something worth handling,” and he’d simply left.
What on earth was the story there?
Cream thought this to herself.
It was their first and last request of the day anyway, but she was curious.
What kind of request had that teacher even taken on?
He’d gone on and on about wanting to find her worth or whatever, and now she intended to evaluate the request he’d brought with all the severity she could muster.
“I should tell you in advance, I’ve already done a preliminary inspection. I’d like the young lady to look it over with her own eyes as well. And from now on, I’ll call you my ‘assistant,’ not young lady.”
“Suit yourself.”
He had plenty of demands for someone whose work ended today.
This time, she absolutely wasn’t going to step in.
Today, Cream intended to stand completely back and leave everything to him. No matter what face he made, no matter how he tried to coax her, she wouldn’t give in.
What possible reason could a witch have to join a “purification request” in the first place? If it was that man, he’d probably handle most things on his own without a fuss.
She couldn’t tell his exact rank since he didn’t carry a priest’s staff, but you could estimate it from the output of light during purification. At the very least, he had to be rank two, didn’t he?
The reason she’d helped him in the park that day, even so, was simply because he’d been playing with his own life and she’d taken pity on him for once.
He was a man who shouldn’t be brought down by something as petty as that monster. She wanted to be the one to deal with him, with the hands of Witch Cream Holybell.
She hated priests, found them obnoxious, but she couldn’t let the witch’s archenemy go out so pointlessly.
Of course, if he did it again next time, she’d just leave him to it.
So today is my victory.
No matter what happened, she would only watch from the sidelines. She would merely sneer wickedly from the corner.
Then it would be proven that she was of no use to Cream, and that the teacher was a priest who sounded convincing but lied through his teeth.
Hmph.
With the intention of snorting at whatever request came his way, she followed after Endy.
And then they arrived.
“This is it.”
“Here…”
On one side of the commercial district there was a small residential area, and today’s destination was a two-story house there.
At first glance, it looked perfectly ordinary. A neat, pretty house made of white brick. Little flowers bloomed in bright colors in the flower bed out front, giving it a quaint charm.
…I don’t really feel any corruption at all.
If impurities were nearby, she could sense them by resonance.
But the place was so clean that she was growing suspicious, and then Endy stepped up to the door and knocked.
“Good day. I am Andrew, the one who received your request.”
“Ah…! Just a moment!”
There was a clatter from inside, and the door opened immediately as a woman in her forties rushed out.
Judging by her refined clothing and the neat way her hair was tied, she seemed to be the mistress of a fairly prosperous household. Though, yes, the house itself did look very fine.
“Welcome, sir…!”
“It’s good to see you again. I’ve brought an assistant today to help resolve the matter. She’s small, but when it comes to knowledge of corruption, she’s more reliable than I am, so please trust her.”
“Ah, I see…! P-please, both of you come in…”
Her face was a little pale, and her tone was sharp and hasty, as though she were being chased by something.
Following the client’s invitation, the two of them entered the house.
…It really is clean.
Even after going inside, Cream’s doubts didn’t go away.
Of course, she had expected Endy to take a purification request like the one at the house from last time, or a monster-subjugation request. The more dangerous the work, the more she could expect to be useful.
“This way, please…”
For now, she quietly followed behind the client.
They climbed the stairs to the second floor and headed for the room in the far corner, as if something were being isolated there.
A person possessed by corruption?
Or an object?
What could it be?
As she stared at the door, the client stepped aside.
“Right here. Please go inside. You were here last time too, so you know the way…”
“Yes, then I’ll go in… ngk!”
“S-sir?”
“Kgh…! The aura is even stronger than last time.”
?
“A-as expected…! It really had grown stronger after all…!”
Huh?
“Mm… still, it’s all right, ma’am. With my assistant and me together, there is nothing we cannot do. We can certainly handle it.”
“Sob… sir…”
What in the world is he saying?
Cream didn’t even have time to object.
When Endy stood at the door, making a big show of groaning and straining, the frail woman believed it with complete sincerity and jumped in alarm. Cream had no idea what on earth he was playing at.
“Please trust us and leave it to us. Then, I’ll open the door.”
“Ah… yes…”
Whether the woman agreed or not, Endy opened the door. His voice had grown solemn, as if he were about to march onto a battlefield.
Creak—
Inside the slowly opening door was a dark room that seemed to be used as storage.
In the center of it hung a painting.
It showed a woman smiling faintly.
The client seemed not to want to look at it at all, and with a groan she snapped her head away.
“Ma’am, may I ask you to explain this painting to me again?”
“Yes… now that your assistant is here too… I’ll explain again… This was a painting I inherited recently after my grandfather passed away…”
It was obviously an oil painting done by someone skilled.
A beautiful blonde woman was looking this way with a faint smile, and the delicate touch of the brush made it easy to feel the painter’s care in it.
“At first, I liked it because the colors were warm and pretty… I hung it in the first-floor hallway and would look at it whenever I passed by to lift my mood… But then… ah, I found out…”
“Found out what?”
With Endy gently prompting her on, Cream, who had been listening with intense focus beside him, leaned in too.
“I found out that the painter had made it to memorialize a dead lover! A-a painting of someone dead…!”
“…”
Cream’s face went cold as she shut her mouth. Thank heavens she was wearing a hood.
“After I learned that, the strange happenings began… I think I’ve been losing my appetite, my body keeps feeling heavier, strange sounds keep coming from the house, I can’t sleep properly, and even when I finally do fall asleep, that woman appears in my dreams and smiles at me… Come to think of it, my grandfather was also ill and wasting away before he passed… a-and then I saw it…”
“What did you see?”
“Recently, I couldn’t sleep at all in the middle of the night, so I came out to the first floor…”
“And then?”
“And then, this painting in the hallway and I made eye contact…! Eye contact, I tell you!”
“Oh! That is truly horrifying.”
“So I called someone from the cathedral, and they just said there was no problem at all! But we clearly made eye contact! I saw it plainly in the moonlight! My husband just says it’s all in my head! Aaaah…!”
“Please calm down, ma’am! That’s exactly why we’re here!”
“Sob… sir. Please help me… Even though I want to throw the painting away, I’m afraid it’ll bring down a worse curse, so I can’t even get rid of it, and every day is just so hard.”
“Don’t worry. From here on, you’ll need to trust us and leave it to us. We must now analyze the evil corruption that has attached itself to that painting, so please wait on the first floor.”
“Yes… please… please solve it…”
After being tormented for so long, the client poured out all her pent-up feelings in one go and staggered out of the storeroom, exhausted.
And the two who remained behind.
The sound of footsteps faded away, and after a brief silence, Cream spoke first.
“Teacher.”
“Yes, assistant.”
“Were you a swindler instead of a priest?”
When the girl asked the question in uncertainty, Endy looked down at her; in turn, he looked back at her. Even with their hoods hiding their faces, they could feel each other’s gaze.
“I’m neither a priest nor a swindler. I’m your teacher. Why would you think that?”
“Because this is just a normal painting.”
A clean painting with no corruption whatsoever.
It was an oil painting that wasn’t cursed and had no evil spirit clinging to it.
“That’s right.”
Endy smiled faintly.
Under the hood, the curve of his lips was easy enough to see.
“Even I think it’s a normal painting, so if it looks normal to you too, then it’s truly a painting with no problem at all.”
“What are you so smug abou—”
“And precisely because of that, if we’re going to solve this request, we need your help, assistant.”
At his lowered whisper, Cream’s eyes widened.