Saint Charmant Monastery
On the appointed day, the one who came to the inn was a woman dressed in black and white.
"If you're ready, let’s go."
Her tone held neither warmth nor kindness.
She was nothing like Blackwell, who had treated Lawrence with respect from first to last.
"Yes. I’ll depart at once."
If anything, Lawrence felt relieved.
This was how a normal adult should react.
Still, he didn’t cower any more than necessary.
Was that because he now understood that he was a mage?
He didn’t know. All he knew was that a confidence he had never felt before had taken root in his heart.
"Go and do well, Lawrence."
"Come down now and then. I can at least set out a meal for you."
At those warm words, his chest tightened.
Lawrence dropped to the floor without caring if he dirtied his clothes.
"Thank you. I really have relied on you for all this time. I’ll never forget your kindness, not even if I die."
After saying his farewells, Lawrence followed the woman.
"I’m Sister Abeline. From today on, I’ll be in charge of you. If you don’t understand something, make it a habit to ask right then and there."
"I’ll keep that in mind, Sister Abeline."
"Drop the 'Miss' part. Just call me Sister. Same goes for the brothers and sisters living in the monastery."
"Understood, Sister."
He had meant it respectfully, but apparently that had been wrong.
"The place you’ll be staying is Saint Charmant Monastery. You do know we belong to the Holy Cross Order, which serves Goddess Belche, don’t you?"
"Yes. I’ve heard that love and mercy are its guiding principles."
Love and mercy—the Holy Cross Order’s core creed.
He had heard enough about it last night from a drunken Edrick to last him a lifetime.
"I’m really glad the priests came. If not for them, I’d have gone my whole life never knowing a heart like this."
He had said he had been reborn through the goddess’s teachings.
"We are servants of the goddess, and we place love and mercy first."
Was it his imagination?
Abeline’s perpetually sharp air had softened.
"Don’t worry too much. We won’t set you to anything difficult. We’re just a little... No, to be honest, we’re very short-handed. There’s a mountain of work to do."
"That’s fine. The inn had plenty to do as well, but I got used to it quickly. I think I’ll grow accustomed to the monastery work in no time too."
Lawrence said it as though he were trying to reassure himself.
"Hearing you say that does ease my mind a little."
It wasn’t long after that they arrived at the monastery.
Saint Charmant Monastery was enormous.
From the village, he hadn’t realized it, but up close it was so vast he couldn’t take it all in at a glance.
"If you’re all right with it, I’d like you to start working today."
"Yes. Just tell me what to do."
Lawrence nodded vigorously.
He had to be useful.
If they decided he wasn’t needed, he had no idea what might happen next.
That was unthinkable.
Now that he was here, turning back was no longer an option.
"Very well. Then let’s see your room first, and after that we’ll begin."
Abeline quickened her pace.
When she took one step, the boy had to take two.
What was strange was the sound of her footsteps.
Even though she was walking so quickly, she made no sound at all.
The footsteps echoing through the quiet space belonged only to Lawrence.
Her silent back seemed to be saying how noisy he was, and that embarrassed him terribly.
Heat rushed up his face.
As if hiding his burning cheeks, Lawrence watched how she walked.
Why was there no sound?
They were clearly walking together, so why were only the boy’s footsteps audible?
Each time he set his foot down, he became acutely aware of it.
He lifted it as lightly as possible. He placed it down as gently as he could.
Even so, merely walking made the backs of his calves start to ache before long.
He had figured out the trick.
But that only made it more difficult.
Perhaps because he had never done it before, muscles he never used were screaming in protest.
Still, once he did his best to imitate her, the footsteps did lessen.
The thudding sound became little more than a ticking one.
Even then, Lawrence and Abeline’s strides were beyond comparison.
He had no idea how much effort she had once put into mastering that silence.
"This is your room. Change your clothes and come out."
"I’ll change quickly and be right out."
By the time they reached the room, the boy’s attitude toward her had become much more cautious.
Abeline was an extraordinary person.
People learned to walk and run without being taught.
That wasn’t strange.
They were human. Of course they could do such things.
But changing a gait that had become second nature since childhood, and doing it without even thinking, was not something just anyone could manage.
Only after trying it himself did he understand.
Beneath that calm expression, there must have been tremendous effort.
Just as Lawrence had struggled to adapt to work at the inn.
The difference was that he had done it to avoid being thrown out.
He had worked to survive.
Abeline had not.
Perhaps every priest and sister in the monastery was the same.
Love and mercy were the Holy Cross Order’s basic principles.
The servants of Goddess Belche alone were worthy of admiration for that.
There was no time to look around the room.
First impressions mattered.
He needed to move as briskly as possible.
Fortunately, finding the clothes was easy.
Three sets had been laid out on the bed, which looked much like the one at the inn.
The boy roughly tossed his bundle aside and changed into work clothes.
"You’re quick. You’ve already changed?"
"Yes. You’re busy too, Sister, so I can’t afford to dawdle."
She gave a quiet snort through her nose.
She didn’t seem especially offended.
Feeling he had at least put his first button through the right hole, Lawrence relaxed.
"For today, I’ll first explain the layout of the monastery. I’ll show you the places you need to be careful of, the rooms you must not enter, and what to do when you meet the other brothers and sisters. If you don’t know something, be sure to ask. Ignorance is not a sin. It becomes a sin only when you know you’re ignorant and still refuse to ask."
"I’ll remember that, Sister."
Following Abeline, he returned to the cloister.
Apparently this was the space where the resident priests and employees stayed.
He hadn’t noticed on the way in because he had only been watching her feet.
Now that he looked up, identical rooms stretched on and on in repetition.
At the end of the cloister, the corridor split.
There was a staircase leading to the second floor and a path out to the front gate.
A passage down to the basement and a door into the main building also came into view.
"Inside those doors is the chapel. The brothers’ and sisters’ quarters are on the second floor. I’ll explain that part later, along with the basement."
"So the chapel is the place I need to clean first."
"That’s right. You’re quick on the uptake. The chapel has a lot of places that need special care, so listen closely."
Abeline pushed the door open without a sound.
When Lawrence saw the chapel, he could only stand there with his mouth open in a daze.
The view was different from the one he had seen in his dreams.
Through the stained glass windows tinted in a hundred colors, brilliant light spilled into the hall.
It was the glass that gave the chapel its mystical atmosphere.
Etched into the windows was the figure of a woman reaching toward the sky, with small angels guiding her.
Goddess Belche.
Lawrence understood at once that this was the goddess worshipped by the Holy Cross Order.
No—calling it “understood” was almost too grand a word.
Beneath the stained glass stood a statue of Goddess Belche, elegant in every line.
"Lawrence?"
"Huh? Ah. S-sorry. I’ve gone and been rude."
Lawrence bowed reflexively.
He wasn’t just being figurative; he’d actually been so dazed that he had forgotten where he was.
"It’s fine. In fact, I’m glad to see you so moved. The figure in the stained glass is Goddess Belche. They say she ascended after receiving guidance from the heavens."
Some difficult words had entered the conversation.
Stained what-now? Ascended? They were words he had never learned before.
That realization made him abruptly nervous.
Lawrence could read and write, but only at the most basic level—simple words and sentences, nothing more.
"Don’t worry. Didn’t I say you could ask me anything you didn’t know? As long as you don’t give up, we’ll never let go of the hand of a child we’ve taken in."
He didn’t know about that.
He was just an orphan who knew a little reading.
There were plenty of replacements for him.
"Love and mercy are our basic creed. You know that, don’t you?"
"Love and mercy..."
"Yes. From now on, you’re one of the goddess’s servants too, so think carefully. Not about what the goddess can do for us, but about what we can do for the goddess."
Lawrence nodded.
Negative thoughts wouldn’t help him.
The cup had already been spilled, and turning back was no longer an option.
"You don’t need to clean the area in front of the dais yet—the stained glass and the goddess’s statue. Leave that part until you’re used to things."
"Thank you, Sister."
Cleaning tools had been gathered at the back of the chapel.
"You’ll clean the chairs where the brothers and sisters sit, sweep the floor, then wipe it down with a cloth. The well is outside the cloister, so draw water into the wooden tub and bring it back."
"Understood, Sister."
To be honest, he was relieved.
It was hardly different from the work he had done every day at the inn.
If they had demanded something specialized like reading and writing from the start, his lack of skill would have shown immediately.
"Aside from you, three others clean the monastery. I’ll introduce them later... For now, let’s go meet the deacon."
The two of them headed to a small room inside the dais.
"Deacon. It’s Sister Abeline."
The answer came quickly.
A familiar man appeared from within the room.
"May the goddess’s blessing be with you. You’ve had your hands full, Abeline."
"May the goddess’s blessing be with you. Compared to your own burdens, this is nothing, Deacon."
After that brief exchange of everyday pleasantries, it was Lawrence’s turn.
"Welcome, Lawrence. I’m relieved to see you looking bright."
"May the goddess’s blessing be with you, Deacon Blackwell."
As soon as he used the formal greeting of the Order, Blackwell’s expression softened.
"May the goddess’s blessing be with you. Do you think you’ll be able to adapt to life in the monastery?"
"If it’s the work you’ve taught me so far, there shouldn’t be any problem."
That wasn’t a lie.
Only the location had changed. What he did remained the same.
"I’m glad to hear it. I’m counting on you."
His conversation with Blackwell was short.
Apparently the deacon had many urgent matters waiting for him.
Abeline led Lawrence down to the basement.
There, they found the dining hall and the bathhouse.
Meals were served three times a day. Since food was only distributed and eaten at fixed hours, she warned him that if he didn’t want to go hungry, he had better keep to the schedule.
As an employee, Lawrence wasn’t allowed to use the bathhouse, but he was told to keep himself clean.
That, at least, was fortunate.
He didn’t like being dirty either.
He wasn’t sure whether it came from memories of rolling around in a garbage bin, but the boy liked washing thoroughly.
Even in the bitter cold, he would force himself to wash and scrub the grime away, and he took stubborn pride in that.
The second floor held the priests’ quarters.
It was a space much like the first-floor cloister where the employees stayed.
The difference was that each door bore a nameplate identifying whose room it was.
Unlike the inn, which cleaned every inch of the guest rooms itself, here they only had to clean the corridor, Abeline said.
"Do you understand? Don’t enter the rooms without permission."
Beyond that, most of the rest of the floor consisted of spaces for studying doctrine.
There were four people employed to clean the monastery, Lawrence included.
Of the four, Lawrence was the only male; the other three were all young women.
The oldest was Joan, eighteen years old.
Then there was Edith, seventeen. And Marjorie, who was thirteen—the same age as Lawrence.
What was unusual was that all of them were commoners, yet they could read.
Lawrence didn’t even need to ask.
Edith had asked him the moment they met.
"You can read too, right?"
"Huh?"
"Books. I’m asking if you can read them."
"Yes. A little, if that’s all..."
Sadly, all three were more skilled than Lawrence.
Even Marjorie, who was the same age as he was, was already comfortable with reading and writing.
It would have been a lie to say he wasn’t disappointed.
But he knew very well that this was how the world worked.
Complaining would change nothing.
Rather than stand still and lament, he had to keep running hard along the road ahead.
The first meal he ate at the monastery was excellent.
For supper, they served potato soup and oat bread.
And, unbelievably, a full cup of milk.
Lawrence was impressed.
Hilton Village didn’t produce milk.
There were no ranches to speak of. The land was barren, and there was barely enough arable ground, let alone any pasture where livestock could live.
It was only natural that Lawrence had never tasted milk until now.
Still, he ate as calmly as he could.
The other young women were eating just as naturally, and he didn’t want to be the only country bumpkin at the table.
After the meal, when he asked about it, he learned that milk deliveries were brought in regularly from livestock farms operated by the Order.
As expected, the Holy Cross Order was different from the rest in more ways than one.
Lying down on his bed, Lawrence felt fatigue flooding through him.
He had finally been given a proper room, too.
But he was so exhausted he didn’t even have the energy to look around.
The feel of a bed beneath him was sweet and strange.
The boy changed into his clothes in a daze and went to sleep like the dead.
* * *
He dreamed again one week later.
"■■■■ ■■! You came again today."
"Did you like it? You came to visit again?"
Today, he didn’t simply waste time playing.
He had come to understand that dreams did not end as mere dreams.
Lawrence sat down on the meadow with the fairies.
"Aren’t you going to play? You’re not going to play today?"
"Let’s play. Let’s go play! We won’t get another chance if we don’t do it now!"
He refused the whining fairies’ invitation.
There would always be time to play.
But the chance to wield magic was another matter.
He reached out toward the darkness cast by the shade of a tree.
Shadow.
As if to prove he hadn’t mistaken it in his sleep, the shadow stretched long.
At the sight, a laugh rose naturally in his throat.
So it wasn’t an illusion after all.
The pain stabbing at his chest.
The ache racing through his mind.
The magic his dream friends had taught him was still with Lawrence.
"Do you like that today? Are you going to play like that?"
"If you want to play, just say so! You can have anything you want!"
He played with the shadow for a while longer.
Then the pain rose, and naturally his hand had to drop.
By the clock, nearly five minutes had passed.
Compared to when he had handled shadows in the storeroom, that was a huge improvement.
For some reason, the pain seemed a little lighter...
Was that too just his imagination?
...
......
Life in the monastery wasn’t much different from life at the inn.
Wash and clean. Eat and clean.
He repeated the cycle from morning until bedtime.
The reason his body didn’t feel too worn down was probably because the inn had already toughened him up.
Thanks to that, he had time every night to practice magic.
No matter how tired he was, he never skipped his magical training.
He simply enjoyed handling Shadow.
It was exciting how it moved exactly as he imagined it.
And he was delighted that the time he could sustain it kept increasing little by little.
Still, whenever he used magic for too long, the two uninvited guests would come calling.
More than the pain in his chest, the real problem was the headache.
At first it was manageable. But if he ignored the warning and kept practicing, it soon felt as though insects were crawling through his skull.
An awful pain that turned his mind white.
He could hardly keep his sanity, so magic was impossible.
The headache was a warning not to cross that line.
After that, no matter how hard Lawrence practiced, he never pushed himself far enough to trigger it.
If his work suffered, then problems would follow.
That was an accident that could never be allowed to happen in the position of someone living under the monastery’s roof.
Before he knew it, a month had passed since he came to the monastery.
Lawrence, now accustomed to cleaning, had reached the point where he could use Shadow in the gaps while he worked.
It was fortunate that the magic wasn’t obvious.
Because his tasks involved cleaning dirty, hidden places, darkness and shadow were always drifting around him.
He didn’t like the cold, but he wasn’t especially afraid of darkness either.
Perhaps that was because Lawrence had always wandered back alleys.
Just as he was beginning to feel at home in the dark and the quiet, an amusing thought came to him.
What if he could draw Shadow out from inside the shadows themselves?
It wasn’t entirely absurd.
That was how it had been the first time he used Shadow in a dream.
There had been another fairy by the lake, and after wondering how he might play with that friend too, he had created a bridge from shadow.
There was no need to play only within the shadow.
He thought the true use of Shadow was to emerge from the shadows and affect reality.
The idea that it might be possible soon turned into certainty.
Magic had no limits.
At least, that was how Lawrence saw it.
"Let’s go eat lunch, Lawrence."
"Already?"
He cut off his train of thought.
Marjorie had come to find him, saying it was time to eat.
"It’s not already. Everyone’s in the dining hall except you."
"So you came to get me."
When he looked up, the upper part of the window he had been cleaning was shining bright.
The slight ache in his arms was probably not an illusion.
"Yeah. That too. There’s another reason as well."
"Another reason?"
"Nothing. Come on, let’s go. They say there’s meat soup today."
"Really? Then I shouldn’t be wasting time here."
Lawrence climbed down from the ladder and put the cleaning tools away.
If he didn’t hurry, the meat soup might be gone.
The boy left the chapel with Marjorie.
Before he knew it, the Shadow in the darkness had disappeared without a trace.