Searching for Believers

To put it bluntly, Marcus was a Lay Believer.

I didn't even need to ask. The moment I tapped for details, a fresh wave of information scrolled into view.

Among my followers, Marcus was the only one who knew my real name.

Which meant that, for the time being, he was the most productive black-mana shuttle in my employ.

"Ahhh, that hits the spot…."

The black orb had certainly proved its worth. Simply cradling it in my arms made the world feel warm and pleasant, and happiness bloomed in my chest all on its own. My sincere thanks went out to Marcus and to the fifteen unidentified lunatics contributing to the cause.

This one's mine to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠keep.

Black-mana artifacts were hard to sell in the first place. And since I, Rosetta, was still in my growth phase — growing stronger by the moment — the thing would only become more valuable as my mana capacity climbed. Selling it was out of the question.

Then again… it does drain awfully fast.

I swallowed a sigh at the sight of the orb, empty before I knew it. The black mana trickling in from sixteen contributors couldn't keep pace with my mana recovery, which was more than twice as fast — the charge gauge never even got past double digits.

Probably better to let it build up and spend it in one go.

That glorious rush from my first touch had only happened because all the mana the orb had stockpiled until then came flooding into me at once. After a single absorption, I'd have to wait for the tank to refill all over again.

I suppose I'll still have to keep buying potions for now.

Halving my expenses was satisfaction enough for the moment. I couldn't lean on drugs my whole life, so I'd manage like this while I figured out how to raise the orb's collection rate.

(Followers who do not know your true name supply only a fraction of the normal black-mana yield.)

My true name, huh.

The solution, unexpectedly, might be simple. All I'd have to do was track down whatever third- and fourth-rank believers were out there and tell them my name was Rosetta.

(Each higher rank of believer supplies roughly five times more ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠black mana.)

Factor in the yield per rank, and finding a single Zealot would be enough to liberate me from my fever-addled misery.

However.

The real problem is how the hell I find these lunatics.

The black threads only came into sharp focus when a follower drew within a certain distance of me. In practice, every time Marcus drifted in and out of the living room, the thread connecting him to the artifact would vanish and reappear.

Am I going to have to host a meetup?

Hunting down Zealots meant crawling out of my hidey-hole and wandering the outside world. But social interaction was, quite possibly, the single hardest mission Rosetta had ever been assigned.

I didn't have the courage to organize a Titan forum meetup to begin with — and even if I did, the moment I verified my identity as the Flood-Survivor Titan, every poor soul I'd beaten in ranked matches would come swarming to the event.

Just as I was drowning in one worry after another—

Ting-a-ling—!

A crisp chime rang out from the lobby on the first floor. A customer this early in the morning was a rare thing, and while I was still frowning at it, Marcus's voice drifted up from below.

"What can I do for you?"

His usual flat, deadpan register for ordinary walk-ins. But the reply that came next was anything but ordinary.

"Is the silver-haired girl here?"

"…?"

At those words, Marcus's shoulders stiffened. He set down what he was doing and took a slow, careful second look at the woman.

This woman's a Titan knight.

Marcus's instincts, honed by years of crawling through back alleys, caught her extraordinary bearing in a single glance — the ramrod-straight posture, the quiet pressure of authority she radiated without trying. If she was a Titan knight too, then she was either a subordinate or a companion of that monstrous little brat… an associate, perhaps.

So he asked, respectfully enough.

"Do you mean… Miss Rosetta, by any chance?"

"Rosetta…. Is that her name?"

…?

The response made him feel oddly embarrassed. If she didn't even know the girl's name, she clearly wasn't someone who knew her at all.

"And who might you be?"

His question dripped with suspicion, and the woman answered without so much as a blink.

"I have come from the royal court."

The royal court?

"Here — I carry identification as well."

Marcus's eyes trembled like aspen leaves. That was an unmistakably official credential she was flashing — she really was from the Palace!

Why would the royal court come to a dump like this….

No royal official ever marched openly into a shady back-alley black market. Not for any reason — except one.

I TOLD that brat to knock off the potions already!

The black-mana potion trade was a serious crime, strictly banned in every nation! It had to be the Inquisition, tracked down through the potions that girl kept gulping down whenever she got bored. If the ledger of everything she'd purchased ever came to light, it was the gallows, no trial needed!

Spooked out of his wits, Marcus racked his brain desperately for any excuse at all.

"Ah, haha! The silver-haired little miss, you mean! She does rent a room from our shop, but… she's holed up in there, and frankly I haven't the faintest idea what she gets up to."

"I see."

"Is there, perhaps, some reason I could know why you're looking for her? She hardly ever steps outside, you understand."

Even as he groveled his way toward an exit, his throat was drying up. Any second now she'll say it: Don't try to weasel out of this, you black-magic peddler. Whether you're an accomplice will come out in the investigation.

"Please refrain from calling her 'little miss.'"

"Pardon?"

But the reply that came back from the woman was, somehow, cold in an entirely different way.

"I will say nothing further, since you clearly do not understand… but even if she were a mere child, I would ask that you show proper courtesy in how you address her."

"Ah… yes, ma'am."

What is going on?

Marcus could only blink, utterly dumbfounded. Judging by the mood, she hadn't come here to arrest a black-magic practitioner. Quite the opposite, in fact — her tone just now had sounded almost like…

Is she the brat's underling or something?

But no — she hadn't even known the girl's name thirty seconds ago. And she'd come from the royal court, no less. Who this woman actually was, he couldn't begin to guess. Just as he stood there, lips flapping uselessly with no answer ready—

Tap-tap—

Light footsteps came pattering down the stairs beside them. In an instant, three pairs of eyes met in a single spot.

"Huh?"

Pop!

At the same moment, a fresh black thread unfurled into Rosetta's field of vision. The thread extending from the blonde woman flowed into the artifact cradled in her arms, and a new line of ancient script began to scrawl itself across the orb.

The Royal Guard Captain from that day?

A peculiar silence settled over the first-floor lobby. Once the sharp-eyed Marcus had tactfully withdrawn, Karinne was the first to speak.

"I ask your forgiveness in advance. I tracked your path home after your departure the other day, and thus learned where you reside."

"Ah…."

"If I caused you discomfort without meaning to, I apologize."

She bowed at the waist, deeply and formally. But what on earth had brought the Royal Guard Captain all the way here?

She's not here to demand the artifact back, is she?

Anxious for no good reason, I quietly slid the orb I'd been hugging down beneath the sofa.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"That day, I was too flustered to do so… I wished to pay you a proper greeting this time."

"A greeting…?"

"Yes. I, along with countless knights of the Kingdom, owe you our lives. Thank you — once more, and sincerely."

"Oh. Right…."

Hearing that, I could only stand there, nonplussed. The only thing I'd actually done was loot an artifact.

"As the Kingdom cannot publicly acknowledge the failure of its expedition, a formal commendation is out of the question. However, Her Majesty holds your contributions in such high regard that she has decided to grant you a special title."

"A title…?"

Rosetta's brain flatlined at the completely unscripted turn of events. The truth, though, was that there had been quite a bit of behind-the-scenes reasoning behind how things had come to this.

We must forge every tie to her that we can.

The Kingdom was currently mired in a tangle of overlapping crises — a manpower shortage, a looming security threat, the harsh side effects of its own breakneck rise. In such desperate straits, the power this girl possessed was a temptation almost impossible to refuse.

But we cannot simply seize her and bind her to us.

Yet the girl had said she wanted to live an ordinary life. The proof was right here: she was living in this utterly unremarkable shop, paying rent like anyone else. If they made some burdensome, presumptuous offer, she would vanish without a trace, just as she had before.

We need a different strategy.

And so Karinne had changed her approach. The goal: to establish a lasting link between the girl and the Kingdom, by whatever means necessary. That — not gratitude alone, though her gratitude was genuine — was the true purpose of this visit.

"Will you accept the insignia of an Honorary Knight of the Kingdom?"

"U-uh…."

Rosetta blinked. Before she quite knew what was happening, something like an ornate nameplate had been pressed into her hands. The Kingdom's lion crest gleamed on its face, impossible to miss.

"What do Honorary Knights usually do?"

"At present, the others largely serve as advisors on armored warfare — offering counsel on the knights' strategic doctrine, training systems, and the operation of their machines."

"I'm… not sure I'd have advice to give…."

"Of course. It is an honorary post; it carries no obligations. If you would rather not involve yourself, you are free to ignore it entirely."

I hesitated, clutching the insignia. Was it really all right for me to accept something like this? My Titans were all first-generation relics — I couldn't advise the knight order on anything.

Just as I was about to wave the whole thing off as too much trouble—

"A stipend befitting the title, along with performance bonuses, will be paid out on a regular basis."

My eyes went wide again, purely on reflex. All that recent potion-buying had taught me one ironclad lesson: when money could be made, make as much of it as possible, for as long as possible.

"How much does it pay?"

After Karinne took her leave, I flopped back onto my bed and stretched out a long hhrraaah, staring at the ceiling. Who'd have thought she'd track down the very place I lived, just to hand me money?

Free money was wonderful and all… but my conscience twinged a little.

She's got the wrong idea about me, hasn't she.

The truth was, my combat power wasn't nearly as overwhelming as everyone seemed to think. In a one-on-one fight, I'd obviously lose. Even running all eight of my Titans at once, I couldn't hold a candle to the regular knight order. The only reason ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'd been able to strut around that day was that pure mana let me ignore the dungeon's fog mechanic outright.

Conversely, the knight order — for all their regular-army credentials — had somehow charged in far too recklessly and landed themselves in danger.

Come to think of it, the Royal Guard Captain was one of my followers too.

I found myself replaying the black thread that had linked Karinne to me. Honestly, I'd half expected it. She'd been excessively friendly toward me from the very first meeting.

If her judgment was a little soft and she was convinced I was some unspeakably powerful being, well — that tracked. And yet one question still refused to be resolved.

It took judgment as clouded as hers to barely scrape together a Devout Believer rank.

So what in the world did Zealots do? What kind of lunatics were they?

What frightened me even more was that there wasn't just one of them — there were two. Was it really the right call to host a meetup, hunt down these maniacs, and tell them my name?

Not gonna be easy.

Still, I couldn't live off store-bought potions forever. If I wanted to keep the orb's charge rate up, I'd have to come up with something.