The Angry Pufferfish
The moment the words left my mouth, I already knew how this would go.
“Saintess. Let’s talk for a moment…”
“No. I’m busy right now.”
I splashed water on my face again and again, but my heart refused to stop hammering. The frantic rhythm showed no sign of slowing.
Running into a robber during our little outing? That part was fine. He was just a common thug who would vanish the second I handed over everything valuable I carried. The expense meant nothing if I considered it the cost of keeping the Saintess’s identity hidden.
But the instant I moved to surrender my belongings, the Saintess snatched the ring box clean out of my grasp. What should have been a smooth, forgettable transaction went straight to hell.
That gruesome scene was still burned into my retinas.
The robber, suddenly robbed of the loot he’d been promised, flew into a rage and swung his blade at her. The exact moment I tried to block the strike with my bare hand, a blinding flash and deafening boom erupted from the Saintess. The quiet street exploded into chaos.
Luckily we bolted the second the accident happened, so we managed to prevent the far greater catastrophe of her unauthorized outing becoming public knowledge. The one problem we couldn’t run away from was the giant lump of a man we’d been forced to drag along.
“Saintess. Stop playing around and turn this man back to normal. Please.”
“Later. I’m busy.”
The robber—or rather, what used to be the robber—stood frozen mid-swing. I kept glancing at him while pleading with the Saintess, but she was too engrossed in stroking the stolen ring box to spare me even a flicker of attention.
Honestly, the thug’s well-being wasn’t my main concern. What worried me was the fact that, as far as I knew, the only person in the entire Capital capable of leaving a living human in this state was the Saintess herself. And we could not afford to leave behind a walking witness and piece of evidence of her little escapade.
Hiding him in some deserted spot might have worked on any other day, but with the Grace Bestowal Ceremony right around the corner, the Capital’s population had exploded. Quiet corners were in short supply.
Burying him deep underground or sinking him to the bottom of a lake would have brought some peace of mind, yet those options made me feel like a murderer disposing of a body. My stomach turned at the thought.
So the only bloodless solution available was to persuade the very person responsible for this mess—the one who also happened to possess the cure.
“Haa… Just hand that over…”
Before I could reason with her, I first needed to remove whatever was distracting her. The fact that she had suddenly taken an interest in my ring box wasn’t especially surprising. She had been stealing my personal belongings for a while now.
Five pairs of gloves. Seven handkerchiefs. Two fountain pens. Three notebooks. That was the current tally of everyday items she had taken from me.
Just a few days ago she had claimed my outer robe, which was why the priestly vestments I wore now were spares provided by the nuns. She could have brand-new replacements whenever she wanted, yet for some reason she always targeted my things. I had no idea why.
Then again, sudden bursts of possessiveness weren’t uncommon in growing children. She occasionally returned the objects once she grew bored of them, so it wasn’t an unmanageable vice.
But.
“N-no! It’s mine!”
The Saintess whirled around, radiating stubborn defiance. The unfamiliar gesture sent dark ripples through my thoughts.
“Saintess… Please give that back…”
“No! You can’t have it! I won’t give it to you! It’s mine!”
A shady man closing in on a young girl groaning in a dark alley. I could imagine exactly how this looked to outsiders. I needed to end this quickly.
“Give it here! Now!”
“No! Go away! I won’t give it! It’s mine!”
“If you want toys or jewelry to play with, I’ll buy you as many as you like later! Just hand over the ring box for now! Saintess!”
“No!”
“Welna! While I’m still asking nicely—give that here!”
“Hap!”
“!?”
It happened in a flash. The Saintess, who had ignored my firm command, suddenly shoved the ring box into her mouth and clapped both hands over her lips. The whole sequence made her look like a hamster with its cheeks stuffed full. Under different circumstances I might have found it adorable.
Unfortunately, the situation was what it was. My heart refused to soften; only a heavy, complicated feeling remained.
“S-Saintess! What are you doing?! That’s filthy! Spit it out right now! Spit!”
“Mmm! Mmph!”
I pressed my fingers into her soft, puffed-out cheeks, trying to force her to expel the box. But her resistance was ferocious, as if she were fighting for her life.
If the nuns ever learned that she had placed an object carried around all day—and dropped on the ground—into her sacred mouth, the resulting catastrophe would be beyond imagination. This time I could not back down.
I don’t know how long that dizzying tug-of-war lasted. By the time the Saintess had fully transformed from a cute hamster into an angry pufferfish, eyes squeezed shut and silently screaming—
“Mmmmmph!!”
I managed to pry open a tiny gap at the edge of her tightly sealed pink lips by pinching them with my fingers.
“Ack! Ackk! Uup! Umph!”
“Good grief…”
I ignored her desperate squirming in my arms and pushed my fingers deeper. She couldn’t quite bring herself to bite me; the most she could do was push weakly with her tongue. My fingers finally reached the back of her throat and found their target.
Got it!
The triumphant thought had barely echoed through my mind when—
“Ugh!?”
Shaaarak!
The mysterious chains appeared again. The same sinister links of light that had once completely immobilized me now wrapped around my body in an instant, yanking the Saintess to safety.
Thud.
“S-Saintess!”
“Hmph!”
She thrust both slender arms upward in a proud L-shape, looking exactly like a contestant in a bodybuilding competition. The majestic pose carried a single unmistakable message.
I won.
That was what the Saintess was telling me.
Had there been a referee for our little bout, I would have loudly protested her cheap foul. But this was a dark back alley—a lawless stage. No one was going to call her out for her shameless behavior.
“Haa… Fine. I lost. I’ll give it to you, Saintess. I promise I won’t take it away. So please release me first…”
“……Heengjja?”
“Yes? Ah, yes. Really.”
“Heengjja really heengjja?”
“Really, truly.”
The Saintess, who had been clinging to the ground like a caterpillar, lifted herself until our eyes met. She suddenly grabbed both my cheeks and stared straight into my pupils.
Then—
She smiled.
The Saintess smiled.
It took my brain an embarrassingly long time to process something so ordinary.
I had seen her angry. I had seen her on the verge of tears. I had watched her stamp her feet, bite things, hop around, and puff out her cheeks. I had even caught glimpses of her unconsciously expressing emotion.
But a bright, genuine smile from her? This was the first time.
It might not have been anything special. She was human, after all; humans smiled sometimes.
Yet something about it felt ominous. No—unsettling was the better word. It was the same dread that hits when you realize, far too late, that you chose the wrong path at an irreversible crossroads. The anxiety kept churning through my mind.
“S… Saint… ess…?”
The chains binding me soon dissolved into nothing, but I still couldn’t move. Every part of me—body, mind, the very essence that made me human—had frozen solid, like a helpless frog tossed in front of a snake flicking its tongue.
My rusted brain only began working again when a frivolous voice rang out from behind us.
“Whoa! One priest who looks loaded! One girl who looks young and helpless! Boss, this haul’s gonna be huge!”
The voice was accompanied by the unmistakable sound of countless footsteps.
“Oho! Definitely a big catch! Hey, pretty boy! If you don’t want to die, empty your pockets and scram! Oh, but leave the girl!”
I didn’t need to turn around. The clichéd lines told me everything. Just another pack of back-alley thugs.
“Hey! You deaf? Hand over the money and beat it! We’ll let you live if you cooperate!”
This was bad. A complete disaster. An emergency. We were all going to die.
“Puhaha! Look at him shaking! What a masterpiece! You even got the legs to run, priest boy? Nah, your type never does!”
Not me.
Them.