The Orphanage and the Corrupt Priests
After the war ended and we could finally focus on domestic affairs, even amid all that busyness, the Emperor had been watching the temple with meticulous care. He even deployed the Blue Hawk to investigate their private embezzlement of the support funds.
Despite that, the reason we continued entrusting the poorhouses to the temple while providing them financial aid was simple: the long war had left far too many destitute people, and creating an entirely new system would have been overwhelming.
Even if half the support money disappeared into the temple’s back pockets, this arrangement was still more efficient.
The temple, for its part, maintained a bare minimum of decency. They didn’t want to lose their generous patron—the Emperor—or the goodwill of the people. For the most part.
There were exceptions, of course. Like the poorhouse where the original female lead, Ivetta, had grown up, or the one where Robin lived.
“Lina, would it be all right if we stopped by the poorhouse where this child stays for a moment?”
Everett seemed eager to use the opportunity to look into the matter.
“Yes, that sounds good.”
Since I’d been thinking the same thing, we reached an agreement easily.
“You said you’d let me go if I told you!”
Robin belatedly realized he’d been tricked by the adults and kicked his legs in protest. It had absolutely no effect on Everett.
And so we set off with the little boy we’d met by chance on the street, heading for the temple’s poorhouse on the outskirts of the territory.
Almost as if fate were pulling us there.
The temple was a full hour’s walk from the market where we had been, even at an adult’s pace. What’s more, it sat on a mountainside, so thirty minutes of the journey involved climbing a rather steep path.
Good thing I bought the horses.
I stroked the horse’s mane once while eyeing the long uphill stretch still ahead of us.
“How on earth did a little kid like you manage this path?”
When I asked Robin, who was riding with Everett, the boy—who had grown noticeably more comfortable with us—puffed out his cheeks and answered sulkily.
“I walked.”
While carefully reading the adults’ moods and trying to act grown-up, Robin had quickly figured out that Everett wasn’t actually that frightening.
As for me, I hadn’t been scared of him from the start.
Thanks to that, we became fairly close during the ride to the temple.
“That’s impressive.”
When I played along, Robin put on a show of nonchalance before glancing at me cautiously and asking in a small voice.
“You’re not really going there to scold the kids at the poorhouse, right?”
His eyes were desperately earnest, as though the question had been weighing on him the entire time.
“Of course not.”
I answered with deliberate emphasis, hoping it would put the boy’s mind at ease.
“Phew.”
Robin let out a huge sigh of relief.
“Such a big sigh from such a little guy.”
When I chuckled, Robin’s eyes shot upward, clearly convinced I was making fun of him.
“I’m not little! I’m already seven years old!”
Seven isn’t exactly an age that deserves an “already.”
Still, I kept the thought to myself for the sake of his childish pride.
Instead, I changed the subject to distract Robin, who was still puffing his cheeks.
“How many people live in the poorhouse with you?”
I wanted to get a rough idea of the situation before we arrived—specifically, what kind of mindset allowed them to raise a child while letting him go this hungry.
“Um… about twenty?”
Robin tried counting on his fingers, gave up, and answered vaguely.
I hadn’t expected him to be unable to count, considering how mature he acts.
From my experience, answers like that from children who hadn’t properly learned numbers were rarely accurate. I simply filed Robin’s response away in my memory.
When Anika was that age, my older sister used to tell everyone she was forty, which caused no end of trouble.
Anika had wanted to brag that she had a fully grown sister, and forty had been the largest number she knew. As a result, I had temporarily become a child older than my own parents.
Still, while he couldn’t count past ten, he at least seemed to grasp the concept of counting.
I kept the questions coming.
“Then how many adults live there?”
This time the answer came easily, since it fell within the range of numbers Robin could handle.
“There’s only one big sister who lives with us!”
“One?”
Everett, who had been listening silently, echoed the word.
Even if the boy isn’t great with numbers, it sounds like there are well over ten children. And she’s managing all of them alone?
Our eyes met in the air above Robin’s head. He didn’t notice the silent exchange.
Thinking Everett had simply misheard, he added an explanation.
“Yes. The rest of the priests live at the temple.”
So this “big sister” isn’t a priest herself.
She was probably someone the priests had hired to manage the poorhouse.
Robin seemed to feel a strong bond with her.
Then the real problem is definitely the priests.
Everett appeared to be thinking the same thing.
“Wouldn’t it be better if the priests lived with you too?”
Everett asked lightly, fishing for more information.
Depending on how the child reacts, we’ll be able to tell what Robin really thinks of the priests.
It was a good question. His tone was gentler than usual, almost child-friendly, as if he were reflecting on his earlier behavior.
The boy responded exactly as Everett had hoped.
“I don’t like that.”
His usually crisp speech—clear even when he’d been sobbing—grew drawn out. The words had slipped out unconsciously.
But Robin immediately looked startled, as though he’d said something he shouldn’t have, and clamped his mouth shut. Then he watched us nervously, like he’d committed a terrible crime.
Children that age usually forget a scolding the moment you turn away, but it seemed they had trained him thoroughly not to let any bad words slip out.
The wariness I’d finally eased has snapped right back into place.
Everett, however, refused to let it drop.
Avoiding the child’s eyes, he asked again.
“Why? Wouldn’t it be nicer if everyone lived together?”
Robin had been steeling himself to stay silent, but he was still just a child. He fell for Everett’s gentle provocation instantly. His face scrunched up as if he’d heard something horrifying.
Unable to hold back, he burst out.
“It’s not nice at all!”
“Why not? The priests are all kind and wonderful people, aren’t they?”
Robin looked at us like we were hopelessly naïve.
“No, they’re not!”
“Then tell me about a bad priest you know.”
The way he pounced on the opening was positively professional.
“The priests who live next to our poorhouse.”
“Really? What kind of people are they?”
With an animated expression, Robin began explaining with heated passion just how awful and scary the priests were.
Everett really is skilled at psychological warfare.
“They keep throwing things at us and cursing. Last time, Sister’s eye turned all purple. Whenever they come to the poorhouse, everyone wants to run away and hide.”
I frowned at Robin’s words, but Everett kept his stoic face and continued the questions.
“How many priests are there?”
“Two.”
“So there are two bad priests.”
Everett nodded with seeming sincerity, as if listening with great care.
“Which of them is the scariest?”
It was a question meant to identify the ringleader.
Robin answered without hesitation, as if the answer had been decided long ago.
“Priest Orhan. He comes more often than Priest Nicholas.”
The wicked priest who tormented the female lead in the original story was also named Orhan.
Orhan had been a low-ranking priest at the temple overseeing the poorhouse where Ivetta grew up. The head priest had been too busy gambling and embezzling temple funds to pay attention, so in the original novel, Orhan had been the one who actually abused her.
Even the head priest can’t be viewed as a mere bystander. He shoved Ivetta forward to cover up his own mistakes and curry favor with the High Priest, ultimately ruining her first life.
In the first round, Ivetta had awakened her divine power on her coming-of-age birthday and become a priestess. At the time, the High Priest had needed a disposable low-ranking cleric. The head priest had pushed Ivetta into that role to impress him.
Both characters had died early in the original story, so one could say they paid the price. But since the original plot began at the upcoming New Year’s Festival, this would likely be their last summer.
Because Orhan had been the one to lay hands on her directly, his name had appeared several more times as a deeper source of trauma.
And here he was again—Orhan.
Maybe personality really did follow the name.
Sorry to all the perfectly decent people named Orhan out there. That was a narrow-minded thing to think.
The most recent Saint had also been named Orhan, and it was an incredibly common name among followers of the Minos Church.
“Oh! We’re here!”
While I was mentally apologizing to all the good Orhans of the world, we arrived at the poorhouse. Robin pointed at the old wooden building, bouncing in the saddle.
Curiously, the temple building and the poorhouse were completely separate structures.
When Robin’s body wobbled unsteadily on the saddle, Everett helped him down.
“Sister!”
The moment his feet touched the ground, Robin shouted for his “sister” and broke into a run.
Straight toward the poorhouse that looked as if it might collapse at any moment.