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Editor's Note on the Urashima Tarō Reference:
Urashima Tarō is a character from a well-known Japanese folktale. The reference implies that he feels like an outsider who has returned to a world that has dramatically changed in his absence.
As promised, I'll update one chapter every day this week.4/7
For a priest, meditation and prayer are duties that must never be neglected.
Our power rests on only two pillars: prayer and faith.
But that power is borrowed. And nothing is more fleeting than a strength that has no root within oneself. That is why we must pray.
Until the day Mother's playful fingers inscribe my name upon the void.
Yet may it be—
That the pure silver star above my head still shines, and points the way to a fresh path.
◇◆
Hours passed in meditation. Or was it only minutes? The deeper I sank into devotion, the more my sense of time blurred.
“…?”
A sound beyond the door broke the silence. My prayer was disturbed.
It seemed Mother Asclepia desired new stimulation.
Abby and I had an agreement: meditation was never to be interrupted by noise. She had accepted this easily, knowing it was essential to maintain my strength. Not once had that promise been betrayed. The older children especially understood the importance of guarding my silence.
“Well, then.”
Unfolding my legs, I rose.
Idols were unnecessary. All that was worth revering lay within. That was why my chamber held no icons, no statues.
I relished the hellish silence. Anyone who dared break it deserved punishment.
Outside my door should have been Sui... and now, Gina as well. Between the two of them, my solitude was usually guaranteed. Which meant something had gone wrong.
“What’s wrong? What’s—”
I opened the door…
And found Sui collapsed on the floor, face down.
“…”
Gina stood a short distance away, her arm still outstretched, frozen in the posture of a blow.
I exhaled.
“The most useless creature…”
Is one who neither obeys nor follows orders.
“Gina. What happened here?”
She turned, a faint smile playing on her lips.
“I hit her.”
“I can see that. Why?”
“She’s weak but acts strong. And… she stinks.”
No doubt Sui had tried to keep her quiet. As for the “stink,” that was the Kyara.
“…”
I considered how best to deal with this useless one.
“Should I hit you, too?”
“I want you to.”
A rare specimen. I almost laughed.
I let my finger drift through the air.
Sway, sway.
Her vacant eyes followed it, her head bobbing with the motion.
I laughed softly.
“Sleep now, useless.”
If her life were a book, I wouldn’t bother reading it.
“…?”
Her gaze lost focus, then slid away.
It was a charm for peaceful slumber, but it worked just as well in this case. Beastkin had weak resistance to curses and magic. Especially fools like her—the simple-minded were the most vulnerable to hypnosis.
Proof they were closer to beasts than men.
“Huh? Wha…?”
Her vision clouded. She rubbed her eyes, then collapsed, snoring softly.
I sighed.
I could have left her with a few petty hexes for amusement, but she wasn’t worth it.
Instead, I lifted Sui.
She must have struck her head when she fell; her blood marred her brow. Sui was unconscious, but her injury wasn’t severe. Young, half-beast—tougher than I was.
Still, I healed her.
The curse backlash had shaved twenty years off my life, but, ironically, it had raised my ceiling as a priest. My body weakened, but my divine strength grew. Sui’s minor wound was nothing to me now.
What troubled me were the other marks: bruises mottling her face.
Sui, in her foolishness, had endured Gina’s blows in silence—unwilling to disturb my meditation.
I carried her to my chamber and laid her gently on the bed.
Sui unsettled me. Foolish as she was, I found myself strangely fond of that foolishness. This left-handed girl with lizard blood in her veins.
I could have woken her with a spell, but I refrained. What I was about to do, I didn’t want her to witness.
My chamber had been specially built—walls thickened and reinforced. Abby’s doing, paid for with Olympus’s reparations. She claimed it was for insulation and soundproofing, but her true intent was different. I hadn’t cared enough to ask.
Leaving both girls behind, I stepped out and clapped my hands.
“Someone! Anyone! Come here now!”
The longhouse we lived in had some money invested in it, with tall walls enclosing the yard.
Inside, a dozen beastkin children stirred vats of foul-smelling oil, making soap.
“Ah… working? My apologies.”
Three of them came running, staring at me with wide eyes.
“Who are you? Are you… the one in the back?”
Oil-soaked brats. None of them were familiar. Abby must have gathered them over the past month.
“The one in the back? What does that even mean? You mean me?”
They gawked as though I were a rare beast. Then, all at once, they fell silent, as if recalling something.
“Why so quiet? I’m Dietrich. Surely Abby mentioned me.”
They exchanged glances, then shook their heads.
“That girl…”
So this was her game—isolating me. And it was working.
“The boss said… as long as the one in the back is here, we’ll be safe, no matter what.”
“…”
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
What was this? Idol worship? What nonsense had Abby been spinning?
“Since Boss came, this place has really turned around,” one piped up.
“She gave us homes, food, even pocket money,” another chimed in.
What’s happening here?
“Outside, no one bullies us anymore. It’s all thanks to Boss.”
So “Boss” was Abby. That much was clear.
Queen Bee.
The thought struck me like a hammer to the skull.
“The boss said… everything was planned by the one in the back…”
I stared into the fervent worship in their eyes and felt only disgust.
“In the mornings, we stay extra quiet. Because the one in the back is praying for us.”
…So that was it. Abby had kept them silent for my meditation—by turning me into some kind of sacred idol.
“…”
Exhausted, I shook my head.
This was her doing. Not mine. I wanted no part of it.
“Do you know Sui?”
“Miss Sui? The important girl who serves the one in the back?”
“…”
Enough. Another word, and I’d go mad.
“Fetch Zoë and Ashita, will you?”
“Zoë? Ashita?”
“The kitchen girls. You’ll know them when you see them.”
A few nodded and scampered off toward the rear of the longhouse.
I held onto silence like a proper priest of Asclepia. Or perhaps I had nothing left to say.
I felt like Urashima Tarō returning to a world that no longer made sense.
I had underestimated Abby.
In just one month, she had twisted my existence into something unrecognizable.
“The one in the back”?
Idol worship thrived on mystery.
And I, priest of Asclepia, who never left his room, was perfect for that.
Abby had weaponized it.
Prayers for the children?
If this continued, what would be next? Would they start treating me like a god?
The soap-scented brats glanced up at me, reverent and shy.
In their eyes, I saw gratitude.
Worship.
It made my skin crawl.