Flo's Resolve

――The time when the sun had completely set.

――In the yard of the orphanage.

Flo and Annise sat side by side on a bench set in the yard.

“Man, kids are powerful… I’m Level 60 and I’m tired already, y’know.”

“Thank you so much, Miss Annise, for playing with the children.”

Flo, as a return for the date, had guided Annise to the orphanage and treated her to a homemade dinner.

The ingredients were ordinary, but the cook’s skill made the food warm and comforting.

“Thanks for the meal. It tasted like homemade cooking—it’s really delicious.”

――Well, I don’t actually know what ‘homemade cooking’ tastes like, though.

“I don’t know any stylish restaurants like Miss Annise does, nor do I know what gifts would please you. But you took me to so many places today for my sake, so I wanted to give you something back—even if it’s only this sort of hospitality… Was it a bother?”

“Not at all. I had a great time too.”

At first, Annise struggled with how to interact with the children.

But once she got the hang of it, she entertained the children with knife juggling and throwing tricks.

Annise herself found joy in interacting with the pure, innocent children, enjoying being admired and adored, and felt a strange sense of fulfillment.

It was a completely different kind of pleasure from the sort of entertainment (women play) Annise had indulged in until now.

“But I was surprised. I never imagined Flo would be running an orphanage at such a young age.”

――Even though she’s only a few years older than the orphanage children.

Annise recalled the faces of the orphanage children.

She was also surprised that about one third of them were black-haired, black-eyed children—the Shikai Tribe.

More than that, she was amazed that this orphanage had neither discriminatory attitudes toward the Shikai Tribe nor did the Shikai children themselves carry a sense of being discriminated against.

Surely it was the result of the elderly couple who ran the home and Flo’s constant efforts.

“I wish I had been taken in by an orphanage like this…”

“Huh?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

Annise cleared her throat on purpose and diverted the topic.

“You even… accept the Shikai Tribe, huh.”

That went against the doctrine of the Holy Church.

It was something that could be taken as heresy, and one couldn’t complain if accused.

But Flo, without hesitation, stared into Annise’s eyes and answered.

“I believe the Holy Church must atone for the persecution it carried out against the Shikai Tribe.”

The Shikai Tribe’s designation as heretics began twenty years ago and was provisionally settled ten years ago.

Although overt massacres are no longer conducted, Church facilities throughout the continent do not open their doors to the Shikai Tribe.

“There is no passage in the scriptures that says the Shikai Tribe are not human, or that Necromancers profane the souls of the dead and cannot pass through Heaven’s gates.”

――But once the College of Cardinals declared the Shikai Tribe evil, the faithful were obliged to follow.

――It is Florence who is in the wrong.

“(No—such logic isn’t something a worldly nun like me should be saying.)”

Annise swallowed the words that had sprung to her mouth.

“(I don’t believe in God and have never seriously prayed, but my core values are still stained by the doctrine of the Holy Church…)”

Most clergy recite simplistic prayer maxims that let them easily escape responsibility and turn their eyes away from unease.

Those words were convenient—but Annise thought they led to an abandonment of thought, and she was disgusted by the Grand Cathedral’s clergy who brainlessly obeyed the College of Cardinals and grovelled.

Was their faith truly directed toward God? Or toward the powerful?

Children (Annise) are not as stupid as adults think.

The Grand Cathedral, rife with intrigue and scheming, felt suffocating—it’s hard to say one can cultivate faith there.

“(And thus was born—this worldly nun, Annise Redby.)”

“Moreover, recently the image of the Shikai Tribe has only worsened—needlessly oppressed, with instances increasing of slave owners abandoning their duties and dumping their Shikai Tribe slaves.”

――But the girl before her who spoke of dreams, Flo, was different.

At just twelve years old, she had the charitable spirit to pour most of her stipend into running the orphanage.

She was more devout than anyone, and if the College of Cardinals’ policies diverged from the scriptures, she had the courage to dissent.

A girl naive to the world, who would even extend a hand of mercy to thugs who approached with obvious malice.

It’s true that there is danger in believing in human goodness without doubt—but perhaps that is precisely the makings of a saint.

When Flo first joined the Knights of the Stigmata as Lilium’s successor, Annise thought she had been chosen for her looks, just like the former Hero-party member Lilium.

She assumed the College of Cardinals had prepared an easy-to-understand idol for a new propaganda campaign.

But Flo quickly produced results.

Kaine Kaiwell, injured in the fight with Sid Ranorus, was saved by Flo’s transcendental healing magic.

She still frequently visits the hospital where Kaine is admitted to administer healing magic, and thanks to that, it seems he will be able to return to the front within a few days.

“That’s amazing—Flo really is something.”

“No, I’m not at all… I’m just a child who has been helped by many people and allowed to be selfish.”

Flo remembered the words her foster parent, Sheena Aytel, had told her.

“Beware—if you only want to satisfy your self-esteem by helping the orphaned and Shikai Tribe within your sight, then what you do now is enough. But if you aim to remove all the hunger and prejudice that pervade this country, that will be a path of carnage that countless saints have pursued and fallen short of their goal.”

Flo was prepared to walk that path of carnage.

But she knew it was also a recklessness born of naivety and understood it wouldn’t be something easily achieved.

“(Mr. Sid…)”

――Besides, she was still troubled.

“Miss Annise… may I consult with you, no, may I vent a kind of complaint?”

“Yeah—go ahead.”

“It’s about the Shadow Necromancer—the matter of Mr. Sid.”