181 - Application and Review
In the end, it seemed that Mirshe, whom I had been worried about, was able to continue coming to the Menhishumi Church even in autumn. According to Mirshe's explanation, she had started working at the Three Crows Tavern. I could not understand the connection between Mirshe and the Three Crows Tavern at all, but for some reason Alf explained the circumstances to me in a fair amount of detail.
...First of all, I have no idea why Alf-san is keeping an eye on Mirshe-chan, you know?
I could not find any connection between the two of them, so I found it a little strange, but if Mirshe could be helped thanks to Alf, then the little details did not matter.
According to Alf's explanation, he checked Mirshe's handwriting to see if she could handle some transcription work, and since her handwriting was clean and easy to read, he prepared several jobs for her. Among them was the menu for the Three Crows Tavern, run by an owner who had come from a country across the sea. It seemed that as Mirshe revised the menu written in this country's language which the owner had racked his brains over to make it easier to read, the two of them hit it off.
...Mirshe-chan is such a good kid. It is only natural the owner would take a liking to her.
After the transcription work, Mirshe ended up being hired at the Three Crows Tavern. In the mornings, she helped with prep work like washing vegetables for the restaurant. During the busy lunch hours, she worked in the back washing dishes. In the afternoon, she went on break a little early, during which time she went to the Menhishumi Church, and in the evening she returned to do prep work and dishwashing for the night business. I thought it was too much work for an eight-year-old, but this was Mirshe's life from autumn onward.
...Just hearing her schedule, she basically only goes home to sleep... is that okay?
There is no such thing as labor standards laws in this world. I wondered about the appropriateness of an eight-year-old's working hours, but if it included the purpose of keeping her away from her parents, then it seemed like a good environment.
...But thanks to them feeding her meals, Mirshe-chan has gotten healthier than before.
Her stomach does not growl during class anymore, and her complexion is good. At the very least, she seemed to be getting proper meals compared to when she was at home.
...Alf-san mediated things, so it should not turn into anything terrible, right?
For now, I suppose I could stop worrying that Mirshe might lose her opportunity to learn. As for the Three Crows Tavern owner, I myself knew what kind of person he was. He was generous and sometimes gave me freebies, and I had heard that when I got lost, he even helped search for me. A truly kind uncle.
At any rate, now I could go to the Menhishumi Church in autumn without any worries. Leonardo was constantly lovestruck ever since I started asking him more often to have lunch at the Three Crows Tavern because I wanted to see Mirshe. The Three Crows Tavern was normally a bit on the pricey side, but it did not make a dent in Leonardo's wallet at all, which was wonderful. I could eat Napaji food without hesitation, so I was secretly plotting to conquer the restaurant's menu while I had the chance.
The classes named "Application and Review" were, as the name suggested, close to a review of Basic Knowledge 1, 2, and 3. In reading and writing class, we learned about document composition and variations in language like honorific and respectful speech. In calculation class, we advanced a little beyond simple calculations, touching on calculation methods for fractions and area. More specialized calculations applicable to actual work were a paid field that only top-performing students allowed into the third-floor classrooms could study.
In history class, we covered in detail the modern history first touched upon in Basic Knowledge 1. When it came to modern history, it was a strange feeling since various things about my family (Leonardo) came up in the lessons. Leonardo had many anecdotes, but when I went back to the residence and confirmed them with him, I sometimes heard completely different stories.
...And now I could freely verify the truth of Bertrand-sama's anecdotes too.
The truth of Bertrand's anecdotes was corrected in a different direction than Leonardo's. Leonardo's anecdotes tended to be somewhat mysterious, while Bertrand's anecdotes were closer to records of rampaging exploits. And when I confirmed the truth with him, the damage was often greater than what was recorded as rampages. That had to be an exaggeration, I thought, and looked into contemporary records with Nils, but Bertrand's version which only sounded like an exaggeration turned out to be the truth, which was terrifying.
The religion class was completely different from the previous classes where we just listened to myths. We chose a favorite story from mythology, independently researched folk traditions that varied slightly by country and region, and gave a research presentation. It felt less like a religion class and more like an extension of the document composition included in reading and writing.
"Welcome to Arabella-neesan's research lab!"
The person who greeted me in high spirits was Arabella, who researched folklore at the Menhishumi Church. She was Nils's mentor-like figure and was also an expert who I thought would be very reliable for this kind of research project.
"Choosing the Repentance Festival as your research presentation theme, as expected of the Spirit's Favored Child-sama! I will provide as many materials as you want, so you cooperate with my research too, okay! If you want, I will even write your research presentation manuscript for you!"
"If Arabella-san writes the research presentation manuscript for me, then it would not really be my research presentation anymore."
"...Then I will look forward to hearing the young lady's research presentation, told in the young lady's own words."
"Please do not say things that make me nervous already."
With a pathetic expression, I clutched my stomach and wailed that my stomach hurt from nervousness while dealing with this troublesome adult. "My stomach hurts from nervousness" seemed to be a universal thing. Arabella gave a wry smile and waved her hand, saying it was a joke.
"The materials on the transition from the Repentance Festival to the Reformation Festival are arranged on this shelf here. The adjacent shelf has materials from around the time it changed to the Recollection Festival. If you cannot reach the materials, feel free to use Nils-kun."
I could use anything in the room freely. In exchange, she wanted me to tell her whatever I had seen and heard as the Spirit's Favored Child, as much as I could remember. This was what Arabella asked of me as the price for providing knowledge, materials, and the room.
"Speaking of which, I heard. That you met the Divine King at this year's Recollection Festival."
Pushing aside the books and scribbled notes scattered messily across the desk, Arabella created a small clear space on the table. The things on top should have just been pushed aside, but the desk surface that appeared was grimy. It was probably already dirty even before the materials were piled on. When Arabella haphazardly gathered the notes and books and placed them at the edge of the desk, the stacked books fell neatly to the floor, perhaps because of how she had set them down.
"Whoa!"
After a thumping sound continued, something white puffed up from the floor. When I realized that the white stuff was dust, I felt a little short of breath, though I thought it might just be my imagination.
...Wow. Amazing. Dust flew up.
I was grateful she was letting me use the room, but it seemed best not to eat any snacks here. Just walking around too energetically made dust fly up. I wondered just how long it had been since she last cleaned, but I could not tell whether it was appropriate to point that out.
...If Kalisa were here, she would probably start cleaning first thing.
As Arabella wearily picked up the fallen books, Nils moved alongside her and gathered them too. It seemed faster for Nils to clean up than for Arabella to do it. I was about to crouch down to help too, but when I lowered my gaze, I could see pathways in the dust on the floor. The dust was noticeably thinner along the shortest route between the bookshelf and the desk, while it was thick in the corners of the room where people probably rarely approached and around the lounge chairs that were piled with books and could not be sat on.
...Before independent research, it is cleaning time.
I had heard that Nils and Lusio's job was to take care of the researchers and scholars at the Menhishumi Church, but was this the state of things even with their care, or did "taking care of" mean only personal care and not include the research labs?
...Or maybe everyone here was like Arabella-san and the caretaking could not keep up?
Once that possibility occurred to me, I recalled the image of Nils from some time ago, forced to take on someone else's work and carrying a mountain of laundry. If that was the normal state of the Menhishumi Church, then they clearly did not have enough people. No, they had people. It was just that all those many people were research maniacs who wanted to devote themselves to their research rather than taking care of their own surroundings.
...Yeah, first let us clean.
"The Divine King is, simply put, the king of the people chosen by the gods. Because they were chosen from among humans, even though they are called the Divine King, they are still just human."
While Nils and I cleaned the room, I had Arabella sort through the books and notes piled on the floor, separating what was needed from what was not. Since I did not want to just clean during class time, I had her give me a lecture on mythology, our original purpose, while we cleaned.
"A man with special qualities, chosen by the gods, was selected as the first Divine King. It is said that the gods also made the position hereditary. Among the Divine King's children, those with qualities were chosen to become the next Divine King."
It was passed down that the determination of who had qualities and who would be the next was decided not by humans or the Divine King himself, but by the gods and spirits. Though he was the king of humans, he seemed to be a being completely controlled by the gods and spirits.
"Even now, the reason women are preferred as heirs for royalty and nobility is a remnant of the story from the Divine King era about a wife who deceived the Divine King."
Having a male head of household made it easier to increase the number of descendants, but in this world, women were considered preferable as heirs. There was once a wife who committed infidelity against the Divine King, who passed down his bloodline through generations. She became pregnant with a child from a man other than her husband and tried to pass it off as the Divine King's child, aiming to end the Divine King's bloodline. In the end, the woman's crime was exposed by the spirits, and the Divine King's bloodline was protected, but since then, it became customary to prefer women as successors. A man could only trust his wife that the child she bore was truly his, whereas a child born from a female successor was certain to carry on the family's bloodline. This way of thinking originated from protecting the Divine King's bloodline. That said, since the next Divine King was chosen by the gods and spirits, whether the successor was male or female was irrelevant to the Divine King's family.
"...So then, the Divine King that the young lady says she met would be the person involved in the incident that led to the Repentance Festival? Amazing! Wonderful! I absolutely want to hear about it directly!!"
Arabella clutched the notes she had been checking to her chest as if overcome with emotion and shouted. I could not help flinching, but Nils seemed used to it and kept dusting the bookshelf without stopping.
"Very few records of the Repentance Festival remain. According to tradition, the goddess Itsurateru commanded the fire spirits to burn everything involved, to prevent the same thing from happening again."
For the most part, Arabella's opinion was that it was not the goddess's doing at all. Rather, some powerful figure of the time or someone had burned the evidence of the crime. Arabella, who flatly declared herself not the Spirit's Favored Child, did not seem to believe in goddesses or spirits. She was the type of person whose principle was that if you cannot perceive them, they are the same as not existing. I thought I would have said the same thing as Arabella if I had not had the strange experience of being whisked away by spirits. Myths are just stories, and the tales that remain as traditions are all fables or narratives that decorated some event in myth-like form to preserve it.
...But I cannot believe it was just a dream.
Though I could think of meeting the Divine King at the Recollection Festival as maybe having a daydream. Moving from the city of Grenore to the city of Mandez during the Divine King Festival was neither a dream nor anything else. There was definitely something unexplainable that happened.
"The festival materials have slightly different accounts, which is interesting."
While cleaning, I could not help reading the information that caught my eye. I did not know who had collected the materials, but a truly vast number of oral traditions and myths had been gathered.
"It is interesting, right? It is interesting, is it not? Each one is subtly different, but they also have parts that overlap perfectly? Connecting them together is the fun part!"
"...Huh? There are letters I cannot read."
Rather than not being able to read them, it was more like the parts that looked like they had been painted over. Among the lines I was casually glancing over, there was a spot that read ■■■■■.
"There are various theories about ■■■■■ too. In the Empire, it is said to be the name of the Divine King of that time. In Quebia, which calls itself the Divine Kingdom, it is the name of the young man who tried to kill the Divine King. In this country, it is said to be the name of the divine sword the young man stole."
"...They really are all different."
"That is what makes it interesting."
Saying that, Arabella looked up from the notes in her hands, and for a moment I was captivated. She was smiling so blissfully, so adoringly.
...But she has cotton dust on her head and looks kind of uncool!
Arabella said she would lend me materials if I seemed interested in the differences in myths between countries, and turned toward another bookshelf. The books crammed into the overstuffed shelf resisted a little before being pulled out, sending dust flying.
"If there is anything you notice from the perspective of the Spirit's Favored Child, I want you to tell me anything at all."
That is all for now (abbreviated).
I will fix typos and errors another day. I found and corrected some typos and errors.