Part Forty-One — Roge

　I'd used Arcane Creation to expand the house before Eris even made it back――an extra room, proper storage, enough space that two people wouldn't be tripping over each other every time either of us moved.

　She returned with considerably less than I'd sent her for.

　Clothes, and nothing else.

"What happened?"

　I watched her set down a single bag where I'd expected several.

"Some church knights took some of the money," she said, not quite meeting my eyes, like she expected me to be angry at her for it.

Church.

　My expression went carefully, deliberately flat.

"Church, you say."

　I smiled.

"Interesting."

　I let the word sit there for a moment before continuing.

"And you said they were the ones who took the money from you. Correct?"

"Yes."

"Tell me about them."

  "They were just regular knights," she said. "Not Holy Knights――those only show themselves during emergencies, from what I understand. A woman actually stepped in to stop them from taking everything. Otherwise I'd have come back with nothing at all."

A woman. Huh.

"Maybe that's the woman from the inn," I said, mostly to myself, filing the thought away without much conviction behind it.

　Then I looked back at her.

  'You said Holy Knights only appear during emergencies. That's the only condition that brings them out?"

   "As far as I know, yes."

　My expression eased back into something warmer, the calm settling over whatever had briefly sharpened underneath it.

I wonder what the Church actually did to him, I imagined she was thinking, watching the shift happen.

　I didn't ask.

"Go clean up," I told her instead. "Put on the new clothes. You've earned the rest."

    "Where are you going?"

　I turned toward the door.

"To check on something."

＊

　I'd learned to suppress my own aura properly by then――a small mercy, given what I was about to attempt.

Eastern Holy Church, she said. Are you certain of that?

     "I think so," she'd told me before I left.

　I turned that uncertainty over in my mind as I walked.

　Then Anti-Subconsciousness spoke.

<I suggest using the skill 『Mirror Skin』 before you enter town.>

       "What's Mirror Skin?"

<A disguise skill. It allows you to take on the appearance and identity of another person, or a constructed one. While active, the real identity assumed effectively does not exist to outside observers until the skill is deactivated. Usable once per day.>

     "You could've mentioned that," I said. "Before I let Eris walk into town completely on her own."

　No response.

　Same silence it gave whenever it decided a point wasn't worth defending.

"Doesn't matter now, I suppose," I muttered, and activated the skill.

＊

　I entered town as a man named Roge――unremarkable, forgettable, exactly the kind of face nobody looked at twice.

　I searched for any sign of church knights for the better part of an hour.

　Nothing.

　Eventually, I gave up.

　Boredom won out before curiosity could.

　The effort simply wasn't worth stretching any further.

　Instead, I picked up the ingredients I'd actually come for before heading back――proper spices, at long last, after a year and a half of food that barely deserved the word seasoned.

　It was on the walk home, along the forest edge, that I found something worth the detour after all.

　――