※※ Volume 1 is scheduled to be released around August! ※※
“Thanks, goats, cows, and boars.”
“Mehhhh~” “Moooo~” “Bubuiii~”
When I expressed my gratitude, the goats approached me happily.
The attendants hesitated for a moment but eventually allowed the goats to pass.
“Thanks a bunch!”
As the goats lowered their heads, I took turns petting them vigorously.
Their fur was long, soft, and pleasant to the touch.
Even the cows had surprisingly long fur, and although the boars’ fur was a bit coarse, it had its own charm.
“To think you’d command sacred beasts…”
“No, they’re divine beasts.”
“Lady Saint…”
“Oh, spirits, thank you so much!”
As I petted the goats, the villagers fell to their knees.
It seemed they had mistaken my affinity with animals for saintly powers.
And since the goats were so massive, they were regarded as either sacred beasts or divine beasts.
In reality, they were likely just guardian beasts, but explaining that would be complicated.
“No, that’s not it. These goats are just really big animals, and Luria just gets along well with them, that’s all!”
Even so, the villagers continued expressing their gratitude to the “Lady Saint” and the “Sacred Beasts.”
“How humble.”
“Even as a child, she’s remarkable—a true saint.”
“How majestic the sacred goats are.”
To the awestruck villagers, my mother calmly declared:
“Raise your heads. My daughter is just a human. Worship is strictly forbidden.”
“But…”
“Do you understand? Raise your heads immediately.”
Although the villagers began to object, my mother’s firm tone silenced them, and they raised their heads.
Then, with a smile, my mother addressed them:
“If you feel even the slightest gratitude towards my daughter or the ducal family, you will keep your mouths shut.”
“Y-yes.”
“And especially to outsiders—especially priests—you must never speak of this. Understood?”
The moment she mentioned priests—
“Ah! Y-yes, I understand. I will take it to heart!”
The villagers seemed to grasp the gravity of what would happen if the One True God’s Church found out.
After all, the Church of the One True God considered spirits as their sworn enemies.
“Thank you for your understanding. Will this allow you to proceed with farming?”
With a gentle tone, my mother asked the villagers.
“Yes, somehow… Thanks to Lady… I mean, to you, young lady.”
The villager almost said “Lady Saint” but quickly corrected himself.
“If only it would rain, we’d have no complaints…”
One of the villagers looked up at the clear blue sky as he said this.
It seemed they had been lamenting the lack of rain in the village lately.
“Would rain help?”
“Yes, Lady—no, young lady. Without rain, our medicinal herbs… no, I mean—!”
“But if we open up the water channels, the village can survive! Yes, we’ll manage somehow!”
The villager seemed brimming with determination.
But it was clear that merely opening up the water channels wouldn’t be enough—they truly needed rain.
“Hmm…”
Why wasn’t it raining?
The lake was full of water, and the vegetation in the surrounding area didn’t seem parched.
“How strange…”
Could it really be that rain wouldn’t fall only on the village?
Perhaps there was something peculiar about the local terrain.
“Goats, cows, boars—what do you think is the reason?”
Since the goats likely lived in this area, I thought they might know why it hadn’t been raining.
“Meh.” “Moo.” “Bubo.”
The goats nudged at the massive boulder they had just cleared with their noses.
“Huh? Is there something about this rock? Let’s investigate the rock!”
When I declared this, the attendants moved the villagers away from the area.
After all, I was technically under quarantine as a close contact of red pox patients.
“Hmm… This rock is… huh?”
A nasty feeling came over me. Strange symbols were carved into the massive boulder.
It looked suspicious—like it might be something related to a curse.
This wasn’t based on knowledge, just intuition.
“…Kuro.”
I muttered very softly.
‘Do not talk to me in front of others, got it.’
Kuro suddenly sprouted out of the ground.
“…What’s this?”
I pointed at the symbols and whispered in a barely audible voice.
“A cursed circuit. You could think of it as a jinxed version of a magic circle.”
“…What does it do?”
“It’s a barrier meant to keep ordinary spirits away. It seems to cover quite a large area.”
It seemed someone with knowledge of curses—or someone who had hired a curse practitioner—had set this up.
Given the baron and the magistrate, curses must be all the rage these days.
Although, to be fair, the magistrate hadn’t been confirmed as the culprit just yet.
“I completely failed to notice it.”
Clearly, I still had a lot to learn.
“Its effects included preventing detection. Even I didn’t notice it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Basically…”
According to Kuro, spirits and guardian beasts would unconsciously avoid this area.
So the barrier’s effect of going unnoticed was working as intended.
“What could be the reason for doing something like this…?”
I couldn’t understand why someone would want to drive spirits away from this land.
“Luria, is something the matter?”
Behind me, my mother appeared, holding Sara in her arms. I hadn’t even noticed her presence.
“Whoa! Oh, um, there’s something carved here!”
“Hm? What does it say?”
“Luria, what’s engraved here?”
“I don’t know. What could it be?”
I decided not to mention the barrier keeping spirits away—it would just sound suspicious.
“This rock just feels odd. I think it should be investigated further.”
“Agreed.”
“Sara feels something bad about it, too.”
While my mother didn’t seem to sense anything unusual, Sara seemed disturbed by it.
Surely a specialist could determine its effects and meaning.
“Hmm, what could it be?”
To remember the carvings, I traced the symbols etched into the rock with my finger.
Crack!
Suddenly, there was a loud noise. The next moment, the massive boulder split apart.
The atmosphere around us immediately changed.
The shift in energy was immense, encompassing the forest and extending all the way to the lake.
“Oh… wow.”
The barrier had been this massive?
Even with its effect of remaining unnoticed, not detecting it earlier was a testament to how much I still needed to learn.
As the sinister energy dissipated, the air filled with the presence of spirits.
The aura of countless newborn, barely-formed spirits surrounded us, their joy radiating so strongly that I couldn’t help but feel happy myself.
“Lady Saint… no, the young lady touched the rock, and it split apart?”
“Could this be… a miracle?”
“It’s not a miracle! I think the rock was just about to split on its own!”
I tried to downplay it to the villagers.
Then—
Whoosh!
Suddenly, it started to rain.