The word of the Chief Cleric and my determination
Rejected without a word, I had no idea what the Chief Cleric was talking about. I had no idea they were going to say “no reason to improve” after learning about the tragedy in that orphanage.
“What do you mean, there’s no reason to improve? It’s a state where young children starve and are dying now. In a very unpopular environment…”
Isn’t the state communicated properly? I became anxious and tried to explain to the Chief Cleric the sight I saw today.
But the chief clergyman lifts his hands gently to block my explanation.
“Whatever gray clerics, witches and apprentices you work for, it means you don’t have any extra money to spend on pre-christening orphans. You may not know because you were born and raised under such parents, but the Temple does not recognize pre-baptism children as people. For the first time since I was baptized and civil registered, I am treated as a person”
Since I can’t even get a job until after the baptism ceremony, I had somehow thought that there might be such a situation. But just because I don’t admit it to people doesn’t mean I’m good with that treatment.
“… so you don’t mind those kids dying, do you?
“Oh, that would also be God’s guidance again. If we talk abominably, it will help to reduce the number of people.”
I wanted you to deny it, but I was lightly affirmed. While I was stunned, the clergyman began to explain the gray clerics and witches that remained in the orphanage today.
“Blue clothes had more than double the number of people now. Side service and side service apprenticeships are also simply calculated and doubled. Do you have any idea how much flanking service was left when they returned to the aristocratic community, as there were an average of 5-6 flanking servants per blue coat?
Without a dozen blue people, 60-70 side services would be left in the temple at once. In the structure of the temple, which has provided side service with donations of blue clerics and the cost of living, it is not strange to break it managerial.
“I sold about 30 unwanted gray witches and clerics as a nobleman’s underwork, but there are still enough gray clerics”
“Can’t that extra cleric take care of the little ones?
“Let me take care of him, I’ll be in trouble if the numbers increase. What do you think the temple chief disposed of the gray witch for? You don’t seem to understand what I’m saying.”
Now is the time when there are the fewest blue clerics and witches, and in a few years’ time there will be more, so it is visible that there will be trouble in a state of total absence of excess. But with God’s grace already lacking, the Chief Cleric says he wants to avoid any further increases in numbers.
“… at least, just cleaning, can you handle it? It’s no wonder the plague is endemic in that unclean state.”
“Hmm. You’re telling me to bury everything because it’s ugly? There’s plenty of room for thought, but the outside is not very good.”
“No! That’s not what I meant…”
How does that happen!? And swallowed up wanting to yell.
Me and the Chief Cleric have completely different common sense that is fundamental to our position and our way of thinking. Words make sense, but we don’t understand each other’s way of thinking.
“Chief Cleric, what is an orphanage for? Isn’t this a place to raise a child without parents?
“That’s a little different. The noble charity of raising a child that no one cares for to serve the nobles.”
There are too many different perceptions of orphanages. Pathetic, wanting to help you, that doesn’t even make sense to the clergyman.
The clergyman also seemed to be getting frustrated that he didn’t understand his point, and exhaled lightly.
“If you want to do something against those who go to death, you do it. You want to be the director of an orphanage where nobody wants to be, and you take full responsibility for the orphanage?
I breathed much more in unexpected words. I’m willing to help the orphans, but I’m not prepared to keep the orphanage and take responsibility for everything. I can’t be that scared.
“… unbearable”
Gripping my fist tightly, I shook my head slowly.
The chief priest nods one “hmm,” then looks to me and exhorts him further.
“Then the number of orphanages satisfied with God’s grace, given the ratio of blue to gray so far, is approximately 40. You’re the one in this temple with the most money to be free of the blue clothes, but you’re telling me you can prepare an orphanage meal with over 40 people left?
“… I can’t. I have most of the money in the workshop, and I have very little money that I can freely personally afford.”
Honestly, I’ve already spent too much money, even considering room renovations and paychecks for side service. With the money I sold the recipe, I managed to get to the level of Safe. Italian restaurants haven’t even started yet, and from now on, there’s no prospect of income coming in. There’s no way I can bring in the orphans in the present situation.
“If you can’t be responsible, you can’t give money, if you can’t do anything, shut up. It’s not about a child speaking out with a half-way sense of justice. You just have to be quiet and read your favorite book.”
The chief cleric’s statement was too legitimate to say anything back. You have no right to complain to me about anything you can’t do. As much as doing something halfway, it’s often better not to do anything.
“… I apologize for taking your time”
I left the clergyman’s room, as it was dropped.
The clergyman asked me not to do it, so there is nothing more I can do. We just have to be quiet. Even if I tell myself so, I have a heavy stomach and grunts like I swallowed lead.
“Master Mine, would you like to stop by the library? You might be a little distracted.”
Fran knelt softly and peered into my face. Unlike when I was reluctant to see the Chief Cleric, the words I care about reach my ears very gently.
“… Fran knew this would happen, didn’t he?
“It was my job to guess the chief cleric’s heart. Therefore, I thought it would result in Master Mine being discouraged. Forget about the orphanage.”
Fran pulled my hand and headed to the library. While reading a book, I can immerse myself in the book without thinking about anything extra.
But it wasn’t long before 6 bells rang and it was time for Lutz to pick him up. I have to leave the library, go back to my room and get dressed.
On the way back to the room, I can see the orphanage from the corridor even though I don’t like it. At that moment, that sight spread in the back of my brain, and I got nauseous.
“Ugh…”
As soon as I fell asleep, I held my mouth by my hand, and endured desperately with spitting. A hasty Fran ran with me and offered me a cleaning bucket.
I wanted to keep crying as I vomited towards the bucket.
There’s no way I can forget that intense sight.
If I could read the book all the time, I might not be able to think about it. But I’m sure it comes to mind in the time I haven’t read it.
The Reino era was flat with 100 yen and 200 yen fundraisers because it was about a distance away from Japan and Africa and had absolutely nothing to do with my daily life. If you just saw it on the TV screen, you’re pathetic, so we talked about it over dinner, and it was quickly forgotten.
But I know my room is connected to an orphanage, and I know there’s an orphan in that condition where I separated the walls, and I can’t live flat.
“Master Mine, how did it go?
Innocent Gil comes running to hear the results. My purple eyes, close to black filled with anticipation, hurt and I lowered my eyes softly.
“I’m sorry, Gil. The Chief Cleric has rejected it.”
“Hey, why not!?
Gil stares at me with a wolf, as he says he cannot believe. Instead of helping the orphan in that state, it was also hard not to live up to Gil’s expectations, and I stood still on the floor and stood up against Gil’s words from now on.
“Gil, refrain.”
“Also, Bakka. You said it was as futile as you’d expect, didn’t you?
Fran and Delia uttered words of restraint against Gill. Gil would have wanted to say something, but he bit his lips off all the time and leaned down just like me.
Delia flaunts her shoulders with a translator’s face as she prepares for my change.
“You caused that situation, and you’re the chief of the temple who disposed most of all of the witches who had children because they couldn’t work, because they were useless. There’s no way the Chief Cleric can do anything.”
“Delia”
“It’s true. A grown belly witch or a witch who just had a child was there to take care of her, but if she got any more, she’d be in trouble, so she was the best disposed of? But I need a grey witch to give flowers when the guests arrive, and I have to replace them when my stomach grows, so I have to leave them extra.”
All the gray witches and apprentice witches left in the orphanage right now as laundry and cleaning jobs are young, and all the good looking ones there, Delia says. Pregnant birthing witches are disposed of, and what is not cute is sold to aristocratic underwork, and only flower candidates are left to spare.
They say that’s the result of leaving the Blue Cleric with the one he needs.
It seems that well-educated gray clerics have sold high to date as an aristocratic side service because men can work long hours without giving birth to pregnancy. But because the number of aristocrats themselves is decreasing, demand is less and they can no longer sell, he says they are now more than witches.
“Doesn’t that mean the orphanage child is the child of a blue cleric? You’re drawing noble blood, aren’t you?
“… I think about half of them do, don’t you? Because so am I.”
Delia said so sayingly.
“Huh? So Delia has magic too?
“If there’s too much difference in magic, it’s hard to have kids. So I’ve heard that all you can have children here are blue clerics and people with very little magic, and you can’t go back to noble society if you have children in the temple.”
And now all that’s left of the temple are blue clerics with low magic powers, he said.
My head and stomach hurt too much to run my own business.
“It’s the temple chief who decides about the temple, so you’d rather be liked by the temple chief than defy him. Now, leave, my lords. Let Master Mine get dressed.”
Waving pappingly and kicking Fran and Gill out, Delia quickly begins to change my clothes.
“Me too! Master Mine doesn’t look like he’s dying better either, you should forget that, right? I was worried, but I can’t do anything.”
Delia says so, but makes me change quickly.
It’s not like I can’t do anything. With all the money invested in Mine Workshop, we should be able to improve it.
But I just can’t decide enough to pour in the funds in fear that the temple chief or clergyman isn’t looking for improvements to the orphanage, that he will be Ami the original tree when the funds run out, and that I have to take full responsibility for the life of the orphanage.
“Lutz! Lutz!
“Mine!?
I cling to Lutz, who picked me up at the gate. As soon as that happened, tears flooded me like I cut a weir. It would be because of my reassurance that my common sense is back where it goes.
Lutz turns his gaze to Fran, today’s transfer clerk, stroking my head like a conditional reflex.
“Fran, what happened?
“I will explain as I advance my legs”
Fran glanced at the gatekeeper just a little bit and began to advance his legs.
Explain what happened to Fran today as he walked through the streets hurrying home.
“I just ask the clergyman. You said you’d give up if you didn’t go through, but Master Mine’s heart seems inseparable.”
“… the little one is dying, it’s tough. But there’s nothing Mine can do, right? Never mind. Forget it.”
For me, who has lived in relative serenity, even if I am poor, that sight is too intense to be broken.
“I wish I could forget, too. If you don’t know, I’m glad. But there’s no way I can forget it, knowing it’s happening beyond the walls of my room.”
When he said so crying, Rutz stopped his legs and peered into my face.
“Mine doesn’t like the tragedy in the orphanage, does he? What do you want me to do?
I think of the sight of today. I opened my mouth thinking about what an orphanage should be like in me.
“… I want those kids to eat a full meal too and grow up. Don’t sleep in that filthy, smelly, peeling straw that’s going to make you sick. At least, I want you to sleep in a beautiful futon.”
“Huh? You can’t eat full, unless you’re rich, can you? Normally, isn’t enough rice for you to move well? I can’t even eat hungry meals at home.”
And Rutz heard my words, and said, Too high. I also remember my life in my own house, haunted by the fact that I was thinking about running an orphanage around the noble life of the temple.
Recently, I forgot because I was eating good food at the temple full of food and I could afford it at home, but even the kids in Lower Town don’t have that many kids who can eat it full. Even Lutz has always had hiccups, and he still loses the meal war with his brothers.
“Oh well. You don’t have to be hungry…”
“Even that meal, it’s weird that Mine’s about to come out, isn’t it? First of all, why don’t you pick your own? You’re hungry, but wait, what are you gonna do?
Since the temple is a special institution, I was totally thinking of it separately from my common sense, but if I aspire to the same level as the children of the lower town, the financial burden will be much lower. You can go to the woods and pick your own food for what you can’t buy.
“Unfortunately, orphans cannot leave the temple”
As Fran was troubled, so I gave an opinion. Orphans are basically trapped in orphanages. Don’t let noblemen touch you with ugliness until the baptismal ceremony. Maybe after the christening ceremony, don’t let the extra knowledge or common sense get in.
Unlike me, who unintentionally pushed in Fran’s opinion, Lutz leaned his neck, barely touching the common sense of the temple.
“Well, who decided that orphans shouldn’t go outside? If they’re treating you like you don’t need them, don’t they make you a big problem where you went to the woods? Even Fran and Gill are outside the temple.”
“Fran and Gill are special because they’re my sidekicks.”
Because I am in the temple through, that send-off is just a job. I am not free to leave with the treatment of the same work as a gray cleric who accompanies a blue cleric to an aristocratic city.
“So why don’t we put everyone else at Mine’s side? That way, we can all go outside, right?
“… Huh?
I blinked again and again at the unexpected suggestion and looked up at Lutz.
“One moment, please. Whatever that is…… We can’t afford to cover everyone’s food and shelter, can we?
“If you want to go out there, you have to buy everyone’s clothes, but the clothes going to the woods are enough for us to buy them cheaply at the old clothes store we use.”
I’ve calculated in my head the cost of cheap old clothes for everyone and the purchase of knives and cages for some to go to the woods. Exactly, there’s no way we can all go to the woods by throwing out all the temple chores, so if we split up the squad and rotate, we should need less tools.
“… cheap old clothes 50-60 and knives and cages for some to go to the woods would be cheaper than three clothes I bought from Frans”
Fran opened her eyes slightly to my words and looked down at the clothes she was wearing. The clothes I bought to serve are fine. It’s not comparable to my everyday clothes I use at home.
“You can take him to the woods, let him pick what he can eat, and let him do his thing himself. An orphanage without money means it’s poor.”
Rutz doesn’t have a body or a lid, but he’s right. You just have to wait to be given, and you can do something about yourself.
“I’ve had Gil and Fran go to Benno’s a couple of times before, so I can put up some side service for you, right?
“… so long”
“Then why don’t you have my side serve and go pick Follin up to the woods?
Lutz sparkled his eyes in my words.
Mine Workshop Orphanage Branch.
“Yes, if we could make the orphanage a branch of Mine Workshop and let them build something to earn their own food support, worst of all, there might be no hungry children left without me”
I’d rather go to the woods, pick up some food, and be able to cook.
Fran has been pinching his mouth hard to say that me and Lutz are discussing how to be efficient and where to start reform.
“I know it’s a very good idea……. but Master Mine. That is something completely different from the way the temple has been done before. The Chief Cleric will be asked if he can be held responsible for that number of people. Is it okay?
Blood draws me away.
Fran is right. I don’t think that a heterogeneous molecule named me suddenly ignores customs and turns around the orphanage to get only good results. Because there will be blue clerics and priests, beginning with the temple chief and clergy chief, and if we are to make money by letting them work in the workshop, they will not all be equal no matter what they think.
“Sorry, Lutz. I’m afraid to be responsible…”
“Bye, Mine. Which is scarier than waiting for an orphan to die without doing anything?
……
I’m scared of both. If I abandon that orphan, I think I’ll be holding the weight of my stomach like I stuffed this lead all the time. But there’s no way I can be responsible for my life.
Lutz clasped his shoulders gently at me, holding him close to his stomach.
“You know, Mine. Don’t think hard, if you can’t try, you just have to stop it.”
“Lutz, you said you should stop… orphans’ lives are at stake, right?
Though I did not think, I gazed at Lutz, but Lutz sounded his nose with hun, as if he were Benno.
“It’s normal for a workshop or a bad selling shop to crumble when you’re out of work, huh? But if we do it in an orphanage, if the workshop crumbles, the employees won’t get lost in the streets, right?
“… where you live is an orphanage, and at least you have God’s grace, don’t you?
“What’s with the fact that Mine has to be responsible when there’s no one to get lost in the streets because the workshop didn’t work? Mostly, when you move the Mine Workshop, I’m here, too, right?
Maybe there are times when I have to be responsible for things. If you let Benno tell you, you might come up with more different opinions about your responsibilities as a workshop manager.
But what would it be?
With Lutz, I was fine, I thought.
I’m scared to do it alone, but if Lutz would be here with me the whole time, it seemed unconditional when I could figure it out.
“Let’s do it together, Mine. You want to help me, don’t you?
“Yeah!”
When I saw me jumping into the hand Lutz offered me, Fran laughed as if he had no choice.
“I will work with you, Master Mine”