Apprentice Shrine Maiden Volume 4

by Miya Kazuki

  Myne’s okay... right...?

  “Tuuli, we’re going to the temple. C’mere.” After some time, Gunther came to get Tuuli. His left arm was covered in what looked like severe burns.

  Her face paled when she saw the black and red discoloration streaking down his forearm. “Dad, what happened to your arm?! Where’s Myne?!”

  “She’s in the temple. Come on.” The cheerful smile Gunther would always have on his face when talking to his daughters was nowhere to be seen; a frown creased his forehead, and his voice came out uncharacteristically flat.

  Effa was behind him, Kamil in her arms. Given that she had only just recently given birth, she wasn’t supposed to be moving around much yet; if she was being called to the temple with everyone else, something had definitely happened to Myne. Sensing that, Lutz looked up at Gunther.

  “Mr. Gunther! I can—”

  “I’ll explain later. Wait here.”

  No matter how close he and Myne were, they weren’t family—that was why Lutz hadn’t been called as well. All he could do was wait at the Gilberta Company, unable to go to the temple by himself.

  “...I’ll either be on the first floor, or at Benno’s place on the second floor.”

  “The first or second floor? Alright.”

  Up until now he had been at Corinna’s place, since Tuuli was scared and he wanted to stay by her side. On his own, however, there was no need for him to be there. As a leherl, he belonged at Benno’s place on the second floor, one floor down.

  ...I’m just gonna be anxious all day if I sit around doing nothing. Might make more sense for me to get some work done.

  Lutz followed Gunther and the others down the stairs to the store on the first floor. As they reached the exit, Gunther suddenly turned around and glared at Otto, who was still holding Renate.

  “Otto, you hurry on back to the gate. Tell the commander a knight ordered me to go to the temple.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Lutz saw Myne’s family off, then went back to the store. Benno and Mark were discussing printing workshops with deadly serious expressions on their faces. There must have been some kind of secret to Myne’s charm—one that would have an enormous impact on these workshops they had planned.

  ...If I don’t hurry up and get to work, I’m gonna be left behind.

  Benno wasn’t even thinking about Lutz when he had heard about Myne’s charm and rushed down the stairs; he hadn’t even called him to his discussion with Mark. He had no choice but to give up on going to the temple, but he wasn’t about to be excluded from the printing workshops too.

  I’m not gonna let them leave me behind!

  Lutz pumped himself up and started working through the Myne Workshop’s profit ledgers. Gil was working hard to learn math, but wasn’t quite good enough to manage by himself. He still needed Lutz to look over his work.

  “Why not just leave all that to the workshop? If they mess up and lose money, that’s on them,” Leon said with a grimace as he peeked over Lutz’s shoulder. He was a leherl being trained as a waiter in the temple who had a considerable amount of experience dealing with workshops and stores, and firmly believed that Lutz was getting too involved in the Myne Workshop. After all, Lutz was looking over their ledgers and doing all sorts of additional work for them—from an outsider perspective, it did seem to be a clear case of favoritism. But Lutz didn’t see it that way at all.

  “The orphanage branch of the Myne Workshop is just a trial run for the new printing workshops that’re gonna be made. I’ve gotta do a good job here.”

  “New workshops? You’re doing that kind of work?” Leon raised his voice in surprise, and Lutz gave a big nod.

  “Unless I get good enough to help Master Benno establish new workshops, he won’t bother to take me to different cities. Messing up with the Myne Workshop a little is no big deal, so he told me to use it as practice. This isn’t actually favoritism at all.”

  “Hm. So they’re just a stepping stone, huh...?”

  Leon wasn’t wrong: unlike the children of merchants, Lutz didn’t have a family store he could practice with. Myne’s workshop was the only place he could use to grow while not having to worry about making mistakes.

  It was when he had finished the paperwork and was waiting for Benno to look it over that balls of light suddenly burst in through the window. They passed right through the glass, then started to spin around the room.

  “Wh-What the?!”

  Benno, Mark, and Lutz all stared wide-eyed as the spinning balls turned to a glimmering dust that rained down on them. Oddly, the light seemed to be avoiding Leon entirely.

  As Lutz stood in place, looking up at the ceiling in a daze, the light gradually faded. Eventually it disappeared completely, as if nothing had happened at all, and a stunned silence fell over the room.

  “...What the heck was that?” Benno asked.

  “I do not know,” Mark replied.

  Leon looked over in bewilderment. “That stuff was definitely avoiding me, right?”

  Lutz looked down at his palm where some of the light had landed. None of it remained, instead having seemingly melted into his body. Everyone blinked in confusion, wondering what had happened and why the dust had avoided Leon, until eventually Gunther and the others returned to the store.

  “Sorry for the wait, Lutz.”

  They all wore dark expressions, and their eyes were puffy from crying. Lutz had assumed they had gone to fetch Myne from the temple, but she was nowhere to be seen. Nervous butterflies fluttered in his stomach. He kept his mouth shut, worried that if he asked where Myne was, he would never be able to go back to how things once were.

  Lutz looked around the room, trying to find something else to talk about, when suddenly his eyes fell on Gunther’s arm. The skin was smooth, the discolored burns from before having vanished entirely.

  “Mr. Gunther, your burns...”

  “It was Myne’s last blessing. Her light dust healed the burns,” Gunther grunted through clenched teeth. Lutz looked at Tuuli and Effa, shocked by Gunther’s choice of words.

  Last blessing?

  Lutz swallowed hard, his body trembling. But before he could ask Gunther what he meant, Mark clapped his hands together.

  “Then I suppose the light dust we just saw was Myne’s blessing as well?”

  “...The light came here too?” Gunther asked, his eyes widening slightly in surprise. Lutz nodded hard, explaining how balls of light had burst into the room then turned into a dust that rained down on everyone except Leon.

  “Seems like the light went to everyone Myne cares about. Pretty strong blessing, too. It’d have to be to cure those burns,” Gunther said with a sad smile. The resignation in his eyes told Lutz everything: it had all ended elsewhere in a place he could never go.

  “...What happened to Myne? Why isn’t she here?”

  “Myne’s gone now. The nobles took her. She’s gone,” Tuuli said, tears streaming down her face and dripping onto the floor. Benno furrowed his brow hard and narrowed his eyes.

  “Gunther, tell me one thing: is the Myne Workshop going to keep running?”

  “Master Benno! Myne’s gone; now’s not the time for that!”

  “Shut up! This is important. If she’s dead, I’ll have to buy the workshop and keep it going. If the nobles took her, I’ll have to do something else. And the sooner I act, the better.”

  Lutz couldn’t understand what Benno was saying, but it seemed Gunther did. “Benno... Do you know?”

  “I’m not sure about the details, but Otto said she stamped that charm with her blood. I know what’ll happen if Myne didn’t die—Aub Ehrenfest will take her. So... what’s the name of the new forewoman?”

  Gunther, glaring at Benno with eyes so cold they froze Lutz’s blood, opened his mouth. “Rozemyne. The daughter of an archnoble. She runs the workshop now. Myne is dead. That’s the story.”

  “‘That’s the story’...?” Lutz was at a loss for words, and Gunther ruffled his hair entirely
like he would do to Myne.

  “Myne became the daughter of an archnoble to protect us. To protect her family. To protect you. For the archduke to be able to adopt her, she needs to be known as the daughter of an archnoble, and that’ll save her life and ours. But in return, we were forbidden through a magic contract to ever treat her like family again. You all are in too deep with Myne. Be careful if you don’t want to get executed.”

  “I appreciate the warning,” Benno said sincerely before letting out a sigh and slumping his shoulders. “Still, I thought we had at least two years to prepare for this. Life sure comes at you fast.”

  “What?! Master Benno! Myne’s gone! An archnoble took her and she can’t see her family as family anymore! What’re you saying?!” Lutz yelled, shocked by Benno’s attitude. But all he got was a cold look from him.

  “Listen up, Lutz. That weirdo didn’t die. She’s gonna keep on living as Rozemyne. You think that weirdo’s gonna change as a person just ’cause she went from being a commoner to an archnoble’s daughter? No! The only thing that’s changed is how much more terrifying her rampages are gonna be now that she has actual authority!” Benno roared.

  Myne’s stomping around was scary enough already, but now that she had the authority of an archnoble, there would be nobody who could stop her.

  “Not to mention, if she’s only changed her name, then Rozemyne is still going to be a partner in the Italian restaurant. The Gilberta Company just finally managed to get some business from mednobles after years of serving laynobles, and now we’re suddenly co-owning a business with an archnoble? If you’ve got the time to be all weepy, get to work instead! Whether her name’s ‘Myne’ or ‘Rozemyne,’ what’s that weirdo gonna want?!”

  A bookworm whose obsession had survived an actual death and reincarnation wouldn’t change her ways just from becoming an archnoble named “Rozemyne.” There was only one thing she would want more than anything else:

  “Books!”

  “That’s right. She’s higher in status now and we’re gonna have to make some changes, but we’re still a business doing trade, and with the archduke’s approval we’re gonna be doing business with Rozemyne whether we like it or not,” Benno said, and all of Myne’s family shot their heads in his direction. “You all might not be able to meet or talk to an archnoble, but we can talk to Rozemyne as business partners. We’ve got paperwork to exchange, and it’ll be more than easy to slip some letters in amid all the papers. I predicted this would happen and already had Lutz and Myne sign a magic contract together; all else fails, we’ll still be able to stay in written contact with her.”

  They couldn’t face Myne and call her their family, but nothing stopped them from writing letters to her. Benno gave a pained grin as he explained that even magic contracts had loopholes.

  “Is that true, Lutz? If I write Myne a letter, will you give it to her for me?” Tuuli asked, pulling Lutz back to his senses. There were still things he could do for Myne. As long as she was alive, it wasn’t too late—he could make books and act as the bridge between her and her family, and with that in mind, he gave a big nod.

  “You can count on me.”

  They left the store together and started on their way home. Myne was, for all intents and purposes, dead to the world; they would have to hold a funeral for her as soon as they got back.

  “Lutz, Myne was killed by the noble that broke into town. Tell that to your family. We’ve got our own preparations to take care of,” Gunther said, his brow tightly furrowed as he looked up at the sky. In a way, that explanation wasn’t dishonest. After all, it was because of the noble who had broken into town that Myne had become a noble herself.

  “Alright.”

  After getting home, Lutz told his parents about Myne’s funeral, and they all hurried to finish their dinner. His parents were the first to rush outside, each wearing black cloth around one arm. Lutz and his brother Ralph followed suit, each wrapping black cloth around one arm to signify that they were involved with the funeral.

  “...Hey, Lutz. Why did Myne die? She was doing better lately, wasn’t she?”

  “Mr. Gunther said a noble killed her. I don’t know anything else since I wasn’t there.”

  Neighbors wearing black cloth wrapped around their arms gathered by the well in the plaza. Normally the corpse would be rested on a board to be carried to the graveyard, but without a corpse they couldn’t do that for Myne. Instead, there was just a tiny box. Inside were Myne’s clothes and the hair stick she usually wore. Nothing else.

  “What’s going on here? Where’s the body?” one of the neighbors asked. Everyone was surprised by the unusual funeral.

  Gunther, who was leading the funeral, grimaced and looked at the ground. There was clear pain in his eyes. “Myne was attacked by a noble from another duchy. They killed her and stole her body.”

  “...That’s, uh... That’s real tragic. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Anything that was stolen by nobles would never come back. Everyone in the neighborhood knew how deep Gunther’s love was for his kids, and how much he doted on Myne despite her sickly nature. They knew without even asking how much it hurt him to not even get her body back, and since nobles were involved, nobody asked him about anything else.

  “It’s a real shame, too. She was finally getting healthy again.”

  The neighbors looked at the wooden box and thought back to how Myne had been during her baptism and Kamil’s birth, and began sharing stories and the like.

  It was said that the door to the land of the dead opened only at dawn, when the God of Darkness and the Goddess of Light met, and that the husband and wife gods would guide the recently deceased there when the morning sun had risen. Those who knew the deceased would share memories and talk all night until the departed had safely moved on, but Myne had barely spent any time with her neighbors, so there wasn’t much for them to say.

  “...Hey, Lutz. You were close with Myne, weren’t you? Say something about her.”

  Lutz thought back over the two and a half years he had spent with Myne. At first, she couldn’t even walk to the gate. She had wanted to make books but didn’t have paper or ink; she had tried weaving grass fibers together, then making clay tablets... Even when she eventually did manage to make paper, there was a lot more she needed to do before she could make a book.

  “Myne would always collapse as soon as she decided to do something, but she always worked hard to get what she wanted. When we first started, she’d get out of breath just walking to the well, but in the end she could walk all the way to the forest on her own.”

  “Oh yeah, that reminds me... She sure did a lot of weird things, like shave wood and mess around with clay.”

  “Didn’t you two boil wood in a pot, Lutz?”

  Fey and his friends who had gone to the woods with Myne started talking about what they remembered her doing there. That must have encouraged Lutz’s family to start talking too.

  “All the recipes Myne thought up tasted great.”

  “Myne learned letters and math while helping Gunther at the gate, and she taught all that to Lutz, too. She was smart.”

  “Oh yeah? I didn’t know about that.”

  After their baptism, Lutz had become an apprentice merchant and Myne an apprentice shrine maiden in the temple, but he didn’t talk about that in public since temple shrine maidens didn’t have a very good reputation. As far as everyone here was concerned, she was just helping out at the gate and doing the paperwork that Lutz brought back from the Gilberta Company. Barely anyone knew what Myne had really been doing since her baptism.

  Myne had founded a workshop in an orphanage, made ink, and then finally made books; became Johann’s patron and had him make metal letter types for her; funded Heidi’s research into colored ink; and after some trial and error with Ingo, finished a printing press. She was amazing.

  And Lutz wanted to tell everyone that, but he couldn’t. He had no idea how much about book-making was safe to talk about.

/>   “Myne was weak and slow to grow,” Effa began, holding Kamil in her arms. “We were always scared that she might not live to see the next day. Tuuli started getting more independent when she was two or three, but it took Myne until she was five. Before then, she would always cry about how unfair it was that only Tuuli was healthy, or how unfair it was that we all got to go outside.” It seemed to hurt her as a mother that Myne hadn’t been born a healthy child.

  That was probably the old Myne, Lutz thought. The Myne he knew would never cry about things being unfair. She worked hard to get stronger on her own terms, and while she often ran in circles, she was always dedicating her all to getting books to read.

  “But once she did stop crying about things being unfair, she started getting mad about things. She’d say ‘I hate this body!’ and start cleaning the house until she broke out in a fever. She’d do weird dances until she fell over, and say eating certain things was good for her body before ending up getting stomach aches,” Effa continued with a small smile.

  ...Now that’s the Myne I know. It was easy for Lutz to remember and visualize all the weird things Myne had done.

  “It was around when she stopped crying and getting mad about things all the time that she started going to the forest with Lutz. She never expected to be the same as normal kids, but she still got strong enough to go outside and join festivals. To think that, after all that, she would be taken away from us like this...”

  Having said their piece, Myne’s family shed tears and offered no more words. But everyone understood: their daughter had finally gotten healthy, only to be killed by an outsider noble who had then stolen her body. It would be a quiet funeral. Under the glow of the dancing fire that lit the plaza, Gunther silently carved a grave marker for Myne out of wood, tears running down his cheeks all the while.

  They waited out the night, taking turns to nap. When second bell rang, the wives began distributing bread and tea; it was forbidden to eat meat before the funeral was over.

  After finishing their simple breakfast, they shouldered the light board and headed to the temple. They needed to report the death, and then collect a medal permitting the burial. When they arrived, the temple gate’s guard let them into the chapel. It was standard for gray priests to handle the deaths of city-goers, but for some reason the High Priest was there this time.