by Funa
Goddess Incarnate
I
t was several days after the incident in the classroom, and Adele was busy at her job at the bakery.
Due to the nature of the business, the bakery was open even on rest days, but sales on these days were a fair bit less than during the week. This was to be expected. Most people used rest days to relax, and even working mothers stayed home, preparing all three of the day’s meals. Naturally, there weren’t many people who came in to purchase bread on their lunch breaks. Besides, not everyone needed bread to begin with. Many people baked their own, after all.
Nevertheless, the baker was the ally of the single person and the tired housewife. For the sake of the small segment of the population who needed bread, he opened his shop.
And as it happened, this whole problem of selling less bread on rest days was now a thing of the past.
Ever since Adele had started working, rest day sales began to increase, and now the bakery often sold as much bread on rest days as on weekdays.
Why was that?
“U-um, I’d like these ones please!” An apprentice from a nearby shop, a red-cheeked boy of fourteen or fifteen years, pointed at several pieces of bread.
“That comes to two half-silvers and three copper.”
Adele smiled as she loaded the bread into the boy’s basket and made change for the three half-silver pieces. As she handed him the coins, the boy’s hand jerked, his fingers trembling.
“Thanks very much!” she said.
“U-um, I was wondering… Are you free after the shop closes?” the boy asked.
“Sorry, but when we close, I have to hurry back, or I won’t make it in time for dinner. I don’t have the money to buy my own food. Besides, the school gates close early, and since the matron was kind enough to allow me to work here, I can’t risk breaking curfew…”
“I-I see…” The apprentice boy, who had painstakingly worked up the courage to ask Adele out, let his head hang in disappointment.
“Please come again!” she said.
“Y-yes, I’ll be back!”
The boy headed home, his cheeks still burning at the memory of Adele’s smile.
Adele was a good-looking girl, with a politeness born of her memories of Japanese hospitality. By this world’s standards, she was so incredibly considerate that it was no surprise young boys often mistook her good manners for genuine interest.
Furthermore, Eckland Academy—though inferior compared to Ardleigh—was, from a commoner’s perspective, a highly prestigious institution. Seeing Adele standing behind the counter of the bakery in her school uniform, most assumed that she must be an extremely gifted commoner, one who had been admitted to the school on scholarship. And as a commoner, boys assumed she just might be within their reach.
There she was, right in front of them: an intelligent, good-looking girl who would probably be able to make good money in the future. And to top it all off, she always had a smile to spare. There wasn’t a boy around whose heart wouldn’t leap.
A good many young men began appearing to purchase bread for their rest day meals, as well as the next day’s share. Oddly, they never seemed to pay with exact change. In fact, it seemed that they always made sure to purchase items that would leave their total at an odd number and paid with coins that were too large—for if they did, the chance that their fingers might brush Adele’s was doubled.
“Hee hee hee. You really are a wicked girl, Miss Adele…” A little old lady from the neighborhood teased her after the apprentice boy left.
“No, Granny! What are you saying?”
In her previous life, Adele had few if any fond memories of her grandparents, but in this life she got along well with the elderly.
The little old lady’s husband chimed in. “Now, now, she’s right indeed! You keep that up and you’ll have your own shop and a man to support you in no time.”
“Not you too, Grandpa!” Adele protested.
The elders of the neighborhood had also been dropping by the bakery on rest days.
With their children grown up and away from home, they were drawn to Adele’s youth, and she was happy to talk to them. They were a nice change of pace from her many would-be suitors, after all.
When it came to work, there was really only one thing she was unhappy about.
Lately, the shop had been so busy that they were selling out of most of their bread by the end of the day, which meant that there was very little for her to take home in the evening.
***
On this day, after finishing her duties, Adele headed back toward the dorms, only to suddenly find her path blocked by a flock of people.
“Um, excuse me. Is there something going on?” she asked.
An old lady Adele recognized from the shop explained. “Oh yes! The third princess’s carriage is coming through! Everyone’s hoping to catch a glimpse of her. They say if we’re lucky, she might even stop and open her window to wave.”
The third princess almost never left the palace, so there were few who had seen her.
Why not? Adele thought. It wasn’t every day you saw a princess. She might as well try to catch a glimpse of her. There should still be plenty of time.
Adele took advantage of her short stature to slip through the gaps in the crowd, until she had made it all the way to the front.
A few moments later, a group appeared on the opposite side of the main road.
At the front were four soldiers with swords at their hips and spears in their hands. Behind them were three soldiers on horseback, carrying lances. Following them was a gorgeous horse-drawn carriage, flanked at the back by more cavalry and foot soldiers.
Due to the narrow city streets, the princess’s carriage was unable to move quickly, and the foot soldiers had likely been stationed as a sort of perimeter to deal swiftly with thieves or attackers.
The carriage and its guards approached, and just as the first soldier passed in front of Adele, a young boy of five or six was thrust into the road by the crowd’s jostling.
“Impertinent brat!” The guard raised his spear and struck the child away with the blunt stone head.
The blow landed on the boy’s gut, and he was struck senseless, tumbling to the ground, unable to speak or move. Yet he had been flung forward into the path of the carriage, and to shove him aside, the soldier struck the boy once more.
He’s going to die!
By the time Adele realized what she was doing, her body was already moving, jumping out of the crowd and flying toward the fallen boy.
It felt like déjà vu…
It was just like before, wasn’t it? Would she die a second time?
Yet she didn’t stop moving, and as she threw herself over the boy’s body, a thought rang out in her mind. Lattice power, barrier!
A translucent wall appeared in the air, deflecting the soldier’s heavy spear just before it struck Adele.
Shing!
This was lattice energy, the cohesive force that bound atoms, molecules, and ions into a grid when a matter changed from a gas to a solid.
As she cast her mind about for something to protect her, Adele remembered the barriers she had seen in anime; however, just watching the shows gave her very little idea as to the principles behind the kind of protection she was trying to manifest. If she could imagine it concretely, then the nanomachines would be able to manifest it for her somehow or other, but even as she tried to conjure an appropriate image, it occurred to Adele that her knowledge of defensive energy was sparse. Instead, another term popped into her head: “lattice energy,” something she had read about it in a book once, in her previous life.
Lattices. Cohesive force. It sounded like something that could form a shield.
While she didn’t fully comprehend the meaning of these terms, Adele’s instincts sensed that they might be able to help her.
Indeed, using this notion of a lattice, Adele formed a dazzling image, a barrier that, when it appeared, was not a smooth, solid hemisphere, but a
surface of what appeared to be innumerable connected glass plates.
“Wh…?”
Startled, the soldier raised his spear again and again to strike through the barrier. However, it did not crack.
“Move!”
At some point one of the mounted cavalrymen had descended from his horse. Now, he was approaching.
From his appearance and demeanor, it was clear that he was of a higher rank than the foot soldiers. He had been on horseback, so he was probably a knight…
He brandished his own spear, swinging it full force, with the point of his blade pointing straight at Adele.
Shing!
“Impossible!”
Oh God oh God oh God!
Adele was panicking.
As if getting into a scuffle with the royal guards wasn’t bad enough, now there was the issue of this lattice barrier, which had formed from her instinct to survive.
To the best of Adele’s knowledge, magic like this was unheard of in this world.
There was magic that could be used to dissipate other magic in a duel between magic users. There was also magic that could raise the earth to act as a shield against swords or spears or arrows. There was protection magic that drew on wind and water. However, even in books and legends, there was no such thing as magic that could shield one against physical attacks without the use of another one of the elements.
Anyone who could conjure such magic would be invincible in battle. With your enemy unable to strike, you could launch a one-sided assault.
They were definitely going to take her to the palace, where, Adele suddenly realized, she would probably be executed for attempting to assassinate the third princess.
This was very bad. She had performed unthinkable magic in broad daylight and inadvertently threatened the princess’s life! This was a double whammy. What could she do?
While still covering the boy, Adele wracked her brain desperately, trying to devise some plan. However, panic began to cloud her brain. She was fresh out of ideas.
“Wh-what are you, fiend?! Are you a monster or a demon?!” the guards shouted, fear on their faces as they edged away from Adele’s shield.
…A demon? Like an evil spirit? Wait a minute!
At this flash of brilliance, Adele dispelled the barrier.
With a sound like shattering glass, the lattice exploded into shards, which dissipated into thin air. There was no danger in dropping her shield now. Even if one of the soldiers attempted an attack, Adele was confident that she could grab a spear in time to stop it.
She stood slowly and turned to the soldiers, her expression blank.
“What impudence is this, to visit harm upon an avatar of the divine?!” she said.
“Huh?”
“How dare you attempt to cause injury to my vessel?!”
“Huh?”
Uncertain as to what was unfolding before them, the assembled crowd of soldiers and onlookers appeared taken aback.
The knight was enraged at Adele’s sudden hubris.
“Y-you’re speaking nonsense! Oi, you lot—seize her!”
At the knight’s command, the soldiers approached Adele with some trepidation.
“Lightning! Visit your wrath upon these fools who dare to raise their blades against a god!”
KABOOM!
Four lightning bolts crashed down, striking the tips of the soldier’s spears.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaahh!!”
The soldiers dropped their spears in agony, falling on their behinds.
“Wh-what just…”
It had not been flame magic. It was honest-to-goodness lightning, straight from the heavens.
It was a power unlike magic at all.
“Was that…the power of God…?”
The soldiers huddled in fright. Suddenly, they were no longer soldiers who fought for a living—they were human lightning rods.
What had really happened was that Adele had gathered negative electrical charges below the clouds and positive charges above, inducing a lightning strike by drawing the positive charges to the tips of the soldiers’ spears.
She had collected a low, secondary current that ran from the spear handles to the ground, so as to form an insulating membrane around the soldier’s hands and not accidentally shock the life out of them.
Next, she began a silent spell.
Refract and diffuse the light! Gather moisture into ice! Neutralize gravity and maintain formation…
Adele solidified the image in her mind and released her creation in a wave.
Shining particles of light began to float and swirl around Adele’s body and ice crystals gathered at her back.
“It’s… a goddess…” the knight whispered weakly.
Indeed, a young girl now stood before the soldiers, her body bathed in light and platinum wings sprouting from her back.
“What divine punishment shall I visit upon you? Shall I level your palace? Or shall I eradicate the nobles, the royals, and the soldiers as well? Better yet, perhaps the entire Kingdom…”
“Please wait!”
A girl flew out from the ostentatious carriage and ran desperately toward Adele, pushing past the two knights at the door.
She was golden-haired, fourteen or fifteen years of age—undoubtedly, this was the third princess.
When she reached the knight’s side, she fell to her knees, her head bowed.
“Oh, Goddess, please forgive them! This carriage before you is mine. So please, level all your punishments at me and spare the others!”
“Y-your highness, what are you doing? As captain of the guard, this is my responsibility. I should be the one to take the fall! Your highness is entirely innocent.”
“No! It is only natural that the person in the highest position should take the punishment, is it not?!”
Hmm, Adele thought. Rather than fighting to pin the blame on each other, these two were scrambling to take it. Perhaps they weren’t such bad people, after all…
The crowd was beginning to grow restless, and Adele’s original purpose had been simply to distract everyone for long enough to save the boy. She needed this over with.
She was already treating the boy’s wounds with silent healing magic. She made certain to ensure that any injuries to his bones or internal organs were healed, and there was no damage or internal bleeding around his skull.
“Silence! I detest such blabbering! Very well. Thanks to the generosity of your princess, I shall spare this place. However, I’ll show no such kindness next time. Do you understand?!”
“We understand! We offer the utmost gratitude for your forgiveness.”
What a humble speech from a princess!
If Adele was found out, she would most certainly be beheaded.
It was time for the finishing touch.
Adele turned and faced the soldier who had struck the boy. The man was still on the ground.
“You there. I understand that you thought merely to fulfill your duties, but you were foolish and rash. The blood you would have spilled would have been on the Princess’s hands! Would you wish for a rumor to spread throughout the lands that this country’s third princess was a cruel tyrant who murdered children standing in the way of her carriage? Could you live with that on your shoulders?”
At these words, the soldier was overwhelmed with the gravity of what he had nearly done.
“And now, I must depart,” Adele said, then added, “But just one thing before I do! This vessel I am inhabiting knows not of my presence. You must not speak of it to her. Understood?! You must never speak of this incident to anyone!”
Everyone, the crowd and soldiers alike, gazed intently at Adele.
They nodded emphatically, faces pale.
“M-my Goddess, I have a favor to ask!” the captain of the guards said.
“What is it?”
“At the very least, permit me to speak of this to the king…”
For some time, Adele mulled over this request from the captain of the guards, before final
ly nodding slowly.
With so many soldiers aware of the incident, it would be unthinkable not to tell their king.
“I suppose I must. You may. However, you may speak only to the king and no one else. This must be kept secret from the other nobles.”
“Y-yes. Yes, we will be sure.”
Just then, a bright idea popped into Adele’s head.
She turned to the captain of the guards, making something of a troubled face.
“Hmm. This girl—my vessel. She is impoverished and somewhat lacking in nutrition. Perhaps you will spare her a bit from your coin purse? Call it a ‘commendation for her bravery,’ or whatever you will.”
“Ah! Yes, of course, your Greatness!”
The captain’s reply was immediate. He could not possibly refuse.
Excellent, Adele thought. The captain’s money would be some consolation. Now, to end this charade!
Keeping her face stern, Adele fanned her hands over the boy.
“Light of healing, ease his wounds!”
The boy’s body was surrounded by particles of light—though this, of course, was just for show, as his wounds had already been mended.
Once the light and brilliant wings vanished, Adele returned to her position on top of the boy, where she had been when the shield had first risen.
“Hmm, yes, I believe it was just here. Now, each and every one of you had better keep your promises!”
Taking one last look over the nodding soldiers and the crowd, Adele closed her eyes, then opened them, blinking to feign shock.
“H-huh? What? I’m not hurt? What happened to the soldier with the spear?”
She looked around as she spoke.
Apparently, her acting skills had improved somewhat over the past year.
“Mmm… Huh? Who are you, miss?”
The boy had finally awoken. Thanks to the magic, he showed not even the slightest sign of pain.
The crowds who witnessed the scene muttered among themselves, but they didn’t want to risk saying something careless.
The captain of the guards called out. “U-um… No, uh, you there! Girl!”
“Hmm? Do you mean me?” Adele clasped both hands under her chin conspicuously, her eyes wide.
This time, at least, her surprise was artificial.