Published: September 6, 2025
I had my room prepared and faced Grethia. She was in the same fourth year as Judith, one year above me. Since Judith's year had formed a unified group when the Academic Improvement Committee was established—acting as a sophomore team—they were closer among themselves compared to the upperclassmen who had been divided into specialized courses from the start. Perhaps because of that, Grethia seemed to subtly hide behind Judith. That timid and hesitant aura was rare among nobles.
Grethia always wore her gray hair braided into three sections down her back. Like Liselotte, her hair was impeccably neat without a single strand out of place. Her attire was plain, as if trying not to stand out. Yet, perhaps because she was well-developed for her age, my gaze involuntarily drifted toward her chest.
“Grethia.”
“Y-yes.”
She stepped forward when called, but as I had heard, she was shy and introverted. Even with a composed expression, her fingers interlaced in front of her trembled slightly.
“I heard from Judith that you want to offer me your name.”
“Yes. Please accept my name.”
“Please tell me why. Grethia, you don’t really need to make a name offering, do you?”
Grethia looked at Matthias and Laurenz with wavering eyes, then lowered her gaze. In a trembling voice, she said,
“…I want a protector.”
“A protector? That is…”
I was about to say that she didn’t need to offer a name, but then I recalled that children of the old Veronica faction, who didn’t make name offerings, were forbidden from entering the close aides. So I fell silent.
“It’s only now that I have the chance.”
Grethia suddenly raised her face and looked at me with a desperate expression. Because of that, I could clearly see her teal eyes.
“It’s only now that I have this chance.”
“Grethia, I’m sorry, but I don’t quite understand.”
When I said that, Grethia pursed her lips and pulled out an eavesdropping prevention magic tool.
“I don’t want others to know much about my family circumstances.”
I glanced at Richarda. My silent question of whether I could use it seemed to be understood. Richarda instructed, “Brynhildr, please check if there’s any problem with the magic tool before handing it to the Lady.”
The close aides, who were nervous about anything I touched, checked for poison or any strange magic circles, and then handed it to me. The checks went smoothly, and I was impressed at how much everyone had gotten used to verifying for poison and the like.
Seeing me hold the eavesdropping prevention magic tool, Grethia spoke up. It was indeed a shocking confession that couldn’t be made without such a tool.
“I am… a child of the temple.”
“Huh?”
“I was told that I was born between a blue shrine maiden and a blue priest at the temple. That’s how I was raised.”
I listened in stunned silence to Grethia’s unexpected background story. It seems this was a tale from before the purges when the temple suffered from a lack of mana, back when there were still many blue priests and shrine maidens. To me, blue priests had always seemed old and lacking in mana, but apparently, there was a time when that was not the case.
During that time, a blue priest of middle-rank noble origin and a blue shrine maiden secretly nurtured their love. Even if they intended to keep it hidden, pregnancy brought the matter to light.
“They cannot marry while at the temple. My birth mother asked to marry after returning to her family home. But being a blue shrine maiden without noble status, her request was dismissed as nonsense. She was immediately taken back to her home and isolated in a detached house to hide the scandal. Since then, I’ve never met my father, the blue priest, even once.”
Grethia was born in that detached house and raised there until her baptism ceremony. I listened as she recounted the grievances her birth mother voiced about how it was freer and happier to be at the temple without being pregnant.
“At the temple, besides support from my family home, there is a subsidy from the lord. When visiting various places for rituals, blue shrine maidens are pampered, given money and goods. Unlike the surveillance by family sent to the detached house, my attendants were gray priests and gray shrine maidens, loyal to my commands. Before I was born, I even had a lover and was very happy.”