The horse cantered into the square before the temple, and Mally came to a halt as Father Gregor rushed out.

“Where’s the rest?” he asked, and Mally looked at him in silence before he swung off the horse and helped Artesia down. She slid down, still weeping quietly, and Mally finally, finally hugged her as she buried her face into their shoulder.

“The Saint needs healing,” Mally said. “There’s a few puncture wounds on her back.”

“Of course. Right away,” Father Gregor said and came forward, pressing his hand to Artesia’s back. “What’s this over the wounds?”

“Mycelium, to stem the bleeding,” Mally replied, and Father Gregor nodded.

“Can you remove it?”

“Yes,” Mally replied, and reached around to let the mycelium sink into their hand. Their hand came away slick with blood as it bubbled out, and Father Gregor pressed his hand to Artesia’s back. A glow emanated, and Artesia hiccuped on a sob as Father Gregor healed her with small, raised scars left in their place.

“What happened?”

“The woman attacked,” Mally said, and swallowed. “The paladins stayed behind with my golems to slow her down.”

“Oh,” the priest said quietly as Lisa, the priest/maid assigned to Artesia, rushed out. Priests were coming running out, sensing something was wrong, and Artesia stubbornly refused to move her head from Mally’s shoulder.

“Send out a search party for the remaining paladins!” Father Gregor called, and Mally rubbed Artesia’s back as she continued to cry into their shoulder. “Call the Imperial guards!”

“Saint, come, let’s get you cleaned up,” Lisa said and gently took Artesia by the cuff, drawing her away.

“You’ve saved the Saint a second time,” Father Gregor said and bowed to Mally. “Thank you, Mally.”

“Was just doing my job,” Mally replied, feeling uncomfortable with the praise when Artesia still got hurt.

“Still. Thanks to you, she didn’t die,” Father Gregor said and shuddered. “I shudder to think of what would have happened if the Saint died at the age of fifteen. She has years to go.”

“Will she be okay?” Mally asked as he watched Lisa lead Artesia away, and Father Gregor smiled gently.

“She’s tougher than she looks,” he said fondly, as if he was talking about a beloved granddaughter, and Mally nodded as an acolyte took Rat. “Will you stay to report on the events that transpired?”

“Yes,” Mally replied and glanced down at Tuna. “It’s late, though, and I need to feed my wolf.”

“We can give her some meat,” Father Gregor said, and Mally nodded. “This way, please.”

He turned and led Mally towards the doors, and Mally followed, Tuna at their heels as always. Rat was led away to be brushed down and fed, and Mally headed up the stairs leading into the temple. They entered into the church, and he led them through a side door into the temple proper.

“Acolyte!” Father Gregor called, and an acolyte paused in the hall. “Please arrange for tea to be sent to Bishop Hayes’ study, and a bowl of raw meat.”

“Yes, Father Gregor,” the acolyte said with a curious look at Mally, and they were hyper aware of the new holes in their shirt they needed to sew up. Fuck. They had already been revealed to Artesia, and it had only been a few weeks. Gods, this was annoying.

Father Gregor led Mally through the halls towards Bishop Gregor’s study, and they entered quietly as Tuna made a beeline for the couch and curled up on the floor in front of it. Mally sat down, and Father Gregor backed out.

“Please wait here. I’ll fetch the bishop,” he said, and then he was gone.

Mally took a moment to gather themself, taking deep, shaky breaths. They had changed the genre. They didn’t know why, or how, but they had changed the genre. And now there were new threats that had never been in the book. It was frustrating for a variety of reasons. They had no way of predicting the future, and they were essentially dead in the water here. In short, they were screwed.

They were now more than aware that they couldn’t avoid Artesia. They could not avoid her, and so they might as well submit themself to the machinations of the plot. How much worse it would get was beyond them, but they assumed it was going to get pretty bad. Oh, well. At least they didn’t have to deal with the ML, too. Edwin was such a stick in the mud.

Daisy was rank D now. She would be catching up to Mally in no time. And then they would party up. Which was kind of exciting, now that Mally was over the annoyance of the plot following them. Mally was now technically rank B, since they had completed the quest, they just needed to officially change their registration. Which meant dungeons were open to them. People used the monsters that festered in the dungeons as gourmet ingredients, which meant they couldn’t just poison them. They would have to use mushroom golems more often. Frustrating, but fine.

They needed to…

The door opened, and Mally looked over as Bishop Hayes stepped inside with an acolyte pushing a cart with tea on it behind him.

“Mally,” he said warmly, and Mally waved.

“Hello, Bishop Hayes,” they said, and he went and sat down across from them as the acolyte served the tea and set down a bowl of meat scraps for Tuna. She climbed to her feet and started eating, thankfully not noisily, and Bishop Hayes poured them two cups of tea.

“So,” he said after a beat, “what happened?”

Mally took a deep breath in, and then began to recount the events of the day. Bishop Hayes was quiet throughout it, contemplative as Mally explained how Artesia cleansed the contamination, but the woman showed up and attempted to kill her. They explained how the paladins were left behind so they could run, and paused, halting, as they reported that they were probably dead.

“Her magic control is… They wouldn’t have been able to get close,” Mally explained gently. “They’re probably all dead. I created golems to protect them, but that would have only bought them a short amount of time.”

“We’ll have to assign her a new unit,” Bishop Hayes said and rubbed his mouth. “Alright. Thank you for explaining, Mally.”

Tuna dropped her massive head in Mally’s lap, and Mally stroked her fur in silence.

“I don’t…” they trailed off. “I don’t think the Saint is going to take it well, when their bodies are brought back.”

“No,” Bishop Hayes said grimly, “she isn’t.”

“I should head back to the guild,” Mally said, because their cup of tea was empty, and stood, and Bishop Hayes stood with them.

“I’ll escort you to the stables,” he said, and right, they took Rat to the stables.

“Thank you,” Mally said quietly, and the bishop glanced down at them as they walked out, Tuna striding beside Mally.

“You are a very accomplished mage for your age,” he said. “You created two golems out of mushrooms?”

“Yes,” they replied. It was easy to make golems after they learned how to make a whole human body. They were far more simple, not nearly as complex.

“Why don’t you think about joining the magic tower?” he asked, and Mally was quiet.

“I’m better suited to action, not research,” they replied, because if they were surrounded by mages, it would be only a matter of time before the fact that they were a practitioner of life and death magic came out. It was an unnecessary risk.

“Mmm. Maybe you’ll mellow out as you grow older,” the bishop said, and Mally rolled out their shoulders.

“It would be a waste of ten years studying the blade,” they replied, and the bishop was quiet.

“Mally,” he said softly. “The Saint… She’s very attached to you.”

“... I know,” Mally said with a sigh, and the bishop pursed his lips.

“I assume you’ve tried to remind her of her position,” he said, and Mally sighed and looked up at the stained glass windows.

“I have,” they replied, “but Artesia marches to the beat of her own music. I can’t do anything about that.”

“I’m worried she’ll do something foolish,” the bishop said, and Mally smiled at him wryly.

“I know she’s only fifteen, but she’ll grow out of me,” Mally said. “She’ll make other friends, and she’ll forget about me.”

“Hm,” the bishop said, and then he tilted. “And what happens if she doesn’t grow beyond you?”

“What are you getting at here?” Mally asked, and the bishop was quiet.

“I just worry for her,” he said quietly. “She doesn’t… understand social standing.”

Mally thought she was Korean and understood social standing very well, she just didn’t care and was tired of living constrained by the rules. But, they didn’t say as much. They were American, and not the expert on Korean culture.

“She’ll grow out of it,” Mally said quietly. “She’ll remember me fondly as a person of her youth, but one day, she won’t have a use for me.”

“You say that like it’s certain,” the bishop said, and Mally looked away.

“Let’s just say I am used to people walking away,” they said softly.

Yeah. They were used to people walking away.

….

Nyx staggered away from the corpse of the paladin. The golems hadn’t gone down without a fight, and she would dearly like to know where the Saint had found such a powerful mage at such a young age.

The clearing stank of blood and viscera. She had spilled open their bellies, ripped them apart, and they were all thoroughly dead.

Failure. She hissed through her teeth in annoyance. That irritating little mage had thwarted her again. First, he killed all of her beloved babies, and then he stole the Saint away on the eve of her victory. Disgusting. Her ribs were broken, and she pressed her hand to her side as she staggered out of the clearing. She needed to lay low, lick her wounds. They would be searching for her. She knew that much. They would be searching for her, and she needed to prepare.

The closest territory to the capital with the most amount of contamination was Aldova County. She would hide there, hide, and wait. It would be only a matter of time before she could strike.

The Saint would not escape again. Of that, she was certain. The Saint would not escape. She would lay a trap, and while security would be tighter, she could brute force her way through it. She had not known a Saint was coming, but she wouldn’t abide it. She would not abide this disrespect, the way the Goddess was laughing at her. She was laughing at her, mocking her for her pain, and the Saint was the symbol of everything wrong with the church. They took it as divine proof that they were in the right. Well, she would take their proof away. She would take away their symbol of hope, their symbol of divine influence. She would make them suffer, and then she would topple the whole church.

The Imperial knights would be headed here soon, trackers, people that could hunt her down and kill her. She reached her horse and swung astride the black mare, her ribs screaming in pain.

Yes, she would go to Aldova County. She would hide. And she would wait. The Saint couldn’t hide in the capital forever.

 

A/N: we're  getting close to the point where my backlog is up so updates will probably be slowing down by a lot.