Whether Klad had personally sat Jake up, his hand was supporting Jake’s back. Jake, who would normally have said things like “Touching a noble’s body is a grave crime” or “Your willingness to serve me as a servant is commendable, but you don’t need to help with things I can do alone,” kept his mouth tightly shut and stared only at empty space.
With a face like an empty doll.
“He wasn’t originally this kind of human. Why is he like this?”
Klad urged Ainel to answer with an anxious-looking face.
Ainel was flabbergasted in his own way.
‘Master, you weren’t that kind of dragon either.’
He had rushed over in a panic at the urgent voice, thinking a meteor was falling from the sky, but it turned out he’d been summoned just because a human had a dazed expression. It was completely different from the Klad he knew.
However, he couldn’t bring up such talk leaving his anxious master behind. Ainel put his surprise aside and examined Jake’s condition.
A dazed expression as if still dreaming despite having awakened from a long sleep. Ainel waved his hand in front of him, but Jake only twisted his body slightly. He didn’t react much.
“It’s not the influence of demonic energy, is it?”
“That can’t be. If you’re poisoned by demonic energy, your behavior becomes rough instead—there’s no case of sitting dazed like this. However… if demonic energy and the Lord God’s power mixed inside his body, a shock could have occurred due to the collision of two opposing forces.”
“If the Lord God’s power remained in Jake’s body, demonization would have progressed the moment demonic energy seeped in. We have to see that the divine power all seeped into the fragment before that.”
When his name was called, Jake turned to look at Klad. But it was only for a moment. Whether he realized he wasn’t being called, or whether he wasn’t interested, Jake quickly turned his head back toward empty space.
“Then maybe he injured his head?”
At those words, Klad stroked Jake’s head. There wasn’t even a small bump, let alone an external injury, but he couldn’t yet guarantee there were no other injuries.
Perhaps he had flown too high on the way to Audrit. Jake, who was sensitive to even small shocks, might not have endured the pressure difference from the high altitude.
“If he injured his head… will he recover quickly?”
Klad didn’t know well how quickly an injured human recovered. Well, the only humans who had been in front of his eyes until now were almost entirely members of the West family, and he had never cared whether they were sick or not.
And Ainel was equally ignorant about the recovery speed of humans.
“Let’s take him to the temple.”
“No.”
Even knowing that the most effective way to treat a human was a priest’s healing magic, Klad was firm. He couldn’t take Jake there. It would be serious if all events at the temple were reported to the Duke and Jake’s location or condition could be revealed, but what needed more caution than the Duke was the Lord God.
No matter how much the Lord God, as long as he was a god, there were limits to interfering in the human world. The Lord God, who had continuously interfered with Jake under the pretext of bestowing power, lost that right at the point when he stripped away the Hero’s qualification. However, the temple was the Lord God’s land, not the Emperor’s. If Jake set foot in the Lord God’s domain, he would be exposed to the Lord God no matter how much he was at Klad’s side.
Even if the Lord God wasn’t currently interested in Jake, there was no guarantee he would remain so in the future. When a god gets involved, the situation becomes complicated. Klad intended to protect Jake so he wouldn’t be noticed by the gods as much as possible.
“It’s not like the Lord God’s temple is the only temple in the world.”
At such a reaction from Klad, Ainel answered as if fed up.
“There’s no Lord God temple in Audrit. The people here believe in the God of Abundance.”
“Ah. Come to think of it, there was such a god.”
It was a god he’d never heard of until he escaped from the ducal castle. That meant it was a god born during the time he lived disconnected from the world, hiding in the basement of the ducal castle… What great power could a god have whose life was at most only a few hundred years?
“There aren’t many gods who can grant healing abilities to their followers. There’s nothing that can be solved by seeking out some nobody god.”
“Fortunately, the God of Abundance isn’t quite a nobody yet.”
“?”
Not that he wasn’t yet a proper god, and not that he had just escaped being a nobody god. What exactly did “not yet a nobody” mean?
Was he saying the god would become a nobody soon?
He didn’t know why this God of Abundance received such an ambiguous evaluation, but if his followers had healing abilities, he was willing to take Jake to the temple.
“……”
After much consideration, Klad picked Jake up in his arms.
“Guide me, Ainel.”
Jake, who had been blankly staring at empty space all along, grabbed the shoulder of Klad who had picked him up. It seemed to be an unconscious action as the memory of always holding on tight so as not to fall or be thrown off whenever he was at Klad’s side came to mind.
Klad was relieved that Jake showed a pronounced reaction for the first time.
“You once said you’d cut off the West family line, so since you can’t attack directly, did you change your plan to a method of preventing descendants by seducing the only heir?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Aha. It’s not a ‘plan’ but ‘true feelings’?”
“I said it’s not like that.”
Whether Jake’s pain had made him sensitive, there was irritation mixed in Klad’s voice. Sensing that, Ainel immediately stopped teasing.
This was teasing material worth a hundred years. He couldn’t waste this precious opportunity by blowing it when the other party was sensitive.
“How much do I need to donate to this temple to see a priest right away?”
Usually, to receive treatment at a temple, you had to pay treatment fees under the name of ‘donations.’ There was no limit to the donation amount, but the higher the donation amount, the more opportunity you had to see a priest first. Since nobles or wealthy merchants visited the temple even for trivial wounds, the turn of the poor kept getting pushed back and the probability of meeting a priest became lower and lower.
Knowing this, the temple continued the treatment method that was no different from an auction, spouting nonsense that accepting donations allowed the temple to operate without financial worries and gave more people opportunities for treatment.
If they were going to be so obsessed with money, they should rather set prices for each healing magic and take reservations. What kind of god gives only false hope to followers while leaving them to die on the streets with festering wounds?
However, regrettably, the power held by the scumbag Lord God and his followers within the empire was formidable. They forced other temples of gods with healing power to operate in the same way so that ordinary followers wouldn’t defect to other orders, and the empire became a mess.
Klad thought the God of Abundance temple would be the same. Well, there was no way a small temple only a few hundred years old could withstand pressure from the empire’s largest order.
“The God of Abundance temple doesn’t have a system that extorts donations.”
“That’s impossible. A newly created order withstood pressure from the Lord God’s side?”
“It just so happened that when the God of Abundance was making a name, the capital side was in chaos. They probably didn’t have the leisure to interfere here.”
Even if pressure came, the God of Abundance’s side would have completely ignored it.
“A temple’s disposition tends to follow that god, and the God of Abundance is, in his own way… fair to everyone.”
To be a bit more precise, the God of Abundance wasn’t fair but rather didn’t pay attention to any of his followers, but Ainel didn’t explain that far. In this Audrit where most of the territory’s people blindly believed in the God of Abundance, saying bad things about him wasn’t a good choice.
“Then does that mean anyone has to wait their turn to receive treatment?”
“They do take followers who need urgent treatment first, but generally, yes.”
Here, followers who needed urgent treatment probably meant patients so urgent they would soon die if they didn’t receive healing magic right away.
There was no way Jake would be classified as a ‘follower needing urgent treatment.’ At the thought that treatment might be delayed, strength entered the arms holding Jake. Perhaps finding it a bit stifling, Jake’s face frowned slightly.
“A temple that treats all followers without considering donations. I can’t even imagine how many people must be crowding there.”
“Not particularly.”
“No way. If there’s an opportunity, humans are the type to rush to the temple even for a paper cut.”
“That’s only true for the weakling Lord God’s followers. The people here are strangely sturdy. And no matter how many followers crowded there, we don’t need to wait.”
“Why?”
“Because I have the authority to immediately meet anyone affiliated with the God of Abundance temple.”
“You said it was fair to everyone before. How did an exception occur? Did it become known that dragon blood flows in you?”
“It’s not that…”
Ainel scratched his cheek awkwardly.
“It’s because I’m something like the high priest of that temple.”
“Huh.”
High priest? A dragon as high priest?
Even though only about a quarter of dragon blood flowed in him, it was the first time in his life he’d heard of a dragon becoming a believer and worshiping a god.
“What have you been doing to become a high priest when you’re a dragon?”
To Klad’s incredulous question, Ainel answered with a smile.
“Master, what have you been doing that you didn’t even know I’d become a high priest?”
When he put it that way, there was nothing particular to say.
