The next patient I helped inside, Ailya’s heal actually seemed to have been effective in curing him. So after he was treated and we kept him for about half an hour to see that his condition didn’t suddenly deteriorate, we released him to a separate waiting room as the man thanked us profusely before waiting for an evaluation from one of the brothers so that he could go home.

After that, when I went to pick up the next patient, I saw a tall brown haired man wearing the same garb as the priest in the large waiting room.

He was kneeling down next to one of the patients who was waiting and appeared to be praying with him. Finishing just a minute after I had arrived, the man turned to face me and said:

“Ah, you must be one of the new helpers. Thank you very much for your assistance. I’m the head priest here, Bartolommeo.”

“Don’t worry about it, we’re just trying to help. I’m Alex by the way.”

At that moment, one of the old men waiting in line began entered an intense coughing fit. Taking a good look at the old man, I honestly thought that the old man seemed to be half a step through the gates of death. Reacting to the dying old man, Bartolommeo immediately moved to stand next to him as he passed him a purple colored vial that seemed to calm the coughing quite a bit. After that, the two began talking for a bit before Bartolommeo picked the man up, turned to me, and said:

“Let us go to the room to give this man some treatment.”

Nodding to his order, I turned to look at the rest of the people waiting in line. However, much to my surprise, it did not appear as though a single one of them was particularly slighted at having someone cut in front of them.

Once we reached the room, Bartolommeo gently laid the man down before beginning to pray with him, as Ailya and I moved to the other side of the room at his request. Once the two were done praying, Bartolommeo took out a vial containing a green colored liquid before putting it on the old man’s lips. Once this was done, the old man began falling into a deep slumber as both Ailya and I turned to face Bartolommeo with questioning gazes.

Seeing the gazes he was receiving from us, Bartolommeo adopted a wry smile before saying:

“It shames me to show our two volunteers for the day such a sight, but this is often the reality of those who visit us.”

Seeing the confused looks plastered on our faces, Bartolommeo continued as he said:

“There’s a reason most of those waiting there are of an elderly age. They are here for their last rites.”

Hearing his explanation, a sense of enlightenment came over me as I understood why Malvert seemed to be so prepared to die. However, not fully satisfied with that explanation, and thinking about the brother Michael who seemed to genuinely try to cure his patients, a sense of incongruity came over me as I asked:

“But, don’t they come here to be healed? I heard brother Michael genuinely tries to help them.”

“All men fear death. Even after having prepared themselves to soon leave the world, even after all the suffering they’ve gone through, they still hold within them the hope that they’ll be cured. Brother Michael knows this more than anyone from experience. However, for most who come here, a cure is something they won’t find. And they know this. Instead, those who come here are often brought by their families to pass away with the dignity that all men deserve. Not staying at home suffering endlessly, but brought here to confess and receive their last rites, so that they may enter the kingdom of our lady in heaven.”

“I see. But then, why have them all wait outside? Or why not just put them all to sleep after giving them their last rites?”

“That’s because we don’t have the facilities to properly care for them, and we can’t abandon a single life without putting up an attempt. Even if we can’t cure them, or offer them the little medicine we have. We still have to make an attempt to make them better. If I could, I would try to cure them myself, but I’m afraid I have no talent in using magic. Instead, Brother Michael is the only one that can currently offer them treatment. Once it fails, then they are offered the green liquid you saw, and most choose it so that they may pass away in peace.”

“Is it really that hard to get treatment for an illness?”

“I’m afraid it is Miss Alex. Few are capable of performing healing magic that can actually cure a disease, and not a single one is present here anymore after the death of Brother Josep. And the potions that are so often the only reliable option are too expensive for us to obtain and too difficult to produce. Sometimes, we receive some donations from nobles or wealthy merchants when they are feeling generous, or really just trying to pander to the public. But I’m afraid even then we can’t freely use them on everyone since we try to save those for the young who come through our doors. It is hard to see the too often mortified expression of a mother bringing her sick child, so most understand that we can’t just give our potions away to the old unless we believe they can truly benefit from it.”

“I see…”

Making his way to the desk, Bartolommeo saw the scroll laid out and read its contents before saying:

“Looking at the scroll, it appears you’ve already experienced death first hand. Seems you got to Mr. Alvert right as he was about to leave this world. Don’t let his death get to it you two, most come here for spiritual, not physical, salvation.. I’ll now go and give a small prayer for Mr. Malvert, so continue treating those who come here. I can guess that brother Antony did not want to tell you this and inform you of the seemingly hopeless situation. Here, if it doesn’t look like there’s any chance to heal them, give them a small amount of this liquid if they ask for it and move them to the adjacent room two doors down if you can. There, they’ll sleep until our lady decides that it’s time for them to join her.”

“Wait, shouldn’t they receive last rites before they go?”

“Me or one of the brothers always makes a round every half an hour or so, And most of the time someone is always present in the large hall. We always make sure to pray with those who are newly arrived, so that if they pass while waiting, they may go to heaven in peace. So don’t worry about it too much, we just do it again to give them a greater peace of mind.”

“I see…”

After that, Bartolommeo took the old man with him as he took him to another room before making his way to where I had put Malvert. A few minutes after bringing an old lady inside to see Ailya, Antony came back with a short black haired man dressed in brown.

Seeing that the scroll had a fresh new name on it, Antony had an apologetic expression as turned to the new man and introduced him as Michael. He then said that Michael would be working with Ailya from that moment on and teach her a bit about using healing magic. As for me, I was to follow Antony and help out in the production of simple potions.

It was in this manner that Ailya and I spent the next few hours occupied with our own tasks. After receiving a brief explanation as well as demonstration on the subject, I began to help out with the production of potions as Antony guided me along the process.

During my time there helping out, the two of us chatted a bit about life and declining number of people who seemed willing to help others. Antony commended our character saying that it was rare to see someone of our ‘upbringing’ being so charitable. Which brought the question to my mind of what exactly he thought my upbringing to be like, although I decided not to ask him in order to avoid any issues.

Once we were done, the two of us made our way over to where Ailya and Michael were. There, we saw that the line of people waiting for treatment due to disease had completely disappeared. Approaching the two, Michael turned to me excitedly and asked if the two of us had plans to come back again any time soon.

To his question, I responded that although I would be working at the library starting tomorrow, Ailya would be able to offer her assistance and that I could also come to help with potion making after my duties in the library were finished.

During the time we were conversing, Bartolommeo also made an appearance and was genuinely surprised when he learned about Ailya’s skills after both Michael and Antony revealed them to him. After that, Bartolommeo welcomed Ailya with great excitement and told her that she could come here as often as she could, and that he would have some of the other brothers elucidate her on the teachings of the lady as well as train her in light magic and anything else she wanted. As for me, I was also just as welcomed and would be taught about potion and elixir making, being told that a church was one of the few places where such a service could be offered.

Despite the fact that this was a church, at no point did I feel my instincts warn me that something was amiss, or that a great danger was lurking around. The place seemed to be filled with just normal well meaning individuals, and it also offered a great opportunity to increase our skills and pick up new ones.

From what I had seen in games and read in novels, it was almost always better to craft your own equipment and expendables. Not only would it be cheaper to do so, but you would also be able to make more powerful versions of them. It was for this reason that I was excited at the prospect of learning about potion and elixir making. As any opportunity to pick up and increase the tier of skills was greatly welcomed.

Although this would make it seem like my time spent in the library would be wasted instead of spending it in the church, that was not the case at all. One thing I knew about [Veritas], was that I was unable to glean into the nature of something unless I knew about its existence. Also, trying to navigate a world for which I knew basically nothing about was akin to playing minesweeper at the highest difficulty while blindfolded. As a result, it was imperative that I studied as much about the world as possible in as short a time as possible. Less I continued getting myself in troubling situations like the one I had found myself in with Charlotte…

Sighting at the impending doom awaiting us tonight, I hoped that she truly only wanted to talk about something like what [Doppelganger] was and would genuinely leave us alone after her curiosity was satisfied. Thus, seeing the grandfather clock in the room the five us were currently talking in, Ailya and I bid our farewells before making our way back to ‘The Red Swan’.

Although I was feeling slightly nervous due to our upcoming meeting with the witch, I was also feeling quite excited about having a genuine plan of action and seeing a proper path to make progress on our skills become apparent. I already knew that people had difficulty navigating life in their own countries, even decades later after graduating from school. So I knew that the path I had chosen to walk in a new world with its own rules and customs would not be an easy an obvious one, especially since I was just a high school girl with little experience in life.

Despite the hardships and roadblocks faced until now, I was pretty satisfied with how things had turned out for the moment. I had a pretty nice place to stay for at least another 6 days, and the two of us had some sort of occupation that could provide for our livelihoods, no matter how limited the income was, while also giving us the opportunity to improve ourselves. With this jobs being given through the guild, it might not be too long before the two of us would be able to increase our rank and be able to take on higher level quests from the guild and truly begin the path to becoming a Demon Lord.

Talking to Ailya on our way home as passed the time, I discovered that she had managed to take the souls of two others which was less than I had hoped for. However, her [Soul Devourer] ability had increased to the next tier, so I was pretty satisfied with the outcome. One of the things I was aware of was that the souls of old feeble people did not seem to have much substance to them, and while being far better than relying on the souls of insects to level up, it would most likely still take quite a while to increase in level. Another thing I wondered was if people could lose levels as they grew older. However, since we were walking on a not so empty road, I decided not to use [Veritas] to answer my question and simply kept making my way hand-in-hand with Ailya until we finally reached ‘The Red Swan’.

Entering ‘The Red Swan’, we gave our greetings to the seemingly enslaved Dean who was ever present in the foyer of the hotel. Giving us a greeting in return, Dean asked us about our day and where we had been. After telling him that we went to help out at the church and that I would be heading to the library tomorrow, Dean gave a pleasant nod at our answers before waving us off and returning to doing who knows what.

Finally reaching our door, almost two hours before the curfew one-sidedly imposed to us by Charlotte, I inserted the magic key into the door that both unlocked the physical lock closing the door, as well as the magic formation that was the true mechanism that kept others out. Ready to relax for a moment after the rather eventful day, before we were forced to meet with Charlotte, I pushed open the door and-

Standing right on the other side of the door was the witch herself, as her piercing eyes seemed to be trying to find something inside me that I was unaware of. Before either Ailya or I could move our petrified bodies, Charlotte pulled the two of us inside before closing the door. Pushing me into one of the chairs in our room, she leaned into it as her dark green eyes continued to stare intently at me and said:

“Tell me. What’s Alice’s real name? Is it Ailya? And who exactly are her parents? And more importantly, what have you done to her, miss demon?”

Although the content of her questions greatly surprised me, and I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly she had discovered after today, and if she had been following us today by any chance. It was actually an all too familiar feeling that I felt in my mind once more that was the most surprising thing to me. It surprised me, not because it meant that [Veritas] or that something was back, but it surprised me because the pressure was coming from the witch right in front of me this time around. Trying to fight back the pressure I was feeling from Charlotte, I momentarily felt [Veritas] suggesting me to look into the girl in order to understand what she was trying to pull off and have a better opportunity to defend myself.

Despite not having consciously agreed to the suggestion, since I didn’t want to reveal [Veritas], I felt myself using the ability as Charlotte’s glare continued to fill me with an increasing fear. Staring at the girl, I gleaned into her abilities and stats before terror filled my entire being at the ridiculous revelation.

Having into the monster in front of me, I felt as though I would throw up as a feeling of utter dread and hopelessness filled my being. Completely unable to move my petrified body, I saw Charlotte lean into me as though the Grim Reaper was approaching to give me the kiss of death before her mouth opened and she said:

“Tell me my little demon, what did you see just now?”