Witch Monastery

As she spoke, the Mummy lowered her head to look at her own bandage‑wrapped, voluptuous body, then said softly, "Even though I used my homeland’s special necromancy, the nature of being undead doesn’t change."

"Right now, the only things my sense of smell and sense of taste can perceive are the bitterness and stench clinging to this corpse from the moment my body first died, and the acrid tang of the medicines used to keep it ’fresh.’"

"My sense of touch is almost completely gone as well. All that’s left to my soul is endless numbness, and the occasional stab of pain from somewhere in this body."

"I long for death not because I’m especially noble, but simply because I want to escape this agony. I don’t want to go on existing like this, without a shred of dignity."

She spoke calmly, which made Anno’s earlier friendly greeting feel a little awkward, and even Charles couldn’t help scratching his head. This was the first time he’d ever heard what it actually felt like to be undead.

Right on the heels of that, though, Anno found herself flooded with sympathy for the Mummy. "You’ve suffered enough," she said. "As a paladin, I swear that when all of this is over, we’ll grant you peace and release."

Fatima smiled faintly. "Thank you. Hearing that from you eases my heart quite a bit."

Off to the side, as someone who’d once tested positive during the pandemic in his previous life, Charles understood at least a little of her torment.

Remembering that, all this time, he’d only ever planned on using her power for his own ends, a wave of guilt swelled in his chest. He couldn’t help thinking about how he might make it up to her.

He made a silent decision that, in the future, he’d find a way to properly repay her. Drawing a deep breath, he shifted the topic back to serious business. "Speaking of which, madam Fatima, since you’re feeling unusually clear‑headed today, why don’t we talk about Von... well, that Vampire?"

Fatima nodded lightly. "Von Stein, my fiancé’s younger brother. A... self‑indulgent, greedy, utterly useless man who only ever knew how to scheme and cut corners."

At the mention of that Vampire, a distinct note of disgust tinged her voice. "Back then, to satisfy his own selfish desires, he secretly colluded with cultists, plunging huge swaths of our country into misery. Then, when war finally broke out, the upper ranks discovered too late that many regions were already on the brink, and they couldn’t raise enough coin, grain, or soldiers."

She sighed. "The power of the Lord of the Deep Seas wasn’t so overwhelming at the start. If we’d been able to gather a strong force earlier, maybe a lot of things could’ve been salvaged. Of course, it’s far too late to say that now. Everything’s already set in stone. There’s no turning it back."

Charles spoke up, nudging the conversation back on track. "Let’s stick to the point, madam. In your view, now that Von... that Vampire has secretly slipped away, what do you think he’s likely to do next, given his personality?"

Fatima’s expression turned thoughtful, then she said, "From what I know of him, he craves pleasure—and he doesn’t trust any subordinates he can’t control absolutely. So it’s very likely that he’ll find some prosperous, wealthy place, then start turning people there into his thralls, and begin preying on this era..."

She said this, then nodded with certainty. "He’ll definitely do that. Back when the cultists conspired to turn him into a Vampire, his first move was to have those cultists all killed to the last. Then he personally turned all his most trusted subordinates into Vampire Spawn."

"Thinking back on it now, I’d say he’s been living in fear ever since that day. After all, his elder brother was a paladin who hated evil with a passion. That also explains why he eventually insisted on dragging his brother down into undeath as a Death Knight, pulling the entire kingdom into the abyss with him..."

She relived those old memories while analyzing that Vampire’s motivations, but Charles couldn’t care less about that part.

He turned his gaze to the distant horizon. Their ship wasn’t exactly slow, and Liberl Port was already quite close. He could even make out the city’s silhouette.

His brow furrowed. He met Anno’s eyes, and in both of their faces, he saw the same worry.

If that Vampire was hungry for luxury and pleasure, then wasn’t Liberl Port, which stood closest to him and was one of the most prosperous cities in the current material world, the most obvious target?

Was there anywhere that would suit him better than Liberl Port?

Probably not...

That thought landed heavy in both their hearts.

Just then, Fatima seemed disinclined to keep talking about that mood‑killing Vampire. After a moment’s hesitation, she turned back to Charles. "However, there is one more thing I must tell you both."

Anno perked up. "Please, go ahead."

"It’s just that..." She carefully chose her words, doing her best to keep them elegant. "I understand that you and Mr. Charles have your... night‑time needs. I never had the chance to marry before fate overtook me, but I do know about—and understand—such matters."

"It’s only that, might I beg the two of you to keep your voices down at night? Last night, I was trying to rest and recover my strength, but I had to listen to it until the latter half of the night. It was... a bit much."

Anno’s face went scarlet in an instant. "Ah... R‑right. Thank you for the reminder. I... we’ll be more careful from now on..."

"Um... I just remembered something, Charles—let’s head back first!"

Charles’s own expression twisted into acute embarrassment. Hearing Anno say that, he quickly tugged her away with him.

Fatima watched the two of them go, taking in their figures, and felt a little guilty herself. As a former princess, though, she really wasn’t used to yielding and putting up with discomfort just to make life easier for someone else’s nightlife. That wasn’t something she could do.

Anything that bothered her, she’d always speak up about.

On the other side, Anno fled back to the cabin like she was running for her life, cheeks burning. When she confirmed no one was around, she grabbed Charles by the waist and twisted with all her strength. "This is all your fault, I’m mortified!"

Charles bared his teeth in pain, dodging as he tried to defend himself. "How is this my fault? It’s not like I was the one screaming my lungs out..."

He really shouldn’t have said that. The moment the words left his mouth, Anno’s embarrassment flared into fury. She launched a fresh barrage of pinches and smacks, leaving him completely disheveled.

After a good stretch of this little scuffle, the girl finally calmed down, panting slightly. Charles slipped an arm around her shoulders, about to soothe her with something like, "It’s fine, once we’re off the ship it’ll all blow over," but looking at her blazing red face, he couldn’t quite bring himself to say it.

They rested in that quiet closeness for a while. Then, suddenly, Anno lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye. "Something’s not right, sweetheart."

Charles blinked. "Huh?"

"Last night..." She made a vague little gesture, and the color that had just begun to recede from her cheeks rushed back full force. "We finished pretty early, didn’t we?"

"There’s no way it was still going into the latter half of the night... Did she mishear?"

"Or maybe..."

She started turning it over, her brain racing as one idea after another flashed across her mind.

"Are we taking the fall for someone else?" she finally muttered, lips pouting, clearly unhappy. "Charles, besides us, there must’ve been someone else on this ship last night who was being really inconsiderate and making a ton of noise..."

In that instant, Charles went chalk‑white.

He suddenly realized that what Fatima had heard last night wasn’t his and Anno’s lovemaking at all—but Hattie’s unrestrained, shameless moans.

Normally, no one would have the face to bring up something like that. Who could’ve guessed that this ancient Mummy’s brain ran on a completely different track, and she’d just... lay it all out to their faces?

Just great.

Charles felt his vision darken. For a second, he honestly thought he might pass out.

"N‑not necessarily, uh, I mean..." he stammered, scrambling for an excuse. "We didn’t exactly look at the time last night... and more importantly, Fatima doesn’t have a clock in her sarcophagus, either..."

Mid‑sentence, inspiration struck. "Look, she just told us that all she can taste and smell is bitterness, and her body’s prone to those sudden stabs of pain. When you’re suffering like that, time always feels like it’s dragging. Maybe she just misjudged how late it was?"

Anno froze. "Huh? You think so?"

Charles’s heart hammered. He decided to go all‑in. "Why don’t we go ask her?"

Immediately, Anno’s hand pinched his waist again, and she hissed under her breath, "Are you trying to die of embarrassment? I already feel like I can’t show my face to her again as it is. It’s humiliating..."

She ducked her head and whimpered, thumping his chest with her fists. Charles held her, taking the hits as he tried to coax her. "Well... what else can we do? If some of the nuns really do have, uh, certain habits of... self‑comfort, or if there are private relationships between them that we don’t know about... I’m not exactly in any position to police that, am I?"

As he talked it through, his thoughts sharpened. "Even if we did figure it out—that it wasn’t us, but two nuns fooling around together last night—what could we do with that? Publicly clear our names? Then wouldn’t they end up just as mortified as we are?"

Anno quieted, mulling it over—and realized he had a point. "True... Even if we don’t say anything, just investigating what happened last night would expose their secret relationship, and that alone could cause all sorts of trouble..."

She prided herself on being thorough: not everyone held open‑minded views, after all. Most of these girls came from South Harbor District, a pretty backwater place. Their own beliefs—and those of their families—were likely to be quite conservative. It might’ve taken everything they had to break past their upbringing to pursue their lovers. If they were suddenly exposed, they’d be crushed under judgment and pressure from society...

Thinking of that, her heart softened.

Charles felt half the weight in his chest drop away. Striking while the iron was hot, he added one last nudge. "So for their sake, we can’t look into it. Since we’re their leaders, this black pot is ours to carry."

Anno thought for a moment. A few old imperial sayings from Sein flashed through her mind. In the end, she pouted and reluctantly nodded. "Fine. Then today... No, today’s one thing—but we can’t keep taking the blame forever!"

Her eyes lit up with a sharp glint. "Even if we don’t track down who it was, we still need to get everyone together and put the word out. Give a little... hint to that couple, tell them to keep it down at night."

"Charles, you go talk to them, okay? We’ll hold a small impromptu meeting with the battle nuns—call it a discipline reminder!"

Charles’s heart hammered even faster. Looking at how fired up she was, though, he couldn’t find any excuse to refuse. "Uh... yeah, okay. I’ll call them together now..."

He issued the order to assemble all the nuns. The girls had just been relaxing—some were playing dice, others were trying on swimsuits and planning another dip in the sea.

With nothing big on the schedule today, everyone was in high spirits. So when the sudden order came down to form up, the nuns were understandably confused.

Still, they gathered in the main cabin, lining up neatly as they waited curiously for Charles to speak.

Hattie, Theresa, and Nymeria were there too. The first two wore faint smiles; Nymeria stared wide‑eyed at the scene, innocent and baffled.

Anno stood at the front with her lips pursed, still clearly annoyed. She took her place at the very front of the formation, then jabbed Charles in the side with her elbow, signaling him to start and lay everything out.

Charles coughed, braced himself, and stepped to the very front, facing the whole crowd of girls. Under the weight of their stares, he began haltingly, "So, uh, the reason I called everyone together today is that we have a... very important issue that we need to discuss."

"This issue is important because it’s the key step to solving our... other problems. And if we want to solve that key problem, the most important thing is that we really have to grasp... the key point of this key problem..."

The battle nuns were completely lost, glancing at each other in confusion. They couldn’t figure out why the Charles who normally prided himself on being as direct and clear as possible was suddenly wasting words like this.

Anno pinched his arm again, then rose on tiptoe to whisper sharply in his ear. "Get to the point!"

Charles:"Then you tell me how. How am I supposed to hint at what happened without spelling it out and embarrassing everyone, but still make sure they get it?"

Anno pouted. Thinking of the poor girl whose dignity they were trying to shield, her spirits sagged. "Just... figure it out, okay? But hurry up."

Charles drew in a deep breath and continued, "Anyway, this critical issue I’m talking about is our rest."

"I’ve said it before—if you rest well, you can improve faster. If you don’t rest well, everything you do will take twice the effort for half the result. So the key is making sure everyone gets a good rest..."

Anno pinched him again, telling him to move it along. Charles had no choice but to bite the bullet and go straight for it. "Which brings us to today’s main point: we can’t disturb other people’s rest."

"We’ve received a report—don’t go asking who made it—that in the latter half of last night, some people were quietly engaging in... certain recreational activities."

"Now, I’m not saying you can’t meet your own needs. I’m just saying that some people don’t pay enough attention to their surroundings, and the noise they made disturbed other people’s sleep..."

Most of the battle nuns still looked confused. A smaller group—those who’d actually stayed up late last night, since there was nothing to do today—gave him a very different look.

Their eyes all seemed to say the same thing: Priest, what are you talking about? The loudest racket last night was yours. You even went up to the front deck—we all heard you...

Their expressions shifted, going increasingly odd. A weird, heavy atmosphere began to settle over the room. Just then, Nymeria suddenly raised her hand. "I don’t think that happened last night..."

Anno turned to her. "Maybe you just went to bed early and missed it?"

Nymeria scratched her head. "No, I stayed up pretty late—I was going around the dorms handing out snacks. What I mean is, there wasn’t anything noisy going on in any of the battle nun dorms last night..."

Charles hurriedly cut her off. "Since this is the first offense, we’re not going to dig into it this time. But I do want to remind everyone—it’s fine to have your own forms of entertainment, just try not to disturb others’ rest. Got it?"

The nuns exchanged puzzled looks. Then Hattie suddenly spoke up. "We weren’t planning on hunting down who it was anyway. There’s really no need. As long as everyone’s aware, that’s enough. If there’s something to fix, fix it. If not, all the better."

Charles shot the true culprit a vicious glare. If she hadn’t randomly decided she didn’t want to go in the sea last night—and insisted on doing it right on the foredeck—would any of this be happening?

Hattie only covered her mouth and giggled, smiling warmly, utterly free of guilt.

Anno pursed her lips, then muttered under her breath, "We’ll let it slide this time—but there’d better not be a next time. Don’t make other people take the blame for you..."

She sounded a bit wronged herself. Hearing her tone, a few of the sharper nuns suddenly had a lightbulb moment.

Wait. Does that mean last night’s noise... wasn’t Anno’s?

Then who got lucky?

They looked at one another, and those few quick‑witted girls slowly began to nod. "Okay, got it..."

"Loud and clear..."

"Won’t happen again..."

One by one, more and more battle nuns spoke up, signaling that they’d figured out what had really happened last night.

Anno finally relaxed, all her pent‑up resentment finally cleared. Charles watched her expression soften and let out a breath of his own. "Alright, then we’re done here. Dismissed."

For some reason, as he spoke those words, he suddenly felt like a few of the girls in the crowd were looking at him the way starving wolves look at a tender lamb—eyes gleaming with hunger.

He couldn’t help silently praying that the days ahead wouldn’t bring any more... complications.

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