"So… Myne is going to have to become a noble now?" Effa asked, hugging her daughter close.

Shirou had just finished explaining to them the situation while Myne and Tuuli were studying in the other room. After being taught how to use magic energy to hypnotize oneself so that they could rapidly compartmentalize information, the girls were progressing through their studies nicely.

It was a trick that would give them a huge leg up over the local nobility.

"Now that the high nobility have seen her face and know she is associated with Benno, it will be more difficult to leave her as a commoner without having her forcibly adopted or kidnapped." Shirou admitted. "And with people poking their noses around with Myne, Tuuli and Freida will soon be noticed as well."

"I see… how much longer do we have to spend with our daughters?" Effa asked miserably.

"...Just because they will become nobility doesn't mean you won't ever see them again." Shirou said, shocking the parents.

"But, I thought…" Effa was confused, since every story involving nobles taking commoner children never ended well for the families involved.

"All nobles have commoner servants. You following them into the noble district wouldn't be considered odd at all, you'd just have to officially work under them and not make a scene when other nobles are looking." Shirou explained, saying it was no big deal. "Even while at school, you could follow them and stay in the same quarters as them under the excuse of being attendants. It isn't uncommon for retired relatives to follow their younger relatives to the academy as attendants. You would need to be on your best behavior to not insult the other nobles, but as long as you stay in the dormitory, you'd be fine."

"Won't we cause problems though? I mean, isn't reputation everything among the nobility?" Gunther asked, confused.

"You only think that because you've lived in the city all your life. There are nobles who would be snobby about being so closely tied to commoners in the central territory, but if you go to the rural Giebes, commoners and nobility mingling socially is often considered no big deal." Shirou corrected the man. "Given their abilities, it wouldn't be hard for the kids to become land owning nobles, if they wanted, and they would basically make the rules in their own territories as to what is and isn't socially acceptable. Reputation only matters if you are trying to play the political games."

Shirou then thought about it for a bit.

"If anything, disgracing them in the eyes of the nobility and making them less appealing to the higher nobility as wives would be a benefit if you wanted to be left alone." He said after some consideration.

It probably would take more than just a bad reputation though.

Because the highest rank of noble women have attendant noble women who prioritize their Master's over marriage, and because some men of high status have two or three wives, there were actually a lot of noble men who were desperate for a wife, especially among the Archnobles. Probably half of the Archnoble men were currently unmarried, with no unmarried women for them to even try their luck with. Not to mention that those with only one wife would probably want another.

The fact that the nobles of this world don't know how to balance mana when having a child means that only those who have similar mana levels will get married, which causes a lot of problems.

Shirou could introduce the magic circles required to get around that problem, but since he doesn't know what the consequences of that would be, he won't. Not to anyone other than the girls, so that they can marry whomever they please without worrying about mana differences.

"Regardless of what they do, they will need to have some experience with being treated like nobles if they want to enter noble society. So, I'd suggest they work at the Temple as Apprentice Blue Priestesses for a while." Shirou said.

"What!?" Gunther shouted, his face turning red. His recent familiarity with Shirou made him forget that he was a noble, not that Shirou cared. He was glad that the girls' parents had so much trust in him. "The Temple!? You want us to send our girls to the Temple!? Absolutely not!"

"I'm talking about to work, not as orphans. They don't have to live there." Shirou said, trying to calm the man down. "I've worked at the Temple for a while now and don't live there. So it a problem."

"...I see… But why the Temple?" Gunther asked.

"Because Blue Priests and Priestesses are assigned attendants who will wait on them as if they are nobles. The Gray Priests are raised with the intention of someday becoming commoner servants of nobles, so they know etiquette very well. It would be a good test for Myne and Tuuli to see how they would handle being in high society." Shirou explained.

"And they will be allowed to come home every day?" Effa asked, a little worried.

"I was recently reinstated by the Zent as being an Archduke Candidate, so there isn't anyone who could overwrite me at the temple if I say they can leave." Shirou replied.

While the Archbishop was technically the highest rank in the Temple, he wasn't in truth a noble. With his rank reinstated, Shirou could easily boss the man around. Not only that, Shirou was told to investigate the missing chalices by Sylvester.

While finding evidence was impossible, he would use the threat of investigating the other Blue Priests and their families in detail as a means to force them to fall in line.

"When would they start?" Effa asked after her and Gunther debated for a moment.

"We'd need to get robes fitted for them and arrange attendants so… next month?" Shirou suggested.

"Alright, but if anything funny happens, they are out. Got it?" Gunther said.

"Of course." Shirou replied with a nod of his head.

He'd need to go and get the paperwork done before Myne's baptism, because something was going to happen, and he wanted Bezewanst to walk straight into this shit show without having a clue, but without risking the girl's freedom.

He wasn't sure if he should blame Ferdinand or Rin for this sort of plotting, but either way, it was about time he do something about that waste of space.


Today was the big day.

Everyone was gathered at the fountain on the southside of town to cheer on the young children who were about to enter society at the tender age of seven.

Baptism might not have been as big of a deal for Myne as it was for the other children. Forget about being able to finally become a real apprentice craftsman, she had already entered the business world and was a manager of her own workshop. She was even prepared to buy out and absorb her competition for the very first time. She just needed a couple more weeks before they're guilds were poor enough to just fold in front of her.

Even so, she could enjoy the atmosphere, everyone cheering them on.

Myne stood out quite a bit, because of her outfit.

It wasn't that she had spent a lot of money on it. In fact, it was a hand-me-down from her older sister's baptism, it was just a little bit altered.

Because she was so much shorter than Tuuli had been, the white dress that was used in the baptism was too long by about four inches. So in order to shorten it, Myne had suggested folding it to make frills, rather than cutting it shorter. With frills being more flashy and associated with the wealthier merchant class, it made Myne's dress stand out. So did her higher quality hairpin, made by Tuuli with legit magic to make it look more real than real flowers, and her shiny hair and clean skin.

Another thing that made her stand out was the fact that, unlike the other children, she was being carried.

Despite improvements in her health, her father hadn't wanted to risk her collapsing on the way to the temple, so he was carrying her on her special day as she waved to the people who were watching, including Tuuli and their mother, Benno and the people at the shop, several people who now worked directly under her, Freida and her family, and more who she didn't really remember, but who still cheered for her by name for some reason.

The parade lasted until they reached the Temple gate, when Gunther had to set Myne down, since he wasn't permitted to enter with her, and Lutz took up the role of her guide. "You look really cute." The boy said, embarrassed, to which Myne thanked him as they went into the temple with the other children… not really thinking much of it, even though she was holding her hand.

…Poor Lutz.

In Myne's defense, he was seven and she was mentally in her twenties, even if she acted childish. She wasn't a pedophile.

The temple was almost completely clean and white, almost to the point of being an eyesore. It was built with a sort of greek temple vibe, and Myne could definitely feel the holy energy around the place.

After their arrival, the children were all shepherded to a room containing seven statues, arranged with two in the back, one in the middle and four in the front, each holding a different sacred relic, each of which Myne recognized from her training with Shirou, as while not all of them had been practiced with, he had at least shown the kids them.

The staff of the Goddess of Water and the shield of the Goddess of Wind, had both been practiced with for Tuuli and Freida, and they had been allowed to touch the crown of the Goddess of Light and the Cloak of the God of Darkness, though the blessings for those were forbidden to be taught, because of how dangers they were, holding the power to destroy and create. They hadn't touched the spear of the God of Fire, the sword of the God of Life, or the chalice of the Goddess of Earth.

The spear and sword were considered too dangerous for children, and Shirou wasn't really that good at making a replica of the chalice.

It was amazing how detailed Shirou's replicas were. Myne couldn't tell the difference between the real things and the fakes she had seen before.

Before the baptism proper could begin, the children were each made to give blood, pressing it against a metal plate given to them by a Blue Priest. This was supposedly to register the children as citizens, but according to Shirou, it was actually part of a ritual used to execute traitors of the state by having their souls sucked out by the God of Darkness's power… which made Myne a little reluctant, but you couldn't get out of it forever.

Shirou admitted that he severed his connection to his plate a long time ago, to avoid being killed off from a distance. But no one had any reason for wanting to kill Myne, so she'd be safe… right?

She hated having to give blood, and considered just projecting a magic tool so as to get out of it, but after what happened at the Archduke's estate, she had learned her lesson and wouldn't needlessly show off that she could use magic.

After all the kids were registered with a plate, they were taken in front of the statues and another Blue Priest used a magic tool that quieted all of the children's voices, making their talk nothing more than a whisper.

Five months ago, such a magic tool would have seemed amazing to Myne, but now, she was fairly confident she could make such a tool herself, using the anti-eavesdropping tool as a base, inverting it and lowering the frequency, and attaching it to a Feystone using Alteration magic. It would probably only take her around ten or twenty minutes to make at most.

…One of those would be great for her library though. A tool that would make sure that people would have the quiet they need to read in peace.

The probably would be mana consumption and range. It was an expensive magic tool to keep running. But what if instead of having it as a magic tool, you set up a bounded field? By designating the location and circulating the random mana from outside of the boundary you could decrease the cost of maintaining the spell.

She'd have to ask Shirou about this.

It was while Myne was pondering this issue that a man walked up onto the stage in front of the statues of the gods, a man looking like a mall santa dressed in white robes.

Myne was shocked, realizing that this was the first obese person she had seen since her reincarnation, with everyone in the lower district being so active that they easily keep the weight off.

This man was the Archbishop of the Temple, so he was Shirou's boss, of sorts. Myne wondered what he was like, but figured his jolly appearance was deceptive.

The only real thing that Myne knew about the Temple and the people in it was that Shirou called them all idiots and they didn't know any magic. That, and that she was never to go into a room alone with a Blue Priest, and that she was to make sure that Lutz didn't as well.

It seemed that 'priestly indiscretions' were a problem in this world too, only, because of the social status of the Blue Priests, they were no consequences for raping a commoner. In fact, if the commoner resisted, their entire family could be killed for it. Something that seemed to anger Shirou to no end.

The Archbishop started his sermon for the children, the story of the creation of the world, the Supreme God and Goddess and the Five Pillar Gods. It was a story that Myne was very familiar with, as was she with the other 72 lesser gods, as she read every story that Shirou had given her.

The lesson came to an end, with the Archbishop teaching the children how to pray to the gods, which was just the stupidest thing. If Myne hadn't been prepared for everyone to do a Glico pose, she would have probably lost her shit laughing. Even now, seeing it led by a rather fat man in a white robe was extremely comical to her.

She remembered the first time she had seen Tuuli and Freida do it during their blessings training. They hadn't understood what was so funny, but Shirou had smirked as well, saying that it was proof that the Gods had a sense of humor.

Myne did the pose with the rest of them before going down to her knees, her forehead pressed up against the carpet while praying to the Gods, just like everyone else.

Only, as she prayed, she suddenly realized she still had her magic ring on, and that it was rapidly draining her magic energy.

Gasps filled the room as Myne accidentally fired off a powerful blessing, the multicolored light of it filling the room as it traveled up to the statues of the Gods and into the divine instruments, which began to glow as they absorbed the magic power.

Everyone stared at the items and then turned their heads to stare at Myne.

"...Oops."