Previously
Now promoted to Private, Henrietta annoys Corporal Dudery with constant, trivial questions about supplies. Dudery and the 24th squad realize their passive-aggressive ostracization isn't working because Henrietta seems to enjoy the distance.
It happened right as the priest's sermon reached its climax. Henrietta finally learned why the soldiers rarely set foot in this wonderful chapel.
The moment a soldier let out a snore, Ronda's voice abruptly cut off.
A strange tension settled over the chapel, and Priest Ronda parted her lips once more.
“First Wing of the Main God.”
At those words, the dozing soldier jerked as if having a fit and snapped his eyes wide open. But it was already too late.
“Aaargh!”
Something flew through the air and struck the soldier across the head.
Though she couldn't see it, Henrietta, having witnessed such things before, realized that Priest Ronda had summoned the power of the God of Wheat Ears.
That was a shield, wasn't it?
Yet the divine power that priests of the five denominations could manifest was extraordinarily faint. Those capable of channeling a deity's might like Priest Ronda could be counted on one hand, and even the power they managed to summon was negligible. It was hardly potent enough to cause pain to an able-bodied man.
Could she… have struck him with the edge of the shield?
That was only the beginning of the struck soldier's punishment.
“Repeat after me: A sound mind in a sound spirit!”
Called up to the front to assume the push-up position, the soldier bellowed the priest's words right back.
“A sound mind in a sound spirit!”
“A proper attitude makes a steadfast soldier!”
And so it continued—an exhaustive, thoroughly old-fashioned mental re-education typical of a military chaplain.
Under normal circumstances, Corporal Dudery and his squad members would have watched this spectacle with utter disgust. Today, however, they gazed upon the sacrificial lamb with smug satisfaction, stealing discreet glances back toward Private Matyas.
They could hardly wait to see how pale her face would be with fright.
“!”
The sight of her expression struck terror into them all.
Her eyes were shining with boundless awe and devout admiration toward Priest Ronda!
‘She’s a lunatic! A total lunatic!’
The soldiers of the 24th squad trembled in fright. Just then, a fact they had momentarily forgotten resurfaced.
How she had ended up divorced. No, how she had managed to achieve a divorce.
So the rumor that she struck her husband in the groin was true after all!
And another crucial fact.
Private Matyas had only recently been released from prison. A place like prison was known to drive even sane people out of their minds, so Private Matyas being insane was entirely plausible!
Shortly thereafter, Matyas stepped happily out of the chapel holding Ruljo Candy, while the defeated soldiers trudged out behind her, consoling one another.
It was the kind of day that made a man abruptly long for home.
Regardless of her comrades’ despair, Henrietta was on cloud nine. Grinning from ear to ear with the candy in hand, she was descending the chapel steps when she let out an ‘ah’ and stopped in her tracks.
“Corporal Dudery.”
“What?”
“May I go see the priest for a moment?”
“What now! Going back in won't get you any more candy!”
Dudery snapped, irritated that today's plan had gone up in smoke.
“He’s right. She counts them down to the exact piece.”
“Try something clever, and you’ll just get your candy confiscated.”
In fact, Priest Ronda had once stripped an entire squad of their sweets when a new recruit asked for more, telling them to treat it as ‘a valuable lesson in how greed invites ruin.’
“It isn’t for candy; I’d like some counseling. Excuse me, then.”
The squad stood dumbfounded, watching Henrietta walk off with a jaunty spring in her step.
She looked just like a foolish sacrifice happily marching into the lands of darkness.
“Counseling?”
“She probably wants counseling because she's having a hard time dealing with us.”
Soldiers usually sought counseling from the priest when they were struggling mentally. Whether they were terrified of fighting monsters, worn down by the regimentation of military life, or haunted by the faces of fallen comrades.
The priest always listened attentively to the voice of a soldier in distress, and tended to their bodies in place of their troubled minds.
Harsh training is the cure for a weak spirit, she would say. When the body is pushed to its limits, the mind has no time to suffer.
It sounded entirely like quackery, yet it proved so effective that anyone who went through counseling never uttered a complaint again.
“Do you think she’ll even make it out today?”
Well aware of Priest Ronda's dreadful reputation, the squad members chuckled. Corporal Dudery, however, had an uneasy feeling about this.
“Hey.”
“Yes?”
“What do you think happens when you put two crazy people together?”
Asked by Dudery, Miller shook his head without a second thought.
“Beats me.”
“Same here. I can't even picture how it ends.”
Corporal Dudery stared toward the chapel with an anxious gaze.
The wide-open doors looked as ominous as the maw of the void.
***
Priest Ronda was among the top five elites within the Order of the God of Wheat Ears.
She had studied theology, history, and medicine at the academy belonging to the order, earning top marks in all three disciplines.
She had succeeded in manifesting divine power for the first time at age seventeen, becoming the very first person in her teens to distinctly manifest the shield—the sacred emblem of the God of Wheat Ears.
Her father had been the primary influence in her decision to walk the path of a military chaplain, a road fraught with hardship and scant glory, despite virtually having the position of future cardinal reserved for her. More precisely, it was the military chaplain who had saved her severely wounded father on the battlefield.
Priest Ronda understood her duties as a military chaplain to the letter and treated soldiers accordingly.
To soldiers plagued by nightmares, she became a benevolent grandmother granting dreamless sleep; to those struggling to adapt to military life, she became a warmhearted teacher who stripped away any room for idle thoughts.
“Military life is so difficult….”
Such an exemplary priest, Ronda began by listening to Henrietta's troubles with a gentle expression.
“Which part do you find particularly hard?”
“Well….”
Ronda asked, offering her a cup of tea kept in the rectory. Pretending to savor the aroma, Henrietta weighed her words. The tea carried the musty tang unique to aged tea leaves.
“I really want to do well, but things aren’t turning out the way I hoped. There’s so much I don't know, and keeping up with the training is overwhelming. I’ve been working on my physical fitness on my own, but I don’t feel any stronger at all. I’m scared that I’ll end up being useless.”
“What will you do once you become strong?”
“Well… because you have to be strong to survive in the Monster Forest…?”
“And what sort of place is the Monster Forest?”
Stumped by the barrage of questions, Henrietta found herself at a loss for words. She knew plenty about the monsters residing within the Monster Forest, but nothing about the forest itself.
“Uh…. A place where terrifying monsters….”
By that point, Priest Ronda realized Henrietta was an ordinary civilian who didn't know the first thing about the military. This was not a case that could be solved by working her like a dog. She needed to take a patient, different approach.
“Private Matyas, you appear to be of noble birth; why are you serving as an enlisted soldier? Did you not graduate from an academy?”
“Ah. No. I never attended an academy. I enlisted because I had nowhere else to go.”
Henrietta gave a brief summary of her life's tribulations. Calm and simple.
Hearing the story, a trace of pity softened Priest Ronda's sharp gaze. She found Henrietta admirable. Was it not commendable in itself for a divorced noblewoman with nowhere left to turn to choose the military?
“To be sure, the Krakow Division offers good pay and decent soldier welfare. If one is thrifty, the retirement pension is enough for two people to live on without much trouble.”
Letting out a sigh, Priest Ronda continued.
“The Krakow Division does not advance into the depths of the forest. The military’s primary duty is defending against the Stampede, which occurs four times a year.”
“The Stampede…?”
“Twice in spring, twice in autumn. When the monsters from the forest swarm down toward the territory in droves, that is called a Stampede. Truth be told, merely defending against the Stampede takes everything we have, so advancing into the depths is out of the question.”
Seeing Private Matyas's jaw drop, it was clear she truly hadn't received any information. In truth, that was standard. The Krakow Division never officially spoke of the Stampede, as it crushed troop morale.
Yet no matter how hard the higher-ups tried to hide it, anyone would naturally find out after spending a little time in the barracks. Priest Ronda had never met anyone with looser lips than a soldier on night watch. In fact, the officers likely counted on that, turning a blind eye to rumors spreading through word of mouth.
And yet, for her not to know even that until now….
‘She's an outcast.’