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“—There once was a hopeless man who asked a notorious womanizer:
‘How do you manage to be so popular with women? What’s your secret?’

The womanizer replied,
‘Well, first, be honest with women. And second, be clever.’

‘What do you mean by being honest?’ the hopeless man asked.

‘It means always keeping your promises.’

That made sense to the hopeless man. Then he asked,
‘And what about being clever?’

The womanizer grinned and said,
‘Don’t make any promises.’ …HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

“Okay, enough of you. The atmosphere is delicate enough as is; you don’t have to try to lighten the mood with your corny jokes.”

With the collar of her shirt in one hand, I forcibly dragged Coppelia—tea wagon and all—away from the especially grief-stricken and regret-heavy group of templar knights and the members of Twinfang of the Snowy Peaks.

“…Lady Clara, isn’t this treatment a bit too cruel? I was merely trying to lighten the mood for everyone.”
“You really think a little joke is going to fix anything? In the end, we let the intruder escape, and now Eliza’s whereabouts are unknown. I don’t have any comforting words to offer the guards who are crushed by guilt over their failure.”
“Is that so~? But isn’t it pointless to dwell on things that are already over? We should focus on moving forward.”

By the time we’d reached the corner of the room—the main reception lobby on the first floor was already starting to gear up for business, and since we couldn’t let the visiting adventurers realize anything unusual had happened last night, all involved parties were currently gathered in the large conference room on the third floor—I released Coppelia, poured myself a cup of tea from the wagon, took a sip to wet my throat, and answered with a sigh:

“That’s logically sound, but people don’t work that way, especially not in this case. We lost track of Eighette—no, I mean Maria Lou—who took my form and infiltrated the VIP room. Because of that, Eliza was abducted, and then the enemy exploited the resulting confusion to escape. No wonder the guards are overcome with guilt.”

I never would have imagined that, on her way out, she’d go after Eliza too.

Right now, the church and the city guards have set up a perimeter, but we haven’t received any encouraging reports.

“…If there’s anything optimistic to be taken from this, it’s that she was abducted without being harmed on the spot. That gives me hope she’s not in immediate danger… at least, I want to believe so.”
“Exactly! Let’s stay positive! Thanks to some nobody faceplanting all on their own, Lady Clara, you have now become the top shrine maiden of the Church with nothing standing in your way! You should be skipping for joy!”
“Stop shouting such ominous and inappropriate things, would you! Besides, I’ve never thought of my position in the Church or as a shrine maiden as anything more than a matter of convenience. I’ve always believed that someone like Eliza, who’s genuinely motivated, should be the one leading from the front.”

The truth is, the fact that I’m called ‘Clara’ and working as a high shrine maiden here in the first place is… fundamentally wrong.

It all started around eight months ago—¹

After we had somehow recovered from our wounds, we began trying various methods to find a way back to our original time. This included sneaking into Professor Victor’s alchemy workshop (with Coppelia, who knew the place inside out, guiding us through a teleportation circle that also served as an emergency exit). Of course, I made sure the circle couldn’t be activated without me. And after all our efforts, we finally arrived at the conclusion that it wasn’t spatial magic we needed, but a tier above that—temporal magic.

“That kind of thing is mythical! There’s no way we can pull that off!!” Faced with that revelation, I couldn’t help but hold my head in my hands.

“Jill, you could probably pull it off without breaking a sweat, though.” Said Cestlavie, placing completely unreasonable expectations on me.

“I’m sure you’ll manage just fine, Lady Clara. Just give it about thirty years of training!” Coppelia added cheerfully.

“That’s completely meaningless, isn’t it!?”

Training for thirty years just to return to a time thirty years in the future? That’s more absurd and grueling than tunneling the Ao-no-Domon²!

“Then I guess we’ll need a different approach. Oh, right—there was that time Master Victor accidentally summoned a spirit of time. If we can make good use of that spirit, we might be able to return to our original era.”

Following Coppelia’s words, clinging to even the slimmest hope, we made our way to the headquarters of the Saintess Church—where, according to her, the summoned time spirit had been left unattended. Somehow, I ended up getting swept along by circumstances and was installed as a shrine maiden… but even now, we haven’t found any solid leads.

Apparently, spirits of time naturally dwell in rifts between dimensions, and the number of mages or witches throughout history who’ve managed to summon one can be counted on a single hand.

“Why would anyone leave behind something that rare!? I hate to say it, but please develop some awareness that your sloppy management habits are causing massive trouble for everyone around you, every single time!”

I’m aware that I was half just taking my frustration out on her, but at the time, I couldn’t help scolding Coppelia like that.

Her rebuttal, however, was rather lacking in substance.

“Well~ yeah, that spirit is definitely rare, but it’s the kind of thing you show off, not something you actually use, y’know?”

“???”

And just as that unresolved issue lingered on, another headache-inducing problem came to entangle itself in the mess. It never ends.

“Come to think of it—this might be late to mention—but Maria Lou managed to transform into me with uncanny precision. Even Eliza and everyone else in the VIP room were completely fooled.”

“Seems like it. Well, I could spot the difference instantly, of course.”

Coppelia puffed out her chest with pride. Sure, she did instantly identify Maria Lou’s true identity, so her sensors are undeniably overpowered… but the fact that they’re never properly utilized makes me wonder if the issue isn’t with the hardware, but the software?

“According to Father Lawrence, it wasn’t any sort of illusion magic—so she really did alter her appearance. Which means that aside from her ‘Talent Eater’ power, she must also have a unique ability for transformation?”

Normally, the rule is that a person can only have one unique ability. But as an “artificial saint” created by the Church’s secret society, maybe she’s exempt from that limitation… or so I thought.

“Nope, I think both of those powers probably stem from the same single ability.”

Coppelia shut me down without hesitation.

But even if she says they’re the same ability… “Talent Eater” and “Transformation” feel like they’re pointing in completely different directions.

“Are there really powers like that…?”

“There sure are. Actually, all the artificial saints are equipped with the same core ability. —To be precise, it’s the ability of Reincarnation.”

That unexpected—and eerily familiar—word made me tilt my head in confusion.

“Lady Clara, come to think of it—we don’t use furigana in the main text, but I still think it’s kind of questionable to pronounce 『転生 (Reincarnation)』 as tensei. Technically, the correct reading is tenshō.”

“…Really? Isn’t tensei the more common reading?”

“The term technically originates from the 輪廻転生 Rinne Tenshō concept, so the accurate reading is tenshō.”

Cue smug face.

“Ehhh? Uhh, according to good ol’ Google-sensei… looks like either reading is acceptable?”

“Hmph, that kind of attitude—‘it’s fine just because the majority does it’—is exactly like jumping down a cliff just because everyone else is. And I’m telling you, if Yamada (beep)taro-sensei heard this, he’d scoff through his nose!”

…There was an even more dangerous topic that followed after this, but I’ll skip it—because I value my life.

Translator’s Note:

輪廻転生 (Rinne Tensho) is the circle of transmigration, or how all things being in flux of through the endless circle of birth, death, and rebirth.

1. Syl: oh… NOW we’re finally going to explain how this all came about, ARE we?
2. Mab: The Ao-no-domon is a legendary story about a monk from the Edo period, Zenkai, who spent 30 years digging a tunnel into the rock wall in an attempt to make the dangerous chain ferry across Yabakei a safer route. The area is also famous as the setting for Kan Kikuchi’s novel, “Beyond Gratitude and Revenge.”

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