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The church in this village was incomparably small compared to the World Tree religion’s temples. However, it wouldn’t lose out to them in how durable it looked. The outer walls built with sturdy stone blocks wouldn’t break without a significant something.

Lyell could easily destroy them though.

“Well then, I will take Fina inside to perform the baptism, so the rest of you wait outside.”

During the baptism ceremony, the ritualist first performed the admonitory speech to the participants in front of the church, and then they would step inside into the magic circle. By doing that, the Gift you held would surface in your mind, but this time Fina was the only three-year-old around, so the ceremony was done quite roughly.

This was perhaps also because the ritualist, Ashella, had such a messy personality.

“I trust Maria’s education, so I will skip the admonitory speech.”
“Is that really okay?”
“It is. Even you don’t remember the speech you were given back then, right?”
“Now that you mention it…”

During my time, Maria did the annual admonitory speech, but it was a really blank topic, so I barely remembered anything. Maria herself said that they didn’t say anything different from every other year, which would be an improper thing to say for a clergyman. But that meant that this thing was only that important.

“Fina. If you like to hear it, you can ask Maria later, okay?”
“Okaay!”
“Hey, you’re dumping it on me?!”

Fina raised her hands and adorably answered Ashella’s carefree words. Hearing that, Maria’s expression turned unusually weary. Her face was clearly saying, don’t push such bothersome things at me.

Ashella was naturally not one to be perturbed by that. She just took Fina’s hand while feigning ignorance and headed inside the church.

“It’s rare to see you get cornered by someone, Maria.”
“I’ve always been bad at dealing with her. She’s not a bad person. Rather, she’s a leader that deserves respect, but…”
“I had been bad at dealing with her too.”
“Why are you using the past tense? Isn’t it like that even now?”

She was quite a rare person for both Maria and Lyell to be bad at dealing with her.

Thinking about it, she was a top-class existence in both influence and magic skills. Maria was both a Six Hero and a Saint, but in terms of actual standing, she was just a diocesan administrator, so Ashella’s standing was above her.

Maria and Lyell started grumbling about Ashella to waste the time waiting for Fina to come out. However, it was taking quite a while. It ended much faster during my time.

Lyell, being a doting parent, felt the same so his legs started to shake and he pressed a question to Maria.

“Hey, isn’t it taking too long? Maybe there’s some trouble…”
“What kind of trouble could occur during the Gift appraisal?”
“But wasn’t it faster during my time?”
“You calm down too, Nicole. Ashella is with her, so there’s nothing to worry about. Her strength is outstanding even if she looks like that.”
“Well, I know that.”
“It’s said that if I wasn’t around she would’ve come forward to join the Six Heroes instead, you know?”
“Please save me from that.”
“Huh?”

I was scared just to imagine Ashella coming along on the Evil Dragon subjugation. An innocent person, in a sense, like her would’ve caused disorder without any malice, and conspired with Maxwell to pull off pranks and throw our party into chaos.

As one of the people concerned, I wanted no part of that.

Still, Lyell’s worry wasn’t unfounded, and mere appraisal shouldn’t have taken so long. About ten minutes passed as the two of us nervously stared at the church door. Then it finally opened and the two came out.

“Wow, I never could’ve guessed. Fina ended up receiving an oracle.”
“Oracle?!”

An oracle was when a god directly talked to the believer. The period differed from person to person, but apparently, when it happened you ended up standing still dazed. In Fina’s case, her oracle seems to have been quite a lengthy one and it took this much time.

“Then… uhh, what kind of oracle did she receive? More importantly, is she alright?”

Maria was also quite excited since it was a rare occurrence. Incidentally, a god visited me directly quite often, so I didn’t consider oracles that fascinating.

“Yes, I’m okay. Um, there was this girl in white that said, I will give you this power because you will need it in the future.”
“A god bestowed a Gift directly?!”

Maria exclaimed in bewilderment, but I felt my strength leaving me. So it was you, Whitey.

“Yup. And we played in the field of flowers!”
“Is that so?”

So that’s why it took so long. She sure made us worry for no reason. It appeared that what was about ten minutes long for us, for Fina it lasted for about an hour. After her consciousness left her, she played her fill in the illusionary space.

I could only muster an empty reply to Fina’s carefree words.

“So, what Gift did you receive?”
“About that. Given the situation, I was thinking about asking her, but since it involves a Gift, it’s better for the parents to confirm it. So I’ll step away for a bit and confirm it in the meantime.”
“True. You have various bonds tying you down.”

Ashella waved her hand and returned back to the church. She was probably going to clean up the Gift appraisal magic circle. Meanwhile, we asked Fina about the Gift she was given.

“So, Fina. What power did you receive?”
“Uhmm, pharmacy or something.”
“Pharmacy… Like the knowledge about potion-making?”
“Not just that, but about medicine in general. For anyone involved with medicine, they would die to get that Gift.”
“That much?! Isn’t this a dangerous power?”
“Well, if you decide to misuse it, it’d be even more dangerous than Michelle’s. After all, she can freely make medicine that can save or kill people.”
“That sounds quite bad.”
“Indeed. Make sure Elliot doesn’t hear of this.”

Cortina replied to Lyell’s last comment. Elliot wasn’t a bad guy, but considering his position, he would want to keep Fina’s power in check. Moreover, this ability would be desirable even for those who held ill intentions against Elliot.

The rest of us except Fina looked at each other and gave a big sigh.

“This turned into something troublesome…”

We muttered that in unison. That god really loves to push trouble on us.