Minimine, Jyn, and Page all looked at Kalender like ‘What, you didn’t know?’ The Harem God certainly wasn’t the most popular object of one’s faith, but it was still widely recognized.

“This whole time…” Kalender rubbed his head as he sat down. “I mean, there’s the whole [Companions] part of the status, okay? And the whole catch-’em-all bit of the Blessing’s description, okay? How is that not harem!”

“It is,” Minimine replied.

“It is?”

“It is.”

Kalender squinted. Minimine tilted her head—one way, and then the other.

“Explain,” Kalender said.

“The ###### God found a way to usurp the authority of the Harem God. That is all it is.”

Kalender rubbed his head again. This was all very … wibbly-wobbly. “… How?”

Minimine shrugged.

“Overseer would know?”

“Indeed.”

Kalender groaned. “The more I ask, the less I wanna know…”

“Ah!” Minimine remembered something. “It is not only the Harem God. We have also found interference with the authorities of the Goddesses of Health and Agriculture. The damage is not nearly extensive as with the Harem God, but these three were the first to encounter and fight against the ###### God. We believe he is capable of usurping authorities amidst divine combat.”

“By the way, how do you say that?”

“Hm?”

“The hashtags.”

“‘Hashtags’? Ah, the censorship. Simply address him and the System will censure it?”

“Well, yeah, but like, what do I call him to trigger it?”

Off to the side, both Jyn and Page tried different things, like “Bastard God” and “Hentai God,” but nothing worked.

Kalender choked on his own spit at the last one. At least one of the previous transmigrators was a mistake to bring over here.

“Hm? Hm… Try summoning the concept of an unwelcome god in your mind as you speak,” Minimine suggested.

“A-alright. Um, ###### God—oh, wow, it worked.”

“K-kal.” He turned to see Page, covering her mouth and pointing at him. “How are you doing that with your mouth?”

“What do you mean?”

“Here! I’ll try it—###### God.”

Kalender expected dumb-looking pixelation or blurring, but instead, he got an ever-changing, overlapping convolution of the multitude of probabilities where Page said any other word but that. It was like the universe saying ‘Anything! Anything but that!’ at some sort of quantum dimensional level.

“I-I wasn’t crazy…” Jyn muttered. Kalender caught this.

“Jyn?” he called.

“When we were being debriefed by Inquisitor Yal, I momentarily saw his lips move in that way. I had thought I was going insane.” She shook her head. “We have always just referred to it as ‘the curse.’ To think that the world, itself, despises its originator…”

“Be that as it may,” Minimine continued, “let’s go to Harmony. Let’s go. Quickly.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Kalender waved his hands. “We still need to pack up for the travel and stuff.”

“Travel? We can teleport.”

‘Teleport’? That was some mythical word she was throwing around. As an outsider who knew the concept, Kalender was a bit less surprised than the other two who’d just heard about it in stories, but still …

The door slammed open. Tak stood under it. “I have heard you, my goddess!”

Was she listening in all along?

“Mm. Thank you for answering, Tak.”

Ah. Telepathy things.

The Priestess approached the table and laid out a napkin. There was a whole map of Lyrica printed onto it.

“Hmm… Yes, there is a temple in Harmony,” Tak said. “My goddess, congratulations on the convenience of your travels.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Kalender had his hands in the air. “… We’re missing someone.”

“Ah! Maid Sherry!” Page said.

***

Back in town, Page led Kalender and Jyn around the different vegetable streets in search of a shady Maid. There were signs of her, at least—unmanned vegetable stalls, potatoes strewn about the ground by the entrances of dark alleys, and knives on the ground right beside baguettes spotted with blood found further in.

Kalender and Page theorized the existence of the assassin’s baguette, but Sherry was a Maid. She wouldn’t use something like that.

They ended up looping around before they finally found her.

“Ah, how went the excursion?” Sherry asked. She was carrying one less baguette than usual, and her uniform was rich in dark brown themes and accents. Other than that, she seemed … she had a skip in her step.

Page grabbed her by the arm and dragged her away. “We’re going today! Come on, get your stuff and help me grab mine!”

Somehow, the Maid’s ridiculous strength had disappeared off to nowhere in that moment. The lack of resistance weirded out Jyn and Kalender. That’s just what a bit of sibling bonding did.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Well, that was that,” Kalender remarked. “Let’s get our stuff, too.”

Jyn nodded.

They walked the way back to Windchimes. It was late in the afternoon. The adventurer parties would be coming back by now. It was also late in the afternoon when they’d arrived here.

“How long has it been?” Jyn asked.

“Hm?” Kalender raised an eyebrow. The look in Jyn’s face was reminiscent—soft. “We arrived here … six days ago, I think.”

Jyn chuckled. Kalender never saw her lips upturned more than a few times. Seeing them turn up now was a treat.

“It’s hard to believe, is all,” she said. They climbed the narrow steps up Windchimes, finally coming to their floor and fast approaching the end of the cramped hall and the door to their room.

The door opened. Her eyes landed on Kalender. The door closed. He turned around and stopped, meeting eyes with her.

He was this dainty man, closer to a boy in her eyes.

She stepped closer and engulfed him in her arms, closing her eyes, resting her head on his shoulder. She heard him gasp as she did so, wrapping his own arms around her with some delay … and a chuckle. “What’s this?” he asked.

She didn’t answer for a while.

“Page clings onto you much too often.”

“Are you jealous?” he asked, his tone gentle.

She paused before answering, “I’m not sure. I’m not … sure, myself.”

‘She must’ve never had anything like this,’ ‘Who hurt you?’ ‘What do I do?’—such thoughts went through Kalender’s mind. It was a hive noise, echoing every past sentiment he might have chosen to feel in a different time, in a different life.

“Don’t stop yourself from going for it if you want some attention, okay? You hold yourself back too much.”

He got a nod on his shoulder as a reply.

***

Sherry didn’t have a lot of things in the first place. Even if she did, she’d still manage to fit it all in her travel pack, somehow. That’s how Maids work, right?

Imagine her delight when she and Page returned to Page’s place, and the girl didn’t have much to pack up, either. Heck, there wasn’t much to clean. It was a Maid’s delight that someone else respects order and cleanliness. That wasn’t much of a surprise to her, however, as Librarians were, in a sense, just Maids for libraries.

Lens came in through the front door, surprised that there was someone in the kitchen who wasn’t Page. She would’ve pulled out a derringer if she hadn’t recognized Sherry.

“Ah, Quartermaster Lens.” Sherry smiled. “You’ve arrived just in time.”

The door to Page’s room opened, and she stepped out with a travel pack.

“Page?” Who’s going to pay the other half of the rent?! The frustration on her face was palpable.

“Oh! Lens, Lens, sorry this came out of nowhere…” she said with a frown. “But, but, because you’ve been good to me, I’ll leave you with two—no, three months of rent! You can find someone else in three months, right?”

Lens sighed. “You were an okay housemate, you know? I’m not sure if I’ll luck out with anyone else…”

“Quartermaster Lens, if I may? I have already located a suitable candidate. She will cause you no trouble.”

"“Wait, really?”"

“Why, of course. I doubt Miss Page would intend to inconvenience her friends, and so I took this opportunity to leave a parting gift.”

Sherry opened the front door, welcoming in a girl just slightly shorter than herself. Dressed in a Secretary’s work clothes, a thin lock of black hair wafted over one of her eyes, which were blindfolded with a dark green bandana.

“G-good day,” she greeted with a quiet voice. “My name is … Osellia. I am Sherry’s … sister …”

"“Sister?”"

“That I am.” Sherry smiled, facing Lens. “You may trust her. She keeps to herself most of the time, and so you don’t have to worry about pesky housemates stealing your underwear without permission.”

“Thank you?” Did you have pesky housemates? Lens couldn’t help but wonder why Sherry was being so specific. She eyed Osellia again, drawn to the article over her eyes. “A blindfold? Sorry, but are you blind?” Lens asked.

“Yes.” Osellia’s reply was practiced. “Everything is a severe blur. At best, I can see blotches of light and dark.”

Huh? She was clearly in Secretary’s clothes. How did she do all the paperwork blind?

“Don’t worry, Quartermaster Lens,” Sherry explained. “She has a Minor Blessing of Shadow Sight.”

If there was one thing that wasn’t shady about the Shadow Goddess, it was her Minor Blessing of Shadow Sight. Originally meant to allow hunters and assassins alike to stalk their prey in the night, some saw fit to co-opt it as a prosthetic for the blind. The goddess, herself, never condemned it, and so the Shadow Temple gained itself an above-ground operation in the form of eye clinics.

“Wow, what’s it like?” Page asked, surprising Osellia.

“I-it’s, um, like permanent night vision—”

“The heeck, doesn’t that make it hard to read at night? Oh! I guess you use a lamp to make it better?”

Osellia wanted to sink into the nearest shadow right about now. Her sister, however, planted her feet over the shadow cast by the countertop, cutting off her retreat.

“I-it doesn’t work like that. As long as I have a blindfold, I can see the outlines of objects, but I can’t tell how much light there is.” There. Are you satisfied?

“Huh? How do you read?”

You’re a pain! “I—have to take off my blindfold. And cover myself and the document. With a shroud.”

“Now, now,” Sherry said. “We’re supposed to be leaving.”

“Right!” Page ran to the front door, stopped, turned around, and tossed herself at Lens, crashing into her with a hug. “Thanks for everything until now.”

Lens chuckled. “Drop by when you pass through here again, alright?”

“Of course!”

With a hop and a cheery wave, the door finally closed. Lens sighed. The place was suddenly so quiet.

She turned around. “So, Osellia, right? What’s—”

She was gone. At least, until she noticed that Page’s door was still open. She popped her head in. Osellia was looking around the place.

Lens knocked, drawing her attention. “My room’s the one right beside. Tell me if you need some help.”

Osellia nodded and went back to … looking around, apparently. Sherry was right. It’s like human interaction’s secondary to this girl… Well, it could’ve been far worse.

***

At first, Sherry thought Kalender’s group had collectively lost their minds when they said they’d be going within the day. It was already late in the afternoon, and so they’d have to stop just after a few hours to set up camp. Not to mention, they were too lightly prepared for the trip. From here to Northwell would take six days, then another four days for the trip from Northwell to Harmony.

She started suspecting other things in play when they left town from the west gate, moving towards the temple row, escorted by some curiously-armed Clerics of Minimine. She didn’t want to believe it, but each step she took towards the temple row eroded her mental defenses. She may have been a high-leveled Maid, but what was that in front of a goddess? She’d already felt Minimine’s terrible power as it completely unwrapped her and her sister’s hearts. The thought of facing such a being made her shiver.

At the least, Page’s demeanor remained happy-go-lucky. She even happily tapped some roaming undead with a staff to the head.

They arrived at the temple with little fanfare. As she reflexively usually did when entering strange new places, she Appraised everyone. The Clerics had a higher average level than Lyrica’s common knights. That she was still the highest-leveled person in the room was of some comfort.

Hm? A child? Minimine tattled over to Kalender, asking to be carried. Page fought for the right to be the carrier. Jyn sighed, and with practiced hands, picked up Minimine. It daunted her somewhat to do so, but she had to confront her anxiety of child-sized goddesses at some point.

The Clerics had bunched up around Kalender’s group, with Tak at the head. Hopefully, their sisters in Harmony wouldn’t instantly fling rocks and fireballs at them the moment they popped in, but just in case, Tak’s defensive magic could tank a few hits.

Sherry had no context about anything—even when Minimine snapped her little fingers, even when a hemispherical prism of color surrounded them, then collapsed into them, drowning them, for a second, in an airless plane of the ethereal, before finally being able to breathe again, then hitting the floor in a gasp, Sherry still didn’t know what was going on!

“We’re here,” Minimine said.

That’s her. She’s Minimine.

Thankfully, Sherry wasn’t the only one who suffered through that ordeal. Some of the other Clerics were also gasping, but they were already getting up. This was unsightly of her. She got up, herself, just in time to see a ball of light impact and explode on Priestess Tak’s person.

“Tak, you imbecile! You scared me!”

It was a Maid’s delight for someone else to respect order. All she had experienced so far, however, was disrespect of the highest order. She needed a Seamstress to fix her uniform, a nice-smelling inn to stay in, and a long, long bath, because wow all of her good vibes seemed to have been left behind, far, far away in Clarinets.