The Saintess was, fundamentally, a guest inclined toward good.
She had grown up at the bottom before being revered as a Saintess, so her old temperament still remained, but she was still basically a good person.
When someone like that came looking for me,“There is something I want you to help me with.”
the background behind it usually contained a will to help others.
It seemed the story would grow long, so I first created chairs and a table.
When I offered her a chair, the Saintess waved her hand and refused.
“I have sat in chairs until I am sick of them. Right now, this is more comfortable.”
“If that is what you prefer. Would you like tea?”
“That would be nice. Perhaps because the air here is a little murky, my throat feels scratchy.”
“It is a world on the verge of ruin, after all. It is a somewhat uncomfortable environment.”
I could purify only part of our surroundings, but since I did not know when the little one would return, I left it as it was.
“It is a tea good for the throat.”
“Thank you.”
“So, what sort of help would you like to receive?”
After taking a sip of tea, the Saintess seemed to think for a moment, then spoke.
“At this rate, a large-scale war will break out in our dimension. It will be a war raised in the name of the Lord God, and many people will die.”
Damage caused by war existed in any dimension.
However, the Saintess had no intention of dismissing that as something that simply happened.
“I want to stop it.”
It was truly a Saintess-like statement.
Many people might have swallowed tears at the sight of her stepping forward to save others like this.
“If that is the case, I can help as much as you need. If you tell No. 100, an appropriate item can be......”
“Ah, well, about that? You could say there was a small accident.”
“......An accident? Surely not.”
But this Saintess had a very serious flaw.
A great flaw, at that.
“How much did you lose?”
“......Twen......”
“If it is two days’ worth, then still.”
“Twenty days’ worth.”
“Wow. You are insane.”
This woman was addicted to gambling.
At an extremely serious level, no less.
Pressing hard around my eyes, I asked with a feeling of dread.
“By any chance, Saintess.”
“Y-yes, brother. What is it?”
“Those twenty days of lodging fees. Were they perhaps the price to take an item with you?”
“Ha, haha. Hahaha.”
“Do you think this is something to laugh about right now?”
“......Phew.”
To return to one’s dimension with an item from the hotel, one needed to pay a price.
That price was usually lodging fees.
And she had lost all of it gambling.
In other words, she had blown the chance to save the world on games of chance.
“No...... I mean, listen closely, Brother Proprietor. If it had gone just one space further to the side, hm? My lodging fees would have doubled. Not only could I have stopped the war, but I would have had the chance to save more of those who had been hurt until now......”
“What a common excuse from a gambling addict.”
“Urgh.”
“It is impressive that you manage not to gamble in your own dimension.”
Fortunately, the only ones who knew this side of the Saintess were the hotel’s guests.
In her own dimension, she lived while hiding this side of herself well.
“It is not that I do not gamble, but that I cannot. There is a stalker watching me twenty-four hours a day.”
“I am glad at least that much reason remains, but what will you do now?”
Regardless of the Saintess’s long-standing get-rich-quick mindset,what mattered was how to handle the accident that had just occurred.
“As you know, I cannot refund the lodging fees you used at the casino.”
Most of the Dimensional Hotel’s services were provided for free, but the casino was an exception.
What was it again?
It had been arranged that way because casino customers complained, “If we do not bet something real, there is no excitement.”
For the record, the Saintess had also supported that opinion.
As for me, well.
It created additional income, so I had no reason to refuse.
In this case, one could call it being bound by her own rope.
“I know that too. That is why I thought I might make you a proposal, Brother Proprietor.”
“The proposal I will offer you is to visit a gambling treatment center. The treatment room is on the 34th floor, so you may go there whenever......”
“Oh, that is for later. For now, the immediate problem is that I need urgent funds.”
They said the only way to escape gambling addiction was death.
Looking at the Saintess, I did not know why those words kept flickering in my mind.
“Do not look at me with such a cold expression.”
“My expression is always the same.”
“It is subtly different. You have an expression like a Tibetan fox.”
“What sort of...... In any case, please continue.”
“Um, yes. Anyway, that is why I thought I might make a contract with you, Brother Proprietor.”
“I assume you already understand the weight a contract carries.”
A contract made in the hotel was heavier than a contract made elsewhere.
A contract made directly with me was guaranteed to be fulfilled “under any circumstances.”
That was why even fairly capable guests were extremely reluctant to make contracts with me.
“Of course I know, Brother Proprietor!”
On the other hand, the Saintess seemed to have something in mind.
Seeing that she had even written up a contract in advance.
“Did the Lord God say nothing after seeing this?”
“W-well, I thought my head would split apart.”
“Haa.”
The contents of the contract written on parchment were as follows.
“Party B” shall loan “Party A” forty days’ worth of lodging fees. The loan interest shall be one day per day.
“Party A” shall repay the lodging fees loaned by “Party B” over five stays.
During the loan period, “Party A” may be employed by “Party B” as a class instructor. In this case, the loaned lodging fees shall be reduced per class date.
......
...
.
If summarized broadly, it came down to these three clauses.
There were also several more details that needed to be examined carefully.
“You intend to repay the loaned lodging fees by acting as Miss Yun Hye-rin’s instructor?”
“That’s right! How is it?”
“I refuse.”
“Ah, why?”
As if I would let her get away with that for free.
No matter how good her intentions were, doing it this way was troublesome.
“To begin with, even if you tried to teach that child sacred power, it would be difficult because she is from another dimension.”
Unlike Mana, sacred power was like a power borrowed from the existence known as a god.
When dimensions differed, the direction of faith also differed, so teaching sacred power to a being from another dimension was difficult.
“Difficult, but I can do it. I tried it once before, remember? You do not? That time, when my stakes were a little short......”
“Ah.”
It was something that had been reported by a clone quite some time ago.
The Saintess had conducted sacred power education.
‘At the time, I thought, “The Saintess is being a Saintess,” so I simply gave permission and let it pass.’
To use that again in this way.
“How is it? If you think of that little one, this is a profitable deal. Where else would she receive direct education about sacred power from a Saintess?”
“There is some logic to that.”
“On top of that, if you act now, I will add some sacred power as a service. How about it?”
“Is this some clearance price? You are giving a discount again?”
That meant the Saintess was that desperate.
Good grief.
“Saintess, there is one thing you are forgetting.”
“Wh-what?”
“My sacred power is also far superior to yours.”
“......”
“And naturally, my education level is higher as well.”
This too was thanks to the “various things” that had happened in the past.
“Is there any reason to have you teach in my place?”
“Could you somehow...... overlook thaaat? Hehe.”
So a person could become this servile.
I looked back and forth between the Saintess and the contract with pitying eyes.
Mm.
“Let us adjust the contract slightly.”
“How?”
“You will come in as an assistant instructor, and no instructor fee will be paid.”
“......!”
At the words that no instructor fee would be paid, the Saintess’s pupils shook violently.
She seemed extremely anxious that the board she had set up was falling apart, but there was nothing to be done.
‘There is a risk this will become troublesome.’
Once I began giving out special treatment like this, the Alliance Leader and the Heavenly Demon might ask for it too.
And who knew?
There might be more guests who wanted to teach the little one.
“In return, let us say the interest does not exist.”
“That is too stingy......”
“Do you not need it?”
“No! Good. It is good. Mm!”
“And please repay the loan in three installments. Ah, and do not gamble with the loan.”
“Ugh.”
The price for the item was twenty days, yet she wanted to borrow forty days.
That meant she intended to gamble with the remaining twenty days’ worth.
“You are sharp, Brother Proprietor.”
“It has already been five years since I began seeing you, Saintess. I should know this much.”
“Urgh.”
While I immediately rewrote the letters of the contract, the Saintess stared at me intently.
She stared so hard it felt burdensome, as if she might bore a hole through me.
“......Do you have something else to say?”
“Can I be honest?”
“When have you ever not been honest?”
“The part about writing me in as an instructor. I was half in doubt about it.”
It was not as if I had not felt that.
It had the feeling of, “It would be nice if it worked, and if not, then it cannot be helped.”
The core had been the loan.
“Brother Proprietor, you really do cherish that child a lot, don’t you?”
“It seems the rumors have spread.”
“You spread them on purpose. To keep anyone from touching her.”
“Well, there are many rough guests.”
There were guests of good alignment like the Saintess, and there were also countless guests of evil alignment.
Beelzebub, who had led the stalking earlier, also belonged to that side.
“I am warning them in advance. Is that not better than things becoming noisy for no reason?”
“As it is, that fly friend was terrified. He must be quite scared of you.”
“I scolded him rather sharply a few times in the past.”
“Haha, I heard that from his perspective, it went far beyond the level of sharp.”
“Now. The contract has been written.”
I handed the newly written contract to the Saintess.
The Saintess read the contract without much thought, then flinched.
“B-Brother Proprietor?”
“Yes.”
“There seems to be...... something strange here.”
“That cannot be. I read it carefully and revised it.”
“It says ‘Casino use prohibited’ until repayment of the loan is complete?”
“It would be troublesome if you wasted lodging fees in the wrong place.”
“And if I fail to repay, I must serve customers at the casino in a bunny girl outfit......?”
“It is both part of gambling treatment and a service for casino guests. I have wanted to put someone there at least once, but even so, dressing a clone as a woman seemed a little wrong.”
Even if one said clones were separate entities, it was not something I was very eager to do.
My eyes felt as if they would rot.
“Urgh. Do you have to go this far?”
“I have to do at least that much for it to be profitable for me as well.”
“How cruel.”
“If you dislike it, do not do it.”
“All right, all right. If the church is unpleasant, the monk must leave.”
The Saintess let out a deep sigh and scrawled her signature at the end of the contract.
Fwoosh—
Once the signature was complete, the contract went up in flames.
As the contract was established, I took out gold coins worth forty days of lodging fees from the storage and handed them to the Saintess.
“If there is something you need, show them to No. 100.”
“What is this, giving money only to take it back?”
“If you disliked that, you should not have lost everything.”
“That! Could not be helped!”
As if it could not.
While I looked coldly at the Saintess, the little one came running from far away.
“Mister!”
“Did you look around well?”
“Yes! Just like you taught me, I looked for places to hide and places to run away to, and I watched how the monsters moved too.”
“Well done. Go write all of that down later. Writing it down and memorizing it is best.”
“Yes!”
As I stroked the little one’s head while she answered energetically,“Wow. Wow.”
a strange exclamation flowed from the side.
“Saintess? What is the matter?”
“No, mm. I think this is the first time I have seen you smile like that, Brother Proprietor.”
“I smile quite often.”
“No, I mean, smile so sincerely?”
......I thought I always smiled sincerely.
As I touched my mouth while thinking that, the little one quietly hid behind me.
Her wariness had activated again.
“Hye-rin, this guest is......”
“Is that auntie the Saintess?”
“......”
“......”
Uh, mm.
I quietly glanced at the Saintess.
“Would you say that again, little sister?”
Her expression cracked.
In other words,“‘Auntie’?”
The effect of “auntie” was tremendous.