Seraphia lay on the inn bed, that enormous pair of white wings spread out like a market stall.
Outside the window, the afternoon sunlight fell in, and in the Tyndall effect Seraphia could clearly see the 'trajectories' of those beams of light.
People always misjudge the weight of death when they are young.
Because in youth, the boundless vitality welling up inside the body produces a sweet 'illusion', as though death were something that would never come near you.
And in the country where Seraphia had once lived, public order was so good that death was a thing more distant still.
Seraphia, who had never for a single day lived her ideal life, would have no way of being as composed as that woman in the moment before death.
But following a thought like that came a deep shame.
Across two lifetimes, she had never once gone hungry.
From three days ago until now, she had patrolled the lower city district with Shu several times over, and there she had seen countless people struggling to live.
The consequence of living outside a city without protection is that the flesh is altered and every memory of being a person vanishes like smoke.
When clothing, food, housing and travel all depend on a city's supply, a human being becomes fuel inside this machine which, in essence, is exactly what a city is—
It was easy enough to imagine that for that woman, eating her fill had been a luxury for most of her life.
【That composure of hers...】
If she could, Seraphia genuinely wanted to hide in the inn while Shu was out carrying out missions in the lower city district.
She was somewhat afraid of seeing those people struggling to live.
Because it would make her, who plainly was not struggling to live and yet still felt sorry for herself over not having a perfect life, look like someone who did not know when she was well off.
"Big Sister...?"
The pair of hands that reached out of the shadow carried a warmth that cooled Miss Angel's head down a little further.
At times like this, she had no time entirely to herself.
"I'm fine... only..."
Some things could not be said aloud in the end, above all one's own 【ugliness】.
"Stress...? You could try it again. That thing you did before, Big Sister, I tried it too, and it works very well. It relieves stress."
Nephim's mind was very simple.
She had been there when they encountered the Corruption Sickness patient earlier, and like Seraphia, she quite naturally connected the Corruption Sickness with the malformation of the angel-monsters.
In her thinking, her big sister, who was forever thinking of the race whatever the circumstances, must have been putting pressure on herself over that responsibility again.
But Nephim's 'that thing before' left Seraphia slow to work out what she meant.
Her head retrieved the relevant information quickly, however, and brought it back to her.
Her fair face was dyed red in an instant.
What Nephim meant was the occasion a few days ago when, alone, she had been seriously researching the differences in order to establish how much this body differed from her previous one.
Because Nephim's magic makes her presence very hard to notice when she has no marked swell of emotion, partway through the proceedings Nephim's voice had startled her so badly she nearly rolled off the bed.
Going by this account, though, she had afterwards secretly tried it herself, in the shadow?!
"...Let's leave that one alone. And Nephim, in future you mustn't casually discuss this sort of thing with other people. It's a very private matter. Also... this is a matter that pays very close attention to the occasion."
"Then... when you're going to do it, Big Sister, I should withdraw. Is that right?"
Nephim's purity and naivety made Seraphia feel guilty about every word coming out of her mouth on this subject.
She shook her head helplessly.
"In any case, let's not discuss this, and you mustn't discuss it with anyone else. And when you do it yourself... don't let anyone see you either, and if possible... don't look at me either..."
One despairing miner no longer had any idea what she was saying.
Strange as it was to be discussing this topic, having been interrupted, Seraphia had at least been freed from that wretched mood.
【It really is nice having a little sister.】
Suddenly, a siscon remark surfaced in Seraphia's heart.
She pulled Nephim out of the shadow and held that somewhat frail form on the bed.
As a person with wings, Seraphia could, while holding someone in both arms, bring that broad pair of pinions around to cover the other's body as well, providing a perfectly enveloping sensation.
Or rather, who would not like a little sister like Nephim?
Seraphia buried her face in her hair and let her nerves relax.
She liked family whose hearts understood her own.
Even with that sense of estrangement from this world brought on by being a possible transmigrator, she still wanted to find someone to be close to.
Because she was an ugly, powerless, pitiful wretch who would doubt her own existence if she could not feel herself loved.
"Big Sister... it tickles a little..."
Nephim had no objection to this sort of intimate contact; in her heart there was only the thought that 'Big Sister has turned back into that Big Sister again'.
The aura of Shu's mana drew near.
Family warmth time was over. Nephim left her embrace with some reluctance and went back into the shadow.
And at this Seraphia could not help feeling a flicker of resentment towards Shu.
After Shu finished knocking and the door opened, what was revealed was Seraphia's somewhat irritated face.
"Wh... what is it?"
"Nothing."
Seraphia answered that way, but Shu could not shake the feeling that he had interrupted something of hers.
【It surely isn't anything strange—】
"There's a new commission, and the payment is quite good."
"Are we leaving now?"
"Mm."
"One moment, let me gather my things."
Seraphia was still wearing the Holy Wing's costume at this point, but had not put on the overcoat or the cloak, leaving only that inner lining which looked exactly like a s*x-shop outfit.
As she turned, the shoulders and back that were exposed were white enough to dazzle, and Shu became rather too embarrassed to stare at her.
【Why is a Holy Wing of the church required to wear clothes like this...】
The answer to that question would have to be sought from the providence of the harem game.
Shu's eyes avoided Seraphia, and he began looking around at random at the other things in the room.
【Mm...? What's that?】
Seraphia's bedding looked somewhat disordered. Shu had seen her 'wriggling' lazily on the bed before; that enormous pair of wings with nowhere to put them meant she had to adjust her posture on the bed over and over to find the most comfortable one.
So occasionally her feathers would fall onto the bedding.
But her feathers were white, and at this moment there was also a purple-black feather lying on the bed.
"All right, let's go."
Seraphia had finished dressing and returned to her cloak-covered outdoor state, and just as she was about to call Shu and set off, she noticed the line of his gaze.
【Nephim's feather...!】
Panic appeared in Seraphia and in her little sister in the shadow at the same moment.
"That's... an experiment I was doing while considering dyeing my wings."
The moment those words leapt out of her own mouth, Seraphia wanted to slap herself.
It was a terrible excuse.