The conditions inside the airship were very good, and the area where Seraphia and Shu sat was a section reserved exclusively for the clergy, with most of the seats empty.
The chairs were comfortable to sit in, a faint fragrance hung in the air, and the temperature was extremely well judged. It seemed a magical air conditioner with an aromatherapy function was at work.
The moment they sat down, neatly turned-out sisters brought out an assortment of little pastries and drinks. These people looked like service staff, yet the propriety of their dress and grooming lacked none of the features proper to the clergy.
Was one supposed to say: truly worthy of a great nation with church and state unified?
Secularization pitched at exactly the right degree kept the entire machinery of the country running properly.
Compared with Shu, who had been somewhat ill at ease from the moment he sat down, Seraphia treated it as no different from an aeroplane she had ridden in her previous life, and set about enjoying her surroundings.
If there were anything at all that made her uncomfortable, it was probably that this chair conformed extremely well to human ergonomics but not to 【angelic ergonomics】, and all she could do was gather that enormous pair of wings around to her front as best she could.
She speared a piece of confectionery that looked like cake on a small fork and tasted it slowly.
Just then, from inside the shadow the airship's interior lighting cast beside her cheek, a timid "Big Sister" came through, mixed with the sound of someone swallowing.
Transmitted along with it was a powerful sense of longing.
Nephim, who had been hiding in Seraphia's shadow all this time. Yesterday, when she had apparently come out to talk and shared that single portion of dinner with her, she seemed not to have eaten anything since.
And beyond that, as angel-monsters born within the territory of the demon race, neither of the two sisters had in fact ever eaten anything good. It was only because Seraphia's body housed a soul from Earth, its memories crammed with every kind of delicious thing, that she did not lose her composure on an occasion like this.
Seraphia very much wanted to act as though she had noticed nothing.
Nephim's ability to conceal herself was extraordinarily strong. She could very nearly merge into a shadow, without the slightest fluctuation of mana, and even when she poked her head up like this, the way one might above the surface of water, no one would notice.
But that innate ability of the angel-monsters, the ability to sense the emotions and desires within another's heart, made her a distinctly 【conspicuous】 presence to Seraphia's senses.
Seraphia's pale gold eyes swept around her. With so few passengers, the distances between them were large, and so long as Shu beside her did not notice, there was no problem—
The person who would one day become the Hero who saved the world was still very weak just now, and probably would not notice this sort of thing.
Miss Angel speared a divided piece of cake and reached it gently towards her own shadow.
The shadow rippled like the surface of water, the cake sank into it, and when the little fork was withdrawn, a glistening trace of saliva could still be seen on it.
The steady flood of satisfied emotion made Seraphia smile a little helplessly.
【She really is easy to please...】
Even without words, from emotion of that shape one could read the words 'I love Big Sister most of all'.
After that Seraphia fed every one of the pastries plus a little fruit to Nephim in the shadow, so that by the time Shu registered what was happening, all that remained of what the attendants had brought out was steaming hot tea.
He looked at Seraphia, and she gave him an innocent smile.
Shu silently made a note of Miss Angel's taste in food.
By evening the two of them had reached their destination, Kaze City in the Kiden Federation.
What could be seen from the airship's window was a city of thoroughly split character.
Part of the urban area blazed with light, with lamps of every different colour, and this was plainly the so-called rich people's district, while in other places only a scattered few points of light indicated that human beings still lived there.
But what drew the eye most was probably that high city walls had actually been built inside the city as well, dividing the different districts from one another. Seraphia's excellent eyesight could make out soldiers standing guard at the connecting gates between districts, checking documents and the goods going in and out.
The areas that were obviously the poor quarters at a glance held nothing worth looking at, so her gaze fell more on the districts blazing with light.
What came into those golden eyes was the entertainment and pleasure trade, flourishing vigorously in another world—
【Why are there even wh*res wearing fake wings and fake halos? Where's the Church? Church, do something about this!】
Her excellent vision had shown her a scene she could not keep a straight face at. She shook her head and began packing her things.
Before disembarking, Seraphia put on the broad, long robe she had earlier had the church staff prepare for her. The halo above her head still clipped through to the outside of the hood, but with that pair of extremely conspicuous wings hidden, she was at least less noticeable.
And since her power of flight was not actually achieved by beating her wings, she could still float in mid-air.
"Miss Seraphia... there's one more very important matter I have to explain to you."
Just as Seraphia had come down at Kaze City's airship station and was about to set off towards the brightly lit district, Shu's voice pulled her back again.
"What is it?"
"The Church did give us a good deal of adequate start-up funding as a Hero Candidate, but from what I looked into beforehand about prices in the Kiden Federation... before we actually earn serious money as adventurers, it isn't remotely enough for us to live in the Federation's core district, so we can only go to the ordinary citizens' district... and if we don't earn anything, we may even have to live in the same district as ordinary Kiden Federation workers."
"..."
Miss Angel fell silent.
The airship's berthing area, Kaze City's skyport, happened to be a point connecting three districts, since the wealthy received their services here and the people at the bottom of the pyramid obtained their work here.
She looked over at the ordinary citizens' district. The state of the road construction and the sanitary conditions were worlds apart from the rich people's core district.
As for the district where the so-called 【ordinary Kiden Federation workers】 lived, she caught sight of the street beyond that gate: refuse discarded at random, and all manner of mysterious little creatures living in symbiosis with the refuse, everywhere she looked.
"...I understand."
Seraphia's skin was not yet thick enough to demand that somebody else spend his own money so that she could live somewhere expensive.
【This church, honestly! Making me the protector and assessor of a Hero Candidate and not giving me any kind of operating budget!】
Miss Angel complained inwardly.
But in fact she had genuinely wronged the staff of the Church of the Holy Name, who would never under any circumstances be stingy towards a Holy Wing the Church had recognized.
The monetary support the Church specifically granted to a Holy Wing was greater than that given to a Hero Candidate. It was only that this portion of the money had been packed in her luggage together with the Church of the Holy Name's Holy Scripture, and before departure Miss Angel had opened it, seen at a glance that it was the Scripture, and immediately thrown the thing to the back of her mind.
'This Scripture is pretty heavy—'
That was what she had said at the time.
Having accepted reality, Seraphia followed Shu towards the ordinary citizens' district.
And then noticed something else funny.
Of the three branching roads, only the one leading to the core district had a very strict security check; and when they passed through the hole in the wall and arrived in the ordinary citizens' district, the entrance from this district towards the skyport had a very strict security check.
【They aren't even pretending any more.】
This district did appear to have some nightlife, but it was far poorer stuff than the prosperity of the core district.
The voices flowing out of the establishments resembling taverns were, for the most part, complaints as well.
Everyone here was in a visibly worse mental state than the people inside the Theocracy.
【This otherworld local speciality, cap*talism, really does 'nourish' people.】
Just as Miss Angel was sighing over it inwardly, a sense of danger came from a street in the distance.
"Mm...?"
She stopped and looked over.
"What is it?" Shu noticed her halt and looked along the line of her gaze as well.
A flash.
Then a shockwave.
"?!" Shu, thrown into some disorder by the sudden blast of wind, hurriedly steadied himself while drawing the sword at his waist.
Miss Angel narrowed her eyes slightly, looking at the mushroom cloud climbing into the air.
Then, at long last, the enormous sound of the explosion arrived.
【So it really is protagonist physique. No matter where he goes, this kind of mess happens... Haki-Shu... you absolute...】
"Terrorist attack!"
"It's got to be those lunatics from the 'Equal Rights Front' again!"
The panicked voices all around burst into a single tangle.