“See, Sister Myne? He’s burning up.”
I touched Dirk and felt a shock entirely like static electricity, before seemingly being pushed away from his skin. Dirk’s crying intensified.
“Sister Myne, his cheeks have started to get bumpy again.”
“Delia, give him milk right away.”
“Understood. Here you are, Dirk,” said Delia while holding a small spoon in front of his mouth.
Dirk stopped crying the second the milk was in his mouth, instead focusing on sipping it down. His cheeks returned to normal and his fever went down in the blink of an eye. Nothing happened when I touched him now.
“Fran, ask the High Priest for another meeting. Preferably one as soon as possible,” I said in a sharp voice. He left at once, and Delia gave me an anxious look.
“Sister Myne, do you know what’s happening?”
“I cannot say for sure, and I do not want to worry you by making a wrong guess,” I replied with a shake of my head, lowering my eyes.
I would have liked for my guess to be wrong, but it probably wasn’t—Dirk had the Devouring. And on top of that, he had enough mana that it would kill him as a baby.
Delia, whose eyes had wavered with unease when I said I couldn’t answer her question, gave Dirk a protective squeeze.
What To Do About Dirk
If Dirk had a severe case of the Devouring, his life would be in danger unless he was given access to a magic tool that could suck the large amount of mana out of him. I needed to do whatever I could to ensure his safety, even if just by a little bit.
“Lutz, could I ask you to do something? I want you to go to the forest and get some taue fruit. They’ll last if you put them on the dirt part of the floor in the workshop’s storage area, right?” I called Lutz from the workshop up to the second floor of my chambers, then whispered my request so Damuel by the door wouldn’t hear me. It would be better if nobles did not learn of taue fruit.
I glanced Dirk’s way, and Lutz gave a small nod before immediately running off to the forest, having extrapolated the circumstances just from my small gesture. Once he got back, we’d be able to stop Dirk from losing control of his mana and dying from it.
“Sister Myne, I have gotten permission for a meeting.” Fran returned, wearing an exhausted expression. Both Arno and the High Priest had looked annoyed at having two emergency meetings requested in a row, but urgent business was urgent business; I needed to see the High Priest to learn whether Dirk really had the Devouring, how much mana he had, and what we needed to do with him.
“I suppose we shouldn’t give Dirk to Wilma yet, since we’ll be bringing him to the High Priest’s room. Fran, would you carry him?”
I intended to go to the High Priest’s room with Dirk since everything revolved around him, but Delia hugged him protectively and Fran slowly shook his head.
“Sister Myne, we cannot take a pre-baptism orphan out of the orphanage.”
My chambers counted as part of the orphanage since they were in the same building, but apparently taking him to the High Priest’s room was no good. I had forgotten that we weren’t supposed to take them out since we were stealthily taking the kids to the forest, but now that I thought about it, the pre-baptism kids were supposed to be still stuck inside the orphanage so that the blue priests wouldn’t have to see them.
“...I thought that bringing Dirk would be important for the discussion with the High Priest, but if you insist.”
I brought Fran and Damuel with me to the High Priest’s room, as I always did. Once inside, the High Priest gave a slight grimace of annoyance and asked, “What is it this time?”
“The matter I want to discuss is very important. Is it something we should talk about out here?” I said in a quiet voice, pointing my eyes toward the hidden room.
The High Priest raised an eyebrow, then held out the sound-blocking magic tool. I firmly gripped it.
“This discussion is important enough for you to actually pay attention to your surroundings and think?”
“...Yes. It’s about Dirk, the baby from yesterday. I believe he has the Devouring.”
After I explained what Dirk had looked like this morning, the High Priest’s brow furrowed hard and he let out a heavy sigh. “I would say it depends on how much mana he has, but given those physical symptoms, it would be safe to say that he has quite a sizable amount.”
“So he has the Devouring for sure?”
“Indeed.” The High Priest gave me a grave nod before rapping a finger lightly against his temple. “It would probably be wise for him to sign with a noble as soon as possible.”
“A contract...”
“He will not survive otherwise.”
I tightened my grip on the sound-blocking magic tool. Signing a contract meant selling your life to a noble. In return for being given the magic tools you needed to survive, you would spend your whole life enslaved to them, essentially becoming a walking mana tank for your noble to drain. I shuddered at the thought of Dirk, a baby as young as my little brother, suffering a fate like that.
“High Priest, could you not make him a blue priest that offers up mana like myself, or otherwise set up an adoption with a noble?”
“It will cost a significant amount to raise the baby as a blue priest. Who will pay for that?”
Having become a blue shrine maiden myself, I knew all too well how much money it cost to live like this. I had almost run out of money preparing for winter despite the Myne Workshop supporting me; clothes, shoes, and pretty much every other little thing was expensive.
“You have been able to cover your expenses by earning your own money,” the High Priest
