74 The Necromancer and the Priestess 8

El was grading tests on his desk at school when the little bird that had been joyfully eating sunflower seeds from a small bowl he had placed at the windowsill perked up. It glanced out the window, and a moment later, flapped its wings and flew away.

El's first thought was if something had happened to Celes for it to leave so quickly. He paused. It shouldn't be the case? Celes was a powerful mage, and protected by the most elite members of the church. But, he still couldn't dispel the nagging feeling he had in his heart, so decided to pay a visit to the church later today.

When he arrived, the church was bustling with activity as knights and priests rushed too and fro. The inner sanctum's entrance was guarded more heavily than before, and El could feel his heart sinking. The guards, though some were familiar with Kiel, would not let him in as this was an emergency situation. Around this time, a priestess from the inner sanctum walked by, immediately recognizing the beautiful professor.

"Sir Kiel!" She exclaimed, and hurried over. She looked around as she grabbed him and pulled him to the side. "This isn't really a good time to be here. You should go back the academy."

"What happened?" El asked, his voice stiff.

The priestess, Naenia, noticed something was wrong and saw the tense worry on Sir Kiel's face. This was the first time that she had seen him lose composure, but thinking about it, it made sense. After all, he was probably worried sick about the high priestess's situation, with no idea what was going on. "The high priestess was testing out a new form of magic. She just accidentally used up all her mana and is currently unconscious, but the Bishop is attending to her and she's not in any danger." Naenia answered, comforting the man.

"Naenia! What're you doing? Hurry up!" A priestess spotted Naenia and called out to her, and the young priestess looked back to say that she'd be there in a moment.

She looked at Sir Kiel with a sorry expression. "I have to go. You can try coming back a few days later, though I don't know if the high priestess will be awake by then." With those words, she rushed away, meeting up with the priestess who had called her as they hurried to the high priestess's room.

El was silent, his expression unreadable as his head was bowed, his eyes covered in shadow.

In a blink of an eye, he was gone, as if he had never been there.

In the Gloom Forest, a little white bird flew a few times around Rosella before landing on her shoulder. Rosella recognized this little bird, as she had seen it with the high priestess before. She cuddled it to her cheek, feeling comforted inside. Her body grew warmer, as a shimmering veil of light fell over her. She knew that this must be the high priestess who had sent the bird, knowing that she was in this predicament. She felt even more determination.

Even though things weren't going as planned, she wouldn't let this stop her from completing her mission.

With the light spirit familiar by her side, no ordinary monster in Gloom Forest could pose her any trouble, and they all steered clear of Rosella. This sort of strong light aura immediately gave them a sense of danger - they knew that if they came into contact with it, they would most certainly die. Even the air around them seemed to be slowly purified by just this one protection barrier, making the air lighter and easier to breath.

Rosella spent the next several days looking for the black flower. She didn't know where she would find it, or even what it looked like exactly. Yin Mei's description hadn't been very specific - she had said it was a flower with black petals and leaves, and that Rosella would know when she saw it. Although Yin Mei had told the girl not to stress too much about finding it, Rosella was filled with energy as she searched high and low, leaving no inch of ground uncovered.

Back at the church, the Bishop was sitting on a chair by Celestina's bed, where Yin Mei lay unconscious, only looking as if she was sleeping peacefully. He was reading several papers, doing work as he watched over the high priestess. At this time, there was a knock on the door as Leon entered. The man had already reported in detail what had happened earlier, and this time, the matter he was here for was for something else.

"How is the high priestess?" He asked, walking over and looking down at Celestina's beautiful face - she almost looked like she had been frozen in time, able to awaken at any moment.

"She's fine. She'll be able to wake up in a week," the Bishop replied, his voice slightly cold.

Leon smiled bitterly, but didn't say anything about the cold reaction the man had. After all, it could be said that it was partially his fault they were in this situation in the first place.

But, the Bishop knew that he was also partially at fault. They all were. This could have been completely preventable, but he had been too lax with things. His eyes darkened slightly, and Leon shivered. So the man who represented the church of the gentle goddess of light could actually show such a terrifying expression...

Leon didn't say much, just wanting to check on how Yin Mei was doing. Afterwards, he left to go to Yu Na's place in order to test her holy affinity.

It was really easy to test for a person's affinity - they used a classic magic crystal, that would react to their affinity and display it in colors and intensity of the light it gave off. For someone at Celestina's level, she had broken the magic crystal ball and they had to use a much larger and stronger version that they had stored away to actually properly measure her affinity.

Leon had with him a couple of priestesses as witness, and they directly went to the large pillar of magic crystal instead of using the smaller crystal ball. It wasn't because he had confidence that Yu Na would have a strong affinity, but it was because she needed to have such a strong affinity if she was to go against the evil creature. It was better to skip the step of the smaller magic crystal and just directly make sure with this larger one.

Yu Na was feeling a mixture of anticipation and excitement, as her hand came closer to the crystal. She had already been changed out of her school uniform into the traditional priestess robes. Because the priestesses didn't want any outside things contaminating the inner sanctum, they had directly burned her uniform. Although she had been a little sad, she felt it was more freeing than anything - as if it showed that she was leaving her old life behind for a newer, better life here.

When she touched the pillar, a pure golden light flooded the room, almost blinding everyone present.

"She actually has a holy affinity that's almost on the level of the high priestess...!" One woman said, as they looked in shock.

"This is great! Now the high priestess can finally have a successor!" Another girl said, but a sharp glance from the other priestess made her cover her mouth as she glanced toward Yu Na. But the high school girl was too busy being fascinated by the heat of the stone and light, her eyes glittering in fascination as it slowly died down.

Leon had on a cool expression as he watched this, but put on a gentle smile when Yu Na finally turned to face him, praising her with a few kind words.

They began quickly arranging plans for her to go to Gloom Forest.

As Leon was walking back with Yu Na, a hand clapped him on the back and he turned around to see Kai, who had on a grin on his face.

Leon raised a hand to motion to the priestesses, and they silently took Yu Na away with them back to her room. "What is it?" He asked, folding his hands across his chest.

"What? I can't greet a friend?" Kai replied as Leon leaned up against a white pillar and let out a sigh.

"No, it's just that I'm a little busy right now." Leon answered, massaging his temples. There was really a lot to consider. Yu Na's light affinity was really too high - it was likely that the Bishop would insist that she stay and train to be the high priestess's successor. He seemed to pause for a moment, not knowing how to feel about this. Actually, in his heart, he thought that this wasn't too bad of a thing... This way, Celestina wouldn't have to stay locked away in this church for hundreds of years, like her predecessor had.

"I know you probably are," Kai said with a nod. "Do you have any information about the expedition to Gloom Forest?" He asked. He had been assigned to this time's subjugation of the evil creature, but he was a little worried about the previous expedition that Rosella had gone with - because the two of them had arrived in the inner sanctum around the same time, they got along fairly well and Kai thought of the slave girl a bit like a little sister. He was worried about her status, what with the whole uproar about the evil creature roaming around in Gloom Forest.

Leon shook his head. "I don't think you need to worry about anything. The high priestess wouldn't send Rosella there without any preparations." He said. He knew the reason that Kai was worried and had in fact met Rosella once. There wasn't anything to dislike about the girl, but he also didn't have any interest in her. For some reason, after this long, it seemed that all other girls seemed to dull in comparison to Celestina.

He closed his eyes and let out a sigh.

He really didn't like this feeling in his heart, constantly weighing on him and making him feel unbearably uncomfortable. He hated, despised.

Kai nodded. He also believed this, but he couldn't help the worry in his heart. He wanted to quickly rush to Gloom Forest to go look for Rosella. That girl had suffered a lot from her childhood already. He felt that she shouldn't have to suffer anymore, yet this sort of thing had actually happened to her.

Leon understood his friend's worries still weren't alleviated despite those words, so he continued. "The summoned girl has already been tested for her affinity. If it was up to me, she would stay here for a few more days to learn the basics of magic, but we probably don't have that much time. We might have her set out with the group first and learn along the way." He said, tapping his finger on his arm in thought.

"Hmm," Kai said in thought. He didn't know what complicated thoughts were going on through the heads of those higher ups like the high priestess and the Bishop, but he knew they had their own considerations when they made the choice to summon that girl. Even though to him she looked just like a young girl who had never seen battle... He looked in the direction that Yu Na had left in, his eyes narrowing.

"Are you feeling pity? Don't. She's almost as powerful as the high priestess. I hear that it took the high priestess less than a day to master the basics of magic, and then not even a year before she became a grand mage. Although evil creatures are said to be extremely strong, she should be enough to take care of a single evil creature. She doesn't need to know any complex spells to do it either." Leon said, as he straightened up his back and got up from where he was leaning on the pillar.

"I'll keep you updated, but for now, it's better if I go teach that girl a few things before it's time for the subjugation group to leave." He pat Kai on the shoulder as he left, and the knight watched for a moment before also turning away and returning to his post.

If Leon said such a thing, then he would trust him.