The Necromancer and the Priestess (10)

Waiting at the entrance of the church, just behind a shimmering barrier that only she could see, Yin Mei was talking with Elaina about something when the subjugation group finally came back.

When Rosella saw that beautiful figure, she brightened up, immediately rushing over. Leon's pace quickened as well. Yin Mei smiled, tears springing into her eyes as she hugged Rosella. "It's my fault for sending you to Gloom Forest, making you experience such a thing..." She said in a tone that made the people present feel their hearts soften. The tears in her wet eyes were like dew on peach blossoms, extremely beautiful and heartbreaking.

Rosella blushed, shaking her head, thinking how blessed she was that the high priestess would actually shed tears for her.

"How was the subjugation?" She asked Leon, who quickly approached them.

"There were no problems. Yu Na, the person that we summoned, had a very strong light affinity." He said, motioning to the girl as she caught up with Leon. She had on a slightly odd expression as she looked between Leon and the very beautiful high priestess, biting her lip and not speaking.

"You're the girl that we summoned?" Yin Mei said, her lips curving up into a sweet smile, tears still at the edges of her eyes. "Thank you! I'm sorry for forcing you to do something like this... it must've been very scary... but you've saved us." She grasped Yu Na's hands, Yu Na slightly flinching but not pulling away.

Yu Na having a light affinity that strong meant that Celestina's innate charm ability wouldn't work on her... how annoying.

Although both of the girls had warm smiles on their faces, on the inside, they had a pair of cold eyes.

"No, it was nothing," Yu Na said. She glanced toward Leon, whose expression was several degrees warmer in comparison to his usual polite and gentle facade that he had on when talking to her. Yu Na's eyes slightly darkened, but she still smiled as brightly as ever toward Yin Mei.

After a while, Yin Mei didn't keep the group any longer. Yu Na and Rosella, along with Leon, Kai, and Naenia all came back to the inner sanctum. The girls would be bathing after a long journey, while Leon had something to discuss with Yin Mei.

Yin Mei sat down on the edge of the fountain, and immediately a white cat ran up to her, purring as it rubbed up against her leg and she picked it up, placing it in her lap.

Leon described what had happened during the subjugation in more detail this time, also going into depth about Yu Na's abilities. "Yu Na seems quite attached to you, doesn't she?" Yin Mei commented, as she seemed to look absent minded at the ground, her hand playing with the cat's ears and tail.

Leon paused, not quite sure what Yin Mei was trying to imply. "It might just be because I'm the first person she met in this world?" He finally said cautiously.

Yin Mei tilted her head. To her, it had appeared that Yu Na had a crush on Leon? She didn't like the way that Yu Na girl acted. Maybe it was because she had gotten so good at fake smiling that she could tell - that girl's smile was too fake. Alarms were going on all over in Yin Mei's head. She understood that this person could become a potential threat later on... Or was it that her bias against protagonists was acting up again? She shouldn't be so biased toward them all the time...

She turned to Leon, smiling. "I heard that you had been teaching Yu Na magic? I'll take over from now on, so there's no need to trouble you any further."

Leon looked into Yin Mei's clear eyes, not sure what to say. The high priestess personally teaching someone - so as expected, Yu Na would become her successor? He felt a little bad for her, but after a moment, thought that it might be better this way. After all, the high priestess deserved her freedom. It can't be that because he felt bad for Yu Na, that he could tell Celestina to just wait several hundred years for the next person to come along right?

The only reason that he felt bad was probably because they had been the ones to drag her into this themselves. But how was that any different from the normal selection process to appoint the high priestess's successor?

Seeing that Leon wasn't saying anything, Yin Mei also didn't speak. She had been a little worried that maybe Yu Na might have some sort of Mary Sue aura and had seduced Leon while she hadn't been looking, but it seemed that that wasn't the case. Maybe she wasn't a true protagonist after all, since she had been summoned from another world, and was not someone that originally belonged to this story line?

Yin Mei still couldn't decide. She thought that she would obviously be a protagonist, but perhaps she wasn't after all...

The next day, Yin Mei was waiting in the underground shrine room for El. She had heard from Naenia that "Kiel" had visited her on the day that she had fallen unconscious, so she had immediately sent her little familiar as a messenger so that El wouldn't be worried anymore.

El appeared from the hidden passage, in his disguise as Kiel. Yin Mei immediately brightened up, smiling at the man, whose gloomy expression disappeared. He grabbed the girl in a hug, his grip tight enough that Yin Mei could barely breath. Only after she tapped several times in surrender did he let go with an apologetic expression.

The two of them sat down in front of the statue of the goddess, leaning against each other as Yin Mei explained what had happened. "A girl with a light affinity about as strong as yours?" El said thoughtfully.

Yin Mei nodded. "Although training her to take my position might take a while, I'll finally be able to go outside again afterwards...!" She said with a happy expression. Although actually Yin Mei hadn't been Celestina for that long, she was already craving freedom - she really wondered how this girl had handled being stuck in this cage called the church for so long without going crazy.

El's eyes shone with an odd expression, which he quickly covered up, lowering his head. His lips curled up into a smile as he raised his face up again to face Yin Mei. "That's good. We can finally go visit the bakery you like in person now."

They chat for a little longer, before El had to leave. "Tell me when the succession ceremony will take place." He said, his smile extremely gentle and warm.

Yin Mei paused, wondering what El was up to. The succession ceremony... it would be the time when the seal was the weakest... She nodded, and El disappeared into the shadows of the hidden passage, stone wall closing behind him after he had obtained her confirmation.

It couldn't be that... he would unseal the demon during the succession ceremony?

Yin Mei suddenly realized something. The mission had always been to unseal the demon, and not free Celes. The easiest way to unseal the demon was to kill Celestina, but taking into consideration all the information thus far, El had been trying to find a way to unseal the demon without killing his childhood friend.

But... now that Celestina had a successor, then there was no need to go through such a roundabout way to do things. He could directly kill off Yu Na during the succession ceremony!

"If that's what El is aiming for, then I'll have to do my best to help him out, right?" Yin Mei smiled sweetly, the flickering light and shadows of the room making her expression seem almost menacing, her soft giggles echoing off the stone walls.

The next several months, Yin Mei and the priestesses spent most of their time teaching Yu Na about magic and the history and traditions of the continent and church. Although Yu Na didn't quite understand the reasoning for this, after thinking about it, this was a sort of scene that was often shown in those another world stories. Because of this, she dutifully whipped out her high school studying skills and diligently memorized everything - she never thought that she would still need to study even in another world...

During this time, Leon would also occasionally come over, making excuses to visit his friend Kai or to check on Yu Na's progress. Yu Na would constantly ditch her work whenever he visited, putting on a sweet smile and a cute voice to butter up with him. Leon, being the smooth playboy he was, never looked uncomfortable due to this and always handled the girl with a smile. To Yin Mei, in her eyes, he was just treating her like a little sister, but Yu Na seemed to think differently, misunderstanding his kind treatment as interest toward her.

So when that kind treatment was also given to other girls, such as Yin Mei, Rosella, or the other priestesses, even if they were just a few polite greetings exchanged between them, a dark expression would flash past her face.

"High priestess, what's your relationship with Leon?" Yu Na one day asked while Yin Mei was teaching her about the history of the empire. By her side, Elaina was shocked by Yu Na's bluntness, covering her open mouth while looking back and forth between the two girls.

"Leon is a research partner. He helped me create the spell that summoned you," Yin Mei didn't even bat an eye as she replied, looking down at the open book in her hand. "It's better to leave these sort of off topic questions for later. For now, do you remember how the current emperor came to power?"

Yu Na frowned, feeling that Yin Mei was purposefully steering the topic away from her question. "I'm already tired of all this useless knowledge," she said with a sulky expression. "Are you sure your relationship is just that?" She eyed Celestina suspiciously. To her, the relationship between the beautiful Celestina and the handsome Leon was too friendly for comfort - she felt like he treated her differently from everyone else. No! Celestina was just a resident of this world. She was the one who had been summoned, so shouldn't Leon obviously be in love with her, who was clearly superior toward Celestina?

"Shut up!" Before Yin Mei could answer again, a sharp hiss came out of Elaina's mouth as her hand shot out, gripping Yu Na's wrist tightly. "Saying such blasphemy when you don't know anything!" She was completely outraged. Some gossiping between the priestesses was fine, but if this outsider said the wrong thing in front of others, then the consequences could be dire.

The high priestess still hadn't been relieved of her position, and as such, could not be in a relationship with others.

"The high priestess is different from us ordinary people; she is above such matters," Elaina said, her eyes cold as Yu Na turned pale. She released the girl's hand after a moment, wiping her own hand on her skirt, as if she had touched something dirty. She bowed to Yin Mei, apologizing, "I apologize for interrupting."

Yin Mei shook her head, surprised that Elaina actually had such a vicious side to her. That expression was scary enough to kill a person.

She glanced at Yu Na, who looked as if she had been wronged. "Slandering the high priestess is a crime that could result in death. You should watch your mouth. It's okay since the one you spoke to was me and Elaina, but if it was anyone else, then you would be imprisoned and depending on what you said, potentially executed." Well, since Yu Na's identity was special, this wouldn't happen. But it would be good to scare her a little.

Seeing that Yu Na's face became significantly paler, Yin Mei considered her job of scaring the girl successful. Mm, she didn't really feel that bad, since Yu Na's words could have gotten them both in a lot of trouble. But, soon she wouldn't have to worry about that. Yin Mei put on a warm smile again as she continued the lecture. After all, she'd be free. Soon, soon, soon. Did she feel guilty for putting someone else in her current position?

The answer was no! She was just selfish in that way. In the end, if it came down to it, Yin Mei wouldn't mind sacrificing a single little girl for the sake of her own happiness and freedom.

She'd already sacrificed far more before, what was one more life to that?