After the stammering gate officer finally explained everything from start to finish, the white-robed lady official had Leif change into more formal clothes, then made her take Lily by the rope and follow the anxious gate officer to appear before His Majesty the King.
The moment the furious king saw the guilty sheep and her equally infuriating owner, he was just about to explode. But then he froze in shock and a flicker of fear when he saw that Natiaveda had come as well.
This mysterious woman who had suddenly appeared at the queen’s side a month and a half ago always left him unsettled. Even just catching sight of her white-robed silhouette was enough to make a thin sheen of sweat break out on his back.
After her wool had been shorn, Lily looked much smaller. No more fluffy mass of fleece—only a tight layer of short stubble clinging to her skin. Because the shepherd girl had worked in a rush this time, there was still an awkward clump of wool hanging beneath Lily’s neck, uneven compared to the rest of her coat.
Vain little Lily tried her best to press her neck down, as if she could hide that unsightly patch.
“Your Majesty, noble King, please forgive this innocent little sheep. Look.”
The brown-haired shepherd girl pointed at Lily.
“She’s already hanging her head in shame.”
“Baa―aa―aah.”
Lily let out a long bleat in response.
“The Lady Envoy arranged quarters for this sheep so far from my palace. How, exactly, did it manage to come all that way on its own just to, ahem…”
Kick him in the ass.
Norren coughed lightly. His tailbone still throbbed dully.
“Without someone pulling the strings, I absolutely do not believe it!”
His blue eyes shifted to the lady official. He knew Natiaveda was unreasonably attentive to this so-called knight of a shepherd girl, but she surely wouldn’t pick a fight with him over a sheep.
“Envoy, you may withdraw for now.”
The king’s gaze lingered on the screen for a moment.
Only after Natiaveda left did the tension in the air ease a little.
The king loosened his collar and paced a few steps across the throne room.
Leif and Lily huddled together, both with their heads bowed. Maybe for different reasons, but on the surface they looked the same—truly repentant, full of regret and remorse.
Leif had no idea how the king planned to deal with them, or whether the knight’s ribbon that was almost in her grasp would now slip away.
If she failed to obtain the ribbon and also lost her little sheep, she’d go from a sheep-riding knight to a walking nobody. She might very well die of exhaustion on the road before she ever found another kingdom that both had the authority to grant a knight’s ribbon and was willing to give her a quest.
But then she remembered Natiaveda was still just outside the door. For some unknown reason, that thought calmed her. Strangely enough, it wasn’t the queen she was relying on—though she knew the queen would definitely try to shield her.
“Little shepherd girl.”
After a long silence, the king finally spoke.
“Do you know that the former queen was not at all the person you see today?”
The brown-haired shepherd girl kept her head lowered. She couldn’t fathom why the king would suddenly turn the topic this way.
The queen she knew was like a tiny white flower that gave off a faint fragrance—small, beautiful, fragile, gentle, as if she would wither at a touch.
She looked at Leif with eyes full of dependent trust. Aside from granting Leif the honor of becoming a knight, she was, without question, a child Leif instinctively wanted to take care of.
“I met her twice in the past.
Once when she was five—already showing all the spoiled traits she would have later, just like any pampered little princess.
She was so mischievous she never spared a thought for anyone’s embarrassment, always playing pranks that left people laughing and crying at the same time. And once she was caught, she’d make the most innocent face and pull grimaces as she ran away.
The second time was when she was ten. Still an insufferable little troublemaker. But what could anyone do? She was a princess.”
There was a faint mix of nostalgia and disgust in the king’s tone.
“But now, the queen seems to have changed a great deal.”
Spoiled. Mischievous. Picking fights, playing tricks…
Even without the king pointing it out, Leif realized this image had nothing in common with the queen she knew.
The current queen not only seemed like someone who would never prank others—she probably wasn’t even qualified to be the target of a prank.
Leif could almost picture it: faced with a naughty child, the queen would only give a helpless, faint smile, pull the child into her arms, and then whisper a few powerless little scoldings.
When she first met the queen, Leif had indeed been puzzled—why wasn’t she like the high-and-mighty nobles Leif had imagined? Why was she so gentle even toward a nobody shepherd girl like her, even using honorifics when speaking to her?
Leif had assumed that after surviving her calamities, the queen had become thus considerate and humble. She’d thought: she’s so young, yet so sensible—it really breaks the heart.
Now that the king had said this much, there were indeed some suspicious points.
—But what did the queen’s personality change have to do with her?
She’d only come here to fight monsters.
Beside her, the sheep rubbed against her, bleating a few times in discomfort.
“But… Her Majesty the Queen has grown up, after all, and gone through so many upheavals. People are bound to change.”
Leif forced her wandering thoughts to a halt.
“I don’t understand, Your Majesty—why are you telling me this all of a sudden?”
“Tch. A river may change its course, but a person’s nature is hard to trust. I don’t believe for a moment she’s suddenly changed her stripes.”
The king spoke toward the screen.
“Come out.”
Leif raised her head just in time to see a middle-aged woman in a white sacred robe step out from behind the screen.
In the Kingdom of Aiseya—especially in the royal capital of Gino—white robes were not an uncommon sight. The white hyacinth was the national flower; commoners couldn’t afford to wear cloth dyed snow-white, but the nobles took pride in white robes. From afar, the capital was a sea of white, indistinguishable from the expanses of white hyacinths.
But this white-robed woman was different.
The pattern of ivy on her robe was a design reserved for the Holy Temple alone. The Temple didn’t care what colors layfolk wore, but within its own ranks, priestly garb was strictly stratified.
At the very bottom were the black robes, worn by trainee priests and assistant priests who were still in their probationary period.
Above black came the red robes, worn by fully ordained priests. Even among them, the embroidery and patterning of their red robes varied according to the size of their parish, its population, their years of service, and contributions to the Temple.
Above red was gold, worn only by those who served in the Temple’s central administration.
And above even gold was white—granted solely to priests who had rendered outstanding service to the Temple.
Leif, a girl from some remote backwater, had never seen the last two ranks in person. She had only heard old Priest Reilly mention them a few times in a reverent tone.
The king bent forward with humble deference and kissed the floor where the white-robed envoy’s feet had passed.
“Honored Divine Envoy, forgive me for keeping you waiting.”
On the Continent of Deya, divine authority had always stood above royal power. Even a sovereign king had to bow and scrape before a messenger of the Temple.
With a dull thump, Leif dropped to her knees, forehead pressed to the floor.
“Your Excellency, Divine Envoy.”
Call it doing as the locals did, or singing whatever song the mountain demanded. In this world’s setting, the Temple was the supreme power among mortals. Its influence reached every corner of the Deya Continent. Even in Ede Village, where the voice of God barely carried, every child was taught from birth that the Temple, the priests, and the Almighty Lord were inviolable.
The envoy did not announce any sacred title, which meant this visit was not an official mission sent by the Temple.
“I sensed,” the envoy said, stepping down the dais one step at a time until she stood beside Leif,
“that an evil witch is at work here.”
What followed was an unbearable silence.
Leif stared at the envoy’s feet, which had stopped right before her eyes. The oppressive air made her want to blurt out that she was no evil witch—she was just a combat-type player with a machete.
But then she saw the envoy raise her staff. Holy white light flared from its tip and pointed straight at the sheep beside her.
Bathed in the radiance, the sheep’s body slowly began to change shape. The ovine head melted into a human face. The sheep’s body became the torso of a woman. The four hooves lengthened into hands and feet.
The envoy lowered her staff and, before the light had fully faded, draped a robe over the girl’s bare body.
The girl—who had just turned from a sheep into a human—clutched the robe tight around herself and sneezed. Her hands and feet, unused to this form, groped clumsily against the ground. Her eyes wandered in confusion until finally they locked onto the shepherd girl.
The shepherd girl’s dark eyes went wide.
“You’re the qu… Queen… Her Majesty the Queen…”
The same golden curls, though cropped now in a somewhat strange way.
The same fair face, only without that fragile pallor.
The same emerald-green eyes—but what shone in them now was not gentleness, but mischief.
The golden-haired princess threw her arms around the shepherd girl’s legs and used her to pull herself upright. Leif could feel the warmth through their clothes, but her own body only grew more rigid.
Sophie leaned against her ear, breath tickling her neck.
“Leif wants to knit a wool scarf, ride the sheep, and even milk her…
Did you ever consider how the sheep felt?!”
“No… I… I mean, yes…”
It was over. She was in serious trouble.
The golden-haired little princess ground her teeth, her voice sweet and vicious.
“Well then, tell me—how exactly should I punish Leif?”
Hearing the disturbance in the hall, Natiaveda pushed open the door and stepped in. At a glance she saw Leif sprawled on the ground, trembling and wishing she could burrow into a hole and vanish—her composure from facing magical beasts completely gone.
Clinging to her like some sort of conjoined infant was a disheveled young girl.
Natiaveda’s brows knit together.
