"Search everywhere! Look sharp, she can't have gotten far!"
Back in the valley town, a balding Feline monk stood near the central square, frantically directing the clergy of the Vine-Bear Court to comb through every alley. Their Saintess had vanished into thin air!
"Damn it, barely a single night passes and she just slips away like that? Are you kidding me? If the Grand Elder finds out about this, he'll have me whipped within an inch of my life!"
His eyes darted back and forth like searchlights, desperately trying to calculate where the Saintess might have hidden herself and how she managed to evade their guards.
Even now, the frantic monk flatly refused to believe that the timid, easily managed Saintess he thought he knew could have initiated a disappearance entirely on her own. Someone must have cajoled or smuggled her out from under their noses.
"Looks like things are getting lively around here. Did something happen?"
"Move along! I don't have time to deal with idle bystanders right now. If we don't find the Saintess immediately, we'll have to assume someone in this town is harboring—ah, Saintess Enya!"
At first, the monk assumed the voice belonged to some clueless local villager. But right in the middle of his impatient dismissal, he snapped his gaze upward—and froze mid-sentence.
The Saintess stood right before him, a calm, serene smile gracing her lips, as if she had absolutely no idea that a small army of clerics had spent the entire morning tearing the district apart just to find her.
The monk stared at her in utter bewilderment, completely paralyzed by her sudden reappearance. With his attention riveted entirely to the Saintess, he completely failed to notice Jeanne lingering quietly in the shadows of a nearby alley.
Jeanne was keeping watch to ensure Enya's safety during the confrontation, still harboring a sliver of doubt. After all, it was hard to fathom how a person could change so radically overnight.
Just yesterday, Enya was a hesitant young woman who easily lost arguments against these very same zealots. Today, she was walking right back into the lion's den to face them head-on. It felt almost surreal.
"Saintess Enya, where on earth were you last night? We searched your quarters at dawn and found no trace of you—"
The monk caught himself just in time, remembering that he wasn't safely ensconced inside the Vine-Bear Court. Out here in the public streets, he still had to maintain a veneer of outward respect toward the spiritual head of their order.
"It was nothing of the sort. I simply returned home to my family for a brief visit," Enya replied smoothly. "Perhaps the note I left behind was blown away by the wind. Call everyone back immediately. There is no need to disturb the townspeople's lives any further."
Though her tone was light and effortless, the command carried an undeniable weight. The surrounding monks blinked in surprise, unaccustomed to hearing such a firm directive from her, yet they quickly fell in line and began recalling the search parties.
"Well now, she really has changed quite a bit, hasn't she?" Jeanne muttered, scratching her head as she watched the group escort the Saintess back toward her temporary quarters. With a faint smirk, she turned and slipped away to check on the others.
Because the arrival of the Vine-Bear Court had temporarily halted all local mining operations and factory labor, the Doctor suddenly found herself enjoying something resembling an actual vacation.
She was currently skipping across the fresh snow with the unbound enthusiasm of a young puppy seeing a winter wonderland for the very first time, looking as though she wanted to carve out a snow cave and hibernate inside it.
"Just how long is she planning to keep this up?" Jeanne asked, walking alongside the rest of the Rhodes Island team and gesturing toward the gleefully distracted strategist with a sideways glance at Blaze.
"She's been like this ever since the temporary suspension order came down yesterday," Blaze chuckled heartily, shaking her head. "Probably blowing off steam before she has to dive back into the crushing workload. Who knows when she'll get another holiday like this?"
"She's going to stick her nose right into the internal politics of this country before this is over," Jeanne noted, folding her arms. "Knowing Rhodes Island's standard protocols, meddling in local regime changes is supposed to be strictly avoided. I have a hunch Kal'tsit won't let her hear the end of it once we head back."
The mere mention of Kal'tsit's name had an immediate, magical effect. Up ahead, the Doctor stiffened like a startled cat, abruptly halting her frolicking to peer warily over both shoulders. Seeing no green-haired feline looming behind her, she let out a visible sigh of relief.
Even on a holiday, the very syllables of that name were enough to trigger a mild existential panic.
"Speaking of which... is it really wise to let the Saintess face those Vine-Bear Court monks all by herself?" Alina asked, her voice laced with genuine concern.
Having spent a fair amount of time conversing with Enya during their journey, Alina had labeled the Saintess as a gentle, somewhat delicate soul who tended to let others walk all over her. Throwing such a soft-spoken woman back into a den of jackals felt like asking for trouble. Alina worried the hardline clerics might subject her to harsh discipline—perhaps even reviving Kjerag's antiquated corporal punishments.
"Don't worry about her," Jeanne replied with a reassuring smile. "I can't prove it empirically, but Enya is fundamentally different now. Something inside her shifted when she said goodbye to her sister last night."
Jeanne cast a glance toward the northern sky. "She made a firm resolution. Once someone truly decides to stand their ground, no trial can easily break them. Besides, she is still someone chosen by the local deity—even if that deity is a bit more easygoing than the ones back home."
A faint gust of wind swept through the snowy street, carrying a whisper of chill air that felt almost like a silent, amused response from Kjera herself.
"Alright then, if you say so," Alina nodded, setting her worries aside.
Meanwhile, back at the temporary quarters, Enya was indeed facing an immediate, hostile tribunal.
The moment she stepped inside the main hall, she was surrounded by a cluster of scowling monks eager to interrogate their runaway spiritual leader.
"Saintess Enya, have you truly no repentance for today's reckless actions?" demanded a sharp-faced senior cleric stepping forward. "Leaving your quarters unattended during such a volatile crisis to wander off alone—"
Due to the arduous journey through the blizzard, the Grand Elder had fallen physically ill and was currently receiving medical treatment deep within the Paleroches Clan estate, leaving him entirely unable to preside over this impromptu council.
In his absence, the floor had been seized by his primary sycophant—a man widely known to be groomed as the Grand Elder's successor, who currently wielded more vocal authority among the hardliners than Enya herself.
"Repentance? What exactly am I repenting for?" Enya interrupted, her voice cool and steady. "Are our teachings truly so absurd that a Saintess is forbidden from visiting her own family during a time of crisis?"
Her words caught the assembly entirely off guard. The senior monk blinked, momentarily struck dumb by the unexpected pushback.
Enya stared down the men who had intimidated her for years. To her astonishment, the towering aura of authority they once projected suddenly felt hollow. She realized she no longer needed to cower before them.
A dormant strength, long suppressed by a lifetime of timid compliance, was finally waking up inside her.
"The teachings of the church do not explicitly forbid—well, that is to say, Kjeragandr may permit charity, but sneaking out unannounced while Kjerag stands on the brink of chaos is an unacceptable breach of protocol—"
"That is precisely why I enlisted Jeanne to escort me safely to the Silverash Clan estate," Enya cut him off once more, her tone brook-zero argument. "I can think of no place safer on this mountain than under her protection. Even the wildest Tschäggättä would think twice before crossing blades with her."
The hardline monks stared at her in stunned silence. Never in their wildest dreams had they imagined the quiet, yielding Saintess would possess the audacity to interrupt their reprimands.
"As for causing a public stir by leaving without a formal notice, that oversight is indeed my responsibility, and I will issue a formal apology to the townspeople on behalf of the Vine-Bear Court," Enya continued, her gaze sweeping firmly across the room before she turned on her heel toward the exit. "However, as for your accusations of spiritual wrongdoing..."
She paused at the threshold, casting one final, unyielding look over her shoulder.
"If I have truly sinned as Saintess, Lady Kjeragandr herself will judge me. But your baseless reprimands? I reject them entirely."
With the rhythmic, crisp chiming of her silver ornaments echoing in her wake, Enya stepped out of the hall, leaving the high-ranking clergy sitting in dumbfounded silence.