Zoe Freya, visibly brimming with joy and relief the entire way, alternated between apologizing, expressing gratitude, and petting the cat without pause.
By the time they arrived back at Zoe's shop — which was also her home — the two had moved from last names to first.
"Ais! Ais! Come in, come in. Today was all thanks to you, my brilliant detective."
Zoe threw the door open and, seeing Ais strolling behind at a leisurely pace, immediately turned back and took hold of her left hand with her clean right. She pulled Ais into the shop while saying:
"Don't be shy! I'm paying for your lunch, and that's final."
Ais, who had merely been walking slowly, steered to another topic:
"I'm not going to argue. But Zoe — shouldn't you give Hammond a bath first? He can't be comfortable like this."
Zoe let go of Ais once inside and set the cat down in front of a bowl of fresh food she'd prepared in advance, then shook her head:
"Let him eat first. It's been three days."
Once Hammond was clearly eating with enthusiasm, the last trace of worry finally left Zoe. She beamed and pulled Ais through the shop into the back room.
"Ais, do you prefer coffee or black tea?"
Looks like this used to be a dining room. A bit small, though… Ais settled into a chair and looked around at the well-worn furniture and décor while answering:
"Tea, please."
After washing her hands, Zoe began brewing the tea and started expressing her gratitude again:
"Truly, thank you, Ais. Since my mother passed, Hammond has been my only company. I can't bear to think what I'd have done if I'd lost him too."
Listening to Zoe's words — relief and lingering fear mixed together — Ais smiled in return:
"Then it sounds like finding you was the Evernight Goddess's blessing, Zoe. Deciding to help was unquestionably the second best choice I've made."
"Ais, I wondered about that earlier. You follow the Lord of Storms? You really don't seem the type."
The Storm Church championed men as providers and women as homemakers — the direct opposite of the Church of the Evernight Goddess , which encouraged women's independence and equality. A woman who worked as a detective and followed the Lord of Storms would be quite unusual.
Ais let out a deliberate sigh before answering:
"I understand the Goddess's mercy. But choosing one's own faith freely isn't always easy. It's also part of why I decided to come to Beklund on my own."
Seeing that Ais wasn't inclined to say more, Zoe didn't press. She set the freshly brewed Marquis black tea on the table and offered a quiet encouragement:
"I believe you, Ais. I'm certain you'll get what you're looking for in the end."
You don't have to mean that quite so sincerely… Looking at the genuine warmth in Zoe's pretty face, Ais felt a faint twinge of guilt at her offhand remark and shifted her gaze away with a small nod.
"Enough of that. Sit down, Ais — let me put together a proper meal to thank you."
Zoe rolled up her sleeves and headed for the kitchen behind the room.
The full-commitment attitude alarmed Ais enough to call out after her:
"Zoe, I can't eat that much — don't go overboard!"
She'd been eating a fraction of her previous amount since becoming a Witch.
"Don't worry, don't worry. I know what I'm doing."
Zoe's breezy reply did nothing to reassure Ais. On the pretext of being there to learn cooking, Ais inserted herself into the kitchen and started helping. Under persistent gentle intervention, she eventually steered Zoe into making just two dishes and a soup before Zoe went to check on Hammond.
What did surprise Ais was that Zoe — a native-born Ruenish person through and through — had made a large bowl of Feynport seafood rice and beef-and-radish soup, with Feynport highland peppers on the side. Only the last item, fish and chips, was traditionally Ruenish.
After eating for a while, watching Zoe — who had cleaned Hammond up and rejoined her at the table — Ais couldn't help asking:
"Have you spent time in the south, Zoe? I didn't expect to find Feynport-style cooking outside a restaurant."
Zoe shook her head with a smile:
"No. It's just that my mother followed the Earth Mother Goddess rather than the Evernight Goddess. She had an influence on what I grew up eating."
Since its founding, Ruen had recognized both the Evernight Goddess and the Lord of Storms as its central faiths, and the Steam Church had also held missionary rights in Ruen for a significant period. So while men who followed the Lord of Storms and women who followed the Evernight Goddess rarely married each other, families of different faiths weren't unusual in Ruen.
Ais was more curious about something else:
"Is there an Earth Mother Goddess church in Beklund?"
Zoe nodded and said quietly:
"It's in the Southbridge District, just beside the West District. Though since they don't have the right to actively proselytize, not many people know about it."
Ais noticed Zoe's expression dimming and quickly changed the subject:
"Zoe, thank you for all of this. Compared to the simpler Ruenish cooking, I really do prefer more complex flavors — and the variety that comes with them."
Zoe nodded her agreement:
"This country really does put far too much thought into desserts."
After chatting a while longer, Ais finally brought up what she'd come for:
"Zoe, I'd like to use makeup to make myself look a little plainer. Could you help me with that?"
"I'm sorry?" Zoe's immediate reaction was to wonder if her ears were malfunctioning.
Ais explained calmly:
"I wasn't joking about being a detective, Zoe. But I also know how much I stand out right now…"
Before she'd gotten very far, Zoe cut in with undisguised disbelief:
"Can't you just… not wear makeup?"
Ais shook her head, just as Zoe expected, with an expression of pure innocence:
"But I'm barely wearing any now."
"Impossible! Even at your age — how can your skin have absolutely no blemishes?"
Zoe's beautiful blue eyes were completely unconvinced.
"That's just how it is."
Looking at Ais blinking at her with total guilelessness, Zoe gave up on eating entirely and seized her hand:
"Come with me. Let me see your bare face. Anyway, I've been bothered by your makeup this whole time — I'll redo it properly for you after."
"But we haven't finished eating."
"It can wait. You're the one who started talking about things that put me off my food!"
Zoe's footsteps were heavy enough going through the house that she woke Hammond, who had been napping.
Once inside the shop, Zoe deposited Ais into the soft chair without ceremony. With no chance to argue, Ais meekly allowed her to remove the makeup first.
A short while later, looking at Ais's face — slightly flushed with moisture, more appealing than ever — Zoe immediately threw the towel directly onto her face and then scrubbed vigorously at this infuriatingly enviable complexion through the cloth.
She kept at it until Ais made muffled noises of protest before finally letting up. Then she switched to persuasion:
"Can't you change careers? With a face and skin like yours, being a detective is a waste."
So it really has to come to this, does it… Looking at Zoe's pained expression, Ais — knowing perfectly well how unusual her appearance was — steeled herself, closed her eyes, and threw her arms around Zoe's hands in a shameless bid for sympathy:
"If I had a choice, I wouldn't want to be this way either, Zoe~. But I've never had any sense of beauty or ugliness, and I have zero talent for anything artistic. If I hadn't happened to look reasonably decent, I don't know how many times I'd have been beaten up. But I really don't want to just marry some unpleasant Storm worshipper and become a decorative object. I've truly run out of options, Zoe. So please help me, will you~"
As she spoke, memories of everything that had happened to her surfaced, and her sense of grievance somehow grew as she went.
Though Ais hadn't actually explained anything coherently, Zoe had watched her be steady, composed, and considerate from the moment they met — and now seeing her like this was simply too much. She drew Ais's head into her arms without hesitation and said:
"Don't worry. I never said I wouldn't help."
Author's Note (this chapter):"It's just that in the Southbridge District, just beside the West District. Though since they don't have the right to actively proselytize, not many people know about it."
叒叕是我Actually there should be one by now — the Earth Mother Goddess Church was allowed to have M0 set up an Extraordinary unit alongside their missionary work. 😂