That Time a Bookworm Got Ascended in Tensura

Ch.17 A Church?

Myne's pov: 

Sitting between Luminas and Hinata may have been the worst decision I had ever made. Though that is mostly to do with the former of the two. 

Luminas kept leaning into me and caressing my hair, which made me shiver a bit. Though she didn't seem to notice, or if she was she didn't care. "How much stronger have you gotten, you still seem pretty frail for what I saw of your aura before." She asked while she was doing this. 

"I don't really know that.. I don't care much about that really.. I just wanna read books.." I was gripping my novel tightly, and had my chalk board next to me. It had finally be returned to me a day or two ago, so I started carrying it around it again. 

She seemed to tap her chin a bit while thinking. "Well, it has only been a few weeks since that scuffle with clayman. Though you also just got that body so I'd expect your progress to be pretty fast right now." She nodded to herself while reasoning, it made sense to me. 

Hinata commented on this, "What exactly is she?" It seemed she had been grappling with the question for a little while now. 

To this Luminas giggled lightly, "I thought more highly of you, Hinata. Isn't that obvious?" She pushed me toward Hinata and then seemed to notice my bracelet. She was nonchalant and slid it off of my hand before I could really respond. 

I was quick to try to pull my arm out of the way out of surprise, though I was certainly not fast enough for the demon lord. As I wasn't expecting to need to control my aura more than normal is flared out and quickly engulfed the room. As well as causing a gust of wind originating from me because of my surprise. 

While no one is the room was hurt by this, a few of them did have visible shivers from the sudden release of magicules. Tuuli specifically seemed to have a bit of a hard time breathing, holding her throat and gasping a bit for air. This did put a lot of sudden attention on me. 

I was quick to respond to the glances and scares by forcing myself to calm down by breathing intentionally for the first time in a few days, and restrained my aura. Though it was a bit harder than it was before, I assumed it had gotten bigger, though I don't know by how much. Now that it was restrained though I puffed out my cheeks and glared at Luminas. "You could have just let me answer her question!" I shouted a bit. 

Luminas smiled softly and tapped me on the tip of my nose. "Ara, Where is the fun in that? Plus you couldn't answer my question, so I answered it myself." She seemed to stare at me greedily for a moment before turning to Hinata. "See?" She said like she had just proven a point. 

I was still very annoyed by this, though I sat in a resigned manor while  taking my bracelet back and slipping it back onto my wrist. At which point I could fully expression my emotions, though I decided not to. 

Hinata seemed a little shocked, with her mouth just barely ajar and her eyes a little wide. "She, is she a demi-spirit?." She trailed of a bit before putting her chin into her palm and looking away. "That is why you taught her restoration? It seemed a little, irresponsible of you Luminas-sama.. She is just a girl." She seemed to try to pull me away from Luminas for a moment, though she was unable. 

Luminas laughed solidly at this, "Just a girl? You saw that aura, yes?" She seemed to be restraining further laughing. "She has more magicules than a superior spirit, she may not be in line with a spirit king, but she isn't far off the weakest of them." She was puppeteering my arms a bit while saying this, putting them in the air to better show me off. 

I tried to get away from Luminas during this time, though I was similarly unable. "Can you please let go of me?.." I was getting progressively more uncomfortable. Though I didn't really know how to express it. 

Rimuru who was sitting next to Luminas seemed to catch up on this now. "Luminas, stop." He said it with a serious tone while glaring at her, and holding his hand onto her shoulder with a firm grip. 

Veldora seemed to be glaring, from next to Rimuru while growling lightly under his breath. Though he was rarely serious, when he was. 

Luminas finally seemed serious herself and sighed. She released me and let me scoot closer to Hinata. "You're all sticks in the mud." She pouted just a little bit. Though now she was more focused on Rimuru than me. 

Hinata kept a hand on my shoulder and made sure I was a bit distanced from Luminas. Though she was also glaring at Rimuru a bit. "So, about that church you want. Are you sure?" She seemed to be talking about something from before. 

Rimuru nodded and then looked to me for a moment. "I think it would be a good thing, ultimately. It will make humans feel safer and make them more likely to migrant here." He was rubbing his chin softly while saying this. 

I had pieced together what they were talking about now. "H-hey... I was an apprentice Priestess before all this happened... Could Ferdinand-sensei be one of the candidates to lead the church here?.." I asked, a bit unsure if I should but into the conversation. 

Rimuru seemed to perk up a bit at this, "I think I'd like him. Plus I'd like to have more people Myne knows around the city." He was smiling, and then continued. "Though I did get informed your family will be back tomorrow." He looked at me while he said it. 

My eyes glowed a bit with excitement. "It's been weeks!" I just under shouted and waved my arms up in the air a little. 

Hinata was more focused on the former statement. "He is an arch-duke candidate if I remember properly, and an A-rank in terms of power. I do think he'd be a good choice. I can send him the offer, I suppose." She nodded while concluding and them looked to my excitement, she smiled a bit and patted my head. Though for a moment it seemed odd she knew so much about Ehrenfest. 

Sometime after that the night ended, with everyone resigning to rooms in hotels and Inns. While Tuuli and I had gone back to our own room in the governmental building in the center of the plaza. 

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I was sitting on my bed, watching Tuuli. She was sleeping in a ball and wincing a bit in her sleep whenever her hand moved as she turned and tossed occasionally. It was still around an hour before sunrise so I knew she wouldn't be up for some time. It had become a habit of mine to do this, I had been doing it for the past week. 

Though with what I heard from Rimuru the night before I'd need to prepare for today. So I stood up and floated to the window, opening it carefully and floating out before closing it carefully. After that I balanced on the roof as I walked along it, and pulled out my chalkboard. 

I started writing with a small piece of chalk while standing at the edge of the roof, and balancing myself with magic if my natural balance failed. I made  a quick list of things I needed to prepare before Tuuli woke up, and then lifted into the air and secured my chalk board back into my satchel. 

After that I made my way to the center of the city and landed in the middle of the town square, right in front of the announcement tower. Then I made my way to a clothing shop, I already had a plan in mind for where I'd be going this morning. 

Luckily for me, even though most of the citizens sleep during the night. Many kinds of beastkin, kobolds, and other monsters are nocturnal. So the bigger shops in the city were still running at night, though in a much lower capacity. 

As I walked up to the clothing store I saw a lycanthrope along with a very tired looking kobold, the kobold at the counter and the lycanthrope browsing the aisles. I opened the door causing the small bell on it to ring, which alerted the kobold and they tried to look more awake. 

I nodded to them and walked into the aisles, luckily I knew everything I was here for. First I walked to an aisle specified for kids, and bought a small hat with a pin and a black bow on it. It was half a sphere and brimmed with a thin upward curved piece of fabric. 

The next isle I was in was an aisle with women's apparel, here I picked out a puffy white scarf made of a thick knitted fabrics. It was still soft and smooth to the touch though. So I thought it was perfect. 

Finally in the third aisle I grabbed two things, it was an aisle for men's apparel. I was quick to find what I was after. One was a thick coat with black belts across the front and a few buttons, it was designed to allow a full grown man to wear a set of armor under it, so the fit was adjustable. The coat itself was a dark green color. 

The final piece of clothing I bought was another hat. This one was closer a lot larger than the previous hat, having a brim and a raised cap. The flatter surface at the top led it to look a bit imposing, and there was a small feather pinned in the brim, which was similar to the previous hat. Though this one was a deep blue color while the other was a lighter blue. 

The Lycanthrope was in the same aisle as me now, she seemed to look at me with a glance. Her eyes were inhuman, with a large purple iris that covered most of the visible eye and a pupil which was a slit. Though right now it was expanded due to the low light, so it was closer to a circle than it would be normally. Her skin was dark and she had a small puffy tail and small ears peaking out of her hood. The rest of her clothes were simple and look very much like she was wrapped in sheets, of a forest green color. She began to make small talk, "That is quite  the assortment of items, who are you shopping for?" 

My ears perked at this, I badly wanted to brag. Though I decided to keep it short, "Family and friends. They will be back in tempest later today." I made a small motion with my arm to show everything I was carrying while I said this.

She seemed a bit surprised for a moment, then replied. "That is a nice sentiment." She trailed off while saying that. 

I nodded and turned away to walk to the teller. It wasn't long before I'd made my way back to the kobold. 

He shot up and looked at me before his head drooped a bit. He seemed to struggle to begin talking, "Hello. Are you ready to check out?" He was a small humanoid cat with small whiskers and a grey hair. His red vest was tight fitting and had a white dress shirt under it. His eyes were a green color with very large irises, though his pupils were very thin slits at the moment. 

I nodded softly and lifted all of my items onto the counter with magic while setting each out separately. I also made each tag hover up from the piece and present itself to him. 

To this his eyes widened a bit as he realized I wasn't a normal little girl, though considering me being here at this time. That should have been obvious. He was quick to jot down all the items and calculate the price for me. Then promptly handed me a small piece of wood with a receipt printed out on it. The price was two golden coins total, which was sorta expensive. 

Though I had enough. I pulled up my coin pouch and quickly pulled out the coins I needed, taking care to make sure they were the right grade before handing them to him. I had been working in the construction sites on the city from time to time, mostly just levitating stuff for the orcs and moving things where they asked, I'd gotten a lot of money from it. 

The tender was less shocked I was able to put forward the money, though less shocked than before. "That should be everything, would you like your items wrapped, uh.." He trailed off on the name. 

"Myne." I replied simply while looking up at him, I was a little amused. Though also a bit sad deep down. 

"Myne-sama." He finished his sentence upon my prompting and then waited for my answer. 

"Yes, I would. Thank you." I gave him a confirmation, while then floating up a bit to wait for the packages. 

It wasn't long before he promptly, though carefully, wrapped each package. Making a quite glance at me every so often and seemingly trying to identify me. Though in the end he just focused on working. Soon he promptly handed each package to me. 

I nodded softly and stacked each package while levitating them all along as I walked. Leaving the store and going to do the rest of my chores for the morning. 

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--2320 words--

--Myne's EP: 510,322(fully recovered)--

 --Myne's current list of spells: Nuclear canon, Restoration, Manipulate gravity(non-skill form, low efficiency), Elemental storm, and Luminosity for all her active spells. She additionally possesses Passive magic, Holy magic, and Spirit magic-- 

(AN: This chapter focuses on Myne and her trying to get her family and friends into tempest.)