Ch.197197. The Imperial Princess and the Saint

Gilbert and Veronica’s meeting took place not on the day of the enthronement ceremony, but the following day. Even with Seraphina’s permission, leaving the ceremony to meet would not have been appropriate.

It could have been perceived as challenging the authority of Seraphina, who was the protagonist of the ceremony and now officially the Imperial Princess, making it politically unwise to proceed with the meeting on the same day.

Although Gilbert wanted to find out as soon as possible why he had ended up here and how to return, he restrained himself because he didn’t want to damage Seraphina’s political standing.

After having no clues until now, the fact that the Saint was in the imperial capital—potentially holding the key to all his questions—made exercising a little patience not so difficult.

Having arranged to meet with Veronica after breakfast the next morning, Gilbert spent an appropriate amount of time at the enthronement banquet before returning to his lodgings.

When the next day dawned, Gilbert ate breakfast early and headed to the guest quarters where the Saint was staying, as promised. Being the highest authority of the Holy Empire, her quarters were predictably guarded by Holy Knights whom he encountered without difficulty.

“I have an appointment with the Saint. I would appreciate it if you could announce me.”

“The Saint has been expecting you. I’ll inform her immediately, please wait a moment.”

One of the Holy Knights, who had been vigilantly surveying the surroundings with sharp eyes, acknowledged Gilbert’s request and lightly knocked on the door.

“Your Holiness, Lord Gilbert is requesting an audience.”

“Please tell him to come in.”

Upon receiving permission from beyond the door, the Holy Knight opened it and entered first.

His duty was to protect Veronica’s safety until the moment she returned to the Holy Empire, so he entered the room first to prepare for any unforeseen circumstances.

“Welcome. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Veronica, who appeared to have been praying to the divine until Gilbert’s arrival, made the sign of the cross with a rosary in her hand and greeted him warmly.

Gilbert responded with noble etiquette.

“Forgive my rudeness for visiting so early in the morning. The matter is rather urgent.”

“I understand. By the way, Sir Johan, would you mind leaving us for a moment? What we’re about to discuss is a matter that must be addressed between Lord Gilbert and myself alone.”

Though Johan was inclined to refuse the dismissal outright, he couldn’t ignore the Saint’s earnest request. This was for the same reason Gilbert had postponed their meeting until today.

Johan’s brow twitched as he suppressed his desire to refuse her order and nodded.

“Very well. Please let me know when you’ve finished.”

Johan kept his eyes fixed on Gilbert until the moment he left the room.

While it might have seemed like an unpleasant stare at first glance, considering that his duty was to protect a key national figure, it was simply a diligent performance of his responsibilities.

“Please understand Sir Johan’s behavior. He may be a bit rigid, but he’s just dedicated to his duty.”

“I don’t find it disrespectful. Such vigilance is only natural for a Holy Knight tasked with guarding the Saint.”

Once Johan disappeared, Gilbert returned to his usual manner of speaking and showed his palm as if to say there was no need for explanation.

Though it wasn’t the attitude one would typically show to someone with a status equivalent to the Imperial Princess in the Holy Empire, Veronica didn’t particularly mind.

She wasn’t the type to be concerned about such things, and above all, Gilbert’s words and actions somehow suited him, making them acceptable to her.

“First, thank you for agreeing to what might be considered a discourteous request.”

“That’s what I should be saying. If you hadn’t requested a meeting, I would have. It seems our purposes align, so I’d like to get to the point.”

Gilbert cut through all the preliminaries, not wanting to waste any more time. Although he had exercised patience until dawn this morning, he couldn’t help feeling impatient now that he was finally face to face with the Saint.

“You seem to have your reasons. Very well. Let’s get to the point.”

“First, why did you want to see me?”

Gilbert decided to hear the Saint’s story first, rather than asking his own questions.

The reason was simple.

Previously, the system had told him to meet the Saint and secure causality.

But since there had been no clear explanation, he hadn’t been able to secure causality despite meeting her, so as a second-best option, he wanted to hear why she wanted to meet him.

Gilbert thought that there must be a good reason for someone of Veronica’s stature as a Saint to seek him out.

In conclusion, Gilbert’s thinking was correct.

“Lord Gilbert, do you know about the Hero and the Demon Lord?”

[User Kang Do-jun. Play name Gilbert Lion Heart. Calculation of causality begins.]

Though his correctness was in a direction he had never imagined.

***

The incident happened a year ago in a prayer room in the Holy Empire.

As usual, after finishing her volunteer work, Veronica visited the prayer room to offer prayers to the divine.

Although she was an artificial Saint created by the Holy Empire, her heart was as devout as any true believer and no different from a genuine Saint.

She offered endless prayers, hoping only that the divine grace would reach the lost lambs.

O Lord, holy and only Father.

Guide us, your foolish lost sheep, onto the right path.

Lead us not into temptation, and let us not fall into seduction.

We beseech you to grant peace to all who suffer in this world.

Your daughter implores you thus.

As always, or perhaps as ever.

Saint Veronica finished her prayer, wishing for the peace of others rather than herself.

Of course, being a fake Saint, she didn’t hear the voice of the Father in heaven, but even that alone was enough to bring peace to her mind…

– My daughter.

“Ah…”

Light poured down.

Holy and dazzling light streamed through the stained glass at the front of the prayer room.

Veronica felt a warmth as if her head was being caressed, and tears flowed down her face.

– I shall guide you to lead the lost ones, and you shall be my guide, a lamp that illuminates the dark path.

“Father, your daughter receives your word.”

– My guide, lamp that brightens the darkness. Follow the dawn. Though twilight approaches over the mountain ridge, dawn always comes.

“Ah… Lord.”

– I shall guide you, and you shall walk the right path rightly.

With those words, the pouring light faded, and the prayer room was once again enveloped in silence.

Though it was a very brief divine message, those few words were deeply engraved in Saint Veronica’s heart.

Believers of the Holy Empire, startled by the sudden surge of divine energy in the prayer room, came to investigate, but Veronica continued to offer prayers of gratitude with her eyes closed, showing no sign of disturbance.

Despite achieving what she had so desperately desired and wished for, she felt a sense of mission more distinctly than joy from the engraved words.

Veronica, the artificial Saint created out of necessity, had in this moment received revelation and become a complete Saint.

***

Gilbert fell into thought after listening to Veronica’s story, which was brief yet lengthy. The tale from her lips was beyond his understanding, but to summarize, it was quite simple.

Veronica, who had thought herself an artificial Saint, received a revelation at the time of his possession and became a true Saint.

This was a historical fact not present in the Tactical Combat game he had played, but that wasn’t particularly important. After all, he too was a character who hadn’t existed in Tactical Combat.

Having not been immersed in Tactical Combat for quite some time, he focused on the fact that Veronica had become a real Saint rather than being surprised.

Although the stories of Heroes and Demon Lords had long become myths, what she experienced was undoubtedly the revelation received by the Saint in the myth of the Hero and Demon Lord.

Though full of ambiguous language, the divine revelation in modern times became a major controversy within the Holy Empire.

Since divine revelations could only be found in the Holy Empire’s scriptures, there was controversy over its authenticity, but the divine energy that filled the prayer room that day transcended what any human could possess.

Moreover, after that strange phenomenon, the divine power that Veronica possessed also exceeded the limits of what a human could have, making it tantamount to blasphemy to doubt the revelation itself.

Normally, the birth of a true Saint would have been announced to the continent first, but the Pope, who could be considered the Emperor of the Holy Empire, strictly kept all these facts confidential.

If the revelation was true, it was clear that dark clouds would gather over the peaceful continent in the not-too-distant future, and those dark clouds were likely to be the Demon Lord.

In such a situation, there was no need to announce the birth of a Saint to the continent and raise the vigilance of the Demon Lord’s side.

For this reason, the announcement of the divine revelation and Veronica becoming a true Saint was canceled.

Instead, the cardinals, including the Pope of the Holy Empire, gathered to interpret the revelation and completed a limited interpretation.

“Follow the dawn” meant that a Hero would appear from the east, and “twilight approaches over the mountain ridge” implied the resurrection of the Demon Lord.

And the person to find that Hero was the one who became the Lord’s guide and lamp.

In other words, Saint Veronica, who received the revelation, was secretly promoted to an official Saint and given the grave mission of finding the Hero.

Regardless of the Holy Empire’s intentions, Veronica, filled with a sense of mission, began to devote herself to finding the Hero from the east.

But without any specific clues, the instruction to “follow the dawn” was too broad.

From the perspective of the Holy Empire, the east could refer to the Infractus Empire and the Republic, but the territories of both nations were too vast, making the search for the Hero very slow.

At first, Ventoman Libertas, the commander of the Freedom Wing Knights who had made great contributions to establishing the Republic, was considered a strong candidate, but the Saint, after meeting him in person, only listed him as a potential Hero candidate without being certain that it was him.

Regardless of Ventoman’s disposition, she had such an intuition and couldn’t readily say that he was the dawn.

Then, she discovered a cadet from Demeia Academy who suddenly began to stand out—that was Gilbert.

Because he was known as a scoundrel from a count’s family, he wasn’t included in the list of Hero candidates, but Veronica somehow felt that she should meet him in person at least once.

It was an uncertain choice based solely on intuition, without any clear basis or reason.

And that meeting took place in the infirmary. Using the excuse of requesting treatment, Veronica faced Gilbert and felt as if her vision brightened.

She realized that this was the Lord’s arrangement and guidance.

But she was cautious. This was about finding the Hero who might determine the fate of the continent.

Even though she vaguely realized he was the Hero, she thought it wasn’t yet a stage where she could be certain, and so she concluded that day’s meeting.

As time passed and his name gradually spread throughout the continent, traces of the Demon Lord were found.

Although three divisions of Holy Knights were severely injured because of it, it wasn’t without gain.

However, what made it difficult to take hasty action was that the trace had reached the renowned Imperial Sage Horizon.

For the Holy Empire, which was still treading carefully in all matters, they couldn’t bring Horizon to the forefront without clear evidence.

To draw him out, they would need to announce the appearance of the Saint and the revelation, but the risk was too great.

While the leadership of the Holy Empire was racking their brains for a strategy to draw out Horizon, he stepped forward.

It was unknown how Gilbert had seen through Horizon’s duality, but he pulled out Horizon, who had been operating beneath the surface, and dealt with him beautifully.

Despite the risk of losing everything with a single mistake, Gilbert handled the matter boldly and ultimately finished off Horizon.

Having witnessed all this, Veronica finally became convinced that he was the figure from the revelation, and that’s why she sought out Gilbert.

[Calculation of causality is complete.]

A notification window appeared before Gilbert’s eyes.

It seemed that the calculation of causality involved listening to the revelation and events that had happened to her.

He could roughly determine the direction regarding what had happened to him and what he needed to do next.

It was disconcerting to suddenly have a traditional fantasy story of Heroes and Demon Lords emerge in a world with mechanized armor like the God-Machine Disease, but he thought it was better to at least know his goal.

Considering that he hadn’t known his purpose in this world until he opened his eyes and heard Veronica’s story, this was a significant development.

“I understand the story completely. To summarize, a Demon Lord will appear, and I’m a strong candidate for the Hero who will stop this Demon Lord?”

“Yes, as far as I can tell, Lord Gilbert is the most likely candidate.”

“Have you found the whereabouts of the Demon Lord?”

“Not yet. The information we can gather from the revelation isn’t extensive.”

The goal was set, but it was painful not knowing where the target was. He had gained information, but there were still too many gaps.

Gilbert’s thoughts deepened.

[Q&A will proceed with the given causality. Please visit the prayer room of the Holy Empire.]

But his concerns were resolved by the notification window that soon appeared.

His next destination was the Holy Empire.

***

“Denied!”

Of course, being rejected was part of the package.