Ch.424Grandfather and Granddaughter

The paladin who had been making a fuss about “finally you’re here” opened the cathedral doors wide at Lacy’s request.

With an attitude so servile that he would have been wagging his tail vigorously if he had one.

Though Lacy’s reputation was said to have hit rock bottom, that seemed to be limited only to the other churches.

“Ah, Lady Elmaine! You’ve returned!”

“Welcome back, Lady Elmaine! It’s been how many years…!”

The church members they encountered inside also welcomed her enthusiastically.

“It’s been a while. Sir Emil, Sister Yuana. Have you been well?”

Lacy responded to their hospitality with a bright smile.

Despite meeting again after nearly three years, she seemed to remember all their faces and names, greeting them without any hesitation.

“Um… is the person beside you perhaps ‘that’ Lord Median?”

“The one who personally slaughtered thousands of Holon heretics…”

Some among them showed interest in me, though they didn’t address me directly, instead cautiously asking Lacy about me.

“Yes. That’s him. Though thousands is a bit of an exaggeration.”

At Lacy’s answer, they exhaled soft exclamations of admiration and glanced at me with peculiar looks.

Their expressions were a strange mixture of fear and admiration, like children facing a dinosaur.

—-

Afterward, Lacy took only me to Cardinal Drexler’s prayer room and office.

The rest of our companions would wait until our meeting ended, touring the cathedral under Lilliez and Bels’s guidance.

There seemed to be plenty to see, so they wouldn’t have time to be bored.

“What kind of person is Cardinal Drexler?”

“The Cardinal, you ask?”

Lacy slightly bowed her head and placed her right hand on her chin, as if choosing her words carefully.

“Hmm… what kind of person… Well. He’s the most devout person in the church. With the strictness of heaven and the mercy of grace filling his heart, hating evil and loving good… To me, he was like a teacher and grandfather.”

She spoke about Drexler as if recalling old memories.

Not particularly helpful information, though.

A teacher…

Should I think of him as the old man who instilled the ideology of exterminating other races in Lacy?

—-

After walking down the cathedral corridor for quite some time, we finally arrived at Drexler’s office.

More precisely, at the door of his office.

An arched doorframe with reliefs depicting angels carved on both pillars.

Above it hung a nameplate that read “Antonius Drexler.”

Lacy stepped in front of me and lightly knocked on the wooden door to announce our arrival.

“Your Eminence Cardinal, Lacy Stardolf here. Would you grant us an audience?”

“…Come in.”

It was a low, faint, and hoarse voice that reminded me of a dying old man.

Well… being over seventy, he is indeed approaching death.

“Excuse us.”

Lacy, who had hesitated for a moment, opened the door handle and stepped into the office.

I followed her.

“…It’s been three years. Have you been well?”

Cardinal Drexler was like an old tree planted in a desert.

In other words, he was so withered that he looked completely dry, with an impression that suggested he was not just stubborn but extremely rigid.

Didn’t they say he collapsed due to the establishment of the archdiocese?

His deeply sunken eyes showed clear signs of illness, and his complexion was pale.

He looked like someone who should be taken to the infirmary rather than an office, but despite his condition, he seemed to have been wrestling with mountains of paperwork, as his desk was covered with stacks of papers.

At this rate, if he were to engage in that holy chicken race of proving purity or whatever, wouldn’t he die instantly the moment the fire was lit…?

“Thanks to Elpinel’s care and the blessing of your prayers, I’ve been well. But… it seems you haven’t been at peace. You look very tired.”

Lacy’s eyes trembled slightly, apparently shocked by Drexler’s appearance.

Drexler looked at her with an expression that seemed to say “and whose fault do you think that is?” but he didn’t voice any criticism.

“You must be… Count Median. Descendant of the Great’s Twelve Knights… the Knight of Radiance. I’ve heard your reputation is formidable in the Empire.”

“Pleased to meet you, Your Eminence. I am Haschal of House Median.”

I greeted him politely, placing one hand on my chest and bowing my head.

A perfect display of knightly etiquette, textbook-perfect.

Cardinal Drexler quietly exclaimed in admiration, apparently finding it quite unexpected.

He must have imagined me as a rough, rude, and brutal person…

Though I usually skip formalities out of laziness, I had mastered proper etiquette long ago.

“Yes. Welcome. Don’t stand there uncomfortably, sit down over there. You too, Lacy. We have much to discuss.”

Drexler pointed to a long bench opposite his desk.

When addressing me, his expression was like that of a kindly terminally ill grandfather, but when he looked at Lacy, his eyes blazed as if they might shoot laser beams.

…It seems he had quite a lot of pent-up feelings.

—-

From that point on, the conversation continued between Lacy and Drexler, leaving me feeling like a sack of borrowed barley, forced to listen to their argument.

“…Lacy. Do you know what you’ve done?”

“Under the name of the Great Divine Church, I unified the imperial parishes, eliminated the utterly disgusting apostate and the witch lurking in the heart of the Empire, and led the Empire’s strongest knight to the Holy State. As you taught me, to spread heaven’s radiance upon the earth once more.”

Lacy seemed to feel sorry for Drexler’s weakened state, but once the argument began, she responded confidently, as if questioning what exactly she had done wrong.

“…Thanks to you, the Great Divine Church has been weakened like never before, and the Holy State, having lost its balance, has begun to fracture. Lacy. Look at the chaos outside. The discord you’ve created.”

Drexler raised his withered arm to point out the window.

“Are you saying I caused this chaos…? That’s unlike you. If someone should take responsibility for the discord in the Holy State, it’s not me but the other cardinals who revealed their claws like a pack of wolves as soon as the opportunity arose.”

Lacy’s answer was resolute, and not entirely wrong.

While Lacy bears some responsibility for the weakening of the Church of Elpinel, it was the cardinals who took advantage of it to engage in factional struggles.

“Moreover, among them, there must surely be those connected to the witch… Aren’t those fools who couldn’t even filter out the witch’s followers the true culprits who should bear responsibility for this discord?”

“So, are you suggesting we hold the cardinals accountable and crucify them? Like you burned the Archbishop of Trier after attacking and forcibly judging him?”

Drexler, losing ground in the argument, brought up an extreme example to change the subject.

As he was also one of the cardinals, he must have felt somewhat guilty about Lacy’s accusations.

And Lacy nodded without hesitation.

“Yes. If necessary, that’s exactly what we should do.”

Huh, what…?

Didn’t she tell me she had no intention of doing such things? Or maybe she said she couldn’t do it.

Has her mind changed after seeing the Holy State firsthand?

“Are you serious…?!”

“I am always serious. Forgive me, but isn’t it you, Your Eminence, who fails to see the current state of the Holy State? Demon-like non-humans have begun to threaten humanity again with their vile ambitions, evil-doers stained with sin multiply like cockroaches in the shadows of cities, and monsters are rampaging throughout the world. What exactly is the Holy State doing? Where has the old spirit of fighting for humanity disappeared to? Where is the pure fervor for salvation?”

Lacy delivered a passionate speech with a somewhat intensified tone.

“From what I can see, the current Holy State is nothing but a hotbed of corruption consumed by lust for power. And… to restore the Holy State to its rightful form, I am willing to do anything.”

“…You’re too extreme and radical. Yes. You always were.”

“Just as you taught me.”

Drexler seemed at a loss for words at Lacy’s immediate rebuttal, leaning back and clutching his forehead.

“You left for the Empire and returned even more stubborn…!”

“Perhaps. Conversely, you have grown much weaker. The person who once taught me that non-humans and evil-doers should be burned completely without sparing even a single infant and offered to Elpinel… now you seek to condone corruption and evil out of fear of sacrifice. Surely, the aging of the body has brought about the weakening of will.”

The level of criticism seems a bit high.

Listening to criticism that was approaching personal attack, I wondered if I should intervene.

“…Yes. Perhaps so. I am old after all…”

Drexler let out a deep sigh.

An incredibly deep and terribly intense fatigue was visible beyond his breath, as if his withered body might collapse entirely.

Lacy, who had been calmly observing him, nodded with a determined expression, as if she had made a decision.

“I understand clearly now. What Your Eminence needs most is not to wear down your weakened body and spirit worrying about the future of the Holy State… but to step back from the front lines and take sufficient rest.”

“What…?”

Lacy rose from her seat and approached Drexler.

Very slowly.

With footsteps as if she were going for a stroll.

“Your Eminence no longer needs to sacrifice yourself for the church. You no longer need to bear the weight of those holy vestments. From now on, I will handle all church matters.”

On the surface, it sounded like she was concerned about him…

But somehow, to me, it sounded like nothing but an ominous tone.

“What are you talking about, Lacy! What are you trying to do…!?”

“I’m in the process of succeeding the church, Your Eminence.”

With her answer, the office door flung open, and more than ten priests and paladins walked into the room.

At their head stood Bels Rugna, Lacy’s closest aide and the leader of the Special Crusader Unit.

“Please rest well for a while, Your Eminence. In the meantime, I will solve all the problems of the Holy State. Without fail.”

Lacy, meeting Drexler’s eyes, smiled with utmost benevolence.