Ch.438Her Reason

I found out who the real culprit was and confirmed the motive.

So, all that remained was to question what happened afterward.

“If that’s true… why haven’t you revealed it until now? You must know what happened because of that incident.”

Unable to find the culprit, the cardinals pinned all the blame on Wolfgang, who was a convenient scapegoat.

Wolfgang’s Church of Volberg and their sympathizers, the Church of Grimnir, rebelled against this, left the Holy City, and began gathering troops.

It could have easily led to a civil war between the churches.

No. Though they hadn’t actually crossed swords, the situation was practically a civil war already…

Anyway, if she had revealed it was her doing, the two churches wouldn’t have defected.

Agnes seemed to understand this fact as her expression hardened slightly, but only momentarily.

It took less than five seconds for a smile to return to her stiffened lips.

“You mean Cardinal Wolfgang’s downfall? I didn’t expect you to question that part. After all, the person who benefited most from it was none other than Lady Elmaine.”

…She’s not wrong.

Thanks to the two cardinals who opposed Lacy’s actions fleeing the Holy City, things like hearings became quite a bit easier.

But I couldn’t exactly praise her for it.

“Surely you’re not saying you did it for my sake? I don’t think we were close enough for that.”

“Of course not. There are several reasons I couldn’t reveal it… The first is that I couldn’t be certain whether Cardinal Wolfgang was the only one touched by heresy. If Paulus was the only enemy, there would be no problem, but if other heretics were mixed in, they would target me. I didn’t want to be assassinated by some remnants of heretics.”

Indeed, if it became known that Agnes was responsible for attacking the apostle, her safety could be at risk.

Though a candidate for sainthood, she was only about middle school age. If ambushed while defenseless, she could lose her life all too easily.

“That’s also why I dumped the body outside the cathedral. So it would appear to be an assassination by an outsider rather than someone from within. If the body had been found inside the cathedral, everyone would suspect me first. There are only a few people who could get close enough to kill Paulus within the church.”

“…You could have disclosed everything and received protection.”

“Are you joking? In the current situation where churches are hostile to each other, if it became known that a cardinal of our church was a heretic worshipper, it’s obvious how the other churches would react.”

Agnes snickered as if telling me not to talk nonsense.

“Even I’m suspicious enough to wonder if there are other heretics mixed among the believers, so how much worse would it be for them? They would surely try to tear our church apart piece by piece in the name of finding heretics. To the point where we could never recover. At least, that’s what I thought.”

It was a cynical but accurate assessment.

Even I think the current cardinals would use investigation as an excuse to completely crush the Church of Menes.

“I executed the heretic for the sake of our church and Menes, not to bring down our church. So I couldn’t reveal the truth. I was a bit surprised when the cardinals pointed to the Church of Volberg, and when the second assassination attempt occurred.”

“…I understand. Then, why are you revealing the truth to us now?”

“Uh… well… that’s… Hah… this is difficult…”

Agnes hesitated as if the content was too awkward to say, then let out a deep sigh.

For a woman who had boldly confessed to killing a cardinal to find something difficult to say—it was almost frightening to imagine what would come next.

“…The body disappeared. All parts at once.”

Sure enough, Agnes dropped another shocking statement.

—-

All parts? What does that mean…?

It’s not what I’m thinking, is it?

“Wait, what do you mean it disappeared?”

“Sigh… As you know, Paulus’s body, found in the Holy City alley, was recovered by our church. For investigation and funeral purposes. I had stolen the body. There might have been traces of me left, and since things had come to this, I thought I might learn something about the ancient gods by dissecting and examining the body.”

…It is what I was thinking.

Not content with just beheading him, she even performed a dissection?

There’s a limit to how brutal one can be. What kind of education does the Church of Menes give their saints…?

Oh, come to think of it, the dissected Paulus would have been this girl’s educator.

So it’s karma, I suppose.

“But on the third day, I briefly left for other business… and when I returned, the body was gone. Not even a fingernail remained. Since a dismembered corpse couldn’t have escaped on its own, it means, as I feared, there’s still a heretic worshipper in the church. One who knows what I did. I don’t know who it is, but they must have stolen the body.”

Or… maybe the body itself came back to life.

Someone of apostle rank to an ancient god might have means of resurrection. Especially since their leader is a necromancer.

In the game, we completely burned the body and purified the ashes, so there was no resurrection, but still.

“So, after several days of barely sleeping and much deliberation, I finally came here. I couldn’t tell who to trust within the church.”

Agnes sighed again and picked up the teacup in front of her, drinking it down like water.

“Truly, I don’t know what to say about all this…”

Is sighing contagious?

Lacy also exhaled deeply while fidgeting with her clasped hands.

Her expression clearly showed her bewilderment.

Lacy probably never expected there could be an apostle of an ancient god within the Holy State.

At most, she might have thought there were only Isabella’s pawns mixed in.

“An apostle of an ancient god… what do you think, Lord Median?”

“Huh, about what?”

“About the identity of the person we’ve been looking for. Was Cardinal Paulus the one who leaked information to Isabella?”

“Well… he could be, or maybe not. One side worships evil gods and the other side worships ancient gods as heretics, but are these two gods on friendly terms?”

Whether evil gods or ancient gods, both are enemies from my perspective…

But whether they cooperate or are hostile to each other is something I can’t know without experiencing it firsthand.

Just like bandits and pirates are both thieves, but that doesn’t mean they have a cooperative relationship.

If you put two groups of thieves together, wouldn’t they try to kill each other?

“No… that’s probably not the case. According to old records I’ve read, the cult that worshipped the evil god Vanirgand clashed with priests who worshipped ancient gods. Wouldn’t other evil god worshippers be similar?”

Indeed, it seems these guys are the same.

“Then there must be more corrupted cardinals besides Paulus… It’s probably not Astraea, Imela, or Ausrine, so one of the others?”

If we exclude those two, how many cardinals are left? Let’s see…

Saulite, Ceres, Volberg, Grimnir, Vimos?

We can probably exclude Vimos who doesn’t do anything.

So it’s one of the remaining four…

Narrowing the suspects from eleven to four was significant progress, but all four were suspicious, making it difficult to reach a conclusion.

“Evil god worshippers? What’s that…?”

Agnes, who had been listening, expressed her confusion.

Seems she didn’t know about this.

“You know about our vanquishing the witch Isabella, right? At that time, Lacy… I mean, Candidate Saint Elmaine requested the Holy State to send secret investigators. To investigate Isabella’s identity. But somehow, information that only the cardinals should have known was leaked, and Isabella had set a trap in advance, resulting in everyone being killed. So we suspected there might be someone among the cardinals connected to the witch, which is why we came here.”

Agnes was shocked by my explanation.

“Good heavens… to think there were corrupted cardinals besides Paulus. How did the Holy State come to this…?”

That’s what I want to ask.

How is it that the Holy State seems more corrupt than the Empire?

—-

A moment later, after drinking two glasses of holy water to calm herself, Agnes revealed her purpose for coming here.

She said everything until now was just explaining why she came, and now came the main point.

“Please save me. At this rate, I’ll die without anyone knowing. And at the hands of heretics at that.”

It was a remarkably simple purpose.

Unable to trust the church members, she wanted to leave the church entirely and cling to Lacy.

“As a fellow candidate for sainthood, a junior seeking guidance from a senior, our church couldn’t strongly oppose it. And if I’m by Lady Elmaine’s or Duke Haschal’s side, no heretic would dare target me. Wouldn’t that work?”

Her tone wasn’t servile.

Rather, thinking about it, this was perhaps the first time she showed behavior appropriate for her age.

Though spirited and bold, she’s still just a child of middle school age. Of course she would fear death.

The problem is… we’re planning to leave the Holy City soon.

I’m not sure if we can take her with us.