Ch.533City of Saints Night

A Midnight Raid.

The attack was so sudden, and with the forces of the Church of Ceres already crushed by the Church of Volberg, they couldn’t even put up a proper resistance.

When the highest fighting force defending the cathedral in the Holy City consisted of just one high paladin, what more could be said?

It was precisely because they knew this situation that they had launched the surprise attack.

If the Holy Corps of Ceres had still been intact, taking the cathedral would have required tremendous bloodshed, but now they could subdue everyone without needing to kill anyone.

As Lacy had anticipated, the members of the Church of Ceres who tried to defend the cathedral were helplessly captured, unable to withstand the overwhelming difference in power, and she was able to achieve a victory that was nearly bloodless.

“Elmaine…!”

“You must know yourself that you have no chance of winning? Abandon your meaningless resistance and surrender now.”

“Not a chance!”

The last remaining high paladin of the Church of Ceres raised his sword, summoning holy light as he shouted in rage.

“A refusal… how unfortunate.”

To Lacy, it sounded no different than the cry of a cornered beast.

“Subdue him.”

“Yes!”

Following Lacy’s order, the high paladins including Richard and Vels rushed toward him all at once.

The high paladin of the Church of Ceres, who had tried to maintain the defensive line until the end, was captured without being able to do anything when five paladins of equal rank charged at him.

The cathedral of the Church of Ceres had been completely occupied.

—-

“Kurt! Herman! What on earth are you doing! How could you commit such an atrocity! How could you do this?”

Rosoff, the cardinal of the Church of Ceres, called out the names of the two cardinals who had joined Lacy, but they gave no answer as they ordered the paladins to bind him.

Shouting and venting his fury, Rosoff was delivered before Lacy, tied up from head to toe. He looked like livestock being led to the slaughterhouse.

“Audius Rosoff, with the consent of three of the five remaining cardinals in the Holy City, I hereby dismiss you from your position as cardinal and imprison you.”

Lacy looked down at Rosoff with cold eyes and declared his fate in a stern voice, like an angel pronouncing a sentence to hell.

“Lacy Elmaine Stardolf! So it was you, it was your doing after all!”

“The charge is… inciting rebellion, shall we say? You framed the Church of Volberg for the assassination of Pavel Hindenburg’s subordinate, undermining the stability of the Holy State for your own gain. It’s time for you to take responsibility.”

Inciting rebellion. It was the perfect justification to arrest him. The Church of Volberg had also been expelled for the crime of bloodshed, but fundamentally, the root cause lay with Cardinal Rosoff.

“Responsibility? Responsibility?! How laughable. If anyone is committing rebellion, isn’t it you right now!”

Rosoff raised his head, grinding his teeth as he glared at Lacy.

“Kurt, Herman! You too! Since when did you have the right to dismiss a cardinal from another church!!”

“Starting now, I suppose.”

Rosoff’s protest was legitimate, but Lacy didn’t care. She valued right and wrong according to the doctrine of Elpinel rather than the procedures and customary laws of the Holy State.

If Rosoff had falsely accused Cardinal Wolfgang to punish the evil deeds of the Church of Volberg, that would be one thing. But since it was done to gain the upper hand in a power struggle, Lacy saw no reason not to punish him.

“Audius Rosoff. You have the right to remain silent, though that’s probably impossible for you. Every statement you make will be used as evidence against you, and anyone who defends you will be imprisoned as an accomplice. I hope you enjoy the meals in the interrogation chamber.”

“I should have eliminated you earlier…!”

“Earlier? So you had intentions to harm me. I should add the charge of attempting to assassinate a saint candidate.”

Lacy smiled like a snake, mocking Rosoff.

To her, the growling of a captured beast that had lost all its teeth and claws was merely laughable.

She ignored the raging Rosoff and gently caressed the holy symbol around her neck, offering a prayer of gratitude to Elpinel.

Everything was going smoothly.

Thanks to Haschal, she had more than enough fame, the testimony of the cardinals including Ehrnritter as justification, and an overwhelming advantage in forces.

Even Cardinal Carnius, who might have sided with Rosoff, had been dealt with by her hand, so there would be no issue with openly removing a cardinal by force.

—-

Cardinal Rosoff, who had been spewing enraged curses, was knocked unconscious by the hilt of Vels’s sword and dragged away like an old dog.

The two cardinals who had accompanied Lacy turned away, seemingly uncomfortable with the pitiful sight of Rosoff, who had once shared their rank, but they did not stop the paladins from taking him away.

After Rosoff was locked in the prison carriage, Lacy delivered a speech to the captured members of the Church of Ceres to wrap things up.

She explained that they had detained them only because of the urgent and serious nature of the situation, not out of hostility toward the Church of Ceres.

Indeed, despite the cathedral being occupied, there wasn’t a single casualty on the Church of Ceres’ side.

“We only sought to punish Rosoff, who abandoned his calling as a cardinal and committed sins in pursuit of power, not to harm you or undermine the authority of Goddess Ceres.”

“That’s just an excuse! What crime did His Eminence commit?”

“A grave sin that would anger even the heavens. He drove innocent and devout believers to their deaths because of his greed. What sin could be heavier than that? Audius Rosoff is not worthy of being called His Eminence. He is nothing but a traitor who has committed grave sins against all of you, and indeed, against the entire Holy State.”

Lacy explained to the angry followers of Ceres why she had punished Rosoff.

How, in order to gain the upper hand in the power struggle between churches, he had framed Cardinal Wolfgang of the Church of Volberg for Pavel’s assassination without any evidence.

At the very least, this was an act of treason that confused the investigation and made it difficult to find the real culprit, and more broadly, it was tantamount to causing the deaths of the entire Holy Corps of the Church of Ceres.

‘It might have been an acceptable decision at the time… but not now.’

If the Church of Ceres had maintained its power, even Lacy would have found it difficult to make an issue of it.

Rosoff, forced to take the blame for something all the other cardinals had agreed to, would have fiercely resisted, potentially plunging the barely stabilized Holy State back into civil war.

But the Church of Ceres had lost all its main forces and was too weakened to even stage a show of force, let alone civil war, so such considerations were now meaningless.

“I’m not trying to defend the Church of Volberg. The massacre they committed deserves condemnation, and they should face retribution someday. But think about it. Think about the comrades who were with you. Your brothers and sisters, your friends. Why did those who died as martyrs calling out to Ceres have to lose their lives at the hands of fellow Holy State citizens! Is that truly the responsibility of the Church of Volberg alone?”

Lacy continued her speech, condemning Rosoff’s immorality and asserting the legitimacy of their capture of him.

Following the effective speech techniques she had learned and mastered, she paid attention to every detail—the pitch and emphasis of her voice, each gesture.

“No! It couldn’t be! Those who killed them were the warriors of Volberg, but the one who drove them to death was none other than Audius Rosoff! The cardinal who should have been most devout, whom you trusted without doubt and followed like a parent, drove your comrades to their deaths! Because of his greed, like pieces on a chessboard! Thousands of lives were meaninglessly lost because of one man’s desire!”

Though there was some exaggeration, it was largely based on fact, true to her nature of not telling outright lies.

“…Even if that’s true, we cannot accept such a forceful method!”

“That’s right! To raid allies, not enemies, in the middle of the night—isn’t that excessively vile and unconscionable!”

“…It had to be now, it had to be this way. Without such extreme measures, how could we have captured and punished Cardinal Rosoff? If we had tried to formally charge him, he would have either fled, postponing justice, or fortified himself and caused needless bloodshed.”

Lacy revealed with a resolute tone that she had not a shred of hesitation in her heart.

The paladins who had been protesting looked unconvinced, but they couldn’t refute Lacy’s words.

They too knew well that, as Lacy had said, capturing Cardinal Rosoff would have been nearly impossible without such methods.

“I understand your resentment. But it was unavoidable. With nearly half of the eleven… no, nine cardinal leaders of the churches that should sustain the Holy State gone due to unfortunate events, those of us remaining in the Holy City bear responsibility for the fate of everyone in the Holy State.”

Although Lacy herself had greatly contributed to reducing the number of cardinals, in her mind, this was a necessary purification.

Except for Drexler, who had retired due to health issues, none of the cardinals she and Haschal had dealt with were innocent.

“Therefore, we have a duty to secure the order and safety of the Holy State. We have a duty to prove to everyone that no one, no matter who they are, can endanger the peace of the Holy State out of greed and escape punishment. I would appreciate your understanding.”

Ending her speech with words that could be taken as either a threat or advice, Lacy turned away from them and headed toward the carriage she had arrived in.

Whether the members of the Church of Ceres would accept her words was something Lacy couldn’t know, but it didn’t matter whether they accepted or resisted.

After all, the outcry of those who have lost power is always the same.

—-

After sending Rosoff away, Lacy once again delivered a speech with a similar tone to the citizens who were anxious about the commotion that had occurred in the middle of the night.

“Long live Lady Elmaine!”

“Judgment to the corrupt!”

Unlike the members of the Church of Ceres who were directly involved, the citizens of the Holy City praised her actions.

They too had been fed up with the moral decay of the Holy State’s leadership, even if they hadn’t openly expressed their discontent.

It was likely thanks to the secret manifestos that Lacy had previously spread, which had planted seeds of distrust toward the cardinals in their hearts.

And so, another cardinal of the Holy City disappeared.

Of the eleven that had once existed, only four remained. Moreover, three of them were supporters of Lacy and Haschal, so in a way, it could be said that Lacy had half-conquered the Holy State.