Ch.550Let’s go back

Lacy would take care of warning the cardinals about Rotholandus’s message. Except for the secret history of how Carlos the Great and the Great’s Twelve Knights created Heaven’s Wall using the Holy Grail.

Finding and slaughtering heretics who worship ancient gods, and maximizing their forces to prepare for coming threats. That was the new mission given to the nine churches of the Holy State.

“Long ago. Through the dedication of Carlos the Great, the Great’s Twelve Knights, and countless others, humanity achieved freedom and dignity. And now, after eight hundred years, the time of trial has finally come.”

Lacy declared with a solemn tone to the representatives of each church gathered in the meeting room.

“We must now prove whether we are worthy of the legacy of dignity they left us. The moment approaches when we must prove it with iron and blood. If we fail to prove ourselves, we will once again fall to the status of livestock.”

The era of peace created by the Empire had come to an end.

“So prepare for war. With all your might.”

The age of blood was returning.

—-

Our plan to cut out the corruption spreading through the Holy State ended up eliminating half of the Holy State’s forces.

The damage was too great, but it couldn’t be helped. Even this was close to resolving the problem with minimal damage. The cancer in the Holy State had spread that widely and deeply.

The heavy responsibility of rebuilding the greatly weakened Holy State, tracking down heretics, and guarding against fairies fell to Ernriter and Richard.

The churches that lost their cardinals were busy selecting new ones, and the Church of Imela, Church of Ausrine, and Church of Vimos weren’t powerful enough to become leading forces in the first place.

The Church of Imela in particular, having jointly governed Arvil with the Church of Saulite, was already overwhelmed with cleaning up the aftermath of Arvil’s destruction in the demon summoning incident.

At least the Church of Menes, though it lost its cardinal, still had its forces intact, and there was Saint Agnes who had gained some reputation from this incident, but…

“Special admission?”

“Yes. I’ve prepared all the necessary documents, and all that’s left is a guarantee from an Imperial noble. As it happens, there’s a noble from an Imperial marquis family right here. Would you mind providing your guarantee for me?”

I stared at Agnes with an incredulous expression as she uttered what would rank first on the list of things friends should never say to each other.

Well… it’s not a financial guarantee, and Agnes isn’t the type to cause trouble, so I suppose it doesn’t matter.

“What about your church?”

Now that her position as saint candidate had changed to saint, making her essentially the leader of her church, is it really okay for the head of the Church of Menes to leave for studies in the Empire?

Shouldn’t she stay in the Holy City to govern the Church of Menes?

“The Holy State’s problems may be solved, but mine aren’t at all. There are still followers of Paulus remaining within our church, and if Lord Median and Lady Elmaine return to the Empire, I’ll be left alone. So, I need to find my own way to survive.”

Agnes smiled as she drew her finger across her throat.

So she wants to flee to the Empire to avoid being assassinated by Paulus’s followers if she stays in the Holy State. It’s essentially an escape disguised as studying abroad, with her life at stake.

Come to think of it, we should investigate the Church of Menes thoroughly… but there’s no good way to do it.

I did suggest to Lacy that we could check by the manifestation of holy light, but she said they tried that and it wasn’t enough to solve the problem.

Many ordinary believers who aren’t miracle priests or paladins often can’t manifest holy light, and even if they can, those who follow “Cardinal Menes” Paulus rather than converting to ancient god worship wouldn’t lose their holy light.

In other words, the only ones who could be caught by checking holy light manifestation would be hardcore fanatics among those who could manifest holy light and still followed Paulus despite knowing he worshipped ancient gods.

And apparently, they couldn’t find such hardcore fanatics among the believers in the main diocese.

Well, if Paulus was smart, he would have chosen his closest confidants from those who couldn’t use holy light in the first place. If someone who could use holy light suddenly couldn’t, it would be immediately suspicious, but if they never could manifest holy light to begin with, there would be no reason for suspicion.

“It won’t be a problem even if I leave for the Empire. The archbishops will elect a new cardinal. I don’t know who it will be, but whoever is elected will govern the Church of Menes until I return.”

“Won’t they be consumed by Paulus’s followers? Officially, he was assassinated by a priest of the ancient gods. In a way, he’s a martyr, so isn’t there a high probability that the new cardinal will come from Paulus’s faction?”

If it’s someone the “martyred” cardinal actively supported, they would appear to be the most appropriate candidate for the new cardinal in anyone’s eyes.

“…That would be good in its own way. If the newly elected cardinal’s movements seem suspicious, just by watching them, we might find clues to capture Paulus.”

“Hmm… that’s true. Alright. If you want to come to the Empire, I’ll provide the guarantee.”

“Thank you, Lord Median.”

Agnes smiled, expressed her gratitude, and returned to her room. She said she had many preparations to make before leaving for the Empire.

Thinking about it, it was somewhat amusing. Three people who received the Stigmata of Astraea had appeared, and all three were fleeing to the Empire.

A Holy State without saints—it’s like meat soup without a single piece of meat.

—-

All operation plans are subject to change when new information is added.

That was the case with Ceylon. Once I realized that Paulus and the ancient god cult were several times more serious problems than I had anticipated, I had no choice but to scrap my plan to take Ceylon to the Empire.

A judge of the Church of Astraea who had reached the realm of heroes. Ceylon was an irreplaceable essential force for the current Holy State.

Even if they found an apostle of the ancient gods after searching, they would need hero-level power to defeat them.

And as far as I knew, the only heroes in the Holy State were Perlien and Ceylon. Taking Ceylon away would mean cutting the Holy State’s core strength in half.

Taking Ceylon would make things easier for me, but the Holy State would clearly struggle with the loss of power.

So I had no choice but to leave him in the Holy State to find and judge enemies.

In other words… it meant that Bethania, who was in charge of my religious education, would follow me to the Empire. Even if I let it go in one ear and out the other, after hearing it repeated dozens of times, I was starting to memorize about ten pages of the Astraea scripture.

At this rate, in a few years, I might end up emitting holy light while saying things like “Oh, I believe in Lady Astraea!”

“I’m ashamed, Lord Astika. It’s my duty to protect you…”

“Don’t be so disheartened. You may not be able to protect me, but instead you can help me. Killing enemies who must be killed and saving people who must be saved is truly helping me.”

After visiting the Astraea Cathedral again to inform Ceylon that I would be leaving him behind, I comforted him as he looked as dejected as an abandoned dog.

It was comfort filled with sincerity. Honestly, among those I had allied with, there was no one I trusted as much as Ceylon.

Skill, reputation, character, personality, actions, values. All elements formed a stable hexagon, so to speak.

…His reputation had been somewhat shattered, but that was actually because of me.

I never thought the saying “beads are only a treasure when strung together” would be twisted to mock a eunuch with a large member.

“Well, take care of yourself.”

“Please take care as well.”

“I’ll try.”

Leaving Ceylon bowing his head in farewell, I returned to the Elpinel Cathedral and began preparing to leave.

Since Leonore, Nigel, and Hush were taking care of all the travel preparations, my preparations consisted mostly of gathering my personal belongings.

—-

Two days later, we finally set out on our journey back to the Empire.

It was a quiet departure under the cover of night. If we had tried to leave the Holy City during the day, crowds would have gathered, making it difficult to depart.

I thought that made sense. To ordinary people ignorant of worldly affairs, it would seem like those who should be ruling and caring for the Holy State were abandoning them and abruptly leaving for another country.

The return journey was peaceful.

Although Lilliez decided to stay in the Holy State to manage the Special Crusader Unit, Agnes and Bethania joined us along with Hush, making the large carriage feel slightly cramped.

Instead of staying inside the carriage, I summoned Cascador and rode with Lena, while Leonore simply lay down on the carriage roof.

She said that although the mental stabilizing effect of the holy artifact had eliminated her claustrophobia, she still preferred the outdoors with good airflow to the confined interior.

Hush, sitting in the driver’s seat, kept glancing at Cascador’s horn while constantly twitching his ears as he drove the carriage. He claimed he never knew when the beast that kills non-virgins might try to stab him to death.

“You should be fine as long as you don’t get too close?”

Finding Hush’s tense appearance amusing in many ways, I chuckled while stroking Cascador’s mane.

This unicorn, when I first summoned it, seemed somewhat reluctant and subtly arrogant toward me, but now that my power had almost fully recovered, it was very docile.

Did it instinctively realize it would become horse meat tartare the moment it acted up?

Anyway, seeing that it didn’t excitedly charge at Millia or Hush when they were nearby, it seemed able to distinguish between enemies it should stab and allies it should ignore, even if they weren’t virgins.

“C-complacency invites death! That horn! That horn! I swear it keeps pointing at me whenever Lord Haschal is looking elsewhere!”

…Hush seemed to think differently, though.