~Chapter 30~
“The soldiers sent by the temple are much worse. Honestly. Look at their work ethic.”
“And they’re so strong. Seriously, yesterday they even tilled the field and spread fertilizer.”
“Did you see how clean the village is? I’ve lived here for 50 years since I was born, but I’ve never seen maintenance and repairs done this well.”
“Oh my goodness, there’s not a single rat running around in the alley… What on earth is going on…”
***
Meanwhile.
Inside a tent at the site.
The triplets, who had been appointed as on-site supervisors, were deeply engrossed in their work.
“I thought it was a straight, but what is this? Damn it, it’s a full house?!”
“Are you kidding? I won every round until the last hand? I would’ve had a flush if I had just one more card!”
“Kehaha! I have a straight draw!”
Their ‘work’ was playing poker.
This was a luxury they could enjoy (?) thanks to having the undead on autopilot doing the manual labor.
“Hey, Cultist. Go make another bowl of soup.”
Don said, kicking the butt of the elite Bone Goblin shaman who was serving by the table.
“I-I am n-not a c-cultist! I am a sh-sh-shaman…”
“Don’t put too much pepper this time. You know I’m sensitive to the smell.”
“…Okay…”
“It’s windy, so bring a few blankets too.”
“……”
***
“The body… disappeared?”
The audience hall fell into silence.
The blazing crimson eyes, signifying the royal bloodline of the Wyvern Empire, were fixed on the face of Holy Knight Theodore, who had just finished his report.
“I heard it was clearly moved to the temple’s sanctuary yesterday evening?”
As the Emperor looked around the room and let out a hollow laugh…
“It was definitely moved. I… confirmed it myself.”
A small but clear voice drew his attention.
Across from the temple faction.
It was the voice of the youngest daughter, nestled among the Kinzello family.
Her father Dylan, Bill, and Ron stood beside her like a solid fortress.
“And then?”
Rosiniol looked back and forth between Ivyn and Theodore.
“What, did it suddenly grow legs and walk away? Did it shoot up into the sky? Huh? Or did it sink into the ground?”
If things remained like this, the conclusion of the case was as good as decided.
If they couldn’t find the culprit now, the mastermind behind it would vanish forever.
Just then.
“Your Imperial Majesty.”
The voice of a guard outside the audience hall rang out.
“Her Holiness, Saintess Pavella of the Holy Temple, has arrived.”
A look of panic flashed across Rosiniol’s face.
“What? The Saintess?”
Although the Temple was merely a small religious city-state within the Empire, the status of the Saintess was on a slightly different level.
Even the Emperor couldn’t summon her at his whim.
The Saintess also wasn’t one to readily appear in response to imperial summons.
Given this past history, Rosiniol had naturally assumed she wouldn’t appear for this summoning of those involved in the incident.
“…Show her in.”
Soon, the Saintess appeared, escorted by numerous guards and priests.
With each step she took, her face was partially revealed through the purple silk veil draped over it.
The nobles let out small sighs.
Ah, such beauty that cannot be fully concealed even by those tightly wrapped robes.
‘A charm that bewitches people.’
People said that if she hadn’t become a Saintess, she would have been the most dangerous woman in the Empire.
Certainly, she had an aura that captivated people’s gazes regardless of gender.
It wasn’t something that emanated merely from her beautiful appearance.
People were always curious about her, and the more they were, the more fascinated they became.
‘It’s my second time seeing her, and I still can’t get used to it…’
Among those staring at the Saintess in a daze was, of course, Ivyn.
When Ivyn read the original work, her description reminded her of Helen, the cause of the Trojan War, which perhaps wasn’t an exaggeration.
Then, someone whispered quietly into her ear.
“Don’t stare like that. You’re prettier.”
“…?”
When Ivyn looked beside her, her youngest brother Ron was standing there with a blank expression, looking straight ahead.
However, even as he tried to act nonchalant, the corners of his mouth were creeping upwards.
He seemed very pleased with the line he had just thrown at Ivyn.
‘What a doting brother.’
But Ivyn was mistaken.
She had forgotten that there were still two more of those ‘doting’ men beside her.
“Ahem, ahem, but still, she’s no match for our Binny.”
Dylan, openly commenting loud enough for the nearby nobles to hear…
“Can one attach the modifier ‘perfect’ to a beauty lacking loveliness and cuteness? I wonder, how is that any different from a flower without fragrance?”
…and Bill, chattering away.
Ivyn’s face turned bright red all the way to her earlobes, and she ducked her head down.
Ah, I get it, so could everyone please be a bit quieter…
“Wow, they’re really going all out with the doting. Ugh. I’m gonna puke up the carrot I ate.”
Obok, you shut up too…
‘Ah, right now Obok is probably invisible to anyone outside the family.’
The phantom rabbit Obok, created by Green Kinzello, had one more unique feature besides its cute appearance hiding destructive power. It was that Obok only revealed its form to people it chose itself.
That was the reason why Theodore and the holy warriors couldn’t see Obok in the cave last time.
“To behold the father and sun of the Wyvern Empire, Your Majesty.”
As the Saintess, who had approached the Emperor, slowly raised her downcast eyes, mysterious emerald-colored pupils were revealed.
“For the Saintess to appear in the audience hall personally… I believe this is your first time in the audience hall since becoming Saintess, isn’t it?”
Rosiniol, who had been watching her with an intrigued gaze, finally spoke after a long moment.
“Is it not a grave matter concerning the innocent lives of the people, Your Majesty? That I have taken these steps is…”
At that moment, the Saintess’s knee suddenly buckled.
“Your Holiness!”
The holy knights guarding her hurriedly supported her, but they couldn’t stop the tears that began to fall profusely from her large eyes.
“…is to willingly receive punishment.”
“Punishment?”
At the words that flowed from her lips, the crowd gathered in the audience hall instantly froze stiff.
The Saintess, the most noble figure in the Temple, requesting punishment for herself?
“That scoundrels infiltrated the sanctuary and stole evidence… is it not all due to my lack of heavenly virtue…?”
Heavenly virtue.
The heaven she referred to was surely the Goddess of Light, Plurra.
The hall buzzed with shock, and even the Emperor seemed flustered by the Saintess’s tears.
“Your Holiness!”
The reaction first came from the sons and daughters of noble families with outstanding faith in the Temple.
They knelt toward the Saintess and pleaded with her anxiously.
“This incident is absolutely not Your Holiness’s responsibility! It is solely the sin of the scoundrels!”
“To say Your Holiness lacks virtue… it is the fault of those lacking faith in the Goddess Plurra.”
“The security was lax! How could you seek to bear that punishment in their stead…?”
Theodore calmly separated the nobles from the Saintess.
“Step back, please. It’s dangerous.”
It was then, as the Saintess wiped her tears and turned her head, that her eyes met Ivyn’s.
“……”
A faint smile appeared and then vanished from the Saintess’s lips.
*Pfft*, the sight of her biting her lips seemed somehow unnatural.
That is, how should I put it…
As if she was suppressing a bursting laugh…
“Uh…”
Ivyn unintentionally tried to say something but stopped.
It was because Pavella’s expression had changed in an instant.
The emerald eyes, reminiscent of a green sea, dimmed like a fading star.
“……”
Under that gaze, Ivyn flinched without realizing it and ducked her head.
*Is this what it feels like to be overwhelmed by just a glance?* she thought.
A few seconds later.
Ivyn cautiously raised her head to look at her again, but she had already averted her gaze.
“The timing fits together a bit too perfectly.”
Ron muttered quietly in a dissatisfied tone.
It seemed he also felt uncomfortable with the sight of the Saintess swaying like a fragile petal in a storm.
Ivyn looked at Ron with slightly surprised eyes.
Was Ron perhaps having ‘blasphemous’ thoughts like her right now?
*Thoughts like… the Saintess might be involved in the body’s disappearance…*
No, no.
That’s going too far.
Ivyn shook her head slightly and turned her gaze forward again.
It was then that her gaze tangled with Holy Knight Theodore’s in mid-air.
—
*- Ivyn Kinzello, what on earth are you scheming?*
In the carriage during transport, Theodore asked the demon who resembled a purple lilac.
*- I have no schemes. I just want to wrap up this situation neatly.*
*- ……*
—
The more he watched her, the stranger he felt.
‘Yes, every time I see those eyes…’
Strangely, his insides kept growing hot.
A sensation as if his whole body was heating up from the warmth rising from below his heart.
Perhaps she was being deceived by her family?
They dote on their youngest daughter so much they didn’t even teach her necromancy, they said.
Were they hiding from this woman the fact that their family uses power by colluding with demons?
While the holy knight was lost in thought.
A pair of crimson, glowing eyes quickly swept over the two men and women.
It was the Emperor, leaning back obliquely on his throne, killing time.
‘Come to think of it, I heard they transported the body together.’
The two of them together…
The Emperor rolled that phrase that arose within him around his mouth like a candy.
The scene of ‘a man and a woman together’ that arose in the mind of the young Emperor, known for his licentiousness, was quite lurid.
