Chapter 46
The next scene was one where the Saint, using the power of divinity, defeated the monsters and rescued the nobles and children who were in danger.
‘But why is it so quiet? The children’s performance should be nearing its final act by now.’
Aibin was glancing around, slightly uneasy, when she noticed the emperor’s aide rushing over to his table.
‘What could be happening all of a sudden? Has something happened at the palace?’
Just as she tilted her head in curiosity, the emperor, listening to his aide, suddenly stood up.
His usually composed face had hardened into a cold, stern expression.
With a hurried motion, he exited the hall.
‘Even the pants-wearing emperor has his busy moments.’
According to Aibin’s plan, after the performance ended, there would still be a charity auction, which would give the Saint and Rosignol one more chance to clash. But now, it seemed there was no way to make that happen.
And there was no way she could block the emperor suddenly leaving either.
‘I’ll just have to wait for the next opportunity.’
As she turned her head with a hint of disappointment, she happened to notice Saint Pavella.
She was unusually anxious, even for her.
Aibin, observing from a distance, could feel that sharp tension radiating off her.
The Saint gestured to Elder Mateo and whispered something urgently.
The elder nodded repeatedly before getting up and heading out of the hall.
His hurried demeanor looked as though he was going out to check something important.
“That’s really strange…”
Aibin quietly muttered to herself while subtly watching, reaching for her glass of orange juice. She chugged it down like it was plain water.
Placing Collins’ glass back on the table, Obok, who had been crunching on a macaron in front of her, tilted his head slightly and looked at her.
“Master, what’s wrong? Are you worried about something?”
“Mm, no.”
“Did you cause some kind of trouble?”
“No, it’s nothing like that.”
“Hmm…”
Obok narrowed his large eyes like a detective interrogating a suspect, biting into the remaining macaron in his hand.
“Judging by how the poor kitchen guy got completely thrashed by those three demons earlier, that must’ve been it.”
“No, really… Wait, what did you say?”
Aibin widened her eyes, startled at what she had just heard.
“Oh, that… Obok just happened to see it…”
Sensing an opening, Obok glanced at the triplets, who were focused on the performance, and quickly flew over to Aibin’s shoulder.
“Promise you won’t tell anyone what I’m about to say?”
Obok had been itching to spill the events that had occurred and now, given the chance, excitedly began recounting everything in detail.
Summarizing Obok’s story: the triplets had gone to the back of the kitchen to retrieve the real ledger that the head chef had hidden. There, they accidentally discovered something, and then… they ‘dealt with it.’
“‘Dealt with it’?!”
Aibin had apparently shouted too loudly, because the triplets’ gaze immediately turned toward her.
“Oops…”
She quickly covered her mouth, but the triplets’ curious eyes had already locked on her.
Well, since it’s come to this… might as well just ask.
Obok glared at her sharply, but Aibin pretended not to notice and asked the triplets:
“Um… did you… in the kitchen storage room…”
“Oh, that?”
Dun replied nonchalantly.
“We just gave the head chef a little lesson in manners, haha.”
Obok burst out laughing, jiggling his chubby cheeks. The earlier insistence on secrecy was completely forgotten.
“Puhaha! You liked that lesson, huh! And it was an attempted murder too, or something like that!”
Attempted murder.
Aibin stared at the triplets in shock. How badly must someone have been treated for it to be called attempted murder…?
Regaining her composure, she asked the next question.
“What exactly did you discover there?”
“Well… remember the cave near Cory Village we explored last time?”
John’s words made Aibin recall the horrific scene from that cave: fragments of bones and entrails mixed together, body parts wedged between rocks, and a severed head placed like a sacred offering at the center of a geometrically drawn magical array.
“We found a magic circle drawn in a similar way there,” Dun continued.
“That’s not exactly true,” Dun added, “it was Hon who sniffed it out like crazy.”
“Hon did?”
“Yeah. John and I couldn’t see anything, but Hon suddenly went nuts, sniffing the ground like a maniac. We thought he was just showing off again…”
Hearing the word “show-off,” Hon’s fists subtly clenched under the table, ready to punch through Dun’s teasing remark.
“But he really did find it—a hidden device,” Dun continued.
“Yes. I found it. As always, Hon Kinzello, the chemical-communication explorer and brilliant code interpreter, discovered a way to turn a crisis into an opportunity…”
Letting Hon babble on, Dun went on.
“When we destroyed the concealment device, the hidden magic circle underneath was revealed. Someone had hidden it very cleverly. Such an artifact would have been nearly impossible for even high-ranking clerics to detect unless they thoroughly searched. Luckily, this time it was just a summoning circle, so the three of us were enough to deal with it.”
Listening to the twins’ explanation, Aibin’s expression grew serious.
‘Was this ever in the original story?’
No.
She was sure of that.
In the original story, there was no scene where the Kinzello triplets appeared at the orphanage.
At that point in the story, they would have already been “dead.”
They had perished in the war with the Empire.
By not dying early in the story, I’ve changed the flow of the original narrative.
Characters who should have exited the story alive were still alive.
This was twisting the original plot, affecting plausibility, and continuously generating new, derivative situations.
“Bin, what’s wrong?”
John asked, noticing Aibin staring blankly at a single point.
“Oh, nothing. I just think my brothers are amazing.”
“Right? Hehe. Another problem solved by yours truly?”
Aibin ignored Dun’s rambling and asked John and Hon again.
“So, the magic circle you dealt with earlier… it was for summoning?”
“Yes.”
“Not something like a dimensional gate to connect with the demon cave?”
It had to be. That was the only way Aibin could avoid suspecting the Saint.
Unlike a gate, summoning magic only activates when the summoner is nearby.
“No. It was definitely a summoning circle. We could tell because the number of creatures to be summoned was predetermined.”
“How did you know that?”
“Hey, you ask too many questions, little squirrel,” John said, feeling a bit hurt.
It was Hon who stepped in to explain:
“John can decipher ancient runes.”
“Oh… that’s how you read it from the magic circle.”
Aibin nodded. Only a few people in the Empire could read ancient runes, so she hadn’t thought that far.
“Do you remember exactly how many?”
Aibin gently patted John’s back as she asked. He nodded.
“How many?”
Please. I hope it’s not…
Her hope was shattered by John’s answer:
“Just one.”
A child raised a finger, pointing at the rubble beyond the broken wall.
“Look… at that…”
Through the swirling black smoke, a massive creature appeared. About three meters tall, its grotesque form looked as if it were made from a human body patched together with ragged cloth.
“Ugh!”
“Krgh!”
Soldiers charged at the creature, but one by one they vanished, leaving only screams behind. The battlefield fell silent, stained with a mist of blood. A single creature had annihilated an entire squad of soldiers.
“Krraaaah!”
Someone stepped toward the bloodthirsty monster.
“…So I have to intervene too, huh.”
A figure cloaked in the radiance of God appeared—it was Saint Pavella.
So… did the Saint open the monster summoning portal herself just to display her power?
Aibin was in confusion.
“Teacher.”
A trembling voice caught her attention.
She turned to see a small tear-streaked face she recognized.
“You are…”
