saint ch12

Private Meeting (4)

As the Captain of the Royal Guard glared at me as if he would kill me, a strange tension formed between the Order’s forces and the Imperial Family’s forces. The situation was defused when the princess, who seemed to snap out of it just before things exploded, stopped the Captain of the Royal Guard.

I was a little scared.

I could sense that this Captain of the Royal Guard was also quite the psycho.

He was seriously contemplating whether he should kill me with so many people around.

Why are there so many people who want to kill me?

Is this the fate of a high-ranking clergyman in a medieval fantasy?

The Cardinals seemed to be doing just fine, though.

It’s just because I don’t have power.

I want to have a voice.

No, I don’t even need that. I just want a super strong bodyguard… at least I want to escape this life-threatening situation…

Apart from the Captain of the Royal Guard’s near-explosion, which I managed to defuse, nothing much happened after that.

Despite the Imperial Family showing up with a huge number of people, they said they were going back this evening and left to prepare for their departure.

They’re just leaving after one day?

What did they really come for?

Surely they didn’t bring all those people just to kill me?

Or to kill me and start a war with the Order?

I was beginning to think that the Imperial Family wasn’t such a great partner after all.

Are there no sane people in this world?

Ah, Princess Ludmila was a good person, though.

Being considered a good person just for changing her mind about killing me… This relationship is really something.

Is this really okay?

After that, I was summoned by the Cardinals and had to recount my conversation with the princess like a new employee giving a presentation, but I knew it was just a formality.

The Cardinals were already quite satisfied before I even said anything.

Judging by what they had secretly overheard, they must have imagined me as being unyielding despite the princess’s persistent persuasion.

If there had been a holy artifact that recorded images as well, it would have been really difficult to secretly convey my intentions to the princess. But it was possible to deceive them because the holy artifact only eavesdropped on sound.

If they had one, they would have installed it, so maybe such a holy artifact doesn’t exist.

Or, I can’t imagine it, but it’s being used somewhere even more important than this.

Either way, it was really a stroke of luck for me.

I secured the Imperial Family’s cooperation and significantly increased the Cardinals’ trust in me.

It was a positive development for the first time in a while.

Moreover, I had turned what was originally a death flag into an act of improvisation, so my confidence, which had been hitting rock bottom, had recovered to some extent.

I felt like I could finally have a good night’s sleep tonight.

* * *

“Princess, you must change course now.”

Lord Canyon Voltein, Captain of the Azure Royal Guard, the Emperor’s Spear, and head of the Voltein family, said to the princess, who had been acting strangely since meeting Saint Ronan.

This delegation was actually mostly composed of combat personnel.

Even though the people included in the delegation had not received precise instructions on their mission, the composition was so abnormal that they sensed something was amiss.

Moreover, Canyon and Ludmila were people who knew the secret order that the emperor had given to the princess.

The fact that they were returning so quietly was absurd.

They had come expecting a full-scale battle and retreat from the Order’s headquarters.

“Lord Canyon, I respect your opinion and fully understand that you cannot comprehend the current situation, but my decision will not change. We will not kill Saint Ronan.”

“Princess, please do not let personal feelings cloud your judgment and ruin the greater cause.”

“I will not accept any further objections. At least, I am the final decision-maker for this delegation.”

“That is because the Emperor trusted that you would make the right decision.”

“Oh my. I don’t know if you can say that to the princess.”

Ludmila, who had been quietly riding alongside, watching the flames flickering in her hand and feigning disinterest, interjected at Canyon’s excessively strong tone.

“Shut up, witch. Have you forgotten the Emperor’s command?”

“That’s why these muscle-brained idiots are… Of course, I remember. But didn’t you say that killing the Saint was only an option when the Saint had become or was likely to become a puppet of the Order, and there was very little room to utilize him?”

“Do you really think there’s a possibility that that’s not the case?”

“I don’t know, but it seems like the princess judged that way?”

“Princess, don’t you know that doesn’t make sense? Perhaps… do you feel something other than pity for that Saint?”

“Lord Canyon.”

Ludmila’s cold voice cut through the two.

Canyon was now suspecting that Azelia was running away because she didn’t have the confidence to kill the young Saint with her own hands, and was even subtly asking if she had a crush on the Saint.

Ludmila didn’t seem to trust her own judgment much, but she was setting herself against Canyon by raising objections for the sake of objecting.

Normally, Azelia would have found all of this so exhausting that she would have wanted to go far away, but today, for some reason, Ronan came to mind.

That’s right.

Even if two masters who had reached the pinnacle of their art were going against her opinion, at least her father and vassals weren’t trying to brainwash her, and the most powerful person on the continent wasn’t coming to take her life.

Even that handprint on his neck that she had seen last.

Only then did Azelia understand why the Saint was wearing such stuffy clothes in the middle of summer.

At the same time, she felt a surge of murderous intent towards the owner of that handprint, whoever it was.

Who in the world would directly intimidate the Saint like that?

And in the Order’s headquarters, which is called the center of faith.

No, everyone must be in cahoots, since it’s the place that makes the Saint wear stuffy clothes to hide that handprint.

“Were you aware that there was a listening device in the reception room where the Saint Ronan and I had a private meeting?”

Azelia, struggling to suppress her rising irritation, asked in a sharp tone, and Canyon and Ludmila fell silent.

Canyon had gone inside the reception room and spread his mana to assess whether there was any danger to the princess, and Ludmila had completely covered the area with her magic power.

If there had been a magic tool that could transmit the conversation in the reception room to another location, there was no way they wouldn’t have noticed.

“That can’t be. If there was such a device, we would have…”

“…A holy artifact?”

Canyon denied it, then trailed off, and Ludmila quickly deduced the answer.

If you were to pick the two things that powerful mages and knights hated to fight the most in the world, it would be genuine holy knights and demon worshippers.

The holy magic and black magic that holy knights and demon worshippers would unleash as a last resort were all bizarre methods that defied common sense.

Holy artifacts and magic tools that utilized Divine Power and demonic power were no different.

In the Order’s headquarters, it wouldn’t be strange to have a holy artifact that could deceive the senses of a master-level martial artist and mage.

“I apologize for not fulfilling my role.”

Canyon admitted his mistake.

But that didn’t mean he had given up.

“But my mistake and the matter of the Saint are separate. Even if the Saint told you about the Order’s hidden listening device, that doesn’t prove that the Saint harbors animosity towards the Order. He might have just been a child who didn’t want to ruin his private meeting with the princess. What if it was an elaborate scheme orchestrated by the Order to gain favor with the Saint?”

Perhaps because of his mistake, or perhaps because he himself was aware that it was somewhat of a stretch, Azelia glanced at Canyon with an even more hardened expression and looked ahead again.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t even force a smile in front of people who were trying to find fault with her.

What kind of mindset did that kind-hearted Saint have to live with a smile on his face in the midst of all that malice?

The more she thought about it, the more her heart ached.

“Lord Canyon, what were you thinking when Saint Ronan came out?”

“I was wondering if I should kill the Saint in place of the princess.”

“What kind of face was Saint Ronan making at that time?”

While questioning the meaning of the ambiguous question, Canyon recalled the memory of that time.

“He seemed to be smiling.”

“Yes, he smiled at me too.”

“…I’m sorry, Princess, but I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Saint Ronan can read people’s minds. He called it an emotion, but to others, it’s the same thing.”

At that one word, Canyon and Ludmila’s thoughts froze.

“In the first place, if Saint Ronan had wanted to, I wouldn’t have even been able to have a private meeting with Saint Ronan. He knew that I harbored murderous intent towards him.”

For a while, no sound was exchanged between the three.

Azelia was quite pleased that this silence felt like Ronan had gotten one over on them.

“That’s… that’s impossible.”

“Princess, even so, you’ve been deceived by the Saint. No being in the world can read the thoughts of a higher intelligence.”

“Really? Are you sure? The Saint told me to ask him to kill him without pain if I ever wanted to kill him. If it’s a trick, it’s such a difficult trick that I can’t even grasp the meaning of it.”

He reflexively thought that it was because the princess’s inner thoughts had been exposed, but the fact that the person in front of him was the princess of the empire, who had been trained to hide her emotions countless times, came to mind, and he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.

Even Ludmila herself was having a hard time figuring out what the princess was thinking right now.

And the fact that Ronan was a Saint was holding them back.

Maybe, perhaps, if he was a Saint.

Holy magic was already absurd, but if he was God’s proxy at the pinnacle of it.

“If that’s really true, then the fact that he’s a Saint isn’t important…”

“No. The most important thing is that he’s a Saint and has that ability. If the Saint says that someone is harboring impious intentions, who can doubt that it’s not true?”

Before they knew it, the two’s attention had shifted from whether it was right or wrong for the princess not to kill Ronan to Ronan himself.

Ronan’s ability was that shocking.

Whether it was the Order or anything else, it was an extremely sharp knife that could be swung at the opponent and cut them down.

“So let’s stop talking about this now. I’ll ask the Emperor directly and listen to his judgment.”

“…”

Canyon, at a loss for words, quietly closed his mouth.

Considering the danger of his ability, the thought that he should be killed had become even stronger, but at the same time, he possessed an overwhelming charm that surpassed that.

It was certainly worth postponing the decision.

“And Lord Canyon, I hope you will refrain from making your own personal judgments before you start talking about my personal feelings.”

“…I’m sorry, Princess.”

In fact, Azelia’s decision to save Ronan was much more due to his infinitely Saint-like demeanor than the ability she had mentioned, but that was a truly personal judgment, so she quietly buried it and rebuked Canyon.

There weren’t many opportunities to legally rebuke a master belonging to the Imperial Family of the Empire like this.