Chapter 197: To the Southern Continent
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 197: To the Southern Continent
In the dim light of dawn, the docks of Bochum, a major city once part of the Coastal City Alliance, were shrouded in a thick sea fog.
The fog was so dense that the laborers bustling about, carrying cargo, looked like shadow people.
On a ship moored at the edge of the pier, unloading was in full swing. It was Mollak's merchant vessel, the one Jin would take to the Eastern Continent.
Mollak, who was supervising the workers, kept glancing between the position of the sun and our group, his leg trembling.
It seemed the departure time was near, but he couldn’t bring himself to rush us, making him fidget restlessly. Jin noticed and spoke.
“I must be going.”
Jin, who had accompanied me all the way to the Northern Continent, was once again disguised as an ordinary village woman.
“Don’t forget your promise.”
As she turned to leave, I grabbed her arm and pulled her into an embrace. Jin buried her face in my chest and took a deep breath, only pulling away after stealing a kiss from my lips.
“Worry not.”
There was no awkwardness in her demeanor as she began directing the laborers in Mollak’s stead.
“We will be on our way.”
Mollak finally approached and bowed his head.
“I’m counting on you.”
“I will devote all my efforts to ensuring her safety.”
I had no reason to doubt his words. He couldn’t possibly mistake the meaning of me seeing her off personally.
Soon, the anchor was raised, and the ship carrying Jin departed. Carried by the wind, it quickly receded into the distance, shrinking to a mere dot in the blink of an eye.
I turned and headed back the way I came. The dockworkers, still busy, didn’t recognize me as I passed through their midst.
The thick sea fog limiting visibility and the bustling crowd were not the only excuses. From the moment I left Bochum until I reached the Holy Land, few people recognized me even when I moved about openly.
Why? Because they had never once seen the emperor’s face. That was precisely why I intended to hold a coronation ceremony in the Northern Continent as well.
Of course, that alone wasn’t enough. The only subjects who attended the coronation were from the privileged classes, those with the freedom to travel and relocate. This meant that many of the Northern Continent’s people still didn’t know I was their ruler.
That was why, after the successful coronation in the Holy Land, I began a tour of the continent.
“Will you not be visiting the domains of Duke Signir and the nobles who follow him?” Cynthia asked, riding her horse beside me.
Even though we were married and had begun our life as husband and wife, she still maintained a formal tone.
She was likely still more accustomed to her position as a saintess from an orphanage than as the emperor’s wife.
I didn’t try to force her to change. Time would take care of that.
“Duke Signir has agreed to act in my stead.”
“I’m concerned it will be like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.”
“Are you already trying to keep her in check?”
“…”
Cynthia had kept her distance from Isabel ever since I announced the composition of the Imperial Supreme Council.
She had realized that her family would inevitably have to compete with Isabel’s. And since her own support base was weak, she was bound to react more sensitively.
“Don’t worry. Having your family and Isabel’s keep each other in check is part of the design I want.”
Stagnant water is bound to rot. Through competition, the two families would develop further and become assets to the empire. That was what I hoped for.
Cynthia pouted.
“It’s unfair. Aren’t you favoring Isabel too much?”
“I doubt the Duke would think so. For the sake of the grandson who will inherit his house, he’ll have to cut ties with vassals who have shared life and death with him.”
Fortunately, Erik’s recent betrayal had significantly reduced the number of nobles following him, but in turn, the bonds among those who remained had grown stronger.
“…That does sound like quite a headache for him.”
“He might even be cursing my name right about now.”
Cynthia looked at me with expectant eyes.
“Do you have a plan for me as well?”
“Why do you think so?”
“Because you left Isabel behind and brought only me on this journey.”
The memory of Isabel’s sulking face just before we departed flashed through my mind.
“Yes. The war was long, and the power structure shifted abruptly from the nobility to the Church. The entire continent must be plagued with all sorts of problems. If you can solve those problems, the people will come to love you and the new family you will establish.”
“Can I do it?”
“Only you can. You, who were born at the very bottom and rose to the highest position.”
Can a rich man understand a beggar? He can pretend to, but without having been a beggar himself, he can never truly understand.
“So the past I wanted to erase will be of help.”
“As long as you didn’t let it pass by meaninglessly, time passed is helpful in one way or another.”
An opportunity came quickly. It was when we entered a provincial village. A woman suddenly rushed out, fell to her knees, and blocked our path.
“My lord! Please, please help me…!”
Before I could even grasp the situation, a group of men swarmed in and surrounded the kneeling woman. Each of them held a club.
“How insolent! Who dares raise a weapon in our presence!”
My guards were not about to stand by. They drew their swords and, in turn, surrounded the group of men.
Startled, the men hastily dropped their clubs, making it clear they had no intention of resisting.
“What is going on?”
The middle-aged man leading the group bowed his head and spoke.
“We are the village militia. We were merely following the bishop’s orders to apprehend a witch.”
“I’ve been framed! A witch! I am no witch!”
She was lucky. We were the ones who knew best what it was like to be falsely accused.
“You wench…!”
The middle-aged man raised his hand toward the wailing woman.
It was an unwise choice. In that instant, a guard’s sword was at his throat. The blade lightly broke the skin, and a drop of blood formed on the steel.
“How dare you act so rashly in our presence?”
“I-I was only following the bishop’s orders!”
“Do you think invoking the bishop’s name will spare you from punishment? This woman is…”
I raised a hand to silence the guard and spoke instead.
“This is Saintess Cynthia. She is a person to whom even the Pope shows courtesy, and as the wife of Allen I, she has been appointed a judge of the traveling court.”
As countless eyes fell upon her, I winked. Cynthia couldn’t hide her flustered expression. Even though I had told her beforehand, she was still taken aback now that it had suddenly begun.
I smiled gently and whispered.
“You are not the scarecrow saintess you once were. You are the emperor’s consort and the highest authority in the Church, second only to the Pope. So be confident. You have the power to make even a grave mistake disappear as if it never happened.”
The wavering in Cynthia’s eyes finally ceased.
“That is something I cannot tolerate.”
The corner of my mouth twitched. I knew she, with her orphanage background, would react this way.
Isabel, born a high noble, would think nothing of the life of a commoner, but I knew Cynthia never could.
Through this journey, she would come to realize that the past she so wanted to erase—her origins in an orphanage—was the very foundation that would become her strength.
Cynthia urged her horse a step forward.
“Summon the bishop. I must understand the full circumstances.”
The middle-aged man glanced around before leaving. While he went to fetch the bishop, we questioned the woman accused of being a witch.
Her name was Ollie, and she was a widow whose husband had died a few months ago.
“You have no family or relatives, I presume?”
“How did you…?”
Ollie couldn’t hide her surprise. Neither could Cynthia, who was listening beside me.
“Widows with no family to protect them often become targets.”
“Do you believe there’s a motive?” Cynthia whispered so only I could hear, having grasped the implication in my words.
“Usually, when someone is judged to be a witch, their property is confiscated by the Church, is it not?”
Cynthia’s eyes narrowed.
“You seem quite certain already.”
“I have to be. Raceni may have purified the Church, but his influence likely hasn’t reached a provincial place like this. And it would have been difficult for him to know the conduct of a bishop in charge of a local diocese.”
“That’s just speculation.”
“It’s your job to find out whether this speculation is true or not.”
I shrugged and took a step back.
It seemed Cynthia was determined to see this through properly. She mobilized the guards to set up a temporary tribunal in the village square.
The bishop of the diocese arrived just after the simple tribunal had been set up.
Upon seeing Cynthia, who was already seated and waiting, he rushed over and dropped to his knees.
“Your Highness! What brings you here…!”
Having been a saintess for quite some time, even a provincial bishop knew her face. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to recognize me, standing beside her like a guard knight.
“By order of His Majesty the Emperor, I am touring the continent as a traveling judge. However, upon entering this village, I was stopped by someone claiming to have been wronged.”
In the center of the square, Ollie was cowering, nervously watching the scene unfold.
Cold sweat dripped down the bishop’s face as he assessed the situation, even though the weather wasn’t particularly hot.
Cynthia’s eyes, fixed on him, narrowed. With what I had told her, she was now suspicious of the bishop.
“You identified her as a witch, I hear? Do you have any grounds for this?”
The bishop seemed to realize he was under suspicion. I could practically hear the gears turning in his head.
“Of course! If Your Highness knew the details, you would judge her just as I have!”
Unexpectedly, the bishop’s demeanor was confident, almost enough to make us think we had misunderstood.
“Speak.”
“That woman, Ollie, is a witch who has already devoured three husbands! Any man who married her was found a cold corpse within a week. Once might be a coincidence, but for three men to meet the same end cannot possibly be a coincidence, can it?”
This was something Ollie hadn’t mentioned when we questioned her earlier.
A furrow formed on Cynthia’s brow, and her gaze, now even colder, fell upon Ollie.
“Is this true?”
“I-I’ve been framed! It’s true my husbands died, but I didn’t do it! They were perfectly fine when we went to sleep, but when I woke up, they were cold corpses. What was I supposed to do?!”
“There, there! Do you see? Where in the world is there an effect without a cause? She just keeps making absurd excuses, doesn’t she?”
The bishop had a point. She might not be a witch, but she was likely connected to the deaths of her three husbands in some way.
The problem was that we didn’t know the cause. If we released Ollie for lack of evidence, the same thing would happen again after we left. The bishop and the villagers would still believe she was a witch.
After a long moment of contemplation, Cynthia looked up at me, seeking my help.
“There is no effect without a cause.”
The bishop’s conduct was suspicious, but his words weren’t wrong. For the sharp-witted Cynthia, this hint should be enough.
Cynthia frowned for a moment, then, as if she had caught on, turned her gaze back to Ollie.
“At the time you discovered your dead husbands, were there any wounds on their bodies?”
“None at all. In fact, all three of them looked peaceful.”
The bishop interjected.
“If a weapon or poison had been used, their faces would surely have been contorted in pain! Only the magic of a wicked witch could bring about such an end!”
The villagers watching nodded in agreement. Cynthia, however, seemed to think differently. She continued her questioning.
“What did your husbands do before going to bed?”
“Well… it was ordinary. After dinner, they washed up, and we went to bed together.”
“You went to bed together?”
“Is there a problem with that…?”
“Besides a witch’s magic, there is one other cause of death that appears as peaceful as falling asleep. Ollie, how was your sexual relationship with your husbands?”
“Wh-what?”
Ollie’s face turned beet red in embarrassment. The bishop and the other villagers also couldn’t hide their shock.
But Cynthia’s face remained impassive. That seemed to give Ollie courage. She opened her mouth cautiously.
“All three of my husbands loved me very much. After we were married, I was never able to fall asleep until dawn broke each day.”
Only then did the bishop and the villagers seem to realize what Cynthia was suspecting.
“Oh, my.”
The village women covered their mouths in shock, while the innocent young maidens blushed.
The men, however, looked intrigued. For all three husbands to die from sexual overexertion, just how ecstatic must she be in bed?
Gulp.
The men’s Adam’s apples bobbed. Their interest was no longer whether Ollie was a witch or not. It was about just how incredible she was in bed.
Cynthia’s expression remained composed.
“It seems we have a conclusion. Bishop, do you have any other opinions?”
The bishop wiped his brow with a handkerchief and bowed obsequiously.
“Of course not. Ha, haha…”
Only after turning to look at me did Cynthia’s stern expression soften into a triumphant smile.
Her great deeds began from that moment. Having gained confidence, she acted as a traveling judge, ensuring that no one was unjustly accused.
By the time our tour was ending, rumors of her work had spread, and we were often greeted by large, welcoming crowds.
Meanwhile, I was also busy. I dealt with the bandits that had been running rampant due to the long war, while also double-checking intelligence reports from the Southern Continent.
A change occurred around the midpoint of our journey.
The news from the nobles, who had once seemed ready to give me their livers, gradually dwindled. By the end of the tour, all I received were excuses that were clearly just stalling for time.
Conversely, the information from the merchants I had recruited as spies grew more and more extensive.
[The movements of the nobles are unusual. Even neighboring nobles with territorial disputes are actively engaging with one another. Something is definitely happening beneath the surface.]
Traveling between domains took considerable time and was incredibly inconvenient, so nobles usually communicated by letter rather than visiting in person.
For even neighboring rivals with land disputes to be doing so meant that a situation had arisen that forced them to ignore their past grievances.
Considering the nobles had hidden this fact, it was an undeniable truth that the purpose of their clandestine meetings was me.
And just as I expected, as soon as I returned to the Western Continent, I was met with a declaration of war from the Southern Continent.
[The Southern Continent does not recognize Raceni, who ascended to the papacy through unjust means. The Lord’s Apostle is with us; therefore, the true lineage of the Church, which will restore the faith on behalf of the corrupt, lies with us. O arrogant one who calls himself emperor, you shall kneel before the true servant of the Lord, alongside your Pope, and atone for your sins.]
The interesting thing was that despite declaring war, they showed no signs of an impending invasion.