Saintess Claire
Inside the village hall where the Hero's party had taken refuge, a dispute was underway.
Claire, a Saintess with dark brown hair and a cute, somewhat vacant appearance, was locked in a heated argument with the elf archer, Silvina.
Lately, they were the only two in the party who bothered to speak at all.
The female knight, Millia, spent her days idling away the hours playing with local children, while the mage, Yuni, stared blankly into space from morning to night, as though simply biding her time until she could pack up and leave for the Magic Tower.
Amidst this stifling atmosphere, the clash between the Saintess and the elf stemmed from a single issue: Claire, having held her tongue for as long as she could endure, was attempting to contact the Holy Kingdom.
"I have an obligation to make regular reports to the Holy Kingdom! Right this instant, through the communication crystal...!"
"I will not permit it," Silvina said flatly. "The Hero instructed everyone to refrain from outside contact, himself excluded."
"There's following orders, and then there's madness! Cutting off communication between the Saintess and the Church makes zero sense. I don't even understand what he's trying to achieve!"
"If the Holy Kingdom learns of the Holy Knights' losses, public unrest will follow. As the Hero said, our priority must be finding a way to soften the blow."
"The Church probably suspects it already! Do you really think they're assuming everything is fine when a Hero's party that marched out with dozens of elite Holy Knights goes dead silent for this long? You remember how shifty the Hero was during that last transmission as well as I do!"
Silvina hesitated, if only for a fraction of a second. It was undeniable that the Hero's demeanor during their most recent crystal call had reeked of suspicion.
"Even so, the leader of this party is the Hero."
Claire stared at the elf in sheer disbelief.
Silvina, however, merely returned her gaze with unflinching obstinacy, as if silently daring Claire to do something about it.
Crazy bitch...
Silvina was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Hero's most fanatical disciple.
An outcast in the Grand Forest due to her obsessive craving for meat, she had been plucked from obscurity by Kwon Hee-jin, who not only inducted her into the Hero's party but even secured her a sacred bow carved from a branch of the World Tree. For that, her devotion to him was genuine and absolute.
"Silvina, you never dared treat me like this back when the Holy Knights were still around."
"I do not know what kind of special treatment you expect. You are defying the Hero's explicit directives, and I intend to stop you. The Hero will return here shortly, so wait patiently."
"......"
The words Why are you clinging so desperately to a broken man? rose to the tip of Claire's tongue, but she swallowed them back.
Truth be told, until the disaster with the Beast King—and frankly, for a considerable time afterward—it was Claire herself who had quietly obeyed every single directive the Hero issued.
Her loyalty had never matched the elf's burning fervor, of course. She had simply been seduced by the staggering sums of money Kwon Hee-jin threw around.
Her greed had a very practical root: she knew all too well how bleak, austere, and impoverished retirement was for former Saintesses once their journey ended and they returned to the Holy Kingdom.
When she had first laid eyes on the cramped, drafty hovel where the previous Saintess spent her final days, Claire had been utterly dumbfounded. Even if a Saintess ended up marrying the Hero, tradition dictated that she continue living like an ascetic. It was a life miles away from comfort.
Claire had cooperated with the Hero purely to secure an affluent future. If she was doomed to drag herself through an unavoidable, life-threatening crusade, she was determined to walk away with a fortune.
Yet now, that entire retirement plan was hanging by a thread.
What good is a pile of money if I spend the rest of my life branded as a criminal?
One way or another, she needed to take the temperature of public opinion back home.
Feigning indignant fury, Claire pushed herself up from the bench.
"Fine, do whatever you want! I'm making contact no matter what!"
"Do not fool yourself into thinking I am incapable of physically restraining you."
"Just try it!"
Snatching the heavy communication crystal off the table, Claire stormed out of the village hall. She made sure to throw a petulant "I'll do it by myself if I have to!" over her shoulder as she slammed the door.
Silvina started to rise, but stopped, letting out a dry scoff before crossing her arms over her chest.
"Go ahead. You cannot operate a communication crystal without a mage's assistance anyway."
"......"
"Just take care not to smash it in a tantrum. The Hero may need to reach us."
"...You think you're so smart, don't you?" Claire muttered under her breath, quickening her pace into the open air.
Though the heavy orb remained tucked under Claire's arm, Silvina had already lost interest, returning to carefully buffing the fractures along her bow with a piece of cloth.
Idiot.
Claire retreated a safe distance from the hall and settled down to wait. She was waiting for the mage. Even an eccentric like Yuni was human; eventually, she would have to visit the outhouse.
Sure enough, after about three hours of lurking behind the timber shed, Claire spotted Yuni shuffling out of the building with her usual sluggish, vacant gait. Claire pounced immediately, dragging the petite mage by the collar into the brush, making sure to pull her well out of range of the elf's freakishly sharp senses.
"I need... the toilet."
"Hold it! Power up the crystal first. Connect to the Holy Papal Palace in the Holy Kingdom. It's a long way, but someone of your skill can manage it, right?"
"Silvina said... not to...?"
"Who made her the boss? Besides, aren't you curious about what's happening out there? You're the only one here who can actually run this thing. Isn't it completely insane to sit in the dark just because Kwon Hee-jin told us to? Well?"
Yuni stared at her, blinked slowly, and finally gave a faint nod, muttering that seeing what the Holy Kingdom was doing would at least be a decent way to kill time.
Though ultra-long-distance crystal calls required immense precision, Yuni—unlike the bumbling knight Millia—possessed genuine magical talent. Within minutes, the crystal flared with a pale, resonating light, linking directly across the continent to the administrative offices of the Holy Papal Palace.
"I am requesting an immediate connection to His Holiness regarding the Unfunded Church Support Project."
"Did you say... the Unfunded Church Support Project?" a startled voice crackled through the resonance.
Unfunded Church Support Project.
It was the prearranged code word reserved strictly between the Saintess and the Pope whenever discussing sensitive off-the-books funds and illicit donations.
Naturally, she did not reveal her true identity over an unencrypted channel.
"Yes. It is an urgent matter."
"...Please hold for a moment."
Claire took a slow, trembling breath, praying with every fiber of her being that public sentiment in the Holy Kingdom was not as catastrophic as her worst nightmares.
The Holy Papal Palace, the Holy Kingdom.
As fate would have it, the Saintess's transmission arrived at the exact hour the Council of Cardinals was locked in agonizing, closed-door deliberations to elect a new Pope.
The supreme pontiff had not suffered a sudden stroke or fallen to an assassin's blade; he had simply abdicated.
To watch the supreme ruler of a sovereign theocracy forced off his throne over forty-six point five billion liras sounded absurd on paper, but given the Holy Kingdom's current state, it was an inevitable tragedy.
The Holy Kingdom had never been a wealthy nation.
Its rocky soil barely supported subsistence farming, and it possessed no rich mineral deposits to mine. Even its population was modest compared to the sprawling Empire.
Conversely, its financial drains were bottomless: continental orphanages, care facilities for the sick and disabled, and missionary subsidies to destitute rural parishes scattered across the known world.
To such a state, 46.5 billion liras was not surplus wealth to be gambled away, but the entirety of their national emergency reserves. It had never belonged to the Pope personally, even if he managed it, and despite the fact that the Pontiff had lived an extraordinarily luxurious lifestyle for a holy man.
To make matters worse, with the public's opinion of the Saintess plunging through the floor and the horrifying revelation that the ancient Holy Grail had been secretly signed over to the Empire, private tithing and noble donations had dried up entirely. The true financial hole went far beyond forty-six billion.
The crisis was so severe that some factions were already clamoring for a national 'Gold-Gathering Campaign'—begging citizens to surrender their family heirlooms and wedding rings so they could be shipped to the Imperial Mint to be melted into usable currency. At this rate, priests would soon be tearing down golden altar crosses and chalices to feed the furnace.
"All of this is my transgression. I shall abdicate."
The Pope taking the fall was the only logical conclusion. What made the situation truly hopeless was that not a single cardinal was willing to step forward and take his place.
It was into this suffocating, funeral atmosphere that the Saintess's transmission dropped.
Though she hid behind the pretense of the Unfunded Church Support Project, the cardinals instantly understood the phrase. The former Pope had already spilled everything under interrogation.
The assembly erupted, several cardinals shouting to demand her location immediately, but a single figure raised an arm to quiet the room.
"Let us pacify her first. If you will permit me, I shall speak."
It was Edin—the man who had once stood as the formidable Cardinal of the Imperial Capital diocese, now returned to the Holy Kingdom as a humble, unranked priest.
Whether sparked by some profound spiritual reckoning following his resignation, he had shaved his head into a ragged buzz cut, dressed exclusively in a rough habit resembling an unwashed burlap sack, and ate only two meager bowls of gruel a day.
Stepping before the glowing communication crystal, the old priest spoke in a calm, soothing cadence.
"May the Goddess's grace be upon you. It has been a long time, Saintess."
"How did you know it was me...? Wait, Cardinal Edin? Why are you there? Shouldn't you be in the capital?"
"A general council of cardinals was convened following your disappearance. His Holiness the Pope is losing sleep over your safety. Tell me... have you entered the Demonic Realm to strike at the Demon King's vanguard? That is the only scenario that would explain this prolonged silence."
A disgraced former cardinal, invoking a deposed Pope to weave a blatant lie—all to extract a single location.
"...Haha, yes. We have been... conducting operations in the Demonic Realm. I can't share specific details, of course."
"I offer my deepest gratitude for the tireless labor of the Goddess's foremost handmaiden. But Saintess, you must disclose your whereabouts now. We are gravely concerned for the well-being of the Holy Knights. Where are you currently encamped?"
"Before that... have you heard any news from the capital? Specifically... regarding the Hero?"
"News? Nothing of note. Pray, tell us your location first. The Church wishes to dispatch liturgical vestments and letters of encouragement so our brave Holy Knights may maintain their sacred faith. How can we send them if we do not know where you reside? Ha-ha."
"Our location... well... Before I answer, could it be..."
Her voice trailed off into evasive hesitation.
Even Claire, ditzy as she often was, realized the elder priest was pressing for coordinates with unnatural urgency. In truth, the moment someone other than the Pope answered the private channel, her plan had begun unraveling.
A heavy, suffocating silence stretched between the crystals.
The surrounding cardinals swallowed dryly, their eyes shifting with barely contained tension, while even the operator mage broke into a cold sweat.
"Saintess."
"...Cardinal."
The old priest's low, resonant tone was answered by Claire's quiet, resigned murmur. Both sides understood that the game was up.
Edin abandoned the awkward charade, letting out a faint, humorless scoff.
"I see you have no intention of telling me. ...Judging by your composure, you remain entirely ignorant of what the Second Prince and the Hero did to this nation. Not that it excuses you. The fact remains that you possessed the means to communicate all along, yet chose to conceal the total annihilation of our Holy Knights."
"That... that was because the Hero—"
"Save your breath. The Hero ordered you to keep silent, no doubt. For that reason, I shall not brand you a direct co-conspirator. We will treat it as aiding and abetting."
"Aiding and abetting?! No, wait—"
"Listen to me, Saintess. If you do not wish to surrender your location, you may remain silent. Just as you have done until now."
"......"
"It matters not. We will hunt down the Hero, and we will find every single one of you. And when we do—"
Before he could finish his sentence, the light died with a sharp crackle. The transmission severed as Yuni's mana ran dry.
Yet not a trace of frustration crossed Edin's weather-beaten face.
Turning on his heel, he immediately placed a priority crystal call to the Empire's Court Department to share the breakthrough:
The Saintess was alive, and in all likelihood, the Hero Party's core members were lying low in an isolated sanctuary, detached from the Hero himself.
Whether by sheer coincidence or divine providence, the Court Department had just flagged an intriguing report of their own.
Reports had surfaced regarding a traveler who had been casually scattering absurd amounts of coin across several impoverished backwater hamlets—a man dressed in tattered commoner rags, yet carrying an exceptionally ornate, unmistakable blade at his hip.
With those two threads woven together, the Holy Papal Palace and the Court Department began rapidly tightening the net around Kwon Hee-jin's hiding place. Within the hour, the phrase 'pursuit squad' was being openly discussed in the imperial corridors.
"Baron Wellesley has just returned from liberating a besieged county," an imperial minister reported. "I shall summon him to the palace at once."
"Do as you please," Edin replied coldly. "Regardless of who commands the imperial forces, the Church will be joining the hunt."
At that precise moment, two bitter, suspicious nations united under a single purpose. A royal messenger on horseback galloped out of the palace gates, tearing down the paved streets toward the private estate of Eric Wellesley.