The Council of High Priests
After Alphonse had settled into his own workshop and begun carrying out my orders, I stopped by to receive a brief report on his progress, then set to work alongside the Succubus to deliver revelations to those I intended to seat as High Priests.
[Assembling consonants and vowels.]
[Combination successful!]
Space Movement (空間移動) : Travel to a set of n independent coordinates.
[The consonants and vowels used are consumed.]
I had originally had no intention of learning a word related to travel, but I changed my mind and acquired Space Movement.
It was a shame that it wasn't exempt from the speed-resolution penalty, but being able to shift to any location I wished in the space of an instant was an enormous advantage all the same.
'First, I should pay a visit to the Allied Kingdoms.'
Spreading out a map of the Allied Kingdoms, I searched for coordinates to designate and moved my body there through Space Movement. A faint wave of nausea surged up, but I judged it bearable, and I traveled quietly, suppressing my presence as I went.
To be honest, at first I had considered selecting High Priests for the Allied Kingdoms from among commoners with some measure of recognition, but I abandoned that idea and pivoted to a policy of using nobles instead.
Once nobles were seated, they might be bewildered at first, but they would soon find ways to turn the situation itself to their own political ends.
Far better for them to stoke conflicts among themselves within the Allied Kingdoms than for tensions to sharpen between the Empire and the confederation as a whole.
That said, I had of course excluded anyone whose ambitions were too grand or whose hands were too deeply stained with blood.
Thus, landing quietly upon the manors of the nobles I had chosen and sending the Succubus in to grant each of them a revelation-shaped dream, I found myself realizing anew just how arduous a process founding a religion truly was.
In the Allied Kingdoms, once people who had received revelations through their dreams began appearing in droves before the royal houses of Asbarok and Rudelia, both courts realized this was no mere run of strange dreams.
And so, before dispatching delegations to the Empire to arrange an audience with Prince Rohen, they gathered in secret for a clandestine conference.
Frankly speaking, they had assumed this religion was a fabrication Rohen had invented for political interference, but they had now begun to suspect that might not be the case.
After a considerably long exchange of words, they reached a decision and sent those in their own kingdoms who had received the revelations up to the duchy where Rohen resided.
"So even Duke Asis… has received one."
The duchy where Rohen dwelt. The delegation from the Allied Kingdoms — and among them, the nobles who had received revelations — swallowed hard when they laid eyes on one of the rare Aura Masters standing before them.
Could it be that this living weapon of a man had also received a revelation and would come to hold the office of High Priest as well?
And if so, should he seek to profit from that position, would they not be subject to punishment by proxy at his hands?
…But even so, surely that was excessive paranoia, and they shook their heads.
Even if Duke Asis attempted interference through the standing of a High Priest,
his status as a Duke of the Empire was bound to generate friction.
The Allied Kingdom nobles who had received revelations understood at once that this was, in its own way, a means of expanding his political connections.
Certainly, it might be true that the man lacked the talent to properly use a Sacred Relic.
But to whom one entrusted it instead was an entirely separate matter.
At the sight of Duke Asis smiling with a provocation that was not quite a provocation woven subtly into it, the Allied Kingdom nobles bristled even as they fought to compose themselves.
Receiving precisely the reactions he had anticipated, Duke Asis burst into hearty laughter.
They had said that those appointed High Priests were, without exception, nobles of impeccable integrity.
Watching the Allied Kingdom nobles strive to conceal their emotions only for those emotions to show plainly through, he concluded that they were no different after all.
The deeper and more cunning a schemer was, the less easily they would let slip so much feeling over a mere taunt like this.
And so the nobles who had received the revelations, arriving together with the delegation from the Allied Kingdoms, soon passed into the Central Temple,
where they were able to meet Prince Rohen himself, along with those who had received revelations from within the Empire.
Exchanging stiff, awkward greetings with one another and taking their seats, the assembled company then turned their eyes to Prince Rohen, seated at the head of the table.
From their perspective, there was no telling what business this gathering was meant to address.
Thus they had no choice but to wait upon the words of the man who sat, in name and in fact, upon the implicit seat of the Pontiff.
"…"
At Rohen's words, as he led the proceedings with commanding initiative, they nodded and began sharing information in detail.
Rohen himself, however, paid it little real attention.
After all, the armaments those people held in the form of bestowals — the things called Sacred Relics — had all been brought into being through his own transmutation.
They were miracle-working keys to the crucial breakthrough, and so, using his surplus of Reverence Points to transmute additional armaments, Rohen had chosen to distribute them.
With the great catastrophe looming ever closer, he could hardly resolve everything alone.
'…Hm.'
Still, as he sat quietly at the head of the table listening to their information exchange, Rohen did notice that they were engaged in a childish contest of pride, preening over the potency of the Sacred Relics their respective nations possessed. He saw no need to put a stop to it.
When the conference finally drew to a close after a fairly long stretch of time, Rohen stepped aside and conveyed his wishes in writing to the delegation from the Allied Kingdoms — specifically, to the Kingdom of Asbarok.
I wish to arrange an audience with the Second Prince of the Kingdom of Asbarok. When you return, please pass along word. Tell him I will speak of the details in person.
Though they could not fathom his intent, they saw no reason to refuse, and the Allied Kingdom delegation agreed without hesitation.
Rohen quietly exhaled an inward sigh, then stood in the courtyard gazing up at the sky and held his breath.
'The preparations are now all but in their final stage.'
The temple was complete, the High Priests had taken their seats.
Once they began spreading the faith on his behalf — proselytizing in all but name — the accumulation of Faith Points would only accelerate.
And meanwhile, watching Lapis and Duke Asis reunited after so long apart…
"…"
Rohen came to understand that this strange triangle he was currently sustaining would also, sooner or later, have to meet its resolution.
'Perhaps it would have been easier, in moments like this, if I simply didn't have my past life's memories…'
His memories of his previous life existed in a form individually segregated, available to be drawn out and read whenever he wished, and they had not exerted any great influence upon the establishment of his self.
But neither could he say they had no influence at all.
He might be nothing like his past self now — that broken wreck of a personality who went through life with profanity hanging off his tongue —
but in an era where polygamy was the settled custom, the memories of a past life lived under monogamy had burdened him with guilt from the very beginning.