Chapter 414: Proof of Existence (2)
Chapter 414: Proof of Existence (2)
The existence of God had been proven.
While there were bound to be dissenters, the masses, at the very least, believed it to be true. This was due to the presence of an easily understood piece of evidence: "Divine Power."
The power bestowed by the Heavenly God was, quite literally, a "miracle."
Whether one fell ill or lost a limb, recovery was possible as long as Divine Power was present. This was a feat impossible even through "magic," the system humanity had developed independently.
Perhaps it would be a different story if the dragons, who had originally passed magic down to humanity, ever returned.
However, the dragons had long since vanished, and human knowledge had yet to reach the heights of the divine will. Thus, it was inevitable that the Heavenly Thunder Religion would flourish across the entire continent.
The Empire was, in name and reality, the strongest nation on the continent.
And the Holy Kingdom was the one place even that Empire could not treat lightly.
No politician was ignorant of the true might of religion. Although the Holy Kingdom did not dare provoke the Empire, it was a well-known fact that the Empire respected the Holy Kingdom's authority.
The people who had summoned me to this religious trial stood at the very pinnacle of that authority.
The headquarters of the Heavenly Thunder Religion, a place revered by countless believers.
The Papacy—a name that commanded awe.
To summarize it in one sentence:
I was screwed.
"No, I mean, who on earth filed the complaint?"
I asked, pressing my fingers firmly against my temples.
A groan escaped my lips, forced out by a throbbing headache. The woman sitting across from me also seemed uneasy, letting out several faint sighs.
She was the woman who likely knew the whole story: the Saintess.
Before long, the Saintess shook her head weakly. Her complexion was weary, as if she had been drained of all energy over the past few few days.
"First of all, it wasn't my intention. And it wasn't a situation where I could have stopped the complaint from being filed anyway."
I figured as much.
Common sense dictated that the Saintess wouldn't have been the one to step forward and file a complaint first. If she had, she wouldn't have had any reason to come looking for me to clean up the mess, and besides, she'd had more than enough opportunities to put me on trial in the past.
There was no reason for her to suddenly file a complaint now.
That left only one conclusion: my future self must have plotted something.
I let out another groan and leaned back against the chair.
Just what was that man's intention?
Did he simply want to mess with me?
And of all the many possible charges, why "sexual harassment"? It was a choice that reeked of nothing but pure malice.
Even as I was lost in thought, the Saintess continued her story in a quiet, steady voice.
"It all started a few days ago, right when I had just returned to the Academy..."
On the day she returned from the North, the Saintess had been in the best of moods.
First and foremost, she was pleased that the prognosis for the patients she had been treating was good.
Though some had suffered severe injuries, there were no further fatalities. This was thanks to the full support of the Yurdina family. Furthermore, had the conflict between humanity and the elves not finally come to an end?
War always bites at the throats of the poor.
Whatever the circumstances, the majority of soldiers on the battlefield belonged to the impoverished class. This was a common characteristic of professions where one earned money by risking their life.
Like mercenaries, or demonic beast hunters.
Those standing on the edge of a cliff always had their own stories to tell.
That was why the Saintess never felt good whenever she stood on the frontlines.
It was because it was too obvious that not only her allies but also her enemies were being pushed to their limits. A battle that no one desired was reaping countless lives.
As someone who claimed to be a messenger of God, how could she possibly find joy in that?
But that long tragedy had finally reached its conclusion.
And it was all thanks to the exploits of the man she loved.
The Saintess's heart swelled at the thought of seeing Ian after so long. She regretted not being able to follow him to the Academy immediately, but she was glad she could keep her promise to return a week later.
It didn't take long for that excited mood to plummet.
Because the man she encountered on the Academy's Central Avenue was... strange.
A thick sense of fatigue was bleeding from his golden eyes.
Meeting that gaze, which didn't hold even a shred of emotion, the Saintess had an intuition.
That man was not "Ian."
The person she was in love with was not that mechanical.
"...Ian?"
Her body stiffening, the Saintess first forced an awkward smile.
There was only one possibility.
It was the "Ian Percus" from the future. For reasons unknown, he had taken over Ian's body once again.
Furthermore, he was walking toward her.
It meant he had some business with her.
And on this Central Avenue, where countless pedestrians were passing by!
The Saintess's thoughts instantly became a jumbled mess. She didn't even have a clue how to react.
Should she just act like she knew him and pass by?
Or should she move to a quieter place and ask what was going on?
Of course, the man didn't give her the luxury of time to deliberate.
"It has been a long time, Saintess."
At that point, the Saintess was certain that the person before her was not Ian.
It hadn't even been a week since she and Ian had parted. It wasn't a situation where one would use the expression "a long time."
Having reached that conclusion, a benevolent smile appeared on the Saintess's face.
It was the "mask" she used when dealing with most others.
"Immanuel... It has been a long time, brother. Have you been at peace?"
"I've been doing well enough."
By now, whispering voices began to drift from the people around them.
Ian and the Saintess were both celebrities whom everyone at the Academy knew.
It was only natural for curiosity to be piqued when those two were gathered in one place.
Moreover, hadn't Ian and the Saintess been staying in the North until recently?
The various incidents that had occurred there had already been turned into heroic tales.
It would have been stranger if people didn't pay attention.
Today, the Saintess found those gazes particularly burdensome.
The man's intentions were currently shrouded in mist, and the public's attention would act as evidence with powerful authority, spreading in an instant.
This meant that if an unexpected situation occurred, it would be difficult to handle.
So, the Saintess intended to wrap up the conversation with the man quickly.
"I am glad to hear that. I pray the Lord will be with you in the trials to come. I have urgent business at the temple, so if you'll excuse me..."
Smiling and making the sign of the cross, the Saintess began to walk away.
She intended to find out the details later.
However, the man seemed to have other plans.
"You're surprisingly impatient. No..."
She felt him naturally stroke his chin with his index finger and close his eyes.
His reaction was so calm.
Because of that, the Saintess couldn't immediately counter.
"...Were you like that on the bed as well?"
The Saintess, who had been walking away, froze in her tracks.
She was so shocked that she didn't even realize the crack in her smile. She hurriedly turned around, her eyes filled with disbelief.
There stood the man, his face still as nonchalant as ever.
With the pedestrians, who were staring with wide eyes just like the Saintess, as his backdrop.
"You did have a sensitive body. Especially the breasts..."
"...W-W-Wait!"
Even as her mind went blank, the Saintess's instincts were kicking in.
She couldn't let that man say another word.
However, the bomb had already been dropped, and the fuse had essentially been lit. There were already dozens of witnesses who had heard those scandalous words.
She couldn't think of any way to fix this.
The Saintess simply tried her best to feign composure.
"W-What are you talking about? If you mean on a hospital bed, depending on the patient's condition..."
"I'm talking about when we were in the bedroom, of course."
It was over.
The truth of that statement didn't even matter. The information the man had spat out was just that provocative.
A romance between the Empire's Divinity and the Saintess?
It was the kind of content that even the Saintess herself would have been interested in looking up. Furthermore, since the Saintess was bound by a vow of chastity, the story was bound to be processed into a rumor many times more scandalous.
Having finished that brief calculation, the Saintess's face turned pale.
The street fell into silence, and the man tilted his head with feigned innocence.
"...Are you perhaps excited?"
What kind of nonsense was this now?
The Saintess barely managed to suppress the urge to scream profanities for the first time in a long while.
Instead, she vented her unfiltered rage.
"W-What a disastrous thing to say! Brother, no matter what our relationship is, I will not forgive any further insults—"
"You prefer being taken by force, don't you?"
With that one sentence, the Saintess let out a hiccup and fell silent.
How did he know?
She thought it was a secret preference!
Come to think of it, that man had a history of blackmailing her using her sexual preferences in the past. Even if she didn't know how, the hypothesis that he had grasped even her most intimate information was highly likely.
While the Saintess was momentarily flustered, the man let out a faint smile.
It was one of the few expressions of emotion he had shown her.
"So I thought you'd like it. My apologies if I was mistaken."
By now, the pedestrians were casting blatantly suspicious glances.
The sound of whispering tore into the Saintess's eardrums. Every time a strange gaze swept over her face, she felt like she was going to go crazy.
It was humiliating and bewildering.
Her face must have already turned a deep shade of red. As a woman, there was no way she would be pleased that her sexual preferences had been exposed to the entire world.
What's more, what constrained the Saintess's thoughts was the fact that the man still hadn't stopped talking.
He was now about to cross the line.
"But there's no need to suppress yourself so much. Arus would likely want that as well. Ah, I should also offer a prayer to Arus, thanking him for giving me such a good daughter tonight—"
"Su-Summons!"
The man's last words were almost inaudible, drowned out by the Saintess's shout.
It was a relief, at least.
If those words had spread, even the Saintess wouldn't have been able to do anything. Directly insulting the Heavenly God was a problem on a completely different level.
So, the Saintess had no choice but to use the only means available to overturn the entire situation.
"I'm going to summon you to a religious trial!"
The Empire's Divinity, sued for sexual harassment by the Saintess.
That was how the rumor that spread throughout the Academy the next day was born.
"No, no! Wait a minute, so in the end, wasn't it you who summoned me to the religious trial, Saintess?"
At my point, the Saintess cleared her throat with a "ahem" and slightly turned her head away.
A timid rebuttal followed.
"...I said it wasn't my intention, I didn't say I wasn't the one who did it."
"Isn't that the same thing?!"
I shouted, my body trembling at the betrayal of a comrade I had trusted.
I had my suspicions, but for the Saintess to actually try to put me on trial...
Was the warning from the Alphenhauser twins right after all?
I raised my voice toward the Saintess, who still couldn't meet my eyes.
"How could you do this! A Saintess of the Heavenly Thunder Religion, accusing an innocent knight who has nothing to do with sexual harassment—!"
"...Innocent?"
The word was spat out like a frost-covered blade.
I broke into a cold sweat under the Saintess's silent, glaring gaze.
Saying I hadn't committed sexual harassment was going a bit too far.
Accepting that point, I modified my statement.
"Well, there were some misunderstandings... but anyway, I approached with pure intentions—!"
"Pure?"
Even so, I tried to argue my point by raising my voice again.
That is, until the Saintess slightly propped up her breasts with her arms.
My gaze reflexively shifted toward the naturally emphasized curves. It was an unavoidable reaction for a man.
The Saintess's eyes turned cold.
I let out a long sigh and relaxed my body in a gesture of surrender.
"...Fine. Go ahead and speak."
Only then did the Saintess snort and begin her explanation.
No matter how agitated she was, the Saintess was still the Saintess. Even in her bewilderment, she must have had a hidden plan.
"There were plenty of people around even if it wasn't me. If such blatant insults were heard, rumors would naturally spread to the Holy Kingdom. Then a religious trial would be guaranteed even if I didn't step forward."
"Still, we could have bought some time..."
"The important thing is that I requested the religious trial. Because I am the victim."
As she said that, the Saintess showed a slightly triumphant smile.
She seemed quite pleased with the scheme she had come up with.
"In other words, there's a lot of room for my influence to be felt in the settlement conditions."
"A settlement... is such a thing possible?"
Despite her words, I couldn't erase a lingering doubt.
It was because of the charges for which I had been summoned to the religious trial.
For now, it was "sexual harassment," but the story changed if the victim was the Saintess. The charge of "blasphemy" would be treated as the main point. After all, the Saintess was the virgin most beloved by the Heavenly God.
Even sexually harassing a high-ranking official of the Holy Kingdom was an unthinkable act.
If that person was the Saintess, one of the symbolic figures of the Heavenly Thunder Religion, there was no way the Holy Kingdom would stay quiet. It wouldn't be strange if they went into a frenzy and tried to hang me on a cross.
But the Saintess still looked confident.
"Ian, realize your own position now. If the Holy Kingdom said they were going to execute you right now, do you think the Empire would just say 'okay' and accept it?"
Only then did I let out an "ah" of realization.
The Saintess was right.
I had various connections, including the Imperial Household. Furthermore, since I was the one called the "Empire's Divinity," the Empire wouldn't just stand by, no matter how clear my crime was.
They would argue that it was just a bit of sexual harassment at most.
In this situation, the Holy Kingdom would have no choice but to find the situation complicated. It seemed the Saintess had exploited that gap.
"While the Holy Kingdom is stuck between a rock and a hard place, I, the victim, will request leniency. And if I bring settlement conditions that are close to just saving face, the matter will be settled."
"Ooh."
I looked at the Saintess with a face of genuine admiration.
To think she had acted while clearly weighing the gains and losses even in that situation.
Furthermore, through this, the Saintess had managed to put both the Holy Kingdom and the Empire in her debt. In any case, she had essentially solved a problem for them.
I once again realized the reason why the Saintess had survived in the political arena of the Holy Kingdom.
Now, only one problem remained.
"So, what are the settlement conditions?"
At that, the Saintess once again showed a meaningful smile.
The next moment, a document was spread out before me with a snap.
Even before I could read its contents, the Saintess spoke with an even more enchanting smile.
"Do you want to go and greet my family?"
Family.
Even while being dazed by the Saintess's fatal beauty, I thought to myself.
Did an orphan have a family?
And so, my next destination was decided.
To the Holy Kingdom.
It was before I had even read the letter.