Attack Preparation (3)
Isabel Artea.
Born into the House of Artea, she had never cared much for the gods.
Blessed with natural talent, she regarded faith as nothing more than a tool for reputation and business.
Faith that asked for nothing in return was something she simply could not understand.
It was a single dungeon that planted devotion into a life that had, until then, kept its distance from belief.
Back when Isabel had not yet inherited the family, a dungeon appeared off the coast at sea.
It was of such considerable scale that few dared even contemplate conquering it.
Her father, then the head of House Artea, summoned renowned adventurers and mercenaries and ordered them to clear the dungeon — and they failed.
His own knights fared no better. As failure piled upon failure, the dungeon's menace only grew with each passing day.
Cornered, Count Artea begged the neighboring lords for aid, and they refused him.
In the end, stripped of every other option, the Count stepped into the dungeon himself to fulfill a noble's duty, leaving behind only a promise that he would return to Artea.
But a day passed, then two, then a whole week, and her father did not come back.
People said the Count of Artea had failed to conquer the dungeon.
Then, a little more time later, a truly remarkable thing happened. The moment the Count's death became all but certain, the very nobles who had turned him away began offering their support.
The same people who had once claimed to be far too busy to lift a finger were now extending their hands the instant the family's final decision-maker vanished. Their intentions were so transparent that even a naive, inexperienced Isabel could see right through them.
They had their eyes on what House Artea possessed.
She noticed it, and together with her mother she fought desperately to protect the family — but even that had its limits.
With every failed attempt at the dungeon, House Artea was sliding toward ruin.
The surrounding nobles pressured the Count's house by any and every means, and it seemed certain their goal would be achieved before long.
That day. The day she was delivered what was essentially a threat — that if the family didn't produce results, there would be nothing they could do to help.
That was the day Isabel, for the first time in her life, offered a prayer before the divine statue with genuine sincerity.
Please, let Father return safely from the dungeon. Let our family find peace again.
Had her desperate voice reached the heavens? The very next day, a miracle occurred.
The dungeon vanished, and Count Artea came home.
The moment Isabel faced her father — battered and covered in countless wounds, yet smiling brightly — she came to believe in the miracle of god.
It was around that time she began her obsession with all things related to the Chief God. For some reason, whenever she held an object of the Chief God close, things simply seemed to go her way.
Whether her faith was truly working, or whether the collection of relics she amassed was bringing her luck, no one could say — but everything she touched turned to success.
And at the end of that road, she had raised House Artea to a prosperity beyond anything it had ever known.
Even after inheriting the family, Isabel Artea never stepped off the path of success. Today she stood as the master of one of the continent's greatest merchant guilds, one of the Church's most generous patrons,
the head of a trading empire no noble house could afford to slight — and herself a magnate whom no one dared underestimate.
For all the power and influence she had amassed, however, Isabel took little interest in revenge.
Her reason was almost absurdly simple. The Chief God commanded His faithful to embrace those around them with love, not hatred, and so that was how she lived.
And yet, once in a while. Once in a very great while. Someone utterly unforgivable — someone she refused to forgive — would appear before her.
For Isabel, that someone was a person called Lucy Aln.
Young and immature though she may have been, the girl had barged into a church and insulted worshippers and priests alike,
hurled holy water at a man who had risen to the rank of Bishop while screaming that it couldn't possibly be real holy water,
and it was Lucy Aln who had shattered a sacred statue.
A little brat who, if not for Benedict Aln's overwhelming presence, would have been arrested for blasphemy on the spot and punished as she deserved.
From the rumors alone, Isabel had more than enough reason to dislike this Lucy. But her grievances did not end there.
Years ago, when Isabel purchased a necklace imbued with divinity at an auction, Lucy Aln had come looking for her and thrown a fit.
'Hand it over. That necklace would rather be used by a cute, pretty girl like me than by a fanatic like you who's going to lock herself in a room clutching a pen and a cross forever, right?'
Isabel refused the absurd demand. There was no reason to comply.
But Lucy Aln did not stop her tantrum until a small army of auction house guards arrived.
If it had ended there, it would have passed as a minor incident — but Lucy Aln went on to make herself a nuisance in Isabel's life in all manner of ways.
There was even the time she came to the family estate to raise hell, and Benedict Aln had to arrive personally to smooth things over.
With that history, Isabel simply could not bring herself to think well of Lucy.
So when word came that Lucy Aln had appeared at her front gates, she refused the meeting.
A girl with no connection to her, showing up out of nowhere? The only reason she could be here was to cause trouble.
The rumors weren't wrong. Awakened her talent, just like you'd expect from an Aln — and her personality stayed exactly the same.
The Saintess has inexplicably been keeping company with her, but that's the Saintess's grace at work, nothing more.
That fool Frete went off spouting his nonsense, and now I've caught myself second-guessing.
Well, he is a devotee of the Goddess of Beauty and Art, after all. To him, so long as the face is pretty, nothing else matters, does it?
She said she was heading toward the Burrow estate on business. I hope she has an accident on the way and cracks her head. If she was a mad pervert to begin with, a knock to the skull might actually make her normal.
"My lady!"
Isabel furrowed her brow at the secretary who had flung the door open without so much as asking permission.
"What is it?"
"There's a commotion outside right now."
"Is it the Aln heiress?"
"Yes, my lady!"
Haa. Honestly.
Does that brat Lucy Aln have any idea? How crushing it is to have the hero of the age — a man who could shatter a mid-sized army single-handedly — bow his head and apologize to you?
As Isabel heaved a sigh, her secretary seemed to catch something in it and hurriedly added,
"The young lady was not the one who started the trouble."
"What?"
"The guards protecting the estate attacked Lady Aln first."
"...What?!"
Insane. Insane. Insane. Is she insane?!
Isabel hurled the pen she'd been holding and rushed frantically out of the estate.
Noble dignity and decorum be damned. If her secretary was telling the truth, this was a matter of grave consequence.
If Lucy Aln had so much as a scratch on her, and Benedict Aln flew into a rage and pointed that sword of his at us... it was a catastrophe too horrifying to even imagine.
Please let nothing have happened.
Please!
"...What in the world."
Having sprinted for her life to finally reach the front of the estate, Isabel froze solid at the sight of her guards sprawled across the ground.
It was true that they were weaker than proper knights. But that was merely an individual weakness.
Trained relentlessly in the art of fighting as a pack, they were unquestionably a formidable force. Isabel would never have entrusted them with security if they lacked even the bare minimum of skill.
And these men had been annihilated.
Not simply beaten, either. Not a single one dead, not one seriously wounded, despite having faced so many of them at once — whoever did this had clearly done it with room to spare, out of consideration.
"Hey. Merchant fanatic lady. Aren't you a little too slow?"
The moment Isabel lifted her head at that grating, unmistakably bratty voice cutting into her ears,
she froze once more — for an entirely different reason this time.
"Get some exercise, would you? Sit at a desk all day and your clothes scream for mercy."
Standing there was Lucy Aln — but not the Lucy Aln she knew.
The Lucy Aln of the past had been nothing more than an insufferable, arrogant little brat. Beautiful, yes, but that was all. Beyond her looks, she had no value whatsoever.
But what about now? Look at the divinity she cradled in her arms.
Look at that divinity — so rare, so potent!
Isabel had purchased countless objects tied to the Chief God, and in doing so had acquired a keen eye for gauging the value of divinity itself.
Precisely because of that, the instant she met Lucy Aln's gaze, she grasped exactly what Lucy held.
The girl was loved by god.
"Um, fanatic lady? You know your face looks terrifyingly perverted right now? It's actually kinda creepy?"
Ahh. So that's why Frete said what he said.
I understand now.
There was a reason that man spent all day singing praises!
"Hello?"
What on earth had happened in these past few years, she had no idea — but that was none of her concern.
Only one thing mattered. That Lucy Aln, right now, shone with divinity brighter than any relic in existence.
"Are you ignoring me?"
Swallowing hard, Isabel collected herself and donned the merchant's mask over her face.
"My apologies, Lady Aln. The situation just now..."
And then she thought to herself.
I want that. I want that glittering, radiant thing.
With Isabel's entrance, the situation had been settled, and I strolled easily into the mansion's parlor — unable, however, to shake off a thoroughly uneasy feeling.
Things had gone better than expected, so by rights I should have been thrilled. But after seeing that indescribable look in Isabel's eyes, a chill had crawled up my spine and refused to let me.
That gaze had been exactly like the face-con fox's, staring at me in my bunny girl outfit.
Weird, right? Setting aside her obsession with divine artifacts, she was supposed to be a perfectly normal, intelligent person?
There wasn't supposed to be some hidden backstory about her being a disgusting perverted creep, was there?!
"Child. Did that woman not say she obsesses over objects connected to god?"
'...Yeah, she did?'
"And as an Apostle of god, are you not a far more coveted object than any mere trinket she could get her hands on?"
...Huh?
HUH?!
"Bwahaha. Fear not, don't startle yourself so. There's no way she could have any means of detecting that you're an Apostle of god. It must have been some misunderstanding."
Grandpa laughed it off as a joke, but I couldn't relax my expression no matter what.
There's no way for anyone to detect that I'm an Apostle of god. Fine.
But this woman carries an artifact that measures the divinity held within objects and people alike.
Which means she can sense the Chief God's divinity dwelling inside me right now.
Not some degraded remnant sealed away in a relic from ages past. The divinity that the loser Chief God bestowed on me half a year ago.
...I'll be fine, right?
Even granting that Isabel is obsessed with anything divine, there's no way she'd do something like kidnapping and imprisonment.
Yeah. It's definitely needless worrying.
She's someone I'll never have to see again once I get the tablet, anyway.
*Bang.*
"Eek?!"
Maybe it was because I'd been stewing in one ominous thought after another.
I jolted at the sound of the door opening and turned my head carefully.
"My apologies, my lady. I should have knocked first."
Standing beyond the door was Isabel, wearing a gentle smile.
...Maybe it was just my imagination, but that smile was truly the stuff of nightmares.