Reputation Quest (5)
"These are tea leaves harvested from the Vasily region. A lovely fragrance with a subtle sweetness—quite popular, I'm told. Do have a cup. It's a fine blend."
'Thank you, Bishop.'
"I'll drink it since you're giving it to me. Bonehead bishop."
I live each and every day wishing I could gag Lucy's mouth, but I don't think that wish had ever burned as desperately as it did today.
Johann was precisely the sort of man who would be far too much trouble to make an enemy of, so I had no desire whatsoever to provoke him—yet the Mesugaki skill kept mashing the provoke command for me, and it felt like a hole was being drilled straight through my skull in real time.
Thank goodness the skill's correction kept my nerves from showing on my face. Without it, my hands would have been trembling right about now.
For the moment, I took a sip of the tea as the bishop suggested. It was clearly good tea, but the air in the room was so heavy that I couldn't properly taste or smell any of it.
"My lady, if I may—would it be agreeable to first confirm that you have, in truth, lifted Agra's curse?"
'Yes. Do as you like.'
"That's what I came here for. Hurry it up."
"Then kindly excuse me for a moment."
Johann closed his eyes and murmured something in a language I couldn't understand, and several magic circles rose up around me. Every one of them glowed a soft, tranquil white, and within each was inscribed geometric patterning that an ignoramus like me couldn't begin to decipher.
According to Harne's lessons, every single one of those patterns carried its own meaning. Just how many meanings, then, were packed into circles this intricate?
I was still marveling at them when the circles circling me suddenly vanished.
"It is true. You have indeed lifted Agra's curse."
At Johann's words, a sharp intake of breath came from behind him—surely the priest attending him.
"My lady, if it is no imposition, might I ask how you lifted it?"
'Of course.'
"Wanna hear? Haha. Sure, fine. You look desperate enough—I'll tell you, specially."
I had worked out on the walk over exactly how I was going to explain things. What worried me was how my words would come out translated. Today, of all days, the mesugaki translation was churning out unusually aggressive language.
'I received a revelation.'
"Got a revelation."
"You are saying you heard the word of God?"
Instead of answering, I drew the mace from my pocket and restored it to its true size. When the weapon sprang suddenly out of empty hands, Johann's brow lifted a fraction, and the priest assisting him scrambled to his side, throwing up a ward of protection.
Did they think I was about to cave in Johann's skull? I knew Lucy's accumulated karma was nothing to sneeze at, but this was plain rude. Treating a noble young lady like some common terrorist.
My frown and Johann's sharp rebuke came at almost the same instant.
"Priest Pelkin. What manner of insolence is this? Withdraw your spell at once."
Those firm words carried a weight that went beyond mere language. The priest, realizing his mistake, hastily dispelled the ward and bowed his head.
"Forgive me, Bishop. My lady Lucy Aln of House Aln."
I could have seized on this as leverage and steered the conversation my way, but if I did, something with far more bite than I could imagine would likely come flying out of Lucy's mouth. Mm. Let's be gracious this time. This wasn't a relationship that would be over in a day or two—I'd simply chalk it up as a favor owed.
'This weapon is Ruel's Mace.'
"Ruel's Mace. Even a bonehead bishop knows this one, right?"
"...You are telling me this is the mace of Lord Ruel, canonized among the saints?"
'It's real.'
"What, doesn't look the part to you?"
"If it is no imposition, may I examine it?"
When I handed the mace over without complaint, Johann received it as gingerly as one would handle a priceless treasure, then began turning it over, inspecting it this way and that like a jeweler appraising a gem. Even a rough glance told me this wouldn't be finished quickly.
As I waited for Johann to complete his examination and lifted my teacup, Grandpa's voice sounded in my head.
"Girl. Did you know you've been canonized as a saint?"
'You didn't know?'
"You never told me!"
Well, naturally I assumed you'd know. Every hero who fought to save the world two hundred years ago was canonized after death. Even a small child could tell you that—I never dreamed Grandpa of all people wouldn't know.
"To be named a saint yourself—astonishing. And more than you deserve."
'You saved the world. Isn't that much just obvious?'
"Heh. Never thought I'd hear those words from you."
'Why not?'
"Because you have never once shown me respect."
What kind of nonsense is that?! I treat Grandpa with the utmost deference every single day!
...Granted, rather a lot of incidents do spring to mind, but I genuinely do think of him as a hero! Knowing the game's story, I know better than anyone just how painful and grueling the road he walked was.
"It does appear to be genuine. But how did you come by it? Ruel's Mace vanished long ago, beyond all doubt."
I was still bickering with Grandpa about showing him more respect when Johann's voice pulled me back to reality.
'I told you...'
"Did I not say? I received a revelation. However old you get, forgetting what was just said is a problem."
Perhaps the shock of Ruel's Mace had been considerable. Despite the provocations I slipped in along the way, Johann listened quietly throughout. Thank goodness I'd shown him the mace first. If I hadn't, voices would have been raised midway through—the mesugaki translations were just that coarse.
When I gave an embellished account of clearing the hidden trial and lifting the curse in the village of Evans, Johann's lips stiffened for the very first time. It looked like he'd turned grave, but it was the opposite. When this man turned grave, it meant he was resolving to take the conversation truly seriously.
"So you discovered a trial hidden away from the world, and with a potion obtained there, lifted the curse."
'Not something you could manage without a revelation, right?'
"Not something one could accomplish without a revelation. Is that not so?"
"It sounds like a bard's fancy tale, but with the genuine article before my eyes, I cannot deny it. I believe you."
With that, Johann drew a small box from within his coat and set it down before me. When I asked with a look whether I might open it, the bishop gave a nod.
Inside lay a cross fashioned into a necklace. A lustrous white cross of silver, exactly as I remembered it from the game—the symbol of the Church of the Chief God. Back when Soul Academy was still a game, it had been an item that raised affinity with anyone connected to the Chief God's Church while boosting a character's luck stat.
Now that it was reality, those effects surely applied in much the same way. Lucy's reputation was so abysmal that an affinity boost wouldn't produce any dramatic turnaround, but it beat having nothing at all. Above all, every time Lucy lifted an Agra curse from this point on, this item's power would only deepen. Someday, the day would come when she finally overcame her ill repute.
With that thought, I fastened the necklace around my neck.
Decades had passed since Johann Vieira had defied his family's opposition and chosen the path of a priest, yet even now he found the will of God difficult to fathom. That wretched Aln girl, receiving divine revelation. What in the world was God thinking?
He knew a great deal about the young lady called Lucy Aln. It was, after all, because of her that Johann—who by rights should have been serving at the Holy Land—had come to this church in the first place.
It had begun several years ago. Back then, the Aln girl had come to the church day after day, without fail, raising hell. Blaspheming God. Hurling abuse at priests. Committing acts of violence. Threatening the congregation.
Had it been any ordinary noble, the Church could have crushed them flat with the authority of the Chief God's name—but Lucy Aln was not a person they could touch. She was cherished by the Iron-Blooded Count Benedict, one of the continent's foremost powerhouses. Should things turn sour and they draw Benedict's wrath, the Church itself would find its position untenable.
And so Johann Vieira had been the one dispatched. A scion of a high-titled house and a man of considerable standing within the Church, he was the ideal candidate to untangle the affairs of the Aln parish.
Having been sent out on the Pope's orders, he had resolved the matter the moment he arrived at the Aln church by sitting down to negotiate with Benedict Aln. Truthfully, it had been closer to a threat than a negotiation, but the problem was solved either way, and no one raised any complaint.
Months after that, today, Lucy had come to the church again. Not, this time, to reduce the place to wreckage as she had before—she had come to speak of matters concerning the Church itself.
Frankly, the things Lucy told them had sounded as absurd as a dragon claiming ignorance of magic. That she had lifted Agra's curse single-handedly, a curse only clergy of cardinal rank could dispel. That she had recovered Ruel's Mace, missing for over a century. That she had received divine revelation. Every last claim sounded like something lifted straight out of a bard's tale.
And yet all of it had been true. The proof of every single claim had sat right there before Johann's eyes. He had no choice but to believe.
"The child who once heaped insults upon God has received divine revelation. What in the world are You planning, Lord Armadi?"
Johann spoke the words up at the ceiling, but no answer came. God, it seemed, had no intention yet of revealing anything to him.
"There will be chaos for some time to come."
The emergence of one who had received divine revelation. The reappearance of Ruel's Mace, lost to the ages and hunted for by the Church. The rise of one who had lifted Agra's curse and become the evil god's sworn adversary. Not a single one of these was a light matter.
"And to think I judged her a person of no worth whatsoever."
Every last one of these revelations tied back to that wretched girl with an incorrigible reputation. It was beyond belief. The bishops back at the Holy Land would likely start saying Johann had lost his mind. Picturing how the faces of those who verified all this was true would contort, Johann chuckled softly and set his quill moving again.
"Come to think of it, the Aln girl did seem rather subdued today."
Had she changed, even a little, upon receiving divine revelation? But no sooner had the thought formed than the image of the girl calling him "bonehead priest" rose in his mind, and Johann shook his head. Changed, my foot.
Birdsong drifting in from outside woke me from sleep, and the very first thing to greet me was the message window that torments me every single day.
Enroll in the Academy.
I swatted the window away and slowly pushed myself upright. My body felt strangely heavy with fatigue. Was it from all that time in the carriage these past few days?
Reaching out on pure habit to ring for the servants, I flailed at empty air for a good while before it finally came back to me—I wasn't at the estate.
Oh. Right.
I'd come to take the Academy entrance exam.