The Miracle Standard (1)
Things got incredibly busy after that. I had to absorb the common sense of this world, learn every piece of knowledge I needed, and meet person after person until I could call them acquaintances. Fortunately, the reaction to my 'Pre-booking to Meet the Saintess' was better than expected. People saw it as a kind of exclusive privilege to meet the Saintess before her official announcement. I'd done it with exactly that in mind, so I suppose I got the results I was aiming for.
"It's not that deep, is it?"
"My deepest apologies, Saintess."
"No, no, Cardinal Rondel. It can't be helped. Still, thanks to this, I've been able to get a realistic grasp of the current situation between the Church and the royal family."
The fight—or rather, the conflict—between the Church and the royal family was currently a clear victory for the royal side. Superior military power, overwhelming financial resources, and outstanding political influence. There wasn't a single factor that could be easily overturned. The one area where the Church held a definite edge was the support of the common people. Since we could use divine power, we naturally secured a solid base of support among serfs, ordinary freemen, and even the urban classes.
Unfortunately, this world was far more centralized than the medieval concepts I carried in my head. In other words, relying on popular support alone fell far, far short of what was needed.
"Do you require more time?"
In truth, what could anyone realistically analyze after only fifteen days of study and meetings? No matter how impressive I might be, there were limits. Technically I still had one more day before the full fortnight was up, but even a genius would struggle to fully understand this world and devise the perfect countermeasures in that time.
But I did find one thing worth trying.
Even if it was far from perfect, it was something I could push forward with. Something worth betting on.
"Please share your esteemed opinion, Saintess."
Cardinal Rondel and the two bishops suddenly fixed me with sparkling eyes. It was a bit overwhelming having these older men stare at me like that, but if I wanted to survive here and even attempt to find a way back, I had to at least make an effort.
I took a deep breath, slowly let it out, and spoke.
"It seems our Church possesses the rights to mint and circulate our own currency. And we're actually using it quite well."
"That is correct. Various royal families are already competing for market share in that area, but the imperial currency holds such overwhelming dominance that there's little room to squeeze in."
Of course. My original world had been the same. In Europe, Florence's florin and Venice's ducat had dominated, later joined by the Dutch guilder and Spanish dollar. Even if the gold or silver content was identical, coins from powers that held currency hegemony were valued at nearly twice as much. So even if the Church suddenly went crazy and drastically increased the precious metal content to raise our currency's value, the result would be a nightmare. Our coins would be melted down in secret for their metal while the Church's prestige and the currency's actual trading value plummeted. A complete disaster.
But that was exactly where I saw an opening.
"There is one thing. Something only we can do. Something only the Church can monopolize—and already does. No matter how powerful a royal family or great noble might be, this is one commodity they cannot force us to provide."
It was definitely there. These people just hadn't noticed it yet. Or rather, it wasn't that they were stupid; they simply viewed the situation through a different lens. It was like the story of Columbus standing an egg on its end. Would it actually work? Who knows. At the very least I'd get cursed out spectacularly. To be honest, I wasn't even certain it would succeed. That wasn't in the realm of prediction but prophecy, and even with my strangely calm thinking and powerful divine power as a Saintess, I couldn't see the future.
Still, once I'd made up my mind, I had to push forward. Delaying wouldn't change anything. They say it's best to win before the fight even begins, but when postponing won't improve your odds, acting quickly is the next best thing.
"What might that be?"
The cardinal and bishops didn't seem to like my use of the word "commodity." Whether it was just these gentlemen or the Church as a whole, they weren't nearly as economically cunning as I'd hoped. Feeling rather like I was corrupting them, I forced the words out.
"Let's restrict the use of divine power for healing exclusively to currency issued by the Church."
There had been similar cases in my original world. The Papal States and major archbishops issued their own coins, collected tithes with them, and used them as a means of payment. They managed precious metal content more strictly than secular rulers, securing real power in certain regions. But in this world, the Church's currency could achieve something even greater.
It had no exclusive use case and its precious metal content was poorly managed due to chronic financial difficulties, but it had one cheat-like feature: divine power. In short, we would be selling miracles for money. The currency issued by the Church would become the medium of exchange for buying and selling miracles. No matter how prestigious gold and silver coins might be, people would first have to exchange them for Church currency before they could receive any miracles.
This was how currency control would begin.
"...Oh, God."
"I've checked the scriptures. There's nothing prohibiting it. Besides, even now, divine power is mainly provided in exchange for donations, isn't it? From now on, we'll simply require that those donations be paid exclusively in Church-issued currency."
I wasn't sure whether no one in the Church had thought of this, or whether they'd been too afraid of being killed by secular rulers to act on it. Even clergymen were human; if they were scared, they would protect themselves. After all, this wasn't even martyrdom—we'd be accused of playing with money and dying from greed.
But I could do it. I could make it happen. As the first Saintess to appear in the Church in nearly fifty years, the sheer symbolic weight of my position meant secular rulers couldn't openly touch me.
"However, the reliability and value of the current Church currency..."
"That's exactly why we need to do this differently. Tomorrow, when I announce my appearance as the Saintess, we'll make the announcement together. We'll declare that in commemoration of the Saintess's emergence after half a century, we will create an entirely new coin. From now on, divine power will only be granted in exchange for this new currency."
"Even if we mint new coins, we don't have nearly enough precious metals. The money supply would shrink dramatically, Saintess."
I knew that. If we'd had enough precious metal to begin with, we would have raised the content long ago to maintain at least some credibility. The fact that we hadn't, and that our currency's value was barely holding on, showed we didn't even have that option. Recalling existing coins, melting them down, and recycling them was only possible if you had enough new currency to exchange for the old.
In other words, the Church currently lacked the resources to mint new coins, Saintess commemoration or not. And I knew a very viable solution for that exact situation.
"Even while clashing with secular rulers, the Church holds quite a lot of land. Most of it consists of highly productive farmland, valuable vineyards, and lakes or reservoirs where you exercise water rights in the surrounding areas. You also own a salt mine and a gold mine each."
"Those are the Church's final bastions. Without them, the cross atop this cathedral wouldn't be gilded."
What was the point of leaving prime land idle?
"The new currency won't have a significant change in precious metal content, but its value will be guaranteed by the lands owned by the Church. That should allow us to secure the necessary money supply."
When you hang around internet communities, you end up drowning in all kinds of random knowledge. Read about Zimbabwe's insane inflation and you'll soon learn about the hyperinflation in Germany between the world wars. If you dig a little deeper, you'll discover how the surreal numbers—one trillion marks, one hundred trillion marks—were stabilized almost overnight by the introduction of the Rentenmark, which was backed by land.
What reason was there for that not to work here? Especially since agriculture was still the dominant industry in this era. And vineyards were an extremely, extremely high-value industry.
"I-I see. But... will this work?"
I knew it. It was a patch on a patch on a patch. I'd patched the basis for value appreciation with the monopoly on divine power, patched the real value with land and rent collateral, and patched the money supply by limiting it to the value of our lands and rents. Any monarch, chancellor, or bureaucrat in history who'd led a successful currency reform would probably rise from their grave screaming to throw out this incompetent fool.
"If you'd rather do nothing, gradually sell off your rights because you have no choice, have them taken from you, and settle for keeping only the name and form, I won't stop you."
That wasn't going to happen. In a world without divine power, religion might eventually progress toward separation of church and state, but this world had divine power, monsters, and Demon Kings. If the Church couldn't maintain a certain level of strength, it would actually harm the people. Even if things went wrong and I ended up switching sides, the Church still needed to do something to increase its value.
Above all, in my view, there was no better immediate measure available. In fact, it was the only one. Everything else was impossible due to the instability of the Church's finances. In the end, no matter what you did, it all came down to money and capital.
"...Understood. We shall follow your words and teachings, Saintess. Fortunately, I am the cardinal of this kingdom where you have appeared, and His Holiness the True Pope will listen to what I have to say."
Ah, right. That issue. No matter how well this measure worked, there was one condition that made it difficult to expect all economic problems to be solved overnight.
The antipope.
"This part was certainly complicated. Two popes in conflict over the existence of the hero."
"It is because the hero was born in the Brien Kingdom. The imperial clergy refused to acknowledge it, so two imperial cardinals led a large number of imperial clergymen in seceding from the Church, and one of them declared himself pope."
"I know, but thank you for the reminder."
Where there were Demon Kings, there were heroes. And right now, the hero was the same age as this body. This body was around sixteen, and the hero was definitively sixteen. While he still needed considerable training to truly function as a hero, the empire seemed extremely displeased that such a hero had emerged from a single kingdom—one that had never been on particularly good terms with them.
That was probably why the empire, which alone possessed two cardinals among one empire and seven kingdoms, had sought religious independence.
"The antipope's faction is receiving massive support from the imperial family. Meanwhile, the various kingdoms see this as an opportunity to weaken the Church's authority. If the antipope begins distributing divine power at extremely low prices or even for free, I'm concerned about what will happen to public sentiment, Saintess."
I wasn't sure how far I could trust Cardinal Rondel, but the fact that he used the indirect expression "I'm concerned" instead of outright saying it was impossible showed he did respect me. All of this was probably because he mistakenly believed the entity possessing this body was a god recognized by their religion, albeit of slightly lower status than the main deity.
Realizing that made me acutely aware of just how thin the ice I was walking on truly was. The moment anything went wrong, I would be finished.
"Which is why I must begin my activities starting tomorrow."
"Activities, you say?"
"As the Saintess, instead of meeting royalty and nobility first, I will meet those in the lowest places first. In the meantime, I'd like to add one special type of currency to the new coins we're minting and issuing."
My throat had grown dry from talking, so I drained the half-full cup of tea in one go. Even though it had gone lukewarm from being left out, it was a rather high-quality tea that still held onto its aroma. Hmm, did this body originally have this kind of knowledge and sense? I'd only ever drunk tea from teabags before.
"What kind of currency?"
"I'd like to name it currency for the lowly. Its shape and the numbers engraved on it should be clearly recognizable. It will be a currency that only those poor souls recognized by the Church may possess. If they bring it to the Church, it will hold enough value to heal broken limbs or severe fevers."
There was no need for a large supply of this currency for the lowly. The cardinal and two bishops weren't fools; they'd already grasped my intention from what I'd said so far and were visibly impressed. Taking confidence from their reaction, I set down the now-empty teacup I'd been nervously clutching even after placing it on the saucer and drove the point home.
"Let's seize currency hegemony. Our minimum goal is to stand equal with the imperial currency. Our maximum goal is to obtain the position of the world's sole, unshakable reserve currency."