Chapter 2
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: Priest Roberta
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#
“Do you know of Dithmarschen?”
At Bishop Alonso’s question, Priest Roberta blinked.
“Pardon?”
“You don’t know of it?”
Dithmarschen.
She searched her memory for the name.
“If you mean the place at the northern tip of the Osnover Kingdom, I’ve heard it’s the entrance to the ice peninsula, bitterly cold and overrun with monsters.”
“Indeed. I once served there as the head priest.”
Alonso nodded once, then leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. It was a habit of his when he began to think deeply, and Roberta, knowing this well, sighed inwardly and looked away.
It was a day in late spring.
The midday sun streamed through the mosaic window, warming her body and making her drowsy.
Roberta, a young priest of twenty-three, was tasked with copying scriptures in the scriptorium of the Grand Temple of Nua. Until a moment ago, she had been working sluggishly, stifling one yawn after another, when she was suddenly summoned by the bishop.
‘Is he sending me on a dispatch somewhere?’
She thought little of it.
The Grand Temple of Nua was where the bishop resided and conducted his duties, so there was no shortage of hands to help, but she was the youngest of the priests. She was often called upon for tasks too difficult for an apprentice.
Things like monster hunts, ruin explorations, or acting as an observer.
“I want to entrust that place to you.”
But the bishop’s proposal was unexpected.
“I mean to recommend you as its head priest.”
Roberta was handed a letter.
It stated that the head priest of Dithmarschen had gone missing, creating a vacancy that required an immediate replacement to be appointed and sent. At the very bottom was the seal of the Pantheon’s Pope.
“What?”
Her reaction was the same single word as before.
Unable to close her gaping mouth, she read the letter over and over. She couldn’t help it. Hadn’t she been ordained only two years ago? And now, they were entrusting an entire temple to her?
“For your information, this position is appointed directly by His Holiness.”
Alonso pointed to the seal with his index finger.
“Is there a grand temple in Dithmarschen or something...?”
“Hardly. It’s the backwater of all backwaters. Its location is near the end of the world. While the territory is larger than our grand temple’s jurisdiction, less than a tenth of the land is arable. The population is even smaller.”
There’s only one temple, small and quaint, Alonso added.
“His Holiness personally appoints the head priest of a place like that?”
“Well, the predecessor was chosen by His Holiness himself. It seems he went missing due to some unfortunate business.”
Missing?
“It seems His Holiness does not wish to experience failure twice. Since I know the situation there well, he has asked me—”
“W-wait a moment!”
Roberta nearly dropped the letter on the table and raised both hands to cut Alonso off. She had no idea where to even begin processing the situation that had been thrust upon her.
“I apologize for interrupting, but let me get this straight. The head priest position in Dithmarschen is vacant, and you’re recommending me for it?”
Alonso nodded.
“And the reason it’s vacant is that the predecessor went missing.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
He frowned.
“And that predecessor was appointed by His Holiness the Pope?”
“Yes. That’s correct. Is it not a simple matter?”
“No, it’s not simple at all...”
Roberta’s voice trailed off as the corner of her mouth twitched.
He had spoken vaguely of “unfortunate business,” but she could guess what that meant. With the Pantheon’s authority waning in recent times, secular lords had begun to covet the temples.
Acts that would have been unimaginable when Roberta first took her vows—such as confiscating temple assets or exercising the right of investiture—were now being carried out brazenly.
A priest goes missing amidst all this?
It was obvious. He was murdered.
‘And he wants to send *me* to a place like this?’
It was nothing short of a poisoned chalice, she thought.
“Shouldn’t finding the missing priest be the priority?”
“Don’t concern yourself with that. His Holiness would prefer it be forgotten.”
But, she began, only for Alonso to cut her off.
“Roberta. Your duty is to go to your new post at once and fulfill your responsibilities as head priest. Leave the matter of your predecessor out of your thoughts.”
Their eyes met. As Roberta opened her mouth to press further, Alonso shook his head. It was a clear sign not to ask any more questions, and also a silent command to accept her fate quietly.
She wanted to say, “No, thank you,” and storm out. But she couldn’t. How could a mere priest like her refuse an order from a bishop? Besides, she knew Alonso’s personality well.
‘He’s probably already named me as the successor.’
Asking for her consent was just a formality. The only act of defiance she could manage was to let out an audible sigh and ask one more question.
“Why me, of all people?”
“Because you’re like me.”
She gave him a strange look.
“Ah, I don’t mean in appearance. I mean in character.”
Alonso smiled and rose from his seat. He turned his back to her and looked up at a wooden panel hanging above the window.
On the left side of the long, horizontal panel was a carving of a woman discovering a baby on the ground; on the right, the baby, now grown, was handing a torch to a group of ape-like figures.
It was a woodcut depicting two passages from the scriptures.
“As you know, my faith isn’t particularly deep.”
Roberta quickly glanced behind her, a look of alarm on her face, worried the door might be open and someone might overhear.
“Bishop Alonso.”
He shrugged at her chiding tone.
“It’s the truth, isn’t it? How many people become priests these days out of true faith? They all don the cloth for worldly purposes. You’re no different.”
Roberta cleared her throat and averted her gaze.
Her conscience pricked her too much to deny it.
“I wouldn’t say it’s your nature, though.”
“...”
“Roberta, I was the one who took you in when you were abandoned. I was the one who ordained you. Even if I’m not your biological father, you were bound to become like me, having been raised by me. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Embarrassed, she scratched the back of her neck and looked away.
“In my youth, I believe I managed quite well as the head priest of Dithmarschen. So, you, who are so much like me, should be able to do just fine.”
#
After that conversation, Roberta set off for Dithmarschen. It was a journey that would take a full four months.
She had no companions. Alonso had ordered her to go alone, saying only one person was needed, and provided her with nothing more than travel money and a single horse.
“Take care of anything else you need yourself. You’re old enough, aren’t you?”
What she needed to “take care of” included information. Alonso had told her nothing. Despite having been the head priest there for over a decade and surely knowing a great deal, he hadn’t shared a single story with Roberta.
‘Thinking back on it now, it’s strange.’
Alonso had raised Roberta, telling her all sorts of tales from his life like they were fairy tales, yet he had completely omitted the stories from the period he’d spent the longest in one place.
And recommending her just because their personalities were similar? She had unwittingly grown to resemble him while being raised by her adoptive father, but was that reason enough to recommend someone for an official position?
‘There’s something more to this.’
With these doubts in mind, she left the grand temple.
She wanted to know what Alonso hadn’t told her.
At the time she left, all she knew was that she was heading to a post where a priest appointed by the Pope had been killed. Because of this, she asked about Dithmarschen at every stop.
As a priest, she naturally took lodging in temples, and her sources of information were other priests. But for three months, the response was always some variation of, “Isn’t that just some place up north?” If she barely knew anything about her own adoptive father’s former post, how could she expect a stranger to know?
She didn’t get a proper answer until she reached the Osnover Kingdom.
“They say he’s of elven blood.”
an old priest said.
“You mean a Gallua?”
Gallua was the term for one of mixed human and elven blood. A similar word, Mannium, referred to those of human and dwarven descent.
“It’s just a rumor, mind you. But there aren’t many other reasons for someone to live that long.”
“If he’s lived a long time, how long are we talking?”
“Hmm? I don’t know his exact age. I’ve spoken with him a few times, but you can’t guess his age by his appearance. We only have an estimate because the records show he succeeded the previous lord, a woman named Hilde, after her death. That was 300 years ago.”
Roberta narrowed her eyes.
“He certainly has lived a long time. He can’t be an ordinary human.”
“Either he’s of some royal line, or a half-blood born of a chance union.”
Back when the civilizations of dwarves and elves coexisted with that of humans, intermingling was frequent, and so those of mixed blood were said to be common.
There are even records of kingdoms whose entire populace was of mixed blood. Gallua, Mannium, and others were once the names of those kingdoms, but today they are umbrella terms for specific half-breeds. That was an era of the distant, distant past, not the one in which Roberta lived.
Though the half-blooded live very long lives, they are not immortal. With the flow of time, they lost their unique civilizations and assimilated into human culture, and now, the half-blooded were as rare a sight as pure-blooded dwarves and elves.
“What is his name?”
“Ulrich. He has no surname. To be precise, he is Ulrich of Dithmarschen, but that’s a name he took when he married into the family. There are no records of him before that.”
“That’s surprising. I would have thought someone who lived so long would be famous.”
“Hmph, he is famous. There’s likely no one in this country who doesn’t know the name Ulrich. The lack of records about him isn’t due to a lack of interest—they simply don’t exist.”
“Is that so?”
“It would be strange if a lord who has lived for 300 years didn’t attract attention. On top of that, this country was in a civil war until just a few years ago.”
A civil war that lasted for a staggering 32 years, I’m told.
It all started when the crown prince died of a plague. Then the siblings fought and killed one another, until it erupted into a great war involving all the people of Osnover.
They fought not for small gains but for the throne itself, so there was no mercy for rivals. It was a time, they say, when ten severed heads were worth less than a single coin.
The chaos seemed to end with the victory of some fool who was backed by mercenaries from a neighboring country. The nation, having collapsed on its own, had fallen so low it was ripe for conquest by a fool who didn’t even realize he was a puppet.
But then, the fool invaded Dithmarschen.
No one knew why he targeted such a barren land. It was so out of the blue that some speculated he was simply offended by the sight of someone sitting aloof while everyone else was spilling blood.
And the outcome, well, it goes without saying.
“The fool lost. How he lost is as much a mystery as the lord’s own life. What is certain is that the fool’s head was sent to the old capital, and the head of the count who had been pulling his strings was sent back to its master.”
“And then?”
“And then the wicked neighbor withdrew its hand, and we realized we had failed to recognize a beast in our midst.”
If a fox riding on a wolf’s back, ruling the animal kingdom, was suddenly bitten to death by a lion, how would the weaker animals react? Wouldn’t they naturally try to make the lion their king?
The noble houses that had once prided themselves on their long histories were all but wiped out during the civil war, leaving a world of upstarts whose lineages were shorter than Ulrich’s single reign. They forged a new crown to replace the one that was lost and offered it to him.
In response, Ulrich chose someone from his late wife’s clan, placed the crown on their head, and sent them back. That was four years ago.
“Well now, he’s a selfless old man, isn’t he.”
The desire to devour even the smallest grain of profit at the first opportunity was the mark of a nobleman, yet he refused the throne that any noble would covet?
“Old man? Well, regardless... he is a man of noble character.”
His actions afterward were also peculiar.
After sending the new king in his stead, all he did was arrange marriages between the Hilderson Clan and the upstart noble families.
This forged kinship among the nobility and quelled the civil unrest in an instant, but the man who orchestrated it all never showed his face. He didn’t attend the weddings, nor did he leave his domain for the coronation.
“I thought perhaps he might be pulling the strings from behind the scenes, but that wasn’t it either. His actions were those of a man detached, as if he had no interest in worldly affairs, as if he simply didn’t want to step outside his own garden.”
“Couldn’t there be some other motive we don’t know about?”
Roberta found it hard to believe.
The Pope’s priest was dead. While there was no proof the lord had killed him, some incident must have led to that situation, and it was her belief that a truly detached person would never get entangled in such an affair.
“Like you, Sister, I too once served in the grand temple, and I saw many of mixed blood there. The oldest among them was a duke from some country, who had lived three hundred and twenty years, having dwarven blood in him.”
The duke, they said, was so withered with age that his body was like a mummy. He couldn’t walk, could only lie in bed without the strength to even lift an arm. It was clear to anyone who saw him that death was his constant companion. And yet, until the very moment his breath failed, he refused to part with a single thing he owned, not even to his own kin.
“Greed, the ancient saints said, is human nature. Time may dull one’s character, but it only sharpens one’s avarice. I learned this truth from watching the half-blooded.”
“...”
“But he was different. It was as if he were a man without desire.”
“Like a monk?”
“Different from a monk. A monk is someone who forgets or suppresses desire, but they cannot eliminate it entirely. That’s why they sometimes succumb to evil gods, or even go so far as to cut out parts of their brains to prevent it. Ulrich, on the other hand... it was as if desire itself had been burned to ash within him.”
The old priest pondered for a moment before adding one last thing.
“I don’t know how it’s possible. I knew he was a strange man, but perhaps he has lived even longer than the records say, long enough for time to dull even his greed.”
Roberta thought it impossible.
As the story of the duke showed, even for the half-blooded, a few hundred years was the limit. Just as the duke had become a mummy after 300 years, to live any longer was to be little more than a lingering breath. She believed the lord of Dithmarschen must be the same.