Chapter 99

The fact that the previously incomplete Rozelia had awakened as a Saintess suggested the duke hadn't been wrong about something being in the forest.

He'd thought Cherity had cost him time, but this had been an unexpected take.

No — a tremendous take.

Between the holy power saturating the shrine and Rozelia herself.

The high priest considered for a moment.

Could he sit down for a rational talk with Lecashe and take Rozelia back to the temple?

"Not a chance."

For the Grand Duchess's sake alone, they'd refuse to release Rozelia.

And Rozelia herself seemed attached to this place.

On top of that, the moment Rozelia let slip what had happened to her at the temple, every plan he had fell apart.

"Ahh! Help! Lady Iberin, Your Highness!"

Rozelia screamed loudly enough to shred her throat.

"Gag her."

The high priest's brow knit.

The word Saintess gave the priest a moment's pause, but he couldn't disobey, and gingerly clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Mmph!"

Rozelia thrashed.

The high priest dropped to one knee and brought himself eye to eye with her.

He wiped a tear off her cheek with his finger and said,

"You've awakened. Life won't be what it was before. As long as you don't act out, that is. My precious Saintess."

He had to leave before Lecashe could spirit her somewhere else.

It was, by definition, a kidnapping.

---

It was only after the priests had abruptly returned to the capital that they realized Rozelia was gone.

"My lady! Rozel — Rozel is gone!"

"What?"

Iberin gasped.

"Tami — Tami brought her her meal, and when she went back, Rozel was gone and the dishes were tipped over all across the floor."

"And the priests?"

Iberin asked sharply.

"I don't know. But there'd been no word about them leaving."

The south was currently the safest place in the empire, so she'd assumed they'd be sticking it out one way or another.

"They're gone!"

Rotte burst out the words after running to the priests' quarters once she'd heard Rozelia was missing.

"What?"

"The priests have cleared out, every last one."

"Hh."

Iberin sank down where she stood.

Rozelia was gone, and Lyssel was off in the west.

"Rozel — she was terrified of the temple. She wouldn't have gone on her own."

"Of course she wouldn't."

Pons answered without missing a beat.

"Which means those bastards I'd love to skin alive have taken her. Hah!"

A low oath broke from Iberin, raw with anger.

"I knew I should've sent her somewhere else."

She regretted it now, but with the monsters making the world a death trap, it would have been impossible either way.

Once Ether found out Rozelia was gone, he was a wreck of tears.

"Hngh."

Kal tried to soothe him, promising she'd come back, but he wouldn't stop crying.

It was hard for a five-year-old Ether to grasp what kidnapping meant.

Iberin closed her eyes, her face heavy.

"Rozel…"

She wanted to leave this place behind and go find her.

She wanted to send word to the temple right now and demand to know where Rozelia was. But if the temple simply played innocent, there was nothing she could say back.

And leaving Rozelia where she was meant worrying about whatever the temple might do to her.

"What do we do?"

Iberin sat there at a loss, her face stricken.

"Did the temple act on its own, or did the emperor know too?"

Rotte raised the question, and Iberin answered.

"There wouldn't have been time to exchange messages in that short a window."

Lyssel had been bothered right to the last about leaving Iberin behind.

But even without the emperor's order, if he didn't act personally, the continent itself was on the line. He couldn't turn away.

Only with peace could he build his own happiness.

So he'd forced his reluctant feet forward and gone, leaving Iberin behind — and in the end, this was what had happened.

How the temple was going to behave now that they had Rozelia was so obvious it drew a dry laugh out of her.

---

The war with the monsters dragged on.

The west wasn't familiar ground, but Lyssel was being treated like a king and living without any real trouble.

Sometimes he ached for Iberin so badly it hurt, but he held on, telling himself they'd be together again once the war was done.

"A letter came."

"A letter?"

"Yes. From Her Highness the Grand Duchess."

The knight handed Lyssel the mail with a slightly flushed face.

At the word Iberin, Lyssel's expression brightened in an instant.

It was the first time he'd seen Lyssel — always wearing that stone face — actually smile. The knight looked taken aback.

The southern nobles and knights had said Lyssel was a fool for his wife.

He hadn't believed it. It was true.

Lyssel snatched the letter up, started to tear into the envelope, then stopped.

"Is something wrong?"

The knight asked nervously at the abrupt change.

"It's a waste."

"Sir?"

Brow furrowed, Lyssel said something the knight couldn't follow.

"Iberin would have agonized over picking this envelope too. It feels wrong to tear it."

"Your Highness, you have to tear it to read it."

"I know. I can't read it without tearing it…"

He really is a fool.

The knight was momentarily lost for words.

On the battlefield he was soaked in blood every day, butchering monsters at a rate that made him seem inhuman — but Lecashe was human too.

The knight bit back a faint smile and bowed his head.

"Open it carefully and savor it. I'll leave you to it."

If I savor it I can't read it right away.

Lyssel thought it, but the sound of the door closing and the knight's footsteps were already fading.

After the knight was gone, Lyssel glared at the letter, debating for a long while, and then decided.

He'd tear it open.

He really did want to know what was in it.

It was the first letter he'd received since coming west.

Riiip—

He worked the envelope open with careful hands and unfolded the page inside.

Iberin, having lost her memories, hadn't been able to read or write, and had spent a long time being taught the imperial language by Lyssel.

She could read and write fluently now, but her handwriting was terrible.

"Pft."

Looking at the wildly skewed scrawl, a laugh slipped out of him.

At the same time, the wanting to see her became unbearable.

The letter was just a hello, saying that Lecashe with no Lyssel in it was dull and tedious.

At the end was a note that she'd hold the place down properly, so he shouldn't worry.

"Iberin."

It was a letter that carried her exactly as she was, and Lyssel rolled her name out under his breath.

It felt like some bleak corner of him was being filled with warmth.

After reading it through several times, Lyssel carefully tucked the letter into a drawer. Then he kicked the door open and headed out.

He had to finish off these monsters and get back to Lecashe as fast as possible.

But Lyssel didn't know.

That the letter was written before Rozelia disappeared.

The letter Iberin had penned not long after he'd left had only reached him two weeks later.

The next one would take about that long again.

---

Meanwhile, Duke Cherity received a letter from the temple saying the Saintess had been found.

"She'd already awakened?"

Cherity had torn into the letter irritably, wondering what fresh idiocy the temple was up to now, and the contents floored him.

The runaway Saintess being at Lecashe was surprising in itself. On top of which, she'd awakened.

What stopped him short, more than anything, was the last line.

"They want me to block Lecashe because they kidnapped her — what is this."

They make the mess, and they want me to clean it up?

A dry laugh shook out of him at how absurd it was.

Cherity ignored the temple's preposterous demand and turned the rest over in his mind. The Saintess had surfaced, and although her power was incomplete, she could use holy power.

Without realizing it, Cherity brought his hands together.

He couldn't feel anything.

How had the Saintess come to be able to use holy power?

After a moment's brooding, Cherity told Annette,

"I need to make a quick trip to the capital."

"The capital? Has something happened?"

"The temple's found the Saintess. And they've asked for a small favor in cleaning up after themselves."

"A small favor?"

Annette knew exactly what kind of shameless pack the temple was.

"Why drop everything to go because they found the runaway Saintess? Did they actually pull something big?"

"No, the Saintess is using holy power."

"What? What?!"

Annette's voice spiked.

The matter was the matter — Cherity didn't say anything more.

"I'll just meet with them and come back, so I'm counting on our capable deputy to cover for me."

"S-sir!"

Before Annette could get another word in, Cherity was already out the door.

"Wait, what am I supposed to do! You son of a — sir! You're really going? You're actually going?!"

That the Saintess had been found and could use holy power was certainly remarkable, but leaving in the middle of all this?

Cherity was already a dot in the distance.

Annette sank into her despair and cursed him out from one end to the other.

Heart pounding, Cherity thought about how badly he wanted to get to the capital.

What did real holy power feel like — not artifact-imitation, but the real thing?

He was curious.

---

Iberin had also decided to head for the capital.

The temple's base was in the capital.

"But what are we actually going to do once we're there?"

"I don't know either."

Iberin didn't have a specific plan.

But she couldn't just barricade herself in the territory either.

She didn't want to sit still until Lyssel came back.

Once they got to the capital, she'd do whatever she could.

"What about Ether—"

"I'm going too!"

"Mm."

"I'll be good. I won't cry. I won't get in mommy's way."

"You're not in my way. Don't say that."

"You're really gonna take Ether?"

Iberin hesitated — it could be dangerous.

"We can all go together and look after the young master."

"Rotte and Pons too?"

"Yes."

The tone said why are you even asking.

Iberin's eyes drifted over to Kal.

He silently stuck himself to Ether's side.

Tami and Roz did the same.

"No."

At this rate, every single member of the staff was going to declare they were coming.

"Pons, you're staying. This time."

"What?!"

Pons looked at Iberin as if she'd betrayed his trust. Rotte's face lit right up.