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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Mod7
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Elicis led him to a small church. Johan followed her inside and noted its dilapidated state.
Religion was strong in the Kingdom, but in the Empire, it was a fringe belief, almost a cult.
The Emperor herself had employed a witch, after all, putting her at odds with the Church.
“This way.”
Johan followed her into the most run-down room in the already run-down church.
It was clearly Elicis’s room, the only place that seemed lived-in.
Johan sat down in a chair and looked at Elicis, who was sitting on the bed.
“So? What happened?”
“…It’s nothing, really. Where should I begin?”
Elicis began to tell her story.
“Do you remember when your master attacked my city?”
“Uh… yes. I think so…”
“Because of that, I was summoned to the Holy See, accused of tarnishing the Church’s reputation by fleeing from a witch.”
Johan scratched his cheek, trying to remember the incident.
As the saying goes, the one who is struck remembers, but the one who strikes forgets. He had completely forgotten.
And he had only just now learned that she had been held responsible for it.
The story, however, didn’t end there.
“After I was taken to the Holy See, I was tortured.”
“…Tortured?”
“I’m fine now. See? Not a single scar. They healed me.”
Though her spirit was likely broken.
Johan’s expression darkened as he listened to Elicis’s self-deprecating humor.
But she continued, oblivious to his discomfort.
“I was on the verge of death when Her Majesty saved me.”
“…Who?”
“The Majesty. Ah, you don’t know? The Emperor.”
“…Friederika?”
“Do not speak their name so casually.”
Elicis glared at him. Her fanatical devotion was a clear indication of her fragile state of mind.
Betrayed by the Church she had served, tortured to the brink of death, and then saved.
If he were in her shoes, he would have sworn eternal loyalty as well.
“Anyway, after I was saved, I established this church with their help. I’m one of the few officially recognized priests in the Empire.”
“A few? But I’ve seen many churches.”
“Those are all cults—or rather, churches established by lay believers who haven’t been properly trained. How can they preach the word of God when they can’t even use divine power?”
She began to lecture him, her tone condescending, about how priests without divine power weren’t true priests, and how pitiful their followers were.
Johan, who had come from a world where priests were more likely to be faithless than divinely empowered, wasn’t particularly moved by her speech.
“Unfortunately, the people of the Empire seem to think a church run by a woman is unlucky.”
“I’m not surprised. Even the Emperor hides the fact that she’s a woman…”
“…The Emperor is a woman?”
“Oh, you didn’t know?”
She walked around so confidently, he had assumed it wasn’t a secret. Apparently, it was.
Johan, seeing Elicis’s shocked expression, realized his mistake.
“Um. Pretend you didn’t hear that.”
“But—if you know she’s a woman… have you met her in person?”
“I just came from meeting with her.”
“—Oh my God.”
Elicis, with an expression he had never seen before, clutched her rosary and began to pray.
Her piety made her seem even more divine. Johan, surprised, watched her.
After a few moments of prayer, Elicis looked at him, her eyes shining.
“…I… have a request.”
“You want to meet the Emperor?”
“Yes. Embarrassingly… I haven’t seen her since.”
“Then she probably doesn’t want to see you.”
“Then… if you could just relay a message for me…”
Johan nodded, and Elicis, her voice filled with conviction, spoke.
“Thank you, Your Majesty. You didn’t just save one person, you saved a great faith… and I will prove it.”
Her eyes burned with resolve.
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After hearing Elicis’s story, Johan returned to the hotel.
He felt uneasy, knowing someone he knew had been tortured.
He lay on his bed, replaying her words in his mind.
‘A devout Holy Knight… abandoning the Church and defecting to the Empire…’
Honestly, he thought the Emperor had just been lucky. If Elicis hadn’t been tortured, if she hadn’t been taken to the Holy See, if Evangeline hadn’t attacked the city—if any of those things hadn’t happened, she would still be a loyal Holy Knight of the Kingdom, and her faith would have been unshakable.
But at the same time, it was inevitable.
‘The Church and the Holy Knights… I knew they were crazy, but torturing one of their own for fleeing from a witch?’
She hadn’t even fled in cowardice. She had saved tens of thousands of lives.
Was a few lines in some ancient scripture more important than tens of thousands of lives? It was incomprehensible.
A part of him, a part that still believed in justice, wanted to destroy them. And he realized he could.
He could ask his master, or the other witches, or even the Emperor, to wipe the Church and the Kingdom off the map.
‘…That’s a bit much.’
But killing tens, even hundreds of thousands of innocent people was too much, even for him. So he chose the lesser of two evils.
As the Emperor had suggested, he would send an army of dolls to invade the Kingdom.
Many people would die, and the Kingdom would be exploited for centuries.
But it was better than outright annihilation. And the suffering they would endure was a penance for their sins.
The people who had been afraid of the Church would now be afraid of the Empire.
“Beatrice.”
“Yes.”
“The thing we talked about earlier. I need you to do it.”
“—Johan is my friend. I’ll do anything… for my friend.”
Beatrice said this and stood up. Johan stroked her hair.
Having made his decision, he called the Emperor. She answered immediately.
—What is it?
“I accept your offer.”
—Good. Do you need anything?
“Dolls.”
—Dolls?
Johan, stroking Beatrice’s hair, replied,
“Yes, dolls. A lot of them.”
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The Kingdom’s borders didn’t need to be defended. They were surrounded by monsters, a natural fortress.
And so, the border guards’ only duties were to send carrier pigeons to the capital when the monster population grew too large, and to extort money from those who dared to cross the border.
“Business is slow these days…”
The guard muttered this, thinking about his empty pockets. His salary wasn’t enough to live on, so he supplemented it with bribes, but lately, even that had dried up.
The number of merchants traveling to and from the Empire had decreased.
Though it was an irregular income, it had been a reliable one.
The guard, frustrated by his lack of income, looked out over the border.
“Well, look at that. Another monster horde.”
But it was winter. Monsters, like animals, were less active in the winter. There was less food, less energy.
So a large group of them, moving together, was unusual. The guard looked through his telescope and froze.
“…What’s that?”
Thousands of soldiers, with unusually long ears. They raised long, thin sticks to their eyes and pulled the triggers.
Crack—!
A gunshot echoed through the air, and a bullet pierced the guard’s head.
The dolls, having neutralized the guard, advanced towards the Kingdom.
The Kingdom remained oblivious, even as thousands of Imperial soldiers marched towards their capital.
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