Lorina doubted her eyes when she saw Elaine and a group of Debbie sitting together in a dining room enjoying their meal.
‘Why are they alive?’
‘The last I’d heard from them yesterday, they’d unleashed the monster in Paddleton Forest as planned.’
After that, she didn’t need to hear anything else, so she felt free to do her job. She prepared herself to be heartbroken by the ‘the dead of saint’ announcement that would be spread around the temple today.
But when she came down to the dining room for breakfast, she realized that Elaine, far from being dead, seemed closer than ever to Debbie and the others.
‘What happened,’ She asked herself,
‘I thought they were sure there was no one around and released the monster.’
There’s no way two young girls could defeat a monster with no one to help them. They were about to become its victims.
Lorina stared at them in disbelief, and Debbie, sensing the stare, turned her head to meet her eyes.
But the unexpected continued.
Debbie, who had always been busy putting on an indomitable smile whenever she saw Lorina, stiffened and glared at her coldly.
‘What the hell, are you glaring at me?’
It wasn’t just Debbie.
Her friends, Avril, Danae, and Melina, all turned in turn, their faces stiffening, and then whispering something amongst themselves.
She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she was sure it wasn’t nice.
Lorina and her group were doing the same thing to Elaine, but Lorina felt like she had been unfairly insulted.
And the last thing she saw was Elaine. Elaine stared at her for a moment, a rather gentle smile on her face, before turning away.
‘That lowly…..!’
Lorina returned to her room after finishing her meal, feeling both anxious and offended.
She was about to contact her family to ask what had happened, but there was a letter on Lorina’s desk which apparently came from her house.
She quickly tore open the envelope, her face turning pale as she read line after line.
[I don’t know what happened, but Elaine and Debbie came back safe and reported that a monster had appeared, and before our people could retrieve it, paladins and public security were sent out to capture it.
There’s no proof, so they wouldn’t dare accuse us, but I’m worried about the girl, Debbie.
I think it would be best if you never pretend to know anything about this. Don’t worry too much.
– Mommy.]
Lorina wondered if the monster had run the other way and Debbie and Elaine were still alive and well, so they hadn’t gotten a scratch from the encounter.
What’s more, the “trained” monster, which cost dozens of gold to rent, was captured without being retrieved.
Lorina couldn’t imagine how much money she would have to pay the monster’s owner.
“How the hell did this happen? How did they survive?”
Lorina was so shocked and upset that she could only stomp her feet.
But the bad news didn’t end there.
“Lorina, did you hear the story?”
“What story?”
“Debbie ran into a monster in Paddleton Forest!”
Lorina took a breath without realizing it.
“Well, so, what happened?”
“But Elaine beat the devil by memorizing the Lord’s Prayer! They both thought they were going to die, but when Elaine recited the Lord’s Prayer, the monster ran away.”
“That can’t be true!”
Her voice rose, even though she knew she should pretend to know nothing about that.
She had heard that the monster had been trained by a wizard to kill and that the only way to defeat it was through divine power.
She wouldn’t have spent the money to borrow the monster in the first place if it could have been defeated by a child’s recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.
Lorina, who was only just beginning to realize what she had said, lowered her voice again and made an excuse.
“Oh, no, I mean, there’s never been a reported case of that before….”
“That’s right. There isn’t. But why, you know, there’s a saying. True prayer has the power of God.”
“What…?”
“That’s why everyone thinks that Lord Bara answered Elaine’s prayer.”
Even Lorina’s close friends seemed to see Elaine again.
In the meantime, the story of the monster had gotten around, and saints gathered around Elaine and Debbie, pretending to be close for no reason.
Debbie tells them about how brave Elaine was at the time, and Elaine is embarrassed as she tries to stop her.
But Elaine’s embarrassment actually made her look humble, and everyone liked it.
Lorina felt like she was going to die of frustration, but she managed to keep a straight face and asked one more question.
“But….How did a monster appear there by accident? Any reports about that?”
“The temple must be investigating it. It’s Count Yates’ private park. I’m sure they’ll find out sooner or later.”
While it was good news that the culprits hadn’t been found yet, it was not so good news that the temple and Count Yates were working together to investigate.
‘What if they find out? What if my mother and father got into trouble because of me?’
Her lips felt like they were drying up.
Her mother had told her not to worry, but it was frustrating in the temple, as she could not immediately know what was going on outside.
It wasn’t the only thing on her mind.
“So, Elaine, she didn’t seem like such a bad girl when I talked to her.”
“Yeah. She’s very nice and mature.”
The casual conversation of the passing saints caught Lorina’s ear.
The bad image of Elaine that Lorina had created was slowly crumbling.
Up until now, the words “bad girl” and “no better than a commoner” had kept the other Saints away from Elaine, and they’d also gossiped about her.
“The girl whose mother fled to the land of the common people was Elaine.”
“The Count of Newt took Elaine, a disgrace to the family, and the shameless wench has been selling the family name here and there, not knowing the Count’s favor.”
“I’ve seen her since I was a child, she’s so sullen and cunning, do you know how much trouble she’s caused my friends at Newt’s?”
“She even tried to seduce my fiancé. She’s been coming to L’Arch’s room at night. What the hell did she learn from her mother…..”
Elaine was never given a chance to defend herself, so her image was shaped to be what Lorina wanted it to be.
However, after the incident with the monster, the curiosity of the saints was piqued and they began to speak to Elaine directly, and as Debbie befriended her, the rejection of her “illegitimate child” status faded.
“How could you do this, how could you…!”
Lorina was so angry she wanted to pull Elaine’s hair right away.
But Debbie’s occasional glares at her, and the favorable stares she was receiving from everyone around her, kept her from doing so.
Eventually, she had a fever and even lay down, but no one in the temple knew how Lorina had a fever.
* * *
Within three months of Elaine’s proposal, the Temple’s “Blessing of the Relics” ceremony became a hot topic of conversation.
John had sent out a sensational headline to all the newspapers to build up the anticipation, and as he had predicted, the nobility had contacted him, eager to jump into a ‘new trend’ before everyone else.
‘Why was I afraid of this, when it will make more money than anything else?’
Already in his safe, there was a large amount of back money that came in to attend the “first” relics blessing ceremony.
‘No matter how many times I think about it, I’m very proud of the saint from Newt, and I’m sure I’ll raise more than enough money to build the mansion.’
John smiled with satisfaction as he recalled the mansion that would become his own kingdom.
The thought of earning money makes his heart flutter, but John is a man who knows how to prepare for a better future.
He firmly appealed to the nobles to be blessed with relics blessings at all times.
“Everything has its rules, and the first person in the Calais Empire to receive the blessing of a holy relic is the Emperor himself.”
There wasn’t a single noble who could argue with that.
Of course, they were in a hurry, so they moved up the schedule for the imperial family’s relics blessing ceremony as much as possible.
The imperial blessing ceremony was unusually grand for such a rushed event.
On the first day, the emperor received the blessing of the relics under the direction of John.
Lancer’s ashes were placed in a glass urn, which looked like a well-worn fraudulent urn, but that made it all the more mysterious and authentic.
‘Perfect! I’m a genius!’
John felt a strange joy as he knelt down in front of the urn he didn’t even know whose, and watched the emperor solemnly bow.
‘Who would have thought that the entire imperial and aristocratic circles of this great empire were being played by me?’
* * *
Thank you for the chapter ~~