John still remembered clearly the first time he had found the urn.
When he had become a high priest at the young age of thirty-five, after much bribery and flattery, he had expected to be assigned to at least a somewhat stable temple.
However, some members of the priests’ committee who disliked him, perhaps out of anger for not being able to prevent him from being appointed as a high priest, sent him to the Pavelo Temple, which had nothing to see other than its long history.
The Temple of Pavelo, which had been operating without a high priest for several years, was not maintained at all, and the number of saints was low.
In order to recoup the money he had invested to become a high priest, many saints and many donations were needed, so John needed to somehow renew the image of the Temple of Pavelo.
‘Damn old men! Just wait and see. I will gain so much power that you guys won’t even dare to look at me.’
Gritting his teeth, John searched the Temple of Pavelo from the top to the bottom.
What he found was some old terracotta and murals, stained glass that was just as old, a few trees that were said to be as old as the history of the temple, and several rooms in the basement. There were only a few dozen urns left as if they had been abandoned.
‘Shit! What should I do with this?’
‘I went through all kinds of hardships to come up here, so I couldn’t just let go of this old temple.’
Old icons, buildings, and old trees were scattered throughout other temples, and urns that even descendants could not find were just trash that had to be thrown away.
He decided to clean up the dirty urns first.
And just then, a name tag attached to an urn caught my eye.
「Lancer Aqual」
He didn’t know the man at all, but the name instantly reminded him of Lancer Aquinal, the great wizard he’d learned about in Imperial History. Even the spelling of the name Lancers and the first part of the last name ‘Aqual’ was the same.
‘Well, so what, let’s not waste time thinking about it.’
The moment he clicked his tongue and tried to ignore it, an incredible idea popped into his mind.
‘Wait a minute…! If I just slightly change the back of that name tag, I can turn it into Lancer Aquinal’s urn.…?’
His heart started beating violently.
It is said that Lancer Aquinal was a legendary Wizard who disappeared after sealing the evil dragon, and his remains were never found anywhere.
That meant that even if he disguised this urn as Lancers Aquinal’s, the real thing was unlikely to show up.
‘This is it! Lancer Aquinal’s urn and the evil dragon’s seal…!’
Once an idea began to arise, it created a story as if it were inflating itself.
‘Could a seal that’s five hundred years old still retain its power? If it were said that the power of the seal had weakened due to the Lancers’ urn being neglected, what would the imperial family’s reaction be?’
‘After all, the dragon that Lancers sealed is an evil dragon that is said to have brought disaster to the empire. Can the current emperor really not care?’
John quietly looked down at the urn of ‘Lancer Aqual’ and lightly scratched the back of the name tag with his fingernail.
The old pigment peeled away, leaving only ‘Lancer Aqu’ on the urn’s nameplate.
And as luck would have it, there was a priest in the temple who was competent in art restoration.
His main job was to repair the temple’s old murals, but John brought him in and succeeded in making the urn into Lancer Aquinal’s.
From then on, there was nothing difficult.
「The urn of the legendary Wizard ‘Lancer Aquinal’ was discovered in the Temple of Pavelo!」
「The abandoned great wizard’s urn! Is the evil dragon’s seal safe?」
He bribed a newspaper reporter to write a few articles with sensational headlines, and the public’s interest was piqued.
Without wasting time, John brought up the story of the great wizard and the sealing of the evil dragon to the emperor, creating a sense of crisis.
The emperor, perhaps because of what he was afraid of, promised support for the Temple of Pavelo sooner than John expected.
A year has passed. The fake Lancer’ urn that made the Temple of Pavelo the ‘best temple of the empire’ was revealed to everyone, and the emperor willingly knelt down, thrilled that he was the first to receive the blessing of the holy relic.
Looking at that, John smiled proudly.
‘I got the blessing, cancer. ‘It would be better for me to serve the Archmage than to serve Bara!’
He racked his brain with nonsensical thoughts, completely intoxicated by the smell of money and power that wafted into his nose.
* * *
On the second day of the relic blessing ceremony, Crown Princess Anais and Prince Abel visited the temple.
From the day before, all the saints of the temple lined up in a long line in front of the hall where the relic blessing ceremony was held, scattering flower petals.
Unlike the emperor’s visit day, when they did not even dare to raise their heads, everyone glanced at Anais and Abel with some anticipation.
[That guy is back again.]
“Yes? Who?”
[A guy with magical powers. Did you say he was the emperor’s son?]
“Ah, yes. He is Prince Abel.”
Rabes, who was sitting on Elaine’s shoulder, was watching Abel closely.
“Does Prince Abel bother you?”
[Yeah. His magic wavelength is somehow familiar. I wonder why?]
In fact, Elaine wasn’t that interested in Abel or the magical power he possessed, but since Rabes seemed serious for some reason, she started looking at Abel.
Abel, who followed Anais, smiled brightly the whole time and waved to the saints.
The saints who caught his gaze blushed, unable to hide their shyness.
And when he turned his head to Elaine and smiled, he found Elaine looking at him closely with an almost expressionless face, unlike the other saints who were barely suppressing exclamations of joy.
‘hmm? Who is it? Not even a polite smile. Are you the one who supports Anais?’
Abel, no, Malek, who is liked by everyone even though he does not use his seductive powers, roughly assumed that those who didn’t like him were followers of Anais.
Otherwise, few people would maintain a stiff expression even after seeing his smile.
But that didn’t seem to be the case with Elaine’s expression.
It was more like indifference.
‘It’s a look that’s quite disturbing rather than completely indifferent.’
His interest was briefly piqued, but there were a lot of people in the temple, and there were too many people he should be paying more attention to to focus on just one saint.
For example, Anais, who has recently become cold, or the maids who stand by her and watch out for her with sharp eyes.
‘I think that stupid bitch is starting to notice, but, well, what can you do against me?’
Malek laughed at Anais’s attitude, as if she were determined to never let her status as crown princess be taken away from her.
‘Even if I don’t use a lot of magical power, I can still take the throne of this country.’
Malek was enjoying helping Sasha like it was entertainment.
No matter how brilliant Anais or the humans around him were, their wisdom had been gained in less than a hundred years of life.
Malek, however, had lived for over three thousand years and had accumulated a great deal of knowledge. Including understanding what kind of humans are.
Of course, the fact that he’s a dragon is reason enough for him to enjoy watching humans engage in serious power struggles.
But Anais, who had no idea about such facts, felt completely different.
‘What were you thinking when you faced me until now?’
Since Abel was recognized as a prince with the empress’s merciful permission and came to live in the imperial palace, Anais and Abel have been close like biological siblings.
Abel was neither arrogant nor cheeky, intimidated or servile.
He was bright, confident, and kind to everyone, as if he had anticipated the blessings that would be bestowed upon him from birth.
Even those who were initially opposed to the Empress’s decision softened their hearts little by little when they saw Abel being polite and kind to the Empress and Anais, and it was none other than Anais who asked them to cherish Abel.
Because she loved her new little brother so much.’
Who could hate a younger brother who would come and share refreshments every day, leave a book he had enjoyed reading as a gift, or say amazing things about how he would protect his sister before any other man in the world?
Even if that was what Sasha told him to do, Abel deceived Anais and the Empress too thoroughly.
She believed that the affection between her and him, and between him and her mother, was true.
Because she trusted and cared for Abel so much, Anais could not forgive Abel, who knew that Sasha had poisoned her mother and did not tell her.
Even when the Empress suddenly died, Abel cried as if the world had collapsed, and he stayed like that for a long time.
While crying, he hugged Anais and comforted her.
“I will protect you so that Her Majesty the Empress does not have to worry about you. Sister, you must not let your guard down….”
It was a great comfort to Anais to see Abel trying to hold back his sadness and help her stand up.
‘You are the same as lady Habron…How much did you laugh at me, who was leaning on you then?’
It felt like tears would well up, but Anais held them back by clenching her molars.
‘It is foolish to show your emotions in front of your enemy.’
Anais entered the hall where the relic blessing ceremony was taking place, smiling as brightly as Abel.
And, following John’s instructions, Anais knelt in front of the holy relic and prayed for the blessing of the holy relic.
‘I hope I can protect the imperial family and the empire until the end.’
And next to him, Malek was thinking about something else.
‘Those aren’t Lancer’s remains! Does the High Priest dare to do this, or does he not know that it is fake?’
There was no sign of the magic of Rabes that should have been emanating from Lance’s ashes.
Malek almost laughed out loud because the sight of Anais kneeling in front of a nothing urn and solemnly praying was so funny.
‘What a ridiculous skit! ‘Humans are really not boring people.’
In his eyes, everything about humans was insignificant, but he couldn’t help but admit that there was no being that gav
e him as much joy as humans.
Anyway, Malek suppressed his laughter and pretended to pray with a more solemn and pure expression than Anais.
It was like he was an actor in this skit.
* * *
