“Anyway…” The count changed the subject.
Oh, great. He has more…
“What are you going to do to fix this?”
I-I don’t know… I’m just as stumped as you are, count.
All Beatrice could do was anxiously watch the two talk. She was more than satisfied with how the party turned out, but that didn’t matter right now. She was well aware that the matters they were discussing would affect the rest of her life and that it wasn’t her place to interrupt a conversation between Count Bozes and the Lightning Archpriestess.
Urgh, Mitsuha groaned. Urrrrggghhhh…
“That’s enough, dear. You’ve picked on Mitsuha plenty.” The sympathetic words came from Lady Iris.
“I-I’m not picking on her… I’m just giving her a little scolding!” Count Bozes protested.
I’d gotten that sense myself. He wasn’t doing it to take his anger out on me. He just wants me to think about my actions.
“I’m sorry…” said Mitsuha.
Once Mitsuha apologized, Count Bozes cooled off. It was time to get down to business.
“Aherm,” he composed himself, “I suppose I could refuse the marriage proposals. Some of them are from dukes who have royal blood, but I have no shortage of excuses to throw at them. I could say we’re too busy managing the naval harbor, or that we can’t make any moves until my rank of marquis is announced, or that it’d be an insult to the Goddess to marry Beatrice off so soon after she was elevated to sainthood. Blaming everything on you could work too. I anticipate we’ll receive proposals from high-ranking nobles and royals from abroad, but our king will obstruct that. It’d be foolish to hand over a saint to another country. The problem is…” he trailed off.
Oh yeah. The “Saint Beatrice” rumor.
The church, the highest-ranking noble families, and the royal family were going to fight relentlessly over her. The king and most of the nobles in this kingdom were decent, and it was unlikely anyone would be dumb enough to get violent with a saint, but that wouldn’t stop some people from trying to drag her into their ranks out of sheer devotion to their faith.
…Namely the church, the church, and the church.
The church pestered me like you wouldn’t believe. They wanted me to be their priestess, even if in name only, because they wanted to use “the Lightning Archpriestess, savior of the realm” as a trademark. Like hell I was gonna let them use my name like some celebrity endorsement!
Not that they had any bad intentions. They just wanted to increase donations and sermon attendance, sell Lightning Archpriestess merchandise, and hold special events related to me. No thank you to any of that!
Mitsuha suggested, “We have two options: either let the people continue to believe Beatrice is some kind of saint or explain to everyone that fireworks are a divine tool for entertainment in my country. Both have their pros and cons. I did warn everyone about the show ahead of time, so…”
And yet everyone still thinks it was a miracle of the Goddess.
Count Bozes countered, “We could try that… But aside from a few people, the capital’s populace believes that you are tied to the Goddess. In their minds, the Goddess gave you the task of warning the public because she decided to appoint your friend as a saint and celebrate it in such a bombastic manner.”
Ahh… Right. Everyone thinks I’m connected to the Goddess, so naturally they’d assume the warning was a divine message straight from the deity’s mouth. Which also means that no matter what we do or say, we won’t get in trouble because it was a “divine message.”
Mitsuha thought for a moment.
“Well then, let’s just ignore it!” she concluded.
“Huh?” Count Bozes, Lady Iris, and Beatrice choked.
“I don’t see the need to make any kind of official announcement. Everyone in the capital saw what they saw. Convincing them otherwise is gonna be a challenge, and if they discover any lies or inconsistencies later, we’d be in big trouble. If we explain nothing, then we have no accountability. It’s not our fault that people saw the fireworks and assumed it meant Beatrice was being named a saint.”
The Bozeses were at a loss for words.
Explaining the fireworks would result in other nobles coming to me begging to have them for their daughters’ debutante balls. This way, I could just tell them, “Go and pray to the Goddess yourself,” and leave it at that.
After some thought, the three of them seemed to come around to the unusual wisdom of Mitsuha’s words.
“Oh, what should I say if someone asks?” Beatrice spoke up. “What if the king or archbishop comes to me with questions? I can’t just ignore them.”
That was a likely scenario.
“You could just put a finger to your lips and say, ‘It’s a secret!’ They’ll probably assume the Goddess swore you to silence. No one would pry further─oh, it’s the nobles and the church who are gonna probe. Definitely not the king and chancellor. You don’t have to worry about them.”
She’d explained the fireworks to the latter two when she sought their permission to use the palace grounds as a launching site. She informed the guards, too, of course. That meant a decent number of people in the royal palace knew the truth. It was one of the reasons Mitsuha wasn’t worried about Beatrice being glorified as a saint.
It’d be tough for Beatrice to live anything close to a normal life if she was worshipped as a saint. That kind of thing can be left to commoner girls whose only goal in life is to marry a crown prince.
Beatrice snapped, “Why would the Goddess swear me to silence after celebrating my sainthood in such an extravagant fashion?! That would make the Goddess look stu─a little challenged in the intellectual area!”
She’s right about that… But there’s no harm in people thinking a nonexistent Goddess is stu─a little challenged in the intellectual area. No one’s going to be brave enough to publicly insult her, especially not in a religious society like this one, and so soon after witnessing her miracle.
Okay, that’s taken care of!
“We have one more important matter to discuss,” said Count Bozes. “You’ll be able to provide party entertainment for the third princess and second prince, right? Please tell me you’re able to prepare something more impressive than what you did last night.”
Grk… That’s the biggest problem I caused myself.
“I-I have a few ideas. Flying dragons that can perform an aerial dance, or land dragons that can perform a volley of fire…”
“WHA?!” the Bozeses shrieked. All three pairs of eyes were popping out of their sockets.