When Edith the stray priestess had stopped by to bid him farewell, the lord had casually asked her where she was headed to next. In response, Edith had told him she was going to the royal capital. As soon as Edith left, the lord had immediately begun writing a letter and ordered horses and riders to ride forth at full speed, switching out mounts along the way as needed, so they could deliver it without regard for cost.
The letter had been addressed to the king. There was no time for pleasantries or etiquette. A moment’s delay could result in the end of the continent. He’d written the letter in a desperate race against time. Even though he’d miswritten some parts, there was no time to fix his errors—he’d simply crossed them out and continued writing. The letter was far from anything that was proper enough to be sent to the king, but considering what was at stake, the thought of embarrassing himself was the last thing on his mind. And so, he’d continued writing as if his life depended on it.
Afterward, he’d written a set of instructions to be read by one rider to the next, handed it and the letter to the first rider and explained a few things, watched him depart...then collapsed on his bed—his body and mind fatigued, yet his heart full of satisfaction, knowing he’d saved the continent from certain doom.
“What?! Whaaaaaat?!” the king couldn’t help but cry out in bewilderment at the letter.
It was an emergency message from a certain local lord—a confidential one at that. Even letters addressed to the king were normally opened, checked, categorized, then processed by a clerk, and he himself didn’t personally open all of them. This was because not all letters were worthy of the king’s time, and many of them were actually something for the bureaucrats to handle, even if they were addressed to the king. However, the confidential designation meant it was for the king to open himself. Typically, the only people who would send a letter this way were his personal friends or family living in distant lands. If the letter had come from anyone else, it wouldn’t have been odd if a clerk had ignored the “confidential” label and opened it. In fact, they definitely would have under normal circumstances. However, since the sender was a lord, and it had come by express mail, the person who received the letter felt something was amiss and delivered it to the Lord Chancellor, who had then handed it to the king.
“Y-You read it too!” the king had ordered.
“Y-Yes, Your Majesty...” the Lord Chancellor said as he accepted the letter, then began reading. After a few moments had passed, he’d also raised his voice in stunned surprise. “What?!”
“Summon the ministers! I’m calling for an emergency meeting!” the king called out.
“Right away!”
“So, that’s the situation. Any questions?” the king asked the notables of the nation after explaining the contents of the letter that had been sent to him.
“Pardon me, but...can this report be trusted?” one of the ministers asked.
“That is the question, of course,” the king said. “I trust you’ve all read The Angel Records?”
The men all nodded.
The Angel Records was a folklore-esque book of records that was read to those who were of a marquis or higher rank when they became the head of the family, or when one was promoted to a ministry, military command, or other important position in the country. There were an endless number of books and records regarding the Goddess Celestine, from picture books for young children to academic and religious texts.
Among them, out of books written in the past seventy years or so, there were mentions of “Saint Kaoru,” “the Angel Kaoru,” and in a select few, the name “Goddess Kaoru” could be found. Those were the names of a saint who was said to have appeared a little more than seventy years ago. She wasn’t just a priestess, but a friend of the Goddess Celestine, and had used the blessing bestowed upon her to create countless miracles. And when she’d met her unfortunate end due to the treacherous act of some vile cretins, the Goddess Celestine had nearly sunk the continent to the depths of the sea, but the great hero and guardian of the continent, Fearsome Fran, the Einherjar, had silenced her with repeated slaps to her face. Even in the modern day, parents scolded their children by saying, “If you don’t behave, Fearsome Fran will come and slap you around!” to silence their crying.
Among the many texts and legends, The Angel Records was in a league of its own in terms of authenticity as a classified document that had only been passed around the leadership of each country.
Below are some quotes from a section therefrom, titled Lady Kaoru Chronicles — The Goddess:
“Celes isn’t a patron god of humans or anything. She only shows up in human form when she talks to humans. If she wanted to talk to a dog or cat, she’d change her form to match. Probably.”
“Celes’s job is to protect the world’s harmony and eliminate distortions as early as possible. She doesn’t care how many humans die, other than the ones she really likes. Well, maybe she cares about humans as much as humans care about the ants in their yard. If a whole lot of them are about to die, she might give them a warning if she feels like it.”
“She said she’d destroyed a country just because it pissed her off.”
“She said she wants me to live a long life, so I wouldn’t mess with me if I were you. Unless you want your country wiped off the map, that is.”