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“I just came to deliver merchandise. It’s the truth!”
Each time the man shouted, gesticulating wildly with his arms as he did so, his heavy stomach wobbled. Samael was actually impressed that the man could even walk at his weight.
Following their encounter near the gate, the fat man, who claimed to be a merchant, was immediately stopped by soldiers from the Ministry of Safety at Bruno’s request. He’d acted suspiciously when confronted and, as a result, had been transported to the Director’s Office’s private interrogation room. The interrogation began as usual, with the man and Samael sitting on sofas facing one another on opposite sides of the table.
“Oh, really. And what merchandise did you deliver?”
“Well, um… V-Various things. A variety of items that are used at the chapel.”
“…Hm, well, I suppose it’s fine. Officials from the Ministry of Ceremonies are inspecting your delivery as we speak.”
“Um, I… I didn’t bring in anything strange…”
Noting the sweat droplets that peppered the man’s brow as he spoke, Claudio grimaced with blatant disgust from his usual position by the window. Samael chuckled at that but quickly regained a professional expression and carried on with the questioning.
“So, then, what was your purpose for coming to the chapel?”
“As I said, to make a delivery.”
“We’re wasting time here, so I’ll be frank with you. The schedule you received was a fake that we intentionally leaked. Who did you get it from?”
“…”
“So you were ordered to stay silent if you got caught, is that it?”
“Ophelia’s shaking has stopped.”
Samael heard Angelo’s voice through the cuff on his ear as clearly as if Angelo were standing right behind him. Ophelia had been in near convulsions on the ground in the neighboring room since the man’s interrogation had begun.
“What could you hope to achieve by interfering with the Ordination Ceremony? …It seems that you have no intention of answering, though.”
Samael leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table and making an amused face. The fat man’s face, in contrast, had grown alarmingly pale, and he was looking around the room nervously. When his eyes met with the two guards standing attentively behind him, he whipped around and faced back toward Samael.
“Is there someone among those about to be ordained as priests with whom you have an issue? Either that, or maybe you’re opposed to the ceremony in general…?”
Sweat dripped from the man’s chin, and he desperately fumbled with his fat hands atop the table, folding them together in a prayer position.
“There’s no doubt about it. That guy’s a follower of Lartomeum.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“Huh?!”
Samael’s entirely unexpected question caused the man to jump in his seat, eyes widening.
“Of course you follow the national religion, Euvtomeum, right?”
“O-Of course… Y-Yes, that’s right.”
“Woo-ee, Ophelia just took an impressive tumble over here!”
“Really?”
“R-Really!”
“Hehe, Ophelia can’t even stand up.”
Sweat was pouring down the man’s forehead like a waterfall, rushing over his chin and dripping onto his hands. Samael, observing all this, suddenly broke into a wide smile.
“Have you ever heard of Lartomeum?”
“I can’t say I have…”
“I see. You really don’t know of it?”
“Really, I don’t know anything about that.”
“Heh, Ophelia is rolling around on the ground.”
“That’s strange… Considering that, you’ve been holding your fingers like that…” As Samael said this, he dropped his eyes to the man’s folded hands. “That’s the prayer position of Lartomeum.”
“!” He gasped.
“Are you a follower of Lartomeum?”
“Eep! N-No, of course not…!”
“Aww, Ophelia was just standing up, and now she’s fallen over again.”
When Samael, with a knowing look, pointed out the Lartomeum-specific prayer style he’d learned about from Angelo, the man began panicking. Claudio, who’d been listening silently with one hand gripping his chin, chose that moment to stand up.
“Come to think of it, hasn’t possession of the holy remains always been a point of contention between the followers of Lartomeum and Euvtomeum?”
Surprised by Claudio suddenly interjecting into the conversation, the fat man fell right out of his chair and began shaking on the ground. “What are you saying… I haven’t done anything…”
The man’s sweat dripped like rain onto the hands he’d splayed out on the ground to support his ample weight. Observing this, Claudio opened his mouth and proclaimed with quiet certainty. “I see. So your objective is the holy remains, is it?”
“Eek!”
The man’s eyes widened, and he recoiled. Without another word, the two guards surrounded him and led him out of the room. It seemed his interrogation would continue “downstairs.” Claudio signaled to Samael, and the assistant director quickly left the interrogation room.
“Mr. Angelo, what do the followers of Lartomeum plan to do with the holy remains?” Ophelia asked Angelo as they walked side-by-side back to the Director’s Office.
“Lar’s teachings are very similar to those of Euv, but it seems they’ve developed a bit of a complex over the fact that they’re a new religion without a long and illustrious history, so recently they’ve started claiming that Lar actually predates the founding of Euv.”
“Do the scholars refer to these groups as Lar and Euv?”
“Nah, I just shortened them because the full names are tedious to say.”
“…So why does Lar want the holy remains? Oh, I’ve got it! They must be planning to claim that the holy remains are a fake in order to ‘prove’ that no other God exists but their own, right?!”
“No. Lar has a short history, so they don’t possess any sacred relics of their own. That’s why they’re trying to claim that the holy remains were actually from Lar, and Euv stole them.”
“Huh? They seriously want something like that?! …It’s a dead body!”
“Ahaha, you don’t have a single shred of reverence for religion, do you, Ophelia? Originally, Lar was a kind of ‘underdog’ religion that portrayed itself as oppressed but sincere and hard-working, but as their numbers have grown, extremist factions also seem to have developed.”
Ophelia suddenly stopped walking. “Wait, does that mean they’re all converging with the intention of stealing the holy remains?”
“Probably. They’ve even prepared an escape route. But the assistant director has been working behind the scenes to have security for the holy remains made the highest priority.”
When they opened the door to the Director’s Office, Bruno was waiting in the guest reception corner, where he’d commandeered the table to lay out an array of papers. These documents included various delivery forms and a blueprint of the chapel. Angelo immediately got to work checking each delivery form. Claudio and Samael returned soon after, and they rolled right into a staff meeting.
Since she wasn’t authorized to view classified documents, Ophelia returned to her desk, where she sat swinging her legs and feeling a bit useless.
“Ophelia, what are you doing? Get over here,” Claudio called out to Ophelia in an irritable tone. Angelo smiled at Ophelia as she hurried to join the circle, bewilderment and joy warring within her and plain on her face. Bruno dropped his gaze to the blueprints and struck the altar emphatically with the tip of his pointer finger.
“A large number of vendors have been entering and exiting the palace in relation to the Ordination Ceremony. The merchandise that guy delivered has already been mixed with deliveries from other merchants and placed inside the chapel. It’s going to take a very long time to determine what products were from that merchant and locate them all.”
“It does sound tedious locating every piece of fabric and bottle of lamp oil,” Angelo remarked, leaning back with his fingers threaded together behind his head, grinning as if glad that it was someone else’s problem.
“That’s where Lady Narve comes in.”
Following that comment from Bruno, all eyes converged on Ophelia.
“Me?”
“Yes. If we bring you to the chapel, you should be able to locate any unusual items, right?”
“Eep! I don’t have the ability to detect dangerous articles!”
Ophelia waved her arms back and forth in front of her chest in a dissuading gesture, causing Samael and Claudio to look at one another. Both seemed to consider the matter for a long moment before their eyes met again.
“It should be fine. If there’s anything in the chapel that shouldn’t be there, she’ll probably react to it.”
“So you’re suggesting we have Ophelia wander around the chapel, hoping she’ll fall over right in front of dangerous items?”
Faced with this very good point, Claudio paused to think it over. “Hm… I suppose we can have Angelo waiting with a cushion to catch her?”
“Huh? Me? All right, you can count on me! I’ll protect Ophie’s knees!”
Bruno cast a dubious gaze at Angelo, who pounded his chest confidently.
Ophelia’s eyes flickered indecisively for a moment, and then she abruptly raised her head. “Um, my brother! Please summon Bernard. I might not be able to determine an exact location by myself in such a large space. If there’s a hairline crack on the window or the wall is in danger of collapsing, Bernard should be able to tell precisely where the problem area is.”
“…Your brother also possesses a special ability?” Samael’s mouth dropped open in shock, but he quickly regained his composure and hurried out of the room. Presumably, he’d gone to dispatch a messenger to the Architectural Institute to summon Bernard.
“All right, the rest of us will head to the chapel. Get ready to leave immediately.”
Bruno and Angelo both nodded and stood to do as Claudio had ordered. Ophelia rose a moment later.