Chapter 6: Transfer Request
THE morning dawned brilliantly sunny. Ophelia and the other staff from the Director’s Office were attending the Ordination Ceremony. By right, Claudio was entitled to sit with the royal family, but he’d chosen to sit in the staff section with Ophelia and the others. At first, the people sitting nearby gawked at him, but they closed their mouths quickly enough under the force of Claudio’s fierce glare.
The fake holy remains were on display on their podium atop the dais, and the soon-to-be priests, their faces tense with nervous energy, gazed at the box reverently.
Amid the solemn atmosphere, where even the rustle of clothing seemed an offense, Ophelia gripped her knees with both hands, trying to suppress their shaking. At this, Claudio glanced over from his seat beside her. As she gazed into his lapis lazuli eyes, her shaking gradually calmed.
Claudio does not lie.
That’s all it was, and yet she’d never met someone like him before. Ophelia knew what this feeling was called. But she didn’t dare acknowledge it. He had a fiancée, for goodness’ sake.
Ophelia closed her eyes and tried to focus on the pope’s congratulatory speech. She wished this peaceful moment would last forever.
From where he sat behind Ophelia, protectively watching over her, Bruno noticed that at some point she’d stopped shaking. He frowned, puzzled by how that could be when the fake holy remains were within her line of sight, regardless of whether she had her eyes open or not. Then he snuck a glance at Claudio sitting beside her. With how attentive he was to the tiniest detail, Bruno would’ve assumed that, like himself, Claudio would’ve noticed the change in Ophelia.
However, Claudio was regarding Ophelia with an entirely unexpected, painfully tender gaze. For a long moment, Bruno couldn’t drag his eyes away from the expression he’d never before witnessed on the director’s face.
I see… In some form or another, the reason Ophelia stopped shaking must be related to Claudio. Once he realized that, Bruno gave a small, reluctant smile and a faint nod to himself. He forced his gaze away from the pair.
After that, the Ordination Ceremony proceeded smoothly, and once it concluded, the holy remains were transported back to the Cathedral with great fanfare and under heavy guard.
The examination of the chandelier from the ceiling revealed that it had been fitted with modified candles. Once they were lit and the wax began to melt, they would release an undetectable poisonous gas into the air that would render everyone in the room unable to open their eyes. It seemed that the followers of Lartomeum had planned to steal the holy remains amidst the chaos that would’ve caused.
The fake merchant whom Bruno and Ophelia had captured and the man from the gambling den who’d coerced the cleaner into stealing the schedule had both confessed as much in their interrogations with Samael.
One person to steal the holy remains, another person to sneak them out of the Royal Palace, another to transport them by wagon to the border, where yet another person would smuggle them into the neighboring country… The roles were precisely divided, and everything was planned out down to the holy remains’ final destination: a Lartomeum church in a foreign country.
Most of the conspirators involved in the plan had been arrested, but not all.
“Those we arrested were all motivated by righteous indignation at the holy remains supposedly being stolen by Euvtomeum in the first place. That was why they participated in this scheme. They all used the exact same words, ‘This is a holy war.’ There seems to be a ringleader who’s been using those words to manipulate the believers,” Bruno explained as they watched the long procession of guards protecting the holy remains on their journey back to the Cathedral.
Ophelia caught sight of the Architectural Institute off in the distance beyond the now-quiet chapel. The Architectural Institute that she’d been in such a hurry to return to now seemed terribly far away.