Epilogue
“TIRED?”
After Fiona sat down on the sofa in the room with a view of the garden outside, Linus sat next to her. It’s not that she wasn’t tired, but her brain was so overloaded with information that she didn’t have time to be tired, so she just shook her head in answer. This room, so far removed from the chaos of the ballroom, was so quiet that everything until now seemed unreal.
“Your Highness, did you know about everything?”
“What do you mean by everything?”
“For starters, the fact that the prime minister was embezzling from the national budget by padding it with empty figures and nonsense requests.”
“I suspected him for a long time but didn’t have all the evidence until recently. It took a lot of ingenuity and effort to get it all in order, you know. But thanks to you eliminating basically all manner of wasteful spending, he started getting nervous. Probably realized his time was coming, so he made some sloppy moves, which helped me a lot.”
As far as Fiona was concerned, she had simply been doing her job. But it made her happy to hear she’d been useful in helping Linus gather the evidence he needed of the prime minister’s wrongdoings.
“By the way, it was him who kept increasing the budget for wigs.”
Did that mean Mulligan wore a wig, too? Or were the wigs just an easy pretext to pad the estimates? The truth of the prime minister’s hair would forever remain shrouded in darkness, but in any case, she would appreciate people protecting their own wigs.
“Then what about the Saint of Abundance? Did you know about her?”
“Paul and I have known each other for a long time. Ever since she was summoned to Slava, he’s been coming to me for advice on how to deal with her awful behavior. Apparently, there was only so much Paul could do to rebuke her because the nobles of Slava would defend her on account of not wanting the saint to lose her power. But it was another story entirely if she breached their contract decisively in another country. So when he found out the prime minister contacted her, he told me right away.”
In short, despite being aware of the prime minister’s conduct, Linus hadn’t stopped the man for Paul’s sake. Well, he also might have let Mulligan run around freely on purpose to secure evidence. Manaka’s agreement allowed the prime minister to proceed with his scheme to ruin Fiona, Gene’s own saint. Even if the other girl hadn’t agreed, Paul could still have used the conspiracy against him. Either way, it didn’t change the fact that the prime minister had been cornered.
“All I did was give Paul information. If the saint had done the right thing and refused the prime minister’s offer or reported it to Paul and behaved properly, nothing would have happened. In the end, it was her own fault.”
She couldn’t deny that plenty of avenues to escape the fetters of the contract had existed for Manaka. Though she knew the other girl had brought it on herself, Fiona still felt sympathy when she recalled the sight of her so dejected. Being summoned from another world meant not knowing anyone around her. As someone who’d lost her memories, Fiona knew all too well how disheartening that felt. Just like she’d had Linus and Charles to support her emotionally and mentally, her powers as a saint must have done the same for Manaka. So, to lose them, even temporarily, must be devastating.
“I wonder when that collar will be removed.”
Paul had said it would naturally disappear when everyone acknowledged her, but the statement was so vague that it was hard to determine any kind of time frame from it.
“Well, that depends on her, doesn’t it? We all saw how shocked she was when she found out she couldn’t use her saintly powers. Hopefully, that’ll be the catalyst she needs to reflect upon herself. But Paul’s a good man, so I doubt she’ll suffer for too long.”
“We are talking about Prince Paul, yes? But he said it would only disappear if she earned the people’s recognition.”
“Paul is the other party to the contract with the Saint of Abundance. So his will decides whether to impose or remove the contract’s shackles.”
“What?!”
Did that mean Paul had deliberately lied?
“Based on the saint’s personality, if she found out that Paul is the one who controls the terms of the contract, then she’d only pretend to get her act together. But if she were to think she needed everyone’s approval, that should help improve her attitude. He wants her to reflect properly on her actions as a saint not just for her own sake but also to avoid any similar troubles in the future.”
“O-Oh, well, yes, I can see his perspective.”
“When a saint is summoned from another world, that inherently means all her ties to that world are severed. Since we of this world summon them for our own reasons, we want them to be as happy as possible. But it will be hard for her to achieve happiness if everyone around her is unhappy because of her, don’t you think?”
He was right. Summoning a saint from another world didn’t mean just inviting a useful existence. It meant forcing someone with a family, home, and life of her own into an entirely different world. Fiona only just now realized this obvious truth.
“Though I’m a fake saint…I’m glad we managed to stop the summoning this time.”
She could understand wanting a saint’s aid when a country was in danger. However, she could not understand summoning one simply because a monarch was envious of a neighboring nation’s prosperity. From the saint’s perspective, both reasons were unacceptable, but it was still a relief for Fiona that one less person would be separated from her family.
“Hm, yes.”
Linus likely looked down sadly because he was thinking the same thing as her. He had said Paul was a good man, and she’d argue he was, too.
“Not only did we discover that the prime minister was responsible for all the wasteful spending, but we also improved budget allocations tremendously moving forward. That means the Saint of Cost Performance did her job. So…I think it’s time for me to hang up the mantle as a fake saint, no?”