“Just what exactly is your plan?” the prince demanded. “What were you scheming?”
“What do you mean?”
He had stormed back into the room with terrifying intensity just as I was finalizing the Robur family’s divorce proceedings.
There was no doubt the prince harbored special feelings for Lady Robur. Shouldn’t he have been enjoying a private picnic with her right about now?
I, for one, was concentrating on finishing in a single day a task that normally required months of processing time and took several days to actually complete.
Lady Robur’s appearance alone befitted a high noble, with such stunning beauty it could make one flinch. But inside, she was a beast. She hid fierce arrogance and audacity beneath that flawless appearance. And he’d just gone and taken her away by the hand? What was he talking about now?
I’d mobilized several administrative priests to retrieve the stack of documents containing the Robur couple’s marriage registration. I’d channeled magic through the lock and keyhole to unlock it. I’d extracted the target document and begun drafting the formal divorce papers. This alone demanded considerable magic, requiring several administrators to mediate. Returning the paperwork to its place would be no different.
From there, drafting the documents usually took several more days. For a divorce, the marriage records had to be destroyed, and new entries regarding the divorce acceptance needed to be written onto special paper infused with magic. A preservation spell would then be cast over the written text. Even a single mistake would mean rewriting the entire document. And the task of drawing intricate, minuscule magical arrays filled with symbols—and having to draw them in all four corners—was both tedious and grueling. The mid-level priests who usually handled this often risked running out of magic midway through.
Though all this was troublesome, marriage and divorce were crucial matters for a household; they must not be taken lightly or mishandled. It was precisely because we understand this that the church handled everything with the utmost rigor.
That said, I was a high priest. I possessed a great deal of innate magical power, which meant I could handle it in a single day.
Yes, summoning the lady to the church under that pretext had all been at the instruction of His Holiness the Pope.
I believed His Holiness had known from the moment Duchess Robur came to the church last week. That her difficult behavior had brought her marriage to the brink of divorce. Had he struck while the iron was hot in order to hasten it?
Why was His Holiness so fixated on Lady Robur, a girl whose magic was weak and who could barely use spells? Children abused by their parents were, regrettably, numerous. Why this obsession with Lady Laviange Robur?
That peach-brown ring troubled me too; it had sent a chill through me when I’d touched it. His Holiness had said it was a gift from a friend. My memory of the time I’d tried to ask for details was hazy. Honestly, though, the duchess wasn’t someone I particularly liked, but was it really okay to give her that ring? And why had I handed it over so readily in the first place?
No. It didn’t matter. I could never question His Holiness, a man I deeply respected and admired. He possessed such charm. It was specifically because His Holiness trusted my devotion that he’d instructed me personally to deal with Duchess Robur at that time. I’d initially hesitated, but as I spoke with His Holiness I’d found myself agreeing without meaning to.
I had promised the duchess the protection she had asked for on the condition she come to the church with Lady Robur, as His Holiness had directed. That way, the duchess would make some incriminating move against her daughter, making it easier for us to protect Lady Robur.
I assumed His Holiness had been thinking along those lines, but to think he had discerned she was on the verge of divorce... It was truly remarkable.
“Are you listening, Priest Nax?”
I was snapped out of my reverie, diligently praising His Holiness, by Prince Regulus’s voice, cold as an icy chill.
Wait, his vermilion eyes were bloodshot?! What was going on?! What had happened?! Had something happened with Lady Robur, and now he was taking it out on me?
“What are you hiding in the greenhouse?” he asked me.
Did he say greenhouse? A bad feeling washed over me, and my eyebrows instinctively furrowed. “There was...a greenhouse?”
“Yes. Lady Robur went in and vanished.”
Huh?! She went in and vanished?! What was she doing?! Ordinarily, if this happened to a lady, one would simply assume she’d been caught up in something through no fault of her own...but we weren’t talking about any lady, here. This was Lady Robur. She absolutely must have done something!
At first I didn’t even realize I’d dropped the documents I was holding on to the desk. I frantically grabbed the ink bottle before the papers could knock it over. This ink was custom-made, used for official documents, and even magic couldn’t remove the stains. If it had spilled on these papers, I’d have had to rewrite them.
“So, where did you take Lady Robur?” Prince Regulus pressed.
“That sounds rather harsh.” Of course, even if the other party was a prince brimming with murderous intent, as a high priest, I couldn’t let that phrasing slide. “It is my understanding that the greenhouse was originally enclosed by a conditional barrier spell, invisible to all,” I told him. “I myself have never seen it. You seem unaware, since it was your first visit to that garden, but other royals can confirm as much.” Indeed, within the church, His Holiness was the only one who could see that greenhouse. “I haven’t heard any mention of any spell activating there either.”
I understood that that garden had originally been built to commemorate His Holiness the Pope and the late king’s righteous crown prince successfully ending an epidemic that had once spread throughout the capital, brought by a group of refugees.
The royal house and the church, often at odds, had joined hands to achieve one a rare, great feat. When that dreaded epidemic threatened to rage, those two had acted swiftly to prevent its spread. Not only that, they’d invited both the stricken populace and displaced refugees—all on the brink of death—into the gardens, nursing them back to health until the plague subsided.
The righteous crown prince had collaborated with the pope of the time to develop a specific cure for the disease. They’d even established preventive measures and disseminated both the cure and the methods to other nations. It was only natural that this country and its church were now held in high regard by other nations.
As an aside, I’d heard that incredibly evil woman never left her castle once during the epidemic, as if the lives of her subjects meant nothing to her... When I’d asked His Holiness about the truth, though, he’d dismissed that as mere rumor.
Either way, the crown prince, who had been able to act justly in the name of righteousness despite being connected by even half a drop of blood to that evil woman, must have been a man of exceptional character.
“But Lady Robur was indeed trapped by the barrier and vanished from the scene.” The prince’s bloodshot crimson eyes were fixed on me, overflowing with an overwhelming murderous intent that froze my thoughts. I wished he’d stop.
As befitted royalty, Prince Regulus possessed immense magical power. Such individuals unconsciously emitted minute, impossible-to-detect traces of magic when their emotions stirred. When that happened, surrounding creatures would feel an oppressive pressure, freezing in place like small animals stared down by a dangerous beast. I possessed considerable magic power myself, so I rarely sensed this kind of pressure.
Now, however, I felt sweat trickling down my back.
We’d met many times in our respective roles as high priest and member of the royal family, but until recently, we’d never spoken in private. As far as I knew, the first prince always seemed emotionally calm, no matter the situation.
The young first princess and the third prince, who was scheduled to enter the Royal Academy next year, both acted like royalty, showing more composure than one would expect of children their age. Even so, they did still seem like ordinary children sometimes—they still flashed bright, lively smiles, or showed flustered panic when they made some sort of mistake.
The second prince, currently convalescing from illness, had always worn a deliberately refreshing smile.
But the first prince before me had never once shown such expressions. On the contrary, as royalty, he must have been taught to suppress negative emotions completely. Yet here was the prince closest to inheriting the throne, openly displaying such intense feelings for that eccentric lady. Was it because he cared for her so deeply, or because he had no room left for other feelings?
“Find Lady Robur immediately,” he ordered. “She must be somewhere inside this church, at least.”
“Understood. I’ll start by checking the greenhouse in the garden...”
“She’s not there. The residual magic and traces of spells left behind have already been analyzed.”
“But I should also make a direct check...”
“Priest Nax. I said she’s somewhere inside this church. I’ll report to the Robur family.”
Ah. So he wanted us to search the church immediately...
“Damn. Everyone’s interfering with my precious time to win her over... I could stab them all and still not feel satisfied.”
I could understand contacting the lady’s family, but muttering curses under his breath?! Win her over?! Stab who?! Shouldn’t the church hide her if we found her?! This reeked of dangerous criminal intent—like the prince might imprison her?!
Unable to sense my confusion, the prince strode off with a flourish.