Chapter 74
And that change spread from house to house, ripple by ripple, until at last it reached Lekia—the one who had sold the holy water.
***
“What did you say?”
“The purchasers are furious! They demand to know why we sent them plain water!”
At first, when Lekia heard this, he berated his underlings.
“Even if holy water is plentiful, how could anyone mistake it for ordinary water?”
But then.
“High Priest!”
“Disaster!”
Reports of the holy water’s failure began arriving—not from one or two houses, but from nearly every noble family. Lekia’s face grew grave.
“Has the holy water truly gone wrong?”
Had the Pope forgotten to create it?
Such a thing had never happened before.
Yet since the deliveries had not been mislabeled—plain water sent by mistake—the problem clearly lay with the holy water itself. Lekia rose abruptly from his seat.
“Calm our clients for now! And to His Holiness—!”
Ah, but of course he was away on external business.
…No. Wait.
Away now?
A chill of foreboding crept through Lekia.
“……Contact His Holiness. Inform him the holy water seems corrupted.”
“He is traveling. Should we send word to his destination?”
He had departed for the western temple. A message could reach him there.
It was the best the main temple could do—still unaware that Ian had been “attacked.”
“Send word there. And gather intelligence.”
Lekia snapped the order, then strode swiftly toward his chambers. Not his publicly known quarters, but a secret room.
He threw open the door and rushed to a box containing a mirror.
Thud!
“Hmm…….”
If the Pope’s mirror had grown clouded, matters would become exceedingly troublesome.
But the mirror linked to Ian still gleamed.
“His brainwashing magic hasn’t failed, then.”
A genuine mistake, perhaps?
Lekia wavered between doubt and certainty. He would simply await word from the western temple, he told himself.
Then came a bolt from the blue.
“High Priest! The western temple says His Holiness has not yet arrived.”
“What?”
He should have reached it long ago.
“Surely not…….”
An attack so soon after the last?
“Search the route he took! Immediately!”
And so he scrambled, until at last he discovered the traces of Ian’s “attack.”
Around that time, a proclamation rang out across the empire—in the Pope’s name.
“For the peace and tranquility of the empire, to end the temple hierarchy’s monopoly on holy water, for the transformation of this realm—the temple is hereby dissolved.”
The reasoning: wherever Ephina’s grace descended was a temple. How, then, could there exist a separate institution called “the temple”?
And immediately thereafter, the Crown Prince made his own announcement.
“Together with His Holiness the Pope, I shall transform the system by which holy water is distributed. No longer shall it be monopolized by the imperial family, the nobility, and select merchants. Every citizen of the empire shall partake.”
This contradicted the current Emperor’s policies entirely.
In short: the beginning of rebellion.
***
Lekia and the priests who followed him erupted in chaos, as was only natural.
“What nonsense is this?!”
Lekia could not believe the mirror linked to Ian remained so clear. After such treachery, the boy felt no hostility toward him?
Impossible!
This proved something had gone wrong with the brainwashing magic, the brand upon his heart.
Since when?
As he reeled in confusion, events began to race forward.
***
“So His Holiness had a grand design after all.”
“Hush. Watch your tongue.”
Those who spoke thus were priests and holy knights who had been all but cast out from the temple—those who had established small monasteries of their own to spread the divine will. In truth, they had been expelled for opposing Lekia’s policies at the main temple. Officially, they were no longer priests or holy knights of the Ephina Order at all.
But they themselves were unmistakably servants of Ephina.
They had believed that Pope Ian, in league with Lekia, was corrupting the Ephina Order for personal gain. That was why they had left.
But now—was it not so?
If this were true……
“This may be our chance to restore the Ephina Order.”
Throughout the empire, hidden in every corner, the true priests and holy knights of Ephina began to lift their heads.
***
The moment he realized Ian’s mirror had turned black—far too late—Lekia gnashed his teeth.
“What use is this now?!”
The boy must have suffered agonies from the brand upon his heart. How had he defied Lekia’s will?
The question was academic now. Too late.
But then—
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