Chapter 9
“Lord Abel.”
Abel looked impassively at the old man before him, who wore a gentle smile beneath his long white beard.
Dressed in extravagant robes and draped in an abundance of ornate jewelry, the old man called out to Abel once more in a soft voice.
“Lord Abel.”
Knowing full well that the old man would continue calling his name until he answered, Abel reluctantly replied.
“Yes. What is it?”
“I have heard that there is a certain holy knight for whom you hold particular affection.”
So what?
Abel raised an eyebrow and looked at the old man, who continued speaking with a smile still on his face.
“May I ask why you cherish that holy knight so dearly?”
Abel looked at the old man, who waited for his answer with a benevolent smile.
Though Abel casually referred to him as ‘the old man,’ in truth, he was the one who occupied the highest seat in the Order.
Pope Gregory.
He was the man who had led the Order since before Abel became the ‘Herald of God,’ and despite his kindly appearance, he was black-hearted to the core.
The fact that he had risen to the position of Pope despite possessing only ordinary levels of divine power was due in no small part to his political skill.
When Gregory had first entered the Order, he had expanded his influence with the support of his family. Yet within five years, he had grown powerful enough to support his family instead. One could easily imagine just how rapid his rise had been.
Displaying such explosive growth and greedily amassing power, Gregory eventually ascended to the papacy by the time he reached fifty.
A brilliant future lay before him.
But only a month after Gregory became Pope, Abel appeared.
An infant bearing the Father’s crest upon his forehead.
Until Abel manifested divine power, Gregory had been gathering supporters and gradually narrowing Abel’s standing within the Order.
However, when Abel awakened his divine power, and Gregory who had been present at the time heard the Father’s voice with his own ears, all of those efforts came to nothing.
And what did Gregory do afterward?
He abruptly proclaimed himself Abel’s most ardent supporter and protector.
With the Pope himself speaking to Abel with deference and serving him as the Herald of God, there was no way any faction that doubted Abel could remain.
Thus, from that day onward, Pope Gregory’s support for Abel had continued unbroken.
Yes, up to the present.
Two years later, when Abel underwent the Father’s trial and lost his divine power, the Pope immediately cast him out of the temple and publicly announced to all that Abel had lost his divine power.
Of course, Abel did not describe Gregory as black-hearted merely because he had driven him from the temple.
Abel and Gregory had nothing more than a professional relationship; there was not the slightest trace of personal feeling between them.
They were simply two people who kept each other close out of necessity.
Abel, as the Herald of God, had been useful. But once stripped of that title, Abel was of no use whatsoever to Gregory.
It would have been fortunate enough if all that came of it was the stigma that the Pope had been deceived by a fraud and had made a mockery of the entire temple.
Above all, Gregory had always been a man whose goal was to stand as the undisputed leader of the Order.
Then why, despite knowing all this, did Abel use such negative language to describe him?
Because it was simply the way he was used to speaking about him.
To be precise, those had been the words of the priest who had once raised Abel.
How did he remember those words when he remembered neither the priest’s face nor even his name?
Because the priest had chosen cursing the Pope as Abel’s lullaby.
Until Abel manifested divine power, those who supported him had belonged to the faction opposed to the Pope.
Abel did not know whether they had truly revered him as the ‘Herald of God,’ but the existence of a Herald had the effect of dispersing the authority that would otherwise have been concentrated solely in the Pope.
As such, Abel had been a figure they absolutely needed.
And so they had cared for Abel with utmost devotion, all the while trying to plant hostility toward the Pope in the heart of the young child.
‘They must have wanted me to stand with them in opposing the Pope.’
The problem was that young Abel had not been interested in such matters in the slightest, even as he grew older. And Gregory had acted faster.
The moment Abel manifested divine power, Gregory issued a declaration of support for him and swiftly moved against the opposing faction that had raised Abel.
It had happened literally overnight.
Abel had gone to sleep, and when he woke up, every single person who had raised him had been swept away.
However, Abel had never felt any particular affection for those who had raised him, and since his life had not changed much after Gregory appointed himself Abel’s protector, he felt no resistance toward the change in guardians.
To begin with, Abel was not a person with much ambition or desire. He had never once wished to stand at the pinnacle of power or seize control of the Order.
It was already troublesome enough just receiving things, and now he was supposed to fight the Pope over power as well? Had he been only a little older at the time, he likely would have cut ties with that faction himself.
And Gregory had noticed faster than anyone else the disposition of the young child, who had not changed his expression in the slightest despite everyone around him being replaced.
From that day onward, Abel and Gregory maintained a fairly satisfactory partnership until the day Abel underwent the Father’s trial.
Gregory looked after Abel’s comfort and treated him as the Herald of God, while Abel, as Gregory wished, carried out the minimum duties required of a Herald of God and allowed Gregory to use the weight of his name to expand the Order’s influence.
Which was precisely why Abel had remained silent for so long in response to the Pope’s question.
Gregory’s question had crossed a line.
Had Gregory noticed Abel’s displeasure?
Still smiling, Gregory opened his mouth.
“Ah, I’m saying this not as your protector or as the Pope, but as Felix’s guardian.”
“Felix’s guardian?”
When Abel frowned and looked at him, Gregory studied his expression in silence for a moment before answering.
“Felix’s mother is my niece.”
Discussion
0 CommentsNo comments yet.