A woman who covers herself with filth and claims to be the priest's bride.
I was very suspicious, but I couldn't just throw out someone who seemed like he might collapse at any moment without looking into the whole story.
Especially, since Ryan was also a member of the Shartin tribe, he seemed to want to help the woman.
I first secretly brought the woman to the Rhineland mansion.
“My name is Tia.”
There were many questions I wanted to ask on the way today, but Tia looked so tired and anxious that she could only barely get me her full name.
“I think I’d better wash first.”
“I think so too. Don’t worry about a change of clothes, Tia.”
As I and Ryan were about to take Tia straight to the bathroom, we encountered Illuor, who had heard them coming in and came out to greet them.
Illuor looked puzzled at the grumpy woman standing between Jme and Ryan.
“Miss Harrington, you’re early today. But who is she...?”
As soon as he saw Tia's face, he smiled as if he was hallucinating.
“Luna?”
Luna Lani.
The woman said her name was Tia. Could she have been fooling me?
I was very suspicious, but I couldn't just throw out someone who seemed like he might collapse at any moment without looking into the whole story.
Especially, since Ryan was also a member of the Shartin tribe, he seemed to want to help the woman.
I first secretly brought the woman to the Rhineland mansion.
“My name is Tia.”
There were many questions I wanted to ask on the way today, but Tia looked so tired and anxious that she could only barely get me her full name.
“I think I’d better wash first.”
“I think so too. Don’t worry about a change of clothes, Tia.”
As I and Ryan were about to take Tia straight to the bathroom, we encountered Illuor, who had heard them coming in and came out to greet them.
Illuor looked puzzled at the grumpy woman standing between Jme and Ryan.
“Miss Harrington, you’re early today. But who is she...?”
As soon as he saw Tia's face, he smiled as if he was hallucinating.
“Luna?”
Luna Lani.
The woman said her name was Tia. Could she have been fooling me?
My eyes flashed with suspicion, and Tia tilted her head and answered.
“Do you know my mother?”
The godmother had a daughter. Her name was Luna.
Luna was very dissatisfied with the treatment of the Shartins and was very hot-tempered.
She wanted to change the world and was lured by the Followers into founding an empire for the Shartins.
If she were alive, she would have been the same age as Illuor, and if she had given birth to a child, she would have been exactly Tia's age.
“Are you, are you Luna’s daughter?”
The godmother touched Tia's face with trembling hands. Tia's eyes filled with tears as she obediently submitted her face to her touch.
'They do look alike.'
Judith looked back and forth between the godmother and Tia's faces, then nodded.
'How did this fate come about?'
The woman who ran away from the followers is the godmother's granddaughter.
Although Ryan didn't recognize Luna because he only saw her when she was very young, several older family members, including Illuor, immediately recognized Luna's face in Tia.
“I heard I had a grandmother, but I didn’t know I would be able to meet you.”
After taking a bath and eating a light meal, Tia sobbed in her godmother's arms.
“Tia, I know you might be out of your mind, but you need to explain to these people what happened.”
Illuor said as he handed each of the godmothers and Tia a handkerchief. As Luna's daughter, she was naturally family to the godmother and her party, but how could the same be said of Judith and Erne?
To them, it was just another family member. And a very dangerous one at that, one who had run away from the Followers.
“You introduced yourself as the priest’s bride. Are you married?”
Tia shook her head.
“No, but if I had stayed there longer, I would have married that horrible bastard.”
Tia, who had wiped away her tears with a handkerchief, cleared her throat and turned to face Judith and Erne.
“I don’t know where to begin. You already know that our Followers, no, the Followers, are obsessed with pure blood, right?”
Pureblood refers to someone who has been a Shartin for generations. However, how many years has it been since the Shartin entered the empire and settled there?
No matter how hard the Followers flew and crawled, finding a pure-blooded person without even a drop of imperial blood was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
So they called a person who had copper-colored skin and amber eyes and whose parents were both Shartin people a pureblood.
And they married the purebloods to continue the pureblood blood.
“Only purebloods born that way can become candidates for the priesthood.”
Tia was also one of the purebloods created. However, instead of becoming a candidate for the priesthood, she was raised as a priest's bride.
Her role was one: to give birth to the priest's child, a pure-blood baby whose grandparents and parents were both Shartins and raise them to become the next high priest.
“But I didn’t want to marry him.”
Tia's teeth chattered as she remembered the boy. All the Followers treated Tia as the priest's bride and the mistress of the Followers.
However, the boy treated Tia like a slave. She did chores as usual and even tried to conduct strange experiments.
What could be more terrible than marrying a man like that?
It was fortunate that the boy was only eighteen, too young to get married.
“How did you escape from there? If they had planned to make you a priest’s bride, they wouldn’t have let you go so easily.”
Tia's eyes welled up with tears again at the godmother's worried question. However, she bravely answered without crying.
“That’s... also thanks to Sir Erne.”
The timing was indeed right. While they were busy preparing for the move, Erne and the Imperial Knights discovered a contact point.
The priest's attention was entirely on Erne, while the others paid attention to the movements of the knights of the rearguard searching the area around the contact point.
“The contact point and the headquarters are quite close. They kept sending reconnaissance missions in that direction because they were worried that they might run into the Imperial Knights while moving.”
“Ha, so you’re saying you missed it even though you got all the way to the main office.”
Erne let out a laugh as if he was really angry, and motioned for Tia to continue.
“Anyway, while everyone was busy, I opened a solitary Magic jar.”
The Solitary magic jar was a weapon and a treasure for the Followers. It was passed down from generation to generation, and countless Followers risked their lives to protect it.
That priest uses such things for his personal glory and wealth accumulation. In any case, the solitary magic jar was stored in the basement where the magic of the barrier was drawn.
There was always a guard in front of the basement, but Tia was lucky enough to find another door leading into the basement. Tia sneaked into the basement and chose one of the doors that would be very difficult to open.
It was a troublesome jar, as the moment it was opened, not only would the poison inside burst out, but the poison that had been trapped inside would also oxidize and disperse into the air.
Moreover, the poisonous insect inside was a very small, agile, winged insect.
“What is that?”
“It’s a poisonous mosquito.”
It was a very effective insect for assassination, as it was a mosquito with poison that caused death after several days of suffering if bitten.
The problem was that when mosquitoes were free to attack anyone without any control, they would attack anyone.
“Then you would have been in danger too, Tia.”
“But if not now, then I don’t know when I’ll have another chance to escape.”
Tia simply opened the lid and ran without looking back. Her destination was Erne Rhineland.
He thought that Erne, the enemy of the priest, would accept her with the information.
To meet Erne, she had to go to the capital, but Tia, who was born and raised in a den of Followers, had no identification.
At that moment, the upper procession entering the capital caught Tia's eye.
“Did you receive it from above?”
“No, I didn’t think they would accept me, so I snuck inside a wagon and hid. Inside the wagon with the pigs...”
Even the soldiers inspecting the capital did not look closely into the smelly pigsty.
Tia, who had safely entered the capital despite being covered in pig excrement, found an incense shop by asking around.
The process wasn't easy, but in the end, Tia met Judith and Erne. She even met her maternal grandmother, so the hardship wasn't in vain.
“I heard that a priest would be of high status among the Followers. Do you have any idea where they will move to?”
Tia nodded at Ern's question.
“Where are he?”
“...”
However, Thea seemed embarrassed and kept her mouth shut when asked by Judith.
“You know, but you can’t answer?”
“...”
“Is it forbidden?”
Tia nodded slightly as if Judith's guess was correct. They all sighed.
If it had been banned, it would have been virtually impossible to provide any useful information.
Tia watched Judith closely for fear of being kicked out, and the godmother and family were too shameless to bring themselves to ask her to accept Tia.
“Don’t you know how to break our gold ban?”
At that moment, Erne opened his mouth.
“The purple-feathered medium or something told you.”
Judith sank to her knees at Erne's words. If only the taboo could be lifted, there was no source of information more reliable than Tia. Right now, Judith needed even the smallest bit of information about the priest.
“That’s right. How about we try to release Tia’s ban with that? I can’t release it, but I’ll help you with anything you need.”
It took quite some time to break the ban.
Judith spared no material support needed to break the gold. In the meantime, Tia helped with making incense and household chores. Erne and Judith decided to hide Tia's existence for the time being.
“I heard that the owner of Ouz was caught by the police and still can’t get out?”
“I think I was tricked by the Chief there too, but I was wrong.”
Ouz's superior knew the priest boy as a medium and an apothecary and had never actually met him.
The transaction with the priest boy was claimed to have been handled by Chief Omar.
Even though Omar made the same statement, the security forces did not release Ouz.
In this situation, there was no benefit to making Tia's existence known. Even if the Ouz upper house was released without charges, Tia was one of the Followers, so punishment was inevitable.
Judith wanted to spare the godmother's blood relative, Thea, from suffering. And Judith had to be the first to know about the priesthood that was about to come out of her mouth.
“Miss Harrington, Sir Erne, you are here. Come quickly. The ban has been lifted.”
Previous Next
“Do you know my mother?”
***
The godmother had a daughter. Her name was Luna.
Luna was very dissatisfied with the treatment of the Shartins and was very hot-tempered.
She wanted to change the world and was lured by the Followers into founding an empire for the Shartins.
If she were alive, she would have been the same age as Illuor, and if she had given birth to a child, she would have been exactly Tia's age.
“Are you, are you Luna’s daughter?”
The godmother touched Tia's face with trembling hands. Tia's eyes filled with tears as she obediently submitted her face to her touch.
'They do look alike.'
Judith looked back and forth between the godmother and Tia's faces, then nodded.
'How did this fate come about?'
The woman who ran away from the followers is the godmother's granddaughter.
Although Ryan didn't recognize Luna because he only saw her when she was very young, several older family members, including Illuor, immediately recognized Luna's face in Tia.
“I heard I had a grandmother, but I didn’t know I would be able to meet you.”
After taking a bath and eating a light meal, Tia sobbed in her godmother's arms.
“Tia, I know you might be out of your mind, but you need to explain to these people what happened.”
Illuor said as he handed each of the godmothers and Tia a handkerchief. As Luna's daughter, she was naturally family to the godmother and her party, but how could the same be said of Judith and Erne?
To them, it was just another family member. And a very dangerous one at that, one who had run away from the Followers.
“You introduced yourself as the priest’s bride. Are you married?”
Tia shook her head.
“No, but if I had stayed there longer, I would have married that horrible bastard.”
Tia, who had wiped away her tears with a handkerchief, cleared her throat and turned to face Judith and Erne.
“I don’t know where to begin. You already know that our Followers, no, the Followers, are obsessed with pure blood, right?”
Pureblood refers to someone who has been a Shartin for generations. However, how many years has it been since the Shartin entered the empire and settled there?
No matter how hard the Followers flew and crawled, finding a pure-blooded person without even a drop of imperial blood was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
So they called a person who had copper-colored skin and amber eyes and whose parents were both Shartin people a pureblood.
And they married the purebloods to continue the pureblood blood.
“Only purebloods born that way can become candidates for the priesthood.”
Tia was also one of the purebloods created. However, instead of becoming a candidate for the priesthood, she was raised as a priest's bride.
Her role was one: to give birth to the priest's child, a pure-blood baby whose grandparents and parents were both Shartins and raise them to become the next high priest.
“But I didn’t want to marry him.”
Tia's teeth chattered as she remembered the boy. All the Followers treated Tia as the priest's bride and the mistress of the Followers.
However, the boy treated Tia like a slave. She did chores as usual and even tried to conduct strange experiments.
What could be more terrible than marrying a man like that?
It was fortunate that the boy was only eighteen, too young to get married.
“How did you escape from there? If they had planned to make you a priest’s bride, they wouldn’t have let you go so easily.”
Tia's eyes welled up with tears again at the godmother's worried question. However, she bravely answered without crying.
“That’s... also thanks to Sir Erne.”
The timing was indeed right. While they were busy preparing for the move, Erne and the Imperial Knights discovered a contact point.
The priest's attention was entirely on Erne, while the others paid attention to the movements of the knights of the rearguard searching the area around the contact point.
“The contact point and the headquarters are quite close. They kept sending reconnaissance missions in that direction because they were worried that they might run into the Imperial Knights while moving.”
“Ha, so you’re saying you missed it even though you got all the way to the main office.”
Erne let out a laugh as if he was really angry, and motioned for Tia to continue.
“Anyway, while everyone was busy, I opened a solitary Magic jar.”
The Solitary magic jar was a weapon and a treasure for the Followers. It was passed down from generation to generation, and countless Followers risked their lives to protect it.
That priest uses such things for his personal glory and wealth accumulation. In any case, the solitary magic jar was stored in the basement where the magic of the barrier was drawn.
There was always a guard in front of the basement, but Tia was lucky enough to find another door leading into the basement. Tia sneaked into the basement and chose one of the doors that would be very difficult to open.
It was a troublesome jar, as the moment it was opened, not only would the poison inside burst out, but the poison that had been trapped inside would also oxidize and disperse into the air.
Moreover, the poisonous insect inside was a very small, agile, winged insect.
“What is that?”
“It’s a poisonous mosquito.”
It was a very effective insect for assassination, as it was a mosquito with poison that caused death after several days of suffering if bitten.
The problem was that when mosquitoes were free to attack anyone without any control, they would attack anyone.
“Then you would have been in danger too, Tia.”
“But if not now, then I don’t know when I’ll have another chance to escape.”
Tia simply opened the lid and ran without looking back. Her destination was Erne Rhineland.
He thought that Erne, the enemy of the priest, would accept her with the information.
To meet Erne, she had to go to the capital, but Tia, who was born and raised in a den of Followers, had no identification.
At that moment, the upper procession entering the capital caught Tia's eye.
“Did you receive it from above?”
“No, I didn’t think they would accept me, so I snuck inside a wagon and hid. Inside the wagon with the pigs...”
Even the soldiers inspecting the capital did not look closely into the smelly pigsty.
Tia, who had safely entered the capital despite being covered in pig excrement, found an incense shop by asking around.
The process wasn't easy, but in the end, Tia met Judith and Erne. She even met her maternal grandmother, so the hardship wasn't in vain.
“I heard that a priest would be of high status among the Followers. Do you have any idea where they will move to?”
Tia nodded at Ern's question.
“Where are he?”
“...”
However, Thea seemed embarrassed and kept her mouth shut when asked by Judith.
“You know, but you can’t answer?”
“...”
“Is it forbidden?”
Tia nodded slightly as if Judith's guess was correct. They all sighed.
If it had been banned, it would have been virtually impossible to provide any useful information.
Tia watched Judith closely for fear of being kicked out, and the godmother and family were too shameless to bring themselves to ask her to accept Tia.
“Don’t you know how to break our gold ban?”
At that moment, Erne opened his mouth.
“The purple-feathered medium or something told you.”
Judith sank to her knees at Erne's words. If only the taboo could be lifted, there was no source of information more reliable than Tia. Right now, Judith needed even the smallest bit of information about the priest.
“That’s right. How about we try to release Tia’s ban with that? I can’t release it, but I’ll help you with anything you need.”
***
It took quite some time to break the ban.
Judith spared no material support needed to break the gold. In the meantime, Tia helped with making incense and household chores. Erne and Judith decided to hide Tia's existence for the time being.
“I heard that the owner of Ouz was caught by the police and still can’t get out?”
“I think I was tricked by the Chief there too, but I was wrong.”
Ouz's superior knew the priest boy as a medium and an apothecary and had never actually met him.
The transaction with the priest boy was claimed to have been handled by Chief Omar.
Even though Omar made the same statement, the security forces did not release Ouz.
In this situation, there was no benefit to making Tia's existence known. Even if the Ouz upper house was released without charges, Tia was one of the Followers, so punishment was inevitable.
Judith wanted to spare the godmother's blood relative, Thea, from suffering. And Judith had to be the first to know about the priesthood that was about to come out of her mouth.
“Miss Harrington, Sir Erne, you are here. Come quickly. The ban has been lifted.”
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