'Trap, someone put you in a trap, innocent?"
Alfred's voice was a mixture of resentment, nervousness, and fear.
"Catherine, this empire is... I told you. They don't get along with you."
Alfred hurriedly reached out to the grate.
His beautiful face was full of regret.
"I should have told you earlier. At that time, you didn't leave like that, but if you did, you would be like this..."
Instead of holding her outstretched hand, Western Empress nervously pressed her temples.
"What if I didn't leave? I would have followed you and ended up becoming the wife of a village man?"
"..."
"Don't get me wrong, Alfred. If you sympathize with me because I'm like this now, get rid of me."
"Catherine!"
"I don't break down easily. Eventually, I will get out of here, and my son will become the supreme of this empire. But if I were with you, my child wouldn't have been given a title."
Western Empress snorted.
She must have missed the man in front of her at times, and she never regretted leaving the company.
Because his and her dreams were drawing parallels that could never come into contact.
"Go back. If you don't really want to kill me, don't come again."
The Empress closed her eyes.
This one time was enough to get caught up in old emotions and to fall to this point because of those feelings.
Perdiccas II had ruthlessly abandoned her, but he was a better match for her than the man in front of her.
She and the Emperor know all too well that a fleeting alliance is incomparable to a lifetime of power.
***
The central shrine of Sacramontiz.
The place, which always exuded the majesty of the old school with a noble and dignified aura, was gradually losing its former majesty these days.
"Saintess Medea said that she would not attend this great prayer meeting either."
"How many times has this already been? When His Holiness completely revised the history book related to the Shadea tribe not long ago, I thought that the Saint's anger would be relieved..."
"It's all Noman's fault for that stupid person. I didn't know the Saint, and I did such an ignorant trick. Forgetting the duty of a priest and jumping on the bandwagon of power, it's a shame of the old church!"
The voices of the angry priests were a mixture of anger and anxiety.
"Isn't this really abandoned? Is it? If the Saint does not return to the old church forever..."
"Don't say anything ominous!"
A high priest cried out fiercely.
"The Saint is just angry at our behavior. There is no way that the representative of the goddess will abandon our kingdom."
However, he also blurted out the end of his words as if he was not sure.
At that time, the high priest Paul passed by them.
"Oh, over there, the High Priest Paul..."
"Later."
Noticing the faint fragrance in the wind, his fellow high priest frowned.
"This person who is a great minister is drunk in broad daylight, let alone praying...!"
"Hey, I'll put up with him. It's not that I don't understand how he feels right now."
Paul was the one who eagerly waited for the appearance of the Saintess more than anyone else.
When Rachel appeared, he held her up as if it were the first and last blessing from the goddess, and poured out his blind faith.
However, as she turns out to be a "fake" full of evil black magic...
"For the sake of that false Saint, the rudeness and sins committed against Saintess Medea will be revealed to the world, and even he may be stripped of his high priesthood soon. He will not be able to survive without alcohol."
In fact, after the fall of the false Saint Rachel, Paul and his power shrank sharply.
The high priests who followed him had long since left for their hometowns or cooperated with the Pope.
Only Paul broke it like a sausage.
"High Priest. You must stop drinking now. Soon, the central temple gate will close."
A small bar in the back of downtown Sacramontis, not far from the central temple.
Paul sat on his elbows at the table and was helplessly emptying his glass.
"It's curfew time. Moreover, here... High priest. If you are caught by the Holy Country guards again this time, you will be in real trouble."
The Intermediate priest looked embarrassed and urged him repeatedly.
"Why are you looking at me and thinking that you won't be able to be promoted to a senior priest?"
Paul sneered and poured wine on the face of the intermediate priest.
The intermediate priest, who was tired of being scolded, was even insulted by pouring alcohol over him.
Even the little sense of duty that remained in the priest's heart cooled.
"Yes, if you do, I'll come back tomorrow."
"Are you going? Ha, yes, do you know that you didn't know that you were going to change to another ship right away? Go, go!"
Paul, who was left alone in the bar, stumbled and gulped down his drink.
He had been living in abstinence for thirty years, but now he felt like he could understand why people in the world are dependent on alcohol.
"My heart feels like it's on fire. Why, Goddess? Are you forsaking me?"
It has been a long time since the true identity of the fake Saintess Rachel was revealed.
But Paul still couldn't accept this fact.
"Did this Paul misunderstand? Am I really wrong?"
He couldn't believe it. He really couldn't admit it.
Saintess Medea is the "real" representative chosen by the goddess.
The history of the sacred central temple was also incorporated into the history of the filthy heresy.
"No. It can't be... I couldn't be wrong. I'm sure that child is..."
In front of his eyes, Rachel, who was as delicate as a flower, and Medea, who glared at him fiercely like an iron beast that met in winter, came to mind repeatedly.
It was when he dropped his head in pain.
Drreuk. The chair dragged, and someone sat quietly opposite him.
It was a man who pressed his hood deeply.
"Oh my God, how can the priest of God be so distressed?"
A cup was held out in front of Paul.
The man's red eyes flashed sharply under the dim light of the lantern.
After a while, pitch darkness fell on the window of the bar.
The interior was empty, and now the only guests were Paul's table, and the owner was nowhere to be seen.
"...I really. I still can't accept it."
There were far more bottles of wine on Paul's table than before.
"His Holiness has put Rachel in the pitch black layer without saying a word, and without any intention of finding out further. He even accepted the unclean heretics as the ancestors of the Holy Kingdom."
He slammed his glass.
"It's absolutely wrong. Everyone is now... It means that they cannot see the truth in front of them. Everyone in the central temple..."
"Even the martyr Barter shouted the truth that only he could see, but no one believed it."
The man poured the drink into an empty glass and said bluntly.
The man was Jason.
"Perhaps, the trial that the High Priest is going through now is a test for the Goddess to distinguish those who see the truth."
"Listening to the Grand Duke's words, I feel like my frustration is finally relieved a little."
Paul's red, bloodshot eyes sparkled.
The cracked voice was bursting with emotion and anger at the same time.
"Really, I can't talk to anyone in the central temple about this. When I bring up the name of Saintess Medea, he looks at me like an enemy, and I..."
The glass shook at the vibration of his fist slamming on the table.
The alcohol inside splashed out.
"That ordeal... How could His Holiness not notice? How could the eyes of the one at the top of the old school have become so dull?"
"The current Pope must be far from God's will."
Like Jason scratching an itch, Paul said what he wanted to hear
"Yes, that's why. So... It was only visible to me."
Paul snorted and muttered to himself.
At that moment, Jason changed the glass under his sleeve.
Perhaps because he was so happy to meet someone who sympathized with him for the first time in a long time, Paul didn't notice it at all.
"Yes, that's why I also hurried to the central temple here. Be careful."
In the new drinking glass, a faint black smoke was gently shimmering.
"My country, Katzen, has been in turmoil since the appearance of the Princess of Valdina. I couldn't just watch anymore, so I thought I should do something about it."
"I thought you would. She wasn't a Saintess. I was right. I was right!"
Paul gulped down the wine from the reversed glass and slammed the glass on the table.
"Valdina's monster is now trying to drive this continent into flames!"
When he referred to Medea as a monster, Jason's eyes became very cold.
However, contrary to his cold eyes, his smile remained the same, and his voice was still soft.
"The clear high priest immediately grasps the whole story."
"I also heard the news of you, Grand Duke. The black demon carried the Princess's power on her back and roamed wildly, making your conditions even more difficult."
Paul said that the two were not oracles, but were wrapped up in an ominous relationship.
They were both evil and even cursed at each other for being the perfect opponents.
But Paul did not realize that the words he had spoken for Jason were driven like nails into his heart.
"What is more important than the trivial bad relationship between the two of them is to somehow correct the central temple, which is now deteriorating."
Jason, who managed to maintain his composure, continued.
"High Priest, have you ever thought about it? From the moment the dragon's severed throat fell on the central temple, I wondered if all these amazing events happened in an instant."
"Wait, what do you mean..."
Paul's eyes flinched.
"...The curse of the evil dragon blinded everyone. You guessed it, didn't you?"
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