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"...And that's how I ended up agreeing to holding an audience with the saint of the
Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria," I finished.
"I see..."
I was in the Jewel Voice Room in Parnam Castle. For some reason, the face of
Saint Maria Euphoria of the Gran Chaos Empire that was projected in the simple
receiver there bore a look of anxiety. Though the Empire was the mightiest of all
mankind's nations, the maneuverings of the Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria must
have concerned her.
It had been one week earlier that I'd received the request for an audience, and
yesterday, I'd received word that the Orthodox Papal State's saint had entered the
country. Tomorrow, I was set to hold an audience with her.
When this situation had arisen, I'd immediately used Hakuya and her younger
sister Jeanne as my intermediaries to arrange for urgent talks with Maria. There was
no way the Lunarian Orthodox saint was coming just for idle chit-chat.
I didn't know what the Papal State's intentions were yet, but whether or not it
was good for my own country, it certainly wouldn't be good for the Empire, which
the Orthodox Papal State was hostile to. That was why I'd wanted to notify Maria in
advance, to strengthen the cooperation between us in our secret alliance. I wouldn't
want her to find out later that I'd met the saint, and to become unduly suspicious as
a result.
I asked Maria, "Does even the great Saint of the Empire have trouble with the
other saint?"
"...Please, don't call me a saint, Great King Friedonia."
"Urkh..."
She'd hit me with the perfect comeback. Yeah, being held up as some sort of
paragon when it wasn't something I'd ever aspired to be was nothing more than a
nuisance. ...I mean, I wasn't a squid, and I wasn't Dedede.
While I was thinking about that, Maria let out an alluring sigh. "I've never met the
Saint of the Orthodox Papal State, so I can't say much about her, but... When the
people of my country just started calling me something on their own, it seems unfair
for her to complain to me about it."
"Didn't the Orthodox Papal State try to find out how you felt about it?" I asked. "If
I were with the Orthodox Papal State, and you had become famous as a saint,
wouldn't it be faster to name you as an official saint rather than try to push my own
candidate?"
"Oh... Now that you mention it, there was talk of maybe doing that. I refused,
though," Maria said indifferently.
"You refused?" I asked, startled.
"Let me answer that with a question of my own. Would you have accepted?"
"Yeah, I'd definitely refuse."
"I know, right?" Maria smiled softly, but with a slight sadness. "What would they
have me do as a saint? Who would I be giving orders to, and about what? The
Orthodox Papal State always finds some just cause, and then they send people off to
war while saying it's defending the weak. I don't want to carry a banner for people
like that."
In those words, I could see the determination of a woman who carried the weight
of a superpower on her shoulders.
"I may be an empress, but I'm still just a human being," Maria said. "Instead of
being worshiped as a saint, I want to remain a person, and to be loved as a person."
To remain a person, and to be loved as a person... huh. Telling her that I agreed
with her, I carved those words deep into my heart.
◇ ◇ ◇
Let me go into some more detail about the Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria.
The headquarters of Lunarian Orthodoxy was a theocracy ruled by the Lunarian
Orthodox Pope, and it had a history that stretched back about as long as Elfrieden's.
It was said that, in the time when the continent was in chaos, the first King of
Elfrieden, who was also a hero, had succeeded in building a country by uniting
various different races. Meanwhile, the Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria made it
through the nation-building process by uniting people with the power of religion.
Their teachings, such as offering salvation to the weak, were based on their
experience from that time.
It seems that Lunarian Orthodoxy had originally been the religion regarding a
race called lunarians, the people of the moon.
Now, about these moon people: It was said that they weren't native to this
continent, and they actually came here from outside. I don't know if the "outside" in
this case was from an island like the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago, or from
another world like mine, but the legends said they had come from the moon floating
up in the sky, and so that was where their name had come from.
The object of the lunarians' worship was the moon that was said to be their
homeland, which they prayed to as the moon god Lunaria. Because Lunaria was
shining in the sky, it was forbidden to construct idols of her. Furthermore, in the
inner sanctuary of the central church in the capital of the Orthodox Papal State,
there was something called the Lunalith, the lunar inscriptions, on which the divine
revelations of the moon were carved.
At first, only lunarians had belonged to the faith, but it had spread to other races
and peoples who'd leaned on it for support in chaotic times, and the number of
adherents had grown. After that, there had been factional strife within the religion,
as well as conflicts between orthodox and heretical interpretations. By the time
Lunarian Orthodoxy had settled into its current form, it had stood next to Mother
Dragon worship as one of the two most popular religions on the continent.
Their doctrines included salvation of the weak and mutual aid.
Those doctrines being as simple as Let's all help one another in times of need
likely helped them to gain new believers. The adherents did as their teachings
encouraged and raised money for those less fortunate, providing food to the poor
among other operations.
I'm sure you can understand from seeing this, but Lunarian Orthodoxy and the
believers themselves were harmless. However, when it came in the form of the
Orthodox Papal State, things suddenly started to smell fishy. From what I had heard,
they used their believers in every country to influence politics, or they incited them
into rebellion.
Let me stress again, there were also harmless believers who were pure in their
devotion to helping the weak. I couldn't clamp down on those together with the
troublemakers, and religion is the sort of thing that burns all the hotter when you
try to stamp it out anyway. No matter how much military power a country had, if
their soldiers were followers of Lunarian Orthodoxy, the moment they became
hostile to the Orthodox Papal State, public order would start to degrade.
As you can see, power tied to religion makes for a dangerous combination.
End of the 3rd month, 1,547th year, Continental Calendar
On this day, the Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria's saint appeared before me.
I see, I thought, looking at her. Yeah, she certainly is a saint, all right...
Now, you might be thinking I ought to have more to say, but there was no word
more suited than "saint" to describe that girl. That was just how much she embodied
her title.
She was around eighteen, give or take a year. She had regular features and
moistly sensual eyes. Her hair was silver, tied back in two tails. Her beauty was such
that Aisha, who was standing next to me, let out a sigh of admiration. Clad in a habit,
she truly looked the part of a holy woman.
Right now, there were very few people in the audience chamber in Parnam
Castle. That was because the Orthodox Papal State had requested the audience be
held with as few people present as possible. The saint from the Orthodox Papal State
would be attending the audience with me alone.
I was seated on the throne with Liscia, the candidate to become my first primary
queen, on my left; and on my right was Aisha, my bodyguard and the candidate to
become my second primary queen; while Prime Minister Hakuya stood in the middle
between the saint and me. If this woman turned out to be an assassin in the guise of
a saint, I had Aisha here, so I would probably be fine.
Well... from what I could see of the beautiful young girl standing on the carpet a
few steps below me, that wasn't going to be a worry. If I hadn't built up my
resistance by being around Liscia and the others all the time, just looking her in the
eye might have been enough to make me fall head over heels for her.
...Hm? I thought. But... what was it?
I thought her appearance was highly attractive, but for some reason I wasn't
interested in her at all. Not only that, when I looked at her, something felt off. I
thought she was a charming girl, but... something was bothering me about her.
Even as I grappled with that off feeling, I worked to address her with as calm of a
tone as I could manage.
"Welcome, saint of the Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria. I am the king, Souma
Kazuya."
When I did, the Lunarian Orthodox saint gave me a polite bow. "It is a pleasure to
meet you, Great King Friedonia. I am the humble Mary Valenti. I am here today as
emissary of the Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria. In place of our pope, I thank you
from the bottom of my heart for granting our request for an audience, even though it
was so sudden."
Mary... Even her name was reminiscent of Maria's. The way she spoke was polite,
too.
I had expected her to be more high-handed, ordering me to believe in their god,
so I was a little underwhelmed. Well... I guess when they're dealing with the king of a
nation, they can't afford to be too overbearing on the first meeting.
When Mary raised her face, she looked me in the eye and said, "Word of your
exploits has reached us in the Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria as well. Having been
summoned as a hero, in a mere year, you got Elfrieden back on its feet, destroyed the
Principality of Amidonia, and incorporated its territory into your own. Truly, a
heroic feat."