"...You're up early, Head Maid," I said.
"I am the princess' personal maid, after all." With that answer, which I wasn't
sure qualified as one, Serina gave me an elegant bow.
I thought, Oh, yeah, she's definitely having fun with this... but I knew if I said
anything, there would be three times as many verbal daggers coming my way, so I
stayed silent. It was better to let sleeping sadists lie. If you could turn a blind eye to
her bad habit for bullying cute girls, she was extremely competent at her work.
"Serina, Carla... Take care of Liscia and the room for me," I said.
"Understood," Serina said. "Let's get to it, Carla."
"Y-Yes, ma'am!"
Serina and Carla bowed to me and then entered the room. A moment later, from
inside...
"S-Serina?! I'm still naked here!" Liscia shouted.
"We need to clean up, so please, get out of bed already. If you don't, I will have
Carla carry you out of this room, bed and all."
"Hold on, Carla! Don't lift the bed!"
"...Sorry," Carla said. "If I defy the head maid, I'll be humiliated myself later..."
"Eeeek!"
...Well, I heard those voices and a lot of banging.
Okay, Liscia. Live strong, I thought.
"Now, then..." I slapped my own cheeks. It was time for a change of mindset. With
my relationship with Liscia having grown deeper, I felt like I needed to be ever more
determined.
In order to defend my beloved family, I was going to put one over on the
theocracy.
"Well, off to scheme with Hakuya, I guess."
I skipped off down the corridor.
◇ ◇ ◇
—Days later.
I had sent a message to Saint Mary who was staying at the Lunarian church in
Parnam to inform her that I would be holding another meeting with her. Mary had
responded that she would come to the castle at once.
And so, once again, Mary and I faced one another in Parnam Castle's audience
chamber. It was an audience with the same faces, and standing in the same places, as
the last one. I hadn't been able to focus during the previous one because something
had felt off about Mary, but now that I knew the trick to it, I could look at her with a
clear head.
Seeing her again after a few days, Mary was still beautiful, and still doll-like. I
exchanged brief pleasantries with her, then decided to get straight down to business.
"Now then, regarding the matter of making Lunarian Orthodoxy our state
religion..."
She waited silently.
"If you can accept two conditions, I don't mind doing it."
"Conditions...?" Mary tilted her head to the side questioningly.
I answered her in as light a tone as I could manage. "Oh, it's nothing too difficult.
The first is that you not make me the Holy King of Lunarian Orthodoxy. I don't want
you one-sidedly starting to call me that, either. I want a firm agreement on this
point."
"Why is that? If you became our holy king, you would stand above adherents of
Lunarian Orthodoxy in every country, you know?" Mary looked perplexed.
I shook my head with a wry smile. "That's because I'm not an adherent of
Lunarian Orthodoxy myself. Even if someone like me was suddenly named holy king,
I'm sure there would be resistance from the believers. I'm sorry, but I'll have to
decline the position."
"Oh... I see."
Though Mary acted disappointed, she meekly backed down on the point.
Of course, the reason I'd given her was just a front. I had no desire to be their
holy king, or anything like that, and I couldn't let us regress into a country where the
church controlled education, either. My goal here was to prevent the Orthodox Papal
State from naming me holy king and making me carry the flag in their conflict with
the Empire.
"Now, as for the second condition... I'll have Prime Minister Hakuya explain this
one," I said.
Hakuya brought a hand to his chest and bowed before taking one step forward.
"Allow me to explain. The other condition we are presenting is that we want to
invite a bishop from the Orthodox Papal State to come here and manage the
believers of Lunarian Orthodoxy within the country."
"Of course we can do that," said Mary. "I had intended to come here myself."
Hakuya replied, "Oh, we could never ask that of you," and waved his hand. "We
have no desire to impose on a saint. We have a specific individual we would like to
invite here as our bishop."
"You have someone you want to invite here? Who might that be?"
"Bishop Souji Lester."
Mary was silent. The moment she heard the name, her brow furrowed just a little.
I only saw it for that one instant, but it was a look of revulsion. It was the first
human reaction I had seen from doll-like Mary.
Mary asked Hakuya with a slightly stiff expression, "Sir Hakuya, are you... aware
of what kind of man he is?"
"Yes. I have heard that he is very sharp."
"No, he is just cunning," said Mary. "I cannot say... that I would recommend him.
He extorts large amounts of money from the believers, drinks heavily, toys with
women, and engages in many other such indecent behaviors. Normally, as a man of
the cloth, he would have sworn off such desires, but that man is mired in the secular
and does as he pleases. His Holiness and the cardinals view his behavior as an issue.
I, myself... also find him unlikable."
It was a firm rejection. He was a man that even this doll-like girl would hate, it
seemed. Now I was interested.
"How did a man like that become a bishop?" I asked.
Mary's lips drew taut. There was a short pause before she opened them again to
say, "This is... an embarrassing thing to talk about, but we in the priesthood are
supported by the donations of the followers. There were cardinals who defended
Bishop Souji because, regardless of his methods, he was able to bring in large
donations..."
Ah... I was starting to see how it worked.
Most likely, this Souji was paying bribes to a number of the cardinals. Even if
their saint wasn't, the upper echelons of the church felt very human, and very rotten.
That was why even if they wanted to remove him, they couldn't.
"However," Mary said to Hakuya, "there are now voices in the church saying that
he should be expelled. I believe it is only a matter of time until he is
excommunicated. Do you want to invite a man like that here?"
Even as she looked at him with clear opposition in her eyes, Hakuya never broke
his quiet smile. "That sounds just perfect to me. If you mean to expel him, we will
take custody of him here in our country. His Majesty is quite fond of gathering
talented personnel, you see, and he has told me that if there is a bishop like that, he
wants to meet him."
I had no recollection of ever saying such a thing. I didn't know a thing about this
Souji, or even what his name was, after all. However, I had been told in advance that
this Souji would be a key player in Hakuya's plot, so I nodded as if it were true.
Mary looked at Hakuya with apparent displeasure. "If he is to come here as a
bishop, that would place him at the head of all believers of Lunarian Orthodoxy in
this country. I cannot see how he would be up to the task."
"If he is insufficient, we can simply have another person come at a later date,"
said Hakuya with a chillingly cold look in his eyes. "If he does not live up to our
standards, I would not object to disposing of him personally."
Wow... Hakuya sure had one villainous look on his face. He had a clever-looking
face to begin with, so the cold smile fit him well. Honestly, he was pretty scary.
Mary was overwhelmed by his intensity for a moment, and then found herself
unable to say any more. "...Very well. If, under any circumstance, he is unable to
come, I will take his place."
Hakuya inclined his head. "Yes, if that happens, please do."
The two of them looked straight at one another, each trying to suss out the
other's motives. The doll and the villain stared one another down, and not only did
sparks seem to fly, a chilling air descended on the whole room.
This air was off-putting for both Liscia and me, and Aisha, who wasn't used to
this sort of atmosphere, looked a little sick. Regardless, that was everything settled.
To summarize what had been decided here, it would come down to these three
points:
The Kingdom of Friedonia would accept Lunarian Orthodoxy as its state religion.
The Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria would not name me holy king.
Souji Lester would be dispatched by the Orthodox Papal State as a bishop.
With the matter settled, Mary bid us farewell and departed. She hadn't been able
to make me into their holy king, but she had been able to get Lunarian Orthodoxy
adopted as our state religion, so it was a decent result for her. I figured that with
this, she ought to return to the Orthodox Papal State quietly.
I waited for the report that she had left the castle, and then I was finally able to
feel a little less tense.
"Whew... Do you think that more or less handled it?" I asked.
"Most likely," said Hakuya. "The saint believes that she has accomplished
something, I'm sure."
Then he laughed.
Just as planned... was what Hakuya's laugh seemed to say.
I shrugged and told him, "Hakuya, you've still got your villain face on."
"...Pardon me," he said, and resumed his usual nonchalant expression.
I asked him, "So, have you made preparations for welcoming that bishop, Souji, or
whatever his name was?"
"Yes. The Black Cats led by Sir Kagetora have already infiltrated the Orthodox
Papal State. I am sure they have already accompanied Sir Souji to a place near the
border. I assume that they will have brought him back to the royal capital within a
few days."
Looking at the intelligence-gathering ability he'd demonstrated by knowing
about the bishop named Souji, as well as the preparedness he'd shown by taking
steps to protect him, this was the sort of meticulous attention to detail that I had
come to expect from our Black-robed Prime Minister.
"But did you really need to send the Black Cats to escort him?" I asked.
"From the saint's reaction, it seems they are hesitant to dispatch someone who
seems likely to embarrass their country as a bishop," Hakuya said. "In order to
secure our promise that we would recognize Lunarian Orthodoxy as our state
religion, she accepted our conditions here, but once she returned home, there was
the risk that she would renege on them for 'some reason.' For instance, we might be
told that Souji was injured in an accident, and so they'd be sending someone else... or
some other such story. That's why I decided to have the Black Cats go and bring him
back first."
Injured in an accident... huh. In my mind's eye, I could imagine the Orthodox
Papal State doing it. There was no guarantee he wouldn't "go missing" into a prison,
or "die of a sudden illness" that was actually an assassination, either. If he had taken
that much into account, I had to hand it to Hakuya.
"Honestly, I'm impressed you can scheme as much as you do," I said teasingly.
Liscia, who was standing next to me, gave me a cold look. "You're quite the
schemer yourself, aren't you, Souma? I mean, in a way, you're deceiving that poor,
innocent saint."
"Don't make me sound so bad," I said. "I haven't told her any lies."
There had been no lie when I'd told her I would make Lunarian Orthodoxy our
state religion.
"However, we might be working under different definitions of what a 'state
religion' is," I added.
"Honestly... It's all in how you word things." From the exasperated look Liscia
gave me, I must have had a pretty villainous look on my face, too.