Chapter 169 - What God Is

Garnet asked Olivia with wary eyes.

“What do you think Regent Ferda will think if he learns of this?”

Ferda had suffered because of this scandal.

He had even been stressed, worried he might inflict some absurd wound on Valdrova.

Unable to resolve it alone, he had consulted Olivia about the matter.

That meant he trusted Olivia.

And yet the source of the scandal was Olivia herself.

If Ferda learned that the person he had trusted was the very one who had stabbed him in the back, he would be angrier than ever before.

“I suppose there would be a problem with our trust.”

Olivia smiled as she brushed her hair behind her ear.

She was calm, not at all like someone afraid of the consequences.

“But you won’t tell him, will you?”

Even if one held a weakness, if it could not be used, it was no weakness at all.

Olivia already had something to rely on.

“Because the first and final contract we made stands higher than your loyalty.”

“...”

“If you break that contract, you will dishonor your ancestors, and that act will completely shatter your organization’s credibility.”

The first and final contract.

Garnet still remembered it vividly.

It had happened five years ago.

Though she had been a novice leader, Garnet was still a coolheaded businesswoman, and she led the organization skillfully.

Black Bandana became known to many from the shadows, and proved that it was accumulating information no one else could ever catch up to.

It was an ability that naturally tempted those in power.

Waldemar Gold, too, had used every sort of trick to bring Black Bandana under him.

But Black Bandana always made examples of those who tried to seize them.

They showed that Black Bandana was an organization that could never be touched.

Except for one person.

The one who shook Garnet was neither a powerful figure well known to the world nor an ambitious schemer.

A young girl like a doll, with blond hair and blue eyes.

To the world, she was a single flower, a girl whose future was highly anticipated.

It was Olivia Arken.

When Garnet first faced her, chills ran down her spine.

She possessed mature, cynical eyes no girl should have had.

The words that came from her tiny, adorable mouth were,

[“I know that you Black Bandana were once the Empire’s shadow agency long ago.”]

It was a deadly secret even the current Emperor did not properly know.

[“So let us make a deal. Because, like you, I only want this Empire to collapse.”]

That was how the first and final contract with Black Bandana had been formed.

That contract would end only when either the Princess or Black Bandana died.

“Besides, it benefits you more if my relationship with the Regent is maintained, does it not?”

“...”

“Who would benefit if that relationship collapsed over such a trivial thing?”

“Stop acting so smug and arrogant.”

Garnet lowered her voice.

“I have been watching your actions over the past several days. You provoked Waldemar’s jealousy, and you tried to manipulate Regent Ferda subtly. How long do you think I will overlook that?”

Because she had watched from afar as a third party, she had been able to examine the situation more objectively and more closely.

Even so, Olivia did not waver.

“Grand Duke Gold’s jealousy was necessary. I had to show Regent Ferda that man’s ugly side so he would not be deceived by his words.”

She admitted that she had provoked his jealousy.

“But I have never tested Regent Ferda, not even once.”

“What a lie...”

“I mean it.”

Olivia said it flatly.

But Garnet still could not believe her.

“Are you saying you truly intended to marry Waldemar Gold?”

“Yes, of course.”

At the answer, so perfectly clear, Garnet lost her words.

As the head of an intelligence organization, Garnet dug up information from everywhere.

She could also distinguish truth from lies through the gestures and movements people made while facing her.

That was why she was certain.

Those words were unmistakably sincere.

Garnet knew what Waldemar was to Olivia.

It would not have been an exaggeration to say she had lived to hate and despise him, to drive a knife into his heart.

She despised her own bloodline just as much, and she was a woman who would choose death over living as the Emperor’s tool.

There was no way she would ever become the consort of her enemy.

Garnet could not believe that thought had changed.

And so she became curious.

“What value does this man named Ferda... have to you?”

If her thinking had changed, then that person named Ferda was the cause.

Was he worth that much?

At Garnet’s question, Olivia answered.

“Do you... believe in God?”

It was an abrupt question, but Garnet answered.

“I do not.”

“When I was young, I believed in God. I was a devout believer of the Order of Altes. The doctrines of Altes were so warm and beautiful. I believed that my mother, who passed away after giving birth to me... must have been wrapped in his light and gone to the world of angels.”

She folded both hands over her chest and smiled peacefully.

“But... when my sister died, I woke up.”

Her smile shattered to pieces.

“While my sister threw herself from the railing and the adults were making political calculations, do you know what I did?”

“...”

“I went to the cathedral and prayed. According to a saint’s miracle, his daughter prayed faithfully to Altes and revived in a week.”

Olivia recalled that time.

That young girl offered prayers so devout she forgot to eat and even forgot to tend to her hair.

“So I believed that if I, too, prayed hard for a week... my sister in heaven would return with baby angels beyond the cathedral’s stained glass, just like in the myth.”

The young girl’s dream seemed to come closer to realization with each passing day.

“But no such thing happened.”

Reality was always cruel.

“Altes did not answer.”

Even though her lovely hair became so tangled and damaged that half of it had to be cut away,

Even though the legs she had knelt on turned blue and nearly went numb,

Even though that little child felt pain too great for her to bear, Altes did not answer.

That day, the rose-colored glasses of innocence the girl had worn shattered.

An ugly world was revealed, and the more she dug, the more she realized how filthy the world she had lived in truly was.

“If one does good, one should be rewarded, and if one does evil, one should be punished. But God has never once punished this Empire. That was when I realized it.”

Words a Saintess must never utter.

“That there is no God.”

“Those are hardly words I would expect from an apprentice Saintess who has reached the 4th Circle.”

“I know.”

Olivia placed both hands over her lower abdomen and wore a happy expression.

“I, too... wondered if I had to give up on my dream.”

The pulse dwelling within her lower abdomen.

No matter how faithful she appeared, Altes did not choose Olivia.

“Then, Lord Ferda came.”

It was Ferda who had raised her status to apprentice Saintess.

“He even... refused to give up on me in the end, even if it meant telling me to sacrifice myself.”

Her mind filled with the man named Ferda.

When she politely clasped her hands, Garnet witnessed something unbelievable.

‘Is that... a halo?’

The proof of faith said to appear only on saints.

When she tried to observe again, wondering if she had seen it wrong, it vanished as if it had been a lie.

“God is... a being who answers my faith.”

Altes did not answer every faith.

Ferda always answered Olivia’s faith.

“He was... the god I was meant to hold in my heart.”

The sight of her caught in that rapture sent chills down Garnet’s spine.

“How did you end up... like this, Princess?”

Even when they first met, Olivia had possessed a chilling side, but not to this extent.

As if the stronger her light grew, the deeper the darkness in her heart became, she was twisting.

When Garnet said that, Olivia smiled faintly.

“Even if I told you, you would not understand.”

Olivia turned sharply on her heel and headed toward the medicine shelf.

Garnet glanced toward Akkad and asked.

“What will you do with him?”

“We must follow the law.”

She answered.

“Looking at this room here, there are two images one can have of Akkad Debelung.”

She extended her index finger.

“First, that his nature was evil from the beginning, and he felt no guilt over torturing and killing commoners. That would mean he is a typical Demon Follower.”

Garnet knew he was not a Demon Follower.

But for the public standing before this truth, something simple to define him by would be needed.

In that sense, the five syllables meaning Demon Follower were simple and easy to be enraged by.

And they were enough to damage Waldemar’s image as well.

But there was no way Waldemar did not know that.

Olivia then extended her middle finger as well.

“Second, that a perverted Demon Follower wore the mask of the good Marquis Akkad Debelung and acted as his right-hand man. In that case, it would prevent Waldemar’s image from being greatly damaged.”

“And what both have in common is that they can prevent the weakening of the Order of Altes’s power.”

Whether he was branded a Demon Follower one way or the other, they were vermin that must not exist in the Empire.

And it could be pointed out that religion was not the only thing that had become corrupt.

“And neither of them needs to be alive.”

From among the countless medicine bottles, she picked something up.

It was an oil lamp.

Olivia separated the oil container and placed it on the table in front of Akkad.

“You should go now. You must bring the priests of the Order and inform them of this tragedy, yes?”

“What are you going to do?”

Garnet glanced at the oil lamp.

“I must carry out purification. Saintesses and Saints protect from evil, and burn evil away. Though I am only an apprentice, I must still do my work as a Saintess, must I not?”

“...”

Because Garnet knew the dark underside well, she could tell what Olivia was about to do.

“Then...”

Garnet withdrew from the room.

The only one who could now move freely about the room was Olivia.

She looked down at Akkad, who had become a doll.

She was smiling.

However, there was no meaning contained in that smile, and it was empty.

“O merciful and holy Altes.”

Her hand tilted Akkad’s head back.

“O Altes, who pities us, grant holy light to those who follow you, and drive away the temptation of darkness.”

She tilted the oil container she held into his mouth.

The yellow oil poured mercilessly into his mouth.

Olivia’s prayer continued.

“Save us from the temptations and sins of the world through your light.”

She dipped her index finger in the oil remaining inside and carefully rubbed it over his retinas.

“Even should darkness fall and trap us in trials, let us realize there is a lamp within you, and proclaim that evil is fated to perish in the end.”

Olivia’s two hands gripped Akkad’s face.

“Purify evil with your holy flame.”

Golden flame bloomed from her fingertips.

“Divine Judgment.”

Golden light burst from Debelung’s body.

Fierce flames surged from every hole in his face and burned him.

WHOOOOM!

The fire climbing up his throat produced a deep rumble, and his body trembled violently.

“Ah...”

Olivia let out a cry of wonder as she watched.

Akkad Debelung, the wicked deceiver and Waldemar’s trusted subordinate, was burning by her hand.

The revenge she had thought might be impossible for all eternity was being fulfilled by her own hands.

The Circle in her chest was pounding wildly.

That golden light made her ecstatic.

In her mind, seized by rapture, only one name rang out.

“Lord Ferda...”

Olivia called that name over and over.

“Lord Ferda... Lord Ferda...”

As if whispering into the ear of a lover she had loved for a very long time.

“Your dream... I will make certain it comes true.”

She offered a prayer to her god.

The Empire’s morning was turned upside down.

Yesterday, there had been chaos over the fact that the Bishop of the grand cathedral was a Demon Follower.

Contrary to predictions that there could be no situation more chaotic than that, another shocking piece of news was thrown into the world.

“Subjects of the Empire! Last night, yet another Demon Follower was discovered! His name is Marquis Akkad Debelung! The one who discovered him was Olivia Arken, the Princess!”

The agitators moved faster than anyone else and carried the news across the Empire.

The inn where Ferda was staying was no exception.

He was spending his morning listening to that incitement.

‘They chose the option that damages his image less.’

Ferda knew that agitator was a man under Waldemar.

The moment word reached the Order’s ears, they had built a response scenario and moved in an organized fashion in the morning.

It was a level of decisiveness that could not be struck down with a simple blow.

“Regent, a visitor has come.”

Bewilderment showed on Arwen’s face.

Even without being told, Ferda knew who it was.

“Tell him to come in.”

“Yes? Ah, yes...!”

Arwen went back downstairs, and soon the sound of a group’s footsteps climbed the stairs.

Through the open door, an old man entered at the head of the group.

The look on his face was quite a sight.

It was like sugar adding sweetness to bitter black tea.

“Welcome, Grand Duke.”

“... You have done something rather interesting.”

He ignored the greeting, came inside, and sat down as he pleased.

“I am not sure what you mean.”

Ferda played dumb and lifted his teacup.

“From what I hear outside, it seems your own close aide has done something far more interesting.”

Waldemar’s ironclad face twisted.

It was a meal perfectly suited to morning teatime.