Chapter 132

A chill ran down Rebecca’s spine.

“Right now, it’s close to you taking responsibility for making the monsters run rampant and stepping down to represent the Grand Temple.”

The Emperor casually shrugged his shoulders.

“You’ll probably be able to keep your status as a clergy member. You might even manage to take on the post of head of a small convent. However, if things go as far as fabricating an oracle……”

Before she knew it, the smile that had been lingering on the Emperor’s face had vanished without a trace.

With an expressionless face, the Emperor asked Rebecca back.

“Do you think the people will just stay quiet?”

“Th-That, that!”

Rebecca widened her eyes.

Frustration, a sense of injustice, anger.

Countless emotions intertwined, causing the pit of her stomach to churn and boil.

“You’re the one who ordered me to do it!”

Unable to hold back any longer, Rebecca cried out desperately, as if coughing up blood.

Yet the Emperor didn’t even blink an eye.

“I have never done such a thing.”

“Your Majesty!”

“Besides, even if I did order it……”

The Emperor’s voice dropped into an intimate, secretive tone.

A sinister tone, sounding like a snake hissing, burrowed deep into Rebecca’s ear canals.

“Would people believe that?”

“…….”

Rebecca was left entirely speechless.

The Emperor looked blankly at the frozen-stiff Rebecca, his eyes curved into half-moons.

“The Grand Temple has already lost its credibility. And you, Rebecca, have enjoyed all sorts of privileges thus far as a high-ranking priestess of the Grand Temple.”

“I, I—”

“No matter how much you flap your lips, no one will listen to you.”

‘How, how could this be!’

Rebecca felt like she was going to die of sheer mortification.

It was true that the Grand Temple had deliberately allowed monsters to run rampant to expand its influence.

However, all of this was something that the Emperor—who had been Marquis Logan at the time—and the Grand Temple had joined hands to carry out.

This meant the Emperor was also the designer and executor of this massive conspiracy.

The objective was simple.

To let monsters run rampant in territories that wouldn’t listen, and then have the imperial family and the temple provide related support to subjugate them…

…or rather, to crush them.

Case in point, the incident where the Duchy of Mercedes—which had vehemently opposed the current Emperor’s accession to the throne—was completely destroyed.

That entire chain of events had started with the testimony of Rebecca, a low-class apprentice priestess.

“Rebecca, someone is looking for you.”

“M-Me?”

One day, the upper echelons of the Grand Temple had suddenly summoned young Rebecca in secret.

Stiff with tension, Rebecca had answered that call.

Stepping deep into the inner sanctum of the Grand Temple, two men greeted Rebecca with smiling faces.

“Welcome, Rebecca.”

One was the High Priest—a figure of such towering status that she hadn’t even dared to look him in the eye.

The other was a man she was seeing for the first time.

Yet just from his immaculate appearance, as if he had never known a day of hardship in his life, and his gorgeous attire, she could easily infer that this man held an exceptionally noble status.

“Hmm……”

The man looked Rebecca up and down meticulously, with a gaze akin to evaluating a piece of merchandise.

Though a bit dry, her abundant reddish-brown hair.

Though painfully thin, her porcelain-white skin.

Even her pretty facial features.

The chilling gaze touching her felt like a snake.

Without realizing it, Rebecca shrank her body slightly.

After scanning her for a long while like that, the man finally smiled brightly as if satisfied and threw out a direct question.

“Would you like to become a Saintess?”

At the completely unexpected proposal, Rebecca’s eyes widened.

A Saintess.

A sacred existence revered by all.

Solely in terms of symbolism, she would stand even higher than that lofty High Priest.

“M-Me, you want me to become a Saintess?”

Rebecca asked back in a trembling voice.

The man readily nodded.

“Yes. Provided you just listen well to what I say.”

Rebecca swallowed hard.

To begin with, Rebecca entering as an apprentice priestess was entirely for the purpose of shedding the detestable tag of being from the lower classes.

If she became a Saintess, she could achieve that desperate desire for social elevation in a single bound.

“However, to become a Saintess, um……”

Briefly caught up in a sweet daydream, Rebecca cautiously read the room.

Understandably so, because to be recognized as a Saintess, she had to satisfy rigorous conditions.

She had to receive proof that the God Regalis had chosen her as a Saintess.

For example… designating a sacred domain, the holy territory of the god.

But how could someone like her ever perform such a miracle?

At that, the man rested his chin in his hand and tilted his head sideways.

“Rebecca.”

His violet eyes stared intently at Rebecca.

Then, he abruptly threw out a question.

“Why do you suppose God hasn’t chosen you?”

“Th-That is……”

“You have received God’s oracle, haven’t you?”

“Pardon?”

“You shall soon hear the voice of God commanding you to purge the impure.”

Leaning forward, the man narrowed the distance between them.

Whispers as sweet as honey and as lethal as poison soaked deep into Rebecca’s ears.

“And I intend to uphold the words of God that you deliver… and severely punish the wicked swarms.”

“……Are you saying that—”

“Yes, you will become my one and only Saintess. I will make it so.”

At those very words, a murky light appeared for the first time in her innocent vermilion eyes.

As if entranced, Rebecca nodded.

After that.

Rebecca stepped out before the people.

Not as a trifling apprentice priestess, but as the most noble Saintess of the Grand Temple.

“God has spoken to me.”

Gathering both hands over her chest, Rebecca appealed before the crowds gathered like clouds.

“The most glorious house has summoned a demon, and they will bring ruin to the empire.”

With those single words, the Duchy of Mercedes—hailed as one of the two pillars of the empire—was destroyed.

There had never been a time in Rebecca’s life as exhilarating as then.

Everyone focused entirely on her.

Millions swayed with every single word Rebecca spoke.

That omnipotent sensation, as though she had become the most important person in the world.

If only she had known that the oracle would become a shackle tightening around her own throat…….

“Did you understand my words well?”

At the cold question, Rebecca snapped back to reality.

The people who had once cheered for her had vanished cleanly, leaving only the indifferent Emperor standing before her.

“For your information, the High Priest has already agreed to this as well.”

“…….”

Rebecca bit her lips until they bled.

Those words meant one thing: The Grand Temple had already decided to abandon Rebecca as well.

The Emperor waved his hand dismissively, as if brushing away some bothersome thing.

“Be on your way out.”

At that moment, Rebecca realized.

There was no path left for her to survive.

The best life she could possibly be granted was rotting away for the rest of her days in some rural, out-of-the-way convent.

Even that wouldn’t be guaranteed if the Emperor changed his mind.

It meant she would have to scrape by, relying on the Emperor’s petty whims.

She didn’t want that.

‘If so……’

Her vermilion eyes sank into a quiet stillness.

It was the chilling gaze unique to someone who had resigned themselves to the end.