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Heretia was reading the documents stacked in front of the desk in the tent; she was working on contrasting the list of missing people of Torra with all the patient’s personal details.
A lot of patients had been brought here while they were unconscious; therefore there were many cases where they remained unidentified. Patients with burns were lying down and groaning from here and there inside the tents.
“Come on. While I’m not dying, I still got quite an ouchie. It hurts pretty bad,” Heretia grinned and lightly shook her skirt.
The movement of her skirt which felt abnormally light and empty was indicative of the fact that there was no longer anything under her thighs. Juan looked at Heretia’s skirt with a stiff expression.
“I got lucky. The part that was directly struck by the lightning completely turned into ashes and fell off immediately, but thanks to that, there was no bleeding. I couldn't even feel that much pain.”
Heretia was speaking nonchalantly as if it was nothing, but Juan could tell that she was lying. After all, Juan had also swung Telgramm at other people. She was acting like nothing happened, but he could easily guess just how severe the wounds which remained under her clothes were.
“Why are you working when you’re injured so badly? You are also a patient, you know,” Juan said.
“Haha. I might look lazy at times, but I’m the type to feel more ill if I lie down on my sickbed and do nothing. Don’t worry. I was already treated much earlier than other people; the Priests were generous enough to still consider me a great noble. Everyone’s busy right now, so this is the least I could do to help,” Heretia answered.
Juan turned his head and looked at the other patients and the Priests. All the members of the Church had come to the tents to do first aid work, but it was clear that they were exhausted and lacked hands, since the number of Priests who were granted healing Grace was limited.
Considering that the Priests weren’t even allowed to walk around freely on the day when Telgramm struck Torra, Juan could imagine that the situation would have been much worse than now.
At that moment, Herettia suddenly mumbled while frowning as if she was bothered by something.
“Come to think of it, we need more medication since most of the patients are burn victims. I’ve been holding out with milk mixed with melted incense, but it’s hard to get, since it’s prohibited in the empire.”
“Incense? Are you talking about that thing made out of grass that makes people go stupid?” Juan asked.
“Yes. It becomes great medicine if you use it in moderation. I got the Priests to bring it from the Church, since I knew that they had quite a bit in their possession, but it isn’t enough for everyone. If you don’t mind, can you get us some more? And also…”
“Just write down everything you need and give it to me. I’ll help you with everything I can.”
“See? This is why you need powerful friends,” Heretia smiled.
“Come to think of it, how did you even survive? I heard you were among the people that directly attacked the Pope.”
“I got very lucky on that part as well. Gareon Geled was… oh, you probably don’t know his name. The Captain of the Order of the Gold Lion was turned into a pile of dust as soon as he was directly struck by Telgramm from the very front. Then the Pope began to swing Telgramm around like a madman. Everyone, regardless of their status—nobles, knights, and commoners, was blown away by Telgramm’s power. I hung on to the Pope to stop myself from being flung away, but…”
Heretia’s complexion suddenly turned pale. She was pretending to be fine, yet she couldn’t hide the fear she felt on that day.
“But I ended up losing my legs. As I said, I couldn’t even feel any pain when it happened. All I had in mind was that I must let the Saintess and the Captain of the Imperial Guards escape.”
“Did those two escape? Their whereabouts are still unknown.”
“I’m sure that they’re just hiding somewhere and are fine. Perhaps they are hiding so well that they don’t even know that you’re back. But I guess there’s no way they could have missed your voice if they were still in Torra. Anyway, I saw something strange back then. The Pope was swinging Telgramm at the Saintess like his heart was broken by her, but the Saintess was just fine.”
“Just fine? What do you mean?”
“Telgramm had no effect on her. As far as I remember, even the Captain of the Imperial Guard’s upper nose was completely shattered when Telgramm brushed his face. But the Saintess just whizzed through the lightning like there was nothing in front of her.”
Upon hearing Heretia’s words, Juan rubbed his chin and fell into deep thought. The description of what happened to the Saintess resembled how Juan remained unaffected by the attacks made using Grace.
Juan was left unharmed and remained unaffected even if he was struck directly by the Grace, “Spear of Wrath.” He was cut and injured when someone cut him with a sword bestowed with a Grace, but any magic made with Juan’s pure mana itself had no effect on him at all.
Of course, that was not an ordinary case, since there were plenty of magicians who died from their own magic by mistake. But in the case of the Saintess, something seemed strange.
In fact, from the very beginning, Juan had too many questions about the existence known as the Saintess—and that included Juan getting his consciousness caught in the body of the Saintess whenever he attempted spirit transfer to send his spirit to the emperor’s body.
But now she was even unaffected by magic, just like Juan himself.
‘I’ll have to meet her for sure.’
Juan figured that his questions would only be answered after meeting her in person.
“Whatever, that’s not important right now. So how did you survive?” Juan asked.
“The Pope almost became a lunatic after the Saintess ran away. I thought I was going to die, but the Vatican began to collapse at that moment. The Pope didn’t even look back and just ran outside. He didn’t even seem to be interested in me. He probably thought that I’d be crushed to death anyway,” Heretia shrugged.
“Did someone save you?”
“Yes.”
Heretia nodded at Juan’s question, but looked as if she was hesitant to tell him anymore.
Juan pressed her for an answer upon seeing her avoid his question.
“Who was it? Is there any reason for you to not tell me? If that person saved my friend, then that person is also my savior.”
“Um… as you already know, the citizens and the nobles weren’t the only people who led the rebellion against the Pope. Some of the Church members were also in favor of the rebellion. For example, the Order of the Gold Lion was their representative. But there were a few more from the other knight orders.”
“I see. And?”
“Apparently they are people who have met you before.”
Juan closed his mouth. As far as he knew, none of the Templars he had encountered returned in good shape. Even those who survived and managed to get back wouldn’t be able to live a normal life. Juan recalled all the Templars in his memory one by one.
“What were their names?” Juan asked.
“You’re not going to kill them, are you?”
“I’ve already killed the ones I should—at least among those I have met,” Juan shrugged.
“Hm, is that so? Well… I guess they didn’t ask me not to tell you. One of them looked much more like a patient than me… they’re over there among the people looking after the patients.”
Juan turned his head, and there was a man and woman standing rigidly in the direction pointed by Heretia.
Juan muttered quietly as if he was dumbfounded at the sudden unexpected reunion.
“Velkre.”
***
“I fled to the west on the same day that the Order of the Evil Snake was annihilated. But there wasn’t anything left for me to do when I came back to Torra. I had failed my mission, all my men except for Nora were dead, and I had even lost the power of the Snake. So I was just planning on living quietly in hiding.”
Velkre explained everything to Juan in a courteous manner while standing in a quiet street next to the patient camp. However, he was still shaking so much that he couldn’t even look Juan in the eye.
Juan sized up Velkre for a long time and then opened his mouth.
“It seems like you still have some Grace left in you.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I would have asked you to take it back if it was possible. I have not been able to use this power recklessly ever since I found out that it was a power that was stolen from Your Majesty.”
The emotion in Velkre’s voice wasn’t awe or loyalty, but fear. It was the fear of being caught by the emperor and being interrogated for his sins if he misused the power again.
“I might have already died somewhere if Sister Nora wasn’t here to take care of me, since I didn’t even dare to use my healing Grace. Then I heard that Your Majesty was going to march toward Torra. I considered leaving Torra after hearing the news, but I decided that I couldn’t continue living like this—I didn’t want to burden Sister Nora.”
Nora quietly bowed her head. A fierce knight who had dared to raise her sword against Juan several times back in Durgal and Beldeve now looked like an ordinary woman from the slums. Come to think of it, Velkre and Nora’s were some of the rare cases where Juan missed his chance to kill them due to overlapping coincidences.
However, holding them accountable now was pointless—especially when they had saved Heretia’s life.
“How did you end up helping Heretia?” Juan asked.
“We were secretly getting help from Gareon, the Captain of the Order of the Gold Lion. Then we heard about Miss Heretia’s plan from Gareon. Although we had sinned, we still had the power stolen from Your Majesty. We thought we could correct our mistakes if we used that power to do the right thing. But…”
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“The plan failed.”
Velkre nodded.
“It was a situation that no one had expected. We were on the lookout outside to prevent the other knight orders from coming to rescue the Pope, so we only belatedly realized the situation. That’s when we managed to save Miss Heretia while the Vatican was collapsing.”
“I see.”
If Juan were to be honest, he was not interested in how Velkre and Nora survived after their encounter with him. It didn't matter to Juan whether Velkre was dead or not as long as he didn’t show himself in front of Juan.
What did matter was the fact that they had saved Heretia’s life.
“Thanks anyway. There’s no need for you to live the rest of your life while being conscious of your mistakes anymore. Don’t worry about the Grace, since I’m planning to take them all back soon.”
“T-thank you! Thank you, Your Majesty!”
It wasn’t a huge favor, but Velkre showed his appreciation by slamming his head against the ground and kowtowing.
Juan wondered if it really was something to be so grateful about, but it seemed to be particularly important to Velkre.
When Juan was about to leave Velkre and Nora behind, Velkre suddenly opened his mouth once more.
“Oh, um. I have one more thing to tell you, Your Majesty.”
“What is that?”
Juan was not interested, but soon opened his eyes wide after hearing Velkre’s words.
“Aren’t you looking for the Saintess and the Captain of the Imperial Guards? I saw where they were headed to when the Vatican collapsed.”
***
“Underground?”
“Yes. If there are any records of Torra’s underground structure, gather them all and bring them to me.”
Juan immediately got straight to the point and brought up the matter as soon as he came across Nienna inside the Imperial Palace. While Hela was focusing all her energy on the reconstruction of Torra, Nienna was focusing on taking control of the Church and the Imperial Army.
Nienna frowned upon hearing Juan’s request.
“Dad. To be honest with you, I came here to fight—not to read over the documents. I feel uncomfortable and uneasy when I look toward the north even now. You know I’ve never left the north unattended for this long before. I would love to quit all the Imperial discipline and go back to the north if I could. So do you mind leaving errands like these to other officials?”
“Of course, I’ll need to get the other officials to help. But I also need someone to be their supervisor. It would be nice if Heretia can take over this role, but she’s in her sickbed now.”
“Then why can’t you leave it to Hela?”
“It already looked like her head was about to explode with the duties she was already given. I’m not a conscientious person, but giving more work to a senile woman who only has one arm would also make me feel bad,” Juan shrugged.
“In case you forgot, I’m older than Hela. But… ugh. What about Haild? He does look a bit scary, but he is friendly.”
“He’s much more clumsy than he looks. Besides, he has no administrative experience.”
“Then what about Horhell…? Oh, nevermind. He’s more of a weapon than a talent. How about Anya?”
“She would do a good job if I asked her to do it, but I feel like she’ll overdo it. Things are a bit complicated.”
“Okay, fine. What about Sina Solvane then?”
“She’s not my subordinate. She’s just following me around.”
“Yes, but she’ll still do it if you ask her to.”
“She would. But no.”
“Pavan Peltere?”
Juan stared at Nienna upon hearing the unexpected name from her mouth.
Meanwhile, Nienna scratched her chin with a sullen look on her face and continued to speak.
“He might have been an enemy before, but he is quite capable. He is the one who slaughtered the Eastern Army, isn’t he? I know a guy named Colter who used to be Pavan’s former superior pretty well. He told me that Pavan alone is three times as good as him. He understands administration well and also has the desire needed to succeed. I’m sure he will do well if you leave the work to him. He seemed to be pretty nervous these days.”
“Hela will be pissed when she finds out.”
“Hey, you’re the one who said that you would feel bad about giving more work to a senile old woman. Stop overworking her and just send her back to the East. Give the East a lot of support later or something in return. I’m sure she’d prefer that over anything else. But why do you need information about the underground structure of Torra all of a sudden?”
Juan rubbed his chin and opened his mouth.
“It seems like the Saintess and the Captain of the Imperial Guards are hiding there.”
“Wait, that’s the only reason? Then we can just send a search party there.”
“Yes. But the problem is that my old body seems to have been stolen through the underground passage as well.”
Nienna looked at Juan with a stern look on her face.
Juan put his index finger to his mouth and spoke.
“Only a few people know that there’s a secret passageway in the Imperial Palace that I don’t know of. If you think so highly of Pavan, order him to look into it. Of course, surveillance will be necessary. Let’s see how he reacts.”