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—
—I heard that the master of Bastion has a sacred relic.
—The master of Bastion?
—Yes. He sells illegally smuggled sacred relics at exuberant prices. He says it’s only the right price for a sacred relic. So, we can just sneak into Bastion and intercept it before he sells it off.
—You’re telling me that we’re stealing it? But that’s

—Perhaps the Almighty God’s sacred relic itself shall help you, Your Highness. We have to try.
Hildeon had a good reason to hesitate.
Sacred relics were originally the property of the temple.
Despite being a member of the imperial family, he would have to make a formal request to the temple to use one. However

—If Your Highness asks the temple for help, you’ll have to tell them what you’re using it for. The Empress or someone else might catch wind of it.
The moment the empress was mentioned, Hildeon’s expression hardened.
‘That would be a problem.’
Because she was one of the leading suspects behind this curse.
Hildeon’s biological mother was not the empress, but an imperial consort.
The empress could not bear a child for the emperor, so under the orders of the previous generation’s emperor, an imperial consort was appointed to sire Hildeon.
Perhaps because of this background, but the empress actively showed hostility and contempt towards Hildeon.
She was usually good at keeping her emotions in check, but as the person being targeted, Hildeon couldn’t help but know.
From all the negativity hurled at him ever since he was a child, it was only natural to point out the empress as the leading suspect of this curse.
As Hildeon was lost in thought for a moment, he soon agreed with Hestin.
He couldn’t let this curse stay on him forever.
However, apart from that, it was inevitable that his conscience was being stabbed.
‘For the Crown Prince to steal a sacred relic from the temple
’
In any case, he also deemed it imperative to clean up Bastion alongside today’s plan.
If they were to deal with Charon and his men first before calling the guards, they would be able to clear Bastion more easily.
After all, if the head of the organization were to be brought on his knees, it would be easy to clean up the rest of the mess.
However, since he had to hide his identity, his contribution to these efforts as the ‘crown prince’ was going to be left unknown

“Right. Since the plan fell through, I don’t need to hide my identity.”
He removed his hood, which had been irritatingly blocking his view until now.
“By the way, I never imagined that the Saintess would come here first. I don’t know, but maybe she got a lead about the sacred relic first, that’s why she came here?”
“
It seems so.”
When they arrived, the sacred relic was already in the saintess’s hands.
“I’d like to know where she got her information. I had a hard time getting it myself.”
As Hestin continued to mutter, he suddenly perked up as though he had a realization.
“Oh, by any chance. Did she get a prophecy?”
“Prophecy?”
“Yes. Didn’t the Saintess say that she came here because she was called by someone? Maybe that call was a divine prophecy.”
Thinking to himself for a moment, Hildeon eventually nodded, agreeing.
“Hmm. If you put it that way, it does add up.”
“But still, it’s a little surprising.”
“What is?”
“Even though she received a prophecy, I didn’t know that the Saintess would come to retrieve the sacred relic personally.”
Indeed, it was something to wonder about.
Unknowingly, Hildeon recalled the saintess.
Especially when she had been in his arms.
‘She was light.’
He even had the vague thought that she was as light as a feather.
Besides that, with as slender of a body as hers, he couldn’t believe that she was in such a dangerous place all alone.
‘What if she got in trouble?’
However, Hestin was thinking a little differently from Hildeon.
“Rumor has it that she’s a total lout—that she has no sense of responsibility at all as the Saintess. As expected, rumors are just rumors.”
Ah, that part.
Hideon awkwardly kept his mouth shut.
Now that Hestin mentioned it, the bad rumors surrounding her came to mind.
‘But she seems a little different than how the rumors painted her out to be.’
Hildeon himself didn’t go to social events often.
This was because the people around him tended to become frightened by the sharp atmosphere and terrifying pressure that he exuded.
Experiencing such things since childhood, Hildeon was conscious about not bothering the people around him, and so he had grown into adulthood while distancing himself from society.
He still needed to socialize though, but he usually only talked with the heads of the households, who were the parents of the young nobles.
At that time, he often heard rumors about the saintess, but he rarely ever had the opportunity to meet the saintess personally.