“What does Lord Campbell think?”

Celicia lowered the spyglass. Not long ago, she had still been racking her brains over how to breach that mighty fortress-city, yet now its gates stood wide open before her, utterly defenseless, as if all she had to do was walk straight in and claim it completely...

And yet there was not the slightest trace of excitement on her face. In her cool eyes, there was only deep wariness and doubt.

The situation... was far too abnormal. So abnormal that anyone with even a shred of common sense would know at once that the scene before them was absolutely not normal.

“There’s no way something this convenient exists in the world.”

Lorne’s expression was grave as well.

As a veteran Crowned whose strength ran deep, Lorne had no need for a spyglass to see the royal capital dozens of miles away with perfect clarity. In fact, he could see it in even finer detail than anyone else there.

And because of that, he could also feel more clearly than anyone else the eerie atmosphere beyond those open gates.

There were no guarding soldiers at all, nor any sign of magical devices standing watch. The candid way the gates stood open made it seem as though the city were inviting them, its guests, inside for a pleasant talk... but when had they ever been guests? They were enemies. Conquerors. The moment their army entered the city, it would mean this war had come to its final end in total Imperial victory.

“So... it’s a trap?” Even Lorne did not sound certain.

“That would certainly explain things,” Celicia said, narrowing her eyes, “but the bait is a little too... expensive, don’t you think?”

The royal capital loomed in and out of sight within the mist. At that moment, it resembled a peerless beauty who had already stripped away every last garment and, through a veil of hazy gauze, was crooking her hand and waiting in a low, lingering voice.

True, very few people in the world could resist the temptation of such a beauty.

But to use herself as bait like this... wasn’t that far too risky?

Was she truly unafraid that her trap might fail, that there would be no room left to turn things around, and that the starving wolves she had lured in would simply ravage her completely?

When that happened, there would be no second road left for her to walk but to become the Empire’s **.

“...Exactly. From the standpoint of defending the royal capital, no matter how brilliant the trap is, using what you’re supposed to protect as the bait is the worst possible option...

Damn it, I never thought the Kingdom would really pull something ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) this outrageous.”

Lorne stroked his thick beard. Rarely did he feel his own brain wasn’t enough for the task. His brows had furrowed into two weathered trenches.

“Has that old bastard really been kicked in the head by a donkey?”

“Judging by everything we’ve seen along the way, it wouldn’t be the first time,” Celicia said with a cold laugh.

“He’s sat in that position for decades. How could someone like that suddenly become so muddleheaded, personally pushing his own nation into the abyss step by step? Once would be one thing, but this over and over again...”

Lorne could not understand it.

In truth, at the start of this war, he had brought two hundred percent of his focus into it. As one of the old figures of the previous era, he knew perfectly well that the old bastard sitting on the Kingdom’s throne was no hollow showpiece.

Anyone who could sit in the same seat for decades would have become a monster even if he had started out as a mere ornament, let alone a man who had already been exceedingly shrewd before he ever took the throne. Otherwise, he never would have emerged from among so many brothers and sisters.

Under his rule, the Kingdom had genuinely been able, in certain respects, to stand toe to toe with the Empire.

But now...

“What if you look at it from a different angle?” Anna said suddenly from the side.

“A different angle? What do you mean?”

“Your Grace seems a little too bound by your usual way of thinking. You’re placing too much emphasis on the Kingdom itself as the main body of this matter. Don’t forget, our enemy in this war is not just the Kingdom...”

Leaning back in the shadows, Anna idly toyed with a lock of her hair. Compared to Celicia and Lorne, her proper work involved dealing with all sorts of bizarre incidents, and at moments like this she was far calmer than either of them.

“There’s also the Salvation Society.”

“...The Salvation Society?”

Lorne’s eyes sharpened.

During his earlier conversation with Celicia, he had already learned that the Kingdom had colluded with the Salvation Society. But to be honest, he had not attached too much importance to those three words at first.

Because in the end, the Salvation Society was only a terrorist organization. Even if it could turn hundreds of thousands of people into mindless monsters, monsters like that still could not defeat an actual nation.

From the standpoint of a state, the threat posed by the Salvation Society was, in truth, nowhere near that of another great power on equal footing.

They were always shouting about eradicating humanity’s sins and heading for a new world, but in Lorne’s eyes, they still belonged within the category of an “organization.”

“Yes, the Salvation Society is only an organization—an organization hunted by both the Church and the nations of the world, forced to hide in the shadows. But if... the Salvation Society has already completely parasitized this country, or even taken control of it, wouldn’t everything before us make perfect sense?”

“...Completely taken control of the Kingdom? Is that even possible?” 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

“I don’t know,” Anna said with a sigh. “There’s never been a precedent for heretics fully taking control of an entire nation, and the Salvation Society isn’t even made up of ordinary heretics. They’re so insane they kill heretics too.

But if you think about it that way, those strange decisions from earlier start to make sense. Take the war at Notasia Fortress. If the Church hadn’t intervened, the Empire’s north might already have become a living hell by now. Every defensive line, every army, would have been rendered meaningless.

From the Kingdom’s perspective, if not for Her Maj... if not for Your Majesty’s thousand-mile strike, and if not for Your Grace borrowing passage through the Abyss, then by joining forces with the Salvation Society, they would unquestionably have won that grand strategic battle with ease.

But from the Salvation Society’s point of view? Would they really have failed to anticipate that the Church might intervene? After being hunted by the Church for so many years, they should understand it better than anyone.”

“You mean... that was deliberate?” Celicia understood Anna’s suspicion at once.

“Judging backward from the result, probably.”

Anna smiled faintly, and the mockery in her crescent-shaped eyes was impossible to miss.

“First use outside forces to drive your host into desperation, then appear as a savior and make the host depend on you willingly, and only then gradually swallow everything the host has... isn’t that exactly what certain heretics do? There’s nothing original about it. And after all their righteous disdain for heretics, too. Honestly.”

“But that’s still only speculation.”

Lorne’s brows remained tightly drawn. “Making a snap judgment before we understand the full picture of the situation is a major battlefield taboo.”

“It is only speculation.”

Anna gave a small shrug. “But if we want to prove it, it seems the only way now is to enter that city.”

“...”

Lorne fell silent.

Yes. If they wanted the truth, they had no choice but to go into the city.

But with the city standing there in such a bizarre, utterly defenseless posture... no matter who it was, they would have to think three times, then three times more, before entering.

Damn it. Lorne suddenly realized that from the standpoint of buying time, this move was actually disturbingly effective.

“What does Your Majesty think?”

Anna turned to Celicia with a smiling look. “This is still your decision to make.”

“Mine?”

Celicia raised a brow. “I don’t think much of it.”

“Oh my.”

Anna covered her cherry lips in exaggerated surprise. “Who would have thought even Your Majesty could have moments when you have no answer at all? That’s a rare sight.”

“...Everyone has moments when they can’t decide right away.”

Celicia shot her an icy look, then said calmly, “But it isn’t that I have no answer. It’s just that I think... at a time like this, instead of standing here making useless guesses, why not let the professionals take a look?”

“The professionals?”

Celicia did not answer. She merely pointed into the distance.

Anna turned to look and saw that on the far side of the Kingdom’s royal capital wall, a fairly sizable force had appeared as if out of thin air, emerging from a blaze of brilliant light.

A sacred banner bearing the Holy Light cross snapped in the air, and to use large-scale spatial transfer magic on an entire force with such lavish ease...

There was probably only one power in the world capable of that.

The Church of Life.

...

...

“Judgment Archbishop.”

Liya lightly pressed down the hem of her dress and gave a restrained nod to the Judgment Archbishop in crimson robes seated across from her.

“It’s been a long time.”

“It has indeed, Your Holiness.”

The Judgment Archbishop returned the greeting with a smile. Holy radiance cast a faint silhouette across her pale profile. Though she had borne the name of Judgment for decades as a veteran of the highest order, her appearance was still as flawless as that of a young girl.

Only her eyes carried the weight of someone who seemed to have seen all the world’s sorrows. As they moved over Liya, she said in admiration, “Your Holiness’s etiquette has grown more and more impeccable. You’re enough to put an old woman like me to shame.”

“H-have I...?”

Liya seemed to recall something deeply unpleasant. She gripped her skirt so tightly that veins stood out on the backs of her hands, but the smile on her lovely little face remained perfectly bright.

“You’re joking, Archbishop. Liya could never.”

“Oh, no false modesty now. That’s not fitting for a Saintess.”

The Judgment Archbishop waved a hand, about to say more, when the carriage curtain was suddenly lifted.

“Excuse me.”

An stepped inside carrying teacups.

“Your tea.”

“Thank you.”

At that moment, the most renowned and formidable of archbishops had not a trace of hauteur about her. After thanking An, she lifted the teacup in both hands and savored what was such an exquisite spring tea that even within the Church itself, it would have been hard to come by.

“Excellent tea,” the Judgment Archbishop praised.

“It’s just that the poisoning technique is still a little too crude. The poison is far too aggressive, which clashes with the fragrance of the tea instead. It’s like a fallen leaf on the surface of a still lake—so obvious it’s almost impossible not to notice...”

“Is that so?”

An touched her chin thoughtfully. “When it didn’t work before, I thought the problem was with the poison itself. It seems the method of poisoning takes quite a bit of skill too.”

“Poisoning is an extremely profound discipline. If you go into it with a casual attitude of simply giving it a try, you’ll make very little progress.”

“I’ve learned something. Thank you.”

An bowed respectfully. “I’ll work even harder from now on.”

With that, An carried the tea back out again, leaving Liya still smiling sweetly, though the veins on the backs of her hands looked ready to burst.

“What a diligent child, eager to improve. And she seems a little familiar somehow.”

The Judgment Archbishop narrowed her eyes, as though still savoring the aroma of the tea—or perhaps thinking about something else.

“Is this your new attendant nun, Your Holiness?”

“...Yes.”

Liya smiled very, very... very hard.

“She’s a bit too rude. I hope the Archbishop will be lenient with her.”

“Is she? I thought her manners were quite good. I see nothing to criticize at all.” The Judgment Archbishop smiled pleasantly. “Before we came, Lin said she was worried about Your Holiness, but now it seems... you’re being taken very good care of.”

Liya: “...”

How was this good care at all? Didn’t you see that awful woman poisoning her tea?

It was only because she was a Saintess and protected by Holy Light, immune to every poison, that she hadn’t already been murdered by that horrible woman!

And you’re the Judgment Archbishop! You caught that awful woman poisoning someone, so hurry up and arrest her and interrogate her properly! Isn’t that exactly what the Tribunal is for?

...Plainly, in the eyes of the Judgment Archbishop, this was nothing more than a tiny little “romantic game” between these “mistress and servant.”

“All right, let’s discuss the real matter.”

The Judgment Archbishop straightened slightly, her tone growing somewhat more serious.

“In fact, before Your Holiness arrived here, I made another attempt to contact Saint Blanfazesias Cathedral.”

“...Did you?”

The awkwardly long name made Liya pause for a moment before realizing the Archbishop meant the Kingdom. Rubbing her cheeks, which were already growing a little stiff from smiling, she hastily forced herself back into a more serious state as well.

“And? You still couldn’t reach them?”

“No... quite the opposite. We did make contact.”

“If you couldn’t, that would make sense, after all... wait, what did you say? You made contact?”

Liya froze, startled. “Really?”

“Of course. I have no reason to deceive Your Holiness about something like that.”

“Then why? What was the reason they lost contact?”

“As for that...”

The Judgment Archbishop hesitated slightly.

“Your Holiness should listen to it yourself.”

Without further explanation, the Judgment Archbishop took out a voice stone and tapped it with her fingertip. The recorded sound stored inside it slowly began to play.

Liya listened carefully.

This was clearly a recording deliberately preserved for reference. A great deal of useless preamble had obviously been cut away, leaving only the most important exchange.

“Archbishop Ision, can you explain why you were out of contact for a full thirty-four hours?” That was the Judgment Archbishop’s voice.

“This is an important matter. Please answer truthfully and seriously.”

“Out of contact? What do you mean, out of contact?”

A different voice rang out, carrying a kind of astonishment that sounded entirely genuine.

“We were never out of contact at all... Two hours ago, didn’t we just complete one of our regular check-ins?”